20 January, 2011

Ines de la Fressange’s style guide

I know everyone raves about Carine and Emmanuelle but I do love the classic, untampered-with style of Ines de la Fressange, don’t you? Yes? Well good because she’s just about to publish her book Parisian Chic: A Style Guide. From what I can gather, the book – which comes out in April – follows the standard prescriptive format of any style guide, minus the cringy Trinny & Susannah-type bad photography and styling. This book very sweetly features Ines modelling alongside her daughter Nine d’Urso de la Fressange (who I notice has a bit of the Natalie Portmans about her). Instead of badly lit studio shots, we have these paparazzi-meets-street-style snaps of mother and daughter in similar but different outfits to illustrate such wardrobe classics as the ‘mariniere‘, the trench coat, the white shirt and so on. Apparently the book also features Ines’ drawings, home and lifestyle tips and her Paris address book.

Ines and Nine in action… werk that hair, girls!

Nine d’Urso de la Fressange

While we’re on the subject, Ines’ Chanel ss11 campaign has finally dropped. If you get your magnifying glass out, you might *just* be able to make out Ines on the right of the picture below, gazing at Baptiste. No? Hmm, you’ll just have to take my word for it then…

UPDATED 5th April: OK, weirdly, the UK version of the book doesn’t have the Ines pictures, only the Nine ones but the book is still a brilliant buy if you want a fashion handbook that is a guide to Ines-like French style.
[Parisian Chic images:Rdujour.com]

Disneyrollergirl 5 Comments Ad campaigns, Books, Styling

18 January, 2011

Whip your hair

There’s only one thing catching my eye in this Meisel-lensed Lanvin campaign and it ain’t the clothes. (Also, when did everyone start saying ‘lensed’?)

One, two, three and whip it!

Disneyrollergirl 8 Comments Ad campaigns

17 January, 2011

From the vaults: Who lives in a house like this?

Emmanuel Alt 1997, Elle Decoration [Double click to read]

Disneyrollergirl 2 Comments Magazines, Photography Elle Decoration, Emmanuelle Alt, interiors, magazines

16 January, 2011

Razzle dazzle

Business is looking up at Aquascutum, a snazzy London Mackintosh store opens this week and Burberry Prorsum’s AW11 menswear show has been a highlight of Pitti Uomo – yep, rainwear is certainly newsworthy right now. One of my favourite newbies on the rainwear scene is Christopher Raeburn, whose recycled parachutes have won him NEWGEN sponsorship at London Fashion Week. His ss11 collection, Razzle was inspired by ‘Razzle Dazzle‘ the vivid camouflage patterns used on WW1 war ships to confuse the enemy. I didn’t know anything about Razzle Dazzle until I started looking into this but during the war, battleships were painted in complex graphic patterns to confuse the eye and distance judgement of the enemy. The disruptive patterns would visually break up the shape and size of the ship so from a distance the enemy German U-boats would be unable to distinguish the bow from the stern. Sneaky! This is what they looked like:

And here’s a painting by Edward Wadsworth that illustrates the optical illusion effect beautifully:

And here’s a Jeff Koons Razzle Dazzle lookalike:

But back to Raeburn. His collection also gave his trad camouflage a twist with graphic polkadots in varying scales and a mix of pop-art brights with classic khaki. This men’s and womenswear collection (all made in Britain) is both beautiful and functional – those wee pouches are for storing the jackets when not in use. Buy them from Browns, Liberty, Harvey Nichols, 10 Corso Como and Barneys.