Jeurgen Teller. Hero #1.

 

I am guilty of a serious omission. I have completely forgotten to tell the internet how much I love Juergen Teller. And I love him. Loads. Now is probably a good time to bring him up, as he has a new book, Pictures and Words, out May 30th.

From his Go Sees series to his iconic Marc Jacobs campaigns, everything Juergen touches turns to bleached out gold. He is a man who has spawned a thousand imitators, myself included. His vision is honest and raw, yet grandiose and decadent. The way he lights his shots is instantly recognisable – the slight overexposure, bleach out effect. Actually, I always think he and Terry Richardson have a similar way with lighting, but Juergen is the understated French sexy to Terry’s full on LA dripping sex. With Juergen it’s more vulnerable, naive, honest. There’s an awkwardness, an oddity. It’s the Marc Jacobs to Terry, Manolo et al’s Gucci. No wonder the two make such an awesome pairing.

 

 

Also, let’s talk bout how successful Teller is as a commercial photographer. He has managed to merge his distinctive style with that of mega brands to create campaigns that become more than just ads, they convey a complete aesthetic, a story, a fantasy. And let’s be honest, who else could put Victoria Beckham in a bag. I like how he takes famous people and creates documentary style fashion photos. Like Helmut Newton’s philosophy of making fashion imagery look like anything but a fashion image, Juergen’s work often obscures the clothes with the personality, or the colour, or the composition of the shot. Almost. That’s his skill. His shots often look like snapshots taken at various stages of decadent parties, evoking something more than just a beautiful dress on a beautiful girl. Which is what all the best pictures look like.

 

 

Link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link

My favourite colour is SHINY

Balmain SS12

Christopher Kane SS12

Felder Felder SS12

Giles SS12

Manish Arora SS12

Marc Jacobs SS12

Sass & Bide SS12

Suno SS12

Theysken's Theory SS12

Basically, I’m tacky as hell. I try to be subtle*, but I’m subtle like a brick. I LOVE shiny things like magpies love shiny things. Maybe it’s because I’m dead inside and it deflects attention away from my black soul? Perhaps. All I know is that shiny things make me happy. It’s hard to be sad when you have a shiny lazer cut leather skirt.

The Balmain is a DREAM of shiny embroidery, and the Felder Felder is a stroke of shiny grungy ’90′s genius. But bewarned, shiny! is not like colour – silhouette DOES matter. Cut, shape, proportion – think about what you want and what’s going to work for you. Unless you look like the birds above, if you get it wrong, it’s gonna look TERRRRRIIIIIBBBBBBBUUUUUULLLLLLLL.  Team with a not-so-shiny plain t-shirt, or shirt (á la Jacobs) for a more demure take. Or throw caution to the wind and go all out, and wait for the magpies (me) to flock towards you and coo at your awesome shiny thing.

*no I don’t. I wear acid colour and leopard at the same time. The hack.

Here’s to brighter days…

Today is actually one of my favourite days of the year. That’s because tomorrow the days getting brighter, so it heralds the end of winter? Ha, looking outside we all know that winter isn’t going anywhere in a hurry! But, it’s still going to be a bit brighter tomorrow, and a bit brighter the day after that, and the day….you get it. Also, you get a funny kind of light on the cusp of things, like dawn and dusk, it’s just a different interesting light. Same as now, there was a really strange light, amplified by the masses of reflective snow! So happy solstice, and here’s to slightly longer days in the next while!

This was dusk on the shortest day of 2010 near my house. I was too cold to do an outfit post, and I live too far away to take pics of friends. So, mandatory snow pics it is!

spooky lane!

pink trees...

Happy Christmas!!

 

Oh, and here’s what I’ve been thinking for Xmas day dressing…..

Marc Jacobs, everything little you do is magic...

Roskanda Ilinic, nomnomnom

Valentino, ValentinOH?!!!

Finally in the Christmas Spirit! Velvet maxi anyone? Looks SOOOO warm. Also Valentino’s red leather skirt is nothing short of sublime, and that Roskanda Ilinic outfit just exudes xmas glamour…although I think i need a bigger house and some seriously better social commitments to pull it off…..sigh.

x

Fair (isle) play to ya!

I’ve been dying to post these looks for ages now, but I felt the closer I left it to christmas, the more relevant it would be. And Halloween is over, so I’m done waiting. Check out these Christmas-jumper-tastic outfits from D&G, Jean Paul Gaultier & Marc Jacobs. I LOVE the playfulness, so fun! Marc has a fairly standard fair isle sweater, but it’s pretty delish. JPG chose Christmas stockings to go with his ethnic/tribal warrior collection. And D&G. Well. IT’S SO MUCH FUN! Christmas chiffon blouses. I mean, genius. Effing geniuses. or genii…While I don’t love everything that D&G puts out (often too italian peasant/sexy milk maid inspired for my liking…) their is no denying their ability to put their own particular flair to everything they touch, and I’m pretty sure ur granny never knitted you anything like these…

D&G AW10

D&G AW10

D&G AW10

D&G AW10

Jean Paul Gaultier AW10

Jean Paul Gauliter AW10

Jean Paul Gaultier AW10

Marc Jacobs AW10

Fur crying out loud

Fur is not everybody’s cup of tea. I know and respect that fact. However, this does not change the fact that it is available for sale, and that many designers choose to use it as part of their collections within fashion. The following post reflects my own personal views that I do not wish to force upon any person. Think what you will, but I wear fur. There, I said it.

Fur has always been a hot topic. Ugh, that’s actually a really terrible pun when you consider the warmth it provides in the cold. I apologise, I think I’m in one of those moods…But ANYWAY. Following on from my previous posts about winter coats, I decided to include a post dedicated to fur, simply because there was so much of it on the runway. So much of it that I felt the need to make some form of comment.

I’m not really sure what the message there is. Perhaps it’s a response to emerging markets and a desire for ostentatious displays of wealth. Nothing says “I’m loaded” like a filthy great fur coat and loads of diamonds. Or perhaps the anti-fur lobby has fallen out of vogue and fur is back in fashion. Or maybe, and I’m probably being far too generous here, but there is a small chance that designers are actually using fur because it is a fabric that brings real heat to the body while creating maximum visual impact. There is no denying that real fur keeps you real warm. And for the price of them, they are an investment, which makes them less expendable and therefore in a really weird way more environmentally friendly. Bizarre, I know. But you are far less likely to throw out your fur coat at the end of a season. Synthetic materials are cheaper, but I have made the mistake of trying to save a few euro on a cheaper winter coat – they just don’t work. And it’s just plain no fun when you’re freezing.

I know that synthetic furs have come on leaps and bounds in terms of quality in recent years, so if you don’t want the real thing, you have the choice. Here are some of the fur coats that I found remarkable from this years Autum Winter collections.

Antonio Berardi

Brian Reyes

Costume National

Dennis Basso

Gianfranco Ferre

Marc Jacobs

Michael Kors

Pucci

Roskanda Ilinic

Valentino

All images via Style.com

The Colour of Winter

If peach was the IT colour of the summer, then camel is autumn’s new crush. There have been heaps and heaps of posts about it on all the blogs and fashion websites, and here’s my two cents. I’m gonna leave coats to another post. And, if I am being totally honest, it’s more of a collection of neutrals. But they are still mad pretty. So enjoy.

Alberta Feretti

Alberta Feretti

Cerruti

Chloé

Marc Jacobs

Roland Mouret

Valentino

Veronique Leroy

Derek Lam

Vivienne Westwood

Images via Style.com

I want that Chloé outfit so bad. But with an acute lack of funds, I shall settle for the delicious camel jacket I got last year. Actually it’s more of a biscuit colour, paler than camel. I’m almost looking forward for the weather to turn cold enough to wear it. Almost.

Don’t shoot the messenger (bag)

Messenger bags have been ubiquitous with the fixie/courier scene for aaaages now. It’s a style statement, a message to others that you are SERIOUS about cycling bikes. Grand. And I get it, and it’s cool, and functional and blah blah blah.

I’m a girl. I don’t want one. But I do cycle a bike and any other girl who has tried to cycle with a stylish bag will hear me when I say a lot of bags out there are useless for cycling. Like where do you put them? On the handlebars? That’s annoying….On the rack at the back? That means those elastic things that look like they’ll take your eyes out…..hmmmm. grrr. But, it would seem that designers have been having the same problem on their super cool trendy fixies/dutch bikes/other cool bike types i dont know the names of, because I have started noticing more and more bike-friendly bags everywhere. It’s really quite a simple design solution, in the sense that most bags become cyclable when you add a long strap to them. However, the handles draped on crook of arm look has dominated the accessories market for years now, so designing bags to sit longer on the body is pretty much the handbag equivalent of going from super bodycon mini to flared and flowy maxi. The “across the body” bag has caused a bit of a stir in the style pages, with clebs and fashiony types getting papped with their bag hanging from their body. IMAGINE!!! Funtion AND fashion?!!!! MADNESS!

This is one of those nerd things that I find really interesting because *warning i’m about to get all nerdy* – it shows how fashion is directly influenced by the ways in which people choose to live their lives and how designers come up with design solutions to these lives. It is also interesting that fashion and trends are as much inflenced by functionality as aesthetics. This current over the body trend is a result of people wanting to live a healthier/more eco lifestyle and then other people who dont know one end of a bike from another think it’s cool and buy into it because Alexa was papped with it. *Phew, nerd rant over*

Anyway, clearly noone really reads blogs and only visits them for the pictures, so here you go, I shall prove my point in visual format. x

Tory Burch Carson Messenger

Proenza Schouler PS1

Marc by Marc Jacobs Sophie Saddle bag

Miu Miu

Isabel Marant Frangie

Chloé Paraty. Nom

Chloé Amy

Alexander Wang Sydney Velvet Backpack

I just realised I forgot to put the Alexa Mulberry in there. It’s pretty much the poster bag for cycling/satchel/”across the body” bags today. Although I personally prefer the versions above. So, eh, I guess my blog my rules. xx

Short straw

I have recently started cycling. Well, when i say started, i have used my bike like twice in a week. But i want it to become a regular thing, for excercise and to save money. Oh yea, and the environment. Yea. Anyway, a friend who is an avid cyclist recently called me for advice on what to wear cycling (tho why I would know, what with two cycles under my belt, is another thing). Apparently lovely summer dresses are suceptible to, well, basically showing loads of panties when the wind catches them, which happens loads coz you are on a bike. Body-con is no good coz it’l ride up exposing aformentioned pants. Jeans are no good coz it’s summer and they are denim and you sweat like a little bitch and that would be gross. Long skirts are out coz they can get stuck in the chain and the wheels and make you fall over which hurts and you risk showing everyone (yes you guessed it) your pants….So that leaves us with either forgetting about the bike idea, or wearing mostly shorts and light trousers. Luckily, fashion is favouring the cyclist at the moment and there is an abundance of both both at designer level and in the high street. Here are some of my favourite shorts of the moment:

Queens Wardrobe

(image via Queens Wardrobe)

Urban Outfitters

(image via Urban Outfitters)

3.1 Philip Lim

(image via Style.com)

Marc Jacobs Resort 2010

(image via Style.com)

Marc Jacobs Resort 2010

(image via Style.com)

Prada SS10

(image via Style.com) *oh for the legs to be able to wear these….*

Tibi AW10

(image via Style.com)

Thakoon Resort 2010

(image via Style.com)

Alternatively, try cycling shorts under dresses. Protect ones modesty and still wear floaty lite dresses. It can actually look quite nice too, once the lengths are right – avoid the hockey knickers effect. American Apparel have cute cycling shorts with a band lace at the hem, as well as regular ones in all colours.

Urban Outfitters

(image via Urban Outfitters)

(image: Lookbook.nu)

(image: Lookbook.nu)

Phi Resort 2010

(image via Style.com)

This is turning into a very long blog post, turns out I am really liking shorts at the moment. I might find an excuse to do another post about cycle-fit trousers and rompers another time, but for now, get on your bike and ride!

*ps – i’m actually disgusted that YouTube has flagged the original video as questionable content!!!

Somewhere over the rainbow it’s winter again

Just had a quick peek at the Marc Jacobs Autumn Winter 2010 show, you can too if you like…

There were a couple of things I noticed……

1. Mid calf skirts

(image: Style.com)

While I am loving the socks and mary-janes combo, the gorgeous blush colour and super-cute bow embroidery, I am very nervous about this mid-calf business. Only the skinniest of legs can pull this length off. The show seemed to have a Mary Poppins quality to it…

2. Galliano Much?

(image: Style.com)
Again, I do love this jacket, but it seems to take much inspiration from Galliano. I also noticed a very similar offering over at Halston…

(image: style.com)

Can we spot a trend?

3. The fisherman jumper

(image: style.com)

I’m actually delighted about this. I love fisherman jumpers. Very much a case of absorbing street style, coz these babies have been cropping up everywhere recently.

Leaving aside the Mary Poppins buzz (see below), MJ’s offering was a delightful combination of whimsical dresses and smart workwear. No surprises why he is such a popular designer.

(image: Style.com)