The Style Critic

Urgh. Don’t ask me why anyone would want to wear this in the name of fashion, but Eric Klarenbeek, a dutch designer, has put eye jewellery on the map. The map of what exactly, I don’t know, but should you feel the need to accessorize your eyes you can attach a crystal-like shape which hangs from an invisible wire from a prescription or dummy lense which glimmers and looks from a distance like you’re crying.

The designer says ‘You can’t feel the wire dangling, it doesn’t affect your sight and the lens moves along gently with your eyeball, even while blinking. It started out as an experiment but I decided to put it into production when I got positive feedback from wearers.’

Either Eric is in dire need of the publicity, or this is a his idea of a joke. Maybe he’s in cahoots with Sacha Baron Cohen’s Austrian gay fashion reporter “Bruno”, currently harassing the fashion world in the name of satire. I can just about see the appeal of coloured contact lenses or gimmicky cats’ eye lenses for fancy dress, but eyeball jewellery is pushing it. Even though EK maintains they are ‘perfectly safe’, eyeball accessorizing is a one look too far.  

Source: Comme Des Garcons for H&M '08

Designer collaborations with the high street really get the fashion pulse racing, from the early days of Julien MacDonald and Jasper Conran for Debenhams to the new generation of young Brits afforded a capsule range by Topshop: Peter Jensen, Emma Cook, Mario Schwab and Jonathan Saunders to name a few. Not only does this expose a younger audience to the designers, it democratizes good design without paying premiums for the best fabrics.

And how many young people can afford those dry cleaning bills anyway? 40° and a bit of Persil isn’t as harmless as you might think.  

So Comme Des Garcons for high street giant H&M is big news, for this most avant-garde of labels (Rei Kawakubo is the designer’s designer after all) is launching in stores next month. H&M creative advisor Margareta van den Bosch states

“We have tremendous respect for Kawakubo’s fashion philosophy questioning fashion’s ingrained patterns and we admire her artistic approach to design.”

Sneak peeks from W magazine’s September issue show a knee-length dress which I can only describe as citygirl in suit meets Little Bo Peep. There’s lots of black. Clownish harem trousers and drop crotched shorts, spotty shirts, Chaplin-esq styling and asymmetrical tailoring, all of which makes black more fun than austere. A triumph in itself?

As one fashion blog commentator remarked on the preview – “I’m buying every piece, the less wearable the better!”

Image Credit: thesartorialist.blogspot.com

If there is such a thing as feminist fashion, you could define it like this. The defiance of flattery, prettiness and convention; a sartorial two fingers to targeted dressing for men. Women are dressing to please themselves, to please other women even – and whereas none of this is a revelation, it does herald a major shift in the right direction, ie. the mainstream. Finally designers like Miuccia Prada and Nicolas Ghesquiere, with their avant-garde silhouettes and unorthodox proportioning, are influencing more than front row fashions.  I put to you the following evidence.

1. WAGs are no longer dressing like WAGs. The turbo-charged sexiness that was their selling point is no longer fashionable or, more importantly, relevant. Queen WAG Victoria Beckham wouldn’t be caught dead in that cleavage-defying vest and hotpants combo she donned for the World Cup. And rumour has it she wants a breast reduction. Porn star breasts are soooo 2006. Androgyny daahhling, androgyny is where it’s at.

2. ‘Ugly’ trousers. Can you remember a time when ugly trousers were this fashionable? Palazzo, peg leg, harem – gaping undercarriages, ankle-grazers, 80s style high waists and big hips. Do we really need bigger hips? As it turns out, as long as you get your styling right and balance the new proportions with strong heels and nipped waists, it’s all looking very…modern.

3. Mid-calf length dresses. Oh joy. A universally unflattering cut-off point for all but the leggiest of model, the hemlines have indeed dropped. But has our tolerance for ‘safe’ fashion gone down with them?

4. Footwear. Bother boots, brothel creepers, biker boots, buckles, spikes, studs, rivets. Jazz shoes, loafers, lace-ups, brogues, Chelsea boots. Can we get more butch?

5. Comme Des Garcon for H&M. The mountain shall come to Mohammed. 

Image Credit: dailymail.co.uk

The Alexa Chungs of this world are a rarity. Poised, confident, clever and not afraid to be left-of-centre. How is it possible to be so self-assured at 24? I can only put it down to her country upbringing and too much fresh air. It’s no wonder that Elle Magazine put her on the cover of the October edition. 

‘Refreshingly down-to-earth’ might be as clichéd as ‘a breath of fresh air’ but that is what Alexa is. She puts her fashion success down to her normality. She doesn’t so much style herself as just get dressed to go out, and her very lack of image consciousness has become her signature look.

“What is attractive or alluring is not necessarily how much flesh you bare, but how good your brain is, or how much charm you have” says the TV presenter. 

The fact is that Alexa isn’t afraid to bare some skin. Her legs are model great and she knows it. But she is adept at proportion and balance: teeny shorts downplayed with androgynous lace-ups, a leather satchel, a cropped tuxedo jacket, minimal make-up and definitely no cleavage. (“I want to be on Radio 4 when I’m older talking about books, and I think if I get my tits out now I won’t be able to do that later.”)

Here’s a girl who contains the attention she gets through controlled dressing. She’ll mix up her references, never quite falling into type.  A self-confessed tomboy and lover of all things French, the sex appeal is there, but the blatant va-va-voom she keeps under wraps.

“I think it’s more exciting to reveal less. Maybe wear layers of smocks and then have super-sexy underwear on. Dress like a pilgrim outside and a whore underneath.”

Please would someone at Radio 4 at least make Alexa the fashion correspondent? 

Image Credit: getty images

Why am I writing about Victoria Beckham again? Why do I submit to her endless bids for attention? I write up her Collection, I comment on her hair. It’s not even a love-hate relationship. But I have to give it to her: she knows how to draw a crowd.

The latest? The Beckhams attend the launch of their new fragrance at Maceys in New York and Victoria is wearing a pair of five and half inch heel-less latex boots, made to order from Antonio Berardi priced at £3,300. For you or me, that’s some expensive attention. For the Beckhams, not so much. The Beckham’s fragrance business alone is now worth £109million at retail, and they haven’t yet penetrated the US market. Not bad for a girl who admits that she “..was on the dole once.” Well – grunge was all the rage in the early 90s. 

Now about these attention grabbers. No not the Beckhams, I mean the boots. A feat of engineering, the platform base is weighted, forcing the foot downwards and forwards so you can’t fall backwards. Dr Simon Floreani from the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia observes that: “They are probably a fad that won’t last long. In reality, they’re a 15 minute wear. You can only walk around on your tip toes for about 15 minutes.”  Which, as Andy Warhol famously predicted, is as long as it takes to be famous anyway.

A welcome addition to the high street is the cult Spanish label Hoss Intropia, founded in 1994 by the ex-designer to the National Ballet of Spain, Paloma Vázquez de Castro. The Spanish may well corner the retail market in UK, with Zara turning over catwalk looks at great prices to those who’ve outgrown Topshop, and now Hoss bridging the gap between top-end high street and designer. I picked out an amazing beaded mini dress, Gucci all the way and about 2 kilos in weight, for £360, but most start at a respectable £130.

The A/W collection in shops at the moment is impressive, with tinges of Marni and Etro – but, their USP is that their designs are unique and exclusive. Hoss Intropia produce and design all of their own prints, and details are hand-beaded and embroidered. The accessories line is equally good, and the shoes especially are directional and well-made.

Those extra pounds afford you the quality that makes all the difference when you get to a certain age. That may be thirty five, it may be twenty five, but let’s just say that it’s the age when you realise that a shop’s changing room is no longer a place to disrobe, it’s the teenager’s home-from-home, and you’re about to try on exactly the same dress as a fourteen year old who’s nattering on about pigeon detectives.*

*The Pigeon Detectives are an indie band. If you didn’t know that, then I’d head straight to Hoss.

Image Credit: julesb.co.uk

Hoss Intropia Silk Top with Beaded Neck £275

Peacock Print Shift Dress reduced to £81.00 online

Image Credit: style.com

When Balmain’s Christophe Decarnin appeared on the runway at the end of his Spring collectionat Paris Fashion Week, it all made perfect sense to me. The low slung jeans, slashed at the knee, tux jacket over slouchy black T – this is a man, I thought, who designs for a scene he knows. The gigs, the clubs, the parties to which they will be worn. He knows what women want to wear to these places. He knows because he goes there himself. His aesthetic may be his lifestyle. 

This is conjecture, but one thing’s for sure: Balmain Spring ’09 was the dream wardrobe for the bona fide rock chick. She’s coolest girl at the party – by a long way – and doesn’t she know it. The pieces dripped with insouciance, from the re-worked drummer boy jackets, bandage dresses with lashings of bling, tutu dresses toughened up with studded belts; distressed acid wash denim and sharp tuxedo jackets with exaggerated shoulders. The shoulders are the thing, and we’re not talking 80s shoulder pads here but re-structured peaks, like when you leave your jacket on a wire coat hanger. Each look was set off with the fiercest pair of glittering stud sandals, which no doubt will spawn a thousand imitations. 

All dressed up and nowhere to go? I hope you’re in a £10,000 Balmain and have Christophe on speed dial, because that’s my kind of party. 

Image Credit: style.com

Image Credit: style.com

Image Credit: style.com

Image Credit: superbeautified.com

A handbag is often just that until it swings from the arm of the celebrity or model-of-the-moment, then it takes on an other-worldly appeal and becomes aspirational. When the Chanel quilted union jack bag berthed at Agyness Deyn’s shoulder, punk deluxe was born. Soon she was carrying it everywhere and you couldn’t prize it out of her hands. Her cool factor depended on it, and vice versa. I mean, Chanel doing punk is like Gwyneth doing Kentucky Fried Chicken. They’re at the opposite ends of the lifestyle spectrum.  But if Chanel want a real PR coup, they should give the bag to my impeccably-suited granny and snap her on her way to her Chelsea Luncheon Club – now that would be punk.

The good old union jack is a fashion trump card. The emblem of the Establishment, with rules and regulations governing its use, it was used by the Sex Pistols as way of flouting convention. Punk enforced the message and fashion will always be able to capitalize on the rebellion. Even if, ironically, at £835 this Chanel handbag is as far from the anti-consumerist tenets of punk – where you DIY with safety pins rather than buy it new – as you can get. No one cares about that now: the banks are collapsing, there isn’t a whiff of musical dissent in the charts, even Johnny Rotten went on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. And as for the safety pins – you wait, Chanel will being doing those too.

Image Credit: chanel.com

Sometimes a bit of lateral fashion thinking is worth its weight in designer handbags. Literally. A serious handbag purchase can rival the monthly spend on the mortgage plus the bills, but the more hard-up we get, the greater our desire for our consumer comforts. With our consciences fast becoming as recession-proof as the luxury goods market, it’s time to realise that there’s nothing stylish about debt. Ladies, I urge you to get creative with your shopping habits. 

Here’s the thing. With all the emerging lines, who can keep track of every singe style? Life has moved on since a handful of heavily promoted IT bags did the celebrity rounds before falling into the public’s eager clutches. Only a moment ago, women were prepared to pay through the nose for their designer allegiances. Now, the IT bag has given way to steath-luxe, where no one’s 100% sure whether you’re carrying an exclusive or a clever vintage find. This is great news for fashionistas with a good eye but a bad credit rating – scour eBay, charity and vintage websites and look for quality materials and a quirky detail. After all, where do you think designers find their inspirations? No one will know that the vintage 60s chainmail evening bag you picked up on Oxfam.org for £20 isn’t Stella McCartney. Well, unless you start boasting..

Image Credit: oxfam.org.uk

Vintage 60s Chainmail Evening Bag £19.99 on www.oxfam.org.uk

Image Credit: Oxfam.org.uk

Black Leather Bag with brass handle detail £14.99 on www.oxfam.org.uk

I’m dedicating whole other posts to Rodarte (pr.”Ro-dar-tay”) because Kate and Laura Mulleavy deserve their own limelight. Despite no formal training in fashion design, these sisters’ handmade dresses are skilful works of artistry, and I love the ethereal feel that underpins their work. They’ve only been going since 2005 but the formal dress in silk tulle is already the label’s signature. Theirs is an ultra feminine, delicate aesthetic and it’s no wonder they count Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley as A List patrons. 

But what do we think of this piece of Rodarte on Keira at the premiere of Atonement? Although she’s classical beauty, as is the dress, it was a risqué choice. Would that she could be sculpted in marble and set in a palazzo in Florence, then this dress would work. Or she could audition for Clash of the Titans, the 1981 Grecian epic adventure film. In spite of her boniness – in fact because of her boniness – I’m not digging this Rodarte gown on Keira. She needs to be rescued by Perseus on his unicorn and taken to an Italian restaurant for a big bowl of spaghetti carbonara.