Oroma Elewa

To be honest I know almost nothing about her, a part from the fact that she photographs amazingly and writes about "African and African diaspora forms of cultural expression". However, I am still completely fascinated/entranced/obsessed.

The photo is from Maya Villiger. Thanks!

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

Suburban Mermaids

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

Don't Wanna Gloat

But summer is pretty nice today. Will probably be gone tomorrow. My friend Tim has a new camera, took some photos on my deck, and this is probably the closest you'll get to a post about me. Mmmmm sun...