Hand Made metal wallets and card holders engraved with lyrics and lined with fabrics and leather. Each wallet is made using fabric cut-offs or reclaimed leather so every piece is different. Available here from their Etsy. 

Dollar Dollar Bill Yo

Forgetting the fact that we’re in July and the weather in London is this awful, I’m looking forward to Winter which means furs, felt, wool, leather and brocade, starting with the amuse bouche that is Carven Hiver 11. I’m salivating.

I was watching Jawbreaker the other night and developed another 90’s style crush. Big black strappy, block-heeled platforms. You know, the type of shoes the girls wear walking in slow-motion down the school hallway in any late 90’s/early 00’s American teen movie like Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Never Been Kissed etc..

Note the pair on the girl in the white dress below in this prom scene from She’s All That.

Yes they’re more clogs but Gina’s in Empire Records are good too..

The dream pair has heels that are clunky and square, with thick straps that go up the ankle, exactly like these:

  So far I have found one suitable pair, but they’re not exactly what i’m after. At a push i’ll settle for a clunky mary-jane, but i’m not giving up just yet…

Maybe a bit like these too…

I’m sensing a trend here…

Mary Katrantzou Spring/Summer 2011

Dean Sidaway Spring/Summer 2011

The more I see of Katrantzou’s work the more I fall in love with it. One of this year’s NewGen winners, I cannot help but see great things for this innovative new designer.

Katrantzou’s S/S11 collection is clever, colourful and interesting. Inspired by the ’70s stylised photographs of interior spaces taken by Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin, Katrantzou has extended domestic space into the sphere of fashion through exaggerated, striking silhouettes bedecked in clever trompe l’oeil prints created with bold poster-paint colours, artfully complemented by a skillful mix of fabric types and textures.

Works of art in themselves, Katrantzou’s S/S11 collection consists predominately of structured cocktail dresses whose linear constructions create a powerful silhouette further accentuated by blunt, angular shoulders, echoing the structure of the printed room displayed within.

What is most interesting about this collection is that it is not just a range of bold prints. The dresses are more than just canvas for the artwork they display. Instead, there is a witty interplay with colour, fabric, shape and accessory. For example, the piece below. Blunt green shoulders and a simple, figure-hugging body give way to long elegant tassels which extend from two-dimensionality in the form of pictorial drapes into three-dimensional detail.

Throughout the collection there are chandelier necklaces, flowing silk drapes and even a lampshade shaped skirt, continually referencing the theme of the interior; a different one depicted on each piece in the collection.

Eye catching colour and bold lines make, for me, Katrantzou’s garments a highly wearable amalgamation of design and print, structured yet feminine and highly distinctive.

In my eyes, Katrantzou would be best described as the sartorial love child between Viktor and Rolf and Erdem; design ingenuity combined with beautiful fabrics, prints and silhouettes.

Most exciting of all, this is only her first stand-alone show. I can’t wait to see what she does in the next one.

I am obsessed with Erdem at the moment. What beautiful clothes! I love the eclectic use of prints and patterns over the luxurious fabrics, the silhouettes and the detailing of the entire line especially the peter pan collars.

The S/S11 range proves to be just as covetable. I love all the floral pieces and the black floor-length lace dress with white collar is stunning.

I foolishly visited the Start Boutique during sale time a few weeks ago, and very nearly bought a beautiful silk Erdem dress from the A/W10 line. Thankfully my good sense saved me from destitution but I still crave that outfit.

I love the white lace pieces, they’re so delicate and feminine.

The Ragged Priest has created some new studded vintage wares, including leggings, tops and boots, now available from their concession stand on the ground floor of Topshop Oxford Street and Brick Lane’s Laden Showroom. I love this label.

I LOVE these leather shorts. I tried a few pairs on but because they’re all re-worked vintage they didn’t fit me very well.

Check out these awesome jackets:

Australia/NZ really is rocking out some amazing labels and designs and not enough of them get the attention they should.

My latest favorite find from the antipodes is swimwear label “We are Handsome”.Their range for S/S11 features classic swimwear one-piece silhouettes but with funky printed images and patterns. My favourite is the one-piece entitled “Africa” which features the enlarged face of growling lion and is distinctly reminiscent of Christopher Kane for Topshop’s angry baboon, or “Amazon” which shares the same design but with the face of a panther. It’s such a bold image and will make a great wardrobe essential, I will team it with denim shorts and a loose white cotton knotted shirt in Summer.

These amazing swimsuits can be bought from Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and thankfully my favourite East London boutique Start, I am definitely buying the lion. Check out more of their collection here:

http://wearehandsome.com/collection/

Carlotta Actis Barone is an up and coming Italian born designer and graduate of St. Martins College, the famous Art School that among others, has given us Alexander McQueen, Phoebe Philo and Stella McCartney. Her first collection with Fashion Mode launched in September this year during London Fashion Week at the Freemason Hall with Vauxhall Fashion Scout.

Growing up in an artistic environment encouraged Barone to be a visual person. She is actively inspired, influenced and encouraged by the world around her every day, along with the work of other designers and fashion magazines. Perhaps this is why Barone slots in so beautifully with her parent company and supporter Fashion Mode, a fashion house which also looks after three other designers as a collective entitled the “Four New Faces of Fashion”, giving Barone a constant influx of fresh inspiration and three other creative minds to share her creative visions with from their conception.

Carlotta begun her fashion career in styling, which gave her a working understanding of fabrics and clothing, something she carries into each of her pieces. Her work always begins with an idea or concept, often with a message behind it, which is then researched and developed further. This is how Barone’s S/S11 collection was created.

The S/S11 collection is based on the issue of Racism, which is still prevalent in today’s modern world. As the basis of her collection, Barone researched the slave trade of 1865 uncovering a newspaper advert declaring “Slaves bought, Sold and Let”. The callous treatment of fellow human beings, their lives traded and owned was shocking, and drove Barone to create an entire collection that takes inspiration from the slave garb of this time, their harsh treatment and a colour palette based on the skin tones of all human beings.

The collection is made up of eight different looks examining and demonstrating that just as appreciation of fashion and beauty is universal, so should every member of the human race. The pieces display Barone’s extensive research into the 1865 slave trade, and draw directly from her visual research around this subject. Underpinning the entire collection is a printed body stocking emblazoned with the words from that newspaper article, which every model wore on the catwalk underneath Barone’s jackets and dresses.

Barone uses oversized silhouettes to demonstrate the working slave’s muscles and ripped and worn fabric is converted into straps and reconstructed heavily draped and knotted layers. The colour palette is made up of all the different skin tones of the human race, used altogether in the outfits to symbolise unity.

A stand-out piece from the entire collection is the burgundy embellished jacket, not only for its aesthetic greatness but also for its story. Whilst visually researching, Barone came across an image of a slave going off to a party. In an effort to make his everyday work clothes more interesting, he had pinned tiny jewels, badges and objects to his jacket covering the fabric. Inspired by this, Barone’s own embellished jacket features a collection of badges, ribbons, brooches and jewels, all of which are deeply personal to her. The jacket’s dramatically enlarged shoulders and the minute details like the double-lined fabric which accentuates the interplay of colours, accentuating their universality and compatibility makes this a real focus point of the collection. On the back of the jacket, in juxtaposition to the delicate beauty of the jewels and brooches is a strange webbed pattern, woven into the fabric, the scars left behind on a man’s back after he had been severely whipped.

This is the delicate line with Barone’s collection; a political and important demonstration against slavery, urging us to remember the cruelties many suffered, but through beautiful and artistically created pieces.

Barone’s ethos triumphs over the view that fashion is merely fabric and consumerism, an ever changing churning machine designed to make money. Her work subverts this idea, placing the message and the idea as the most important element, not a piece’s accessibility or wearabilty. Barone carefully considers and creates each piece as if it were a work of art, stating definitively that “Fashion is wearable art”.

Although motivated by important messages, Barone doesn’t forget that her clothes are also for women to wear. When questioned about whether she felt that creating politically driven pieces meant that women would be hesitant to wear them, Barone answers confidently that although to her, the message is the most important aspect of her fashion, if when women wear her clothes they feel beautiful and powerful than this she has succeeded twofold. 

Barone as a person is outgoing and conversational. She is clearly passionate about her designs and the inspirations and issues that drive them and this translates to her pieces. She describes her clothes as elegant, and is proud of her attention to detail, and her work can be likened to the designers she counts as her inspirations including Viktor and Rolf, Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano. Her next collection, to be launched at LFW in February next year will tackle the issue of animal cruelty.

To attempt to re-invent menswear, you’d need to have balls. Luckily, as James Hillman so aptly described it; “I design menswear, because I’m a man”, and with a newly-launched collection of slick, slightly conceptual menswear behind him, I have no doubt he’s highly capable.

Hillman begs for men to “have fun with fashion”, and deplores them for having so little creativity that jeans and a t-shirt is all that they can muster for a night out. He has set out to bend boundaries and restrictions that are enforced on ‘normal’ menswear and his launch during Fashion Mode’s “Four New Faces of Fashion” at September London Fashion Week certainly divided the critics.

The collection, Hillman states, is intentionally androgynous. Delicate, soft and unusual fabrics in muted tones of lilac and grey make up the square and masculine biker jackets, blazers, deconstructed shirts and priest collars. This is an exciting juxtaposition. Although using feminine colours in menswear is not necessarily cutting edge, what Hillman does with them is. Paring down basic silhouettes - a men’s shirt for example, into its absolute basic parts teases out and exaggerates its simplicity. A shirt pocket gets tucked away into almost non-existence, and yet this subtle detail transforms a simple men’s wardrobe basic into an elegant and clever piece. In his own words his S/S11 pieces have been born during a phase in which he found himself concentrating predominately on the three most important aspects of menswear; shape, form and detail.

Hillman re-iterates that he craves knowledge and loves to research and learn more; a driving force behind his use of unusual and unconventional fabrics in his collection. S/S11 features such fabrics. There are shirts made of silver ripstock, a close-weave parachute silk which insert an obvious softness. Denim, a traditionally masculine fabric, is re-thought as a luxurious and delicate fabric through trousers made from an unusual light-weight and much softer denim. It is this kind of feminine/masculine interplay that accentuates just how Hillman is breaking down the pre-conceived notions of what men’s fashion should look like and be made of.

An uncompromising curiosity is another big influence on his work, for both his clothes’ structures and their conception; for example, the inspiration for his s/s11 collection stemmed from an old biker jacket of his. Desiring to know what the ‘59 on the sleeve meant, Hillman was introduced to the biker priests of the ‘59 bike club, whose collars and jackets provided a starting point for Hillman’s own designs.

Hillman is an interesting character. Although at first he appears aloof, perhaps even cocky, once he opens his mouth and begins talking about his collection, your perception of him completely changes. He is sharp, witty and eloquent, addressing his critics with clever well-thought answers. In September LFW Hillman showed his biker jacket and shorts made from teal coloured sheer organza on a model wearing only black y-fronts, sparking some reductive remarks. Unfazed, Hillman’s answer? “Why not use organza in menswear? It’s spring/summer!”.

This “why not” attitude is what is required for someone about to re-invent men’s fashion. With such self-imposed restrictions on what is and is not acceptable, men aren’t breaking any boundaries. Instead boys, take a leaf out of Hillman’s book (or a shirt) and say to yourself “why not”.

Hillman is not just a visionary in terms of design, he’s also a wonderfully talented tailor. The interiors of his jackets are playfully lined with different fabrics and details, as are the exteriors. Minute details punctuate the entire collection; like the vent on a jacket is deliberately left one inch longer than the rest, or the addition of self-made silver jewellery that attaches to the priest collar of his shirts, or a well-constructed slim fit blazer that on closer inspection has a removable lapel.

James Hillman’s collection is driven by a winning combination of clever design; with pieces that may appear simple at first glance, but after two or three inspections unfold themselves to be something entirely different, and luxurious and unusual fabrics, accentuating Hillman’s intelligent designs.

For Hillman, fashion is about exploring, about doing new things and trying to pull them off. In his own words, “if you do – amazing, if not – you’ve still got next season”. Ultimately, fashion is a release for him, and everything he’s made he would consider himself wearing.

Hillman points out that there is an element of himself in designs, something he sees as vital for designing. Clothes receive personality not only from their wearer but also from their maker, and in Hillman’s case this certainly stands true. The clothes in his S/S11 collection are confident, structured and intelligent, with injections of wit.

The ultimate aim for his menswear is to challenge the norm.

In his own words; why not?

For some reason I can only find menswear images for amazing knitwear makers Village Green, available at Topshop. All the same, you can get a sense of their style; simple yet imbued with a feeling of the countryside and nostalgia, derived from their name.

The last jumper is my favourite. Available in grey, charcoal and navy blue, I deliberate for hours and drag it all around the store with me, deciding whether I will finally bite the bullet and buy the £75 piece. I still havent.

What will be the last Kate Moss collection for Topshop is soon to be released, but after four years of collections, each time with diminishing popularity, do we care?

I remember the first Kate Moss for Topshop collection, and how could you forget? Images of her draped in her upcoming collection were everywhere. Queues were so long outside the oxford street flagship, upwards of 2000 people, that tv camera crews pitched up. Fern cotton was even there conducting x-factor style interviews with all the eager customers, asking them what they wanted to buy. It was an event, it was zeitgeist, and everyone wanted a piece.

It helped that every single item in that collection was a must-have. Like first albums, there were no previous expectations, it was all fresh and exciting. In addition, at the time of the first collection Moss was still the undisputed reigning style queen, fresh from the Pete Doherty drama but still in full control of what was to encapsulate the fashion look that dominated most of the late 2000’s, the “rock” / “indie” look (in part thanks to Katy England).

It all looked good, and the buzz, the queues and, perhaps most importantly for Phil Green; the returns, all testified that this collaboration was to be a success.

There were super-skinny jeans in scarlet red, decorated with minutely stitched swallows and stars in the pockets, the same as moss’ tattoos, complete with a delicate swallow bracelet that hung off the belt. There was THAT white one - shoulder dress made of white cotton textured like the goosebumps of all who saw it.

The green floral 40’s style tea-dress spawned a multitude of copies which flooded the high street and begun a new style trend, with a variation delivered in each collection since. Even the simple tank tops seemed softer, better fitting than any of those offered by Topshop previously. Yes, the prices were also dazzling, but we didn’t care, this was a one-off queen of cool collaboration with one of our favourite high street stores, a woman whose style could suit anyone and any age, smart or casual unlike the other celebrity/designer high street collaborations at the time.

Roland Mouret and Victor and Rolf with h&m for example, although they
were fabulous collections, couldn’t fully marry their high-end style
aesthetic to high-street fabrics, mass production and accessibilty as well as Kate Moss’ Topshop range.
You invest thousands of pounds on a “statement jacket” from Balmain,
because it does exactly that. You are investing in a quality,
relatively limited showpiece specifically because you want to stand
out. High street fashion is the antithesis of this, as its available
to everyone. This is what made moss’ collection great, it was
accessible fashion made with that purpose in mind, there was no

“dumbing down” to make the collections high street, they were intentionally created with that purpose.

But the collections weren’t a one off. Initially there were six a year, churning out endless maxi dresses with feathered embellishments and cropped jackets and boleros. It got samey and boring, the excitement disappeared, the design pizazz which had us so riled in the beginning was gone. It even became embarrassing to own anything from the Kate Moss for Topshop collection, leaving rails and rails of cut-price clothing every sale.

Eventually six collections a year became two, and now, the style collaboration has reached its inevitable conclusion. Perhaps, when it comes to Moss, we’re all just jaded. She was was always the epitome of mystery and cool, notoriously private and always refusing to ever give interviews. However, as she gave herself more and more to the public, her collections emulating the very same couture pieces she would wear each night, the public scandals and rock n’ roll boyfriends, we grew tired of her. Yes we will always love her, and yes her style will live on forever much like Bardot or Shrimpton, but with eager young style icons nipping at her heels like Alexa, Dellal and Lowe, perhaps it is time that moss hung up her fedora and furs, and handed over her much coveted crown.

Again, loving the black suede shoes and white socks on top of the ripped tights. I love this photograph; the swirling coat enveloping her as she stands on the rooftop looking out over the wintry city.

I so desperately want these grey cable-knitted shorts, but having deliberated long and hard about buying the Stolen Girlfriends Club versions, I’ve decided perhaps they’re too ‘brief’ for everyday office wear!

This look is very Oxford Darling; I love the grey socks and loafers, but especially love the thin ribbon tied into a cute bow-tie. I also like the colour palette, a perfect seasonal combination of brown leather and autumnal florals.

I’m jealous of this girl; red floral dress, fur hood and tumbling blonde locks.

Just for a little change, thought i’d throw in some menswear too, I love this guy’s style.