Why Didn’t British Women Adore Adele

The fashion industry generally ascribes a direct correlation to the influence and celebrity of the woman who graces a magazine’s cover and the sales figures for that particular issue.  In this light, it seems that everyone can’t stop talking about the fact that BritishVogue featuring Adele on the cover was one of the worst selling issues in the magazine’s history.

And I would have to agree, that if number of sales reflects anything about popular response specifically to the magazine’s cover model (more than, for example, the stories highlighted on the cover), that is a surprising and I dare say disappointing fact.  What does it mean?  That BritishVogue readers may love Adele’s voice but don’t see her as a physical ideal to which they aspire?  My god, the woman is gorgeous. According to racked.com, British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman said that “there has to be a relationship with the person on the cover that goes beyond how they look.”  So is it a failure of readers to connect with Adele.  That seems to me to make significantly less sense.  Are we really so superficial?

When asked who she was dying to get on the cover, Shulman replied that her choice would be Kate Middleton.  While I can’t understand, let alone articulate, what went wrong with the Adele cover, somehow Kate Middleton doesn’t seem to me like much better of a choice.  But who knows, maybe this is why I’m not the editor of British Vogue.

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Pocket Sized Art For All

For several years we received, as Christmas gifts from my in-laws, post card sized images by various artists.  They bought the postcards each year at RCA Secret, an exhibition and sale put on by the Royal College of Art in London.  ”Secret” refers to the fact that in the exhibition the postcards are displayed anonymously.  The name of the artist who drew the image on each card is written on the verso, so that it remains unknown until the card has been purchased.  It’s a little bit like The Voice  for the art world, although in this case many of the artists participating are already recognized and established figures.  Still, it can be a lot of fun to view the exhibition, and even more to buy a postcard or two, for a very reasonable price, purely because you respond to the image, and only later to attach a name to that image.  (You can see the postcards from the November 2011 edition of the RCA show here – they’re really fun!)

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Spring Dresses, Look Like Costumes From Mad Men, But Are Utterly Modern

As spring gets into full swing, and the stores are starting to hold spring sales, it seems like must have item this spring and summer is not in fact floral jeans (although they’re still great, so don’t worry if you followed my earlier advice and got a pair), but the floral dress.  As a certain kind of over the top Monet floral print becomes ubiquitous, it seems like everywhere I turn Erdem has suddenly become “the” brand.  It may be that I only recently became aware of it and others have known the label for a while.  But it suddenly seems to be in every magazine, on every celebrity, in every boutique ….  And Erdem’s forte, as it turns out, is a certain style of floral print constructed into garments that seem almost sweet (kind of Mad Men style) but is tailored with a modern edge that tempers what could easily come across as awfully saccharine.  Is Erdem popular because the floral thing is such a big trend right now, or did the line play any kind of a role in shaping the trend?  That’s deep, right?

Erdem Spring 2012 Collection

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The New Face Of Fashion … Azealia Banks

A few weeks ago a friend was telling me about a rapper he had come across who he felt was poised to become the next big thing. Catch was, her hit song “212″ was explicit and raunchy enough that it couldn’t really be played on mainstream radio.  Banks has a very strong cult following and promises to become ubiquitous soon, but has yet to gain solid footing in the mainstream. But, even in the two weeks since I first heard her name, curiously, I have found that Azealia Banks does seem to have emerged as the fashion world’s new it girl.

The harlem native with, as the London Financial Times put it, “Lil’ Kim’s filthiness, Nicki Minaj’s colourfulness and Missy Elliott’s darling” was a mainstay of London’s fashion week.  She was the featured performer at the self-proclaimed “party of all Fashion Week parties” hosted by Topshop to celebrate 10 years of the high street giant’s support of NEWGEN.

Azealia Banks performing at Topshop's Fashion Week party at Mayfair club Le Baron in London via Insideout the Topshop blog

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Everything’s Coming Up Roses … Spring Is Right Around The Corner Isn’t It

All of this 50 degree weather in Boston in the middle of February has me thinking that spring is right around the corner.  I know — when March dumps 20″ of snow on us I’m going to be in for a big surprise — but in the meantime, the mood is definitely “getting ready for spring”.  In that spirit, here are some of the looks for spring that I would buy if money were no object.  I love that statement — if money were no object — since it makes whatever follows almost completely irrelevant.  Since, after all, money is almost always the object.  But it is hard in the world of fashion to have a whole lot of fun without the suspension of disbelief where price tags are concerned, so I like to run with the fantasy anyway.  These are decidedly not my “favorite looks for spring” of these-were-the-most-beautiful-things-to-come-down-the-runway variety, but more of the hell-yeah-I-could-see-wearing-that(-if-money-were-no-object)-and-I-haven’t-already-talked-about-it-in-another-post variety — ok, adding also the caveat not-if-I-were-realistic-about-my-figure, but it is truly impossible to have any fun with fashion if one is realistic about one’s figure, so I will gladly toss that right out the window.

Peter Som

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A Genius Of Her Own … Yup, That’s A Pencil On My Dress

The Mary Katrantzou for Topshop collaboration was (is — since it has yet to arrive at Topshop New York and Topshop Las Vegas) amazing.  By many accounts it is the best designer x fast fashion collaboration to date.  But count on London Fashion Week to remind us that there is nothing quite like a designer mainline collection, and for most of us, it will always elude our grasp.  As excited as I am to receive my Mary Katrantzou for Topshop pieces in the mail, they pale in comparison to the Fall 2012 show she just put on.

At her best, Katrantzou is able to take over the top conceits and render them subtly exquisite and wearable.  When she piles print upon print, I’m in heaven.  But the look is certainly not for everyone.  This season, she has largely restricted each look to a single color.  I don’t think the line loses anything in the process, but perhaps it will gain a broader audience (customer base).  Balancing the restraint she shows with her color palates, the silhouettes she uses have become more complex and more sophisticated, and as a result more intricately intertwined with the prints on the fabrics.  The subjects of the prints are banal objects, I would say bordering on the absolutely ridiculous, and yet made so beautiful and refined in Katrantzou’s hands that all you see is a breathtaking work of art.

 Silver … silver … hmm … oh yeah, Silverware!  Check out the spoons on the dress above left. Read the rest of this entry »

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This Spring Put Your Best Foot Forward

This is going to sound like bitching.  And it’s not meant to be – honestly – because it doesn’t really matter in the end.  As addicted as I may be to shopping, I desperately need outside controls, so when something gets in the way of my throwing away money, it’s just as well.  As seriously as I might take fashion, I know that the world doesn’t rise and fall over one pair of shoes.  What aggravates the hell out of me is when large scale businesses can’t figure out how to operate in an organized manner.  Certain issues just shouldn’t be that hard.

I have been looking forward to the new Aldo Rise shoe collections arriving at ASOS.com for some time now (see my January 24 post on Affordable Designer Capsule Collections).  It has been available through Selfridges, but they don’t ship to the US.  The Aldo Rise website states quite clearly that the shoes will be available on ASOS (which does ship to the United States) on February 15.  They weren’t.  The shoes appeared slowly but surely on the site throughout the course of the day on February 16.  In the morning (US time, so later than that in London) four styles were showing up on the site.  By afternoon there were more, but if you did a normal search for them, you were likely to find most of them.  I found that if I googled “Aldo Rise ASOS Libertine” I could get to the page with the shoes I was looking for but could in no discernible way access from within the ASOS site.  Finally, by Thursday night they were all there.  As I say, no big deal, but why not just say that some of the shoes will start to be available on ASOS around February 15 — or something — or else actually have all of the shoes up on February 15?  This plan has been in the works for some time.  It’s not like the two companies couldn’t see it coming.  Is it really that hard to get the information right?  It cracked me up that as of last night, as February 15 drew to a close, every site affiliated with Aldo Rise still stated that the shoes would be available on ASOS.com February 15.  There’s no one in the office there that checks on and corrects these things?

The other really big miss — and this is the one that’s getting in the way of my buying the shoes — is the pricing.  The Aldo Rise website lists pricing for all of the shoes in both pounds and dollars — they are priced at either $175/£135 or $155/£125.  When I initially saw the dollar pricing a month ago I was surprised, since it is below what has been the exchange rate.  As of the 16th, £135 would be roughly $213 and £125 would be $197.  But, ha, fooled ya, on ASOS.com the dollar pricing to order these shoes from the United States is $241.72 and $223.81 respectively.  So my questions are a) why put the wrong price on the Aldo Rise website (is this going to be the price when the shoes arrive in Aldo stores on March?  was it the price given the exchange rate at the time that someone typed up the web page?  if either of the aforementioned, could they really not have been clearer about it?)? and b) why is the dollar price on ASOS.com notably higher than that dictated by the exchange rate?  Is it to compensate for shipping costs since ASOS provides free shipping to the US?  I understand why they would handle it that way, but it seems pretty slimy to me.  The inconsistencies are of very little consequence, but why be sloppy?

I was so excited for the shoes in large part as consolation for the fact that I was sure I wasn’t going to succeed in getting the Mary Katrantzou pieces I wanted.  And shoes are kind of a nice source of solace anyway when you find yourself in the midst of oh-my-god-it’s-february-and-I’m-still-overeating-from-the-holidays-will-I-ever-fit-into-anything-cute-again.  The good news is that the trend for this spring seems to be in really fun and brightly colored shoes, so cute shoes are pretty easy to find.  If you can’t afford to go designer, here are some fun alternatives.  This is one instance in which I would say, get three really fun pairs of shoes rather than the designer ones — it will cost you less money anyway.

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Mary Mary How Does Your Garden Grow … It Came, It Went, It Was Very Pretty

So, Mary Katrantzou for Topshop has quiety come and gone.  There are a few pieces left, but it doesn’t amount to much at this point.  Apparently the Bodycon dress — which is in fact the item that sold out within seconds of going on line rather than the hyped up limited edition dress which everyone predicted would be the first to go — will be coming back in stock in some quantity next week.  No word yet on when.  Otherwise, it’s over.  No crashing website or crazy mobs.  Topshop handled the whole fanfare without a whole lot of … well … fanfare.

The Bodycon dress is the one item coming back in stock. Oddly, the actual dress does not match the one in the promotion. To bad because I suspect the one shown above would be more flattering.

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Tee Time … Everyone’s Invited

In anticipation of the Mary Katrantzou for Topshop launch on Friday, I am trying to brace myself for intense disappointment.  Fortunately, Topshop has an answer for that — at least I hope it’s an answer and not yet another set up with too many customers and too little stock.  Friday also marks the launch of  Topshop’s NEWGEN designer t-shirt collection.  I like the whole designer t-shirt thing.  It may seem like a lot of money for a t-shirt, but looked at the other way around, it is the perfect way to grab something affordable and absolutely fabulous!  Unlike the dresses I buy that then sit in the closet waiting for the right occasion, t-shirts are a great everyday wardrobe staple.  A nice designer t-shirt can even be appropriate for work.  Maybe not where you work, but I wouldn’t bet on that.  I’m pretty sure I could figure out how to wear a t-shirt in almost every kind of a situation … ever since Sharon Stone rocked a t-shirt with a taffeta skirt (if you ask me, the all time best outfit around).  Nice crisp t-shirt, a tailored charcoal suit from All Saints — you may not be able to get away with it in the most traditional business-like environment, but I would sure as hell try.

There is a Mary Katrantzou shirt among the offerings, but oddly it’s not my favorite.  Shirts are £30 each.  There is pretty much something for everyone, but I think the JW Anders, Meadham Kirchhoff, Peter Jensen, Emma Cook and Marios Schwab shirts are fantastic.  Do you think getting five is overkill.

JW Anderson

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The Most Incredible Collection This Spring – I <3 Mary Katrantzou

Pictures of Mary Katrantzou’s collection for Topshop have finally been released!  Yay!  This is definitely a very different kind of collaboration than those from Target and H&M.  Reports had stated that this would be a 14 piece collection.  Now, apparently it has become a ten piece collection.  I have only been able to find images of nine pieces, so I’m not sure where the last one went, but when the collection hit stores presumably  there should be ten pieces.  But any way you slice it, it is an extremely small and tight collection (although it is the largest of the three collections that Katrantzou has designed for Topshop to date).  Perhaps most significantly, it is THE collection that seems to be driving all of spring’s major trends.  Citizens of Humanity jeans, Zara, Topshop, H&M, Forever 21 — everywhere you turn, trend driven stores are all about the abundant floral prints.  That is a hell of a lot of influence for a young designer.  Way to go Mary!  Party on!

Mary Katrantzou for Topshop, Blue Carnation T-shirt £50 and Jersey Leggings £40

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