On Sass and Bide in N.Y

Development of fashion and maturity in design direction is certainly an interesting subject. Often you see the same design patterns over and over again, sometimes you get surprised at new, strong influences, and on the rare occasion you can actually spot a sense of ‘maturity’ in the production. The latter one may open many doors to a new audience, but it may also restrict the current, overall image.

Take Sass and Bide for instance, whose designs and image over the past two to years, have taken a slightly new direction. Naturally all designers go through different phases in their design career; whether that may be personal experiences, inspiration, or deliberate influences etc, and usually this is shown in their work. It’s an interesting observation to see how some designs can simply just settle.

Sass and Bide’s choice of show casing in N.Y has undoubtedly had a huge influence on their work. This is by no means a negative comment, quite the opposite. We’ve seen the darling Australian duo do the wild ‘grungy look’ heavily dominated by dangly jewellery, and models with tussled hair. The “don’t look too pretty” look has always been the girls’ trademark. We’ve seen inspiration from pirates’ clothes, wild animals accessories etc.

This week in New York gave us a different flavour from their past designs. Featuring a complete accessory-and-jewellery-free collection, their work showed strong neutrals of black, silver, white, and matte gold. Still with the traditional choker necklines, their work seemed to have taken a more developed, mature direction. No messing about, no added highlights, no silly socks, hair dos or any added extra. Just a simple, pure collection – and sometimes that is all we want.

Marc Jacobs for Jabba The Hutt

Maternity leave. Twentie’s style goes pear-shaped. Stuffed pillows inside oversized garments. Take an old grand father’s jacket and spray paint it gold. Take a pair of his pants and chop them off below the knee. Turn a scarf into a hat with a peak on it. Oh, and make all of this so big that only pachyderms like Fat Bastard can fit into it.

Gorgeous daahhling.

If this was maternity leave, it would be pretty cool - unfortunately it's not. Rather than flattering the beauty of a pregnant woman, this 'style' mocks less shapely women through distortion.

Contrary to his previous shows, where we've raved about his superb designs, this show was far from the same standard. Masculine pleat fronted trousers, and buttoned-up white shirts filled the show, as did oversized 'house-frau blouses' and skirts wide over the hips. It didn’t flatter Marc’s stick insect models & it sure wouldn’t flatter you if you’re bigger than Kate Moss. Come on Marc, we love you to bits and know you can do so much better than this.

Gucci Group Award at Venice Film Festival

The first ever Gucci Group Award will be given at the Venice Film Festival tonight. The recipient of the award will be an artist who has made a remarkable contribution to a film in any capacity within the past 18 months, whether in the role of the film’s director, actor, screenwriter, set designer, costume designer or else. Presented by a jury including Jeremy Irons, Alexander McQueen andMoby, the honoured name will feature the gala’s 63rd annual festival. Among the nominees are Helena Christensen, featured here for her role in Allegro, Screenwriter Nick Cave (The Proposition), Gregory Colbert (Ashes and Snow), Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno (Zidane), and Alain Robbe-Grillet for C'est Gradiva Qui Vous Appelle.

Young Fashion Designs in Germany

Now, who would’ve thought Hamburg, city of knockwursts and beer, would turn into a fashion capital for any lengthy period? Well, to prove us wrong, the Hamburgers have decided to dedicate a year’s worth of fashion talent in the city’s famous art gallery. Until April 2007, the Forum Gestaltung in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe is being turned into a fashion centre for the latest innovative fashion ideas. Students from some of the major teaching institutions in Hamburg will be show casing their work. The schools that are presenting their works are students from the Product Design, Textiles and Fashion Design Faculties, AMD Akademie Mode Design, Akademie JAK Fashion & Design, and Fachbereich der Westsächsischen Hochschule Zwickau . This could be the place where the new 'Generation X' of Lagerfeldts and Jill Sanders are snapped up.