[Quick mid-week CTR post]

Couture Week, as always, sneaks up on me.

Ricardo Tisci's work as Givenchy's Artistic Director is mind-blowing. His couture collection (shown on Tuesday) was like a white-out Mulan-meets Paris Brainstorm. It's fantasy. A warrior queen wearing chiffon.
The East has played a huge part in many designer's collections recently, although usually in the form of Japan. I adore Japanese culture and costume, however it is extremely refreshing to see a designer look to Ancient China for inspiration.
The way Tisci's work is presented makes it so accessible, the images of his collections posted on style.com are not the mid-step runway shots you'll see from nearly every other designer, they are simple front and back photos, allowing the viewer to fully appreciate the design. Am a BIG FAN of Tisci.

[More on Couture Week soon]

Milan....

GIORGIO ARMANI.

Giorgio's vision of a Navy-Blue Lawrence of Arabia fantasy world was incredible. His was, By far, one of the best shows in Milan this season, as ever. Pointed flats in every style, Mary Jane, Ballerina, T-Bar... These are beautiful shoes, and paired with an ankle-grazing hemline in navy silk... the whole concept was inspired. This show reaffirmed my faith in G.A.

Versus, what is Versus? Versus is a label run by both Donnatella Versace and Christopher Kane.

It sounds like the weirdest combination in the world, like if Lady Gaga was to do a single with Seasick Steve, but somehow it just works. CK's designs are near enough asexual, they don't care about being sexy, it's all about being cool. DV is all about the allure, if her designs aren't sexual nothing is, and that's cool! that's who she is and we love her for it. Now imagine the best of their creative qualities combined, or, to be put more eloquently; splatted together like two handfuls of paint in a giant CLAP!

These shoes, for me are the height of wearable crazy, as individual pieces they are insane; provoking retorts like I couldn't wear those, well you're wrong! they're perfect! top-left and top-right are probably my favourites out of the lot, but that bag as well! they're just too cool. If I see them (in the flesh) I may lick, be warned.

 

I love Design-duos. They just work. I mean, Fendi and Lagerfeld, the Mulleavy Sisters (see last post)... Two visions as one? it just plain works. There's real definition in couple's collections, most likely because of the fact that they can both reel eachother in and at the same time expand and develop eachother's imaginations to a point of perfection. I dunno, maybe? I just adore the weird way that whole collection is on the very knife-edge of being garish and yet it's refined like nuthin else. It's 'Clueless' but this time directed by Tarantino.

Passengers on the 'Fuck these shoes blog'-train are reminded that the next stop PARIS! shall be the end of the line (for this mini-series on SS 2011 shoes). ETA in a bizzle. (did I just put bizzle? forgive me it's 2:00AM) Nighty night y'alls.

What kind of Blog is this???

Aren't shoes in the title? shouldn't there be some shoes somewhere??? Truth is I've been aching to do a post about the shoes I can't wait to see when I'm celeb-spotting next London Fashion Week. Let's do this in 3 easy steps: (1) New York (2) Milan (3) Paris. (And if you're lucky we'll do London too)

NEW YORK!

I'm so in love with Rodarte's spring collection, the wood prints and the bone-china blues... it's so romantic, yet the shapes and silhouettes were so awesomely futuristic...

Those carved wedges are like totem poles with china plates attached, I just love them, and then the platforms with the Parquet print straps.... I love these. They're so refined-ly crazy, you just get them they don't make sense but they work.
Rodarte is always a sight to behold, even if you don't see yourself in the clothes, there's a level of craftmanship in there that is so recogniseable; it sets them apart from any other design house. Sisters Kate and Laura are, in my mind the western answer to designers like Rei Kawabuko and Issey Miyake. Their work is about fashion it isn't provocative or at all about sexuality; it's just about fantasy. Everyone else has said this before me, I know, but I really foresee their house becoming something really huge; even bigger than now. They aren't a label, they're a whole 'nuther world.

Also a favourite, Proenza Schouler. Jack and Lazaro are incredible (not to mention they sound like comic-book heroes.)

I go crazy for any fresh take on the classic stiletto pump, and even though Proenza's curved 'Hitchcock' creation isn't as novel a concept as the Mulleavy's totem-wedges, they're so m-f-ing cool you can't help but ache for them. I'm not even going to try and condense my immense love for those strappy boot-sandals into words so just look at them...

This season they did a wacked-out psychadelic vision of classic parisian chic. The P.Schouler Girl has officially morphed into a colour-saturated Upper-East Side Charlotte York. There was tweed, there was sequins and fine-knits, juxtaposed by S&M fastenings and neon lace. I adore this entire collection, it's such a fresh take on the age-old concepts of chic. The execution here is just plain perfect. My favourite NY collection this season. Next week, Milan!

P.S. Two posts in a day! dedication huh?

Thoughts on Spring Colourism

It's strange, as soon as I choose to forever eschew any colour in my wardrobe, the powers that be decide that the upcoming season should feature a colour palette akin to a primary school art class' poster paint collection. Not that I disagree with it, after a season of camel hues and black lace it's so refreshing to finally have a 'match-your-skirt-to-your-brightest-lipgloss' trend. Raf's latest collection for Jil Sander is so BAM! in your face with the bright pink and orange Techno-Garbardine skirts and the Plain White Tees it's enough to make a devout Fashion Victim O.D.

It's cool, all of my friends will look like colour-saturated cartoons from tokyo and I'll be the cerebral goth character. But even more importantly is the fact that Glam-Rock is coming back harder than a beer can to the face of a bad lollapalooza act (inneresting reference there, huh?) I love Glam Rock, Gaga's many Bowie-inspired looks never fail to inspire, And any fans of 'The Mighty Boosh' out there (Helloooooo!) will note the wardrobe of Noel Fielding; Sequin Catsuits, Silver Tranny Boots, feather boas all off-setted by his masculinity. Had I stalled in choosing my 'Monochromatic Mantra' I would've become a veritable Noel-Clone.

Glam Rock is all I can say about Ms Prada's latest Miu Miu collection, that and that it was INSANE cool. How does that woman do it? every season Bam, Bam, Bam Miu Miu is the designer you want to wear. Her clothes practically hold ELLE together, and this season with its metallic leather and applique stars all adorned in Hot Pink and Orange...

Her batik, african/jamaican baroque Prada collection. No words. Just plain perfect.

Miuccia Prada is, I don't know exactly what, genius just doesn't seem to fit; she's more than that... she's sumthin else.

[All runway shots courtesy of Style.com]

Uma/Mia

Uma has made some bad decisions in her life, My Super Ex Girlfriend and Motherhood being two such decisions. Family Guy has made two or three jokes about her, her eyes being strangely far apart etc. And for many, that in itself is convincing enough to condemn her to eliciting She's ugly comments from those ignorant enough to have opinions on people they know so little about.

I have begged all of my girlfriends (ha ha friends who are girls) at some point or another to cut the bob Uma Sports in Pulp fiction. I'm actually halfway through the movie as I write this (watching it on a video cassette, no less, how indie am i.) Bruce Willis just shot John Travolta.
Uma as Mia is a coke-snorting actress with a dumb wisdom about her, she plays puppet-master with Vega over the intercom, she sets her heart on the trophy and she gets it. She gets what she wants and she'll win it with reason, not manipulation; and yet she still shoves coke up her nose.
I don't know who Mia is, or what she stands for besides an adapted stereotype maybe. But if its the last thing I do I'm going to get one of my friends to cut their hair like that.

Uma rocks, don't diss. x

Fashion Illustration... Dear Faye West, you're a genius!!!

This is now officially my most favorite thing EVER

I found this veritable masterpiece on the internet the other day, I was kind of preparing for a larger article on Japanese fashion but it occurred to me that perhaps I should hold on before I start blabbing on for twelve pages about something so dear to my heart while the blog is so young. I literally only just figured out how to count the visitors to the page and I honestly was expecting zero. So when I saw that a whole 20 of you had visited the page I squealed like a little girl (which is difficult when you're a sixteen-year-old boy.)

Well okay maybe I didn't squeal but I was beaming anyway as I can only account for three of those visits. Perhaps I have really lovely friends who took the time to click previous page then go back then click it again as long as their attention spans could devote to it... But I did get one visitor from the states, so whomever you are please come again! I'll send you pickles! (Americans like pickles right???) Well, digital pickles anyway... probably would be weird of me to ask for your address so that I could send you pickles...

ANYWAY I'm ramblin, but let's talk about this AMAZING illustration above ^^^ It's by this wonderful person called Faye West....

LINKAGE! she has her own website! and a blog! 

Yeah, it's officially nothing o'clock as I'm writing this. So please excuse the block capitals, they are the only things keeping me awake.

I actually saw that dress in the flesh a few months back when I was studying Japanese designers for my college fashion course (more on that later) in an exhibition about Japanese fashion over the last thirty years (cunningly entitled 30 years of Japanese Fashion) at the Barbican Museum, London. 

The dress is a Comme Des Garcons, (Rei Kawabuko, in my head, shares God stature with Stevie Nicks, jus' so ya know) and it was a real beauty to behold. It might seem like agenda pushing but seriously go see this exhibition! I honestly can't say I've ever had more fun/learnt so much/had such a life changing experience in a museum before. Ah!

Another piece by Faye which I now love >>>

What was I talking about again? oh yeah! I am a huge fan of Fashion illustration, I fell in love with artists like Mats Gustafsen (see last post) and David Downton a long time ago. (If I have enough time I might just scan in the pages from my sketchbook that I wrote about them in a re-edit of this post in a few days.) What I adored about their works, and about the work of every other illustrator I came across was the fact that drawing fashion as opposed to photographing fashion can be infinitely more engaging, when I saw that a-maze-ing illustration of the CDG dress from the show my heart literally melted in a way that the photo just never did. Perhaps it's because of the personal connection with the dress I think I have, I dunno, but I really believe that the core reasoning behind my reaction was that it caught the dress in an incredibly descriptive way. 

That dress is all about Japan, the shape and the lapel attachments are so referential to classic Tokyo-chic and then the Big Red Dot on it is quite obviously the Japanese flag, then the girl's makeup is Kabuki with her hair tied back like a Geisha's... I could write pages on it but I shan't. So that dress represents Japanese fashion and then, like some incredible genius West has arranged it into a heart! It's message is very simple, it's "I heart Japanese Fashion." But that simplicity belies a greater talent.

Once upon a time I tried to be a Fashion illustrator. During my work on Downton I was inspired to do an ink painting based on his beautiful style and it turned out... O.K. but so very far from great. It looks so easy! it looks like the sort of thing you could absent-mindedly do in your spare time (kind of like blogging... ha ha Ha?) but as soon as you sit there with your inks, water and an empty page of white construction paper the real difficulty of what you're attempting hits you like a big yellow schoolbus and you run away crying.

I have more than immense respect for Fashion Illustrators, because it is a more than immense task. To merge both the vision of a designer with your own and then to carve it out of a page... I honestly wouldn't know where to start, and doubt my mental capacity to learn or otherwise find out how to. So when someone else does it and does it well (and I don't just mean 'well,' I mean CRAZY well) I simply gape in awe. Faye's work is inspirational and I adore it, I really hope she doesn't mind me posting so much of her work on here but I have to share its magnificence with you guys, even if 'you guys' is merely my 3 kind-hearted friends. So here is some of my favorite pieces of her work:

 She did a bunch of illustrations based on London Fashion week, I love love love love love them all but they're too many to post on here, so GO HAVE A LOOK YOURSELF! once you're done here of course.

I just love her work, she's amazing. Promise me you'll follow her blog too? please?

Monochromatism, The First New-Years' Resolution

Gabrielle [Coco] Chanel once said something along the lines of "Fashion lasts a month, Style is forever."

This concept of Chic vs Trendy is ever-present in fashion; the industry's very rhythm is a direct contradiction to its collective aim. Every six months or so beckons in another fashion week where we learn that come the next editorial season we will have to totally re-adapt our personal style to match the stylistic vision of someone else in order to retain the appraisal of our peers.

Don't get me wrong, there are few things I anticipate with the same level of excitement as the day-by-day Fashion Week coverage on style.com; however, looking back at 2010 I am forced to say that my personal style wasn't me. I didn't express myself with my clothes. What I feel my personal failing was in terms of my own wardrobe last year was the dedication to 'trends.' So let's talk about that.

Trends in menswear are unusual things, it isn't uncommon for a trend debuting in spring to stay relevant throughout summer, autumn and winter and maybe even years beyond that. May I cite the Adam & the Ants jackets D&G showed for fall 2009? They disappeared from Vogue the moment that Balmain's military jackets landed on the scene the next season; but for men? Well, after their long run it seems that they only just are finally on the way out. Last week I spied a rail full of High-Street remakes being sold for a pittance, no-one filed through them.

I did not buy a  D&G 'Drummer Boy' (though tempted) However I did go out of my way to get a Countryside-y Farmer coat, also pursuing boat shoes, numerous neon lumberjack shirts and a pair of skin-tight, green and black, be-lightning-bolted jeans (a-la Laroux). There was a recognizable lack of taste in my fashion conduct last year. I look back at the stuff I wore, and I hate it.
But what I hate even more is the prospect of another year of glaring errors in fashion judgement.

So how do you fix this situation? You radically alter your personal style, find a new fashion icon and lay down a few rules.

I am a huge fan of The xx I love their music, their lyrics and their attitude. If you don't know them then know this; they're not punk, not rock, not pop. They're kind of 'Indie' but they aren't pathetic and self-effacing like so many are. They mumble-sing, their music is quiet (?) and relaxing but incredibly involving (They are no longer four; but three. The girl on the far-left left.) 

In my head the entire band are those kids in high school that don't talk to anyone but eachother; the popular kids hate them because regardless of what everyone thinks about them you just know that they will always have the most fun, and the dorks (like me...) ignore them because they can't tell whether or not they are a threat. And this animosity that builds up between them and everyone else makes them the coolest kids in school, and they couldn't care less.

So? what's this got to do with fashion? 

They are my first rule, that's what. 

They all wear only black clothes. 

New Years' Resolution No. 1: Maintain a monochrome wardrobe, black spectrum only.

The truth is that you can't go wrong with black clothes, a solid pair of black jeans, a bunch of black T-shirts and you've got the beginning of a wonderful wardrobe. You can follow trends, but in a refined  and tasteful way (e.g. picture above, far-right is donning a leather letterman jacket, incredibly on-trend at the moment, but its charm is that he doesn't look like he's trying to follow trends, it looks like he just happened to pick it out.)

Too gothy? well I smile so there's no worries on that front. Although I do secretly wish I was a goth.

Try also...

http://solongasitisblack.com/

 Mats Gustafsen rocks my Fashion-Illustration world

[clever way to end this post] 

New Fish in the Pond... FRESH FISH!

I am not addicted to fashion, the concept of an addiction to it would be vain and distasteful. No, I am in love with the culture and art driving fashion forward; I love looking at collections and admiring a pair of Yohji Yamamoto sneakers with the same devotion and longing as some people give to their significant others, I love shoes, jackets, jeans, shirts, t-shirts! I even love dresses and heels, however, unlike some, I choose not to wear them.