Lagerfeld Confidential

I’m breaking my hiatus from blogging briefly just to mention that whilst looking at coming films, I discovered that there is a documentary type film about Karl Lagerfeld. Okay, so I’m sure most who come and read this will know very well who Karl Lagerfeld is and the influence he has had on the fashion world. Nonetheless, I do find this film concept slightly weird.

With unprecedented access to Lagerfeld’s private and professional worlds, director Rodolphe Marconi has captured the daily life of the flamboyant star to give incredible insight into the man behind the image.

From designing in private to presenting his collection in the glare of the catwalk, from a photo shoot with Nicole Kidman to relaxing with friends in his countryside residence, no aspect of Lagerfeld’s life is left hidden – as ‘the man behind the sunglasses’ is revealed.

I think I may have to see this, just because I find it such an insanely odd concept for a film.

Anti-fur protest goes into tech-y times

I regularly check vogue UK, along with many other sites as well, for fashion news updates. Often, I don’t find a great deal of it peaking my interest. That’s probably because recently, I’ve found that my interest in fashion has mellowed ever so slightly. Don’t get me wrong, I do still love fashion; but I just mean that I’ve been feeling that I’m more interested in the overall style of an outfit as opposed to keeping up to date with fashion news. I think the Yves Saint Laurent quote at the top is a good indication of this.

Nonetheless, I do still check because you never know when something interesting may appear. Case in point? Stella McCartney’s latest anti-fur protest.

From the article on vogue, I gather that the latest ploy in the campaign is a protest. But not your conventional protest - it’s a protest which is moving with the times. It’s online.

More to the point, on the online world of Second Life, in which members can visit:

“a Stella McCartney/PETA “world” based on the English countryside and including a lake, tree houses, picnic tables and, endearingly, Linda McCartney mini veggie burger stalls - which Second World residents (known as avatars) can visit to discuss the issue of fur as fashion and donate money to the cause.”

The real question is will this help? I’m all for, as McCartney so delightfully put it, “a bit of humour on serious subjects”; but the cynic in me can’t help but think that no matter how much campaigning goes on, there’s always going to be those odd few who find wearing a dead animal to actually be attractive.

Heaven knows why they do. I personally can’t even touch fur without squealing loudly and making a disgusted face. To me, there is no point to wearing real fur when there are so many good fakes which no animals have suffered and died for.

However, it is an excellent idea and concept which I am all for. So if you are a member of second life (or even those who aren’t), why not have a look and “support the cause”. After all, animals can’t speak for themselves.

I started this trend

Being away from blogging, fashion and life in general for so long creates problems when you return. It’s hard to get back into the swing of it especially seeing as I am feeling very uninspired lately.

I will however say that it did amuse me when I saw this T-shirt (pictured right) on Topshop. The slogan reads “I started this trend” which I find rather ironic because obviously they didn’t.

In fact, this latest trend for oversized writing on t-shirts was made popular by everyone’s lusting after the House of Holland t-shirts (such as that pictured left). Personally, I’m not attacted to any of these t-shirts because I do not find large writing appealing on a T-shirt, but hey ho, that’s just me.

In fact, if you think about it these large writing T-shirts aren’t a new concept and if I had to wear a T-shirt with oversized writing, give me one with a political message such as Katherine Hamnett’s designs.

Hell, with present day political situations, I’m sure some amusing slogans could be thought up.

Images from Topshop or Google

Designers meet technology

So as many celebrites are trying their hand at fashion design, the designers are moving toward technology.

I’m sure everyone knows about the Prada/LG mobile phone by now. I was reading the fortnightly Computer Active my auntie gets today and it had a short review of the phone.

The only thing that really bugged me was this bit - ”For dedicated followers of fashion, there’ll be no cooler mobile than the LG Prada till Apple’s iPhone arrives in the autumn.”

Now, I won’t go as far as to say I was a dedicated follower of fashion, but I do follow fashion and personally I wouldn’t get the phone. It just doesn’t appeal to me. I mean, there is a nice big screen, which would be handy, but I just think it’s not a hugely attractive phone. Anyway, I’m not going to go off on a rant because I’m sure it will appeal to many fashion followers.

Photo from carphone warehouse

Topshop browsing

Just had a small search of the Topshop website (I was trying to find something metallic for another post I was doing). Although I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I noticed that there are some lovely things in the Brands at Topshop section at the moment.

All images from www.topshop.com

Dior Haute drooling (pt 2)

As promised, I continue to blog about the ss07 haute couture collections featured on Vogue. Don’t take everything I say literally, mostly I am just rambling on. Designers are not my domain to be quite honest. However, I will commence with the blogging.

Today, it’s the turn of Dior:
The collection is completely unwearable. If you can actually think of a location in which to wear one of these dresses, I will give you a gold star. However, despite lacking the wearing factor, it is a fairly stunning collection and I am quite amazed (maybe because of my lack of fashion exposure, who knows).

It’s so extravagant and elaborate, yet not to the point where it makes your mind jump out of your body screaming “arrgh I’ll never be able to think up something like that” It’s inspirational, especially now that I have to start thinking about what I want my ‘prom’ dress (inverted commas because I detest the prom that has been organised and I think it’ll be a pile of tolly-wash. But, I have bought my ticket now and I shall attend this prom; which seems to be sweeping the nation having migrated to the UK) to look like.

I know that wearing something such as these dresses is simply out of the question. Not only because everyone would look at you like you are some kind of weirdo (having said that, because I am making it, it may be more like “WOW, you made that?!” Alas, my sewing skills do not stretch this far) through jealous eyes (which girl wouldn’t be envious if someone else at their prom was wearing a dior couture dress?), it’s slightly impractical for wearing in real life. Plus, the models wearing the dresses are thin and tall, thus making them ‘hang’ and drape more effectively.

It even makes me regain my interest in becoming a designer or working in fashion (I’ve been going off the idea recently). What more can I say really? It is a pretty nice collection and one which someone of no authority (such as myself) can appreciate to some degree.

All photos from Vogue

Drooling at the Haute (pt 1)

With the cold snap just hitting the UK, I find it rather illogical to look at spring/summer 07 collections. However, whilst browsing Vogue, I couldn’t resist a peek at the ss07 Couture collections. Needless to say, my mind was amazed. And I’m not one to follow designers. (click the photos for larger images)

First off, Chanel:
My first impression was that it was very mod/60s inspired. Gotta love the mods I say.

I also rather liked this idea of wearing a bow as a necklace. One reminded me of a large bow tie and the other was some tied ribbon. Regardless, this struck me as a nice and simple twist that could be applied to any outfit. Of course, I would not spend obscene amounts of money on such a thing - quite simply purchasing a bit of ribbon would do the trick.

Then there were the LBDs.

Finally, there were the dresses. I quite liked the drop waist thing that was going on with some of them. And the floaty-ness that many of the dresses seemed to have.

Now, I think for this blog, that is fashion overload. So in the next post, I’ll cover some of the other collections (Dior, Givenchy etc). I think that I’ll keep them more brief (except Dior which is quite literally oh-my-giddy-gosh-my-mind-is-going-to-melt-from-the-wowness-that-is. Well, that’s what I thought anyway) and pick out only what I think is the best.

All photos from Vogue

Fight the fur

According to Vogue, Stella McCartney has “upped her fight against the use of fur in the fashion industry”

I say good for her! As you may know, I hate fur and why people actually like wearing it, is beyond me. Just think, it was a living breathing creature, which was deprived of a life and then killed just so you can wear it’s coat as your coat. It’s just cruel.

The time has come

So the Viktor and Rolf collection for H&M was released yesterday it seems. I have not actually seen anything (school takes up all valuable time, however it is currently illegal for me not to be there, so what can be done) as yet. Although there was a nice jumper thing in an advert I saw. I shall have to check it out tomorrow and see if it is worth all the ho-har.

To be a man or not to be

I quite like this ‘boy inspired’ look (although I think those photos don’t particually look mannish)

I think I would probably do it wearing an actual men’s shirt or something similar.

I feel a bit bad though because girls go and steal boys clothes and boys would look weird if they started wearing dresses. Having said that, there are a few clothes, such as cardigans, that many males wear now.

photos from vogue

So grey is ‘in’ this season

I think grey is more of a waredrobe essential rather than just a seasonal fashion trend.

It’s versitile, a bit like black or white which (supposedly) go with more or less everything.

It’s not a trend, it’s a staple.

Photo from Vogue

A ponder for you all

I actually heard about this on the news today, but I have just found this daily mail article, which will probably explain it better.

The jist is that some of the fashion world is taking a stance on weight etc by banning models under (uk) size 8 from the catwalk. The news said that things like the clothes show and other big fashion events are doing this in order to get rid of this idea that skinny is better (I think it was something like that).

So anyway, this genuinely interested me and I have always said that people shouldn’t try to loose weight unless they really have to (like it’s dangerous for their health). Obviously, people should take some pride in the way they look and eat well, do exercise etc, but not starve themselves silly.

The amount of people my age who do admire skinny people and don’t eat etc to try and look like them, isn’t as big as people make out, but there is a good sized proportion (although it probably depends on where you are looking).

Although it is a good plan, I’m not entirely sure how it will change the way people think. I think part of how people view fat/thin is how they are brought up and what there friends are like. I know people who used to laugh at these so called ‘fat’ people (in my opinion not a lot of them were actually fat) and I never actually got this because they went around going ‘oh, i’m so fat, I need to loose weight’, completely contradictory in my opinion. Maybe it’s due to the way I’ve been brought up. I personally think that as long as people are comfortable with how they look, then what’s the problem? It’s true to say that thinner people tend to be able to get away with strange outfits etc, but is that more to do with the way everyone thinks?