Fashion Week Highlights

For the first time this season, I got to enjoy the catwalk crazy on both sides of the Atlantic, and without the nervous excitement of our own impending show production looming. So time for a little reflection. Given that it’s Oscars weekend, in true Academy fashion, I want to celebrate my Fashion Week favourites with a few Award presentations…

• Best Theatrical Effects: FYODOR GOLAN

(c) Catwalking.com

Tribal nose ring jewels, butterfly-like maxis with endless fabric, pearlised mosaic effect gown with staggering headpiece and, of course, that shimmering green nymph. Quite stunning and (gasp) only their first solo season on-schedule following their Fashion Fringe win last September.

• Most readily wearable RTW: Jean-Pierre Braganza

(c) Catwalking.com

A new name to me this season, but no stranger to the show schedule, J-PB showed a collection that impressed me in its symmetry and completeness. The purple palette running through each piece was lush for A/W and I particularly loved the styling of the leg warmers over heels that accompanied every second look. Chic, for sure, and one to watch.

• Best Modern Couturier: Corrie Nielsen

(c) Catwalking.com / La Petite Anglaise

Just stunning. To involve such enormous volumes of fabric and maintain such structure was impressive. A big fan of a solid Stewart tartan myself (if, for my budgets, of the Jack Wills variety), I couldn’t help but love every piece.

• Most Enduring Trend: Tartan (@ Corrie Nielsen, KTZ & Michael Kors)

Corrie Nielsen (c) Wonderland

KTZ (c) Catwalking.com

Michael Kors (c) Style.com

New York’s biggest collection (Kors put 65 models down the runway) was engulfed by it; London Fashion Week opened and closed with it (though the two shows could not have been more contrasting). Corrie Nielsen took the historical spirit of her Scottish forefathers and twisted it into breathtaking gowns presented with grace and impossible elegance. At KTZ the models swaggered at a pace down the catwalk swaddled in multiple thick layers of the stuff (hats, coats, trousers, you name it), topped off with some serious bling.

• Best Use of Denim: JENA.THEO

There are companies around the world who employ a ‘no jeans’ policy in the workplace in the belief that denim is the ultimate marker of casual, even scruffy, attire. No further could this be from the truth than at JENA.THEO. Sometimes paired down with simpler tunics and shirts in the label’s traditional muted tones, but the real stand-out looks featured beautifully printed silk pieces draping elegantly over their classic skin-tight denim. Long live the jean.

• Best Cosmetic Accessory: Face lace (@ Corrie Nielsen)

(c) Reuters

(c) Mark Large

A gorgeous extension of the fabric to the face, and how often is that possible without looking pantomime? But could it translate from catwalk to sidewalk? Slightly hesitant to try it at home for fear of wearing more glue than lace, but if Lauren Conrad can do it…

 

• Most versatile staple: Metallic/sequins skirt (@ FELDER FELDER, Jean-Pierre Braganza & Whitney Eve)

Whitney Eve (c) Getty

FELDER FELDER (c) Style.com

Jean-Pierre Braganza (c) Style.com

Not having bought into the metallic trend yet, I was converted by a couple of styling options that cropped up in several places. In New York, Whitney Port paired her sequins with a simple blue blouse embellished at the shoulders – a party look I loved. FELDER FELDER and J-PB took a more daytime-friendly approach, pairing a metallic finish skirt with a cosy chunky knit.

• Best Cameo: Sh*t Fashion Girls Say (@ Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York)

Spotted generally being fabulous, whilst hanging around the Lincoln Centre piazza, a blonde bearded Patrick Pope of The Platform was back in style for the third installment of this hilarious fashion girl spoof video series. Check it out below (and its forerunners, here). Just. Totes. Amaze.

N.B. If you didn’t make it to New York or London and you fancy a taste of the fash pack world, make sure you head down to London Fashion Weekend this weekend at Somerset House. Imagine the ultimate sample sale, with fro-yo and a blow dry thrown in, and you’re almost there. It’s fabulous.

LFW highlight: The Mulberry Miniature Schnauzer

Having had an exceptional miniature schnauzer in our family since I was about 13, Mulberry’s choice of canine accessory for SS12 particularly appealed to me this season.

Our Dexter is evidently right on-trend. We are now expecting a proliferation of celebs with miniature schnauzers over the next six months – all because Mulberry sent one down the runway at their show on the third day of London Fashion Week.

Read an ‘interview’ with Pippa (said schnauzer), here. The look Pippa models in this interview is the Mulberry Tillie Quilted Dog Mac in blue, priced at a mere £165.

The lemon sherbet yellow waterproof mac, shown below, is from the forthcoming Spring/Summer 2012 collection. Why not get both?

Possibly because Pippa doesn’t exactly look thrilled about the situation. And not least because my father is ardently anti-dogs-wearing-clothes. Dexter on the other hand, might be convinced. Watch this space.

Wallpaper*: Fashion Week by numbers

I’ve been meaning to post this for ages. Well, since Fashion Week actually.

Wallpaper* magazine, that creative authority on all things design, dedicated their whole March issue to the fashion world. Hugely enjoyable it was too, but this double page spread was my favourite (click here for a larger, higher res version):

A few of my favourite highlights:

- 20: pounds of gold glitter dumped on John Galliano during his post-show bow

- 37: pairs of titanium heels trashed minutes before the Lanvin show when it was discovered the models couldn’t walk in them

- 100: %age of RTW on the Prada women’s runway made from cotton only

- 800: hand-painted feather butterflies on a single Alexander McQueen dress

- 1,930: pieces of metal (safety pins, grommets etc.) sewn onto one Balmain skirt

Mercedes-Benz on the runway

Thoughts welcome on the LFW advertising offering from Mercedes-Benz:

I’ve been meaning to post this ad for a while but, if I’m honest I haven’t quite figured out if I think it is freshingly and strikingly simple, or just plain dull.

On first sight, it struck me as a very straightforward concept, that perfectly conveyed the brand partnership between the luxury car dealer and Fashion Week. The runway as a road, M-B as the only vehicle suitable to transport you down it – or, as a metaphor for life’s runway. Thus the glamorous audience feasting on the fashions falling off the runways of London Fashion Week are perfectly poised to see M-B as the only car to be seen dead in this season (or, hopefully a little longer, considering the investment).

I tore it from Stylist and it has sat on my desk ever since. And during that time, I’ve actually grown to be disappointed with it. The simplicity that had first so impressed me – the thought of how easy it would have been to construct and shoot – suddenly struck me as lacking the luxe I expect from an M-B ad. The lighting was so garish, the chairs so basic, the whole set so uninspired.

That infamous YSL quote of fashion fading and style remaining eternal is an interesting one to ponder in this creative context. I would punt that M-B would far rather associate themselves with style than fashion, but ordinarily their sponsorship of Fashion Weeks around the world does this well. But the ad creative above positions the Fashion Week runway at its most stark, most functional and lacking the lustre and style that we so hope to see from the M-B brand.

That said, maybe I’m reading far too much into it. Ads weren’t designed to be analysed, they were designed for instant impact; to convey a message in the time it takes for the eye to process a concept to the brain, and the brain to draw upon all its reserves of previous experience to interpret a message. My instinct liked it, my inner-annalyst did not.

I’d love to hear what you think.

Luxury fashion brands embrace social media

As if it weren’t enough that, according to Times headlines this morning, bloggers are snatching the LFW front row seats right from under the noses of their traditional print counterparts, it seems that the high-end luxury brand marketeers are no longer directing us in store – or even merely online. But to our iPhone apps.

Flicking through the March Vogue, I started to see brand after brand including a call to action within its glossy DPS advertising that promoted online videos, behind-the-scenes exclusive web content and invariably how to download the brand’s iPhone app in order to access all these goodies.

Ralph Lauren:

The luxe oceanic ruffles of Ralph Lauren flow from one page to the next but check out the call to action nestling in the bottom right...

'View the Runway Show and behind-the-scenes video with the Ralph Lauren application on your iPhone or visit RalphLauren.com'

Donna Karan:

Ethereal brush-stroke imagery makes the message in the bottom left barely visible...

But it's there: 'View the System of Dressing on the Donna Karan iPhone application and at DonnaKaran.com'

Fashion advertising is traditionally a work of art. Hours and hours of painstaking designing, casting, styling, photography shoots and post-production go into every double page spread. For said art teams and designers to soil their canvas with a one-line advertisement for the iPhone, it must really mean business. Literally.

Finally it seems, high fashion has accepted that whilst all of their devotees do still subscribe to the monthly fashion Bible, they probably flick through its glossy pages whilst simultaneously checking their emails on their bejewelled iPhone and surfing the internet all at the same time.

I’m both glad and saddened to see luxury branding rapidly becoming fully integrated in this way. It’s both a positive and necessary adaption to the current market and a shame that the artistry I pour over every month has to relinquish its perfection for the sake of sales. But to every budding fashionista out there who is remotely technically savvy, you can bet these guys will now be coming after you from every possible angle.

When headphones became jewellery

I’ve been loving the flurry of luxury brand advertising dominating the glossy pages of all national newspaper supplements from last weekend onwards, marking the onset of London Fashion Week – or #LFW as Twitter users have re-named it in a hashtag frenzy of fashionista gossip.

No doubt a few more highlights might make the pages of this blog before the week is out, but one particular Links of London ad caught my eye in the Sunday Telegraph’s brilliant ST Fashion. As preposterously be-jewelled neckpieces provided ostentatious frosting to the sharp tailored lines of the suited collections strutting down the runway, Links seemed to be offering something a little different.

So ubiquitous have the dangling ear pieces of ipod headphones become – on school kids and cityworkers alike – that Links has decided to cast them in silver and hang them from a pretty chain. Thus creating a funky of-the-moment statement piece that fuses modern pop culture lifestyle with the striking bold style that we have come to expect from Links’ unique design.

© Links of London/Telegraph Media Group

It took a second look, but in the end it charmed me.