WHAT I DID IN PARIS

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

I was sitting behind Suzy Menkes and Hamish Bowles at Uniqueness by Alessandra Faccinetti (and Pinko). Their silhouettes could make a great fashion print.

Suzy & Hamish

Some of my favourite looks at Valli. 

I've been posting every day over at Sportsgirl so I though I'd pop the links up here so you can see everything I got up to in Paris- Enjoy!

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Oh, and apparently we're not the only ones who've been imagining what K-Mid might wear from the latest round of shows, hmmm

PARIS FASHION WEEK: A LITTLE BIT OF THE NEW CHLOE

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

I've been posting my daily doings during Paris over at my antipodean friends Sportsgirl's website this week, leaving the blog free for the things that fall between the fashion news so competently reported by newspaper, web and magazine ladies of the press. Of course I am one such, but unlike most of my contemporaries my blog is an aside from my journalism work, and therefore purely personal with no advertisers or editors to please.

Paris Fashion Week has been pretty brutal, really. The schedule is insane, and the heat, well, I'm not going to moan. But it is downright weird to feel the sun searing your skin in October in Northern Europe. I've just come from the Chloe show, an excellent debut by Clare Waight Keller, who fresh from having her third child managed to make the collection different enough from her predeccesor Hannah McGibbon, yet still Chloe and, cruciallly, gave it a fresh new vibe that was more woman than girl.

Here are a selection of my photos from the Chloe show. Forgive the quality, I've got a new lens and am still trying to get it to focus on the right object.  Though in the below instance, its interesting and amusing to see the faces of the audience, who seem to be doing everythign but watching the show (though of course they are, another model is coming along out of the picture.)

The designer used a pleating motif through the collection

Mixing nude and geranium pink was the order of the day at Chloe

Photos: Fashion Editor at Large

FROM EDITD: GEEK OUT ON LFW STATS

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

Burberry was top designer for creating online buzz for their show

Editd came to our attention yesterday when FashEd discovered that she was among the Top 10 Fashion Week Tweeters according to their analysis of more than 300,000 tweets per day over the week. That led to some serious geeking out over fashion week details which we really wanted to share with you all.

Julia from EditD told us:

 'Based on the amount of online buzz generated, our interactive charts give an instant guide to who and what is hot. Our charts are built by connecting a specific fashion taxonomy with what people are talking about online before and during fashion week.

We love making this kind of data public, because it gives everyone an insight into the trends they can look forward to seeing in stores and they’re informative for industry insiders who use this kind of data (though in real-time) to ensure their buying and product decisions are right for the season and their customers'

EditD have also created full buzz reports from London and New York . Geek your hearts out fashion lovers!

BEHIND THE SCENES AT DAVID KOMA

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

Polynesian tribal tattoos, the work of artist Kim Joon, Hawaiian grass skirts and Highland kilts informed Koma's show

I like David Koma. He is a very driven, yet straightforward guy. He also reminds me of how I imagine Mr Tumnus from C.S Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia  to look (in a good way). This makes me warm to him. Plus, you know, he is Georgian, partly raised in St Petersburg, and I hung out with him there in his favourite coffee shop last November, and met his friends, and he showed me around a bit and was so charming. There's nothing better than seeing someone in their manor to get the measure of them. Oh and did I tell you his MA St Martins graduate collection was worn by Beyonce and Cheryl Cole?

David Koma

So when I visit him at his studio, he picks up the thread of a conversation we started back in St Petersburg about Pearly Kings and Queens. "Remember?" he says. "Well for the Spring/Summer 2012 I've moved it on. I realised what I liked was the iridescence. So I've been looking into materials that have a pearly light quality to them. I've found a Perspex with an iridescent film coating that takes on the colour of whatever it is attached to," he says showing me the triangular pieces. You can see the pieces attached to the dress as seen at his runway show yesterday, below.

David Koma SS12, check out the way the iridescent Perspex catches the runway lights

David's work is very upscale, for a certain kind of luxury-living-and-loving woman, so it stands to reason that his fashion show demonstrated that hard-bodied silhouette, even in a season that so far is focused on lightness, looseness and layers. While his show had a weightiness to it, and kept up the bodycon silhouette, lightness came in the surfeit of bright white, and beams of bright pink and yellow in the collection and the skin-revealing silk jersey devore he used to create pieces that looked like tattoos on the body. "I was inspired by the artist Kim Joon," he explained, "I like the idea of taking the way he drew on the body, and explored how I could develop the idea of a second skin in fashion." Having handled the pieces, I can tell you they are as light as air.

David Koma SS12

Kim Joon Bird Land 2008

David was also working from a hybrif idea he had that was something between a Hawaiian grass skirt, and a kilt. You can see exactly what he was trying to do with the below outfits. It's so fascinating seeing how an idea can go from a moodboard to a runway. After his last polka dot inspired show, David Koma the business gained four international stockists. With this collection, he will keep them happy. 

David Koma SS12 - are you getting the hula-hula feeling?

David Koma SS12 - kilt inspiration

The clothes packaged up and ready for the runway.

DUCHESS KATE, WE HAVE AN LFW GUIDE FOR YOU...

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

Over the Summer, we heard that Anna Wintour had given London based designers a brief: your muse must be the Duchess of Cambridge. It has already been shown that, like it or not, our new royal sells clothes in unprecedented numbers. If she wears it, a certain kind of everyday-stylish blow-dry obsessed girl/woman will want it.

The Duchess of Cambridge is under considerable pressure to wear British designers so it makes sense for them to play to her clearly demonstrated taste levels. But they can't explicitly write 'This is for you, Duchess Kate' on their show notes now can they?

The Duchess has already dipped her toe in the water of experimenting the current London line-up by choosing Erdem to wear for stepping off the plane as she embarked on her Canadian tour. This initial promise though failed to materialise as she stuck mostly to old faithfuls Issa, Temperley and McQueen for the remainder of her time away (apart from another Erdem dress for morning prayer on Day 3)

Kate, in Erdem, and William arrive in Canada (image from Daily Mail)

So, how did the London crew approach Wintour's call to arms? It is likely that the idea of using Catherine as their woman might grate, she's hardly on the cutting edge of glamour and modernity in those nude heels and fascinators is she? Well, we noticed a number of references to a kind of deranged housewife figure. The next chapter in a book begun by January Jones' Betty Draper. And actually, at the moment, that is how many people see the Duchess because she is overwhelmingly defined in the public eye by her role as wife. We don't know what she thinks or what she's passionate about. So, in my first attempt at replicating the previous Fashion Junior's Big Head feature, I have scoured images from the past few days to see what we might be seeing HRH in next Summer, and she'll have a lot to dress for what with the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations....

Burberry- Kate and Wills were engaged in Kenya so she might be quite taken with this Kanga print

Clements Ribeiro. Lace is a sure hit with the Duchess

She already likes Erdem, florals and shifts so this is a must-buy

Giles does classic Princess-y shapes

Kate is Issa'a number 1 fan but this would be a change from the slinky wraps she usually chooses from the label

Sara Buys, Harper's Fashion Director and a relation by marriage of Kate's, chose Osman for her outfit to the Royal Wedding so surely on the radar

The most Kate worthy dress from Peter Pilotto's offering

Add heels and a fascinator and ta da, a classic K-Mid wedding outfit from Richard Nicoll

Daytime prettiness from Jonathan Saunders

Perfectly demure for a black tie event, again from Jonathan Saunders.

I don't even need to add a head to this, it has vintage Duchess Kate written ALL over it...

Issa

 And what she won't be wearing....

Meadham Kirchhoff weren't bowing to Wintour's memo, and good for them!

Images from catwalking.com

ESTETHICA DISCOVERY #1: EVA ZINGONI

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

On Sunday, I spent some time looking around this year's Estethica exhibition- LFW's ethical arm and a chance for some of the most exciting people doing ethical fashion to display their wares. There were some brilliant stories to be heard so I thought I'd share some with you.

Eva at her Estethica stall

One of Eva's most recent designs, using organza and leather

Eva Zingoni well and truly eschews any remotely hippie, sack-cloth elements that may still be associated with ethical fashion. She has always been involved in fashion, starting out as a trendspotter before retraining as a designer. She worked at Ralph Lauren before moving to Balenciaga where she eventually became the label's 'special orders' person. Basicallly, she was the middle woman between Nicholas Ghesquiere and Balenciaga's super special clients, including world famous actresses like Nicole Kidman. Zingoni says that this time meant she was' very close to the manufacture process of these houses. I saw all the fabrics they didn't want'. In 2008, Zingoni decided to leave Balenciaga and go it alone, creating a new kind of business which had formed its structure in her mind as she had witnessed the huge amounts of material wasted by big fashion houses. She had created her first collection by September 2009.

Eva Zingoni SS12

Eva Zingoni SS12

Eva Zingoni SS12

(Images from londonfashionweek.co.uk)

 She may have taken time out to have a baby since then but her maison is now a destination for Parisiennes to get their own piece of couture at a fraction of the price they would usually pay, simply because Zingoni can buy her fabric, top designer quality, at extremely reasonable prices. Her industry contacts are arguably her greatest asset. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Eva's pieces are very limited edition they are not available online. At the moment, the main place to find Eva is at her workshop in Paris, but she is also stocked at a handful of shops in Spain, Japan and Belgium. This means that any purchasing desires are not so easy to fulfil as clicking through to an online site, at the moment. The very nature of Eva's business means that items are limited and so cannot be made available on any kind of mass scale. However, if you were thinking of buying Balenciaga or the like but are now thinking of Zingoni then you could afford a long weekend in Paris on top of your purchase for what you would have spent; her pieces retail at between 95 and 550 euros. Keeping it local is also an important principle which Eva works on 'It must be made in France' she says 'there is a lot of emotion which goes into creating my clothes'.

Pieces from Eva's AW10 collection. Images from LoPetille

I love that Eva's version of ethical is a completely practical one- it's all about making the most of resources and mechanisms which are already in place so it's cutting waste right now. Her business model accepts the way the industry works and slots into its own niche to improve thing the status quo rather than going for a big shake-up. Crucially the clothes are beautiful too, but we wouldn't expect any less from a Parisienne with such a stellar CV, now would we?

Find out more about Eva at EvaZingoni.com

Top Images: Fashion Junior at Large

THE ULTIMATE FASHION SHOW: MEADHAM KIRCHHOFF

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

It's the last day of womenswear shows at LFW and, quite frankly, we're a little delirious on lack of sleep, cold medicine, diet coke and Percy Pigs.

Here's how our day was Meadham Kirchhoff-ified. The invite, which was at first mistaken for one to a 5 year-old's birthday party, got us in the mood. (click for a slide show)

 

And then came THE show, the spectacular show which filled our weary hearts with laughter and joy. Ed Meadham told the FashEd after the show that he feels like a man trapped in a teenage girl's body. He's been speaking a lot to Tavi Gevinson, whose new Rookie magazine is for teenage girls, so between them Tavi and Meadham Kirchhoff are taking us back...

14 Courtney Loves- Ed Meadham would have liked more.

MK groupies- Masha Mel and Tessa Yop of Vrag mag