So, I’m more than a little partial to Preen’s Spring/Summer breeziness, and I urge you to fan the flames of this economic bonfire with their louche loungewear par excellance. A cool palette of smoky greys and lilac, matte moss green, cobalt, lemon and ice-white helps us feel there is really nothing to get hot and bothered about. There’s a jauntiness of update in Thornton & Bregazzi’s satin wraps, twist n’ drape dresses, floaty playsuits, parachute pants and drawstrings; and the flouro touches pick up on A/W and lift the mood further.
Floor-grazer trousers – already a bit hitter trend for next season – also featured, with models sashaying along like experts in nonchalance. I’m especially keen on Preen’s version of the 80s blazer, thigh-length straight n’ lean and scrunched at the arm. Fresh, clean and very modern. And if ever I was to go in for nu-mechanic a la ‘Beth’ from Neighbours (remember? that’ll separate the women from the girls..) I’d want my overalls to be Preen. A little bit utilitarian and a lot sexy, with a turn-up and stilettos on the forecourt, please.
Ah, the satin shirt dress in lemon yellow over lilac-grey lace vest – what a lush colour combo. Expect shirt dresses to be huge, and to replace the kaftan on the beach too. Well, that’s my prediction, and here’s hoping…
Image Credits: style.com
posted by The Style Critic at 10:31 am
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
posted by The Style Critic at 12:56 pm
Image Credit: style.com
Christopher Kane’s showed that inspiration knows no bounds, not least because the designer saw Planet of the Apes, The Flintstones and One Million Years B.C. and felt the bones – or should that be scales – of his next collection, which was surely one of the most yabadabadooo of London Fashion Week. The distillate was the stegosaurus-style ‘scales’ in leather or organza, the gorilla print, marabou trims and the stone-age animal print. How such elements can produce both wearable and desirable womenswear is anyone’s guess, but Kane makes it work. Although he has a strong creative partnership with his sister Tammy, even she said “When he started saying ‘prehistoric’, I said ‘What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’” But this evolved into a collection which conveyed exactly what he meant. Business – both in the commercial sense of pleasing his customers, and in the artistic pursuit of an idea to fruition. If the collection’s reception is anything to go by, Kane is carving out a very bankable name for himself.
Image Credit: style.com
posted by The Style Critic at 1:16 pm
Image Credit: style.com
Every industry needs its Gareth Pughs to mainline some unadulterated creativity into its veins. To challenge our expectations of clothes, to assault our assumptions of what’s wearable. As a sort of protest against that homogenised skinny jeaned, ballerina pump-wearing ‘everygirl’ that trots down the high street and thinks Lauren Conrad from The Hills is a style icon. Fashion insiders love a rebel, and Pugh is the ultimate – you couldn’t even buy the clothes before Spring 2007 – they existed as pieces of performance art for the catwalk alone. Fashion devoid of commerce or consumption….isn’t there something wonderfully anti-Marc Jacobs about that?
That Pugh worked in a theatrical costume department before his training will come as no surprise. Neither will the squat in Peckham which Pugh shared with other creatives, part gallery part club. But that he’d one day ”…like to buy a house and be the Calvin Klein of catsuits” might. Enter Rick Owens and his business partner wife who have secured him manufacture. Now there is a retail collection, Topshop as a fashion week sponsor, installations, and a good deal of editorial support.
Let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to have their head bent occasionally, to think Bladerunner, the Marquis De Sade, Dune, cyberpunks and androids, rave culture, fetish, acid house, robots, Predator, gay 80s subculture and Star Wars rather than clothes. But ultimately women want to wear the damn things, not ruminate on them. They want a decent winter coat for under a grand. Clothes have to fit our lives and our bodies, and as yet this is anarchic fashion with a finger up at the uninitiated.
posted by The Style Critic at 2:19 pm
