No sooner have the crumbs been swept from the Barbie cupcakes than another kitsch kiddy fave is being celebrated with a predicatable celeb-slash-fashion line-up. The latest victim is my pal, poor old Mickey whose ears have been defaced by the usual media whores designers of the Giles, Luella, Henry Holland variety. Said customised ears are being auctioned for charity on May 4th if anyone’s interested. My advice? Customise your own and put some coins in a bucket.
The Diesel PR machine is in overdrive and news is coming in thick and fast about their latest recession-busting tactics to get us into their stores and spend-spend-spending. Money tighter than your post-Easter jeans waistband? Fret not. This Friday is Black Friday when Diesel’s ‘black money’ will be hidden in all manner of random places to be discovered and redeemed against merchandise in-store all weekend long. If this ruse is half as successful as Diesel’s last publicity coup, we can safely say that the stores will be cleaned out. Keep your eyes peeled, the notes could be anywhere.
It’s really weird, scrolling back through the Sartorialist website, to see how fashion is changing before our very eyes. Just going back through the most recent archives, I’ve noticed the extreme shoulder trend properly taking off. At the moment, my gut feeling is, ‘I’ll never wear that’, but I know from experience that give it a few months weeks and those sentiments are soon forgotten. Seriously, who would have predicted a few years ago that five inch hooker-heels would now be considered ‘normal’ in fashion terms? Or wet-look leggings, or severely tailored dresses?
I know Bill Cunningham has been taking street fashion pics for a whole lot longer that Scott Schuman but in the digital age, street style blogs give us the power to track trends almost in slow motion. I think this is such a valuable resource in terms of charting fashion history. In ten years time we can just click on ‘April 2009’ on the Sart blog to see in a heartbeat what fashion-forward types were wearing at the end of the noughties.
Interestingly, Schuman and the others tend to focus on portraying those who stand out as opposed to the ‘followers’. As we know, these early-adopters are in the minority. I wonder if there are blogs that chart mainstream fashion and pinpoint what more middle-of-the-road (old, young, rich, poor) people are wearing? This would be equally fascinating as the changes would be more subtle and take longer to track. Even those people who claim not to be ‘into fashion’ have to make a decision about what to wear. How do they decide whether to wear skirts or trousers or have their hair long or short? When people dismiss fashion as fluffy and superficial, they forget how important our fashion choices are as a barometer of our times. I’m thinking about when I look at late-seventies-early-eighties photos of post-punks – Debbie Harry, London club kids, new romantics – and compare them to how ‘ordinary people’ looked. Poles apart, yet both have value in terms of what people were wearing and how they chose to look. As much as I enjoy browsing through street style blogs from a casual, eye-candy point of view, I think their importance is going to be more far-reaching than any of us realise.
Damn and blast this blog! However much I try to just whizz round a press day or launch, I can’t help putting my reporter’s hat on and getting bogged down in the details. So what have I discovered on my travels this week? Ooh, plenty.
Last night’s PPQ Jackdaw pop-up shop opening was a right squeeze, so compact are the shop’s proportions. Thankfully, I didn’t get an eyeful of Pixie Geldof and The Mighty Boosh getting off with each other but I did clock these rather special Hannah Bays collages.
The Dunhill menswear press day was amazing, as is the building it was housed in. I’d recommend anyone interested in fashion or design to have a nose – don’t be intimidated! Kim Jones is doing brilliant work in his role as, er, head honcho or whatever his proper title is. He has really studied the archives and reinterpreted the brand for today’s customer (oh dear, I sound like a PR!). It seems that menswear is much more concerned with functionality than womenswear and I love knowing about all the details and clever ideas that are incorporated into a garment. There is even a watch in the shape of a key that hangs on a pendant and – get this – the key can be cut so it actually fits your keyhole. Superb! I also found out that Jones spent time growing up in Africa and is a big Peter Beard fan, well I thought it was interesting… Particularly appealing to me were the mens scarves, lots of them in cashmere, silk and cotton, all lovely.
Miu Miu was a right old fur-fest, as were all the Italian collections. Miu Miu even has fur shoes for heaven’s sake!
FYI: Leith Clark swooned over these…
On my way to Daks in Covent Garden (press gift of the week – a giant Jo Malone candle), I passed this perplexing sign in the window of what was until recently the Zavvi store.
Now Hyper Hyper used to be an iconic 1990s fashion emporium of the Dover Street Market type, stocking different underground designers of its day. Is someone trying to resurrect it at the crummy end of Oxford Street? Please God no.
Six months ago I discovered the jewellery of Sabrina Dehoff and this week I saw her new collection. Love the simplicity of this scarf-necklace. Such a straightforward idea, you can slip the silk out and wear it as a scarf on its own. This is the kind of functionality I like and find so rare in womenswear, I wonder why that is?
In the same showroom I was shown these mens boater-loafers (my description – should I copyright it?) by Pointer. What a totally clever-clogs idea!
Mini Market is a newish Swedish label with a nice line in little black dresses (among other things). I love the just-classic-enough style of this velvet one with its sticky-outy hips and button-detail sleeves.
Finally, you saw it hear first…the return of the poncho. Particularly psychedelic ones. Hmm, not sure if I like this or not…any takers?
Missoni
Ashish
HAPPY EASTER!
