MTV EMAS: THE AWARDS CEREMONY WHICH STYLE FORGOT

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

There's little more predictable than the Hit or Miss declarations which flood the internet the morning after a big awards ceremony. However, a sad day has come, fashion friends, because there is not a single, smidgen of a "Hit" to be found among the fashion graveyard of frocks and get-ups which constituted the attire of attendees at last night's MTV European Music Awards. No wonder little Justin Bieber stayed away, probably for fear of  suffering an allergic reaction to Rita Ora's excessively red and meringue-like Marchesa or getting strangled up in Isabeli Fontana's abundant arm fringing.

Rita Ora does 80s mega meringue

We can usually rely on at least a handful of our most manufactured music stars to have found themselves a half-decent stylist to help them negotiate their way through red carpet dressing. The thing is, Rita Ora usually looks super cool and is the perfect poster girl for the Pop look right now with her cute beanies, distressed denim and blinged up street wear, so whatever possessed her to wear a dress resembling something Elizabeth Taylor or Princess Diana might have worn to the opera in 1983? Not that wasn't a fabulous look in that context, but there's a time and a place. Lana Del Rey also hit a new wardrobe low last night in a silky black wrap dress which, paired with a crucifix, looked like the most paltry effort at Goth ever witnessed. We're wondering if Germany- the ceremony took place in Frankfurt- has imposed some kind of import ban on gorgeous, stylish and relevant fashion?

Heidi Klum in one of her 8 Versace looks

Poor Heidi Klum took the brunt of the style no-show last night. We can sympathise somewhat because Klum was kitted out in eight Versace looks for the evening in her role as host.  It's an easy mistake to make, who wouldn't say yes to the opportunity to wear the brand new collection, virtually fresh off the catwalk and long before it hits stores? What Heidi maybe neglected to see was that Versace SS13 is a very "Donatella" collection- all lacing, fringing, tie-dye and acres-of-flesh baring. Heidi's stylist Maryam Malakpour told District MTV that the looks fitted nicely into the evening's circus theme, though to my eye Heidi's look went a bit more Malibu Barbie than Circus ringmaster. None of which is very now nor befitting of the ceremony which is beamed across the world and should really showcase the very best of young, cool fashion today. The final nail in the fashion coffin of the MTV EMAs? The conspicuous absence of fashion-meets-music darlings One Direction, who star in the December issue of Vogue and have a very sweet Wonderland cover. They did well to stay away. Rita, Lana, Heidi we forgive you, but please, please do better next year.

Heidi Klum on the red carpet, her Versace gown showing off some, erm, incredible
lacing and spilitting 

Lana Del Rey accessorised her blah dress with boyfriend Barrie-James O'Neill

More Rita Ora redness

Isabeli Fontana in a fringed catsuit. Not so 2012

Jedward do skintight sparkle

The Hoff does dodgy denim and open necked pink satin shirt. 

IT'S MUSIC/FASHION LOVE-IN WEEK: LANA FOR H&M, MADONNA SHOES...

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Lady Gaga shot by Steven Klein for the launch of her Fame perfume (image from celebuzz.com)

We may as well call these few days "The Week when Fashion and Music Got Married". Obviously, it's not like the two haven't been shacked up for quite some time but as well as RiRi's River Island project (see Melanie's post yesterday), there's Lady Gaga's perfume campaign shot by Steven Klein, Lana Del Rey modelling and singing (NOT designing, well not yet anyway) for H&M, Kate Moss in George Michael's new video and Madonna's shoe collection, Truth or Dare, landing at Selfridges. Phew. Now we're just waiting for Jessie J to announce a major wig collaboration and the union will be complete.

It's all rather genius. Music stars draw us in not just with their songs but with the image they portray when they're singing to us, whether that's live or via YouTube or Vimeo. Lana Del Rey's atmospheric, Nancy Sinatra-esque vocals become even more emotive and beautiful when you see those devastating lips and beehive hair staring out at you through Vaseline smudged camera lenses. By getting in on the fashion game, fans can feel like they're buying a piece of Gaga/ Rihanna/ Lana magic, even if we can't be a global megastar. 

Lana del Rey shot by Inez and Vinoodh for H&M (image from H&M's Twitter @handmunitedkingdom) 

Gaga's perfume IS magic actually because it's the world's first ever black fragrance, turning transparent when it's on the skin. It smells of "tears of Belladonna, crushed heart of tiger orchidea, with a black veil of incense, pulverized apricot, and the combinative essences of saffron and honey drops" if you can imagine that. It's quite hard to walk down the street in Gaga-ish get-ups, but if you're a "Little Monster" you can at least smell like your beloved Lady. Tongue-in-cheek music website @popjustice tweeted the following yesterday in response to news that Gaga is not just doing perfume, but also a range of stationery emblazoned with inspirational phrases like "Be Yourself":

Popjustice ‏@Popjustice

Personally I'm holding out for a range of inspirational, life-affirming Lady Gaga cheese graters.

Clearly there's a fine line between becoming a expanding the brand and inviting these kinds of digs.

Madonna's Truth or Dare shoes at Selfridges cost between £80 and £200

Madonna's shoe collection is mostly comprised of black, pointy heels. They verge on the dominatrix but the (subliminal) message is that if you'd like a little dose of kick ass, Madge style without slipping into extreme corsetry and leather then you can slip into a pair of these. Even the name Truth or Dare evokes Madonna's rep for shocking, explicit behaviour. And if, like me, you quite fancy getting a bit of Lana retro loveliness in your life then we can scramble to H&M and get the clothes that the lady herself has been shot in by Inez and Vinoodh (though perhaps not the barely there leggings in the above shot). Perfect, and much more accessible than a Mulberry Lana handbag, though I'm sure many will stretch to that. Will they also be selling hair extensions to achieve that mega bouffant? Finally, George Michael added hype to his new single by inviting Kate Moss to prance through it in a fur coat, undoubtedly adding much-needed glamour to his grim recent history of car crashes and illnesses which he addresses in the lyrics and video. He also adds a zebra for good measure. 

Back to Jessie J and she really is the missing link here. Now that The Voice is over, it's an ideal time to commercialise her goth meets gangsta via vintage store look. I'd love to see a hair or beauty link up for her too, that blunt fringe and bold eyes and lips are just as much part of her look as what she wears. Come on Rimmel/ ASOS etc. and get Jessie on board!

THE MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF LFW AW12

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

There's a thing called the #lfwtimeline. If you have a look at this hashtag on twitter you'll see that it tells you how late (or not) a show is running. We've worked out that this timeline is perhaps not the most reliable of sources- its default setting for each show is "the XXX show is running 10 minutes late' even though sometimes it is 15 mins and others it's 30 mins. Anyway, when you do manage to be punctual, there's almost always some cool music playing and setting the tone for what you're about to see. And once the show begins, the music has a massive impact on how you start to interpret the collection.

Here are a few of our favourite songs from the week...

Azealia Banks hasn't even released a single yet but that hasn't stopped her becoming a YouTube hit, as well as being enlisted to perform for Karl Lagerfeld. She also appeared at last night's Topshop party, celebrating ten years of NewGen. Her 212 song was heard all week, including at House of Holland, Mulberry and Topshop Unique.



One of the Fashed's favourite tunes at the moment is 'I'm His Girl' by Friends. We heard it at Emilio de la Morena and Felder Felder among others.



In terms of music, last LFW was rather overshadowed by a certain Lana del Rey and her (then) fresh new voice in 'Video Games'. We still heard this song a few times over this season including at Aquascutum. Oh, and in case you hadn't heard by now (where have you been?) then Mulberry have named their new bag, the Del Rey, after the former Lizzie Grant. Plus she rocked up at their show, but we didn't need to tell you that did we?



Meadham Kirchhoff were bound to deliver on the music front, given their obsession with teen girl tunes. Their show closed with Abba's Dancing Queen.



The new Muppets movie is out now. What with Miss Piggy guest editing Grazia, it's hardly surprising it was on the mind of designers. Mulberry closed their show the Ma Na Ma Na song.



Hanna Hanra took charge of the music at Louise Gray. before the show began, she played some Whitney. The show was all about 90s house music, including Work It Girlfriend by Jack and Jill.





Pringle's show took place to the sound of INXS 'Need You Tonight'...



And finally, Marios Schwab's entire show was based on Mahler's Adagietto from Symphony no. 5.

THE WEEK IN FASHION: 30th JANUARY- 2nd FEBRUARY

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

It's cold outside, here's some fashion news to warm you up...

Jonathan Saunders SS12

Congratulations to the super wonderful Jonathan Saunders who has won the BFC/ Vogue Fashion Fund Award. He'll get £200,000 and specific mentoring to help his business grow. It's clear to me that Saunders 'gets' something about what women want from their clothes which is why his sales have skyrocketed by 118% in the past year; for the London shows, every other front rower was wearing a piece of Saunders. We're really pleased for you Jonathan! Let's not forget the runners-up who must have made the panel's decision pretty tough; Peter Pilotto, Mary Katrantzou, Roksanda Ilincic, Richard Nicoll, Zoe Jordan, Nicholas Kirkwood, Marios Schwab and Meadham Kirchhoff.

When  Jonathan's win was announced, Lulu Kennedy (who supported Jonathan through her Fashion East scheme early in his career) tweeted a picture of Natalia Vodianova wearing a Saunder's dress on the cover of Vogue in 2004. I thought it'd be nice to share- thanks Lulu!

Jonathan Saunders covers Vogue in 2004- image from Lulu kennedy's twitter

A look from Stine Riis' collection (from wwd.com)

The first winner of the H&M Design Award was announced at Stockholm Fashion Week yesterday. Stine Riis is originally from Denmark but recently graduated from London College of Fashion. She wins 50,000 euros as well as the opportunity to have pieces from her collection sold in H&M stores in the Autumn. Check out the video below for all the action from the final...



Talking of LCF, the FashEd and I had a brilliant and inspiring time on Tuesday night at the college's MA exhibition. We heard lots of great stories and saw some beautiful work. Look out for our full report next week.

 Last year, Robin Derrick left British Vogue to work on the re-launch of the US edition of Harper's Bazaar. The fruits of his challenge to revamp the title were revealed this week with a stark monochrome cover starring Gwyneth Paltrow. According to our favourite New York tweeter @jimshi809 the 'Redesigned Harper's Bazaar US is one-inch bigger w/ thicker paper & new fonts & every new section starts w/ the world "the."' Now we know!

One of the many brilliant personalities in the Cunningham film,  Shail Upadhya, a
Nepalese UN representative and one of Bill's regular subjects.

This week, I spent an amazing evening at the UK premiere of 'Bill Cunningham New York', Richard Press's new documentary about the 80 year-old New York Times photographer. The event was sponsored by Grazia, and afterwards Paula Reed hosted a Q&A with Chris Moore, legendary catwalk photographer and owner of catwalking.com. His is a completely unique career which has seen him chart 'true' trends from the past half century. As well as paying attention to what's happening on the catwalks, Bill tirelessly scours the streets of NYC to discover what people are REALLY wearing and how they're wearing it. Many call him the original street style photographer. Although I think that's true, there's definitely much more to it than that which is why I am very happy to see the film's blurb describe him as a 'cultural anthropologist'. His observations are sharp and his knowledge of fashion and trends is encyclopaedic. His comparison of the work of Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garcons in the 80s with the style of the bag women living on the streets of New York at the time is still playing on my mind, and shows the unique position he is in to marry the pavement and the catwalk. The film is a must-see, even if fashion is not your thing. It's out at selected cinemas in March. 

Cunningham's fab picture of Isabella Blow (from lightbox.time.com)

Another month, another round of magazine covers. Elle and Vogue have both gone with Louis Vuitton's sugar sweet broderie anglaise for their fronts covers. Lana del Rey is Vogue's new cover girl demostrating the astonishing speed of her rise from unknown to virtually notorious; her newly released album has not received the best reviews yet she is number one in multiple countries. But if Vogue puts her on the cover then it confirms that there is something of the zeitgeist about her. Given that Love magazine editor Katie Grand also consults for Louis Vuitton, we thought ice cream girly prettiness was a given for the publication's latest edition. How wrong we were. The cover line reads 'The End of Elegance' which seems a direct challenge to the ladylike loveliness which is clearly the prevailing mood. Does this mean pastels might be as fleeting an obsession as Lana del Rey?

Lana (by Mario Testino) prettified for Vogue (image from www.vogue.co.uk) 

Linda Evangelista covers Love, shot by Mert and Marcus(image from @thelovemagazine)

Fragile: Linda Evangelista in Giles (image from @thelovemagazine)

FEAL is mostly about womenswear but that doesn't mean we don't appreciate a well-dressed man. Both of us think Tinie Tempah is a rather fab dresser so we are happy to see that he has been named Britains' Best Dressed Man by GQ. In other news from the list, Prince William didn't make it into the top 50 despite that bright red Irish guards wedding outfit. Wills, if you're upset at GQ's decision we suggest ditching the flat caps and 'cashmere jumper round shoulders' as starting points for sartorial transformation in time for next year, or ask your Dad who scraped in at no. 50.

Tinie does bow ties and monochrome (image from telegraph.co.uk)

After revelations about extravagant mid-recession halloween parties, we'd have thought the Obamas would be keen to avoid any more big spending sprees- not such great publicity in election year. So the story that Michelle paid a visit to the Madison Avenue branch of Agent Provocatuer and picked up $50,000 worth of goodies- lucky Barack- seems very unfortunate. She was apparently accompanying Sheikha Mozah, the Queen of Qatar, during her trip to the US last year. However, Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary, strongly denied the story telling WWD:

'In this case, it’s utterly false, and it’s irresponsible of an American news organization to repeat the story, even allowing that it could be true. So it’s wrong.'

Apparently The White House was unable to provide 'evidence' that the First Lady had not visited the purveyors of sexy underwear- the mind boggles. While Michelle cannot be too pleased about the story, Agent Provocateur say the 'unexpected famous names' who patronise the business have contributed to its continued growth.

The Obamas are joined by Tim burton at their halloween do in 2009 (image from chicksontheright.com)

As part of the cultural programme to coincide with the Olympics, the BFC is hosting an International Fashion Showcase across London. Nineteen embassies and cultural institutes will showcase the work of up and coming designers from the countries they represent. Sarah Mower will be chairing a panel of judges which will examine the work of the 80 or so designers set to participate. On 19th February, a winning country will be announced. 

Belgian designer A.Knackfuss is set to be a highlight of the
showcase (image from mussola.style.it)

Finally, while we thought the images for Prada's SS12 campaign were a bit boring but the accompanying video, released this week, adds a bit more attitude to the concept, don't you think?

LANA DEL REY for JOHNNY BLUEEYES

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

I've been getting Tweets from people thanking me for turning them onto Lana Del Ray, and she is a love at first listen kinda artist. That's certainly how I felt when I heard Video Games for the first time at Christopher Kane's Spring 2012 show, and then even more when I watched her on Jools Holland in October.

The buzz and hype around Lana has been non-stop since around the time of a post I did back in October 2011. Oddly enough the post I refer to above actually caused one of her publicists to call a colleague of mine and meanly shout at her down the phone. Now the story of Lana Del Ray and how she changed her image is part of why she is famous, and her story is not complete without some mention of it. Some journalists exercise their intellectual muscle on the not-so-modern construct of the performer as alter-ego; others "smell a rat" and question authenticity.  To my mind the only fact that matters is that Lana is a great artist, and extremely beautiful with it.

As weeks go by, and more images of her appear across media, I'm finding I love her look and styling, when at first it jarred.  But, you know, that's the trick of great styling and great fashion collections; if it looks a bit odd at first, or feels jarring to the eye then give it a few months and it will become fabulous.

This is the case with me.  I love the way Lana looks like a triple cross between a sultry Hollywood starlet, an angsty gangsta teenager, and a fetish nurse. After deciding I loved her style, I had to find out who was styling her, reasoning I probably knew of or knew the person. I was right! Step forward Johnny Blueeyes! A few years ago I wrote about Johnny in Grazia. He was my NBF for a few weeks, we chatted too much on the phone, and he came into the office especially to give me a T-Shirt he had created for the fashion show of his label House of Blueeyes which Kate Moss had spontaneously jumped up from her seat and modelled in...

Johnny Blueeyes work with Lana Del Ray

Johnny is a true creative and total free spirit. He's as un-corporate as it is possible to be, extremely flamboyant, but also kind and warm and all about the underdog and the marginalised in society. Lady Gaga (who he has worked with - as well as Ana Matronic and Beth Ditto) could have borrowed her marketing spin from him. It makes me happy that he is working with Lana Del Ray; I adore that she chose him.  Knowing they work together makes me like her even more as Johnny only works with properly edgy talent. 

I wanted to chat with Johnny for this post, but he is on tour with Lana and cannot be contacted. Need to know facts are that he has one of the best vintage collections in London and that Johnny is also the Creative Director of fashion, art and music collective the House of Blueeyes, where he works alongside his fellow designers creating exquisite one-off pieces by special commission. 

Hopefully I'll be able to share some of his latest projects with you soon. Meanwhile, I leave you with a couple of Johnny Blueeyes youtube's. One of him and Beth Ditto, the other of him talking to a journalist about his work and ethos.

Heeerrrre's Johnny!

In this film Johnny talks about his creative ethos, and dispenses advise on how to get on in the fashion industry. "Make your own world". 

MY NEW GIRL CRUSH: LANA DEL REY

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large





Last night New Yorker Lana Del Rey (real name Lizzy Grant) popped up on Later with Jools Holland on BBC2. Eagle-eyed readers will note that we recently blogged about her song Video Games being the tune of London Fashion Week.

The final verse of Video Games

It's you, it's you, it's all for you
Everything I do
Tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth wit' you
Tell me all the things you wanna do do
I heard that you like the bad girls
Honey, is that true?

To say 26-year-old Lana was mesmerising, and the song Video Games even more haunting sung live would be not doing this TV moment justice. She was utterly UTTERLY captivating, and Lana looks like the naughty jazz-singer sister of Natalie Portman. She is better in moving image, though.

From nme.com

From Hipsterrunoff.com I think this person looks like Pixie Lott...can it really be Lana?

However, it seems my reaction to Lana/Lizzy is exactly what her management team are hoping for from journalists and bloggers. Her backstory suggests she is an "internet phenomenon" who "made her videos at home, and they just, like, took off all on their own." Well, dur me. According to this article on Hipsterrunoff.com, she is as manufactured as Rhythmix (X Factor UK girl band), but designed to look un-manufactured.  Apparently she was being marketed in the same vein as a Pixie Lott type character, until her lack of success forced a rethink - hence here she is as an indie cool chick who doesn't give a F***.

Why do music companies bother with all the smoke and mirrors? Fashion businesses often update their packaging and brand image to no detriment and without backlash, in fact it is seen as a positive forward-thinking move. Lana as she is now is a brilliant package and all power to her. BUT if any of her management team are reading this, please note I would very much like to see her better dressed. As one person on Twitter pointed out this morning, she looked like Slutty Nurse on Jools. Christopher Kane's Spring/Summer 2012 collction would be perfect for her. After all Video Games serenaded this very collection on the runway, and really, his kooky sexiness would suit her to a tee.

Christopher Kane SS12 - Lana, this is perfect for you. And we'll let you keep your Ragga Girl nails

Christopher Kane SS12 (photos: Catwalking)

Video Games is released Sunday 16th October, but you can download it from US iTunes now.