Dries vs Zombies

I had a dream about Dries van Noten last night. It was the zombie apocalypse - a group of us had dashed to a train station to avoid the undead horde and, whilst we were hiding in an empty freight, who should wander by but Mr van Noten himself. He was as cool as a cucumber, hands in pockets, whistling and paying no attention to the hungry zombies. In fact his mere presence seemed to drive them off. He was our savior.

"I got this"

This dream says more about what van Noten means to me than about van Noten himself. Apparently my subconscious thinks Dries van Noten is a hero akin to motherfukin Aragorn with powers that lie beyond, and are entirely due to, his design skills. And you know what? I'm going to consciously stand by my sub-conscious because Winter 2012 was awesome (you can tell I'm going to be a writer with this vocabulary).

It started with those blues. The navy. The cobalt. The powder. I think I can now visualise the colours of heaven. If I were a proper reviewer, for a proper publication, I would say something like "the striking blues that opened the show revealed supreme confidence from van Noten - here is a designer in his prime". But uh, I'm not so I'm going to have to leave that sort of snappy writing to the pros.

You can see in these first three looks, and it ran throughout the rest of the collection, that there was this beautiful light sense of movement and fluidity. It made me think of all those sassy ladies leaping and fighting in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers (the costume design in these movies is amazing). And this of course ties in with the main story for this collection - that van Noten visited the Victoria and Albert Museum and checked out Chinese, Korean and Japanese textiles. He loved them so much he reproduced them and printed 'em straight on the clothes! I hated the cityscape prints of last season, but these prints are just gorgeous. Everything is telling me that you should not cut up and block such complicated textiles, but van Noten has worked magic here. And that gold embroidery... just... ugh... I have no words.

And van Noten is well known for having a penchant for khaki and utilitarian elements which straddle that fine line between taste and tackiness and, as always, emerge gloriously triumphant. I've spent the last week scouring second-hand shops for fur-hooded jackets with some relation to these (as can be expected, no dice). And of course when van Noten does evening, he really goes for it. It's all gold and sleek and shiny and so formidable that I can't imagine anyone pulling any of it off except for perhaps Isabella Rossellini.

runway images from vogue.com

Paris A/W'12 - Balenciaga and Nina Ricci

Balenciaga and Nina Ricci were fun shows because they both had little stories behind them, and when each look came out you could imagine the woman who was wearing the clothes and how she had put them together.

Balenciaga's collection was a whole office of women, dressing according to their department and status. They ran the whole gamut from interns to CEOs, and boy do I hope that actual business women wear these clothes. Of course since it was Balenciaga it was all futuristic and shiny, even the model's hair and faces seemed to glow. It seems that the future for office workers is looking bright.
I felt that a lot of the ideas in this collection were a continuation of last season - unusual stiff, boxy silhouettes juxtaposed with looser fabrics and nipped waists; contrasting prints and textures; 80s leanings - and it's very satisfying watching a designer evolve in this way, slowly, with continuity. It's also a good sign that Nicolas Ghesquiere is hitting a creative stride, and I'm already excited to see where everything goes next season.

Far from being reflective and shiny, Nina Ricci was dark and gothic. But not in an overly serious way! Because far from Nina Ricci being about a femme fatale this season, it was about a girl dressing up as one. Sort of. I guess only if this girl's mother or grandmother was a femme fatale, because that's whose closets the hypothetical Ricci girl was raiding.

I loved how the clothes managed to reflect dress-ups - baggy and haphazard, sleeves dragging past hands and old fashioned lace and tweed - without ever actually looking ill-fitted or like costumes. All that loose fabric was incredibly seductive, like how a proper ("proper" from a middle-class Australasian perspective) Parisian woman should look, at any age from her 20s to 40s, running around and breaking mens' hearts. It's a shame that Carine Roitfeld is no longer at Paris Vogue, these are the kind of clothes I can see her working with exceptionally well for the magazine.

all images from vogue.com

Milan A/W'12 - Jil Sander

So this was Raf Simons last collection at Jil Sander. Which makes the whole thing pretty emotional to begin with, but factor in a serene set and soundtrack and clothes which carry a rare emotional weight and all of a sudden you have an unforgettable fashion moment. I got shivers looking at these clothes guys! Shivers! Which is usually reserved for in movies when there is slow motion and the perfect song and somebody is about to die or something.

Every critic has already written about them more eloquently than me, but god the poetry of those clutched coats. Elegance, poise, and vulnerability. I do wonder if it was a gesture of Simons' reflecting his current state of mind. That is probably a complete projection of my own, but that theory seems too wonderfully poignant to ignore. Or sentimental of course. There was also something too perfectly smooth about the pink coats. I just want to reach into my computer screen and touch them! They make me think of the smooth, delicious looking food you get in clay-mation. Anyone watch Pingu? As a little kid I wanted to eat those cakes so bad. So I guess what you can take from this is that I want to eat these coats.

A lovely story was created for the collection, a day in the life of a women. She spends the morning with her lover, takes the children to school, spending the day at home. Some suggested it was about the day in the life of a relationship, but something that Simons wrote in a 'Nostalgia' article for US Vogue makes me think that it was more about the individual than about the couple. While talking about his last three collections, the 'couture trilogy', he said:

"The last three collections have also been about the care and attention with which women put themselves together in that era [1950s]; an idea of prefeminist empowerment derived from that. They've been about women, and what women do, and what they do when they are with other women, the lives they have when you remove them from the culture of men. I talk a lot about this with my design team. What does a woman do all day, from waking up, her career, the husband, the kids, the moments when she takes time for herself?"

And while he was talking about previous collections, this sounds a lot like the story he constructed for this collection, and the ideas it explores. And of course around the time that this Vogue article was written, he must have been designing this season.

With all the sweetness there was never anything predictable about the collection, and the series of black looks at the end was a nice twist. Tim Blanks at style.com wrote wonderfully about the chaos it implied, the chaos that is unavoidable in even the perfect day. In particular he mentioned the black shine that peeked out of Julia Nobis' dress, and what a fantastic visual metaphor it was. And this is one reason that I love fashion criticism so much; if you get the right critic, clothes can be interpreted as intelligently, and as much can be read into it, as a painting.

Jil Sander has always been about tailoring, line and shape, and that those elements be conveyed as minimally and cleanly as possible. Which creates a strong identity for the label, but it also creates a lot of restrictions creatively. In the same article for Vogue, Simons said something about Jil Sander that I felt was very revealing: "It's a brand that can expand only when it goes out of its own borders, which were very strict and limited". What was so magnificent about Raf Simons at Jil Sander is that he pushed the label beyond the white shirt into unexplored creative realms with new colours, shapes and feminine identities - all that without ever compromising the integrity of the label. I'm sad he's gone, and I hope we see him again in womenswear as soon as possible.

And with that I leave you with this picture that holds a lot of the elegance that embodied Simons' designs.

all images from vogue.com

London A/W'12 - Pringle of Scotland

Turns out Pringle of Scotland was the happy surprise of London fashion week! I've always like the idea of Pringle of Scotland - Scotland (duh), moors, moodniess, Tilda Swinton, argyle - but anyone can admit that all that potential has been continually wasted with yawn-inducing ready-to-wear collections (I'm looking at you Clare Waight-Keller, you and Chloe deserve each other). So I was pretty interested in last season's first collection from ex-Balenciaga designer Alistair Carr. That show was pretty meh to be honest, but he has more than made up for it with this outing.

Carr seems to have balanced out his Balenciaga-esque tendencies (asymmetry, unexpected prints, geometric leanings) with the personality and more formal elements required for Pringle. The collection seems very Scottish to me, but yes, I will admit that my only qualifying factor is whether I can imagine Tilda Swinton wearing it. A little bleakness doesn't hurt the Scottish-ness either, and those monochrome looks towards the end of the show definitely had a bleak air about them.



But of course Pringle is all about knitwear isn't it? This is how I imagine Carr thought up how to approach the staples this season: (voice over in head) "Knitwear knitwear knitwear... so cardigans... jumpers... wool... cardigans... who wears cardigans... 90s... fluffy... cardigans... KURT COBAIN!"

So in my opinion Carr has slyly looked to the 90s and what was the result? We get ribbed wool, fluffiness, turtlenecks, twinsets and icy grey/blue shirts. I guess you could call that beige twin set ironic, but in fashion the word irony is usually associated with ugliness and there was no ugliness here, just 100% Drew Barrymore awesomeness. I like a designer who infiltrates his influences throughout a collection. I also like a designer who can use such a tired trend and keep the clothes from looking like 90s-themed house party costumes.

The colour palette of the show is noteworthy, too. Apparently Carr was inspired by Ettore Sottsass and other Post-Modern artists, which explains how we ended up with beige, camel, baby pink, baby blue, rust red, burnt orange, navy, white and more and yet it all working perfectly. Also brought to mind was the navy, starchy simplicity of Margaret Howell. Which is nice - maybe a new, decidedly British aesthetic is beginning to form.

The absolute last thing that the collection made me think of is Charlotte Gainsbourg in that one movie with Johnny Depp where they drool at each other over Creep (man two Radiohead references in a week). She just looks so good leaving that record store. And nice Youtube screencaps right?

To finish off, there were also very cool shoes. I would definitely like to stride purposefully around in what looked like less dainty versions of those Giambattista Valli pseudo-platforms. And finally tell me, what is more edgy and thus, more Scottish, than having tin cans on your heels. 

Runway images from vogue.com

Other from depths of internet

Thoughts on Calvin Klein

I was driving around town about a month ago and kept seeing those Girl with a Dragon Tattoo posters everywhere, and I realised that this was one pop culture thing that had completely passed me by. I had had absolutely no interest in it before, but the thought that I knew nothing about something that millions loved and even critics adored, well that I couldn't stand. So to Wikipedia and Youtube I went. I love me a good trailer, I think they are an art forum unto themselves and I wish there was an Oscars for trailers because damn the trailer for this movie was GOOD. Right up there with the trailer for The Social Network with the acapella version of Radiohead's Creep. I think the key is definitely the song choice, I remember the first Wall-E trai- woah ok I'm getting way off topic. To make up for lost time: Francisco Costa went all Lisbeth Salander for Calvin Klein and it was all dark and cool except for the orange which totally sucked.

The dim lighting for the show was perfect because it enhanced the textured graininess of the charcoal wools, and the effect is especially enhanced when reproduced in photographs. The collection was also best when Costa experimented with the materials' textures - panelling sheer black and dark grey wool was fantastic, especially when paired with a salt-and-pepper knitted woolen sweater.

And these are the dresses I want to see on Sunday.

All images from vogue.com

New York A/W'12 - Proenza Schouler

For Winter 2012 Proenza Schouler were influenced by samurai. SAMURAI. This is immensely awesome. To be more accurate Jack and Lazaro looked not just at samurai but also martial arts and more general elements of eastern dress. All a recipe for a show full of western condescension and cultural appropriations, but by boiling down these influences to the notion of protection, any cringe inducing, Lagerfeld-esque cliches were avoided and instead we were presented with a thing of beauty.
The idea of protection was presented at first through swaths of white cotton wrapping models' bodies, asymmetric coats and low-slung pants bringing to mind karate and judo. Comments were made on the unusual choice of cotton for a winter collection, but right now the thought of layer upon layer of the stuff seems very comforting. And it is with this protection theme that the collection worked right the way through to riffs on samurai armor (!!!).

Although the collection may have been about protection, after last season's tailored ladies Hernandez and McCollough wanted to relax everything, drop waists and loosen. You can see this in the roomy cotton shirts and pants as well as wrapped miniskirts which, when the models walked, flicked out, their sharp edges exaggerated. And so as well as everything being wonderfully slouchy, there were elements that were totally stiff and angular. Hal Rubenstein (who I admit I had to google after finding this quote) said "It's about movement, it's not about the form", which for me hits the nail on the head. The show felt wonderfully complex because not only was this movement loose and slouchy but stiff and angular too. To see what I mean you will have to watch a video of the show.

In the skirts you can see the forming of samurai-style wrapping, but Jack and Lazaro went all-out samurai for other ensembles. Wearable, no, kickass, yes.

Proenza Schouler always makes sure to include interesting craft elements, and Bhutanese basket-weaving was the starting point for this collection. Woven leather was used on everything except pants, it seems. For skirts, jackets and tops, thick and thin strips of died leather were used to create an amazing assortment of patterns. The texture of the weave varied, and for coats the weave was much finer - were it not for close ups I wouldn't have been able to tell that the black and red coat was woven leather at all.

While they claimed they didn't want this collection to be about Asia, obviously it's pretty hard to ignore the total proliferation of Asian influences. However they've extended the influences enough and, in most cases, interpreted them subtly enough to avoid this being "Proenza Schouler's Asian Collection". And with the final brocade looks (brocades they developed themselves!) they saved themselves from anything too close to appropriation by filtering everything through a New York view of Asia. And since these looks reminded me of the late 90s/early 2000s cheongsam dress trend, I'd say they did that well.

Runway images from vogue.com

Backstage shots from Self Service

Looking Good Ladies

My favourite looks from New York on what just happened to be some of my favourite women in fashion.

Top L-R: Arizona Muse; Shala Monroque; Emily Baker 

Bottom L-R: Oroma Elewa; Tavi Gevinson; Jenna Sauers

Even though New York fashion week is officially over, I've still got posts on Proenza Schouler, Calvin Klein and Rodarte to come. Rodarte is causing some serious conflict within me guys, serious conflict.

Tavi's photo from her blog

Oroma's photo from The Sartorialist

All other photos Victoria Adamson at The Cut 

Victoria and Cynthia

Victoria Beckham and Cynthia Rowley both showed excellent collections which were beautiful and wearable and, in their own ways, seemed to embody what is good and great about New York fashion. Ultimately it's an attitude thing, more laid-back than Paris, less wacky than London and, well, not Italian.

Victoria
You may have raised an eyebrow when I included Victoria Beckham with 'laid-back', but for all the collared necks, nipped waists and laser sharp necklines, there was something practical about the whole collection. Which is also a key difference between New York and all the other cities! When I look at a NY collection, more often than not I actually think about wearing the clothes. I think Beckham would be pleased with that because she is oft quoted saying she wants to wear all of her clothes herself.
As for the clothes themselves, Beckham cutely drew inspiration from her man and her children's football uniforms. Although she referenced them quite literally with necks and short sleeves all collared up, and with horizontal stripes, there was nothing boring about the interpretation. The stripes, placed sparingly and carefully were very flattering, and while they exaggerated the models' tiny waists too much, on the average woman this would be a welcome detail. The contrasting collars were oh-so-crisp, and talking about crispness, how about those v-necks! As Rachel Zoe would say, I die.

As always the coats were great, and the short, flippy skirt looks were a nice nod to a younger audience and have made me want to buy biker boots - in fact the shoes and socks have to be mentioned because they were unexpected and completely perfect. They remind me of Marc Jacobs' A/W'06, but like they have grown up and become more sophisticated. Rounding it all off the hair and makeup was fantastic - people need to start realising just how practical tucking your hair behind your ears is (take that Julia Roberts).
Many critics noted that she had no evening looks which was a shame because of the Oscars coming up, and while I guess having a dress at the Oscars is a good business move I feel like, whatever, because this collection served its purpose well.

Cynthia
With Cynthia Rowley, for the first time in a while I started calculating when these clothes would hit stores and for how long would I need to save for that coat etc. etc. Which in a completely non-intellectual way means the show was a success! If you want something deeper we can go into inspiration from mechanics overalls but who needs that when all you want are sweater embellishments. And curly hair.

Victoria Beckham images from vogue.com

Cynthia Rowley images from style.com