Balenciaga: Puts Tie Dye back Into Perspective

When describing Balenciaga’s new-romantic grunge collection last night, Susie "Style Bubble" illustrates it perfectly in her comment about how impressed she’d be, seeing that “woven stripy coat priced at god knows how many 1000's of euros, when you can get the same thing at joss-stick selling Camden stalls for £10.” Go Susie! Yes, she’s absolutely right... The collection had elements of a very twisted bohemian look, but it wasn’t all to do with home knitted long rugs from dopy hippy markets. "Palestinian shawls" worn with soft velvet blazers played on the random theme in Ghesquière’s show, but it was more to do with cool girls from Camden college, than dread-locks and weed (though clearly Nic’s Camden girls looked like they’d be up for a smoke or two). Well-cut cricket trousers, turquoise opaque tights, tassley studio 54 disco dresses, and other eye-catching pieces deserve a big applaud in this show... Shoes were as always extremely high, this time with touches from the gladiator scene and colourful ice-hockey equipment. Completely weird of course but at the same time absolutely gorgeous.

Walk This Way in The Year of The Opaque

Formally announced as The Year of the Pig, we’d think it only fair to suggest that 2007 should also be referred to as another, more flattering historic milestone - “The Year of the Opaque Tights”. Though as much as we’ve seen this in 2006, thick tights have been everywhere in the Autumn/Winter 07/08 shows.

Prada sent out girls wearing cool knee-highs socks in a variety of colours. Anna Sui took up the metallic theme and focused on silver and gold-infused lurex tights.

Marc Jacobs in NY: Declaring the Thirties the New Black

Come bright neon colours mixed with grey... bring heavy fabrics mixed with silk... take the large number of hats in a variety of different shapes... These trends are all easy to love and incorporate in your own way. But the one observation that sticks to mind from New York so far is the Thirties style. Silhouettes are long and lean, hats are wide-brimmed, and wrist-length gloves come in coloured leather. Quick summary: We like it a lot.

Karen Walker: Autumn/Winter 07/08

For a designer who reportedly designs clothes for outsider women, the Kiwi designer’s view on the “anti-it girl look” is as bizarrely fashionable as any hyped-up Marc Jacobs’ show. We’ve reported on Karen Walker before, and yet again, we’ve nothing but praise to give to this talented woman.

For autumn/winter 07/08 Karen Walker had a number of key elements in mind; tailored tweed, thick woollen coats, neck warmers in bright colours and casually worn berets. While the best part of this collection came down to earthy, muddy tones we loved the introduction of contrasting colours that add to the effortless, ‘accidental’ look that Karen does so well. In keeping with the unpretentious theme, her collection featured contrasts throughout the show: masculine and feminine, tailored and baggy, luxury and street-smart, dark and super cute.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that the style press love Karen. What does surprise us on the contrary, is that it’s only Walker’s second season in New York.

Vivienne Westwood: From Punk to Funk

Eccentric Paris glam is only to be expected, when you attend the show of a lady who signs more political petitions, than flashy restaurant bills these days. Not only did she feature her involvement in the Leonard-Peltier case, but she had the studio walls spray-painted in graffiti to add to the experience for the audience.

In the past we’ve seen provocative messages plastered over some of her clothes. Take last summer’s collection for instance, named “Active resistance to propaganda”, where “I am not a terrorist” was printed across the chest. Last night’s theme continued the Westwood tradition. The words “I Am Expensiv” (sic) had been plastered over t-shirts, and she had both a hip-length cape and a skirt to match the grafittied walls.

Unlike most other shows this season, Dame Westwood introduced colours. Pink, purple, bottle-green and yellow were featured most strongly, but the stem colours were lighter shades of grey and crisp white. Shapes were loose-fitted as always - tucked, gathered and layered. There were no corsets and crinoline, no punk nor tartan, but this still wasn’t a far cry from our usual Westwood caricature. Energetic, vibrant and fun. Long live Viv.

When Paris Brings Balenciaga We All Say Hail

Metropolis, Bladerunner, Mad Max, I Robot. There’s a long list of famous futuristic films of this genre. Though there was a striking resemblance to Fritz Lang’s she-robot, last night’s main reference had nothing to do with the full- figured German blonde bombshell from 1926. “The collection,” says Ghesquière, “is a tribute to films like Terminator and Tron”. And futuristic robot-chic was certainly on the agenda, as the audience enjoyed Ghesquière’s masterpieces in Paris.

Although based on skinny, almost gothic, masculine structures, the collection had many other objectives. While delighting a few Marilyn Manson fans, Ghesquière retained feminine touches from the 80’s; draped silk dresses lacquered into pseudo-stiffness. Then came the real icing on the cake: shiny, metallic, armour-structured leggings. This is where we’ll see a guaranteed high street retail blast next year.

Although the skinny, low-ridden signature-pants were on stage again this season, new materials and fabrics had been introduced to make this collection a unique winner. But fabrics aside for a moment, what we loved most was perhaps rare usage of metallics, combined with sharp cuts and minimalist details. Phew! Mind blowing, innovative, sexy, dramatic and tons of attitude.

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.

Spring/Summer 2007 Fashion for Men

Baby blue moccasins and zigzag knitted cardigans, teamed up with matching little delicate vests. Off the topic, it really doesn’t sound all that bad. But considering that these items have been featured in Milan's menswear shows recently, the styles leave a very different impression.

It’s difficult to love the ‘public school boy’ look when Missoni are determined to go for full extremity; throughout the entire collection, we should add. The pink shades and gloves, the pastel coloured golf sweaters, the Bermuda shorts worn with shirt, tie and waistcoat... Yes, even a matching uber-cute golf club carrier was thrown in there too. We’re not entirely sure who would look brilliant in this, but perhaps Missoni's demographics know best how to carry this off. Creative Director Angela Missoni wasn’t the only designer who’d dwelled on the ‘queer eye for the straight guy’ theme this season – Roberto Cavalli had called in Saturday Night Fever and Huggy Bear pimp clothes for support. At Prada it was a pyjama party with over-sized football shorts on stick insect legs. Burberry Prorsum sent out some nice suits in general – worn together with ladies hats, belts and handbags.

From left: Missoni, Roberto Cavalli, Burberry Prorsum

Vivienne Westwood : An Ode to Human Rights

Paul Valley at the Independent asked Bono in a May-issued interview if celebrities have the power to change the world. No, is his simple conclusion. Though, adding at the end that “celebrity involvement can make campaigns fashionable, helping to build momentum that NGOs would otherwise struggle to achieve”.

This brings to mind Dame Vivienne Westwood... Who could forget her involvement in movements such as the “Stop the War coalition”, and the co-work with Liberty? Designing t-shirts emblazoned with the message “I’m not a terrorist” projected the widespread concern about the government’s anti-terror measures. It was her upbringing, plus the influence of a politically passionate schoolteacher that primarily coloured her opinion on Habeas Corpus.

Her highly controversial prêt-a-porter collections have, of course, been full of radical twists too; we’re not just referring to the “bondage suit” created in the seventies for Malcolm MacLaren. Interviewed recently by Dazed and Confused, Westwood talks about the Leonard Peltier case and how that has influenced some of her most recent collections. “It was shocking, the in-your-face and blatant legal manipulation, the abuse of the law, and to do that to Leonard. He has spent 28 years in jail and there is no proof at all that he committed a crime.”

Westwood, recently honoured Dame, organised a petition for the wrongly imprisoned Peltier, collecting the signatures of Elton John, Giorgio Armani, Marc Jacobs and Madonna, to name but a few. Vogue raved about her a/w 2006 collection (pictured above), and referred to Westwood as a “statement maker” that knew what she was talking about. We couldn’t agree more.