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The sound of Autumn/Winter 2010-11

A few months back I wrote a post about some of my favourite tracks from the spring/summer shows. Now that the major fashion weeks are over, I thought I’d follow up with a post about the autumn/winter shows as well.

Magdalena Frackowiak for Sophia Kokosalaki A/W 2010-11

1. Apparat – Arcadia (Telefon Tel Aviv Remix) (Emporio Armani) [Spotify] [YouTube]
2. Sisters of Mercy – Temple of Love (Dior Homme) [Spotify] [YouTube]
3. The Presets – Are you the one? (Alexander Wang) [YouTube]
4. These New Puritans – We Want War (Sophia Kokosalaki) [Spotify] [YouTube]
5. Yazoo – Nobody’s Diary (Burberry) [Spotify] [YouTube]
6. Prince – Kiss (Balmain) [Spotify]
7. Fever Ray – Triangle Walks (Tiga’s 1-2-3-4 Remix) (Diesel Black Gold) [Spotify] [YouTube]
8. Peaches – Talk to me (Giles Deacon) [Spotify] [YouTube]
9. Malcolm McLaren – Operaa House (Miu Miu) [Spotify] [YouTube]
10. In Flagranti – Ex Ex Ex (Headman Dub) (Versace) [Spotify] [YouTube]

Photo source: Style.com / Marcio Madeira / Firstview

A balletic performance

I’m a huge fan of Katie Shillingford’s work. I’ve always liked what she does, but her recent work has just blown me away. I think she is definitely amongst the five best fashion stylists in the UK at the moment! This editorial from the February issue of Dazed & Confuzed was shot by Ben Toms and the model is Ranya Mordanova.

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Photo source: Dazed & Confused, via CouteQueCoute

Tags: Ben Toms, Dazed & Confused, Katie Shillingford, Ranya Mordanova

Marchesa Casati – A dash of eccentricity

Earlier we’ve blogged about how art inspires fashion, but how about when the artistic inspiration is a person – a muse? One such person, the Marchesa Luisa Casati, has inspired many writers, painters and also fashion designers .

The Marchesa was born into a wealthy Austrian-Italian family in Milan in 1881. A patron of coutouriers such as Paul Poiret, Mariano Fortuny and Erté and jewellers like Lalique, Casati astonished European society for the first three decades of the 20th century with her eccentric personality and outrageous style. In his autobiography Erté described her as the “the most extravagantly odd woman I have ever met”. She would wear living snakes as jewellery, throw parties where her servants were covered in leafed gold from top to toe and parade her pet cheetahs around in Venice on leashes covered with gold and diamonds whilst wearing nothing but a fur coat. Her hair was a dyed a deep henna red, her skin powdered pale white and her eyes heavily kohled.

The Marchesa painted by Augustus John to the left. Carina Roitfeld as Casati, photographed by Karl Lagerfeld.

More after the jump

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Tags: Carine Roitfeld, Chanel, Christian Dior, Couture, Giorgio Armani, John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld, Marchesa Luisa Casati, muses, Tilda Swinton, Tom Ford, Yves Saint Laurent

Favourite Part of a Female

No…not a question from Dr.Hannibal, but when you look at a female, which part would you notice first.

Many people would say eyes as they are said ‘the window to heart’, how much can you see a person from looking into the eyes. Christian Dior’s least favourtie part on a femal is actual the knees. And that is the reason he always had all his skirt length to be ‘just over the knee’. He obviously quite prefer the female waist and therefore invent the ‘new look’ with cinched in waistline. However, Coco Chanel thinks that was a backwards move since she freed women’s body from corset by dressing them in cotton jersey which is at the time a common material for mens underwear.

I personally favour John Galliano’s choice, the back view of a female. It could speak so much attitude with a simple back view. Johnny Depp admits when he first time saw that beautiful female back in a Paris hotel lobby, he knew he had found the one—Vanessa Paradis.

And that’s why so many designers are focusing details on the back. Australian designer Willow had this quite cleverly done on a ready-to-wear day & night dress.

It’s romantic, yes it’s powerful too.

Tags: Chanel, Christian Dior, John Galliano, Johnny Depp, Vanessa Paradis

The sound of Spring/Summer 2010

There’s no doubt that choosing the right music for a fashion show is important. I once read an interview with a designer who said that it can be compared to selecting the right soundtrack to a movie. It not only sets the mood, it also helps the spectators understand the designer’s vision and inspiration. I’ve compiled a list with some of the tracks used by designers for the spring/summer 2010 shows. Listening to some of these songs makes me wonder – what do these songs tell us about the collections? The inspiration? The person who buys them? Or even the label or designer?

1. New Order – Perfect Kiss (Dunhill, Paris Menswear Fashion Week)
2. Phoenix – Lisztomania (Yigal Azrouël, New York Fashion Week)
3. Deadmau5 – Ghosts n stuff (Versace, Milan Fashion Week)
4. Lil’ Mama – Lip Gloss (Prada, Milan Fashion Week)
5. The Beloved – Sweet Harmony (Jil Sander, Milan Menswear Fashion Week)
6. Metronomy – Hearthbreaker (Diskjokke remix) (Balenciaga, Paris Fashion Week)
7. Little Boots – Mathematics (DKNY, New York Fashion Week)
8. Gossip – Dimestore Diamond (Max Azria and Nicole Miller, New York Fashion Week)
9. The Kooks – Sofa Song (Burberry Prorsum, London Fashion Week)
10. Peaches – Downtown (Simian Mobile Disco Remix) (Etro, Milan Fashion Week)

I’m not sure, but judging from the sounds of it, spring/summer 2010 doesn’t only look good, it sounds good too!

Photo source: Style.com / Marcio Madeira

Tags: balenciaga, burberry prorsum, DKNY, dunhill, etro, jil sander, kasia struss, max azria, nicole miller, prada, versace, yigal azrouël

The Fate and Consequence between a Glitter Jacket and Michael Jackson’s Death

Way before the memorial day when MJ’s death suddenly happened as a shuttered global news, people who’s working for high-street fashion were busy predicting about what would be the hugest trend in AW2009 among all high-street. After working in UK fashion industry for many years, you are sort of having some 6th sense on what’s coming on next.

There was this photo-shooting of Paris Hilton in a Fushia Pink jacket with shining patent skinny trousers on early issue of 2009  Nylon magazine and my instinct told me that this look was sort of new. An initial storyboard with a going-out mood was created for first Autumn Story 2009 and this story then later became ’80′s Manhattan’ which is at the beginning confused all fashion buyers and consumers with question such as ‘why would you wear glitter in early autumn before Christmas’.

I guess the fashion world is a bit of a ‘Butterfly Effect’ in some way, which means everything and absolutely anything could effect the current trends as well as the future ones going out on the fashion world. Look now, MJ’s death has brought him back in world’s centre attention and this final stir naturally rocks our glitter story sky high. The glitter sequin jacket has become a must-have-item since!

Fast forward last year when Lady Gaga released her first album, at least that was the time when I started to show my interest to her. Before, I always thought that she’s just a manufactured music figure with no difference to Britney Spears. Then I read about somewhere that she’s actually a very creative person and that she collaborates with some friends of hers to create her on-stage looks and outfits. This instantly drew my attention to her, because not only that music needs to be strong enough to convince me, but also equally important is the visual performance to finish the whole ‘Package’. Her visual ‘Package’ led me to listen her songs and realize ‘they aren’t that bad at all’. Lady Gaga is such a good example of modern 21st century of pop/perform artist.

Back in early 90s being a teenage in China with no internet and limited sources of anything from outside world, Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain was one of a few big names spreading around China. Without enough visual images, Cassettes and CDs were the only art forms to represent an artist. There were very limited images within CDs and from which you had to use quite a lots of own imagination to create the personalities of the artists. Of course Michael Jackson stood out. Sure he offers much more as he ticks all the boxes, from imagery to the sound of music to the technology he brought into music video world. Today, same for Lady Gaga, with so much technology and so much competition, how do you stand out? Gaga is doing an amazing job. She brought lots of glitters and leotards back to our life and yet we were still experimenting the looks, she’s already move on to another level. She claims that, ‘When I’m writing music, I’m thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage. It’s all about everything altogether – performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me it’s everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste the lick every part of us.’

Pop music must take the next-coming-trend on board to catch people’s attention to make the most possible impact. When you were crazy buying the come-back-80s-look early 2009, think about La Roux…when you rocking a dark jazzy look, think about Amy Winehouse. And now just a few days left before 2009, girls… when you slip on that black sequin blazer out partying and twirling around, think about MJ for one last time, I’m sorry to see you go, but at least you passed away at a damn right timing…

Tags: La Roux, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton

tokyo through one guy’s lense

there is always something about Japan or let’s focus and zoom into Tokyo. You are living in a city like kaleidoscope.This blog that I have recently been eyeing on is by this chinese guy living in Tokyo. Obviously a fashion media lover, got tons of magazines. He/She had taken a photo to show the stags of mags from floor to ceiling and claim that’s only 1/5 of his/her collection.

I have no idea whether he/she’s an art student or working there, but his/her photography skill is very detailed and vibrant coloured, slightly reminds me of Nick Knight. (look into those night club photos he’s taken, the people are cosmopolitan and mixed with East-London-grunge and New-York-glamorous)

The blog is a mix of street fashion shots, night club people catch shots and artistic object shots. I found street fashion shots are quite inspiring with details into the clothing and accessories while night club shots are great to feel people’s mood which also helps designers to re-think about human’s feeling while designing.

Well…enjoy it…and I’m sure you will, just like me.

Tags: club shots, street style, Tokyo

Songs to design by

Some people visit an art gallery when they need inspiration, some read a book and some go travelling. Ever since I first starting doodling design ideas in my sketchbooks, I’ve been making playlists with “songs to design by” – songs that inspire me, help me keep focused and get my creative juices flowing. Some times it’s the lyrics, other times the beat, a certain composition or a catchy chorus or hook. So, for this #musicmonday I thought I’d post some of these songs.

1. Marsheaux – Hanging On (YouTube)
2. Covenant – We want revolution (YouTube)
3. Temposhark – Crime (YouTube)
4. The Human League – All I ever wanted (YouTube)
5. Takako Minekawa – Phonobaloon Song (YouTube)
6. Autechre – Gantz Graf (YouTube)
7. Hype – Living on video (Spotify)
8. Celluloide – Synchronise (Spotify)
9. Kurd Maverick – Blue Monday (Vandalism Remix) (YouTube)
10. Auto-Auto x Parralox – Don’t talk about love, Mr Schneider (the oxy mashup) (YouTube)

For those not familiar with the #musicmonday concept, this is how it works. Every monday twittering music fans post their song of the day. The tweet has a link to the song and the hash tag #musicmonday.

Photo source: badjonni

Tags: Autechre, Auto-Auto, Celluloide, Covenant, Hype, Kurd Maverick, Marsheaux, Parralox, Takako Minekawa, Temposhark, The Human League

Art-inspired fashion

Designers taking inspiration from art is hardly anything new.  One thing I find really fascinating though is how different the outcome of different people’s interpretation of the same piece of art can be. One of the most famous examples of “fashion-inspired-by-art” is probably Yves Saint Laurent’s day dress from 1965 inspired by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s work. Earlier this summer I was watching the video of La Roux’s Bulletproof and in the video she is wearing another nice Mondrian-inspired piece – a jacket from Jean-Charles de Castalbajac‘s Spring/Summer 2009 collection.

One of my favourite Mondrian-inspired collections though, has to be Norwegian design duo Batlak & Selvig‘s spring/summer 2009-collection. Click >> here for a video of the fashion show which was held at Galleri Riis in Oslo in August 2008.

For those interested in reading more about Mondrian-inspired fashion, please check out this blog post by John Coulthart. In the post he also links to another great blog post on this topic by Couture Allure.

Photo source: Galleri Riis

Tags: Batlak & Selvig, Jean-Charles de Castalbajac, La Roux, Piet Mondrian, Yves Saint Laurent

The beginning

My dad sells fabrics. As a kid I would hang out at his store after school. The store would be packed with design students, fashion designers and people from the costume departments of the local theatres. Sometimes they would bring their sketchbooks with them and let me have a look.

When I got older and started high school, my mom took some design courses and started doing some freelance work for some designers, sewing and drafting patterns for them. Sometimes I’d give her sketches I had made, get some fabrics from my dad’s store and ask her to make me stuff too. Maybe not a surprise then that I ended up studying fashion when I finished high school.