Designers

On Carven, Issey Miyake and Paris show business



Carven-AW14 2

Why have a show? That’s the 64 million dollar question that continues to circulate fashion week season after season. The answer is still elusive – is it an industry insider event or a public spectacle? – but I think if you’re going to have a show, make it a show. Make some element of it surprising, delightful, emotional, weird or thought provoking. It’s not like there isn’t a ton of options at your disposal. There’s the set, the music, the choreography. Or the casting, styling, make up…take your pick.

Carven’s Paris show was staged at the elegant Galerie Des Gobelins – a collection of youthful tailoring with collage-y placements and crystal embroidery that nodded to the art of Man Ray and Blumenfeld. (more…)



Quote of the day: Dries van Noten



Dries Van Noten Paris autumn/winter 2013

“People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and… It’s not like that. Forget it! It’s lists, it’s computers, it’s meetings, it’s planning, it’s organising. It’s all these things.”
Dries Van Noten, The Telegraph

I can’t wait to see Dries Van Noten: Inspiration at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris this weekend!

[Image: The Guardian]



London Fashion Week AW14 highlights: day 5



Marques'Almeida-AW14-Disneyrollergirl 5

The final day of London Fashion Week was all about youthful ideals and teen romance, kicking off at 9am with Marques’Almeida. This duo has slowly and steadily built an appealing aesthetic that riffs on tattered-edged insousiance of a bygone kind. While earlier collections were rooted in nineties grunge, AW14 takes its essence from New York’s Chelsea Hotel and its famous 1970s inhabitants. The models’ Patti Smith-style bird’s nest hair matched the fuzzy furry stoles and shoes, while the colour palette was surprisingly upbeat – complemented by primary-coloured MAC paint ringing the eyes. (more…)



London Fashion Week AW14 highlights: day 4



Issa-London-Blue-Farrier-AW14-Disneyrollergirl 4

Day four is when things properly take shape at LFW with the heavy hitters showing the fruits of their labour. Alongside the international heavyweights Burberry Prorsum and Tom Ford, we had two newbies on the schedule. Blue Farrier made her debut as creative director of Issa London, while Maia Norman’s Mother Of Pearl presented at the ICA. (more…)