Image Credit: Dan Lecca
How can this blog not comment on the fashion ‘moment’ of the week – the first collection by ‘fashion designer’ Victoria Beckham who had a brief digression as a pop star and is now a fully fledged designer with an atelier of four in London. And like her former bandmates, they’re doing all the work.
This may only be a ten piece collection in various colours but it has been well-received. Lisa Armstrong of The Times deemed it an “impressive, accomplished collection, with not a single dud.” Unless – and forgive me if I’m being a tad harsh – you view the dud as Victoria herself for re-hashing Roland Mouret and Herve Leger in a troop of ‘signature’ vaccum-packed designs.
OK I am being harsh. As you can see they’re not all, as Victoria puts it, “sucky, sucky” dresses, there is room to breathe here and there, and they even go up to a size 14 for her fat friends. But I’m still at a loss to see this woman’s talent. How can a gargantuan shopping budget make you a fashion expert? How does having the means to produce a collection make you a designer? Here is a woman who desperately wants to be respected, but who doesn’t truly respect her own intuition with clothes, not enough to show some real flair at putting a look together in a way that Jackie Onassis or Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly hasn’t done a hundred times better before her.
So yes I suppose Victoria has achieved something here, she’s dressed herself ten times over, and she can even dress you for £650 – £1900, and when you’ve got the bunions to prove your loyalty (imagine these dresses without stilettos) you can go back to supporting real designers who are grafting away in their Dalson studios and definitely not hoping to become pop stars.
Image Credit: Dan Lecca
posted by The Style Critic at 11:45 am
Image credit: netaporter.com
Further to my post about heavy bags, here is the Chloe Cyndi, and yes it does look like it’ll be heavy as a raincloud to lug around, but the pain is incidental when you co-ordinate so effortlessly with your surroundings. By this I mean the grey urban skies, the pigeons, the exhaust fumes, the pavements, the mood of a nation in recession. This is more than a bag. It is a reflection of our times, and at £1072 you should gag your inner Gordon Brown and see it as a bargain. It’s your economic duty, and when the clouds disperse you will see this bag for what is: a step closer to Hermes in dove grey. Grey goes with everything, especially good ol’ British cynicism.
Also, I’m glad the leather isn’t real croc but stamped to look that way. I’m no Stella McCartney when it comes to leather but I struggle with the ethics of snakeskin and crocodile. In 2008 carrying those rare skins on your arm says ‘I belong to a colonial age and the environment bores me, so does animal welfare, so does everything but myself, in fact I’m sending my gran to the tannery and making a holdall out of her too.’ Hmmm. OK I’ll be honest; I did have a fantasy fling with another Chloe bag. The mahogany brown snakeskin Silverado, but I just couldn’t see past the price or the python so I made it go away. But the Cyndi may well be the perfect compromise, and one that’s here to stay.
posted by The Style Critic at 10:44 am
Now I’m not one for red lipstick myself, although if I had the right kind of mouth I’d run to the shops and buy this exact shade of red and start practicing my Jessica Rabbitt pout. I admire women with signature red lips but on me it’s hardly the height of sophistication; more costume vamp or first-time-with-mum’s-lippie amateur. Lulu Guinness practises what she preaches when it comes to retro glamour and like many designers she prefers to wear own creations. Her clothes and accessories emancipate the 50s pin-up in all of us and ensure she’s right up to date. The result is tongue-in-cheek but not kitsch, and that’s because the quality and craftsmanship are superb. I can’t think of a more winning combination with this season’s structured looks than this clutch. Love love love. Or should that be mwah mwah mwah! And if you’re not a fan of snakeskin there’s a perspex version of the evening bag at £195.00, plus other colours too. Who needs the right kind of mouth when you can carry one?
Photo Credit: luluguinness.com
posted by The Style Critic at 10:33 am
If you believe in fairies you’ll know that they don’t just disappear after one season sweetie. Prada’s collection for spring featured the Fairy bag, which some women believed in and others just wished would fly, fly away. The award winning artist/illustrator is James Jean, and as with Murakami and Louis Vuitton, the collaboration divided the old and new guard. More mature women simply didn’t feel it was age-appropriate, even though at over $2000 a bag the price definitely was – hardly teen pocket money. But when nymph went head-to-head with nymphette in the real world, Catherine Deneuve and Tilda Swinton had the soignée edge over Hilary Duff. In spite of its theme I think this is a woman’s rather than a girl’s bag. It wants contrast: some austere tailoring rather than a cutesy top and skinny jeans.
Long before James Jean there was Cicely Mary Barker. Her Flower Fairies series was first published in 1923 and she drew with as much care and detail and love for her creations as Beatrix Potter. Generations of children have since been enchanted by her work, including myself. I don’t remember anything of the text but those dainty creatures certainly took flight in my imagination. If there was a patron saint of fashion she would surely be a fairy – beautiful, ephemeral, but immortalized in a Prada bag for a long time to come.
The Fairy Bag will be a classic, so close your eyes and say after me ‘I believe in fairies’. I’m hoping there’s one under my pillow in the morning.
Image Credit: prada.com
Image Credit: flower-fairies.com
posted by The Style Critic at 8:03 pm
