Category Archives: Fashion

Phoebe Claire Riley – green man and silver birch costumes and other such things

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Phoebe Claire RileyPhoebe Claire RileyOver this year I have been following the University of the Arts London Showtime site – in effect a market-place for their students of fashion, art  and design to share their works with the world.

At a time when they are still developing their art and finding their muse as it were. I will be interested to revisit some of these posts years, hopefully not too many years, from now to note how many of them have gone on to fame and fortune. It is important afterall that their art is seen by the widest audience possible – what good is art and fashion if no eyes ever alight upon it save the artist’s and close friends and accomplices.

Not that I am under any illusion that this humble blog of mine will contribute too much to their fame or fortune either – but who knows what post will go viral and what sink into the cyber-void…

Of course there is fame and there is fame, there is fortune and there is fortune. Only time itself will reveal whether they are the next Alexander McQueen, the next Sam Taylor-Wood.

The artist that caught my eye this week was Phoebe Claire Riley. She has a BA Honours Degree in Costume for Performance. I have always had a liking for costume design and consider it a pity that its leading exponents are not better known and courted, shunned instead for their more glamourous haberdashery clan-members of Couturiers and Ready-to-wear Designers. 

Phoebe Claire Riley

Hansel & Gretel, The Witch

Their work is more famous than they are but then perhaps that suits too – letting their work grab the limelight while they go quietly about their business unbothered by intruding microphones and camera lenses.

Their work for example quietly appearing in many a period film or TV costume drama – too many to mention – but what a gift Jane Austen has been to their tireless trade! Not that all costume work is 18th Century Gentrified Fashion I should quickly add!

So with Phoebe Claire Riley it is her work that may get more of the media attention than she herself.

There is but a brief biography of her on the showtime site thus:

I am an aspiring costume designer and a competent and creative maker and supervisor.
I enjoy working collaboratively and I am keen to learn and develop my skills further within employment.

And what a difficult time to be seeking employment too.

Though her bio is brief interestingly and perhaps instructively the tags she gives to this page are not – there are many and I am not going to list them all as you can see them for yourselves save just to list some of the more intriguing ones – Facebook like, St Exuperry’s King, conceited, Hansel and Gretel, costume cora, prunesquallor, boiled sweets – whether these tags resonate with you or are just too opaque I do not know!

On show is a sample of her work and her inspirations. I present a sample of that sample.

I shall do my best to keep up with her work – even if this might mean squinting through the rolling credits!

Phoebe Claire Riley

Cheeta's Fuchsia, Titus Alone, the Gormenghast Trilogy

Kylie Jenner modelling Abbey Dawn – too young to strut?

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Abbey Dawn 2010 Avril LavigneShould Kylie Jenner at 14 years of age have been making her runway debut for Avril Lavigne’s Abbey Dawn? This question currently seems to be exercising some sections of the media and web.

And their concerns are not about the nepotism involved – that Kylie is the younger sister of Avril’s boyfriend Brody Jenner. No it is her age. She is too young they feel. Is she?

Not too young to have an interest in fashion? Girls have a love of fashion before they have a love of boys?! Wanting to dress up and strut yourself on the runway for most boys a nightmare, for most girls a dream.

Perhaps she being fourteen years old there could be accusations of exploitation but I would hardly think so – she is going to get much more out of it from Abbey Dawn and New York Fashion Week than they will be getting from her – the kudos count is all in her favour.

Abbey Dawn 2010 Avril LavigneIf she were modelling Victoria’s Secret or a more provocative adult collection then I would share their concern.

Abbey Dawn though is young fashion and going by the 2010 collection of Hoodies, t-shirts and jeans not something to cause a parent any prudish concern for their young beloveds.

Perhaps the more pertinent question to be asked is whether Avril Lavigne should be showing at New York Fashion Week? Has she gotten a free-pass purely because of her celebrity status? Would an unknown up and coming designer have got themselves a slot at Style 360 in the Metropolitan Pavilion, Chelsea, Manhattan with the styles to be found in Abbey Dawn? Was the greatest credential for Avril Lavigne showing there her name Avril Lavigne?

I am a big fan of Avril Lavigne and her music – well at least up to her third 2007 album Best Damn Thing – her fourth, this year’s Goodbye Lullaby, is more Avril-by-numbers – one for us fans only not likely to get too many new fans onboard.

Abbey Dawn 2010 Avril LavigneBut when actors venture out of their actors world or singers out of their singers world it usually ends in tears – I really only have to say the word ‘Madonna’. Okay you may utter at me Justin Timberlake or Gwyneth Paltrow and I will concede, but counter these are the proverbial exceptions proving the rule.

Just because you like Fashion does not mean you can do Fashion.

It is all part of the celebrityville – you are not a great rock star or actor or writer or fashion designer you are a celebrity – and singing, acting, writing, designing are all just celebrity activities one and the same to you!

But then so goes our celebrity culture. We watch programs about ballroom dancing and surviving on desert islands that we may not otherwise watch if there was not a celebrity waltzing across the dance-floor or strolling across the beach in a swimsuit…is that then what lies ahead for future fashion weeks, more and more ‘big-names’ from music and Hollywood, less and less high couture names?

As if Rodarte, Alice + Olivia or Oscar De La Renta were not enough for us!

And please don’t misunderstand me – I like Avril Lavigne’s Abbey Dawn range and is why I have peppered this post with photographs from her collection of last year.

But worthy of New York Fashion Week?Abbey Dawn 2010 Avril Lavigne

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Sandhya Garg – a party of bold colours

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Sandhya Garg

Sandhya Garg Kathputli Look 1

Kathputli Look 1

Sandhya Garg Kathputli Look 3

Kathputli Look 3

Sandhya Garg is another alumni of the London College of Fashion, specifically a BA Honours Degree Graduate in Fashion Design Technology Womenswear.

Her Graduation collection along with its development work and illustrations are available to view on the University of the Arts London Showtime website.

I do not know much about Sandhya Garg – I sought her on Google and Facebook and could not find her here, I sought her on Twitter and LinkedIn but could not find her there!

I only have to go on what she says about her collection on the Showtime page. Her training was at the Alexander McQueen Design Studio and Alice Temperley.

Sandhya Garg Nina De York 2011 Finalist Illustration

Nina De York 2011 Finalist Illustration

She was a finalist in the 2011 Nina De York Illustration competition – again I do not have any further information on this event – Google you are letting me down here!

Sandhya Garg Kathputli Look 6

Kathputli Look 6

She describes the use of vintage techniques to hand-craft her final collection, in particular the hand-crafts of India. Going on to say that these intricate crafted techniques are then juxtaposed with blocks of bold primary colour.

The tags she uses for her collection are interesting and as insightful as her prose desription – these included hand-made crochet lace, vintage silk draw-strings, turban twist jacket, crystals, transfer print and pagri construction.

I posted yesterday about Mary Katrantzou and her bold statement ready to wear courtesy of creative print designs. Sandhya Garg has also produced a bold statement ready to wear collection – this time with colour.

As noted I do not have any more information about her but hey a picture speaks a thousand words and here come a mess of them!

The photography is by Vikram Kushwah, the model is Nimisha Desai.

Sandhya Garg Drawstring Detail

Drawstring Detail

Mary Katrantzou – seeing is disbelieving

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Mary Katrantzou Model Kristy Kaurova

Model Kristy Kaurova

Mary Katrantzou Model Renee Germaine van Seggem

Model Renee Germaine van Seggem

I have blogged before about Fashion as Art which I consider it is – the Haute Couture of Alexander McQueen and Rodarte being but two obvious examples. I had never considered the cross-over of fashion and architecture.

Certainly fashion can be architectural in terms of its structure, but Greek Fashion Designer Mary Katrantzou utilizes interior and exterior décor for the actual design prints of her collections.

She has been showing collections since 2009 and not Haute Couture either but Ready To Wear – if perhaps a brave Ready to Wear with for example her Spring 2011 collection being about ‘the room on the woman’ rather than ‘the woman in the room’! This collection took its inspiration from back-copies of Architectural Digest and World of Interiors where images from them were laid over exquisitely fitted silhouettes.

She gives as her design heroes Coco Chanel, Miuccia Prada and Balenciaga, however even this illustrious triumvirate of design genius won’t prepare you for her own creative collections.

You can see the collection on the London Fashion Week website if in a disappointing grainy stream rather than High Def Video. The clothes are modelled on the runway to the sound of the ‘Polonaise’ by Japanese musician and composer Shigeru Umebayashi – you might know him from film scores such as House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower – his music adding to the exotic things-not-being-quite-what-they seem feel of it all.

Mary Katrantzou Model Ming Xii

Model Ming Xi

The pictures in this post are taken from her Spring 2011 collection – each collection though is worth checking out in great detail as a pure visual and creative feast. And of the collection featured here, with 26 pieces in all, the difficulty was what to leave out – you can see the entire collection though on Style.

Mary Katrantzou Model Karolina Mikolajczyk

Model Karolina Mikolajczyk

Some of her designs play visual tricks on the eye – a model is wearing a necklace but is it a plain necklace with the brass fixtures part of the print on on her top, or is the brass fixture her actual necklace – 2D or 3D that is the question!

The prints themselves may run the entire length of the dress or be two different prints, one for the bodice area, one for the skirt area. I could provide descriptions but these though are pieces best seen for yourselves to make your own mind up about what it is you are seeing, what it is you think you are seeing.

On the London Fashion Week site there is a profile q&a with her – currently she has no website – or rather one under construction (and which you can download a pressbook which is well worth doing so presenting as it does her work to date in the printed fashion press in pictures and words) – and on the question of what is next for her brand she answers ‘a new website’.

I cannot wait for what is sure to be a website not quite what it seems.

Mary Katrantzou Model Olga Cerpeta

Model Olga Cerpeta

Mary Katrantzou Model Charlotte Wiggins

Model Charlotte Wiggins

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The House of Eliott – ITV Return

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The House of Eliott ITV 3British period fashion drama The House of Eliott returns today to ITV 3 for a weekday afternoon and evening run.

British telly in the 1990′s gave us fashion comedy Absolutely Fabulous – it also gave us the more serious-minded fashion drama ‘The House of Eliott’, both from the BBC.

Whereas Absolutely Fabulous was also set in the 1990′s, The House of Eliott was set in the 1920′s.

The Eliott’s being sisters Beatrice and Evangeline. Bea, the older sister, played by Stella Gonet, who runs the business with occasional forays into dress-design – whereas younger sister Evie, played by Louise Lombard, designs most of the clothes. Bea is the more conservative of the two Evie the more radical – this leads to occasional tensions in their work together and their designs.

The House of Eliott Ball SceneThe show follows the death of the sisters’ doctor father who leaves them without a penny, due to speculative stock purchases on the markets, this being before the crash of 1929, he also leaves them an illegitimate son, a brother they were unaware of.

Bea lands a job to a society photographer who later helps the sisters to fund their fashion house.

Their fashion house being established in a still predominantly male-run environment – they also have to overcome class prejudices – both sisters being from mere middle class backgrounds whereas business was still seen as both an upper class and male domain.

The series was written by Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins who also had come up with the brief for the original Upstairs, Downstairs from the 1970′s.

The House of Eliott Fashion ShowThere was more to the show than haute couture – the social and political backgrounds of the time were explored – women’s suffrage, the life of the working and non-working poor. It was well written but perhaps its pace a bit sedate for today’s tastes. But even if you did not care too much for the characters and the plot if you loved fashion and had an interest in its history this show was a must-see.

I myself enjoyed its portrayal of British fashion in the 1920′s – the design process, fashion media, fashion shows – the latter being in dining salons where the fashion press ate and drank as the models moved about the tables – a preferable practice perhaps to the current runway set up!

The first season focussed on their work and run up to their first fashion show, and its critical reception and commercial consequences. Most of their fashion pieces did not come on full display until seasons two and three.

I am looking forward this re-run and am hoping the fashions were as good as I remember them.The House of Eliott Logo

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Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency

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Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency

Presenter Lucy Worsley

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency is a new three part series of hour long episodes, began August 29 on BBC 4, written and narrated by historian Dr Lucy Worsley.

This series is to mark the 200th anniversary of this brief but revolutionary and creative period. At its helm the Prince Regent himself, the great patronizer of art and design.

On the BBC 4 website she asks us when was Britain at its most elegant and most decadent, its most stylish and most radical. Her answer as you might expect is that it was the regency and she goes on to explain why she thinks that. Also detailed on this page is what we can expect from this series. It looks at the man the era was named after, the Prince Regent, along with other Royals and Aristocrats as well as its working people and how they all experienced this decade, 1811 to 1820. Also covered are the celebrities of its age – the likes of Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Joseph Turner and John Constable.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency The Prince of Whales

The Prince of Whales

In the first episode Warts and all – Portrait of a Prince she looks at how the Prince Regent, George IV, was obsessed with outdoing Napoleon – “not on the battlefield but in terms of opulence, bling and monumental architecture’. The BBC iPlayer page provides further details of this episode.

She finished her opening introduction advising us that there was a lot more to the regency than Mr Darcy!

Her team at Kew Palace on discussing what the public know about The Prince Regent, reported on a visiting little girl who said he was ‘Sad Mad Bad and Fat’!

George was the United Kingdom’s ruler but a regent not its king owing to the temporary absence of his father George III due to his incapacitating mental condition, yet despite this he was the subject of much virulent irreverent satire by commentators and cartoonists. It is hard to imagine any of our present royal family being pictured as a whale which in ‘The Prince of Whales’! he was. Nearly two hundred years on our satirists seem very tame if not obsequious to our current heads of state – whether Royals, Lords or Commons.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency Rembrandt’s The Shipbuilder and His Wife

Rembrandt’s The Shipbuilder and His Wife

The program looks at George’s art collection – he bought prodigiously – including the most expensive in his collection Rembrandt’s The Shipbuilder and His Wife.

Alongside his collection the program looks at the extensive collection bequeathed to Dulwich College by Peter Francis Bourgeois, landscape artist and court painter to George III which unlike the Prince’s private collection was open to the public. His collection could have been left to the British Museum but he considered it was ran by snobs and too closely associated with the Regency Inner Circle. He was of the father’s royal court not the son’s. Hence his bequest to the Dulwich College. The Architect John Soane built an art gallery within the college grounds to house them, also out of money left by Bourgeois. It was the first gallery open to the public.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency The Prince

The Prince Regent

The Prince Regent also liked his clothes – his budget for fashion as extravagant as that for his art-works. The most fashionable man in London at this time was Beau Brummel – whose influence also extended to the Prince. The program uses ‘Dandy’ by The Kinks to showcase their outfits – Brummel himself is credited with inventing the suit. Though when saying his budget it is notable that he bought his extensive wardrobe on credit – he ran up huge debts, many remaining unpaid.

At this time Britain was the reigning European superpower having just beaten the French and Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo  – but the Prince Regent had little to do with it not being a soldier let alone on the fields of battle. But he was clearly vain-glorious and self-delusional and had become the subject of many paintings with him as the conquering war hero – Wellington a mere shadow of him. Appearance trumping reality reminding that spin is nothing new just the methods of its commission.

The royal portrait painter was Thomas Lawrence, president of the Royal Academy, and referred by Lucy Worsley as the ‘Chief Flatterer’ and very definitely counter-weight to the cruel cartoon caricaturists. Lawrence was the Photoshop of his time, routinely taking pounds and years off the monarch.

To most of his subjects these paintings would be all they would have seen of him. Appearance clearly was more important than reality.

I look forward the next episode Developing the Regency Brand which will explore its architecture as part of the rebuilding of Britain during this period.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency Dulwich College

Dulwich College Art Gallery

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Kate Spade comes to the UK

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Kate Spade New York Logo

Kate Spade RUFFLED BETHANNE DRESS

Ruffled Bethanne Dress

Kate Spade the quintessentially New York store has arrived in the UK. Well England, well okay then, London.

Though to quibble in this web-age it matters not whether we live in a city with stores full of fashionable threads or we live in a slumbering sartorial back-water. But nevertheless if you want to check out in person – to do more than look not touch – then Kate Spade’s cool clean colourful wares are now available to try on and buy in London’s Covent Garden. And even posher Sloane Square to follow.

Kate Spade, if you don’t know, do clothes and their accessories. They also do covers for iPhones and iPads – though can you really make these Apple icons anymore better looking than they are already? – they also dabble in home-wear and bridal.

On their website there are a number of other features too such as Deborah Loves and Westward Collection. The Deborah doing the loving being Deborah Lloyd its current president. The Westward collection is the work of Los Angeles fashion duo Emily Current and Meritt Elliott, known together as Maude.

Kate Spade also have a colour of the month – as I type this it is blue but as you read it…

The stylish looks of the Kate Spade website are in keeping with the looks of its fashion.

It will be interesting to see whether Kate Spade London follows in the footsteps of Kate Spade New York – will its global brand overbear or will it allow – can it allow? – a space for local spirit?

That Kate Spade sell Apple fashion accessories is perhaps fitting – they are themselves the Apple of retail fashion – producing pricey pieces stylish and complete enough with the unspoken longed for hope that you will never feel the need to purchase a competitor product again!

And unlike Apple’s over-dependence on one man, its just stepped down CEO, Steve Jobs, Kate Spade has both its eponymous founder and president & chief creative officer Deborah Lloyd at its helm to sustain its brand into the future.

Live colourfully.Kate Spade dresses

Kate Spade Westwood Collection

Westwood Collection

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University of the Arts London – Showtime for Samuel Way

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Samuel Way London College Fashion Rangeboard

Rangeboard

Samuel Way London College Fashion Green Shoes

Don't step on my green suede shoes

Samuel Way is another cordwainer Graduate from the London College of Fashion.

Another that is in the context of my last showtime post about Min Jung Chae.

Samuel Way London College Fashion Rubber Duckie shoes

Rubber Duckie

In that post I commented that women’s shoes were in general a lot more creative and innovative then the more sober and conservative men’s shoe.

Samuel Way’s footwear designs are certainly not conservative, very definitely an exception to that rule.

He has a BA Honours Degree in Cordwainers Footwear, more specifically in their product design and development.

His Spring Summer 2012 collection is inspired by his own childhood nostalgia and uses very bold colours and block designs.

In his own words ‘… a menswear collection inspired by re-collective memories, themes like cartoon characters, board games and other childhood related products that I still feel nostalgic about’.

In this Showtime collection he worked toward this with a comical and toyish looking footwear.

All his shoes are hand-made.

Though this collection is focussed on men’s shoes he also produces women’s shoes such as a Jimmy Choo and H&M collaboration.

He now works as an apprentice for design company BSV International based in London.

I look forward more of his bold and creative footwear.Samuel Way London College Fashion

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  • Jimmy Choo (thestreetstylefashion.wordpress.com)

Voguepedia – Vogue catalogued

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Voguepedia Search PageVoguepedia Email IntroductionVoguepedia is a new venture from Vogue, as described in their introductory Email ‘the ultimate (and growing) resource that documents the world of fashion in Vogue’.

A wikipedia version of Vogue magazine? Perhaps.

Currently if I need to find out fashion information I will use Google or Wikipedia or for specific designer details Style – sometimes I will go to current online magazines such as Vogue.

Voguepedia though is not just Vogue’s current content but a catalogue of a century plus of their online and print output.

The opening page is a search engine page marrying the function of Google and the looks of Bing.

The resource though is, as they say, a work in progress – my first search was Jimmy Choo, and was returned no results!

Alexander McQueen was my next search and the results were far more numerous.

However most of the results were secondary or passing references to him from articles on others from the fashion firmament – Peter Philips, Giles Deacon and Hussein Chalayan were the first pages listed – I would have hoped Alexander McQueen himself would have made up the first page returns. I am not sure if like the Google search algorithm there is a fashion algorithm at play here!

Voguepedia Personalities search

Just eleven so far!

The search can be filtered by Designers, Brands, Models, Personalities and Beauty.

You can see from the Personalities list that there is much content still to be added. It is the same with the Brands and Beauty.

The information is presented in a clear and stylish way. When I searched on Keira Knightly – as well as a summary article below a Vogue cover she appeared on from 2007 – see image end of this post – scrolling down revealed her history from birth to present, if in brief outline.

I have no doubt that this too will get more comprehensive overtime.

Much of the information still feels relatively current – the 1990′s seems about as historical as it gets so far. When it reaches back until the 1890′s – the decade Vogue was founded – we will have a very rich resource indeed, of fashion articles and photography.

I can’t wait.Voguepedia Keira Knightly

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