And Another Thing – Swimwear, Feminism and Body Issues

Last week, I paid horribly for the fact that I am going on holiday. Post tropical illness injection (needles, ew), I had to go bikini shopping* on Oxford Street. It. Was. Horrifying. I felt attacked by swarms and swarms of crappy, tacky, badly made beach attire without even one or two things in the middle that were acceptable. And the more everywhere was peddling the same crap the more I got annoyed. It wasn’t just that this season’s swimwear is not my style, it’s that they are in no way practical, functional, or fit for purpose. It got my inner feminist working overdrive, and not so much because of the horrible frills, trims and tack-central shapes and colours but rather because every bloody bikini and swimsuit is padded here or a bit tucked there. By the time I had reached Marble Arch I was properly enraged, with feminism steaming out of my ears.

Terrifying Frilly Swimwear From The Highstreet

WHAT is with the assumption that girls with small to medium boobs want giant knockers and therefore everything must be padded? Now ladies, if you’ve got a good rack, props. I ain’t hatin’, celebrate those boobies! My point is though, why can’t us ittybittytitty girls celebrate too? I am comfortable with the size of my chest. I don’t want it to be any bigger, especially as a result of a bikini or a bra that pushes (pun intended) the idea that I need big boobs to be womanly. No, I don’t.

It’s the same point I am always trying to make – that women are all different sizes and shapes and that so long as you are healthy you should be happy in yourself and society should leave you be the way you are. I don’t want a weird tummy tuck swimsuit. I don’t want my bikini to look like a wonderbra. Fair enough if you do, but it is a seriously depressing state of affairs when buyers won’t even entertain the notion that women are comfortable with themselves. Of all the masses of swimwear that I saw, there was maybe less than 1% that was just simple, unenhanced, the way nature intended. This was not an unconscious decision, the high street seems to have decided that women are not good enough as they are and therefore need all this padding. You know what, it might even be true, but it is not up to some buyer to decide that for me, so I shall be heading to sportsdirect.com and buying a Speedo. And, if I had loadsa cash, these.

Mara Hoffman SS12 from Asos

ASOS Digital Beach Scene Cut Out Bandeau swimsuit SS12

Wildfox swimsuit from Asos SS12

Emma Cook One Piece Digital Print Swimsuit from Asos SS12

Mara Hoffman Print One Piece Swimsuit SS12 Net-a-Porter

We Are Handsome Digital Print One Piece from Net-a-Porter SS12

Yves Saint Laurent One Piece Swimsuit from Net-a-Porter SS12

images via net-a-porter and asos.com

*Yes, yes I know…first world problems…

Designer Profile : Helen Steele

Helen Steele is an awesome designer you need to know about. Her prints are fresh and exciting, with clean and modern silhouettes shaping garments that are nothing short of covetable. It makes sense that her prints come to the fore as she’s actually an acclaimed artist, who got involved with Joanne Hynes to produce a collection, Les Gurriers, and one thing led to another and in two short seasons she is now showing her own collections at London and Paris Fashion Weeks. Not bad for a bird who lives in the (lovely) middle of nowhere in Ireland. As if that wasn’t enough, she’s ultra cool and super nice and took some time to talk to me about ducks, cherry blossoms, wearable art and dreams…

How did you get involved with Better Fashion Week?

Helen Steele (HS): I got involved with Better fashion Week through the girls from Re-Dress, i admire their positivity and drive. Better Fashion Week was brilliant so informative .

Ethical fashion is such a broad concept, reaching into every aspect of the product life cycle. What does sustainability mean to you? How do you approach it?

HS: To produce sustainably I think its the only way forward. We use my husbands down (from his ducks) in our down jackets . We are currently working on an all season jacket that has detachable down togs to adjust yourself to the season and weather. And we create multi purpose inter seasonable wearable art clothing that can be worn all year around and is respectful of all cultures, which appeals to a more global market.

How do you think that approaching fashion design as an artist affects the process?

HS: I suppose working as an artist has helped me to be a bit more fearless in my regard to fashion. I do feel that there is a tiny lack of humour in the fashion world, but it seems to have mellowed since I was in fashion college . What I really like about the fashion industry is there seems to be a movement of helping each other along, of collaboration, only once have I encountered bitchiness and ego which is pointless and unhelpful. In my approach to design I try to keep it simple let the prints do the talking, I see the clothes as a canvas that must be comfortable to wear, that feels like a second skin, not restrictive .

What piece of the current collection are you most proud of?

HS: From our SS12 collection I LOVE the cherry print in the Sharjah dress and leggings . Last spring i put a lapse photography camera under our cherry blossom trees in our garden and we captured the whole growth and blossom of the cherry tree and got great footage which became our cherry print . It was a long process but worth it. The cherry print was really popular in Japan, and sold out in some stores in Seoul in South korea within one week!! I also spotted (under a Japanese street style piece) our cherry print leggings on a Dolly Kei girl in Tokyo  on The Weekly Edit which was a suprise.

What advice would you give to your 16 year old self?

HS: I would say to my 16 year old self be impeccable with your word. EAT properly. Drive slower and safer. Most importantly dont let go of your dreams work hard dont let anything or anyone stand in your way and BELIEVE in yourself. Embrace change its the one thing thats constant in life. Its what you put into it is what you get out of it. TRAVEL.

What’s the best part about working from Ireland?

HS: Best part about working in Ireland is I get to be close to my husband, kids and family. Its very beautiful where I live, there is a good community spirit, and in Ireland there is a great fashion community – it’s small but strong. I have recieved brilliant help and advice from so many people in the Irish fashion community, everyone from stylists,  interns, fashion students, photographers, make-up artists, journalists, people in fashion pr and marketing, designers, stores, boutiques, bloggers.

And the biggest challenge?
HS: The biggest challenge is finding funding, general negativity, insular thinking, ignorent attitude to creativity.

All images courtesy of Helen Steele, and are from the Spring Summer ’12 lookbook.

So, if you want to be able to say I Told You So when she is in every style magazine around, check out Helen’s website, or pop into Costume in Dublin to see the clothes for yourself.

SS12 Trend Watch: Lace

Spring’s lace update is tablecloth chic. It’s net curtain chic. It’s massive scale for maximum impact. In acid colour, in black, in glorious white on white. Want. It. Now.

Valentino SS12

Thakoon SS12

Dries Van Noten SS12

Louis Vuitton SS12

Valentino SS12

Suno SS12

Valentino SS12

Suno SS12

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.

SS12 Trend Watch: Colour Blocking

Spring Summer 2012 Colours fit to eat! Pastels! Palest greens, blues, orange. Think Neapolitan ice cream in a wafer – gotta have your neutrals!

Colour blocking is hardly a new concept – in fact, it’s a wanky fashion term to describe wearing plain colour together. To clarify, plain colour as distinct from garments with print or embroidery or any embellishment. So, basically, wearing clothes that aren’t head to toe black. What they MEAN is successful and interesting colour combinations together to create a fresh look that generally relies on simple and clean silhouettes so as not to confuse the issue or to look like a big mess of rainbow. Which is a lot harder to fit in a headline. Also, the word block sounds quite designy and weighty and modern, and the colour blocking look is quite modern, so I guess it’s that thing where it sounds the way it looks like. Kinda like sizzling sausage. Also, when you think of it like a block of ICE CREAM, then colour blocking becomes delicious. Like ice cream…

Hmmmm, I appear to be on some kind of weird food kick. We shall resume normal, non-food related transmission soon, perhaps after lunch…In the meantime, here are my Spring Summer 12 colour block picks.

10 Cosby by Derek Lam SS12

Chloe SS12

Kenzo SS12

Matthew Williamson SS12

Matthew William SS12

Yes I know it’s a printed blouse, my blog my rules

Michael Van Der Ham SS12

Again, my blog my rules.

Mulberry SS12

Philip Lim SS12

Prada SS12

Theyskens Theory SS12

VPL SS12

Ok this one is blatantly print but I just love the colour story and so it stays, alright?!!!

Animalism

I used to own a pair of zebra print ponyskin pointed toe kitten heels. It has taken me a while to be able to say that sentence aloud, but I accept it now. In fact, I imagine a point in the near future I will wish I never got rid of them.

A friend of my recently christened me Tiger Force, given my penchant for all things animal print and my endearing (mental) habit of wearing them all at once. I am clearly not the only one though. These are the animal prints I’m crushing on for summer.

When done in a subtle way, animal print is a great non-print, working as a texture to add to an outfit. When done in a not-so-subtle way, animal print cna be the WOW factor. So, I guess, like, it’s quite versatile? So, like, that’s good? And while the cat family has been the animal print du jour for some time now, snake and zebra seem to be making quite the comeback. Snake, when done right, is a great textural print. When done wrong however…..well, I guess there is a fine line between tragedy and comedy…

P.S. Let’s take bets as to how long it’s going to be before cow print pops up on the catwalks again….ss13, anyone? lol…

Proenza Schouler SS12

Isabel Marant SS12

Givenchy SS12

 

Just Cavalli SS12

Roberto Cavalli SS12

Just Cavalli SS12

SS12 Trend Watch: Tropical

SS12 is filled with so many trends I wan a sink my teeth into but none more so than the tropical theme so perfectly exemplified at Altuzurra.
I guess designers had a collective moment of “nothing says summer better than palm trees,right?!” RIGHT! Tropical prints are, well, you know. This year’s batch however simultaneously harness all the ropey connotations for charming nostalgia in a South Pacific vibe and shake free of them by mixing with block colour for a fresh modern feel.
Vintage feel AND block colour? Sure you had me at tropical…

Altazurra SS12

 

Roberto Cavalli SS12

Theysken's Theory SS12

Prabal Gurung SS12

Mary Katrantzou SS12

Roberto Cavalli SS12

image via style.com, dazeddigital.com

Cos I want to….

The other evening I happened across the Cos Ss12 lookbook while doing a bit of a tidy. On top of that smug feeling you get when you (I) hang all your (my) clothes back in the wardrobe, put all the books back on their shelf and rearrange your makeup and stuff into some semblance of order, I was happy to see this little lookbook. First up I love the fact that it is an object, and a beautiful one at that. While i love the availability of such a multitude of information online, there is something tacitly better about printed images. Especially when the printed images are of such cool clothes. I would be a better person in these outfits. All put together and considered and made up of beautiful pieces. They strike that difficult balance of being serious without being boring, and fun without being flippant. They are, in short, right on the money. There’s also an 90′s style off shoulder neoprene top in forest green that I just can’t get out of my head, it’s delish!!

And finally, someone give me a boy to play dress up with. I really want to know someone who wears this outfit, how Marlon Brando and awesome is it. In fact, their menswear is perhaps even better than their women’s offering, but that debate is for another day.

Natalie B Coleman….Be my friend

***NOTE: I am having a total wordfail/brainfart. This article is short on words as a result. It is not, however, short on thought. Luckily, Natalie’s work speaks for itself so I think I might just sit this one out.***

Check this out. Natalie B Coleman is cool. She’s Irish too, which is cool. And she did an MA in St Martins, which is really cool. And her collection is really really cool. Her stuff is girly without being saccharine, staying within the cool-girl zone. She plays with narratives but not annoyingly so, never sacrificing the aesthetic. In short, her stuff is the Shiiiiizzzzzz and I think I want her to be my friend.

Natalie B Coleman SS12

Natalie B Coleman SS12

Natalie B Coleman SS11

Natalie B Coleman SS11

Eva Zingoni. Or – Reasons Buying Cheap Shit on the High Street is Pointless.

This weekend I went shopping. Actually, that’s a total lie, this weekend I went looking at things that I would hypothetically buy or not buy, if I had any money. Which I don’t. But I digress. What I ascertained was that even if I had a bunch of money, I would still not have bought anything on my little browsing escapade. Everything I saw was cheap looking, cheap feeling and generally uninspiring. It reinforced my increasing belief that low-end highstreet stuff isn’t worth the samey-outfit-post Lookbook space it is ad nauseum posted on.

Basically, I have expensive taste. I don’t like mass-produced, generic, soulless crap. I don’t like things that are made to be thrown away. I like craftsmanship, and care, and design and beauty. I like things to be weighty and feel like they are going to last. In a lot of ways, and totally unintentionally, I have very ethical and eco taste.

Ethical and eco means different things to different people. I am by no means a paragon of virtue when it comes to sustainable fashion, but I am conscious of my choices and I do my best, and if every consumer could say the same then we would have a very different fashion industry.

Eva Zingoni @ Esthetica, LFW SS12

We also need designers that make sustainable choices easy for consumers, by providing ethical and sustainable choices that align with logical fashion choices. We need more people like Eva Zingoni, whom I came across at the Esthetica section of London Fashion Week, dedicated to sustainable fashion. Zingoni creates limited-edition garments using prestigious textiles. So far, so generic upper-end fashion. She uses prestigious textiles that have been salvaged from other famous fashion houses. Now you’re talking. The end result is extremely limited edition, couture-inspired, recycled fashion garments for everyday people. Having spent 6 years at Balenciaga customising their couture for celebrities and uber-editors, she has clearly picked up on the attractiveness of scarcity. However this type of scarcity is in terms of production quantity given the inherent limitations of materials, as opposed to than price, which is remarkably affordable. Well, it would be, if I had any money. Sigh………

Eva Zingoni @ Esthetica LFW SS12

So, to sum up:

1. Quality is always better than quantity.

2. Making better, slower fashion choices is good for your pocket AND the environment. Mostly your pocket, but that’s still an eco plus, OK.

3. Eva Zingoni makes really really cool clothes. Hence recycling is cool. Q.E.D.

3a. Check out her website, I do rather like it.

4. I am broke. As per usual.