THE DRG STYLE INDEX: SAINT LAURENT, DKNY, MAC, KAREN MILLEN
Here’s the latest weekly DRG STYLE INDEX ranking, a round-up of the brands currently buzzing on my radar…
1. TEAM HEDI
I’ve read two articles about Hedi Slimane this week. One is a very long interview by Dirk Standen on Yahoo Style, and the other is a critique by Alex Fury in The Independent. Both are very good but I had to disagree with Fury’s negative assessment of Slimane at Saint Laurent. If you can bear to wade through the lengthy Yahoo piece, it reveals a lot of insights into Slimane’s creative strategy at Saint Laurent and his approach to the media and criticism. Stick with it and it explains the hoo-ha over the change in name from YSL to Saint Laurent as well as his obsession with the skinny-youth silhouette.
2. DKNY 2.0
It’s always interesting when a new designer arrives at a house. This week I picked up on some new DKNY advertising imagery – nostalgic black and white photography by Peter Lindbergh – as introduced by new creative directors Maxwell Osborne and Dao Yi Chow. Then DKNY deleted all its tweets – no more @DKNYPrGirl. What can we expect next?
3. AALIYAH FOR MAC?
Can the power of a viral online petition influence MAC? Missy Elliot and Monie Love are two of the hip-hop greats adding their influence to a campaign to get MAC to create a posthumous collaboration with Aaliyah. I can actually see this happening. MAC loves an authentic collab and Aaliyah was a genuine MAC fan (and, helpfully, gorgeous to boot). Plus, who hasn’t been revisiting their 90s brick red and ‘MAC Spice’ nude lip colours recently? Watch this space…
4. KAREN MILLEN TARGETS COOL KIDS
Shooting ‘creative influencers’ in fashion campaigns is nothing new but Karen Millen has done a good job with this one. Its AW15 campaign features Quentin Jones, Jamie Bochert and Rosie Lowe in an apartment, shot by Yelena Yemchuk. I think the magic ingredient here might be stylist Cathy Kasterine, one of my favourite ‘in the shadows’ stylists whose work is immediately recognisable (she excels at a ‘beautiful reality’ aesthetic). While I’m not 100% sure any of these women would actually wear Karen Millen, the pictures do well to make it look believable in a bid to target a cooler customer. (I would definitely buy that massive amber ring…)
WORDS: Navaz Batliwalla/Disneyrollergirl