Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology

Fashion + Dictionary + Diary = Fashionary

In the late 30s, despite Fascism obliged Italian tailoring houses not to import or copy any designs from France, Italian journalists, dressmakers and milliners still got their main inspirations from French designers.

Drawing or sketching the designs seen during the shows was prohibited since designers were scared their creations would have been copied, but Italian dressmakers had devised a little trick: there would be more than one of them at the same show, and, while one looked at the collars, another took note of the latest trends for what regarded the sleeves, another focused on the hems and so on. Back at their hotel, they were able to recreate the designs from what they had seen, as if they were little fashion puzzles.

Sketching was prohibited also in the 50s, when Italian journalist and fashion critic Maria Pezzi was sent to see the Parisian catwalk shows. At the time is was also prohibited to publish any drawings on newspapers, yet Pezzi became quite known for dictating on the phone minimalist sketches from the runways that highlighted the most important trends. In later years, Pezzi’s fashion sketches and illustrations became more detailed and she also added precise notes about accessories.

The current catwalk shows and a recently released fashion dictionary, diary and sketchbook entitled Fashionary, made me think about those early dressmakers and Maria Pezzi.

Created by fashion and graphic designer Penter Yip, the Fashionary looks like a traditional sketchbook, but includes, in roughly 25 pages, body measurement and unit system tables, basic patterns, helpful lists of sites and brands, a calendar highlighting the dates for the main fashion weeks and quick explanations on colours, screen print methods, laundry symbols and textiles. The rest of the notebook is filled with join the dot-like templates that allow designers to brainstorm and quickly sketch their ideas.

The diary is mainly aimed at designers as it helps them eliminating traditional templates and semi-transparent papers and allows to quickly jot down their creations.

Yet I find the sketchbook intriguing also for journalists who want to maybe sketch a couple of designs rather than write down their notes while in a showroom or in the backstage of a catwalk show. I guess that such a little book would have definitely helped those early dressmakers eager to copy the French designs or Maria Pezzi to take her detailed notes. In a way, the Fashionary has got the potential to become an indispensable fashionable Moleskine for journalists, stylists and even passionate fashion fans eager to express themselves creatively.

Question: What prompted you to start the Fashionary and when was the first edition published?
Penter Yip: As a fashion student and designer, I have long been dreaming for a sketchbook tailor-made for us, 'why can't we have a sketchbook that combines intense fashion information and templates and blank pages?’ I kept on wondering, ‘why do we still need to pay extra attention to the body figure when we sketch the garments out?’ I’m not probably the only one wondering such questions that led me to create the first edition of the Fashionary, published in July 2009. 
 
Q: Do you feel that such a notebook can facilitate and help young designers?
Penter Yip: I think the informative part can save time for the designers by offering references such as measurements, basic patterns, textile information, laundry labels and so on. Those designers who would like to start with rough ideas and sketches can use the templates; those ones who want to focus on their own drawing styles can instead treat the pages as blank. The Fashionary is indeed a sketchbook for idea development and not a replacement for great illustration skills.

Q: You studied in Hong Kong and the UK as well, what do you think fashion/graphic courses are missing nowadays?
Penter Yip: I didn't take graphic courses, so I think in the fashion way. I think the traditional craftsmanship is declining rapidly nowadays, maybe due to the lack of skill-set training. I enjoy fashion, I love graphic, but I think the definition started to blur in the industries, you don't need to have a specific role nowadays as things are multi-channel related.
 
Q: Did you get any feedback about the Fashionary from fashion designers who bought it and are already using it?
Penter Yip: Yes, they are positive and this is great, yet I’m open to any criticism since constructive and critical feedback can help you improving!
 

Q: Are you planning a menswear version of the Fashionary as well?
Penter Yip: Yes, the menswear version will be out in early 2010. Currently, I don’t have any plans to release a children’s version as I want to mainly focus on mens and womenswear first, but I am open to this idea. Depending on how the sketchbook is received in the market, there may be also versions in other languages. 

Q: Will the Fashionary also have down-loadable online applications?
Penter Yip: Hopefully yes. I am very interested to explore this category and also the possibilities offered by iPhone applications. Meanwhile, you can already find on the Fashionary website downloadable free templates.

Q: The Fashionary has also got a sort of artistic side: Vikki Yau has done some nice illustrations for the postcards that accompany it, will she do further work for your sketchbook?

Penter Yip: Yes, if she is interested and will have the time to work on further illustrations and, occasionally, the Fashionary will also include collaborations with international artists.

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Save the Day

The first images by Corinne Day that appeared in The Face in the early 1990s caused a furore in the fashion circles.

Critics spotted hints at drug and sexual abuse in Day’s images of her friends portrayed wearing casual and almost scrubby vests and jeans or bras and knickers hanging around London flats, slumped on sofas, leaning against walls, staring into space or just sleeping.

Day’s portraits of her friend, model Kate Moss, wearing a Liza Bruce vest and Hennes briefs, surrounded by a fairy light chain taken in 1993 in the model’s dreary flat for British Vogue, sparked new controversies and outrage, with the media crying out about the brutality of the fashion world, the glamorisation of anorexia and the exploitation of young women.

Yet Day’s kitchen-sink untouched portraits taken in what became her trademark minimalist style were a reaction to the supermodel glitzy and glamorous look that had been popular until then and soon launched an entirely new genre that, favouring ultra-realness and rawness, gained cult status even in the USA.

Corinne Day’s peculiar style was adopted by experimental fringe magazines but was also favoured in advertising campaigns for modern luxury goods, turning her into one of the most important and successful contemporary women photographers in the UK.

In the meantime, Moss’s images graced the cover of many magazines and helped her becoming a globally famous face.

Day and Moss were reunited again for a project commissioned in 2007 by London’s National Portrait Gallery: as part of the “Face of Fashion” exhibition, Day took a series of headshots of Moss that showed her smiling, drinking and frowning.

The photographer and the model are now virtually reunited for a special project entitled “Save the Day” launched to raise funds to pay for a specialist centre where the photographer will be able to treat brain cancer, an illness she has been fighting against for over ten years now.

A while back, Day decided to sell 300 prints of a previously unpublished 1993 Kate Moss print for £100 each. The image was quickly sold out and Day agreed to release limited-edition images of Moss until Christmas.

Each print will be exclusively available for personal use and won’t be saleable through Internet auctions or commercial galleries for the next three years. People can donate more than the official price tag (£100) and buy the prints by getting in touch via email ([email protected]) or phone (+44 (0) 20 7333 0888).

You’d better get your print soon, though, Day’s images get usually sold out just a few hours after they are put up for sale.

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Shortcut glamour in Milan

Italian journalist and writer Camilla Cederna once stated that Venice lives a sort of second Carnival season every year during the local film festival as stars and celebrities arrive on the Lido followed by crowds of adoring fans.

Yet, rather than for its celebrities, the most recent edition of the Venice Film Festival will probably be remembered for its strong connection with style and fashion, not only thanks to Tom Ford’s directorial debut A Single Man, but also to an event entitled Style Star that explored the fashion and cinema connection. Created by Marina Garzoni, Style Star focused on bringing together a selection of stylish shortcuts commissioned by luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior and Salvatore Ferragamo just to mention a few, shot by a group of international directors. The event recently moved to Milan this week to bring the Italian fashion capital a bit of cinematic glamour.

Question: What inspired you to launch Style Star?
Marina Garzoni: I recently wrote a book entitled Moda & Tecnologia (Fashion and Technology) that explored the impact technology has had in the last few years on the means of communication and on the relation between consumers and luxury brands. My background is in fashion, but while working on the book I did a detailed research on how brands can communicate their ideas to consumers tired of seeing fashion in conventional ways. It was then that I understood that shortcuts made by proper directors could have been an engaging and honest way to reach out to people and establish with them an innovative dialogue. After the book came out, I did an event about this topic at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Arts  in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then decided to take the project further.

Q: In Italy there has always been a strong relationship between fashion and cinema, is Style Star a way to give renew this connection and maybe look at it from an international perspective?
MG: Absolutely. Fashion always had a very important role in the settings and costumes and there were films that even launched trends or looks that became unforgettable. The fashion message was subtler in specific films, though, and it was often used as a way to define a character’s features or mood. With shortcuts things are slightly different, but I think shorts are perfect to spread a message or make a statement in a quick and efficient way. Besides while fashion catwalks are exclusive events for professionals, shortcuts are for everybody and they can be spread through different media and shared by people all over the world on the net or on mobile phones.

Q: Why did you opt for Microsoft as partner for this event?
MG: In the last few years I collaborated with quite a few companies with my non-profit association, Moda e Tecnologia. I’ve been working as consultant about fashion and technology with various companies, collaborating with Microsoft on previous projects. When we had to decide which partner to choose to share our message on the Internet and on mobile phones, Microsoft’s platform looked perfect. They recently launched Surface, a product that revealed itself as ideal to take our concept to different places, from airports to restaurants.

Q: What’s your favourite short?
MG: I love each of them for different reasons: Chanel’s “Fitting Room Follies” by Karl Lagerfeld celebrates the fashion house’s A/W 09 collection in a sensual way; Dior’s short is intriguing and slightly noir and Andrea Rovetta’s “La scarpa” (The Shoe”) for Salvatore Ferragamo is funny and intuitive. Louis Vuitton commissioned shortcuts to different directors, and I found Edoardo Winspeare’s “Les noces de papier” (The First Wedding Anniversary) rather funny, yet also touching and emotional. Winspeare follows the vicissitudes of two modest people, a wife and husband, dreaming about a LV bag.

Q: Style Star is in Milan during the local fashion week, will you be at other fashion events or film festivals in the next few months?
MG: In Venice we did a big event in a lounge designed by Leo Burnett, but we have prepared something different in Milan, an event entitled “Cinema is Fashionable” that will be presented at the Town House Galleria, a hotel where we are going to meet journalists, partners, directors and producers. We will be at the Cannes Film Festival from 12th to 23rd May 2010 with a new lounge on the Croisette, between the Carlton and the Martinez, and we hope that, by then, we will have spread our message and we will have more shortcuts as well.

Q: Is there a city where you would like to take Style Star one day?
MG: I would love to be able to take it to Los Angeles, but, for the time being, I think we must work about spreading the shortcut message in Europe, starting with cities such as London, Brussels or Antwerp. London is such a forward thinking city, an amazingly creative place and it would be great to collaborate with local shops and maybe bring our project to department stores as well. It would also be exciting to get students from London’s Central Saint Martins or Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts involved in our project and maybe discover new directors, actors and actresses and interact with them. New digital means of communications give people the chance to shoot a film even with a small budget and the web offers great chances to spread a message, so I think the possibilities for fashion shortcuts are simply endless. We are at present thinking about taking the event to cinemas across Italy as well and we hope that one day we will also be able to collaborate with other well-established or new fashion and film festivals in other countries. It would be great to see Style Star becoming their partner, opening up new collaborations, experimenting with new means of communication and spreading a fashionable and stylish message.

“Cinema is Fashionable”, a Style Star event, is at the Town House Galleria, Via Silvio Pellico 8, Milan, until 29th September. Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos Add to Technorati Favorites Lijit Search

Behind the spectacle

Passionate fashion fans with well-stocked libraries probably have quite a few volumes on Christian Dior on their shelves. Readers can indeed choose among a wide range of Dior titles, from books about his personal life to volumes about his career or focusing on specific periods of his life.

All these volumes are unique as they chronicle, each in its own way, the history and developments of a maison that radically revolutionised fashion and style.

From the end of the Second World War on, Dior’s fashion house captured a new life, energy and dynamism, injecting a chic optimism into the world of fashion and, above all, into women’s life.

In more recent years, John Galliano reinterpreted the style and message of Christian Dior, creating original designs and showcasing them in phantasmagorical settings, giving back to fashion an important power, that of making people, and women in particular, dream.

It is therefore perfectly understandable why iconic photographer Roxanne Lowit became fascinated with Galliano’s designs for Dior and chronicled through her lenses his passion, inspirations and the revolutionising process he brought at the French maison. Lowit’s work is now collected in a must-have book for Dior’s fans, Backstage Dior (teNeues).

Galliano’s first couture show for Dior was staged in a showroom recreated inside Paris’ Grand Hotel, further shows followed in sport stadiums turned into forests, at the Paris Opéra transformed into a garden, or at the Carousel du Louvre turned for the occasion into a Manhattan rooftop scene. Yet, in every occasion and throughout every season, Galliano managed to seduce his audiences, turning the real space into visions born out of fantasy.

Lowit takes Dior’s fans right behind the scenes of these visions as she captures secret moments – shots of high heels, close ups of models’ makeup, Galliano adding his final touch to an opulent dress and models chatting, misbehaving or looking ethereally beautiful – from the most grandiose fashion shows.

The volume is a wonderful collection of images, colourful, passionate, elegant, glamorous and even irreverent, and there is definitely enough in these pages to make Dior’s fans - and possibly also stylist wannabes - deliriously happy.

Yet Backstage Dior is not only about photographs: the book also features a foreword by legendary fashion journalist Suzy Menkes and essays by Simon Doonan, Barneys’ creative director, and Dr Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology.

“I have always seen my profession as a kind of struggle against all that is mediocre and depressing about our age,” Dior once declared. You can bet the French designer symbol of elegance, beauty and dream, would have really loved Lowit’s style and such an enthralling book.

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London Fashion Week: Mark Fast, Mary Katrantzou, John Rocha, Kinder Aggugini, Danielle Scutt, Louise Gray, Charles Anastase, Osman

Mark Fast’s choice of including three plus size models in his catwalk show must have been deliberately made to prove his skin-tight super short and gravity defying dresses characterised by string vest-like knitting aren’t just for a limited and understandably slim audience.

With his Spring/Summer 2010 collection Fast showed that his work is not so much about having that perfect body, but the perfect attitude.

The main aim of Fast’s knitwear is indeed not cocooning the body in luxury fibres, but cling to it in a revealing and sensual way.

Inspired by Erin Brockovich and silent movies from the 20s, Fast came up with a collection comprising short and long dresses with cobweb-like motifs that left the skin bare in strategic places.

There was sophistication in the dresses incorporating feathers and leather fans that added some much needed volume to the knitted pieces and also had maximum visual impact.

Most of the designs were rather complex and a long dress called to mind in the frontal motifs Sophonisba's exotic attire in Pastrone's Cabiria.

Mary Katrantzou focused in her previous collection on perfume bottles. This time though it looked like the actual materials the bottles are made of – glass – proved incredibly inspirational.

The young designer of Greek origins pushed her prints to the limit, creating one of the most colourful collections for the next Spring/Summer season.

Maybe Katrantzou spent some time in a Murano glass factory watching the craftsmen blowing in their pipes, creating colourfully unique pieces. 

Digitalised abstract prints in bright shades of blue, orange and yellow swirled, twisted and mixed on the dresses. Some designs - perfect to drive a spaceship, rather than just going out - even seemed to have frills and wings that jutted out as if they were pieces of glass being moulded, and were matched with oversized jewels by British glass artist Peter Layton.

The collection represented a step forward and looked more elegant than usual. Katrantzou showed she is progressing towards the right direction, but she will have to remember a woman’s wardrobe is not only made of nice dresses featuring bright prints and Swarovski crystals, but also of quite practical and possibly perfectly tailored trouser suits and in this department the designer will have to strengthen herself.

White prevailed in the first designs that went down the catwalk at John Rocha, almost to remind people in the audience which were his main inspirations – lace-making town Carrickmacross and Irish-American abstract painter, Sean Scully.

Irish inspirations appeared in the earthy and almost autumnal palette comprising black, cinnamon and brown, but rather than to ivy, the leaf headdresses and designs made you think about fragrant Autumnal leaves.

Rocha’s best designs were the showpieces, those stiff or bell-shaped crocheted black or white dresses dipped in a mixture of water and sugar to stiffen the fabric.

The most interesting interpretations of the lace inspiration - and probably also the best selling designs come next Spring - were the jackets with lace side-panels. 

There are quite a few designers who have the sad tendency to describe their work with precise definitions that the fashion media, often too lazy to find interesting interpretations themselves, end up reusing ad nauseam.

This is the case with Kinder Aggugini.

This man has cleverly built his reputation on three things, tailoring, punk and having shared a flat once with Leigh Bowery and Trojan.

Last season this supposedly unrepentant anarchist came up with the sort of designs you see every season on the Italian runways, especially in the sort of romantic and flowery collections à la Mariella Burani.

Realising that maybe that wasn’t punk enough, for this season Aggugini tried a bit harder to find a balance between Sid Vicious and Chanel. Yet it didn’t really work.

His models with ringlet-ed hair and wearing doll dresses with full deconstructed skirts in which inserts of black or polka-dot fabrics were added looked not like evil versions of Alice in Wonderland, but like grown up women playing at being silly.

Dresses and jackets in technicolour python-prints, zebra motifs, tiger stripes (the sort of designs that when used by Roberto Cavalli are understandably described as unbearably kitsch) and flowery mixes looked even less desirable matched with cumbersome mad hatter hats by Stephen Jones.

The whole presentation ended up distracting from the tailored tweed or houndstooth jackets that were simply suffocated by the ridiculous amount of inspirations Aggugini crammed in the collection.

Rather than punk, it looked like opening the Kinder eggs Aggugini takes his name from and finding a brightly colourful yet useless surprise inside.

Laser cut evening dresses proved there were some interesting possibilities there, but, confused about his identity (Aggugini must have wondered while working on it, "Am I a tailor or should I just be a punk with an unhealthy love for colourful fabrics?") the designer came up with a collection that really lacked any kind of cohesion.

Aggugini can certainly not be filed under the intellectual designer label, but the same can be said about edgy Danielle Scutt.

Yes, she may know what her young fans want and her body conscious over the knee dresses weren’t actually too bad, but too often she has the undesirable habit of falling prey of trashy inspiration.

There were quite a few of such moments at her catwalk show especially when models walked down the runway with frilly maid’s apron dresses or see-through dresses with polka-dot edges that called to mind old kitsch postcards of Spanish ladies with 3D costumes in colourful fabrics. 

There was also a hint to the 80s in Scutt’s designs, but also in Louise Gray’s.

The latter focused on street culture for a youthful audience. Graffiti were sprayed on jackets and bright colours were used for dresses and jumpsuits, yet it was a very thin collection, the sort of stuff that can only be appreciated and find a market in London.

Charles Anastase's collection made me question his tailoring skills quite a bit: while his trench coats and cropped jackets were passable, there were voluminous dresses looking like crossovers between sacks, tents, quilts and sails or looking like random pale and bright orange rags piled up in tiered form and supported by layers or tulle.

I do often get the impression that London Fashion Week is great for people with a wonderful imagination and almost zero tailoring skills and rather vapid shows such as PPQ’s in which there are usually more celebrities in the front row than well cut clothes on the runways, prove such statement is actually right.

Yet Osman Yousefzada can’t certainly be filed among the designers lacking tailoring skills.

With his Spring/Summer collection Osman showed his approach is much more similar to that of an architect than to a designer's.

The designer filtered traditional pieces such as the kimono or simple polo shirts trough minimal and architectural inspirations, painting everything in white and adding little gold details around the neckline or on the front panels where motifs evoking Jacob Bengel’s Art Deco jewellery were added.

Nautical inspirations appeared in a short dress with a strip of fabric running down one side rope-style, while architecture came back in the wooden sandals with thick golden straps around the ankles.

Everything was clinically pure and precise, and there were moments when you wished there would have been more colours popping up here and there.

Yet there is nothing more timeless than a neutral tone and it’s easy to guess that Osman was looking for timelessness rather than trendy-ness while working on this collection.

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London Fashion Week: Headonism, Paul Costelloe, Eun Jeung, Emilio de la Morena, Bora Aksu, Sass & Bide, Aminaka Wilmont

No doubt this is a very special edition of London Fashion Week since it marks 25 years of British fashion.

This means that the British media are currently pumping the event up as a celebration of style, rather than just an event to try and resurrect an industry in crisis.

The major faux pas in this celebration of style was obviously Mayor Boris Johnson, a rather unlikely style icon, but the perfect sponsor for the big crowds of hypocrites that hang around assorted fashion events.

Style was restored soon thanks to a very special event entitled “Headonism”, curated by legendary milliner Stephen Jones.

The event brought together a new wave of emerging London milliners J. Smith Esquire, Little Shilpa, Noel Stewart, Piers Atkinson and Soren Bach who showcased five couture pieces from their forthcoming S/S10 collection.

Sitting around a moving tableau created by artistic director Michael Howells, models wore rather flamboyant showpieces while a classically arranged version of Joy Division’s "Love Will Tear Us Apart" played in the background.

There were oversized cherries, fetishistic harnesses, armadillo-like headdresses, cascades of flowers, ropes and beads creating complicated structures on the models’ heads, fur turbans, pieces that seemed to reproduce in their movement the waves of the sea and even headpieces that lit up.

It was a rather unusual and bizarre event, the sort of stuff that can only work in London.  

Paul Costelloe reinterpreted classically stylish clothes in a modern key.

While the first dresses and trouser suits played with the timeless brown/white dichotomy, as the catwalk progressed there was more emphasis around the shoulders that became well sculpted and rigid and transformed into robotic wings.

Fabrics also became and important point: luxurious flowery silks in white or peach and golden prints appeared on the runway, reminiscing the fabric of qipao dresses or the flowers in Japanese gardens.

Menswear was less interesting, though Costelloe successfully transferred in his men’s jackets the sculpted shoulders he used in his designs for women.

Young designer Eun Jeung mainly focused on two colours, white and silver, in her collection, creating the perfect wardrobe for a space age woman.

It was interesting to see a young designer including in her collection also slightly more mature pieces such as jackets with bejewelled buttons, the sort of stuff you usually see in the wardrobes of women over 40, yet there was one major mistake in her collection, over-embellishing things a bit too much. In fact there were cases in which the frills, ruches, embroideries and pearls almost overshadowed her tailoring.

The presentation also didn’t do her justice as her talent stands in the details and it is quite difficult if you’re just sitting in the audience spotting intricate beaded embroideries or origami-like folds and pleats.

Maybe Jeung should have taken a lesson in frill control from Emilio de la Morena.

There were one or two moments when it proved irresistible for the Spanish designer to fall into the ruffle trap and he came up with a grey sheath dress in which ruffles ended up reproducing a sort of frilled maid’s apron.

The rest of the collection was rather sensible and sculpturally interesting with fabric elements swirling around the body, over-imposed layers of chiffon opening up like fans and interesting inky prints or bondage dresses built using different straps of fabrics, that contrasted one with the other.

de la Morena mentioned Eduardo Chillida’s works among his inspirations, but I guess the main link between the designer and the artist stood more in a shared respect for their materials of choice, be it fabric, metal or granite.

Bora Aksu is still struggling to find a balance between Amazons and romantic women, though he is as usual showing an interesting research into materials.

For his Spring/Summer collection Aksu fused on post-modernist and Victorian influences.

Rock’n’roll jackets with beaded lapels will easily be among the best selling items from this collection, but the most interesting pieces were ivory lace shirts, skirts and men's like trousers.

There was actually a sense of gothic decadence in Aksu's lace dresses: black abstract motifs seemed to be over-imposed on the dresses or creeping over the models’ legs and bodies, giving them a disturbing Alexander McQueen-like touch.

Sass & Bide’s catwalk started on an optical note, with black and white motifs printed on trousers and jackets, but, as things progressed, the duo moved on to explore opulent influences Cleopatra-style with long and short dresses characterised by intricate beadwork and also gold sequinned harem pants (avoid them unless you’re a regular at Poiret’s fancy parties…). As a whole the collection was acceptable, but quite often slightly repetitive.

Maki Aminaka Löfvander and Marcus Wilmont's first designs were characterised by an earthy palette. Sea blue prints were soon introduced, transforming the models into mermaids.

Little by little, almost without realising it, the mermaids on the catwalk turned into warriors, almost modern interpretations of revengeful maenads, with broken bird wings decorating their hair and corsets made of leather fringes wrapped up around their bodies.

It looks like also at London Fashion Week, designers are sharing Rodarte’s view of strong women, creating collections for Amazons rather than ordinary women.  

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Nautical, but not as you knew it

Though the dichotomy between sporty Vs lavishly embroidered and tightly clinging persisted during the last few days of New York Fashion Week, there was also another interesting theme that emerged, though in a rather subtle way, the timeless nautical trend.

At Tommy Hilfiger’s it was reinterpreted in a rather traditional way, with stripy jumpers for men, immaculate white trench coats and perfect navy suits, or with fresher looks such as strapless white dresses with stripy inserts.

There were references to the nautical theme also at Ports 1961 where sandals in navy/pale blue/white and red seemed to having been designer by an expert in the art of nautical knots.

Red and white stripy tweeds appeared at Peter Som's where black mini-dresses were paired with fancy necklaces with oversized charms of sparkling anchors, blue glass helms and rope elements.

The sea was also the main inspiration behind a few dresses by Stephen Burrows’.

A (frankly not so convincing) tiered dress looked more like a mass of seaweed both for its colour and for the consistency or its layers, while the sculpted edges of a white and crispy mini-dress reproduced the movement of sails blowing in the wind.

Moving to London Fashion Week, the Bebaroque girls presented another interpretation of the nautical look.

For their Spring/Summer 2010 collection the duo created hosiery, body suits and scarves inspired by nautical themes, from ropes and knotting, to mermaids and tattoo art.

Some designs made me think about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing in Mark Sandrich's Follow the Fleet, while the sheer body suits with appliquéd studs, beads and embroideries called to my mind Busby Berkeley's aquacade “By a Waterfall” in Lloyd Bacon's Footlight Parade.

The more I look at the body suits, the more I think about the girls performing their intricate dances and patterns in the water, creating a four-tiered rotating fountain, star-shaped formations and kaleidoscope-like effects surrounded by Art Deco graphics.

The Bebaroque girls will be presenting their collection at Somerset House’s Navy Board Rooms during London Fashion Week.

You can read more about the inspirations behind this collection in my interview on Dazed Digital.

In the meantime, enjoy these clips from Follow the Fleet and Footlight Parade.

 

 

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Last fashion drops from NYFW

The worrying omen that hovered on the runways at New York Fashion Week during the last few days - layers and layers of maxi or micro ruffles that, come next Spring/Summer, may swallow women - has officially turned at the end of this event into a full-fledged trend.

Despite the linearity of her sheath dresses, ruffles and ruches appeared in more than one look at L'Wren Scott's.

Isaac Mizrahi’s ruffles were instead verging more towards the sculpted and therefore less towards the ridiculously feminine and sugary romantic.

Too often in the past Mizrahi’s shows lacked cohesion in their presentation and this one reconfirmed the trend as the Fred Astaire theme mixed with “I’m Singing in the Rain” atmospheres.

Yet the actual collection featured a few interesting pieces, such as perfectly cut shirts, jackets with ample shoulders and multiple lapels, wide menswear-ish trousers and skirts with swirls of fabric that formed floral motifs jutting out around the hips.

Most of the day looks were accessorised with cardboard hats and post-modernist Oxford shoes, while for the night Mizrahi wrapped his women in yards of fluffy tulle, embroidered sparkling beads on dresses and coats without forgetting to add an Amazon-like touch with Plexiglass armour-like arm pieces.

References to Elsa Schiaparelli returned also in this collection after the bag hats from the A/W 09 collection, but only in one piece, a long evening dress accessorised with a Lucite lobster perched on the model's shoulder (Schiap, forgive us).

There was understandably a much more controlled sense of style at Calvin Klein.

Francisco Costa focused on neutral shades, and put emphasis on rigid sleeves even in one shoulder dresses.

Well-defined sculpted lines prevailed in his white designs that also offered Costa the chance to play with volumes.

Minimal can often mean bland, but Costa balanced his minimalism experimenting with crinkled surfaces and textures and also including pieces in fragile mohair in an earthy palette and beige or dark grey dresses with swirling motifs of fabric that created 3D-like waves and gave more structure to the garment.

A perfect body is often required to wear such minimalist pieces, but for Threeasfour’s designs you may need a very thin body.

Despite the latest designs of the trio being linked with Yoko Ono, an artist I never found that interesting, Threeasfour came up with an interesting collection.

Yes, it was frightening for me thinking that they used her drawings and based their catwalk show on an old Yoko Ono performance (shiver...), but, as a whole, the collection wasn't bad. 

Sheer inserts created cut out-like effects on trousers, leggings and tops; circular swirls wrapped around the model's bodies or around the sleeves of a jacket and kimonos were turned into futuristic garments. 

Curvilinear shapes already appeared in the past in Threeasfour's designs, though this time they looked more elaborate.

One thing worried me about the show, though, and that's a few skeletal girls walking down the runway: leggings and tight dresses may require a physique du role, but I find women in danger of snapping in two rather unsettling, especially on the runway.

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Casual and sporty Vs lavishly opulent inspirations at New York Fashion Week

New York Fashion Week’s circus is getting ready to move to London, in the meantime a little bit of optimism has appeared on the runways.

Models were spotted smiling at Anna Sui, but their mood was probably influenced by the joyously clashing flowery, starry and paisley prints and by gladiator sandals shaped like butterflies.

Yet the Oscar for optimism went to Alexandre Herchcovitch.

Like Alexander Wang (though Herchcovitch already presented this collection a few months ago in Brazil, so no copycat in action here) – Herchcovitch’s moved from rugby while working on his latest designs.

While this inspiration wasn’t too clear in the first nude/grey numbers, such as mini-dresses and tops with matching trousers that vaguely recalled the shape of rugby trousers, Herchcovitch's main idea became more evident in the rest of the catwalk.

Dresses and tops were characterised by bold colours and geometric prints in shades that called to mind the bright uniforms of rugby players; shoulders were emphasised and there were also a couple of showpieces such as a cage-like top and a skirt that was a hybrid between a rugby helmet and a crinoline dress.

Also the Proenza Schouler duo claimed there were sporty influences in their collections and you could clearly see them in the dresses that reproduced the effect of a tracksuit jacket tied around the waist, casually matched with perforated leather jackets.

The collection mainly included a series of tie-dyed bright blue and acid yellow and green dresses and baby dolls characterised by animal prints that often looked like Rorschach test-like stains in techno fabrics and bright and bold colours, embellished with trims, feathers, gems, fringe-like sequins, tiny ruches and lively patterns.

Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough’s designs continue to be perfect for their cool  party crowd, yet you do get the impression that quite a few young designers easily committed one main fault in their recent collections, getting stuck in one of their successful shapes and falling into the repetition trap.

I wouldn't mind seeing a bigger effort from Proenza Schouler's side in the tailoring department that, I think, needs to improve quite a bit.

Oscar de la Renta’s collection was, understandably, a less young and breezy affair, though it obviously displayed a greater research in fabrics and textiles than many other collections.

Though the day looks such as safari suits with kimono-like sleeves, white broderie anglaise jackets and tops or teal crocheted dresses displayed a controlled luxury, opulence came back in the evening wear with explosions of tulle, lace, organza scales and lavish embroideries as displayed in a long evening dress that, matched with a Cleopatra-like make up, was fit for a queen.

Not everything was perfect, though: there was indeed an out of place mass of fabric shaped like a sort of 3D Schiaparelli lobster that, stuck on the hem of a dress, looked rather bizarre and lace veils wrapped around the models’ heads that, in some cases, could have been avoided.

As a whole, this demi-couture collection was beautifully executed, though it looked excessively long and it would have benefited with a little bit of editing and a touch of cohesiveness.

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Capucci or Kors?

I was quickly going through images from the various catwalk shows at New York Fashion Week and, as soon as I saw photographs from Michael Kors's, my mind drifted to Roberto Capucci.

Kors’ collection was characterised by sharp lines and tailored architectural details and, towards the end of the show, there were a couple of sleeveless shift dresses in black and pale blue in which Kors explored the transparency theme.

The dresses were slashed and strips of Perspex that zigzagged around the body exposing the skin, were integrated into the design.

Capucci did the same in his Spring/Summer 1966 collection in which he experimented with different materials, using clear plastic to splice up a dress and coming up with a spacey yet chic white cotton number lined with transparent plastic with white embroidered motifs created using crystals and beads.

After all these years it looks like Capucci’s experimental work based on spontaneous experimentation with materials, architectural geometrical patterns and a sharp, precise and daring cut is still fresh and fashionable.

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