Tube Socks and Dropped Shoulders

I'm feeling Thistle Brown and Prada vibes at Céline  It's like that dress is a giant tube sock - and I'm calling it, 2014 is the year of the tube sock it's our year man. 
And I promise my posts are going to get bigger once my essays have been handed in. It's a slow and painful process, right now I am literally writing about boredom. Why do I do this to myself?

runway images from style.com

Thistle Brown's from his tumblr

I love you, J.W. Anderson

Dear Jonathan Anderson,

You ignite the fire of my life.

Your fan forever,
                      Lois xx


So, a quick recap to remind y'all of how fantastic last season J.W. Anderson was, via the ugh amazing campaign:

And I gotta tell you, I was nervous heading to style.com yesterday morning to check out the new show ~something about lightning not striking the same spot twice~ But it turns out I needn't have worried, because for the entire show (or in other words, for the entire slideshow) I was all be still my beating heart. It was a magical, magical collection. It was that perfect, usually elusive marriage of fantasy and form.

It reminded me of John Galliano's graduate collection because of the similar calls to romantic peasantry via Vermeer vibes. But Anderson manages to be romantic and somewhat clinical and conceptual at the same time. How can romanticism and the experimental and the clinical merge? I have no idea but Anderson achieves it. Oh yeah, and even though these peasant silhouettes are practically a cliche now, Anderson manages to reimagine their construction to make them to feel new again.

Even when he moved in less neu-peasantry directions and into the realm of colour, it was still cohesive. In recent Reddit AMA fashion writer Robin Givhan said "when a designer puts on a show, they're essentially picking up a microphone: what did they say? Was it coherent or was it a jumble?" which is a wonderful way to consider and assess a collection as a whole, single statement. Which is what it is! Or at least it is when the designer elevates it more in the direction of art rather commercial (which has its place too). But to bring it back to J.W. Anderson, the collection's range felt broad but still absolutely cohesive. And, I will argue, equal parts wearable and absolutely not.

Those shiny skirts are going to fly off the shelves! (The trompe l'oeil camisoles not so much) And I actually want to swan around day to day in this blue look. But I just wanna say thanks Jonathan. Thank you so much for the beauty you bring to my world.

images from vogue.com

I WANNA FEEL HAPPY TODAY OK

If it's raining where you are like it is here, you need a pick-me-up. So here is the happiest Marc Jacobs collection, with three (THREE!) iterations of Beethoven's Fifth disco-fied, involving man-of-the-moment Robin Thicke when he was less sweaty, and Kanye. You're welcome!

Runway to Page

The looks in this editorial are way better here than they even were on the runway. This editorial should be unremarkable but man I love it. What is it about it? Maybe it's the stylist. I looked up the lady responsible, Catherine Newell-Hanson and boy does she kill it on the regular. She does do that annoying thing of reproducing entire looks from a show, but there is magic in the air here so I don't mind. 

images from Fashion Gone Rogue and vogue.com

Designers who are Giving me a Headache

Aaaaaargh so I haven't had access to mine own computer for the last little while, which means I haven't been posting because my sister's laptop doesn't have photoshop and you wouldn't believe how much low level photoshop I use in all of my posts. So I've browsed through all my drafts and chosen the one which will be easiest to do without the ol 'shop. Basically, Raf Simons and Hedi Slimane are giving me a real headache at the moment.

Firstly, Slimane. There are so many reasons I shouldn't like Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent, but god his art direction cannot be denied! It trumps any short-comings in other areas, such as design and attitude. Popping Cara in front of that window, bringing back the skinny musician male bob, accompanying it with shoegazey Interpol nostalgia, it makes me understand the vision that is Saint Laurent Ready-to-Wear 2013. I'm feeling that neo-neo-nineties now instead of looking on incredulously. He's wily and cleaver, and because of it (and despite it) he's starting to grow on me.

And then Amanda Seyfried, who has gone kinda badass since she's been promoting Lovelace (which I am super psyched for because that one clip on Youtube is awesome) is wearing the starry cardigan in Elle and she looks an absolute dream. All thanks to Hedi.

And then there is Simons who I have always adored but who is also responsible for all of the half 'n' half pants at the moment. I am trying really hard to be supportive of Simons because it is undeniable that he is basically fashion's future. That is a cliche but I mean it: he is the future. And currently he is getting that future sorted, but gosh with Spring 2013 Couture he's making it very hard for me to believe in him. Yes you are freeing up couture but does it need to be so uncomfortable looking? I do believe that he's on his way to achieving his aims. But I don't have to like every step of the process.

Anyway, the two of them are keeping me very confused. I guess what one should probably take from this is that the world isn't black and white, but uh, grey. The last time I learnt that lesson (man this one's really not sticking with me) was from reading the last book in A Series of Unfortunate Events. If, like me, you stopped being a pre-teen, tween, teenager and "young adult" in the time between Lemony Snicket writing the first and last book then you probably never reached the end. I think I petered out around 10 or 11. But you should read those remaining books! I sure am glad that last year I got back on that horse again because I learnt a very good lesson about how the world is not divided into good and bad, but rather good shaded with bad and bad shaded with good. If only I had remembered that, and I could have applied it to Hedi (bad shaded with good) and Raf (good shaded with really, really bad).

Fall Fur Frenzy

The fur this season was nuts. It was pink! It was blue! It was huge! It was cropped! It was wider than it was tall! It was real! It was fake! It was all this and much more. Fur has emerged gloriously into my consciousness, shedding its past life as the coat material of choice for both oligarchs and London girls with messy hair and a fervent nostalgia. Even though I am a meat eater and leather wearer, I have always, subconciously, without thinking about it too much, believed fur wearing to be a rather immoral activity, leaning towards PETA rather than Anna in these matters. But now that the proliferation of fur on the runway has brought the subject to the fore I'm thinking the matter through, and I've come to the conclusion that it is ridiculous that I eat meat/wear leather etc when I don't do fur. But instead of deciding to give up animal related products, I am going to greet another one with open arms (except for those poor animals which are killed just for their fur. I am not sure which ones these are, and which of these are endangered, but I endeavor to make sure any fur on my back is not it (that is if I ever have enough disposal income to actually buy a fur coat, which won't happen anytime soon)).

all images from vogue.com

Take me Back to '06

Guys, Louis Vuitton this season reminded me what it was like to be 14 again and totally excited about, totally falling in love with fashion for the first time. Looking at the show I was back in February 2006; youtube was brand new and my 14-year-old self was completely transfixed by Marc Jacob's Fall 2006 show video. I'd never looked at a whole collection before and the knitted mushroom hats, the plaid, the strange layering and silhouettes and the mixes of flannel and sequins were all both completely new and utterly intoxicating. There was a theatrical element to that collection, the clothes dealt more with fantasy than reality perhaps (completely unlike the clothes populating my second-to-last post), and rather than simply existing unto themselves, everything was a signifiier for something else. I saw grunge in the plaid (obviously) and that particular early 00s feminist spirit in those sequins. These deeper elements have always gotten me most excited about fashion, despite striving to be more aloof and sophisticated at times - although at these moments as consolation I tell myself that these are the sorts of collections that Grace Coddington loves too.

Nothing has been as exciting as that Marc Jacob's collection in a long time. But MJ has done it again, and Louis Vuitton was super exhilirating. Like stage clothes but not, they conjure up images of so much. If you've never seen Belle de Jour before, if you know nothing about femme fatales and Catharine Deneuve and even, I don't know, France and French ladies, and nothing about simultaneously empowering and self-objectifying sexuality, then I believe you could understand it all just by watching this collection. Or if we were to avoid exaggeration, you could at least begin to understand all of these things in that hard-to-pin-down aesthetic and vibey way.

In fact I'm going to argue that Jacobs was even more successful than Prada at giving us not just clothes but a story and a plot. Every reviewer for Prada went on about the set and show atmosphere, which leads me to think that perhaps it was the whole experience that was more successful than the collection itself, and it was the experience that intoxicated those reviewers present. Because Prada's clothes were not nearly as evocative and in tune with the overall mood as these.

But gosh the collection requires multiple viewings, if only to nut around how Jacobs has covered the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s and managed to make it so specifically cohesive. Speaking of the 70s, I love the conversations that inevitably occur between Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton each season. In fact I didn't click with MJ until I saw LV. I wasn't feeling that collection at all, and now some of the looks are my favourite of the season. Dance and sequins and Minnelli and fur and v-necks, of course!

But back to Louis V., this is the kind of collection that makes me want fashion to slow down. As sure as night follows day come September, Spring 2014 will show, and all attention will turn to what Jacobs does next. Winter 2013 will be old news. But I don't want it to be old news! I want magazines to be writing about it and photographing it for years to come! I want people to stew and find new ways to interpret the marabou trimmed coats and floor-skimming slips! Plz can it just be forever?

You were thinking this was going to be a Jacobs-exclusive post weren't you? Ha! I'm going to throw in some Marni seemingly last minute to stir things up a bit. Because there were some wonderful similarities between Marni and Louis V. You may remember that last season Marni had a transformation of sorts. Critics liked to say that the house had "grown up" but I didn't believe that becoming more restrained and comparatively minimal constitutes growing up, and besides, I liked the old Marni better. Or so I thought! I can now stop complaining about Marni's new look (to deaf ears, mind you), because boy was Winter 2013 wonderful. A lot of what I said about Louis Vuitton applies here. Although because this is Milan, not Paris or New York, the moodiness is a touch darker, and a touch more earnest.

Folk tales and bears in the woods and all that. Highlights including massive fur stoles dyed in a moody rainbow of colours, topped off by dripping-blood lips and sensible sandals.

Oh, and by the way, this is my 100th post! Happy blog day! Or something. To celebrate, a fitting celebratory image.

Form v Narrative

Like other art forms, film or literature or comics, fashion is a balance of both form and narrative. Obviously fashion adds function to the mix (we wear this stuff right?), but we'll ignore that element for the time being. I've already discussed on this blog how Japonisme is so hot right now, but how designers utilize this influence varies wildly, and can have a lot to do with whether the story or the form is the driving factor. Prada Spring 2013 was about the woman, somewhat of an enigma as usual, a feminist, and a Murakami heroine in spirit whose personalities were expounded on in the campaign video (which I am still watching because I am sure I am still missing something). On the other hand we have The Row, which often looks to Japan, but the Winter 2013 collection was restricted to exploring the formal properties of Japanese dress, reconstructed for the Upper East Side sensibility.



In fact The Row weren't the only ones feelin' form, Winter 2013 was a veritable feast of collections which celebrated only that which could be seen. The clothes existed on purely physical, touchable and gazeable terms, and how gloriously they did. And for a city that, in general, usually bores me, Milan did exceptionally well.

How often does MaxMara grab any critic's attention? But this season they were a mega player. The genius of MaxMara lay in the pure pleasure of browns and black and gold mixed together, of layers upon layers of fur and satin and what appeared to be luxurious polar fleece. All high concepts were absent, background stories replaced with absolute mountains of fabric draped off the body. To look through the slide show of the MaxMara collection is to feel satisfied, gratified. I can only imagine what it would have been like to see the clothes in person.

Then we had the Giambattista Valli and Francesco Scognamiglio collections which were explorations into white, fur, and white fur. I mean this stuff is the opposite of Prada, and Louis Vuitton, in the best way possible.

But if one had to pick a champion of the gloriously constructed, the absolutely straightforward, the resolutely beautiful, Hermes was it. This is a bold claim, but I'm willing to back it up.

Exhibit A: a perfect navy suit was shown not once, but six times. Here are three. When was the last time I saw a pant suit executed perfectly? I cannot remember. Maybe it was with Yves Saint Laurent, but I was not  alive then.

Exhibit B: note the subtly exact use of colour. No shade of brown or browny green was shown twice, yet as a whole the collection's palette was wonderfully coherent. Side Note: even the navy suits didn't all use the same shade of navy.

Exhibit C: a part from the piping, and perfect drape, what unites these looks is that I sigh when I see them. Can I look at them forever? For once the real life clothes are as elegant as their sketches.

all images from vogue.com

A Great Collection

J.W. Anderson really moved me this season. And I've had to wait a while to review the collection because it blew me away in a way I didn't understand at all. Since February I've been thinking about it every couple of days, and trying to figure out what makes it a great collection. And I really do mean great! I'm getting the same feelings I had gazing upon Christopher Kane S/S12 or Prada S/S11.

So why was J.W. Anderson so wonderful this season? Perhaps it is to do with that fact it was new in the subtlest and most fundamental sense. It did not feel new because, say, orientalism hasn't been around in a while or it rehashed minimalism or because its influences had not been cited before. It was like a seismic shift - there may not have been an earthquake but you're definitely not standing in the same spot on earth as you were a day ago.

The "newness" could lie in the way that Anderson created fresh forms. Sarah Mower reported that Anderson and his stylist "had been working on a lot of abstract techniques with fabric in the studio on Shacklewell Lane, guided only by whether the results seemed genuinely new to their eyes". Here the necklines creep up, pant legs hang as if wet, skirt hems transform into mere decorative elements, and everywhere lines of fabric were flapping and billowing in unexpected places. While explorations of form often amount to an experimental collection, unwearable in the everyday sense, Anderson hasn't compromised on the real life of the clothes, the fact that they are worn and lived in. Sure some of these looks wouldn't be seen on the street, but the majority would fit in surprisingly well. While I love a designer that pushes the limits of what clothes can be, what I admire most are those clothes that are simultaneously entirely new and entirely practical - which is rarer than you'd think.

Allusions to hospital gowns, arms strapped down by a knitted oversleeve, and lines of fabric flapping loose all conjure images of the psyche ward, emphasised by, as Maya Singer writes, "a fit of derangement" in the form of two comic-print looks. This enhances the contemporary feel, the madness is specific to the volatile teen years and so perhaps speaks to a younger audience. Indeed the deranged, visual shout of the comic-print cameo reminded me of the book by Jeff Daniels of The Mountain Goats, about a psyche ward-ridden teenager who is obsessed with Black Sabbath's Master of Reality.

Having said that, there was ultimately no straightforward narrative to this collection, no story of a girl or a city or a decade. When Maya Singer asked about the "atmosphere of lunacy" Anderson talked about the physical disruption of the clothes' construction rather than narrative - "he spoke not of reality suspension but of architectural suspension". Every review used words like "mysterious" and "puzzling" and "incomprehensible", but rather than being dismissed for being too hard, too opaque, the collection keeps one intrigued.

Before I sign off I also have to quote the last line from Maya Singer's review (man I'm quoting others a lot in this post aren't I?) because when I read it it affirmed my thoughts precisely, I wanted to ring up Singer there and then and say "yes, exactly".

"This collection was interpretable in any number of ways. But the clear takeaway was that it was captivating, original, modern, and great."

Octo Style/NY-JPN

This is a post about the highlights of New York's Winter 2013 fashion week, but I'm going to backtrack a bit to Pre-Fall 2013 to set the scene. Lately at The Row, Mary-Kate and Ashley have been veering occasionally from neu-conservatism elegance into regular old octogenarian elegance. Some of these looks remind me of the final page of all those Vogue "style at any age" features. And there is nothing wrong with advanced style, but rather than the theme of radical restraint of previous The Row collections, on twenty-somethings these clothes seem stale and conservative.

So with Pre-Fall 2013 as a precursor, it was with extra interest and slight apprehension that I took in F/W 2013. In some ways the octo-style theme was continued, with subtly textured creamy gold adorning practical pants and opera-ready shawls. Literally both my grandmas had pants like that.

But in many more ways my fears that The Row had crossed the line for good, from radically conservative to conservative-conservative, were assuaged. They've taken their usual Japanese motifs to new and glorious heights, their all-navy looks wrapped by pseudo-obis, coats nipped and flaring to perfectly shape the body, or tied at the sides, and everything always in a glorious symphony of textures. Of course every designer and his dog has been feeling Japanese lately, but when it comes to the cut and unusual shapes and silhouettes, Mary-Kate and Ashley are more meticulous, more focused, and simply better.

MK and Ashley explained the collection as a mix of Victorian and Japanese dress codes, and while the Victorian element can certainly be found in the modesty of these looks, the combination was even clearer in their set design. The location was an Upper East Side townhouse, and it was decorated in a hushed-elegance sort of way with carefully mismatched antiques and Japanese floral arrangements.

And if grand themes were to be found at New York Fashion Week, an understated and very serious interpretation of elements of Japanese dress was one of them. Proenza Schouler also riffed on the obi, and the folding and wrapping of Japanese dress. The looks which utilized these elements were some of the best, and emphasized the controlled movement of the clothes, a theme that ran through the whole collection. Even the gentle curves of jacket and skirt edges were completely controlled, and moved in a kind of erratic way rather than fluidly.

Many reviews noted that this comparatively sober show was very "grown up" for Proenza Schouler, but I thought the surprised tone was unfounded. Sure Proenza Schouler is synonymous with the young, thin It Girls, but they have always shown collections with undercurrents of the prim and proper, from Spring '09 to Spring '12. Maybe I just hate this particular cliche, but if anyone else claims that Jack and Lazaro have "grown up" I'm gonna get real mad.

The Row images from vogue.com

Interior image from Habitually Chic

Proenza Schouler images from vogue.com and models.com