“…And next to me I have a July 1981 Cosmopolitan (with Paula Yates on the cover) which has a 10 page fashion spread by Caroline Baker, shot in Antigua and almost all exclusively using Vivienne Westwood’s World’s End collection (with a bit of Laura Ashley, Laurence Corner and old-style Mulberry thrown in). Photography is by Neil Kirk, hair Trevor Sorbie (ringlets and rags a plenty) and makeup by Yvonne Gold*.” This appeared in an email from my PR buddy Rossana, so of course I insisted she send me the pictures. She duly Blackberryed them over to me, cover included.
If you don’t know who Caroline Baker is then here’s some background… As well as being among the first of the super-stylists, she also had a stint working for Vivienne Westwood, hence the abundance of squiggle-print. And look! World’s End T-shirts were £16 in 1981! Plus I have to laugh at the ‘ribbons from John Lewis’ credit. Caroline loves a bit of customising and on your head be it if you forget to pack her beloved bag-o-ribbons for a shoot… Don’t miss the cover. Isn’t this brilliant? I believe there is still a wall of framed Cosmo covers in the Soho offices to this day…
I’m absolutely loving Jak & Jil’s ‘My Favourite Things’ post of Anna Dello Russo’s palatial Milan apartments (yes, plural). Not just for the ogle factor of gasping at the Vogue Nippon fashion-director-at-large’s extensive accessory archive (can I just say monogrammed croc case?) but for taking street-style photography to the next level.
As blogging becomes more popular, a savvy blogger needs to think about setting themselves apart from the rest. Jak & Jil’s Tommy Ton and Garance Doré have both used their influential positions to engage with the fashion-fabulous and get even closer access to them. Tommy gets even more detail-focussed than Todd Selby in ‘at-home’ shoots with his stylist subjects while Garance said recently in this Interview magazine article, ‘I’ve kind of had it with street photography. At first, it was great to see fashion on someone going to work, but now there are so many pictures like that that the magic has been lost a bit. I want to take pictures that tell more of a story.’
I can’t wait to see where others go with the medium…
Back in November, following a month of press days, I posted this story on Equipment, the classic shirt line originated by Christian ‘partner of Carine’ Roitfeld. I had spotted the relaunched line during my rounds and thought nothing of sharing the few pictures I had taken. Unbeknown to me, my story was linked via a few different blogs including Fashionologie.
A couple of weeks later, the PR emailed me to say that my post had caused her problems as the Equipment relaunch story had been promised as an exclusive to a major international publication in March. I could have been uncooperative but the PR was so nice and apologetic that I was happy to comply and took the post down. Yesterday, I bought March US Vogue and there was the story. Whoops, sorry Anna!
Now the story is ‘out there’ I have been given the green light to put the post back up. The update is that when Carine Roitfeld took the Paris Vogue job, Christian Roitfeld decided to step down from Equipment. But fast forward a few years and his good friend Serge Azria has decided to relaunch it. Serge (brother of Max) also owns Current/Elliot and JOIE so has excellent credentials. Restoin remains connected to the brand which is jolly handy considering he still has all 3,500 original Equipment designs in his archive. According to Vogue, the ‘just shirts’ essence of the brand will stay the same but there are plans for more directional things too.
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