Fall 2012 shows: David Koma, MaxMara, Donna Karan, and Duro Olowu.

David Koma

Business casual by way of Blade Runner? That's what I got from the earlier looks in this collection, anyhow. Unfortunately I was dead wrong, because Koma claims one of his primary inspirations was the art of Thierry Poncelot who, first of all, has the awesome name of Poncelot, and secondly... well, google him. Thierry Poncelot's work is exclusively portraits of dogs wearing human clothing. Perhaps I'm just not smart enough to see how that intersects with the various themes exhibited in this collection, but I doubt it.

While not exactly peculiar-looking, this wasn't a very ready-to-wear RTW collection. The majority of the show was taken up with full-outfit looks that would look decidedly odd if broken down into separates and combined with clothes from other sources. On a more positive note, Koma's structure design was appealingly retro-futurist, with several of the outfits entering Space Race flight attendant territory thanks to fabric and colour choices.

This purple dress was one of the flight attendant looks that definitely didn't work. The neck/chestpiece is quite intriguing, but I have no doubt that if anyone other than a model was wearing this then it'd look bizarre and costumey, especially considering the fact that every aspect of the dress is very neat and tight except the wrinkled peplum. The current trend for peplums on everything is a real dud, in my opinion, since it's a look that works on so few dresses (and body-shapes), and often looks like it's literally been tacked on.

Love the peep-holes in the jacket below, but it's not clear whether they're revealing what's uder the coat, or just the coat's own lining.

MaxMara
Coats are, a real focal point for MaxMara, and this season they were accompanied by a masculine military/sailor theme. But while my love for button-braces continues unabated, my favourite thing was definitely the spats some of the models were wearing from knee to ankle.

Brood
This is the sort of adjustable clothing I hope to see more of in coming years -- the kind of designs that I expect from young designers such as this, who have more room to experiment with unconventional clothing forms.

And regarding the set-design -- matching the runway backdrop to the marbled prints on the dresses shouldn't have worked, but somehow it ended up making the collection look cleaner and more put-together.

Donna Karan
Honestly I loved almost every look in this collection. It was that rare thing, a womenswear show that took inspiration from formal menswear but didn't fall into the trap of awful tuxedo pastiche. The diagonal wraparound cut of the figure-hugging dresses was exquisite, and the Stephen Jones hats complemented each outfit perfectly, transforming them from businesswear to faux-vintage cabaret.

Duro Olowu
What I wouldn't give to see more people dressing like this in real life.

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Bill Cunningham New York

After A Man's Story, my next fashion film at the Glasgow Film Festival was another documentary about a workaholic fixture of the fashion world. Aside from that similarity, though, Ozwald Boateng and Bill Cunningham couldn't be more different. Bill Cunningham New York is an affectionate and respectful look at a man who finds happiness in his work to the extent that it frees him from the restrictions of everyday society. At over 80 years old, he's been photographing people on the streets of New York City for four decades, and is a familiar face at the various Fashion Weeks. He isn't interested in the money -- in fact, he used to tear up his Details Magazine paycheques back in the day when his photographs were taking up 40 pages per issue. As long as he gets to take pictures of peoples' clothes, he's happy.

This is a film about a true egalitarian, something that's about as common as a unicorn when it comes to the fashion industry. Bill Cunningham doesn't know or care who the celebrities are when he photographs them at charity functions or fashion shows: he only cares about their clothes, and treats everyone he's photographing with the same shy, smiley respect. He's such a widely-loved figure -- both because of his sheer likeability and for the slightly more cynical reason that appearing in one of his On The Street columns is an honour -- that people can hardly complain if he fails to recognise the cast of Gossip Girl. Even Anna Wintour, the Lady Macbeth of fashion, says that it's a real blow when Bill Cunningham ignores you at fashion week, and seems almost friendly during her interview.

I have mixed feelings on the subject of street-style photography. The evolution of street style as a force as strong as the dictation of high-end designers is fascinating, and people like Bill Cunningham and Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) are very good at documenting it. But taking pictures of people on the street is far from difficult, meaning that these days there are unnumbered blogs, Tumblrs and newspaper column inches devoted to street style. Unfortunately, they often come across as either filler (in the case of the endless reams of newspaper spreads I've seen of people looking flattered but mildly puzzled that someone wanted to immortalise their rather generic outfit) or as masturbatory celebrity puff-pieces (as seen during the London Fashion Week surges of models and fashion writers/bloggers posing self-consciously outside Somerset House). In recent years I've even noticed a few mentions of people in the industry starting to get stressed out during Fashion Weeks because of the pressure to catch the eye of street-style photographers.

Bill Cunningham, photographed by The Sartorialist.

The great thing about Bill Cunningham is that he doesn't have a calculating bone in his body. He finds beauty in 80-year-old society matrons and workmen's overalls and Prada-clad supermodels and teenage skate punks alike. He's carved a life for himself that seems to adhere to all the advice given out by Buddhist monks and people who live to a hundred -- work hard, get up early, don't get too attached to possessions, do what you love, respect everyone equally. Somehow, in amongst the angry and competative pace of New York fashion, he's managed to create a little oasis of calm and happiness for himself. Bill's apartment is tiny and filled with filing cabinets of old photographs, with no kitchen because he eats out at diners for every meal and only comes home to sleep and change clothes. He wears the same blue smocks every day, the sort that French garbage-men wear. Those smocks have enough pockets to hold all his film, you see. At one point he mentions, smiling as always, that he's on his 29th bicycle -- the first 28 were all stole, but he doesn't really mind.  

The film crew follow Bill as he cycles around New York, but also takes a look at his career all the way back to the 1960s, when the concept of street style was only just emerging. Various famous and connected talking heads are brought in to talk about him, and the main thing they all seem to have in common is a sort of affectionate protectiveness towards him, everyone clearly recognising that his near-unique levels of unselfishness are not always practical. This is a truly cheering documentary, not because it attempts to follow the story arc of a feelgood movie but simply because of the subject-matter. Bill Cunningham is a charming and fascinating individual, right down to the happy "Oh!" of excitement he makes when he spots something he thinks is beautiful.

Links
Rotten Tomatoes review summary (98% fresh)
Bill Cunningham New York movie homepage.
Bill Cunningham's On The Street slideshow/audio reports for the New York Times.

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Dubiously competent fashion photography at the National Museum's Ancient Egypt party.

Yesterday I went to the National Museum of Scotland adults-only night, because anything that puts sarcophagi and booze in the same locale is A-OK by me. Compared to some of the late-opening museum parties I've been to in the past it was a little underwhelming, partially because tickets weren't free, but since this is only their second event I'll let that slide.

The theme was Ancient Egypt, which meant gold, jeweled body-art, mummies, and the sort of Egyptian-themed cocktail only a Scot could make up -- the Tutankhamorangie, a Glenmorangie whisky promo. To my disappointment not many people had come in costume, outside of a few performers and the dressing-up area.. However, having my camera with me I decided to do a spot of extremely amateur fashion photography. The Sartorialist I most definitely am not.

I'm kicking myself over not getting a better photo of the jacket worn by the guy on the right, a formal iteration of what has been sweepingly and inaccurately called a kimono jacket for the last few decades. Sadly, I'm far from adept at approaching strange men and saying, "Can I take a photo of your back?" when I'm so clearly not a "real" photographer.

My friend and I were both very impressed with this dude, both because of his great style and because that length of ginger wizard-beard takes dedication. That + pink combat trousers + earrings + assymetrical layering = 10/10.

This person is beheaded because they are me. Vain enough to smugly photograph my own outfit, yet unwilling to show my face on the internet. This is my all-pink embroidery ensemble for when I want to look needlessly eye-catching, including a waistcoat obscured by my brocade jacket. I'm pretty impressed with myself for managing to find so many semi-matching clothes by accident, all from charity shops.

This enormous coat was some real Edinburgh style, otherwise known as wrapping youself in blankets from head to toe until the icey wind no longer feels like it's flaying you alive. I enjoyed the pattern-mixing among this lady's accessories and cane.

Utilikilt? Yes, people in Scotland do wear them, plus his lack of tartan on the bottom half seems somehow balanced by the plaid on top. And I loved the contrast between the purple-laced sneakers and the kilt. All he needs is a neon skean dhu! This couple's outfits complemented each other very well, intentional or not.

'I love your shoes! Where did you get them?" "Prada." Right, then. Metal reinforced toes: all the better for kicking you in the bank-balance.

 Obviously my favourite outfit of the night. Shave 300 years of aging off this and I'd wear it every day.

Millennia-old Sarcophagus and empty liquor containers: an accurate summation of how our evening went.

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London Fashion Week, Fall 2012: Mary Katrantzou.

Digital prints have been on the rise for a while now, but Katrantzou is still queen. She's been on the radar for less than four years, but youth and the fact that she runs her own label give her liberty to pursue her strengths. And what that means at the moment is that she's producing entire shows of unique digital-print clothes season after season. Thanks to a combination of critical accolades and publicity for her new Topshop line, Fall 2012 was her true breakthrough London Fashion Week show.

pics from Style.com

Mary Katrantzou shot to the top of my favourite-designers list as soon as I saw her Fall 2011 collection last year. She deserves her good reviews for a multitude of reasons, but most importantly to me, she's creating clothes that are drastically different not only from the current fashion zeitgeist but from anything I've seen before. She's the sort of expert that creates itself -- an artist who has been developing her own visual brand for years, waiting quietly for the rest of the world to catch up. I have no doubt that there are other, lesser-known designers who don't have London Fashion Week slots who have explored prints in equally innovative ways, but Mary K is the only designer in mainstream fashion whom I'd describe as a true master of the art.

In previous seasons, Katrantzou's prints have taken inspiration from various sources. This time last year it was porcelein art and Ming vases; a show full of delicately painted koi swimming around ornate fish-ponds of dresses, and imagery taken directly from decorative tiles and wallpapers. Six months ago the prints took on a far more abstract theme, and this week she's gone in yet another direction: everyday household objects. Take a look at the white dress above. What's that design around the waist? Spoons. The magic of Mary Katrantzou is that through an almost mathematical repetition of shapes within each design, pictures can lose their meaning and just become another part of the pattern. Her clothes are fun, but -- unlike a spoon-themed print in the hands of many other designers -- they're not a joke.

One of the major developments this season was that instead of having each outfit be a mish-mash of different colours like the images from which they were originally inspired, the collection as a whole was divided into sections by colour. A smart decision, because while Katrantzou has been getting excellent reviews for several seasons now, people are more likely to wear clothes that hit one or two points on the colour-wheel rather than, you know, all of them.

Typwriter dress!

Katrantzou's designs aren't all print, though. Her go-to silhouette is already quite easy to identify: neat sleeves, sharp shoulders, and usually either a peplum or some extra layering at the hips. In order to showcase the prints correctly the fabric on the majority of the dresses is unusually rigid and there are far more flat planes than one usually finds in this type of outfit. The end result is that the restrictions necessitated by Katrantzou's primary concern, the print designs, have caused a recognisable Katrantzou silhouette to emerge.

Within the strong colour divisions, each colour was represented by a different object. Earlier on we saw the red typewriter dress and the white spoon dress, but green was themed around something even more banal: grass. The gown pictured below combined images of hedge-mazes with green jewels at the hips, oversized jewels being an ongoing motif in Katrantzou's designs.

This yellow and pink dress blows my mind a little. It looks great and all -- very frothy-Hawaiian-cocktail, very Capitol City from The Hunger Games -- but God is in the details. See the swirl pattern on the body of the skirt? That pattern is made of pencils. Not pictures of pencils -- actual pencils with the erasers still attached at the end. I don't have any close-up pictures here, but there's a video of the show at the end of this post and this dress is 3.55 minutes in -- take a look. It's a really exquisite example of Katrantzou's desire to take mundane objects and make them into something unrecognisably glamourous and fantastical.

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NYFW Fall 2012: Calvin Klein, Aquascutum, Proenza Schouler, and more.

Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein is my fashion nemesis. The label is a household name and yet his actual catwalk shows have, for the past few years, been entirely focused on showcasing some of the least interesting clothes in the history of ever. So this season my low standards were more than satisfied to see two whole dresses that didn't make me languish into a coma.

The seemingly-inappropriate juxtaposition of suit fabrics, conservative necklines/hem lengths, restrictive metal belts and breast-bearing sheer chestpieces was a welcome change from Calvin Klein's Spring 2012 collection, which as I recall consisted of around 50 near-identical beige shift dresses.

Aquascutum
A relatively severe collection of neutral-toned businesswear, the most notable thing being the contrast between inner and outer layering. The cutouts on the jackets exposed shirts and collars to the world, and unusually for a womenswear collection there was a lot of emphasis on visible cuffs shot out at the wrists.

Carolina Herrera
Is this silhouette awesome, or what? I love the cropped jackets and full skirts -- very Michelle Obama -- but am a little doubtful as to their application in real life. It's a very serious look: almost businesswear on top, and formal ballgown on the bottom half, and not an inch of limb on display anywhere. Plus full skirts aren't really appropriate for a lot of situations, for example any time you go anywhere where there is rain, or stairs.

Christian Cota

There's something very plantlike about this outfit: petal-shaped skirt, and a colour palette of drying desert flowers. As far as I can tell about Christian Cota (I'm pretty new to his work) his typical fare is far more conventional, and this Mexico-inspired collection seems like a real step in the direction of innovation.

"Luxury" and "poncho" are not really two words that call out to one another, but I can't think of any other way to describe this. Too bad you'd pretty much be barred from doing anything if you were wearing this, unless you're the kind of magical being who can wear three yards of red fur around your wrists and not dunk any of it in your cereal.

Proenza Schouler
The strange, belt-like skirts and rigid buttonless shirts came to us by way of karate outfits. The martial arts theme wasn't strictly literal, but the stiff fabrics and lacquered/leathery woven mat-fabrics gave the impression of protective padding.

I'm a big fan both of the assymetry and the adjustable nature of the belts, which look like they could be worn either on the hips or the waist.

I give Proenza Schouler a lot of points for these skirts. They're far from the typical variations on staple items like the pencil or A-line skirt, but they still give every appearance of being fairly wearable, albeit short. A skirt like this, worn with even the plainest of outfits, would look incredibly stylish and cutting-edge. I don't think I've ever seen this technique (woven strips of leather) before, either.

Can I say just HOW MUCH I predictably love these super-short kimono silk outfits? They're terribly sharp, and combine so many great tastes that I didn't expect to taste great together!

Zac Posen
A weirdly old-fashioned collection this season, with a Japanese theme that to me seemed dated and overly stylised. As expected there were a lot of super-tight cocktail dresses of the sort worn by bitchy MILF characters in TV shows like Revenge and Gossip Girl, but there were a few highlights, such as this robe:

Unfortunately they'd gone for this hair/makeup styling that seemed intended to... make the non-Asian models look Asian. Occasionally I see this done for so-called "Asian-themed" photoshoots in Vogue, Elle, etc and it never fails to make me feel uncomfortable. Why don't you just... hire an Asian model?

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