London Fashion Love Letters: Jasper Garvida

Hello Emmi,

Your hidden exhibition looks very cool, actually! I think it’s nice to have a breath of fresh air outside the official venues. To be honest, I’m a bit tired of walking up and down the stairs at Somerset House.

Anyway, yesterday I went to the Jasper Garvida SS11 show at Vauxhall Fashion Scout. The collection he calls “Belle” is, I must say, sweet and pleasant. Garvida reinterprets and recreates the dresses seen in Degas’s ‘Ballet Dancers’ paintings coupled with elements of the beatnik movement. Human language? Well, let’s say pleated bouncy skirts, streamlined tops, and a lot of hand-embellishment accessories.

The colours and prints are also reminiscent of French Impressionism, while the materials used are fine luxuries of silk organza, brocade, jersey, voile and cloque. Scales, tribal prints and textured looped organza are so beautiful and well-made.

I have some detail shots of them for you too.

The downside of this collection is, apart from being inspired by the French, that the pieces are rather dated. Some of the scaled and printed pieces look as if straight out of Missoni. That said, the skirts and dresses are pretty and will end up being worn by discerning ladies of leisure at the Royal Ascot next year!

I’m off for the Menswear day tomorrow! So excited now ;)

Perm

London Fashion Love Letters: Somerset House Exhibition

Hi Perm,

Talking about walking up and down the stairs at Somerset House, I went to see the exhibition over there the other day. It really made me feel as overwhelmed as the British Museum always does: there’s so much to see that you don’t really know where to look at. Therefore, I decided to stroll around, make observations and take a closer look only at the things that really drew my attention. As a result, I hereby present you Emmi's This Is Cool list:

1. Lingerie Boudoir

A dark staircase leading into small rooms with shamefully sexy underthings all over the place. You’ll find lace thongs with peepholes on the back and bras from Marlies Dekkers with decorative straps that are made to be shown.

2. Sustainability section

Did some really nice finds here: a designer who printed herself with her family on a dress. A tongue-in-cheek brand "She Died of Beauty"that uses T-shirts and bags to evoke thoughts about the superficiality of fashion. And hats! They were simply charming. Of course being fueled with flower power gives an extra to all the brands in this section, so go and check them out, fellow hippies!

3. Super funny jewellery

I actually overheard someone saying ”This is so cool, look, you can wear yourself as a necklace!”. Unfortunately, it’s not really you on the necklace (or at least you have to have a pretty good imagination to think so), but Les Néréides really has some adorable things in their collection: peanuts with hats, lamas with guitars…do I have to say more?

4. Japanese photo booth

This one was a static digital installation powered by Cassette Playa, a brand focusing on digital prints. It was quite refreshening to find a brand that had decided to promote themselves through something else than only clothing. To demonstrate how it all worked, I volunteered to try the photo booth out:

5. Old time glamour

Bebaroque is a brand that strongly believes in the daily glamour that comes with what we wear. Their sheer stockings wear beaded the same way as the bodies. Don’t know how practical they are when worn, but quite surely they’d make a special evening even more special.

This is the end of my little list – if you want to go for a fashion treasure hunt yourself and make a list of your own, Somerset House is the place to go!

As you mentioned, today it’s Christmas in fashion circles as Santa will throw the menswear collections down the chimney and on the catwalks. You're probably at one of the shows right now, can't wait to hear about them!

Emmi

London Fashion Love Letters: "Emerge" by LABB magazine

Hi Perm!

Oh wow, the extravaganza of Charlie Mindu has made me speechless! And a little shocked – not sure if mommy would approve.

Tonight, I attended a Fashion Week event very much outside the big venues (shame, just when I learned how to find my way to Somerset and Victoria’s House). The event was called ”Emerge”, but because of its hidden location it took a while before the event actually emerged to me. After wandering around Old Street, I finally found my way to the basement of Hoxton Factory by using a strategy called Follow Anyone Who Looks Chic.

The location was worth of looking for, though. It seemed very underground, the sort of upcoming party place that only the coolest ones know about. The event was organized by LABB magazine to promote young talents of fashion. The basement was filled with design presentations, all very different from each other: there was a sound-reactive dress hanging from the ceiling, hand-made leather creations with heads of elephants, patriotic shoes and impressive gowns inspired by the history of fashion (or maybe just history of curtains, as the fabric had very curtain-like trimmings).

By Francesca Marotta

by Rakish Heels

Sound-reactive dress by Rainbow Winters

by Kalikas Armour

Really sorry to hear about your not-so-fashionable fever. Hope you’re feeling better already – if not, at least you can scare people with bacteria to get more space to photograph. One sneeze, that’s all it takes!

Emmi

London Fashion Love Letters: Charlie Le Mindu

Hello (again) Emmi,

Are you tired of me yet? I've finally got enough energy--Hurray!!--to share my experience at the Charlie Le Mindu SS11 catwalk show. As I mentioned earlier in my Bryce Aime blog letter, the queue to get into Charlie's show was insane but it's totally worth it.

Inside the Victoria House, the room was packed. Imagine a tin of John West tuna. Actually, imagine two tins of John West tuna squeezed into one!! O! Before I kick off babbling about the show. I snapped you my favourite celebrities of the day: our blown up party queen Pandemonia and Ms Fred Butler the Milliner Extraordinaire!

And, once the light was off, there was this cheering so immense that my runny nose had stopped running. Then came the model in extraordinary hair carrying spotlights, which was quickly followed the commotion in the room as everybody, even those in the second row, tried to move, push, take over seats that had just been deserted, to get into a better spot. I was one of those pushy people. I had to. I need some good photos to share with you.

Pink animals and hairy VS hairless are the theme of this out-of-this-world catwalk show. Have a look and be warned of (very) blatant nudity!

Charlie does not only bring us fun, edge, bare breasts and buttocks, but also the artificially real, hair construction that defies clothes as the only element in haute couture. In fact, garments or the lack of them became secondary, or totally irrelevant even, in Charlie's show. Do we really need clothes? Maybe not, if we could keep our Charlie at home ;)

Bye for now,

Perm

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: Fashion Shenzhen

Hi Perm,

I didn’t yet tell you about Fashion Shenzhen, an event that airmailed me from London to China to a city called Shenzhen yesterday.

I had no clue what to expect but collections from China. Entering the exhibition that took place before the actual fashion show, I already felt like I was in another country. Extremely friendly Chinese people welcomed me at the lobby and walked me with a small group of people to the entrance of the exhibition, where another one of them was waiting with a big smile and a tray of champagne. The expo was like a little fashion fair with stands from different brands and designers, all of whom came for Shenzhen. I strolled around with that ”I’m all right thanks, just looking around” face you always put on when shopping, but it didn’t fool the staff: oh no, they were determined to guide me through the collections. I literally got my own translator (that’s how he called himself), who walked with me from stand to stand.

The variety of styles was vast: whereas many brands had a traditional approach to Chinese fashion, others looked very European. After spending a good time at the expo, everyone gathered in a big room. At this point, I noticed how different the event was from the ones I had been to before. First of all, 80 % of the people around had Chinese origins. Some 50% of them didn’t speak English (which sort of explains why the new friend of mine had called himself a translator). However, the most interesting difference was that the whole event was quite formal: it wasn’t just another fashion hullabaloo, but an important milestone to the fashion industry of Shenzhen.

After toasting and listening to speeches, it was finally time to start the show. It definitely satisfied everybody hungry for Asian fashion, as we saw not one but two different collections. The first one was from a designer called Haiping Xie. He had combined the traditional Chinese design nicely with materials that scuplted the Eastern appeal into innovative silhouettes.

The second collection from a brand called Ground Show was very different from the first one: whereas that one was elegant, Ground Show was snug. The designs almost screamed wanting to be worn on lazy Sundays. Not sure how well the fashion crowd would swallow this one, but for sure it’ll please the ones who go for cute and comfy.

How was the rest of your Fashion Week weekend?

Emmi

London Fashion Love Letters: Spijkers en Spijkers

Hi Perm (again)!

I know I wasn’t supposed to tell you this just yet, but I really need to boast about my celeb spotting, so here we go:

After visiting Somerset House for Craig Lawrence’s exhibition, I headed down to Victoria’s House. I do have to apologize for mocking your orienteering skills earlier, as mine told me to walk pass my destination without even noticing. After asking for directions and walking back to where I was supposed to be, I finally ended up queuing to get into the Spijkers en Spijkers show. This time I was lucky, as my invitation had a red dot on it - those red dots make you rise a little higher on the fashion rank and get inside sooner than the rest. It might not be like being a VIP, but still...there's something about the red dots!

For the new Spijkers en Spijkers collection, the designer twin sisters Truus and Riet had found inspiration in the gloomy story of Elisa Day. She's a girl whose lover is so entranced by her beauty that he decides to kill her in order to preserve her image. He takes Elisa to a place where wild roses grow and ruthlessly takes her life after kissing her goodbye.

The collection was a blend of the innocence and darkness of the story: floral fabrics took us back to the flower fields, lace brought in the lightness of air while dark colours and geometric shapes contradicted that purity. Did I like the collection? Lets say that I might have to fight the urge to get part of it into my own wardrobe.

While happily snapping pictures of the outfits, I noticed that in the background of the photos there seemed to be a familiar face. A face that I had seen on a screen before, a TV screen that is. Even though the lips did look smaller, it could not have been anyone else than Janice Dickinson herself, sitting there about 3 meters away from me! Hurraying myself for recognizing someone famous, I tried to take a picture of her in the most casual manner possible. Of course my attempt to capture her face failed miserably, but at least the photo gives you some waterproof evidence!

Maybe you'll run into her tomorrow? If you will, then say hi from me - she might know me as The Stalker.

Emmi