Paris calling




I’ve been so mega-busy I haven’t had time to blog about my recent day trip to Paris. Zut alors! Ah well, it’s timely that I’m doing it now I s’pose. On this occasion we took things very leisurely. After petit dejeuner in Place Vendome, we went to Faubourg St Honore followed by a quick stopover in Les Halles (to worship the Keith Haring sculpture at the Saint-Eustache church) before finishing at the Merci cafe in Le Marais.

What did I buy? I was totally bowled over by the rockabilly vintage at Noir Kennedy in Le Marais. Brothel creepers lined one wall, aged Converse lined another and a choice selection of reconditioned baseball jackets (mainly with Canadian emblems bizarrely) caught my eye while I was looking for a just-shrunken-enough denim Levi’s jacket. I didn’t find the Levi’s jacket, mainly because D ushered me away from them (unbeknown to me he had already bought me one on Ebay for my birthday – bless). Instead I snapped up a green vintage baseball jacket which I’ve been wearing with turn-up Levi’s, stompy work boots, a little black sweater and an Hermes scarf. I was only allowed to take one photo but I was sneaky and took two.

Not wanting to shop for the sake of shopping, I managed to keep a lid on my spending (if you discount the food and coffees… €5 for a capuccino – yikes). I was sorely tempted in another vintage shop, Studio W whose bourgeois bags would look rather nice dangling from the shoulder of my Burberry trench, Lauren Hutton stylee. William, the owner, didn’t speak much English but we gleaned that this was a high-end vintage shop, something of a little black book secret to fashion insiders but not by the general public. He graciously let me get snap happy with the Lumix.




We stumbled upon The Kooples as we were leaving Le Marais. It’s one of those of-the-moment French labels that channels sexy-grungy rock chick with a tailored edge very well. The Kooples is owned by the sons of the people who ran Comptoir des Cotonniers. We were told they plan to open five London stores by the end of the year which is pretty impressive considering we’re in the last quarter already. I liked the quality of their jeans but couldn’t be arsed to spend half an hour trying jeans on so settled for a wafer-thin white T-shirt with a zip at the back instead. Not cheap but the quality seemed worth it. I’ll give the jeans another shot when they arrive on UK soil.



Bubbling under: Capri jeans




Ok, as Mary Portas would say, “now I’m excited”. News just in of the second Hussein Chalayan for J Brand collection which launched yesterday at Paris Fashion Week. I’m particularly interested in the ‘Capri Pant in a stretch legging fabric with an ankle zip’ and ‘The Chino style pant in an easy loose fit’ (according to the press release). Wasn’t I just banging on about this the other day? Bring it on!

[Pic: Denimology]



What makes a ‘fashion designer’?



I wasn’t going to comment on Sarah Mower’s scathing critique of Henry Holland’s show but in light of the hullabaloo* surrounding the Lindsay Lohan/Ungaro debacle, I couldn’t resist.

Question: what is a designer? Is it someone who has an understanding of the entire design process, who cuts their own patterns and pins their own toiles? Or is it someone who has an eye, is good at styling and can tune into the zeitgeist despite not having a design background? What I’ve learnt from the last few weeks is that fashion is subjective and there is no cut and dried answer. I sat through the Kinder Aggugini show, non-plussed at what I was seeing – ‘derivative… Galliano…not quite there’ went my scrawls while post-show I listened to Hilary Alexander and Michael Howells praise him as the next big thing. Henry Holland’s show (below) was pretty much laid into by Style.com’s Sarah Mower which was weird as she also has a role at the BFC to promote emerging British talent and Holland is one of her fledging designers. Mower’s beef with Holland was that his shows have become media circuses that revolve around his celebrity playmates and his design skills are little more than jumbling up a few eighties references without much finesse. Her concluding line was, “perhaps it would be cleverer to quit the runway altogether and throw parties instead.” Ouch.

Can a ‘designer’ who didn’t study design or train as a designer rightfully call themselves a designer? Well, that brings me to Luella. She came from a similar journalism background to Holland (although hers was Vogue to his Sneak) and if truth be told, it is the styling and clever pop culture references that keep her brand at the forefront of British fashion. There’s really nothing new in terms of design innovation at Luella and yet she is considered a real designer against Holland’s marketer-posing-as-designer.

And so to Lohan. Where to start with this? The girl is an actress who has made music and then decided she wanted to have a go at fashion. And who could blame her? The celebritisation of fashion means that everyone has had a play at ‘fashion designer’ and from what I know, her leggings line has sold well. But to install her as creative director of Ungaro, a luxury house of forty-odd years standing. Really? I didn’t buy it from the beginning and I’m glad it failed. According to WWD, it was “quite simply, an embarrassment“. Yikes, don’t hold back WWD!

A designer has to take the job seriously, they have to live and breathe the role and if they don’t it shows oh-so-clearly. Where do things go from here? I am really hoping this will be the end of the celebrity-as-model, celebrity-as-designer, celebrity-as-author trend. It won’t happen overnight but this could be the catalyst.

*new fave word