London Fashion Week Day 3 - classy androgyny, lavish coats and jackets

Fashion week so far is definitely sticking with it's mature colour schemes, analogous hues and complimentary tones. What was most striking about Day 3 to me was how they dressed the girls like men. But look closely and the pieces are tailored carefully to fit around women's figures. Velvet, corduroy, wool, viscose are just some of the huge variety of fabrics used. Also, I found the staging/lighting this year to work well with delivery the entire package of the collections: colours, textures, silhouettes, forms.

Some designers that experimented with androgyny:

Paul Smith

Hands down favourite designer of the day. Chiseled tailoring, skilled feminisation of classic male silhouettes. He's used Alexander Wang's logic: simplicity but immaculate details upon closer inspection. Each piece has a block tone, but under the brilliantly set up lighting, you can see the quality of the fabrics. Recently Tumblr and American Apparel have made me consider investing in a pair of velvet leggings/pants. After seeing this collection I'm definitely going to buy a pair!

Margaret Howell

These designs are losing Paul Smith's body tailoring and going for a more loose, relaxed shape. There is less emphasis on the women's figure and more on comfort. From my previous posts I always talked about comfort in fashion and so this design is definitely a highlight for me. The pants could literally be mens pants, same goes to those shoes. There were skirts as well though, like the last look (which I think is adorable!) Loving the dark navies and blacks in this collection!

Vivienne Westwood Red Label

There's something very femme fatale but manned up about this collection. In the top 3 looks VW creates almost one-piece/jump suit styles, using the same colours top and bottom. I love how the jacket of the 1st one really emphasises on the waist. The all leather look is so rocker I think I'd probably wear it next time I go to a gig or something. Reminds of David Bowie and Brian Slade.
The bottom set of outfits to me really describes what VW is all about. Classy as hell but there's something very modernised, edgy and punk about all her looks. The white t-shirt look very juxtaposed, and the Asian girl with the asymmetric dress literally looks like she's just walked out of a Tim Burton film. Check out those (cavemen) markings on her legs! I'm also shipping the tousled hairstyles~

Next up I want to talk about the amazing set of coats all the designers had in their collections. The styles vary so much it's better to just take a look:

Unique

My favourite brand based on coats has got to be Unique. I cannot express how in love I am with this colour scheme of blacks, metal greys and dark greens. I want the entire 2nd look soooo bad I actually searched on where in London are the Unique outlets. I would probably categorise these as casual day looks~ imagine strutting it in NYC!

Nicole Farhi

First of all, excellent choice of location to match with this collection. I'm liking how she's sporting those 40s knee length long coats and the clean, brushed back (almost oiled) hair. Very feminist and really defines what fashion would mean back in the days. I don't know if it's the camera's work, but the slightly eerie stone like faces of the models also add to this fantastic gray palette. Reminds me of looking at Coco Chanel's old pictures in black and white. Bravo to the French!

J.W.Anderson

Spacesuits, plastics, flatforms. Is this what the world is heading towards 2012? The puffy dresses/coats look soooo comfy though..

Acne

There's a trend going on the the massive coats with the belt at the waist I think. Lots of designers embraced that. Acne's coats are also very statement minimalist and I think also quite futuristic. Would love to get my hands on that cropped peach jacket because it would go with anything, and also the bright orange one to just wear indoors. It's like a massive duvet in coat form! Also, check out those amazing auburn pants!

And finally,
Thomas Tait

To be honest, I think this type of large, flat, shapeless coats are becoming in fashion on the high street already. I've seen Zara do quite a few of them in the past 5 months or so. Incredibly stylish but really really heavy to wear. It's like carrying a huge heavy bag, but having the weight equally distributed around the body haha. Not what I would go for, but the minimalist inside me is really shipping this look. Also love the fancy collar to the first Barbour-ish one!

Whilst looking through the collection photos and videos, I spotted these jumpers that immediately caught my eye. Wasn't so much into cropped jumpers back in the day but right now I think they look so good with maxi skirts, especially the ones with puffy sleeves. Also, orange, black and white works anytime, anywhere.

The baby blue one *sigh*. It's so UNF.

That's it folks! Need to busy myself with some work now.. Will be back with LFW Day 4! xx

London Fashion Week Days 1 & 2 - bringing back British Fashion + Minimalist influences

Before I start, I'd like to thank all my readers that are reading my posts!

I'm at home home today, but when we were driving we past the glorious Somerset House all done up for LFW.

In the doom and gloom of a weather, the building itself looked horrid, but somehow the Mondrian windows worked, and the sheer number of fashionable people around the area was enough to light up at least that part of London. When we were passing Waterloo Bridge I seriously considered stopping the car by to just observe the amazing street fashion. After only around 10 seconds of observation, I have reached the conclusion that London fashion as perceived by the public is very much focused on retro British fashion. You have the 60s glamour, 70s high waists, 80s colours and 90s grunge. ALL coming back.

All hail British Fashion.

Mind that these are the umbrella stereotypes; everyone added their own little thing to stand out from each other.

People love recreating that chic look that Britain in the 60s are so well known for. A walk down Brick Lane and the style is blatantly located there. If done correctly and you have enough vintage pieces, you could really look like you came out of a page of a magazine at the time:

(pic taken from Vintage Fashion Week website)

I'll skip the 70s as I'm not a massive fan on high waisted pants (being short in height myself), but the 80s style was very dominating. Nowadays people go for colour. The wilder the better. Under influences from emerging designers such as Jeremy Scott, who skillfully locks mad colours and sporty fashion into his pieces, people are bringing back the 80s dance attire: big sweatshirt, jazzy shiny leggings, bright zip ups. The colours are more sophistcated than the classic neons, but the influence is clearly visible. 

The recreated 90s looks comes from the oversized sweaters/jumpers, contrasting collars, clunky big shoes (doc martens, platform sneakers), high neck shirts, printed T shirts, velvet. And I think most iconic pastel colours. Log yourself onto Tumblr and see for yourself people's obsession with dip tyed hair in all colours. It's a brilliant look that wraps in individuality and fantasy. Very trippy but it works. 

(pic taken from romanceisboring.tumblr.com)

(pic from f-a-s-s-h-o-n.tumblr.com)

British fashion is proudly being worn again. I think the advancement is probably the newish embrace of equality of men and women, and influences from modern Asia. Women proudly wear men's styles such as from the Kooples or Ralph Lauren. Japanese grunge and lolita fashion are also widely present. 

So, what's on the runway?

Surprising, it's minimalism. From all the decades. 

At least so far.

As I mentioned in a past post, people are finally recognising the sense of comfortable fashion, earth/metal colours and a general downgrade from extravagance and art nouveau details. Let's take a look at some walks from Friday and Saturday:

J. JS Lee

Clean clean clean. Everything about this collection is clean, washed down, simplistic, nude. When I look at this, it's like I've returned the the mid-90s. Look at the hair as well, so neutral and bare. Very "clean cut and distinctively grown up", as depicted by the Telegraph. What I love is the geometric look, almost architectural, no cliche contouring of the woman's body, ie waist, bum, chest, etc. The pieces drape down the sides like the sides of a rectangle. It's not at body hugging, but creates a clean cut, structural silhouette. Check out the last black dress though, looove the little ruffle down one side. Would love to get my hands on those!

Jasper Conran

Glorious 60s. Knee length bell shaped skirts/coats. 60s was when any sort of minimalist ideas all began. Twiggy's trend for short hair, clean contours to the face are all here. These metallic shifts are beautiful, even though they look a bit heavy to wear.

Zoe Jordan

The bell shaped silhouette is so evident here. Overall minimal shape, but the details of the fabric seem highly detailed. There are some chiffon, embroidery and every snake skin motifs. Some pieces look like wool and tricot too.

House of Holland

Helloooooo 70s!!! Before I analyse anything, check out those amazing flare leggings. It feels like if I went to GAP in the 70s I would find the top 3 looks on the mannequins. Absolutely loving this orangey red and the high waist tailoring. The original bell bottomed pants seem even more exaggerated to emphasize on the influence.

Maria Grachvogel

I can't exactly pin point what period this is from, but it is definitely an upgrade from classic minimalism. The silks and draped dresses spurs a French style. I love that red maxi dress and how it hugs the legs so closely. I'm glad that they cleaned the hair to make the horizontal shoulder line stand out even more.

Lastly,
PPQ

Even the 40s are back. Completely perfectly with the wavy glamour hairstyles. This is REAL vintage, but everything is done better. Better quality fabrics, better sleekness, better contouring. Clothes back the in the 40s almost reshaped and redefined women, but this collection kept it so that the girls define the clothes with their figures and movement.

So, that was days 1 & 2 of London Fashion Week. I'll be back tomorrow to update on day 3. And I promise to do more personal posts as well.

In the mean time, I need a get myself a new pair of sunglasses and a 20s head hugging hat.

Also, I'm getting my hair done at Jones & Payne tomorrow. I managed to book a slot for getting my hair re tinted and re cut (it's dying at the bottom..) Shouldn't look too different, but I'll post some pictures if I do take them!

Alsoooo my haul clothes are drying up from the wash. I should be able to blog about that really soon!

xxx

My photographs are live on Tatler.com!

http://www.tatler.com/bystander/events/2012/february/lse-fashion-show#/

Photos 10,11,12,13,14 and 15.

I'm so extremely happy, the deadline was MAD like, they wanted the best-resolution ones around 10 hours or so after the show ended. You might be thinking, it doesn't take that long to load the pictures off your camera to your computer and send it via dropbox, does it? But, it's not that simple; selecting out of around 900 photos and adding some lighting to it so that it wouldn't look so dark was all part of the procedure. (Also I had my bitermly assignment due that week too.. eeek.)

Now all the designers from the show want the rest of the photos. But keep in mind that they want pictures to show off their clothes, so I need to closely observe each picture and see if the fabrics are well presented. Which takes time. A LOT of time. Hence I'm currently suffering from exhaustion hence my moaning tumblr posts etc.. (also, London Fashion Week is around the corner which means explosions of urgency and frustration in the industry's blogsphere which make things even more catastrophic..)

Anyways, deadlines aside, the event and shooting itself was crazily fun. I shot mine without a tripod, and with the lighting being different in almost every walk, my mind had no time to think about how to set my camera and my arms and back were aching like hell. But this is the best I could do in that circumstance!

Also, if you are annoyed with the harsh flash shadow in the background, I'm sorry about that and SO AM I. But the room was wooden and very dark so it was the best I could do!

Luba Koroleva

Andrew Provost

Raphael Bosquet

Kiran Nyotta

Raphael Bosquet

Lucia Pflueger and Lisett Luik

I've realised that quite a lot models were non British, maybe it was just the LSE, but a lot of them were Central European or Slavik. No judgment, just an observation. 

And I'm sorry that my pictures seems to have a bias for this Raphael Bosquet guy. Actually I sent around 20 pictures of both girls and guys of all races, and they just decided to pick these people out of my pictures. Not that I'm complaining of course, he's quite hot in real life (they all are!)

READ!!!!!!!!!!!!: I'm going to do a longer post about this show with all the rest of the pictures, which will be better in quality. I took these pictures from the website, and they actually cropped a lot of them from their original sizes. Also, this one Asian girl (she's the 1st picture in the set on the website) looks EXACTLY and walks EXACTLY like the Chinese model Du Juan. Like, TWINS. So I have to gush about her and also Asians in the modelling world. Therefore I'm not YET done with this topic yet!

Plus I'll be blogging a lot next week since it's LFW! wooo!
xxxxx

i promise to revive this blog again..

I've been busy.

With uni, which I'm majoring maths in. It's a hell of a lot of work, mountains of problem sheets a week, plus piles of reading and practice.

Of course social life is important too, so I've been trying hard to balance healthily between the two, and also trying to get good amounts of sleep (which isn't happening today obviously).

I visited Japan for 2 weeks in the summer, it was absolutely enriching beyond words, I took masses of pictures but I don't think that really captured how I felt when I was there. (I mean just look at this picture I took, how can you not be in love with that billboard?) How clean and sustainable people there were, it's making me more interested in green sciences back at home, I'm sitting in sustainable development lectures out of my own time. How businesses thrived in every industry, in every corner of the country, how everyone went about their daily lives with no complaint.. people there gave off this unexplained healthy vibe, which made me willing to travel in the roasting heat for 2 weeks continuously. Not to mention hiking in the Japanese alps and of course shopping in THE Shibuya and the backstreets of god knows where.

Will make several posts with those pictures though so my lovely readers (haha), please check up on that when I'm done :)

I also brushed the dust off some of my photography folders and found some raw Paris photos lying there, and also some more the the 'London's Levitating Girl', modelled this time perfectly by my friend Georgia Thompson, whose amazingness I will rant on about in a later post.

Annnnddd, my uni's fashion show is coming up which I'm going to photograph for. The designers this year are definitely some of the finest amateur ones out there. We've got some astonishing new models so I hope I get some equally epic shots to show you all!

Lastly, London Fashion Week is coming up, which I'm going to (of course). Not particularly looking forward to the bric-a-brac bunch of people in their early twenties showing off their Michael Kors watch or Alexander Wang dress or Ferragamo whatevers. (In fact I have a HUGE thing against the ethos of fashion, and all the horrible ethical issues it's related to, please read Lucy Siegle's "To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?" if you want to feel the same way. But I love how some people mix those colours and textures all over themselves. It's like smearing art on their bodies and my camera and I certainly love it). Butttt, I'm excited to get some beautiful shots of beautiful London people (and maybe bump into Liu Wen please please)

Current update over, and I'd just like to end this post in something different:

Recently, especially since uni life has started (or about to start for some people), everyone is seems to be feeling an immense burden on their shoulders to do well and achieve/exceed their EXPECTATIONS. The more thick headed are doing just that, whilst the more intelligent are taking a step back and questioning themselves 'what do I really want?' I just want to remind everyone that, whatever you do, achieve, gain in life, you do it for yourself and NOT for others to see. If your grades and work are the only thing others use to judge you on, then you've pretty much failed in life. So what if you get a job offer at so-and-so? About a million people out there have one too. What really inspires others is self confidence, not confidence to damage others' prides, and a pure, genuine heart when it comes to interacting with other people. My mum has always told me that what really matters in term of learning is your humanity, and all the rest is a responsibility for yourself and your own future. So, if you are currently being pressured by someone or something, ask yourself what you want, and never stop walking down your own path in achieving that.

That's all folks! Cookie for you if you've read this far! xx