A FEW FAVOURITE THINGS

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

The FashEd and I have been busy skipping about London town, going to some of the myriad of press days which are taking place at the moment to showcase what will be in the shops next Spring. Before I pop out to another, I've got a minute to share with you some of our favourites from what we've seen yesterday and today....

1. BROWNS- BAGS BY SOPHIE ANDERSON

Sophie has lived and travelled a lot in Colombia and that shows in the bright pops of South American weave and traveller vibe of her bags. She stays faithful to the roots she has put down by employing four indigenous Indian tribes from around South America to weave her bags. The sleek finish and neon colour ways make these so much more than something reminiscent of a gap yah souvenir. We love.

2. STARWORKS- LULU & CO/ FASHION EAST

The Starworks Press Day was a complete treat- full of collections by some of the most exciting young designers London has to offer right now. In their midst is Lulu Kennedy's Fashion East, which is one the best ways for talent to get a leg up on the fashion week schedule. Her own label, Lulu & co works in collaboration with the designers which Fashion East supports. Lulu told the FashEd this morning that the line is about to become a whole lot more accessible, with lower prices so more people can get a slice of the action from Lulu's brood. Just the right time then to fall in love with this very elegant palm print dress with the most awesome raffia bow.

Maarten Van de Horst, one of the Fashion East designers

Cartoony fun from the Lulu & co label

Togue in cheek elegant by Lulu and co.

Raffia Bow

3. MATCHES- ANCIENT GREEK SANDALS

As you may know from the FashEd's summertime blogging, she is one of Greece's biggest fans so it's a shock she didn't actually walk out of Matches in a pair of these Ancient Greek Sandals. 

Matches told us: 'The Designer behind AGS, Christina studied shoe design at the prestigious Cordwainers College in London and then moved to Paris where she designed shoes for Iris, Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga. Taking her clue from the classic Greek sandals, which have existed since ancient times she works with respect to that heritage, adding a more personal and playful interpretation, which give the collection a fresh and contemporary appeal'

We have a sneaky feeling you'll be hearing a lot more about Ancient Greek Sandals. I love the fun references to Greek mythology in the wing details.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM LONDON'S BEST FASHION DAY: TUESDAY (ok, I'm in it too)

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

Thanks to Mercedez and Matchesq for making these edited highlights possible.

GLITTER SHOES: OUTDAZZLE THE NUDE

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

Miu Miu FW11. Note the glitter shoes sparkling as they walk away on the left (Image from catwalking.com)

On the shoe front, Summer 2011 has been rather dull. Duchess Kate brought nude heel 'fever' upon the nation, egged on by early enthusiastic ramblings about the leg-lengthening magic such a shoe might offer. Nobody ever thought that though one's leg might look longer, the effect of no feet or shoes might be so disturbing as to detract from any initial benefit. ANYWAY, September is here and the fashion press are keen to move on from Summer's yawn-inducing blip. Lisa Armstrong at The Telegraph and Karen Dacre at the Evening Standard have both plumped for the red shoe as the New Nude. I would like to introduce you to the real fashion choice: the glitter shoe.

I understand that the red shoe is probably a more likely contender for what Kate wears next but the for the rest - break free! Abandon the nude boredom (by the time of Zara Philips wedding, the entire Royal clan had nude feet) and have a glitter party a la Miu Miu and Dolce Gabbana. The great news is that although these styles are particularly fabulous in heel form, the brogue and trainer versions will also bring glitterball brightness to an autumnal morning. The ultimate members of the glitter heel club are the Miu Miu varieties, some of which have already sold-out. Thankfully, there are still plenty to chose from but here are our favourites.

Miu Miu at My-Theresa £555

 Marc Jacobs at My-Theresa £525

Love the glitter/calf texture clash on these Miu Miu at Net-a-Porter £400

Glitter slippers- Pedro Garcia at Net-a-Porter £225

ASOS £40





Sparkly brogues at Dolce and Gabbana FW11 (Image from catwalking.com)

 These are boys shoes but they would be rather wonderful for emulating a Dolce and Gabbana catwalk look if your feet are anything over a size 6. I would love to spot a boy with beglittered feet, do you know any who might dare?


Glitter for Boys: Ask the Missus at Office £71.99

 If your glitter fixation knows no bounds then you could spend the whole of the next few months swinging between a Miu Miu heel and a Miu Miu trainer. We are very seriously considering that option.

Available at Miu Miu stores and concessions

FASHION'S COLOUR OF THE MOMENT: EMERALD

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

A wave of bright colours are to make their way into our wardrobes for spring/summer 2011. While Summer 2010 fashion was characterised by pale camel and blush tones, this year expect every concentration of pink (my all time favourite colour) from candyfloss to cerise, multiple shades of blue thanks mainly to Armani's La Femme Bleu collection, and saving the best for last - green. Not any shade of green; one very specific hue: emerald.

This colour has lightened my mood all week. Drinking it in feels like I'm getting my vitamin D or something. It started when I bought an emerald silk blouse from Urban Outfitters sale for £20 two weeks ago (sadly, no longer available). Then at the Golden Globes Angeline Jolie, Mila Kunis and Elizabeth Moss all chose to wear emerald tinted gowns. In my Golden Globes blog post I initially referred to the shade as forest green, and was corrected by someone commenting on the blog, she suggested emerald and she was right. The colour is that of the precious jewel and it has become my colour of the moment. Am looking forward to buying and wearing more emerald coloured items - especially from Celine and Lanvin. Also for leaves to bud and days to become lighter and brighter. Until then I will simply enjoy the colour.

Lanvin's emerald silk dress for SS11, available from Matches

I particularly like this by G. Stolyarov II, a science fiction novelist, independent philosophical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator. He says on his website "This work of Abstract Orderism depicts an arrangement of layered regular polygons (polygons with all sides of equal length). From the center outward are depicted a triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon, hendecagon, dodecagon, tridecagon, tetradecagon, pentadecagon, hexadecagon, heptadecagon, octadecagon, nonadecagon, and icosagon (polygon with 20 sides). As the polygons become larger, increasingly darker green colors are used, thus giving the painting a three-dimensional appearance -- as if one were viewing an emerald from one of its poles."

The new Celine advertising campaign by Juergen Teller with Daria Werbory 

The Emerald City of Oz

GILES TALKS PREFALL!

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

Got a call from Justine Fairgrieve (the founder of Relative): "Giles has invited you over for a cuppa and a look at his pre-fall, fancy it?" Prefall is a current working obsession. Giles is funny, charming and a very smart designer who never takes himself too seriously and yet has a very serious business creating collections for his own line GILES, new client Ungaro and various other projects. I was there.

Giles thinks his data bend print maxi dress is "a bit Eva Beadle in Little House on The Prairie" (She was the school mistress). I think its beautiful - Giles, consider this a personal order!

Why the prefall obsession?  Fashion consumers desire for frequent deliveries on new product has made the inbetween collections pretty major. So these days while the runway shows are designed to create media buzz and set trends, pre sets the agenda for how we will actually dress and offers a hint of what might come in the mainline.

Did you know we are in fact far more likely to end up wearing"pre" collections for our daily working and social lives. Why? Because its what the stores buy most of! Tom Chapman the co-owner of Matches recently told me pre collections constitute the majority of their buy.

Evidence of how the pre category has vaulted to high importance status was demonstrated last week when several of the world's eminent fashion editors and designers congregated in New York to view/show pre-fall collections. Alexander Wang, Proenza Schouler, Balenciaga and Celine presented in showroom. Lanvin even had a pre-fall fashion show. You can view them on American Vogue's website, or better still read this precis by the lovely Sarah Mower at Vogue.com, then view.

The week after next the Haute Couture shows will take place in Paris. For the average busy fashion editor there are six significant Couture shows to attend, but for the first time I can remember an equal number of hours will be spent viewing the pre-fall collections from labels ranging from Chloe to YSL.

Along the pre-fall rail at Giles cavernous new studio in The Truman Brewery

Three years ago the Giles pre-fall collection comprised ten dresses. Now it is a 70 piece collection (above) and the stores spend almost as much buying into it as they do on his runway collection. That also tells you how times they are a changin.

"Pre collections can't just be nice basics anymore," he says while flicking through the rail of blouse dress, maxi dress, draped day dress, cropped jackets, jazzy flared trousers and some applique chain detail Miss Haversham evening dresses. I see a lot of GILES best silhouettes reworked in stricter proportions, and a few new ones too like the eye-poppingly intense violet cerise blouse dress below.  

The blouse dress in cerise silk crepe and silk satin

GILES collections tend to have one of two moods; playful or strict. This one is veering strict. "Yeah its stricter, tighter, more austere," he says, though there is techno fun to be found in his data bending print. "Data bending is when kids mess with the binary numbering of pixels within photographs. I don't get what they do, but my print designer Rory Crighton ran with it. I think this was achieved by lifting the scanner lid..."  

Ooh trippy! The data bend print again. I shook the camera a tiny bit for effect.

"You need workness. It can't be boring. Really, I see this as setting the agenda for how I move forward on the runway collection."

All Giles hangers have the little goggle eyes. So cute!

Then it's time for tea and we discuss the inspirations for his runway show, (to be revealed later) and he shows me the venue for his Ungaro show in Paris on March 7th. It is a government building that has never been used for a fashion show, and it took 11 years of asking for Ungaro to be allowed to use it. Judging from the pictures the ambiance of the Ungaro show will be utterly magical.

The Katie Grand styled lookbook images getting laid out for running order.

Pre-fall hits shops at the end of June. For more pre-fall check back Monday when Fashion Editor at Large picks her personal top ten from the collections so far, and Fashion Junior at Large picks her top five. 

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND!