And hosiery turned into art: spotlight on Bebaroque

Not sure who organised in March 2007 the shambolic Glasgow Fashion Week, but it was a rather embarrassing event featuring more catwalks by high street brands than by up-and-coming designers. But the main thing I detested about this event was the supposedly trendy group of people who organised it and who never replied to my questions, emails and requests about some designers and how to get in touch with them. It took me ages to find out who had made some of the stuff I saw during a couple of catwalks, such as the only creations I really liked during the whole event: Mhairi McNicol’s embroidered velvet mini-dresses and coat paired with matching embroidered tights.

Yes, I thought, the idea of extending the motifs embroidered on the dress also on the legs was simple, but nobody had done it yet. So, after deleting the worst fashion week of my life from my mind, I stored in a file the pictures with Mhairi McNicol’s outfits, knowing that somehow, one day, I would have seen again those outfits or heard her name again.

Well, I was right, but somehow McNicol’s name has popped up in a different context: she is indeed one-half of  Edinburgh-based Bebaroque, a hosiery label that has become in less than a year one of the hotly tipped brands of the fashion accessory universe.

Bebaroque’s Mhairi McNicol and Chloe Patience have indeed turned hosiery into modern “artwear” embroidering and printing onto tights. I met the girls a while back in Edinburgh while they were working hard, printing away their tights at the local College of Art. I remember they had a pair of tights splayed over a table in the huge printing room just waiting to be heavily coated in ink and assume the rich appearance of the “Tattoo Me” tights with their bold black swirls and flourishes.

If you happen to be in Paris, you can meet the girls at the international fashion show Who's Next until Monday. Your second chance of catching up with the girls is at London Fashion Week from 15th to 19th September. But if you want to meet Mhairi and Chloe right now, you can go to the Dazed Digital website and read my interview with them. 

Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos

Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos