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

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."

Shut Up and Take my Money Phil

Fashion is a unique creative art in that it has a second life as a practicality. One doesn't need to own art or books or movies to function in society, but as soon as you step outside without your clothes on you're going to get in trouble. But because clothes have two lives, as something functional and also as art or design, it can become confusing as to how they should be considered, critiqued, and to which social discussions they belong: commerce? Design? Art? The result is fashion journalism that, while rarely explicitly stating from which angle they are approaching fashion, takes a side nonetheless. Tim Blanks is my favourite writer in the fashion as design/art camp, his pieces are a joy to read in themselves and are incredibly insightful. If you want to "understand" a collection you better hope Blanks has been assigned to review it. On the other end of the spectrum are writers who list elements of the collections, usually accessories, like an inventory, and state things like "outerwear and dresses were the focus point of this collection". Major yawn inducing material.

However if I was one of those commercially minded critics, 3.1 Phillip Lim would have most definitely satisfied me. And by "commercially minded critic" I mean that outwardly I was saying things like "Lim has cleverly created a collection full of seemingly endless separates that will sit super comfortably on shop hangers and will disappear in a heartbeat", but inside I was just squealing and figuring out how many months it will be until I can price compare it all on Polyvore. I don't get this with The Row or even Proenza Schouler, which is partly because of the price point but mainly because there is something, something that I can't quite put my finger on, that is so buyable about Phillip Lim's collection. I can already see these coats and jumpers and dresses sitting on hangers and shelves so clearly. Here are some of the best looks of the collection, peruse the catalog and start your saving.

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

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

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