THE DIGITAL FASHION REVOLUTION

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

I remember when I first got a laptop,  it was darn heavy. My first mobile phone was weighty. And dial-up Internet access was so slow I used to want to bang my head against the wall of my very 90s loft apartment in De Beauvoir road that my girlfriend Sonja used to whitewash from top to bottom every six months. Maybe it was all that white that drove me mad? ANYWAY.  Today I was reminded of those moments of technology frustration when I sat down to watch the Rodarte show live streamed from New York via Showstudio.com about an hour ago.

At first it was all good, and my tea-time interlude was accompanied by a nice strong cuppa and M&S jaffa cakes. Then Sarah Mower texted to say she couldn't get a picture. While feeling all smug that I could see Anna and Grace taking their seats and Kirsten Dunst being interviewed, the lights went down for the show and...the screen went black, and however hard I clicked and closed and re-opened the browser it remained resolutely dark. That was the end of that then. I'll probably be able to watch it later, but it won't be THE SAME. Grrr.

This rant precludes what I was intending to write about in this post, namely the digital revolution taking place in fashion and the explosion in fashion film as the medium of the future for designers to express their work and ideas. London Fashion Week has an entirely new arm this season. There is a digital space where designers can show films; Hussein Chalayan is doing one, as are Boudicca and newcomer Craig Lawrence. Hussein is calling me tomorow to tell me more about his film, so I will update then.

Over at the British Fashion Council there is a bunch of dedicated people making this digital thing happen, one of them is Clara Mercer. "The digital fashion revoution has been happening naturally; London is the worlds innovation capital, and we are the first of the global fashion weeks to have a dedicated digital space. Fashion has embraced online, and we're taking it to the world." she says. I'm looking forward to seeing how some of our most visual designers make use of the fashion film medium. Its something that excites me much. And also makes me think of McQueen again, and his unforgettable last show - Showstudio's brave and brilliant livestreaming try-out session. Lucky that I was there.

Fingers crossed for LFW. It's only a revolution when it WORKS!

http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/digitalschedule (to find out how you can get involved with fashion's digital revolution)
http://live.showstudio.com/ (for Rodarte)

TAVI OUSTED BY YOUNGER BLOGGER?

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

The haters who speculated that everybody's favourite teen blogger Tavi Gevinson was being aided by a 'Team Tavi' have finally been silenced by the insightful opinions she voiced at the Evolving Influence Fashion Blog Conference hosted by the Independent Fashion Bloggers in NY last night.

Here's her take on the editors Vs. bloggers debate:

'A lot of it is kind of made up. I think it started to sort of come back and gain a little more momentum when a Grazia writer was sitting behind me and couldn’t see because of my hat. But like I saw what [she] Twittered, which was ‘Can’t see behind Tavi’s bow,’ and it’s like, I think [she was] just sort of like making a joke. But then it was like [transfers to ominous voice-over voice] ‘Bloggers and Editors at War — which side are you on?’

Read the full story at The Cut blog.

Meanwhile Racked.com are introducing guest blogger Katie as their New York fashion week critic. By the way she's only five. (Those jokers)

Katie hobnobbing with fellow blogger Bryanboy

Katie's show notes...vital I think you'll agree.

Picture credits: racked.com, nymag.com

MY NEW YORK MODEL CRUSH: TATI COTLIAR + STYLISTS HIT THE RUNWAY!

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

Tati modelling Marc Jacobs AW10  

  

Tati modelling for Rodarte SS10

Tati's first shoot

One of the fun things about doing shows, is spotting new modelling talent. It has been the same faces on the runway for a few years now, so the Marc Jacobs show last night was a pleasure as his casting agent worked with a rich new seam of new modelling talent. Tati, (above) is a teenager from Buenos Aries who gave up studying cinema to model. She has been working just a year, and yesterday opened the Marc Jacobs show, which signifies she is seen as a rising star. Tati also stars in the new Vivienne Westwood campaign photographed by Juergen Teller, but he doesn't capture her beauty at all. She is my new favourite brunette (sorry Freja). Better still Marc decided that size two teenagers were not the only choice for his runway, and he did a bit of studio casting, picking two of his creative stylists, Camille Bidault Washington, (below) and Suzanne Deeken, (bottom). Maybe next season Marc could do a spot of "street casting" at the Fashion Editor at Large office?

Picture credits: Catwalking.com; Reed+Radar