THE WEEK IN FASHION: 30th JANUARY- 2nd FEBRUARY

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

It's cold outside, here's some fashion news to warm you up...

Jonathan Saunders SS12

Congratulations to the super wonderful Jonathan Saunders who has won the BFC/ Vogue Fashion Fund Award. He'll get £200,000 and specific mentoring to help his business grow. It's clear to me that Saunders 'gets' something about what women want from their clothes which is why his sales have skyrocketed by 118% in the past year; for the London shows, every other front rower was wearing a piece of Saunders. We're really pleased for you Jonathan! Let's not forget the runners-up who must have made the panel's decision pretty tough; Peter Pilotto, Mary Katrantzou, Roksanda Ilincic, Richard Nicoll, Zoe Jordan, Nicholas Kirkwood, Marios Schwab and Meadham Kirchhoff.

When  Jonathan's win was announced, Lulu Kennedy (who supported Jonathan through her Fashion East scheme early in his career) tweeted a picture of Natalia Vodianova wearing a Saunder's dress on the cover of Vogue in 2004. I thought it'd be nice to share- thanks Lulu!

Jonathan Saunders covers Vogue in 2004- image from Lulu kennedy's twitter

A look from Stine Riis' collection (from wwd.com)

The first winner of the H&M Design Award was announced at Stockholm Fashion Week yesterday. Stine Riis is originally from Denmark but recently graduated from London College of Fashion. She wins 50,000 euros as well as the opportunity to have pieces from her collection sold in H&M stores in the Autumn. Check out the video below for all the action from the final...



Talking of LCF, the FashEd and I had a brilliant and inspiring time on Tuesday night at the college's MA exhibition. We heard lots of great stories and saw some beautiful work. Look out for our full report next week.

 Last year, Robin Derrick left British Vogue to work on the re-launch of the US edition of Harper's Bazaar. The fruits of his challenge to revamp the title were revealed this week with a stark monochrome cover starring Gwyneth Paltrow. According to our favourite New York tweeter @jimshi809 the 'Redesigned Harper's Bazaar US is one-inch bigger w/ thicker paper & new fonts & every new section starts w/ the world "the."' Now we know!

One of the many brilliant personalities in the Cunningham film,  Shail Upadhya, a
Nepalese UN representative and one of Bill's regular subjects.

This week, I spent an amazing evening at the UK premiere of 'Bill Cunningham New York', Richard Press's new documentary about the 80 year-old New York Times photographer. The event was sponsored by Grazia, and afterwards Paula Reed hosted a Q&A with Chris Moore, legendary catwalk photographer and owner of catwalking.com. His is a completely unique career which has seen him chart 'true' trends from the past half century. As well as paying attention to what's happening on the catwalks, Bill tirelessly scours the streets of NYC to discover what people are REALLY wearing and how they're wearing it. Many call him the original street style photographer. Although I think that's true, there's definitely much more to it than that which is why I am very happy to see the film's blurb describe him as a 'cultural anthropologist'. His observations are sharp and his knowledge of fashion and trends is encyclopaedic. His comparison of the work of Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garcons in the 80s with the style of the bag women living on the streets of New York at the time is still playing on my mind, and shows the unique position he is in to marry the pavement and the catwalk. The film is a must-see, even if fashion is not your thing. It's out at selected cinemas in March. 

Cunningham's fab picture of Isabella Blow (from lightbox.time.com)

Another month, another round of magazine covers. Elle and Vogue have both gone with Louis Vuitton's sugar sweet broderie anglaise for their fronts covers. Lana del Rey is Vogue's new cover girl demostrating the astonishing speed of her rise from unknown to virtually notorious; her newly released album has not received the best reviews yet she is number one in multiple countries. But if Vogue puts her on the cover then it confirms that there is something of the zeitgeist about her. Given that Love magazine editor Katie Grand also consults for Louis Vuitton, we thought ice cream girly prettiness was a given for the publication's latest edition. How wrong we were. The cover line reads 'The End of Elegance' which seems a direct challenge to the ladylike loveliness which is clearly the prevailing mood. Does this mean pastels might be as fleeting an obsession as Lana del Rey?

Lana (by Mario Testino) prettified for Vogue (image from www.vogue.co.uk) 

Linda Evangelista covers Love, shot by Mert and Marcus(image from @thelovemagazine)

Fragile: Linda Evangelista in Giles (image from @thelovemagazine)

FEAL is mostly about womenswear but that doesn't mean we don't appreciate a well-dressed man. Both of us think Tinie Tempah is a rather fab dresser so we are happy to see that he has been named Britains' Best Dressed Man by GQ. In other news from the list, Prince William didn't make it into the top 50 despite that bright red Irish guards wedding outfit. Wills, if you're upset at GQ's decision we suggest ditching the flat caps and 'cashmere jumper round shoulders' as starting points for sartorial transformation in time for next year, or ask your Dad who scraped in at no. 50.

Tinie does bow ties and monochrome (image from telegraph.co.uk)

After revelations about extravagant mid-recession halloween parties, we'd have thought the Obamas would be keen to avoid any more big spending sprees- not such great publicity in election year. So the story that Michelle paid a visit to the Madison Avenue branch of Agent Provocatuer and picked up $50,000 worth of goodies- lucky Barack- seems very unfortunate. She was apparently accompanying Sheikha Mozah, the Queen of Qatar, during her trip to the US last year. However, Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary, strongly denied the story telling WWD:

'In this case, it’s utterly false, and it’s irresponsible of an American news organization to repeat the story, even allowing that it could be true. So it’s wrong.'

Apparently The White House was unable to provide 'evidence' that the First Lady had not visited the purveyors of sexy underwear- the mind boggles. While Michelle cannot be too pleased about the story, Agent Provocateur say the 'unexpected famous names' who patronise the business have contributed to its continued growth.

The Obamas are joined by Tim burton at their halloween do in 2009 (image from chicksontheright.com)

As part of the cultural programme to coincide with the Olympics, the BFC is hosting an International Fashion Showcase across London. Nineteen embassies and cultural institutes will showcase the work of up and coming designers from the countries they represent. Sarah Mower will be chairing a panel of judges which will examine the work of the 80 or so designers set to participate. On 19th February, a winning country will be announced. 

Belgian designer A.Knackfuss is set to be a highlight of the
showcase (image from mussola.style.it)

Finally, while we thought the images for Prada's SS12 campaign were a bit boring but the accompanying video, released this week, adds a bit more attitude to the concept, don't you think?