When you do the rounds of press days in April and October, you get a very clear sense of the trends that are going to push through for the season. The designers have done their bit, the stores have bought the commercial sellers, and then the PRs do their own edit to show the press. As an editor, if you can’t spot the winners by then, you need to try harder. (more…)
Stretchy skinny jeans are out and old school boy-cut Levi’s 501s are back in a big way, if my Pinterest feed is anything to go by. I wear my 501s with as few rips as possible and I get them custom hemmed at the Levi’s store to sit just on the ankle bone. Spring feels like the right time to switch my heavy-soled Church’s lace ups for my balletic Repettos with gamine ankle ties. On top I’m thinking puff sleeved Victorian blouses or something similar from MIH jeans, Chloe or Margaret Howell.
Repettos are best worn sans socks, but then there are the many options of fancy flats cropping up everywhere which look great with fine gauge Falke socks or fluffy cashmere equivalents. My favourites are pancake flat with a pointy toe and an ankle strap or T-bar.
Miu Miu, Tabitha Simmons and Bionda Castana are on my fantasy wish list, the more bejewelled the better.
WORDS AND IMAGE: Navaz Batliwalla/Disneyrollergirl
So best dressed from last night’s Met Gala? Gotta be Tabitha Simmons in Dolce & Gabbana and Hamish Bowles and his outstanding cape-work, no? Plus a shoutout is in order for Hamish Bowles’ top notch pap work on Instagram…
“Heels are coming down,” said my tour guide, Matches buying director Bridget Cosgrave as she held aloft a pair of Tabitha Simmons kitten heels. And these really were kitten heels, not the 7cm ‘higher kitten heels’ I’d been reading about in Harper’s Bazaar earlier that morning. Cosgrave told me they have been feeling it for a while and now designers like Marc Jacobs and Rupert Sanderson are fully backing it. Which isn’t to say long, thin heels have had their day by any stretch. There were plenty of plat-heels still on show, in particular a Burberry hiker-stiletto and Charlotte Olympia’s in-demand cocktail heels. But alongside were all manner of more managable heels – wedges, brogues and a super-wearable shearling-lined Burberry biker.
Tabitha Simmons
Burberry
A good in-between is the Celine boot with tall, stack heels – classic but sexy. Stealth sexy if you will…
Away from shoes, Bridget enthused about Richard Nicoll. His T dress is a top seller at Matches (“it has a stealth following”) and it’s not hard to see why. It’s a loose, easy shape that suits all silhouettes, but its fluidity offers a dressiness that makes it versatile for work or evenings.
Knitwear news: Lutz & Patmos are celebrating their 10th anniversary with a greatest hits collection. Matches will be selling all the Lutz & Patmos collaborations – Sofia Coppola’s dress, Christy Turlington’s poncho and Carine Roitfeld’s laddered cashmere sweater.
Matches’ vintage Chanel bags sold so well for SS10 that they are buying more for AW10. And they have added a selection of vintage jewels to the offer too.
Bridget also drew my attention to a new luxe label to Matches. Raoul is from Singapore and it has to be said, they make a pretty good handbag. The balance of clean lines with luxury hardwear is right on the money. Style.com have just written about them here.
Finally, coats. I couldn’t tear myself away from Stella McCartney’s strict masculine coat (below) but the real winner fair and square in the outerwear stakes is the shearling-lined aviator jacket (but you knew that already). Second to that, like it or not, is fur. As Bridget puts it succinctly, “fur demand is huge”.
