London Fashion Love Letters: Bryce Aime

Hi Emmi,

Sorry for late reply. Yesterday morning I went to the Charlie Le Mindu SS11 show. You know, the hair guy who has long been SS sweetheart? The queue was horrendous; I could feel the vibe, the excitement among the queu-ers. The not-so-fab thing was that, unlike most of the shows I attended at this year London Fashion Week, we were made to queue outside, in the cold! You know, my fever--as in medical fever, not fashion fever--was raging and I was about to give up Charlie's show, but seeing Fred Butler in her metallic pastel outfit walking past me and our London's superstar blown-up doll Pandemonia in her 8-inch stilettos strutting into the Victoria House--I know they're not Janice Dickinson, but they got me going!--my intuition told me the Charlie Le Mindu's haute coiffure show must be HOT!!

Before I get deeper into Charlie Le Mindu, I should, first, share my thoughts on the Bryce Aime catwalk show that was on last Saturday. I can tell you, in the last couple of years, Aime makes a very impressive entrance in the fashion scene. Two seasons ago, I predicted his harsh, spikey and heavily structured SS10 collection would attract Lady Gaga. I was wrong. It is Rihanna who wears Bryce Aime's in her music video "Hard" and shows. And so does Beth Ditto in many of her gigs.

This year, Bryce Aime departs from his harsh design aesthetics in favour of a much softer, though still structural, silhouette.

The collection titled "Asiarama" strikes a high oriental note and features a subtle fusion of traditional Japanese theatrical Kabuki costume and Beijing opera. The fabrics, Aime uses, range from jersey, Lycra, to chiffon in rather neutral colours of pale pink, white, green and yellow. His dresses are worn with leggings, some of which are monochromatic, others printed. I must say, I'm a fan of the printed ones. Check out them ones with falling sakura flowers. They make the legs look as if tattooed on! Also, these leggings are much more flattering than Bora Aksu's.

The shoes, too, are also updates of their oriental versions.

Looking at the collection as a whole, I must say many of the pieces do not look particularly expensive, while others border on being a little too theatrical.

And, if you check out the expression on the dude's face (on your right!), I am certain his opinions are not too remotely different from mine.

I will blog about Charlie Le Mindu soon. In the mean time, you can check out my clip from the Bryce Aime SS11 catwalk show.

Ciao,

Perm

London Fashion Love Letters: Ashley Ishman

Hi Perm,

If the show you went to was one big fairytale forest, I was taken for a dip into the ocean to see mermaids striding down the runway at Ashley Ishman’s show.

Ishman is known amongst ”those in the upper echelons of fashion” (obviously that includes us) for his signature draping and tailoring. It was therefore no wonder the show started off with beautifully draped dresses, flowing like water as the models walked.

Even though the designs with their sparkling details were pretty and without a doubt made the eyes of the front row shine bright, the excitement was missing. Luckily, just when I started thinking this fashion sea breeze was getting a bit too peaceful, Ishman pushed me into the water and brought some Ariels into the setting introducing the audience to the colours of coral reefs and oddly charming head pieces.

Also the kingdom of animals were given respect in form of feather embellishment and a catwalk soundtrack that ended with the tunes of In the Jungle. Now if that won’t make you excited, then nothing will!

The designs of Ishman are told to be born to be on the red carpet, which I can confirm. Conclusion: if we’re not Lady Gagas, we should probably accept our wallets skinny as they are and be satisfied with admiring Ishman’s collections from afar. Sigh.

Hope you had a good time at the last expo of today, can’t wait to hear about it! I’ll start fuelling for the day two of our fashion marathon now and go eat the jelly beans gotten from the Ashley Ishman show. God bless the goodie bags!

Emmi

PS. Just a word of warning: the bathrooms at the Fashion Week venues seem to be running out of toilet paper faster than the Pope says amen. ”Could someone pass the toilet paper?” echoed at the comfort stations with such a high frequency that I could suggest tucking a roll of your own into your bag tomorrow. Glamour is so passé anyway!