Supertrash, super class

Although I love collections where the garments are more art than clothing, when the shapes, the colours and prints are just totally outrageous and out there - it is the utter wearability of the Supertrash A/W09 collection that makes it so good. You can pretty much pull every piece off the catwalk and throw it on. The lines are simple, clean and I love the draping detail on some of the dresses. And - check out the stunning cobalt shoes. If that's not love then i don't know what is!

There are a lot more photos that I would have liked to upload here, but I had a bit of a struggle finding them. They are all from Peter Stigter (his website is awesome, well worth a look see), you can also take a look at the entire collection on http://www.aifw.nl/photo-video, just scroll down to find supertrash. Being the technology retard that I am - I couldn't figure out how to upload these photos here. My geekiness is confined to numbers and spreadsheets don't you know.

So here's a mini preview of the A/W09 collection - online webshop coming soon!

Fashion evolution

This is just a little side note - I read last night over at Fashionologie about the "American Woman" Themed Costume Insititute Gala. I found it highly amusing that it is hailed as looking at the influence and style revolutions started by the American woman - and then list the clothing that will be displayed, all by french and italian designers. A bit of American egocentrism perhaps?

I think I see what they mean though - early 20th century was the start of movies and hollywood and most of the great actresses of the time were American. They inspired and sported new looks from then upcoming designers and in that way helped and influenced the style revolution that shaped the 20th century. Maybe it's the patriot in me (I am french and a lot of the great designers that started up in the early 20th century are french - Chanel, Lanvin, Dior, Saint Laurent etc) but although I agree America had some influence I would still maintain the style revolution in the early 20th century was started and mainly carried by Europe and France. But that's just my insignificant view!

A very good book to read to get a better idea of the evolution of fashion in this era is Coco Chanel: A Biography by Axel Madsen (photo from Amazon). Although the book is about Chanel's life it goes into great detail as to the political and fashion scene of the time and really tells Chanel's life in the context of the happenings and changes of the time. And what's highly amusing is learning about how all the huge design houses we all know now started off -for example a small nervous young man is mentioned starting an apprenticeship at Dior - his name was Yves Saint Laurent......

Tights Ahoy!

There's no use denying it - summer is truly over, it's time for autumn. Rather than get all gloomy about the end of summer what better way to eagerly anticipate the return of cold, wet, grey and generally miserable weather than by checking out what tights I'll be wearing this winter.

So, here is my tights and socks wish list - Santa, take note.

Firstly, from http://www.mytights.com/, these Cavallini beauties would go down a treat....I love them in both the green and the nude - but after a year of acid coloured tights I'm quite keen on a more discreet palette.

Henry Holland has concoted a few pairs of tights for Pretty Polly, one that I'm particularly keen on are the black graduated tights. The alphabet tights remind me of alphabet soup which I loved as a kid! I wonder if they feature all 26 letters.....

Then there's ASOS - never one to be outdone, they have two tone black and white tights reminiscent of the chanel tights. They are getting an express one way ticket to my sock drawer!!

Looking around online I stumbled on this website called sock dreams. Loved the name - although I immediately pictured socks having dreams rather than people dreaming of socks....I think my socks dream of winter so that they can come out and see the world (or London) with me. Or maybe they dream of getting away one day from my smelly feet. Hmm.

Anyhow, this sock dreams website has some very original hosiery. Check out the skeleton socks. Great if you're dressing up as a sexy skeleton (is that even possible?) for hallow'een. Otherwise I'd wear them if I was rocking the Noel Fielding look....I do have a weird crush on Vince from the Mighty Boosh - how can you not fancy a straight man who can pull off wearing glitter platforms?!

Racing tights? Tuxedo socks? Get on my wish list now! (again these are from Sock Dreams)

The Wolford fringe tights. asgjhsasdfhkja. (read this as the drooling sound homer makes when he sees doughnut). These however will only ever remain on my wish list and never in my closet - at £200 a pop I will definitely need a lottery jackpot to afford these!

And then obviously pretty much anything on the Too Many Tights blog!! On the most recent post, the gold and black Spartan tights would bring out the super hero in me - if there is one that is.

Very Vintage, Very Fabulous

An occasionally frustrating and unfortunate part of my job is that I have to study and take exams every 6 months. The next set of exams are fast approaching and I find myself confined to my flat on weekends and evenings manically cramming as much information as I can about stats and macroeconomics. Which is why it's Saturday night and I am home alone with only my laptop as companion. I should be studying but I've had more than enough of marginal revenue curves for one day. (Actually I did a spot of shopping today too and bought some AMAZING items, however I'm waiting for the respective designers' websites/facebook pages to be up before I blog about them. Watch this space)

I am mid blog check up - I like to go through all the blogs I follow one by one to see what's new - and upon arriving at the Kingdom of Style, my breath was litterally taken away. The Queens of style, Michelle and Marie (well in this case Marie was doing the talking - or posting as it were) mention New York vintage store Olives Very Vintage - it has a website, thankfully for us non New Yorkers. One of the featured items in the Queens' blog is this stunning cape. To say that I was overcome with lust for it would be a colossal understatement. I love it all. I love the shape, the collar, the ruffles. I LOVE the blood red lining - how apt to compare it to a vampire's cape. It is a cruel twist of nature that my bank account does not share my bottomless appetite for clothes. Maybe I should go look for a vampire and ask for his cape - although today's vampire, if all the recent tv series and books/films are to be believed, have traded their capes for GAP clothes. What a pity.


Judging by that last photos - maybe flashers should reconsider the trench coat as their clothing of choice and trade in for a beautiful cape with red lining. Much more effective...

I had a look at the rest of the Olives Very Vintage website and stumbled across another fantastic item. A vintage Bill Blass chiffon evening dress with a full, pleated skirt - the kind that would make you want to twirl on the spot just to see it deploy itself to its full length. I can see myself gathering it up to regally climb stairs, or dramatically fling it around me as I sit down taking up the entire sofa with my beautiful dress. I'm not normally one for clothes that are so demure - but when demure has so much drama in its skirt, how can you resist!It even has dramatic sleeves, the kind you'd want to have cascading out of your jacket's sleeves making everyone of your movement dramatic yet graceful....
Why oh why am I not some heiress with bundles of cash?! That's it - I'm playing the lottery tomorrow. And now, back to studying. Sigh...........

Charity Shop wonders

I have found a new "chain" if you will of new charity shops. And they are awesome. They are in Pimlico - there's three of them, the Fara charity shops which raise money for Romanian orphans. One is just for kids (not so interesting if like me you don't have children), one is a regular charity shop but with a very decent selection of clothes and one is a vintage charity shop which not only has an awesome selection of clothes and accessories but also an owner/manager that will chat the legs of fdonkey telling you all sorts of facts about the clothes you're trying on.

From the regular charity shop, I bought a big puffy petticoat-like white skirt which works amazingly as a dress. I like to think it's a petticoat - trying it on it reminded me of that line in Gone With The Wind when Rhett and Scarlett are on their honeymoon, Rhett says his Mammy always "wanted a red tabita petticoat so stiff that it would stand by itself and so rustly that the Lord would think it was made of angels' wings". The cotton of the skirt is so thick and there is so much of it every time I moved it made the most delightful rustling noise. Also, it is incredibly satisfying to sit down and dramatically fling the fabric around me - spreading the skirt to its full width. All that satisfaction for just £2 - you can't get better than that!

When I entered the vintage shop, the first item I saw was right at the back - a navy style coat, it was on a model with a feathered hat over it and looked distinctly pirate like. Hency my attraction - I love all things military and all things piraty. I however made myself go through all the rails first at the front of the shop, glancing furtively at the coat every so often. It was a bit ridiculous to be completely honest, you'd have thought I was approaching an exotic animal, or that I was 14 again and trying to approach a boy I had a crush on. But for some reason I just didn't want to walk straight up to the pirate mannequin and the gorgeous coat.

I did get there eventually - and it was every little bit as good as I wanted it to be. The lining was destroyed but the coat itself in amazing condition considering it was from the 1930s (so I learnt from the shopkeeper while i was trying it on.) The geek in me loves that my coat isn't just "army style" with embellishments chosen by someone with nothing to do with the Army. My coat is a real McCoy army coat. When I got home I immediately went to google for answers as to what rank in the navy my coat represented - another tid bit I learnt from the shop keeper is that the insignia on the sleeves represent different ranks in the army/navy. Well, my coat's a commander's coat apparently. Bring on autumn, I can't wait to march around town in my new/old Navy coat, I intend to do so with the authoritative and commanding air of someone in power.

And, on top of it all, there's the added bonus of knowing that the money I spent will not line some rich person's pocket but go towards helping orphans. Best retail buzz ever - high from awesome new clothes, knowing they're one of a kind, and knowing you've done something to help! It's winners all round....

The coat fits me pretty perfectly - which means the man who owned it was either very small or I'm pretty big. I'm going to say it's the former....

I'd like to point out - I'm not the kind of person who wears sunglasses indoors - it just feels a bit odd to post photos of myself on the internet. So I'm staying in the safe anonymity of my sunglasses for a bit!