Japan France America

My love for Uniqlo began when it collaborated with Jil Sander, allowing me to actually own clothes from a designer I previously could only dream of wearing. Together they produced really affordable, highly wearable classic pieces. I was sold! Previously I'd only thought of them as a sort of Japanese GAP and really who needed that?

At the time Uniqlo wasn't sold in Los Angeles so my dear friend Jimmy sent me some stuff from New York and then on a trip to the UK I managed to snag some more pieces from what was to be, the final collection between the two brands. (Jil Sander was about to return to Jil Sander, but only for a hot minute in the end).

Last month Uniqlo finally opened stores in Los Angeles and the city is awash with colorful down jackets and the like. I walked in today and found a couple of pieces from a collaboration they've done with a member of the Paris fashion scene's Royal Family, Ines de la Fressange. It's elegant and chic, just as you'd expect and at Revolutionary prices. Slim leg jeans, fitted jackets, classic knits, all pieces that reflect de la Fressange's own very French style, that sort of "I threw it all on but somehow it looks really tailored and pulled together" thing that so many women aspire to but never achieve.

Vive la revolution!

A visual feast

Dries does it again. 

The most delectable fabrics in rich combinations on the most inviting runway. His collections are always effortlessly cool and wonderfully exotic and van Noten is a master at combining textures and colors and prints and making it all wearable. It's like you're wearing a book of passport stamps (from back in the day when travel really was exotic) and have just blown in to town from your latest adventure. 

Dreamy!

Twenty is the new twenty.

Marni is, I believe, a label by women for women and Spring/Summer 2015 sees the brand celebrate twenty years of creating beautiful, sculptural, sometimes clunky-looking clothes. 

As I looked through the images I wasn't immediately in love with this collection; but I was being impatient. The first looks seemed to be toiles of the collection, as if they were highlighting the simple elegance of the pieces to the viewers eye before they really let loose. Soon monochrome and monastic gave way to bold and beautiful.

The Castiglioni's have spent twenty years honing the brand and this collection shines. Powerful, collected, beautiful and assured. Happy birthday Marni. I wish I'd been the same way at twenty.

Love worn

I grew up in a house where things were often kept for "best". As a result some of my favorite things were rarely worn. I loved them but I didn't wear them. I took them out of the wardrobe or drawer to look at them and try them on but I rarely wore them out. Looking back on it now it seems strange but I lived on a very small island with very few places to actually go so maybe it made sense in a way.

There were also garments that had been in the house for aeons. Worn, loved, faded, torn, mended and patched, bleached by sea and sun they were perfectly destroyed. Hanging on nails in the back porch these clothes had a history and were on standby for the next time they were to test their mettle.

It's in this vein that items by Carrier Company from Norfolk, England are made. To be worn and loved and worn and loved over and over. Plain canvas, simple shapes, durable, classic pieces built for life and for living in.

Smocks, overalls, roomy bags, pleat front shorts that your grandpa would've worn and button up jackets that have deep pockets the perfect size for a paperback book. They'll become your most dependable friend, a fellow adventurer, a much-worn favorite and never ever kept for "best".

How to dress

It's probably apparent but I fear a world where we all look and dress the same. We need the Vivienne Westwood's of the world to remind people about individuality, we need Edie's wearing "revolutionary" outfits to remind us to stay young, we needed Isabella Blow to wear the most outrageous get up as nonchalantly as if it as if it were a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt. There are a few people who really show us how to dress.

I was being bored to death scrolling through the couture shows until I landed upon Schiaparelli, now in the hands of Marco Zanini, and oh my goodness, what a feast for the eyes!

Colour, and feathers, and texture, and turbans, and gloves worn by women from some crazy future who look like they might commit mischief most vile but would get away with it for the sole fact they were so finely dressed. 

Just when you think all hope is lost someone turns it on and revives what was going to be a pretty dull round of very expensive frocks. I've just added a new name to my list of people that we need to remind us how to dress. I can't wait to see what's next!

I'm Mclovin' it

Moschino is one of those brands that I've never been able to entirely get my head around.  It's super high end, expensive but really quirky and sometimes a bit odd, and then again can be tastefully classic.  Fashion-wise I guess it's about as Italian as can be.

Not since the advent of the twin-set and pearls was there as pairing as perfect as Jeremy Scott in the role of Creative Director for Moschino and judging from the Fall 2014 ad campaign it is a match made in heaven. And it stars the Arch-Super of them all, Linda!

The pictures were taken by Steven Meisel and the compositions somehow remind me of the early/mid 1990s Versace ads by Avedon, but with enough Jeremy Scott Americana to give it a twist.  Nailed it!

The last resort

Once upon a time, many many years ago (maybe 2007), Resort, or "Pre-Fall" was a collection that no-one really knew, or particularly cared about. Not outside fashion buyers and PRs and so on.

Then things changed (thanks to the internet) and people realized that everyone is shopping all of the time, the world over, and people travel all of the time, the world over and always need new fresh looks to wear and Resort became a larger concern and brands started doing presentations and shows and so it seemed that time sped up just a little bit more.

Of course someone is getting very rich from churning out countless items of "new" clothing but isn't it just another step in the path of the world looking the same? Within the constraints of a brand I'm sure designers are doing what they can to really create something apart from the rest but I imagine the pressure is relentless.

Tomas Maier for Bottega Veneta used the idea of bleach and its effect on clothes when washed as a starting point and the idea that no two are ever the same. Of course this is no tie-dye-fest but subtle dying at the highest end of the consumer scale but still an interesting concept in a homogenous world.

Subjective subjunctive

If I were ever going to get a tattoo* I would get the Prada logo somewhere thoughtful and discreet. A simple black triangle with PRADA across it.  Stealth.

If I were going to buy a red silk dress, here it is, and if I were going to buy a red fur dress, see below.  Stealth wealth.

* It's never going to happen

Perfection.

Raf Simons at Christian Dior.

The casual elegance of a 3/4 sleeve flamingo-pink wool coat; the girlish charm of an eye-popping frock, the assured Raf Simmons hand in the suiting, the very Dior-ness of the red bell-shaped dress, the wicked humour in the long black and white long. A colour palette that combined classic tones with neon youth.

Somewhere in time and space Monsieur Dior is smiling.

Dark Horse

Loving the drama that trotted down the runway at Lanvin. Classic pieces with brooding twists, ruffles, frills and plumes flowing from hats.  They looked like punkish show ponies with their tails flying behind them. 

Slightly sombre and yet so fun.  Was that a leather dress?  And a full leather trench?  Delicious and so decadent. I loved the waterfall tweed skirt too.  Once again a collection to covet from the man who makes the clothes 9 out of 10 fillies want to wear.