Thursday Thangs

Want to know what this colourful little pastiche is all about?

Then head on over to Truworths’ Love Fashion blog, where I followed up my Idols post for them with a round up of things I am inspired by at the moment. Yes, I do love those platform creepers. And, yes, that vampire fringe too.

 

Charlotte Linton

My luxury scarf addiction is officially out of control.

But can you blame me? Charlotte Linton is a print designer and fashion writer based in London and I love her scarves.

Charlotte’s story is so enchanting. Her muse is a fictional character called Ermantrude, whose adventures around the globe she illustrates. The Himalayas, Madagascar, Japan: Ermantrude explores, and Charlotte’s scarves follow. In this way, she creates a narrative for each scarf and the journey taken to produce the story behind its specfic print.

 

 

Charlotte has produced prints for the likes of Paul Smith, Hussein Chayalan and Oasis. She studied Fashion Prints and Printed Textiles at Central Saint Martins and The Royal College of Art. It is no wonder that each scarf is a work of art with a thought-provoking title to boot. I love the unusual ways that they are styled in her lookbooks, and the fact that they are extra large and luxe.

Autumn / Winter 2011

 

Spring / Summer 2011

 

 

In the Hall with the Candlestick

I am delighted to give you a first look at the great shoot that Alix-Rose Cowie(photographer) and Kate Desmarais (stylist) did this weekend featuring some of my Rah-Rah Room gems. As always, just in time for my sale, Kate and Alix pulled something so Rah-Rah out of the bag: charming, quirky, meaningful and enchanting.

Shot on location at the oh-so-cool girl’s res, Spes Bona, the story was subtly informed by the characters and guises in the classic game, Cluedo. Spes Bona was perfect. Model Lala Quail, with her minx-like bangs and arresting gaze was the perfect subject. As Reverend Green in the Dining Room, Mrs Peacock in the Reception Hall and Mrs White in the Conservatory, she rocked it.

Thank you to Michael Tymbios for the perfect cover page, and to Spes Bona for having us. Thank you, as always, to Kate and Alix for having great vision and for making things fun and having great taste.

Join Teresa Dalton of the The Spice Studio and I at Blonde this Saturday from 1 until 6pm – the gems in this shoot will be on sale!

Fenton!

I think the piece of fluoro-spiked, skull-bedazzled, pop culture delight above deserves a ‘Hell yeah!’ At the very least, a meaningful gasp. Which is exactly what I did when I saw it for the first time.

These glorious chunky mashups are the product of Fenton, an American jewellery house started by designer Dana Lorenz in 2006. With two painting behind her, Dana entered the fashion industry, first working for Gucci and then Donna Karan. Her pieces were soon featured in American Vogue, and shortly after that, Fenton began to be stocked at major  high end retailers like Barneys, Colette and Liberty.

The Fenton website describes the collection as:

‘An elaborate mix of unexpected elements. The aesthetic inspires fantasy, and is always derived from a strong pop culture reference and point of view. The pieces are strong statements and each are little worlds all their own.’

I couldn’t have put it better myself. I am always a sucker for the mixing of pop culture with the classic. The idea of juxtaposing something quite lowbrow like a bubblegummy skull with something typically highbrow like a strand of pearls and some über yuppie gold chain is almos utopian to me. I delight in the weird mishmash of cultural references – Sloane rangers, punk girls and Tiffany’s princesses, all in one. Yeah!

It’s no wonder Dana has collaborated with the likes of Proenza Schouler and Thakoon on their runway collections, and worked with retailers like Opening Ceremony and J.Crew on capsule collections.

I adore every piece in her Summer 2011 collection. Skulls, gilded feathers, intermingled chains, fluoro spikes and tufts of lush fur make for a totemic mix that I find quite hypnotic. Which is, perhaps, the point. Each piece is like its own pagan pop culture charm.

Rah-Spice!

I am excited to announce an unexpected change of plans for this Saturday’s return of The Rah-Rah Room!

A while ago I blogged about Teresa Dalton’s hidden Knysna gem, The Spice Studio. Teresa and I have a shared love of bright lipstick, strong G&Ts and vintage, so it is with much happiness that we are joining forces this Saturday. Join Teresa and I at Blonde restaurant on Wandel Street (take a left before the 24 Hour Engen if you’re headed in the direction of De Waal Drive) from 1 to 6pm on Saturday. Check out the Facebook event for full details and pics.

The Rah-Rah Room will be there with all new vintage gems and a sale rail for your browsing pleasure. Round up them post payday pennies, or drag your man along with you for a spot of Saturday browsing.

City Bowl Market finds

I ventured to the City Bowl Market this weekend along with all the other vintage and treat hunters. The fashion section was set up upstairs (conveniently located alongside the bar) and featured a mix of vintage, jools and some new stuff, too. My sole vexation was that they had Jack Johnson on repeat, which distracted me whilst rifling through the leather clutches and nerdy jerseys.

[On that note, I must say that I think people are getting a little confused in the throes of the dorky reindeer jumper fad. There are still standards to be upheld, and it is certainly not a case of the uglier the better. That attitude towards vintage really irritates me. I am not quite ironic enough to don a Bill Cosby jumper and call it style. Be that as it may, there was a broad range of said jerseys on display at the market, so if that's your bag, then get in line.]

Have a look at the gems I spied and bought:

A well-worn, woven red leather clutch with a handy wristlet – ideal for dangling when in crowded spaces (dancefloors, markets, gigs, etc). I love red accessories.

My first Vamp purchase – a vintage navy chiffon pussybow blouse with dainty white polka dots. It looks black in the picture, but it really is navy. I think it’s going to be the perfect addition to my work wardrobe.

Idols 7: Frock ‘n Roll!

I was recently asked to guest post on Truworths‘ cool new Love Fashion blog as part of their Idols 7 series. Truworths is dressing this year’s Idols, and I was given the honour of musing on the Top 15′s fashion choices on last night’s show.

The best thing about guest posting for Love Fashion is the fact that I got to indulge my secret and seldom-revealed love of Idols. From the cringeworthy first auditions, to Gareth Cliff’s pastel cockatoo-coif, to the ever-present threat of total disaster, Idols really appeals to the sensationalist in me.

Last night I spent an hour watching the Top 15 do their thing and analysing the various trends they embraced. My favourite by far was Nolly, but then I’m always a sucker for a little rock ‘n roll edge. Check out my Idols eye-spy in full here.

Follow Love Fashion for the rest of the Idols 7 series, as well as cool local streetstyle and other fashiony gems.

Image via ELLE

The Rah-Rah Room

After a mini sabbatical, the Rah-Rah is back with more hand-picked gems. Join me on Saturday the 30th of July for an all-out, post payday vintage pillage!

Keep an eye out next week for some visual beauty courtesy of Misses Alix-Rose Cowie and Kate Desmarais featuring Rah-Rah stock that will be on sale next weekend.

Icons: Gres

Yesterday I posted about a vintage Grès scarf that was bestowed upon me
by a friend. I knew the first time that I saw it that it was special, but I
needed to do some research into the Grès name and Madame Grès herself to find out more about its heritage. It’s also been a while since my previous Icons
post, and they really are my favourite (must harken back to my highschool years as a history geek).

Grès was launched by Germaine Émilie Krebs, also known as Alix Barton and later as ‘Madame Grès’ in Paris in 1942. Madame Grès was a trained sculptress who often claimed that working with fabric was the same thing, for her, as working with stone. She wanted to be a sculptor, and she found her medium in haute couture. Under her creative stewardship, Grès became one of France’s most vaunted fashion houses, dressing, in its time, the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Jacqueline Kennedy and Dolores del Rio.

Grès’ signature style was characterised by intricate drapery, created using yards and yards of jersey. It wasn’t uncommon for Madame Grès to employ her inimitable techniques to compress as much as 3m of fabric into a 7cm swathe on a frock. Unbelievable. And yet these images demonstrate just that – a marked sculptural aesthetic and a density of fabric that can only come from painstaking construction. Besides her unusual methods, Madame Grès was also famous for cut-outs on gowns. Exposing parts of the female body in a way that still felt classy became a Grès trademark. I love that about every single one of these gowns – that the cut-outs have a sculptural, sensual feel that implies confidence and feminine mystique.

Madame Grès won the hearts of both the jetset and the press, and her fashion house enjoyed years of critical acclaim before it began to falter in the 1980’s. Grès was subsequently one of the last couture houses ever to establish a ready-to-wear line, something that the Madame herself dubbed ‘a prostitution’. It is sad to see a similar thing happening to other fashion greats that have weathered the decades – Valentino being a case in point.

Today all that survives is Parfums Grès, the associated perfume house located in Switzerland. Madame Grès’ final garment was commissioned in 1989 by Hubert de Givenchy himself. She died four years later at the age of 90.

In April this year, the Musée Galliera hosted the first Paris retrospective of Madame Grès’ work. Showcased, fittingly, amid marble sculptures at the Musée Bourdelle, the exhibition featured 80 key pieces, 100 sketches and 50 original pictures taken by photographers the likes of Richard Avedon and Guy Bourdin. I would have so loved to have seen it in person.

Madame Grès’ rigorous, artistic approach to the creation of women’s wear was truly haute couture. It’s not just because the pieces are displayed as art. They really are monumental, each and every one.

The canary yellow gown is my ultimate – it reminds me of a sea anemone, or a reef, or a shoal of fish. Too beauteous.

Madame Gres

Last night my friend Robin (or Miss Vyevano, as we like to call her, alternately) made my week.

She placed this vintage Madame Grès silk scarf in my hands and pushed me out the door with a nod. ‘You’ll wear it more than me,’ she said. Months ago she invited me round to peruse her insane collection of vintage silk scarves, and this one was the one that really took my breath away. When I say insane I mean insane. I mean mid-century Chanel, YSL, Hermes. I mean glorious colour, navy on white sailor girl restraint, sneak-in-in-the-middle-of-the-night kind of stuff.

Robin is Belgian, and her stylish grandmother has passed numerous vintage Bottega totes and squares of Chanel beauty down to her. Her style is truly classic. She always look refined. She’s the girl whose cardigan is no doubt cashmere, and whose artfully slung neck scarf makes you wish you could also make jeans and a tee look elegant. And she’s generous.

The deco-inspired line drawings all over this scarf are proof. The combination of brights with rust, peacock purple and black had me blinking at first glance.

I am working on an Icons post about Madame Grès for tomorrow so that you can understand the gravity and history behind this bright baby.

PS: Pics courtesy of my Blackberry first thing this morning. Not too shabby, huh?

The Big Schmooze

So this is me at fashion week.

I tried to plan ahead and be organised with my outfits, but the reality was that I finished work at 5pm each day (the Saturday included) and had to be at the first shows at 6pm. For a girl that takes minimum an hour to get dressed on a normal day, let alone for fashion week, it was actually quite comedic. I was literally forced to hot step it. I applied liquid eyeliner in traffic, signed in to Über Tweet en route, and arrived with my media pass slung hastily around my neck, ankles not quite ready for three days of my highest heels.

The champagne helped. And so did the shows, which were a revelation for me. A lot has been said about all of them already, so I won’t be doing a show report or anything like that. It was my first ever fashion week, so I am choosing to absorb, rather than comment. If you’re interested in the trends that emerged at Fashion Week, check out the show reviews I did on the 36Boutiques Tumblr, along with streetstyle from the week and other colourful snippets.

The outfits: I was in such a rush on the first night, that I didn’t manage to photograph my outfit. I wore my vintage DVF mini, with a vintage Habits top (in honour of the Habits show), a vintage Hermes scarf, my Depeche Mode jacket with the exaggerated shoulders, and bondagey heels. Not reinventing the wheel or anything, so I’m kinda happy that the outfits I can show you are actually more creative than that.

The vintage dappled shift is one of my favourites. The combination of geometry, ruffle and full sleeves is irresistible and I truly have never seen anything else like it. I braved my Topshop platforms and it was actually worth it, because a local mag stopped me to photograph my accessories in detail (will share the link when it is up).

The Saturday night was, of course, the piece de resistance. The eponymous beauty I have on loan attracted lots of admiring glances (and a streetstyle snap by the one and only Skattie), and I added a little edge with socks under bondage heels, and my vintage velvet amazingness. I took the cue for my Heidi-esque hairdo from the exaggerated shape of the dress paired with the glorious pouf of the velveteen shoulders.

There were truly some amazing vintage outfits at fashion week. It renewed my belief that you can’t beat a stand out vintage piece, and that it will always, always trump a run of the mill off-the-rack piece.

Images courtesy of 36Boutiques

Collar Kit

 

I spotted these retro collar tips in the latest ASOS magazine, and they led me on a little collarific journey past leather Peter Pans, lacy bow ties and embellished velvets. The collar tips are my favourite – they lend a real air of Dallas-style suaveness.

They’re the ideal size for postage, wouldn’t you say? Or for stashing in one’s luggage en route to Cape Town, for a blinding reveal upon arrival… London friends take note!

Inspirathon

My first night at fashion week was lots of fun – some good ol’ fashioned showboating around in high heels, girls on eachother’s arms (just ask Miss Kate Desmarais), media passes, jungle tunes, tons of colour and a whole lotta tweets.

Along with the rest of the wide-eyed crowd I watched Tart, Michelle Ludek, Habits and Abigail Betz - all staged oh so slickly by AFI, with bow tied ushers, edgy intro’s and what appeared to be some epic goodie bags (I didn’t crack the nod for front row just yet!)

Stand out trends were super primary brights across the board (I’m waiting for the muted Mod Squad to show up!), tempered with breezy monotones, stripes and polka dots. Pleats still proved to be big, as did the crop top, tail hem, the maxi and the palazzo. Abigail Betz sent a troop of ethereal white and black clad angels down the catwalk to the tune of Lamb’s Gabriel, with Victoriana detailing picked out in beading and sequins. Mooi.

Other highlights were Habits’ broadly striped palazzos paired with a sheer striped bondagey vest – my champagne-inspired tweet described it as ‘Beetlejuice meets Wednesday Addams at the seaside with Jack White on vocals’. Interesting indeed. I also loved Michelle Ludek’s intergalactic paint splash prints with metallic tinges.

I didn’t document my outfit because I was in a huge rush, but rest assured that I will do so tonight and tomorrow night. After taking in the crowds, my mind has sidled back on over to my heart of hearts – vintage. There really is no better way to look completely individual and special.

These pictures, while somewhat reflective of the fashion week trends thus far, are things I have been looking at and loving this week.

Images:

1. Scarf by Charlotte Linton (LOVE!), 2. Can’t find! 3. Erdem 4. Balenciaga by Style.com

 

Ready? Okay! CTFW Cheer.

Today begins my first experience of AFI Cape Town Fashion Week ever. Well, actually, today begins my first experience of any fashion week ever. How quaint? Thanks to both this here blog and 36Boutiques (my new place of employment, in fashion, no less) I am lucky enough to be attending some amazing shows this week. (I’d like to thank my long-suffering sidekick/confidante Olivia, Woolworths Italian blend coffee grounds and YOU, for reading my ramblings, rants and rhapsodies).

I had wanted to do a post about my idea of what might constitute fashion week essentials, but in the midst of a busy week I have run out of time. One would think that someone who has level 5 fashion crises as often as me would have stockpiled a veritable mountain of potentials for the week, but that’s not really the case. I have devised a loose capsule collection of basic statement pieces – lots of leather and black with a mix of rock ‘n roll and Mod Squad touches, bright lips and some serious height (see footwear lined up and ready to roll above). To me, edgy leather, tons of black, towering heels and a healthy sense of curiosity along with some interesting accessories will always equal fashion. I may slip in a little vintage homage/some mad colour somewhere along the line, and I am going to try and keep it as local as possible.

If you are also going to be at CTFW, you should try to do the local thang too, because there is going to be something called a Woza Wall there. Wear local to CTFW, pop by the Woza Wall, have your pic taken, and get 20% off your next Mememe purchase. Cool huh? I spy a shortcut to the navy hoop skirt with the snowy white piping along the hemline that I spotted when I was browsing there last.

Follow my tweets and 36Boutiques for street style snippets, catwalk commentary and other oddities over the next three days.

Bow Peep

The bow tie – such an austere and archaic symbol; of gentlemanliness, breeding, decorum and ceremony. One of the biggest trends we have seen in 2011 is a resurgence of sharp, masculine tailoring and androgynous detailing. In stark contrast to the sex-bomb glamour of the 70′s revival and the ladylike luxe of Mad-Men-esque silhouettes, the trend is an excellent excuse to channel your inner tomboy and break out the suspenders, cufflinks and tuxedo detailing.

I’ve been a vintage bow tie collector for some time now (it being a natural extension of my love of big, bold bows) and have built up a smile-inducing little stockpile of ‘em. These images depict my personal favourites.

My absolute ultimate is what can only be described as the utopian navy blue velvet one. Although not strictly a genuine (it fastens with a catch), its shape is gentlemanly perfection, and the velvet couldn’t be more sleek or plush. Blue velvet’s brother (or sister, depending on my mood) is black velveteen – he/she has a slightly more pronounced shape, and an adjustable strap. I have put him/her to excellent use in various formats over the years – head band, waist belt, hip belt, etcetera.

The two polka dots, maroon and brown respectively, are the real deal, and they also happen to be 100% silk. I love the extra curvaceous shape of the classic black tuxedo bow tie. I am yet to achieve a genuine bow tie with it, but I sometimes wear it hanging loose around the neck of a white tuxe shirt. Oh so affected, but it makes me feel like morning-after cool.

I have taken to jazzing up dresses and blouses with the two velvets a lot more of late. But I would so love to be able to put the authentic, old-fashioned trio to better use. A guy friend of mine recently mastered the authentic bow tie for thes first and told me that it made him feel really good about himself; really manly. I think that that is pretty fitting.

With that being said, I found a bow tie tutorial to share with you, so that you, too, can tie your very own authentic bow tie. I was hoping to find a really hip line drawing of the whole tooting process, but unfortunately the most clear depiction I could find was a video featuring two dapper Southern gents.