Watch this: a documentary about Fashion Week street style
I just watched Garage Magazine’s mini documentary on Style Bubble but in case you haven’t seen it, here it is again. Filming began a year ago and the result is a good 9-minute sum-up of the Fashion Week street style phenomenon. Tim Blanks makes most of the commentary but Imran Amed from Business of fashion is also featured, as is Susie Bubble and Phil Oh.
This London Fashion Week, I had a conversation with a well known street style photographer who mentioned that they have noticed a change. Some of their regulars have now decided they don’t want to be photographed, they’re actively ignoring street style photographers, even when in the past they were quite chummy. It’s not surprising to me. What die-hard fashionista wants to be seen embracing something once it’s been tainted with the naff brush? (I’m not saying street style is naff, but the bad publicity in this context could have that effect.)
London College of Fashion MA13: the standouts
Something new for London Fashion Week this season: the addition of the London College of Fashion MA show. I usually have an aversion to student shows (they just end up being soooo long), but in this case, a concise edit of ten graduates was speedily delivered. Continue reading
London Fashion Week AW13: Day five highlights
London Fashion Week has flown by this season, partly due to the new menswear-free, five-day format, and partly because I’ve become much more focused. I’ve traditionally done as many shows as I can at LFW, but these days a) it’s impossible to see everything and b) it’s unnecessary. There are so many other ways to see collections without the battle of 9am starts and seating politics. Instagrams, Vines, live streaming and the almost-instant images uploaded on sites like Now Fashion and the genius GPS Radar app means you can get a pretty good sense of what’s happening without leaving your screen. Continue reading
LFW trend report AW13: Model mania at Topshop and Burberry
Being a catwalk model must be the best fun these days; you simply never know what you’re going to be asked to do. From Mulberry’s dogwalkers, to Matthew Williamson’s close-up Vine videos, to Topshop Unique’s model cams and Burberry’s #Beautybooth, there’s so much interactive fun to be had at the shows. Before I left for yesterday morning’s first show, I caught Topshop’s Google+ video of Cara Delevingne doing a circuit of the Topshop Unique runway with a vídeo cam stashed in her handbag. Continue reading
London Fashion Week AW13: Day four highlights
It’s always weird when you see big trends emerging seemingly from nowhere. Part of it is wishing things into existence. I’ll always try to make huge fluffy mohair jumpers and mannish coats a ‘thing’ if it means people will make more of them and keep me well-stocked. In the last four days I’ve definitely seen my fair share of fluffy knits and gigantic coats, plus lots of shiny PVC/patent leather, flared skirts, fur, geometric layering and posh camo patterns. Continue reading
London Fashion Week AW13: Day three highlights
Today I truly experienced the luxury and convenience of a concierge service. I’ve been working with Amex to experience all they have to offer this Fashion Week, which in reality means I’ve had cars booked to ferry me from show to show, my on-the-go catering needs seen to, plus all manner of other requests – small and large – dealt with. Amex asked me what my ‘pain points’ were during Fashion Week and I said transport issues, wi-fi issues and just general juggling of everything. Continue reading
London Fashion Week AW13: Day two highlights
First show: Fuzzy-meets-shiny textures at Antipodium
New name to know: Michaela Buerger. I’m all over these crochet sweatshirts…
London Fashion Week AW13: What’s the deal with the Amex Insiders?
As LFW becomes ever busier, with shows, presentations, retail events and launches at Somerset House and beyond, sometimes help is needed to navigate the never-ending schedule. This season I’m working with Amex to experience all they have to offer at Fashion Week, which is where Amex Insiders come in. Continue reading
London Fashion Week AW13: Day one highlights
Bam! That’s the sound of London Fashion Week going off with a bang. Well it did for me, because my first show was London College of Fashion’s MA show – its first as part of LFW. The show was edited to the ten strongest collections, of which my favourite was from Na Di, a menswear graduate whose punchy printed tailoring mashed up traditional references with hiphop attitude. Continue reading
Six years of blogging – the changing landscape
Well who’d have thunk it? Six years ago today, I started a fashion blog. This very one, in fact, albeit on a Blogspot platform with a slightly clunky white-text-on-black-background layout. If you scroll back far enough, you can see my early posts; embarrassing though they are, I’ve not deleted them as it’s good to remember the journey.
My six year anniversary coincides with a pithy New York Times T Magazine story by Suzy Menkes lamenting the blog mob and the changes in fashion media and critiquing. Do read it, it’s certainly thought provoking. Alas, Menkes does come across as slightly jaded in her disapproval. Flagging up the common practice of ‘bloggers’ (read: the Fashion Week style blogger elite) who get photographed in next season’s looks, often gifted by designers in exchange for coverage, she reminds us that real reporters don’t play the gifting game (or ‘bribery’ as she puts it). It’s a funny one I admit. On the one hand, why not help give young designers exposure by wearing their clothes, if it will give them a leg-up and boost your visual presence as well? On the other hand, when the pre- and post-show peacocking starts to get more attention than the shows themselves, then that clearly signals a change in how things are working. Is it dumbing down though? or is it just an evolution in how fashion is seen and consumed now?
Six years ago, no-one even considered any of this stuff. As a phenomenon, it simply didn’t exist yet. Instagram didn’t exist, Vine didn’t exist, Twitter was in its infancy and Anna Dello Russo was just another jobbing fashion editor. How would fashion have weathered the recessions were it not for fashion blogs, Fashion Week street style and the powerful role they played in opening up the fashion industry to the masses? More pertinent still; where will fashion, blogging and the street style strutters be in another six years time? I guess that’s for us to witness, while documenting the process…
Thanks for the last six years of support!
Image: Stefania Yarhi/Textstyles – NYT
