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

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

Valentino Kerchiefs

I'm starting to tire of the new Valentino aesthetic just a little, but I loved these skirt edges which are like folded handkerchiefs.

They remind me of the folds at Balenciaga, which are almost verging on ruffle territory, and which we are all sobbing over *RIPNIC4B*

images from vogue.com

Bouchra and Couture

I really don't understand why Bouchra Jarrar is still doing couture. It's generally acknowledged her collections were never really true couture to begin with, but more a formidably, rigorously tailored ready-to-wear. However, I appreciated her debut in couture as a clever marketing and brand development move. With the less cluttered couture calendar there was more space for her to get noticed, and it made a clear point about the "seriousness" of her label, her skill level, and the kind of clients she wants to attract.

But to be honest, once she debuted at ready-to-wear, I thought she'd give up the ghost at couture. I thought she'd achieved what she needed from showing there, and could focus on the elegant day-wear that she does so spectacularly well. Well, she hasn't given up, here she is, still at Couture.

Having said that I thought that this collection was good. She's riffed on the asymmetrical trend, but because she's Bouchra Jarrar the coats and jackets are far more impeccably tailored than any other effort. I love me any stripes that you can't describe as nautical or French, and this collection was full of 'em. Not a boat neck or ballet fit in sight. And the restrained palate of brown, navy and black was perfectly balanced. The navy was on the almost-blue end of the spectrum and offset the brown  wonderfully.

One thing I can say in support of Jarrar remaining on the couture calendar, is that it keeps up the important discussion about the definition of couture, and what it needs to be in the 21st Century. The arrival of Raf Simons at Dior is of course helping fuel the discussion too, and each season I become more excited to see in what direction couture is now growing.

all images from vogue.com

Stragglers

How has pre-fall rolled around so quickly? Sorry, not just rolled around, but already almost over? I'm still working through Spring/Summer! I really do think we need to de-clutter the fashion schedule, if only so I have enough time to make my mind up about things. And so, as a final adieu to posts on Spring/Summer 2013, these are those last scraggly looks, those wonderful looks that come from collections that, as a whole, I did not deem worth writing about. Or that didn't quite fit into the reviews I wrote at the time.

First here are two looks from Chloé, which I usually yawn at, but the genius of an eruption of baby pink chiffon in the direction of your face cannot be denied. In fact, since this look specifically was dissed by a few critics, my fervor for it has grown.

I want to wear these stripes, but I also want them on my couch and on my curtains and on my sheets and everywhere. 

It's a cliche, but 'as sharp as a knife' really does seem to apply to this Lanvin look! Or the sure-to-be-future-cliché, as sharp as Karlie Kloss' hip bone. Who, by the way, would look great in this. Here it fits Julia Nobis so well it looks painted on, and is simply a pleasure to look at.

Well my love for this Altuzarra collection is well documented, but unfortunately one of my favourite looks from it didn't quite fit into my review. The detailing is a bit like the glitter detailing in Spring 2013 Dior. In both cases, this tiny element makes the whole look.

I love to hate Alexander Wang to some degree, and because of that I love it even more when he wins me over in spite of a personal grudge. Although it's funny, the reasons that most other people dislike him - "he ripped of those shoes!" "his ideas aren't new!" - don't bother me. It's comparable to critics of Daft Punk or Kanye West who say they have no ideas of their own, or are even plagiarists, after discovering the extent of their sampling. This kind of sampling and re-purposing is a rare skill in itself, and while you may think that West just stole that 20 second riff, he's actually transformed it, given it a completely different, second life. And that's how I think of Alexander Wang, a very savvy fashion version of Daft Punk. Having said all of that, I dug this ripped-off, unoriginal, whatever, ensemble!

Now that I'm looking at these looks all together, I can see that they're actually all quite similar. Hem length, heels, plunging necklines, monochrome, and general attitude are all aligned (that maverick, the explosion of pink, sits a part a bit more of course).

Runway images from vogue.com

Border detailing from, respectively, Soane Britain; Katie Ridder; Coralie Bickford-Smith; Hokusai and Ari Marcopoulos

Welcome Back, Céline

All the monochrome looks and white at Céline last year was stiff and dull; the large sleeves, wide belts and deconstructed peplum a disavowal of the "clothes-for-real-women" label that had been assigned to Pheobe Philo after her triumphant debut for the label. But by employing the magic of satin, this season all Philo's moves for "real" clothes and sophistication and understated luxury became, once again, a revelation. Céline lost its relevance over the last few seasons but I'm very happy to say that here Philo's shine has returned (sorry, couldn't help myself). I didn't realise it until I caught myself feeling absurdly happy at this showing, but for the past year and a half I'd been holding my breath before each Céline show, only to be completely deflated.

But honestly Pheobe, this season? Congratulations. I'm a real woman and I want to go into a real shop and buy those shiny pants, and buy those shiny tops, and fold my shawls and collars as if I were an impossibly sophisticated antiques dealer who specializes in Chinese folk-art and who has a companion instead of a husband. I want to be the woman that would wear these clothes.

Of course by itself satin isn't really an innovation, and those baggy pants have been around for a while now, yet it's Phoebe's treatment which feels new and relevant; those exact proportions, and that exact size of those twisted shawls, the seeming carelessness with which they've been twisted. And that's true of all creative disciplines isn't it? How new you can make something old feel, with a bit of actual new thrown in.

When a collection is innovative and fresh it also feels clean, as if it has wiped away the built up grime of disappointment and derivatives of past collections. And adding to the sense of cleanliness here was the simple, straight hair and clear faces. Although I think some of the models misinterpreted the instructions to look nonchalant and ended up looking corpse-like. But very fresh-faced corpses of course.

I'm also in that minority that think Ashley Olsen looks sophisticated in Birkenstocks, and in the larger minority that loved Christopher Kane's pool sliders in a totally non-ironic way. So of course, I loved the footwear at Céline!

The footwear also brings up another interesting point, that Philo's "clothes-that-women-really-want-to-wear" tag has its downsides. As soon as I had zoomed up on those fluffy soles and painted toenails I predicted it, every review would comment on whether woman really would want to wear them. It happened, and it was boring. Don't trap designers in the box that you created for them, critics!

all images from vogue.com

We Need To Talk About Dior

Obviously, Dior is a show that needs to be discussed. I've been thinking about it for ages, and I still don't really know what I think about it, not really. Because, like, there were good parts, but then there were also, like, bad parts? It's confusing!

Me, still looking at Dior

But although it got reviews both good and bad, even the good reviews had a tinge of defensiveness about them. Like the reviewers know that there is something wrong with it, or that everyone else overwhelmingly believes there's something wrong with it. Because while there were aspects that I loved, there were some shocking moments too. And I have to admit, when I first saw it, I thought it was lacking one of my key ingredients to a strong collection: cohesiveness.

But let's start with the positives. It was the tiny details which tipped the collection into a success. They unexpectedtly popped up in dress-suits (the new pant-suit) and would have been completely lost on the viewer were it not for stage lights subtly glinting off them. These details, diamante lines and daisy embroidery, ranged from the relatively obvious:

To the very discreet:

Also excellent (I think. Not entirely sure) were the so-wrong-they-are-good mullety tails! Despite the odds, pretty elegant.

On the other hand, I have no idea what Simons was thinking here:

No no, seriously Raf, wtf? You think Kirsten Dunst or Marion Cotillard are gonna wear that on the red carpet? Think again.
So, a collection that doesn't entirely fit together, which sucks in places, yet... thumbs up from me. Maybe it's just that difficult things are more interesting than the easy. I'll be thinking about this for a while, so hats off to Raf for that at least.

all images from vogue.com

Screw Milan, How'd Paris Do?

Reviews of the rest of Milan were supposed to be here. But you know what? Milan sucked overall this season. Everyone did their thing and it looked nice and regular but nothing (apart from Prada) got me thinking or excited. So Imma cruise right through to Paris.

First up, Nina Ricci!
Lots of the reviews for Peter Copping's Nina Ricci were more than just a touch condescending, all along the vein of "awww, Peter Copping twied weally hard to make a tough, Fifty Shades of Grey collection". And sure the "toughness" was kind of adorable, and it wasn't his best, and sure Nina Ricci is more French heiress than whatever Copping was doing here - but regardless, I really dug it. All the folds and ties and zips and fastenings and, yes, harnesses, fell and fluttered in a beautifully haphazard kind of way.

Cardigans and skirts looked like they'd been thrown and tied on backwards, adding to the haphazard (but sexily haphazard of course) effect.

There was a wonderful thread of opposing parts throughout the collection, polka-dots with fishnets, pastel satins with sexy smoky eyes and bared nipples. Once again with Nina Ricci, I feel like we as foreigners have been served the most romantic, fictional version of the aloof/sexy/ultra feminine French woman. And that would make sense, considering Copping isn't French! He's not designing for real French women, he's designing for what the Brits see as a French woman. Which is not rooted in reality but in an inferiority complex and a curious obsession.

And I just wanna say, guys, that I'm really happy that I keep liking Nina Ricci's collections, and it's not just because liking something is nice. I was so sad when Copping replaced Olivier Theyskens back in 2009, he seemed like such a joke after Theysken's achingly poetic collections. As well as hating him on principle, his collections were, admittedly, nowhere near as good as Theysken's.

But now Copping has improved hugely, and is making me change my mind! And he did  it against a pre-existing bias! And while I love making snap judgments, what I love more is having my mind changed, or even being proved wrong.

Yes to this:

And no to this: First collection, Spring 2010, Peter has definitely won most improved player

all images vogue.com

Rochas Makes Me Wanna Wear Satin

Nothing articulate to say on this, just "wooooooooooooooooooo satin!" "cool!". That's what I was thinking when I saw these looks anyway. Didn't really like the rest of Rochas, I don't really like Rochas in general, to me it's just kinda precious and annoyingly hip at the same time. But damn that satin.

images from vogue.com

Paris Couture A/W'12 - Dior

So much has already been written about this show that it's hardly worth me writing about it too, but since I was so excited when Raf Simon's appointment was announced I figure I may as well jump in to the fray. Although I'm not sure if one can call it a fray since the responses have been almost entirely positive. In fact the only negative thing written about it - "One Critic Dares to Knock Raf Simon's Dior Debut" announced The Cut - wasn't really about the collection at all but about the set. Colin McDowell at The Business of Fashion wrote it was ostentatious, but really I think he was just clever and was rustling himself up some press for being the one critic to dare knock Raf Simon's Dior debut. So was the set, a million flowers lining the walls, ostentatious? Maybe, but it was also beautiful and oh lord I wish I'd been there to see it. Instead I'll have to make do with pictures and a video showing its creation.

   

What about the collection itself? Well, it's hard to write on actually. Everyone was expecting great things, amazing things, something revolutionary, which was very silly because of course we didn't get it. And so while we built ourselves up for disappointment, it wouldn't be fair to say that it was entirely disappointing either. The clothes were undoubtedly beautiful and nothing less than what we've come to expect from Simons, but while critics were talking about how the collection marked a shift for couture I felt this was the promise of a shift. Simon's hasn't quite arrived in this particular collection but I'm sure he will soon - and he said himself that the collection was "a blueprint", a statement I've taken to interpret as not quite the final product. 

I must admit there was an air that the collection had been rushed a bit, which would make sense considering Simon's had only a short time to acquaint himself with and utilize his new atelier. I always like my collections to fit together perfectly, to make one cohesive statement, and I thought the show was lacking somewhat. Dyed fur and Sterling Ruby prints in a single show seemed almost too much. And the inclusion of those dyed furs irked me, possibly due to their resemblance to Marc Jacobs' Jamiroquai hats. On a more positive note, he has married Dior's history and aesthetic with his more minimal one perfectly, although we all knew he could do that already. 

If this sounds unfair to Simons - judged in black and white the collection is most definitely a success - it is only that so much is expected of him now, after four incredible final collections for Jil Sander. And I'm almost certain that he'll live up to the expectations, which is all rather exciting!

runway images from vogue.com

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