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

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

On the Beach

The clothes in Marc Jacobs Resort could be good or bad, I'm not sure, because the photographs are just so darned entrancing. The models are airbrushed like white dolls and their passive, reclining poses make me think of that Prada campaign. It is also so strange to see Marc Jacobs images that aren't shot by Juergen Teller. I couldn't quite put my finger on what was nagging me about these photos - and what has been nagging me about all MJs resort images - but then it came to me: "no Jeurgen!". It feels like an alternate universe Marc Jacobs, with slightly more odd and slightly less funny.

Ever a genius with colour, Marc's outdone himself this time. I can't believe I've lived this long without being introduced to the wonders of golden syrup and brown, black and carob, and pastel yellow and purple. And since we're on the topic, OH MY GOD I AM SO EXCITED for Luella's return to design. And at Marc by Marc! It's perfect! She'll be fun and quirky and whatnot, hopefully not creatively crushed by working under a label not her own. Oooh next post will be a Luella tribute, since I didn't have the opportunity to do one when her label closed since this blog didn't exist then. 

And how could I forget? Here is the legendary-amongst-campaign-enthusiasts Prada Spring 2001 campaign. For some reason it is v. hard to find good images from this campaign online, these scanned ones are the best I can do.

Resort 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

Miuccia Prada, Feminist

Miuccia Prada has done again what she did three years ago for Spring 2010. This show wasn't obviously spectacular, revolutionary or jaw-dropping. Certainly not in comparison to Prada's previous collections. And so people were disappointed. I think many people (regular internet people, not critics) were disappointed with this showing exactly because it wasn't, as Hamish Bowles puts it, "the radical season changer that Miuccia so often serves us". But the problem with holding such high expectations, of always expecting these radical season changers, is that quieter instances of genius are not appreciated. There is the sentiment 'if it's not big, it's not good', and for some this collection was a bit of a let down. But it really shouldn't be!

This collection was, in my opinion, fantastic. Let me list the reasons why:

1. It felt like Prada was getting out some of her feminist energy. It was there in that dichotomy between girlish sweetness and, to paraphrase Prada, a toughness and seriousness. To be precise she said that the collection's folding resulted from her wanting it to be tough, although I have no idea how folding is inherently tough or serious. But let's not get caught up in the details! Importantly I think that what really defines the current wave, or new generation of feminists (that I think can safely be said to be symbolically helmed by Tavi Gevinson) is the co-existence of stereotypical, traditional notions of girlishness (such as dressing up to look good) with feminist ideals. So here I am projecting that Prada has given us the modern feminist - tough, serious, self-possessed, and covered with pink, flowers, and short skirts.

2. In a kind of carry on from my last point, I could imagine Kathleen Hanna rocking everything (and there were total Courtney Love vibes)

3. Jessica Stam.

4. Guinevere van Seenus.

5. That amazing folding, which was also seen at Christopher Kane! Thanks to Hamish Bowles' review I've learnt how this folding also relates to this "new feminist" dichotomy. Prada talked about "the struggles women have between toughness and softness, the rigor followed by delicacy, and the poetic part of women", and this is reflected in the folding of the Japanese kimono, which is about "tough rigor, the delicacy after, and the folding". Hmmm, "tough rigor", maybe that's how folding is tough and serious.

6. Ribbed underwear, and coats in summer. Nothing more to add.

So overall, I felt the Prada spirit very strongly here, with all those wonderful tensions between femininity and feminism, and all those wonderfully uncomfortable details (like ribbed underwear). Everyone came around to Spring 2010 eventually (myself included), and the same slow-building appreciation may happen here again.

all images from vogue.com

Sassy Lady

This is just a neat editorial from Vogue Russia which does ladylike 50s, just like every other damned magazine on the planet, but doesn't make me yawn. It could be due to the inclusion of some Meadham Kirchoff, and it could be in large part due to Meghan Collison who has that knack of always looking pissed off, and a little bit scary, and like she smoked at school and still smokes now. And come to think of it how did one reviewer describe her in the Miu Miu show? "She [Prada] opened with a model who let's just say doesn't belong to the Natasha Poly school of good looks". This could be interpreted as an insult, but Natasha Poly is totally boring, so really it's a compliment.

Here is also a still shot from a fashion film she was in for T Magazine a while ago, and here is the link the the 'film'. She got sent to real life clairvoyants all dolled up and the results were sneakily filmed. The video is overly dramatic in film-student kind of way, but still spooky and moody.

My sister just came in while I was finishing this post and said "she looks like Lorelai Gilmore" (you know, from Gilmore Girls) which could embarrassingly explain why I like her but could also explain why everyone else likes her too - maybe Miuccia Prada watches Gilmore Girls! I really hope she does. I hope that every time she makes a statement about feminism, Rory and Lorelai Gilmore are informing her opinions. One day an interviewer will be pressing her for more details on her views about the role of women in society, and she will throw her hands up and cry "Please I do not know! I just watch Gilmore Girls!".

Editorial images from Fashion Gone Rogue

Last image from T Magazine

Milan SS'12 - Prada

Huzzuh Prada presented something fantastic this season! (I really didn't like those sequin scales six months ago) And this time around Miuccia Prada went for extra punch and made a feminist statement. Although not really a feminist statement, and it's all a little ambigous, especially considering what she said last year, that "there is no such thing" as a feminist. Ok, so it's a statement about women, and men, and the sexist way that men "own" cars and women, but it ain't feminism.

Hmmm.

You know what? A lot of feminist academics may not be, but I'm cool with that. I didn't even pick any of that up the first time I saw the collection, I was happily oblivious to all the subtext and could focus on the clothes. And that's what makes Prada so much better than everyone else isn't it? She often has lofty ideas and meaning behind her collections, but with none of that background knowledge the clothes can always speak for themselves too. (I guess this is why critics often liken her to an artist!)

A lot of critics described the collection as "sweet" and "feminine", but I didn't get that at all. Quite the opposite in fact, for all the pleated chiffon skirts and floral appliqués, these women were hard, tougher even than an Alexander Wang girl (who is really just a socialite pretending to be tough). All the pastels did was highlight how far from sweet the women and the clothes actually were.

That combination of bathing suits and heavy, glittering jewellry worked perfectly, and the suits even managed to make the models look shapely. And while I didn't like the literal interpretation of Van Gogh at Rodarte, I liked the literal interpretation of 50s cars here.

And like Proenza Schouler, such a focus on the mid-century and kitsch! Although those shoes are a hell of a lot tackier than anything that PS did. But of course, not tacky in a bad way - and Prada's often tacky, yet never badly so.

photos from vogue.com

Hate to Love #1

The Spring/Summer ’12 collections are showing at the moment, but I thought I won’t write about them yet because you need a bit of time to get a proper perspective on things – even after a week the shows you thought were amazing can seem kinda lackluster. So instead I’m going to look at those collections that you do 180s on. I’ve done the hate/love thing a few times, but I thought I’d start with Prada because it was the first.
I have to admit, when I saw Prada’s SS10 collection for the first time, I was confused. I was confused and unhappy. It all seemed so lightweight, so disappointing after the moody wool and waders of fall. There were barely any clothes on the models and what was there seemed half finished. The prints were strange and washed out. There were cycling shorts.

But then something wonderful happened, I watched the collection’s campaign video and BAM it all made sense. The metallic holiday prints, the raw edging, the chandeliers, everything. It probably took seeing those chandeliers in motion to do it. And all of a sudden this collection went from something I loathed to one of my most loved collections OF ALL TIME.

I may still not get the cycling shorts (at all) but that’s ok because I get the collection as a whole. And there is something about the satisfaction you get when there’s a personal history behind a collection – the hatred, the first pangs of love, the grand epiphany – which is more rewarding than instantly loving a collection (and then probably later hating it because you end up thinking about it way too much). Gosh I’m coming across all romantic – a love fought for is a longer lasting love (or something).

And finally, let’s not forget those shoes.

                                      runway photos from vogue.com and accessories photos from style.com