Hanna Gaby Odiele and Kasia Struss rocking out at Coachella (image from Harper's Bazaar)
It's a pleasingly predictable occurrence at this time of year: the hype surrounding Coachella as the first music festival of the year. There is always buzz about the line-up, the attendees and What 'Everyone' (aka fashion bunnies) Will Wear. But what is quite comforting about the photos which pour out of Coachella - which is near Palm Spring in California - and therefore has quite warm weather - is that what people wear never really changes that much. The general uniform is frayed denim shorts, some form of boots (Dr Martens/ wellington/ worker) a cool top (boho fringing or graphic print), and some sweet friendship necklace/wristband type thing, not forgetting the obligatory slouchy bag. This is a good thing. When in daily life there are many ways to look cool, so many options that it can often be overwhelming, Coachella, and festivals in general, are places where it is easy to look pretty fab in four easy steps. Not including getting off your face and lost in music, obvs.
THE FOUR RULES 1. Denim shorts 2. Cute little top 3. Work boots 4. Slouchy bag
Here are a few of our favourite takes on the denim shorts look...
Kate Bosworth in animal tee and little Mulberry bag. I'm a big fan of the lime fish earrings too (image from harpersbazaar.com)
Coachella not scout camp- boyish badges and camouflage, and hey is that Josephine de la Baume? (image from harpersbazaar.com)
Ok, they're coloured denim but these laced up shorts are along the same lines. Really love the scarf flapping in the wind and wintry hat (from www.mrnewton.net)
Zanna Roberts Rossi lets her bleached and ripped denims take centre stage. This is a bit chavvy for us at FEAL. (image from harpersbazaar.com)
The Zombie that is Sky Ferreira does double denim, and looks more grungy than cutesy festival. (image from www.fashionologie.com)
When the festival fashion formula is so easy - read: safe - it takes a lot of sass to veer off course. These girls did and we love them for it. Hanne and Karla (top and below) are my best dressed for the sole reason that they actually look like they're at a festival. They're a bit thrown together but there's not a a denim cut off in sight plus they actually look like they're having a brilliant time.
It's Hanne and Karla again... LOVE Hanne's fringing, face paint and pewter patterned trousers (image from www.harpersbazaar.com)
Best Dressed Who Are Clearly VIPs at an Exclusive Party Rather than Moshing in with Everyone Else...
Harley Viera Newton looking very sweet in pastels and Charlotte Olympia slippers. (image from HarpersBazaar.com)
Alexa Chung in Phillip Lim- a sweet evening dress and Jesus sandals. Not an outfit for muddy days or tents. Long gone are the Barbour days for Alexa (image from Derek Blasberg at Harper's Bazaar)
I have no idea what this girl is actually wearing, but her make-up is fabulous enough to warrant a special mention (image from Huffington Post)
Blanket coats...
Image from HuffingtonPost.com
What festivals are all about...
Image from www.huffingtonpost.com
Best dressed man: Kanye West in Celine SS11. We like the 80s open chest plus medallion styling.
Kanye in Celine (image from harpersbazaar.com)
See through rucksacks? These girls must be staying at The Standard or The Parker as their bags are filled with lollipops and bright fun things rather than pants and wet wipes.
PLUS, you MUST WATCH the hologram performance from Tupac and Snoop Dog. It's moving and beautiful and quite unbelievable that a performer could be so present nearly 16 years after his death....
right? Well, perhaps not THAT bad but this particular sartorial combination has a universally poor reputation, and quite rightly so really when the classic look involves camper friendly velcro straps and crusty old M&S calf hugging socks.
But here at FEAL, we've started to think that it's time to freshen up our perspective. And this week is the perfect time. If you're anything like me (and are in the UK!), you'll have been woken by blindingly bright rays of sunshine each morning. This leads you to don summer skirts and dresses and eschew a coat. Then, you leave the house and realise that the sunshine doesn't quite translate to temperatures balmy enough for your attire. I have made this mistake every day so far this week. But moving back into winter clothes is too depressing a thought to entertain. So our solution? Wear your summer shoes with socks to save your tootsies from freezing.
Here are some inspirational street style pictures to get us going...
From www.thesartorialist.co.uk
(From www.thesartorialist.com)
From www.vogue.co.uk
From www.style.com
I haven't yet seen a good photo of FLAT sandals and socks. I reckon at the very least the look requires a low block heel to get from Nanna to Fashion. It can go very girlish and cute if it's executed with a flatform and frill- anyone else remember the white frilly socks which you wore with school summer dresses? Going to John Lewis to buy them signalled the start of Summer when I was little.
I'm going to attempt a more grown-up version with a proper heel and perhaps a sleeker sock, though I have fallen a little bit in love with the lace ones below. Right now though, something a little bit toastier is required I think.
See all these people? They are outside one of Paris Fashion Week's most famous catwalk show venues in Paris, in the Tuileries Gardens. I've just come from watching the Sonia Rykiel show there.
Check out all the people with cameras in the bottom left of the image - in order to get from the gate of the Tuileries Gardens to the tent the show is in, show-goers, mostly industry professionals going about their daily work and minding their own business, have to dodge past these photographers. I reckon there are at now least 150 to 200 of them in total, and 90% of them are likely to be chancers who have set up a blog and want to be "in fashion" (if they actually know what that means) or worse still, they are weirdos who like taking pictures of young pretty women and models.
In the past the street-style photography scene has been a wonderful addition to the proceedings, but it is now out of control.
(image from http://concretemagazine.sjmc.umn.edu)
At the end of each show the "weirdos" as I have come to call them in my head; mainly sweaty, overweight late middle-aged men with multi-pocketed flak waistcoats on, aggressively heckle models and elbow each other to get closest to them and then attack them with flashbulbs. All these girls are doing is trying to leave the show, find their next appointment, have a cigarette, take a breather, whatever. They are off duty, they can do what they want. Today a photographer elbowed a model in the back so hard she winced in pain; I saw another one make a girl cry because he would not leave her alone.
Now imagine a crowd bigger than this shoe-horned into a tiny side street. On the way into the Dior show today at the Rodin Museum, the slender street the entrance of the museum is on was utterly mobbed with above crowd of "street-style photographers" - in reality there are no more than 15-20 very good and reputable ones - and hangers on. The atmosphere outside that show was scary. Police were trying to control the crowd; there were crash barriers, traffic was at a standstill, people shouted, cars beeped. It was not only chaos, but dangerous.
This is not what Paris Fashion Week should be about. Sure there are a few women who play the street-style game and further their careers by being photographed - fair play to them, they are consenting adults. But those of us who would like to get on with their jobs without this hassle have no choice but to face a picket line for each show. Why can't there be an area for street-style pictures to be taken? A sign saying "if you want to be photographed, please go this way".
When I lifted a copy of T magazine to cover my face as yet another lens was shoved into it this afternoon, the photographer called me a "fucking bitch" and told me I looked better with my face covered. When it comes to being attacked for being attacked by a camera, don't you think something is seriously wrong here? We are talking about fashion shows and people who go to fashion shows.
The people who organise Paris Fashion Week need to sort something out.
Nope, I'm sorry but Carine Roitfeld, Lisa Marie Fernandez and Anna Wintour (and more I'm sure) have beaten you to it. I know, I know, we thought fast fashion happened in Primark and Zara, not at Burberry and Givenchy. But think again because some of fashion's best connected are already wearing pieces which are probably warm off the models' backs. Are we jealous? Noooooo.
Lisa Marie Fernandez shows off her SS12 Pilotto in Paris (Image from graziadaily.co.uk)
One of my favourite shows of this season was Peter Pilotto and I thought I was safe in the knowledge that I had nine months to find a way to acquire a little piece of it. Swimwear designer Lisa Marie Fernandez had a head start on us all, earning her chance to premiere the prom dress by collaborating on the scuba ensembles which were standouts in the collection.
Peter Pilotto SS12
Anna Wintour arrived at the Louis Vuitton show on Wednesday morning in an African print trench coat from the Burberry SS12 show which she had taken a front row seat a mere two weeks earlier.
Wintour arriving at Vuitton (image from zimbio.com)
On the catwalk... Burberry SS12
But prize for the most astonishingly speedy turnaround goes to Carine Roitfeld who wore a variation on a number of looks from the Givenchy show the day after it took place.
Carine makes it real-life worthy with a silky blouse and shortened tails (Image from telegraph.co.uk)
Back when I was a reader of this blog, I recall an account of the blogger's catwalk phenomenon that occurs before each show at the Tuileries during fashion week. This morning, I actually experienced this a tiny bit for myself as I accompanied the FashEd to Viktor and Rolf. Although it was pretty remarkable, I knew it had been well documented here and elsewhere before so didn't think much more of it. That is until I paid a visit to the Edvard Munch exhibition currently taking place at the Pompidou Centre.
I think we all recognise this holding the camera at arms length to capture a self-portrait. Classically known as the 'my-space' pose
His obsession with taking his own picture and painting his own portrait struck a chord in the context of the slightly bizarre Tuileries scene where people know that if they dress right, the street snappers will come running- they're turning themselves into subjects just as much as Munch did himself, even if they don't actually end up taking the picture. In exactly the same way as today's subjects, Munch would experiment with different looks, settings and angles.
Of course, he wasn't trying to show how stylish he was, nor was he attempting to become some kind of star simply by taking cool photos of himself but he was most definitely exploring a facet present in us all to some degree; our fascination with our own image.
The exhibition notes explain that Munch took to painting himself at least once a year so that by the end of his life he had over 40 self- portraits, not to mention many more pictures taken on his Kodak Bull's Eye camera which he purchased in Berlin in 1902. I couldn't help imagining what Munch might have made of today's prolific self-portraiture as facilitated by blogs, tumblrs and twitter. But most of all I thought he was a great example of how this level of wonderment about our own image and that of fellow humans is really no new thing. He was perhaps one of the first people to have opportunity to properly indulge it. And now we are positively swamped with chances, we can spend all day posing and snapping if we really want to.
All Edvard Munch photos by Fashion Junior at Large at the Centre Georges Pompidou, until 9th January
Yesterday I rose with the birds for my seasonal one-day trip to the Paris fashion trade shows, where I check out all the exciting new accessory brands. Whilst there, I met up with the Fash Ed and the lovely Yasmin Sewell, just before they embarked on what they were calling 'the bloggers walk' to the Chloe show. Having never experienced a show in Paris, I decided to tag along and see what they were talking about, and boy, was I in for a shock.
The picture below shows the stretch of the Tuileries Gardens, through which fashion show attendees have to walk simply to get to the tent. Please believe me when I say that approximately 95% of the crowd are street style photographers.
Everywhere you looked, there was a camera in your face. It was honestly a little bit scary. According to the Fash Ed, taking street-style pictures of fashiopn editors was the sole preserve of the Japanese; whole magazines are dedicated to what fashion editors wear in Japan. In the West it is online that street-style has taken flight. And in five years the a handful of snappers has turned to 100s.
With every step towards the tent, more and more photographers/bloggers/fans swarmed like bees, waiting to pounce on their prey.
One of their prey was of course Ms Sewell, who couldn't go five metres without being surrounded. This happened about six times during the walk.
Seriously people, what on earth is going on?! Street style is beginning to completely take over the business of fashion shows. It felt crazy at London Fashion Week, but that was nothing compared to the mayhem in Paris. We fully appreciate the beauty and benefit of great street style documentation; it's an invaluable visual diary of the zeitgeist, but it's becoming all-consuming. Too many people are taking photos; and for what purpose? The heavyweights have already carved their niche, and I don't imagine the likes of the Satorialist will be giving up their place at the top any time soon. Primarily, street style should be about quality, not quantity. One incredible shot will shout louder than fifty blurred shots of a celebrity clothes horse in a nice frock. And lest we forget, fashion week is meant to be about what's on the catwalk, not on the backs of the audience.
For some examples of when street style photography serves it's true purpose spectacularly well, here are my favourite shots from Paris. They all capture something very special, unique, and intriguing; not just a nice pair of shoes.
An exceptionally beautiful coat, but an even more exceptional look from Leigh that simply adds to her aura of mystique.
Freja, captured whilst demonstrating her unique brand of 'I just don't give a...' cool, by Mr Newton of Harper's Bazaar
Giovanna Battaglia by Garance Doré. The proof of a good photographer lies in their ability to capture the moment, and it doesn't get much better than this!
If you are bored with the standard street style snaps, it is fun to explore photographer's personal blogs. YvanRodic.com throws up some of Facehunter's quirkier shots; those that might not be cookie-cutter perfect, but somehow give an insight into what a fashion week is really like.
Last but not least, Kanye and ADR snapped by Phill Taylor. You knew Anna would be in here somewhere; she has pretty much made street style her personal territory. Maybe not their most flamboyant fashion looks, but the sheer star power of this coupling is creating lens flare, they shine so bright!
Speaking of Anna Dello Russo, it's impossible to write a blog about street style without mentioning her. This woman gets up in the morning and dresses to get photographed - her OTT sense of style has made a thousand cameras flash over the past year, and the subsequent images have massively raised her public profile. All credit to her; she looks unbelievable, but I can't help thinking what an awful lot of effort it must take to look like she does. In fact, Bryan Boy captured ADR in action as she posed for Tommy Ton, and I will leave you with the video, to perhaps illustrate my point.
NOTE FROM FASHION EDITOR AT LARGE. There was a surreal moment yesterday before Valentino also in the Tuileries, (below) when it all seemed to go bonkers. The cycle of vanity seemed to be eating itself. This person snapping that person because they are doing their job and going to a fashion show wearing nice clothes. Its like the cycle of Hollywood fame in miniature. The people photographed become famous in the blogosphere for what they are wearing, much in the same way Alexa Chung is famous because she goes to fashion shows. It IS ALL madness.
