Monday 28 March 2011

I LV U

For about a year now I and countless other silly people across the world have kept a digital obsession. To me, it’s superficial, light-hearted and fun; to everyone else it’s self-indulgent, annoying and distasteful.

I do not speak of those annoying 'likes' on facebook (those ambiguous jokes that dumb friend of yours keeps clicking on); I speak of Louis Vuitton; and since discovering louisvuitton.com I haven’t been able to give up my obsession with a particular 'Keepall 45 with adjustable shoulder-strap in Monogram Canvas’ I jump back to that page every few minutes some times, just checking that it’s still there, that they haven’t lowered the price nor have they sold out permanently. I stare at all £815 of that bag for hours at a time; always with the seasoned conviction of a meth addict at an Iggy fest circa ’73.


There is something about the label that means the best, whenever Louis Vuitton is flashed in front of us we end up in total awe at it, we demand to check the lining, see the proof card, hold it, grab it, squeeze it, cuddle it. But why? Essentially it’s no different from the bags you see anywhere else, my mother furtively reminds me whenever I muse about owning one. The most in-demand ones are essentially lacquered canvas with some leather stitched over it, unlike the incredibly unique look of the colourfully woven Damier Geant Canvas which was originally fabricated exclusively by Louis for the Empress of Montijo alone back in 1888. However, next to an LV monogram the Damier variant might as well be from New Look.

Everybody wants a slice of Vuitton, owning it means that you can, somehow spare to shell out hundreds of pounds simply to boast your own ability to shell out hundreds of pounds. People will do almost anything to get their hands on Vuitton, meaning that often shipping their product demands an armed convoy for its protection; unable then to procure the genuine article by force the next best thing is to resort to making their own, but for fakes they’re really good.

It was a few weeks ago when I found myself at a friend’s ‘Return from Holiday in Hong Kong’ dinner and after the second course came the knock off show-and-tell. “You’d never know, not even if you looked at the lining!” “It was only £30!” “It even got through counterfeit customs!” I was astounded, it was this season’s Boétie bag, and it was completely convincing, down to the polished LOUIS VUITTON chrome badge on the front, the buckle, the stitching, the entire thing was mind-blowingly perfect. It felt like real Vuitton, the smell of the leather, the whole bag was real, immaculate. I guess it was genuinely fake.

“You literally find shops in the shopping centre selling them” She explained loudly, her phony sitting proudly in the centre of the table. “They’ll ask you if you’re interested then they’ll usher you into a little room and show you around, or they’ll give you this catalogue and tell you I get you anything for twenty minutes, yes? And sometimes they simply stand on the side of the road yelling LOUIS VUITTON FORTY DOLLARS! FAKE DESIGNER! FAKE DESIGNER!” The last remark eliciting pealing laughter from the dinner guests.

It’s not a stretch to imagine that with the entire world screaming for Vuitton in any shape or form that LV monogrammed fakes account for nearly a fifth of all counterfeit accessories seizures in the EU alone, and some even claim that fakes could represent almost 60% of Louis Vuitton items currently in circulation right now.

I decided to chime in, when the laughter died down, and fly the flag for the real deal. “I wouldn’t ever buy a fake” A look of revulsion met me on the faces of everyone else there. “Even if no-one else ever found out, I would know. I would always know that my bag started its life in a sweatshop somewhere in China. It would never have seen the inside of a Louis Vuitton store. It would mean nothing. Having the real thing would mean that I would walk out the doors of Louis Vuitton carrying it in a Louis Vuitton carrier bag (everybody on Oxford Street would be staring at me carrying it around and think you lucky bastard.) I don’t want the bag for its iconography; I want to have earned it.” They all shut up.

I have recently given up my Vuitton-crazed habit. After months of mindless indulgence I have begun to realize that no matter how much I gawk at it I will never be able to reach into the screen and pull one out. I will never open my closet to magically find one waiting in the corner. Sadly, I really will have to earn it. Damn.

Friday 25 March 2011

Thursday 17 March 2011

BLEURGH!

Basically I'm feeling like BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH because a certain BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH of a person has been a BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH to me in the manner of....
So I decided to ditch this BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH in manner of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Collins, however my vernaculaic powers paled in comparison to the fact that I myself felt like a BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH because for some raisin I put too much gunk in my hair and because this particular BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH had found some way of tricking me into taking him back despite his BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH manner of treating me last time. 

And now we are...

And even though this particular BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH was such a pedantic little BLEURGHBLEURGHBLEURGH to me that I should feel relieved that I no longer have to put up with him; I feel really un-evolved for having to go through the whole fiasco twice. So basically, I'm so Un-evolved that I'm a human appendix.

But this being a fashion blog (NAY! I say to blowing one's brains out all over a blog post just to relieve the malignant itch of vulnerable post-breakup-ness... NAY!) I shall leave you with the stylings of Jenny Lewis, the  babe of Rilo Kiley (They're all babes I know but she's the one with the uterus.)






Monday 14 March 2011

Lifting The Mood

London is where I go, where I belong. Whenever I imagine my future; it's in London.

No, this is not going to be the post on the Yohji Yamamoto Exhibition, I didn't go last Saturday. The friend I was with had to cancel (and I didn't plan on going by myself); but the good news is that we're going probably next weekend.
Don't you just love my poses in these pictures? I should so be a model: (from left) Happy, frowny, REALLY frowny. It's so difficult being a model...


This day I was in London with a friend because this bazitch had to take some photos of london in the wee hours for a photography project of hers and we decided to tag along. Of course, we decided that seeing as it was 8:00am we'd go and have breakfast somewhere in South Kensington, but nowhere was open. Literally NOWHERE. So we decided to wander around the neighborhood until a more civilized hour and look at buildings, take photos... blah blah. hence this sexy picture ^^^


So, THAT house was about the same width as a playing card, seriously it flew away in a breeze. And yes, that is me with this season's Prada book. When I saw it at Selfridges I was flicking through it like a cracked-up bitch lookin through a crackpipe catalogue (yeah, I'm going to stop saying 'bitch' it really isn't me) and the salespeople were sooo nice I even had a little chat with one about what we liked from her latest collection.

I'll probably do a post on the Prada book soon, but I need to find an A3 colour-scanner, and I'm beginning to doubt their existence... maybe they're just an office-supply myth, like the automatic stapler and the water cooler with legs....

DEETS:
 Horse-in-a-Biker-Jacket T-Shirt, Drop-Crotch Jeans & Camo Shirt - All Saints
 Fur Lapel Cardigan - Zara
 Bag - Levi's (it has since died from old age and been replaced with a very chic Fred Perry)
 Sneakers - Converse
 All Jewelry MADE BY ME (not that you can see it, sorry about the bad quality photos, it wasn't my camera)

Saturday 12 March 2011

Japan

I am rarely moved or disturbed by News, I tend to watch things and make a cynical remark; then go about my day. Parliament's recent buggery with Pensions? Cynical Remark. UN's hesitation to make decisive action in Libya? Cynical Remark. Wisconsin Union Ruling? ...well, you get the picture.
There is rarely a day in my life where Japan doesn't come up in conversation with my friends, all of us are big fans of the works of its Fashion royal family, Miyake, Kawabuko, Yamamoto, Watanabe... and when we aren't talking about CDG; we're talking about its Technology, Harajuku, Architecture, The Kimono...
Gertrude Stein once said "America is my Country and Paris is my hometown." And until I found Japan; I never truly understood what she was talking about.

Today I was climbing into the car and moaning about how crowded the train was when my Dad told me to be quiet while he listened to an interview on Radio 4. I was too tired and exasperated to care so I just switched off whilst Dad drove me home. But despite my complacency, I couldn't help but detect certain words; certain 'key words' like "Ordeal... Tokyo... Richter Scale..." I asked Dad what had happened; and suddenly Japan didn't mean 'Issey Miyake' or 'Memoirs Of A Geisha' anymore, it meant Tragedy.

Thousands of people are expected to have died in the events that unfolded in Japan; death tolls skyrocket in situations like this. It is vital that we forfeit our vanities at such a time as this for the sake of those suffering in our world. It is sad that some of us only ever feel moved to make a change, to do something, when a horrific disaster destabilizes something so rigidly close to our hearts. I am guilty of this, every time I buy a new magazine and a UNICEF pamphlet falls out I ignore it, drop it into the bin by my desk mentally chanting something along the lines of "I can't afford it..." When the truth is more like "I can't afford it seeing as I'm saving up for a new cardigan/T-shirt/Blackberry..." or, if put even more accurately "I can't afford it... I'm far too selfish."

People often accuse fashion of being a cruel, selfish industry. Supp'd not enough of the milk of human kindness. Lacking humanity. And I always bat those remarks away, referencing projects like 'Fashion Cares.' But the truth is, even though fashion cares; sometimes we forget to.

So please, save lives. Don't buy a T-shirt this weekend, donate £5/$5 to the Red Cross. Collect change from your friends, colleagues, family, neighbours. Make an effort. Please.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

My Leather Wish List

[Left-to-right, Burberry Prorsum, Marni, Comme Des Garcons Homme Plus]

Basically I'm mad about Leather and I want all of this. NOW. But before I can have a Freja-esque wardrobe of Leather goods I'll need some money...

Monday 7 March 2011

Ain't No Place Like Paris

1.Ricardo Tisci for Givenchy
NEWSFLASH Layering black leather jackets is in... like MEGA in for next fall (which is just as well seeing as it'll probably be FREEZING) it also gives me another idea for saturday (more on that later)
2. Comme Des Garcons, Rei Kawabuko
Rei K is a babe, and this collection (in great contrast to her last) makes me all happy and fuzzy inside. The 30 Years of Japanese Fashion exhibition I went to last year might as well have been called the "Rei Kawabuko is a Babe" exhibition because it was practically all Comme des Garcons stuff... well, with a bit of Issey Miyake mixed in... anyway I thought that this collection was the most reminiscent of her earlier work, it's playful and light. And I think she's actually had it made a criminal offence to wear one of the pieces from this collection without Gold hair...
3. Gareth Pugh
Gareth Pugh rules my world, and this season he ventured into the unknown... COLOUR! And he really ran with it! He's done stuff with metallics in the past but electric blue!? it's so out of left field! and I believe that he's created the most elegant dresses of Paris so far with those flowing capes; the black and blue one is my favorite... Pugh jackets are, in my mind, as monumental as their Chanel counterparts. I actually saw someone walking down Park Lane in the same one as Lady Gaga and I very nearly threw myself at her screaming: "YOU HAVE THE GREATEST TASTE!" but I didn't seeing as I was with my gran at the time and she would've told my mum... 

Maybe it's presumptuous of me to do a 'best collections' post on PARIS before Chanel tomorrow; but hey; if it's monumental (if? hah!) I'll do a big ol' post about it and tell you just how jealous I am of my best friend's J12... GREEN with envy.

Saturday 5 March 2011

Instead of getting a normal camera...

Why would you get a normal, boring little red Nikon when you could get a camera that does a 360 degree photo of the entire room? or one that's made out of... LEGO?!

Tuesday 1 March 2011

Future Beauty

(Jenny Postle's Grad Collection from Central St Martins FAVOURITE COLLECTION OF LFW)
Whenever things are looking bleak I tend to surround myself with whimsy; I guess that means I'm a whimsical person. Lately things - quite important things, to me anyways - have been looking less and less hopeful. I don't want this blog to turn into a jar where I keep all my self-afflicting thoughts but at the moment I'm having more of these kind of thoughts than anything else. 


[No 'Don't worry! It'll all work out fine!' messages please. I get my naive 'eternally-hopeful' fix from Lady Gaga lyrics, thankyouverymuch.]

That doesn't mean you should think of me as some sort of self-absorbed 'woe-is-me' child; I don't feel like that at all. I'm just pissed off right now. I think my taste always reflects the opposite of how I feel so this post shall be full of brightly-coloured happy frippery; But don't worry the next post will be all choc-a with grungy angst-y curio.


How could I not have written a few words on #Bornthisway? Well, I plain and simply loved it, it was pretty and looked like what would've happened if Andy Warhol had a child with Dorothea Tanning and then their child took the place of Sig-Weave in Ridley's 'Alien'. I had to watch it a few times but I think I finally understand it... Except I didn't get that that thing on her chin was an eye until the third or fourth time of seeing it... I was convinced it was a cap from a water bottle....
I'm really feeling Petra Storrs today. Queen of intellectual whimsy, hang on. That sounds like I think of her as an architect of clever-for-its-own-sake fashion-masturbation; Which is NOT the case. I love these examples of her work mainly because I WANNA TOUCH IT. It's just so cute and light (whimsy) that it lifts my mood to the point where I might just add a little smiley face into this post... shall I? a little emoticon to brighten up my day?.....
..... :) THERE. I did it. Thats how happy her work makes me, I'm a smiley-face happy-chappy! I think why I like her so much could be relative to my special affection for 'paper designers.' Not all her work is paper but a lot of it is and I think her take on it is so FRESH! I mean, as much as I love Su Blackwell I've seen enough damn 'Alice In Wonderland'-esque pieces to last a few editorial seasons...

So that is all from this Blog-child; I'm sure my neuroses will sort themselves out soon enough and flare up about something totally different Quick. As. A. Bee. so don't you worry! 'til then... FLY MY PRETTIES, FLY!