SHOW & TELL: HANGING OUT WITH OSMAN

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

Osman Yousefzada is such a sweetie. I popped over to his central London shop-fronted studio last week to catch up with him in his startling progress from young dressmaker to London catwalk designer with an enviable roster of the kind of strong, elegant professional women all designers dream of dressing when they start out. These include Lady Gaga, Caroline Issa of Tank magazine, Tallulah Harlech, the architect Pernilla Ohrstedt and the influential art collector Valeria Napoleone.

Osman's AW 2012 collection, using beautiful hand-loomed Spanish brocade shown at London Fashion Week (photo: catwalking.com)

Osman is from Birmingham and was secretly making dresses for his sister's Barbie at the age of five using offcuts of fabrics from his mother's bridal dressmaking workshop. His sister would pretend she had done the Barbie clothes, and he would pretend he had been playing football. "We are workers in my family. When I was ten I could plaster a wall, and cut a dress. Creativity is a middle class luxury after all, to me creativity is getting stuck in, getting work done."

Despite his openess Osman still squirms uncomfortably when talking about his personal life, which is hugely endearing. In fact, there is still something of that five year old lurking around the aura of Osman. Fashion is like his secret passion, and sometimes he finds it hard to articulate in words exactly what he is trying to say with his clothes. However, give him the opportunity to dress you up, drape some fabric, share some embroideries being completed in his basement atelier and before you know it a coat has been flourished in your direction, a trousers has been proffered (his tailored coats and trousers are his strongest seasonal offerings in my opinion) and you become his muse.

Osman's AW 2012 collection, shown at London Fashion Week (photo: catwalking.com)

Cobalt dress from Osman's Spring collection at Matchesfashion.com

When I press him to explain his passion for dressing women up in his now signature linear, modern cuts and opulent brocades, he eventually expresses the following: "I grew up watching women coming and going from my mothers workroom...I think that is why I love dressing women, and no two are the same," he says. "I know the transformative power of well cut clothes, and I guess what I do is work with my experience of women to create the right clothes for them. My method is, well...basically I will bend over backwards to help someone find the right thing. If a client comes to me " - 15% of his business is bespoke, and he has 80 global retail clients - "and needs something in two days, I will do it. I'm a worker. My motto is "I learn by client" which is something I have also heard Azzedine Alaia say, he needs to work on his women in order to keep learning. He is an inspiration to me."    

Osman (photo courtesy of the designer)

So who does Osman see as his typical customer? He laughs. "I call them 'second wife clothes': not young first wife, not mistress. She is independent, intelligent, comfortable in her skin," he says. At this stage we are upstairs in his glossy showroom, but I want to see the studio downstairs the hub of activity in any designers' domain. "Oh, you don't want to go down there," his assistant warns. "You haven't seen his desk!"

Osman beckons me downstairs and the crammed space is a cacophany of visual stimuli; indeed his desk is not just a mess, it is an avalanche waiting to happen - possibly even an archeological dig of paper, ribbon and tear sheets. Osman's work is largely inspired by the colours, fabrics and dress of ethnic cultures dovetailed with the purity of line of, say Cristobal Balenciaga whose mother was also a dressmaker. Below are images of his studio.

If you love Osman's work and want to get something from one his past collections, the designer is taking part on the British Designer Collective at Bicester Village, which launches tomorrow. I will be there from 10am with a certain Alexa Chung looking for a dress for my BIG birthday which is a week today, but being celebrated with friends this weekend. Aaaaargh! I'll be trying on an Osman that is for sure.

Images from Osman's studio walls

BICESTER VILLAGE 

BRITISH DESIGNER COLLECTIVE  - DETAILS

THE BRITISH DESIGNERS COLLECTIVE IS COMING TO BICESTER

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Bicester Village is a firm fashion favourite. In case you're not aware, this little designer shopping haven just outside Oxford is home to outlet boutiques from labels like Celine, Prada and Marni. The stores are almost as heavenly as the Bond Street versions but the merchandise is discounted by up to 60%. The British Designers Collective is the result of a collaboration between Bicester Village and the British Fashion Council. It is giving some of our best British designers the opportunity to get in on the Bicester Village action. Yes, that means discounted Peter Pilotto, Osman, Preen, Jonathan Saunders... the list is long and very, very exciting.

The Great Hall will house The British Designers Collective 2012

In two weeks time, on March 21st, the British Designers Collective will open its very chic doors for the third year and FEAL will be there! In the mean time, we'll be giving you a few tasters of what to expect. As you well know, we are big supporters of our amazing British designers who work and show in London. Now that they're giving us the chance to snap up their pieces at a reduced price, it would be rude to refuse wouldn't it? And if there any guys reading, then we have good news for you too because in May the collaboration will launch its first ever Menswear selection- James Long, Grenson, Margaret Howell and Sunspel are just a smattering of the labels which will be on offer there.

Pieces from previous seasons will be available at the
British Designers Collective, like this from Osman AW11

Or this from Preen AW11

We'll be keeping you posted on all the Bicester action in the coming weeks with interviews with some of the designers which will be available plus news from the launch.

The full list of womenswear designers- Nicholas Kirkwood, Preen, Osman, Marios Schwab, Jonathan Saunders, Markus Lupfer, Peter Pilotto, Holly Fulton, Bella Freud, James Long, Goat, Emma Cook, Hermione de Paula and Jean Pierre Braganza plus accessories from Pauric Sweeney, Lily and Lionel, Mawi and Erikson Beamon.

DUCHESS KATE, WE HAVE AN LFW GUIDE FOR YOU...

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

Over the Summer, we heard that Anna Wintour had given London based designers a brief: your muse must be the Duchess of Cambridge. It has already been shown that, like it or not, our new royal sells clothes in unprecedented numbers. If she wears it, a certain kind of everyday-stylish blow-dry obsessed girl/woman will want it.

The Duchess of Cambridge is under considerable pressure to wear British designers so it makes sense for them to play to her clearly demonstrated taste levels. But they can't explicitly write 'This is for you, Duchess Kate' on their show notes now can they?

The Duchess has already dipped her toe in the water of experimenting the current London line-up by choosing Erdem to wear for stepping off the plane as she embarked on her Canadian tour. This initial promise though failed to materialise as she stuck mostly to old faithfuls Issa, Temperley and McQueen for the remainder of her time away (apart from another Erdem dress for morning prayer on Day 3)

Kate, in Erdem, and William arrive in Canada (image from Daily Mail)

So, how did the London crew approach Wintour's call to arms? It is likely that the idea of using Catherine as their woman might grate, she's hardly on the cutting edge of glamour and modernity in those nude heels and fascinators is she? Well, we noticed a number of references to a kind of deranged housewife figure. The next chapter in a book begun by January Jones' Betty Draper. And actually, at the moment, that is how many people see the Duchess because she is overwhelmingly defined in the public eye by her role as wife. We don't know what she thinks or what she's passionate about. So, in my first attempt at replicating the previous Fashion Junior's Big Head feature, I have scoured images from the past few days to see what we might be seeing HRH in next Summer, and she'll have a lot to dress for what with the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations....

Burberry- Kate and Wills were engaged in Kenya so she might be quite taken with this Kanga print

Clements Ribeiro. Lace is a sure hit with the Duchess

She already likes Erdem, florals and shifts so this is a must-buy

Giles does classic Princess-y shapes

Kate is Issa'a number 1 fan but this would be a change from the slinky wraps she usually chooses from the label

Sara Buys, Harper's Fashion Director and a relation by marriage of Kate's, chose Osman for her outfit to the Royal Wedding so surely on the radar

The most Kate worthy dress from Peter Pilotto's offering

Add heels and a fascinator and ta da, a classic K-Mid wedding outfit from Richard Nicoll

Daytime prettiness from Jonathan Saunders

Perfectly demure for a black tie event, again from Jonathan Saunders.

I don't even need to add a head to this, it has vintage Duchess Kate written ALL over it...

Issa

 And what she won't be wearing....

Meadham Kirchhoff weren't bowing to Wintour's memo, and good for them!

Images from catwalking.com