A terse tweet this week announced Chanel Nº 5′s latest cover girl, matinee idol Brad Pitt. This is the first time in the history of the iconic perfume that a man has been cast to represent the scent in their ad campaign. Considering the current amount of cross-dressing in the beauty industry, you might be wondering “what’s the big whoop?” After all, we’ve already encountered fragrance and lip gloss-flogging blokes in MAC ads, on YouTube tutorials, and behind the makeup counter of our local Boots.
But Chanel Nº 5 ain’t no trendy tranny accessory. It’s Chanel Nº 5, the olfactory embodiment of womanly mystery and sophistication. Coco Chanel herself pronounced it “a woman’s perfume, with the scent of a woman.” And up until Brad, women have been the only flavour of people smoldering from page and screen as the embodiment of its appeal. We’ve had the glamazons: Catherine Deneuve, Nicole Kidman, Ines de la Fressange – and the gamines: Audrey Tatou, Vanessa Paradis, Ali MacGraw. Despite the odd foray into coquettishness, the tone of the campaigns has been remarkably consistent. The model’s demeanor is typically self-contained, with a cool, appraising stare down the lens of the camera. Almost masculine, you might say.
Chanel Nº 5 liberated perfume from its binary system of madonna (namby-pamby single note florals) and whore (heady jasmine and musk) to create an abstract blend of natural and synthetic notes that summed up the modern woman of the 1920s. What is remarkable about No. 5 is that almost a hundred years after its launch, it still smells modern: unsentimental yet plush, insinuating yet elegant. The buttery blur of jasmine, rose and ylang-ylang are contrasted by aldehydes, a compound that adds oomph and arctic shimmer. This chilly shimmer is warmed by mating-season musk – only revealed on the skin, like a secret between lovers.
But why Brad, and why now? Chanel Nº 5 still reigns supreme as the ‘ultimate’ perfume, the stuff even clueless Cro-Magnons can namecheck as proof that they know the score. However, the world of perfume has experienced a population explosion since Nº 5 was first introduced in 1921. With over 1,000 fragrances now launched yearly (many of them uninspiring spin-offs and celebrity cash-ins), the grande dame of the perfume counter has a harder time than ever being smelled over the din. Name brand recognition doesn’t necessarily equal sales dominance, and indeed in France, Nº 5 is currently outsold by Dior’s J’Adore.
There’s nothing like hitching one’s wagon to a star to get back on top, though, and with Brad planning to make a Mrs. Pitt out of Angelina Jolie in the near-ish future, Chanel will only benefit from the Hollywood hoopla (and rabid press interest) surrounding the wedding. A link with an A-list actor never hurts an A-list brand. Marilyn Monroe once boosted sales after an impertinent reporter asked what she wore in bed. She provocatively answered, “Chanel Nº 5″. With their latest perfume model, Chanel offers a subliminal reframing of that answer. What does the modern woman wear to bed? Brad Pitt.
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]]>Twenty five years ago, Run-DMC updated the world on the new definition of “bad”. “Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good,” explained the lyrics of Peter Piper, in an admirable display of patience to stragglers befuddled by popular culture.
In 2012, following in the footsteps of bad, wicked, sick et al, another insult has been transformed into a compliment. “Matchy matchy” was, a few short years ago, the last word in fashion putdowns, used to mock and belittle those whose idea of being well-dressed was to simply match the colours in their outfit. True style, the assumption went, was a matter of putting together marvellously eclectic outfits, of having the special kind of genius that it takes to realise that, actually, a violet cashmere tunic can look marvellous layered over a Liberty print cotton blouse and offset with a pair of Prince of Wales check trousers. Or whatever.
But to be “very matchy matchy” is a compliment again. Wearing a matching top and bottom – in either a print, or a bright colour – is this summer’s in-the-know look. The turnaround began nearly two years ago, when Marc Jacobs kick-started the luxe-pyjama trend by featuring matching oriental-print tops and trousers in his Louis Vuitton show for spring 2011. Luxe pyjama sets have since been seen on catwalks from JW Anderson to Stella McCartney, Céline to Hermès. And those who assumed this was a fly-by-night trend have been proved wrong: instead, the trend for matching tops and bottoms has gained in stature. Maarten van der Horst’s summer 2012 collection of tropical-print separates in boxier shapes and less filmy fabrics showed the assembled catwalk-watchers that by switching from pyjama-weight silk into more structured, sturdy tops and bottoms, the look became much easier to wear. Recently unveiled high street collections for next season suggest this is a trend about to go mainstream.
I include the fashion family tree for a reason: to show that the new matchy-matchy is not the return of ladylike suiting, but derives instead from a more irreverent catwalk ancestry. This is not a cowed retreat to colour co-ordination, but a new generation who have grown up with mix-and-match as the reigning style orthodoxy discovering the visceral power of a head-to-toe matching look.
“Sometimes fashion has to reintroduce an idea that may have once been considered bad taste,” says Jane Shepherdson, CEO of Whistles, one of the first high-street stores to embrace the matchy-matchy trend, with this season’s wisteria-print pyjamas (now completely sold out). “Miuccia Prada’s way of playing with what is considered to be ‘bad taste’ has had a strong influence on fashion,” says Shepherdson. Lulu Kennedy, who has recently added MBE and editor-at-large of Love magazine to her longtime semi-official title of Young London Designers’ Fairy Godmother, “found myself really drawn to this trend. There’s something very fresh and quite brave about it, and I love the fact that it looks slightly comedy.”
She has been blown away by the commercial response to Maarten van der Horst’s summer 2012 collection, shown as part of her Fashion East catwalk event. “Not only has it sold incredibly well, but people have been buying and wearing the looks as two-piece sets; I thought people might buy just the trousers, or just the top.”
Ruth Chapman, the co-founder of Matches, has championed the matchy-matchy trend from the outset, and is backing it as a winner for autumn. “We noticed two versions of this trend originally. The Stella McCartney look is rooted in pyjamas and silk separates that create the illusion of the all-in-one, and the other comes from designers who push the boundaries with print: Jonathan Saunders and Mary Katrantzou have reinvented this matchy-matchy idea as a bold style statement.”
Whistles and Cos both offer block-colour sets for a toned-down look, but the momentum is with print. “Print is hugely important to differentiate the look from the 80s power-dressing suit,” says Caren Downie, fashion director of Asos, where the print two-piece is selling strongly for summer and will continue next season. “It looks so much newer than a printed dress. But it is definitely not for the faint-hearted.” It was the joyous prints on Mary Katrantzou’s London fashion week catwalk that inspired Kate Phelan, the creative director of Topshop, to put matching prints at the heart of Topshop’s upcoming Jubilee collection. London-themed “conversational” prints of “swans, deers, London bobbies and royal guards” will be plastered over tops, bottoms and shoes. “It’s cute, fresh – a modern Topshop girl’s take on ‘samey’ dressing,” says Phelan.
When fashion tires of the pyjama set, a new matchy-matchy meme is waiting in the wings. For autumn, Lulu Kennedy’s Lulu & Co range includes boxy mini skirts with matching trapeze swing tops, “which we’re calling Jackie O sets”, says Kennedy. “They are fun, and new, and they make getting dressed so easy. I mean, spending hours putting outfits together – who has the time for that, these days?”
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]]>Marks & Spencer has admitted it scored an embarrassing own goal after buying blunders left it with major shortages of coats, knitwear, printed blouses and even ballet pumps.
Britain’s biggest clothing retailer said it had not only been caught short by the cold snap in February which sparked a late run on winter coats and woollens but had failed to buy enough stock in hot trends such as tribal print fabrics and coloured chinos. Chief executive Marc Bolland said M&S sold 100,000 cardigans and jumpers from its core M&S Woman collection in the fourth quarter – but could have sold three times that number. “That was a miss,” he said, blaming a temporary buying issue. Women’s ballet pumps, he added, could have sold at double the quantity.
The stock shortages meant like-for-like clothing and homewares sales at M&S fell 2.8% in the fourth quarter, missing City forecasts. While sales of lingerie and childrenswear held up, the patchy performance of its important women’s division depressed the retailer’s overall growth in the fourth quarter, with its shares the second biggest faller in the FTSE 100, closing down more than 2% at 358.7p.
Bolland also blamed the deflationary impact of stocking more low-priced clothing lines, but insisted the weakness was not down to having the wrong fashions in its shops – just not enough stock of the right ones. “We were bang on trend,” he said.
With much of M&S’s knitwear made in Asia, the retailer was unable to repeat orders fast enough to meet the demand sparked by the cold weather. The length of its lead times meant it missed the opportunity to sell another 25,000 coats and jackets, he said. “There is no supply chain issue but we were too tight on bestselling lines,” said Bolland, adding the fashion team headed by clothing supremo Kate Bostock “had all my confidence” but would nonetheless be strengthened. There have been recent personnel changes including last month’s departure of Bostock’s number two Andrew Skinner who had been at M&S for 28 years and was responsible for stock management.
Staff who plan the clothing ranges will also work more closely with its marketers: adverts featuring models such as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley caught shoppers’ imagination but again M&S misfired by underestimating demand for the products featured.
Investec analyst Bethany Hocking said the trading figures were weak and cost-cutting seemed to have saved the day. Despite the sales shortfall M&S expects to meet City’s expectations of annual profits of £694m in the year to 31 March. “The only good news”, Hocking added, was the £100m cut from its three-year stores refurbishment programme to £500m. It has refurbished around 70 of its 731 stores to date with the new look well received by shoppers, Bolland said.
M&S’s food business proved less accident-prone with like-for-like sales ahead 1% in the 13 weeks to 31 March. Bolland said customers had responded to its promotions, which included a Valentine’s Day special “dine in for £20″ offer. Taken together, food and general merchandise like-for-like sales finished down 0.7%.
Internet sales jumped nearly 23% as it made changes to its website and added a discount M&S Outlet section.
There was also a chequered performance by its international business. Bolland said M&S was enjoying “double-digit” growth in India and China but sales in the bailed out economies of Ireland and Greece had been hit as consumers cut back.
Knit wits
Marc Bolland reckons he could have sold three times as many cardigans and jumpers had it not been for the M&S buying blip. He has a point. Knitwear is having its moment in the fashion sun. Between last year’s Sarah Lund jumper frenzy and Jonathan Saunders’ catwalk show last September, the humble pullover was elevated to “It” status.
Fashion editors on the front row ditched their silk blouses in favour of boxy ribbed jumpers, and knitwear was no longer the sideshow, but the main event.
M&S could have capitalised on this in two ways. First, it sells excellent, well-priced cashmere and lambswool jumpers that are ripe for styling up into high fashion territory. In autumn, one oft sighted berry-coloured angora jumper could easily have swapped its M&S label for an Acne one in fashion circles and no-one would have noticed.
Second, the M&S knitwear collection is vast. It boasts everything from sleeveless gilets to long-line cardigans to knitted T-shirts. With customers becoming increasingly confident in layering knitwear – witness the popularity of the long-line mannish cardigan worn over a cashmere T-shirt and the sleeveless cardigan as an alternative jacket – this should have been M&S’s woolly moment.
Imogen Fox
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]]>H&M is not just a big player in “fast fashion”, it’s a giant. Estimates (fast fashion behemoths do not give out many production figures as the sector is intensely competitive) suggest it sells more than 550 million garments every year. It recently announced net quarterly profits of $412m. It is second only to Inditex, owner of Zara, as the world’s largest clothing retailer. The great fast fashion war pits Sweden’s richest man, Stefan Persson, chair of H&M, against Spain’s richest man, Amancio Ortega, co-founder of Zara.
And now, in an audacious move, H&M is positioning itself as the ethical solution, the retailer that can make ethics and fast fashion synonymous. It wants to be an ethical giant, too. I say “audacious” because, to concerned consumers and activists, fast fashion’s rapid-response production system, reliant on low-wage production in some of the poorest countries on Earth, is pretty much held responsible for environmental and social degradation in the global wardrobe. Indeed, having spent a large amount of time railing against it myself, it felt pretty audacious for me, too, to be sitting in the Stockholm headquarters of H&M last week.
The Observer was given early access to the brand’s latest sustainability report that will be published on 12 April. Few corporate CSR reports are read so widely. From activists to analysts, everyone will be keen to see if H&M can really crack it. I am no different. However much I bang on about alternative ways to fill your wardrobe to ethically aware audiences – small brands, swapping, vintage, knitting – the top question I still get asked is: “So which high street stores can I go to?”
Be in no doubt, we are addicted to fast fashion. So, if H&M have solved all labour rights and environmental issues then I can pack up my soap box and toddle home, picking up some David Beckham underpants from his H&M Bodywear collaboration from one of the brand’s 199 UK stores with total impunity. But how clean are H&M’s Beckham pants? (On Twitter Joey Barton splendidly articulated lingering consumer unease: “Do one, Becks. They cost about 1p to make in a sweat shop in the Third World.”) Indeed, what guarantees does H&M offer across its ranges?
“I don’t think guarantee is the right word,” says Helena Helmersson, head of sustainability, brightly. “A lot of people ask for guarantees: ‘Can you guarantee labour conditions? Can you guarantee zero chemicals?’ Of course we cannot when we’re such a huge company operating in very challenging conditions. What I can say is that we do the very best we can with a lot of resources and a clear direction of what we’re supposed to do. We’re working really hard.”
I believe her. Thursday’s report will show some impressive sustainable figures: for example nearly 2.5 million pairs of shoes were made last year using lower-impact water-based solvents; all building contractors have signed a code of conduct to ensure “good” working conditions; recycled polyester equivalent to 9.2 million plastic bottles has been used, and H&M uses more organic cotton in production than any other group. This year I am told, 7.6% of its cotton was organic (an industry insider estimates H&M’s overall cotton use to be around 200,000 tonnes a year). By 2020 100% will be sustainably sourced cotton.
“H&M has definitely got better,” admits industry expert and CEO of Clothesource, Mike Flanagan. “From some presposterous moments in the recent past they have moved to being in a small clutch of four or five brands, including Nike and Gap, who believe that they have no alternative but to be as good as possible at sustainability. It’s a marked change.”
(The official word on the Beckham cruds is that this time they were made using conventional cotton and Elastane, but that H&M hasn’t ruled out “using other [eco] materials for future collections” and didn’t publish a list of factories used in China and Cambodia due to commercial confidentiality.)
Does Helmersson still wake up worried they’ll be the subject of a sweated labour expose? “Yes, I worry about that sometimes. I lived in Dhaka for two years. You see how things happen down the chain in a country like Bangladesh. Remember that H&M does not own any factories itself. We are to some extent dependent on the suppliers — it is impossible to be in full control.”
And therein lies the rub. While H&M talks about responsibility, in the supply chain where retailers devolve power to factories it can be easy to distance yourself. Helmersson says H&M has invested in 100 people in CSR, 75 of whom are auditors (assessing social and now some environmental conditions in factories) and produced a series of groundbreaking short films, including one on fire safety that it claims more than 400,000 garment workers have seen.
Sam Maher, of the NGO Labour Behind The Label, the UK platform for the international Clean Clothes Campaign, is not so impressed (although she is yet to see the latest 2011 report). “I’d like to be at the point where unions can phone H&M and talk through any labour disputes. The Clean Clothes Campaign should no longer need to exist. Sadly that’s far from the case. DVDs ‘educating’ garment workers are all very well but I think workers know there is a problem. They aren’t stupid. What’s needed is proper dialogue with unions and freedom of association, long term investment and proper resources. It’s not good enough to act unilaterally and say: ‘We’re Swedish and we do things very well.’”
What would change her mind? “For starters I would like to see them signing the Clean Clothes Campaign’s memorandum of understanding on fire and building safety in Bangladesh. PVH [owners of Tommy Hilfiger] has just signed but three more big signatories are needed. H&M is currently considering it.”
There is of course another fashionably attired elephant in the fitting room: a business model predicated on producing millions of units and on a fashion cycle that favours 30 to 50 trend-driven fashion seasons a year (the original spring/summer and autumn/winter cycles are alien to fast fashion) are hardly a recipe for sustainability. Isn’t ethical fast fashion just a big fat oxymoron?
Helmersson says: “It’s a question of how can we make the fashion more sustainable? That’s what we are working on in many ways to do that.”
To that end Thursday also sees the launch of the new Conscious Collection, with pieces made from eco-fibres ranging from organic cotton and recycled plastic bottles to Tencel (derived from plant cellulose) and a glamorous adjunct of “eco” pieces including a silky hemp, pieces that have been worn by celebrities on the red carpet (coincidentally this is a similar idea to the Green Carpet Challenge I co-founded with Livia Firth in order to up the profile of sustainable style).
H&M acknowledges there is more to do: “We must close the loop on fibre. How can we see waste as a resource?” emphasises Helmersson. “You see my dream is to be perceived as a company who can offer all people in the world – even those without much money – the possibility to dress really well and sustainably. That’s how I want people to perceive us, not as a brand connected to mass consumption.”
Full marks for ambition. But do I buy H&M as an ethical paragon? Not quite yet. They are still clinging to too many parts of the fast-fashion supply chain to bring anything revolutionary. But I’m enjoying their new attitude and I remain open to persuasion.
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]]>The moral of this story is to never underestimate the women of Britain. They said we were too timid and too vain, and we proved them wrong. When the peplum began its comeback six months ago, most of those watching assumed they were watching a catwalk trend that would stay on the catwalk. A peplum won’t make you look thin. Men don’t find it sexy. It is a bit costumey, and liable to get crushed on the underground. Every high-street retailer put one into production this season to ensure their visibility in the trend pages, but few would have backed the peplum as a commercial hit.
Well, what do you know. Two weeks ago, I was in Cos on Regent Street. It wasn’t a shopping trip as such, but rather one of those unexpected 10-minutes-between-appointments-OMG-there’s-a-shop moments that, somewhere along the line, have replaced actual shopping expeditions in my life. So there I was in the changing room, dive-bombing through dresses and jackets at breakneck speed, and the first outfit that made me stop and do my hair in the mirror (the universal changing-room sign for “I like this one”) was a pair of petrol-blue trousers and a matching top, with a peplum. It turned out they didn’t have the top in my size, but in the 10 days before I tracked one down it became clear that the peplum thing really is happening. For a start, I was suddenly aware of all those women who had maddeningly bought my Cos top before me and almost thwarted my peplum ambitions. And then of a twentysomething daughter and fortysomething mum I saw at the Royal Academy together both wearing peplums: a stretch dress, and a tailored jacket and trousers respectively.
The same happened with capes a few years ago. A trend that seemed destined for a limited release became a long-running-at-Topshop blockbuster. I find it very cheering when fashion goes off-piste, refusing to fall into step with either the magpie instinct for sparkle and surface decoration, or survival of the fittest in the top-deck-of-the-bus sense of the word. There is a street-style gallery on the New York Times website which collates readers’ photos of chic peplum wearers from Seoul and Nigeria, but it has gained more traction in London than it has in, say, Paris. In Paris, where fashion is about finding a look that suits you and sticking with it for four decades, the peplum was never going to get much of a look in beyond a cameo appearance on American and Italian fashion editors attending Paris fashion week.
Peplums are fun. Jolly. And they are most certainly not a look that only string beans can wear. Beyoncé looks brilliant in a peplum, and so does Liv Tyler. On the other hand, look at the very beautiful Michelle Williams, in peplummed Louis Vuitton on the Oscar red carpet. There you have a pretty dress that would have worked better on a bigger bottom, and it’s not often that I get to write that sentence. The whole point of a peplum is that it celebrates a waist-to-hip curve, so it looks a bit odd when worn without one.
Of course, some peplums are hideous. As a rule of thumb: if it looks a bit like the frilly valances you find around the bed, popular in the nan school of home decor, give it a miss. Something a little sleeker and more sculptural is more up our street. And still, there are still hazards to be negotiated. By adding an additional horizontal line across your hips, a peplum foreshortens your leg length. On the catwalk, one popular way for a peplum to be styled was with an above-the-knee skirt, and ankle boots. All very well, so long as you have the catwalk-standard minimum inside leg, of 36in. The average is around 30in, and those 6in make all the difference. (For much the same reason, normal human beings can rarely pull off the ankle sock-and-sandal look with summer dresses.) If wearing a peplum, the kindest point for your skirt to end is at the knee, or just below, where your leg shape narrows. (The classic Dior peplum, of 1947, was at its most elegant when worn with a pencil skirt in this length.) Follow this natural break in the line of your legs for your skirt hem, rather than adding another horizontal line. And be wary of ankle boots and ankle-strapped sandals. The court shoe is your friend here.
Even better, wear your peplum with trousers. This is more flattering on short legs, and – even more importantly – immediately modernises a look which, for all its hourglass glory, can look a bit retro. And retro is not what we are about. We are not timid, and not cowed by the notion that a trend might not make us look our absolute thinnest. Peplums are the new normal. And that’s brave.
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]]>“Only six minutes to go,” barked a man in a blue geometric print T-shirt, braces, ankle-skimming trousers and bowtie, to the crowd who had been queuing on Regent Street in London since the early hours of the morning on Thursday.
The latest designer fashion collaboration, served up by Swedish high street retailer H&M, typically created a bit of a fashion scene as it went on sale.
The latest collaborator to re-interpret its brand’s DNA at high-street friendly prices is Italian label Marni – famed for left of centre shapes, quirky accessories and strong use of clashing colour and print. The enthusiasts at the head of the queue were soon eagerly loading up with armfuls of clothes, moving quickly to make the most of their allocated 10 minutes in the roped-off shopping pen.
After eight years of designer ranges, H&M now operates like a well-oiled machine. Gone are the days of a crowd of frenzied shoppers being unleashed upon the entire store and ransacking the shelves. Instead H&M has turned fashion collaboration as a retail concept into a series of high-profile shopping events.
There have been celebrity blockbusters, such as David Beckham’s underwear range, which went on sale last month, and fashion blockbusters – such as Versace, which caused a furore last year when Donatella Versace met fans on a pink carpet at Regent Street.
Marni, meanwhile, ticks the box marked: niche-fashion-label-with-insider-clout. This is a formula that guarantees hype and interest across the fashion board.
Kaz Yau, 30, started queuing at 6.30am and has been going to the H&M collaboration openings since the Stella McCartney hook-up in 2005. She said they have become events in themselves now, and the queueing starts earlier.
A trio of Italians who live in London – Valeria Vernizzi, 28, Angelica Curci, 25 and Isabella Palumbo, 27 – had been waiting since 2am. They passed the time watching films on a laptop.
They said they had been drawn by the combination of Sofia Coppola, who directed the Marni H&M TV commercial and has been photographed wearing clothes from the range, and by Marni’s use of pattern and colour.
Maj Abualjadayel, 35, head-to-toe in mainline Marni, including a yellow print handbag, has been a fan of the label for years. “I love their fits, their quirkiness and their unique point of view,” he said. On his shopping list were tops, accessories and some of the jewellery.
Not everyone had a totally happy H&M Marni experience though. A laden-down customer, one of the first batch of 20 shoppers who had had their 10 minutes, was stopped at the exit and told she could only buy one of each item. Looking tearful, she duly put some purchases back.
A spokesman for H&M, however, was quick to point out that this is a 70 piece collection, so there is plenty to choose from, and it would not be fair to other customers if no limit was imposed. This is also clearly a strategy to reduce the number of shoppers buying items to sell online at inflated prices.
Consuelo Castiglioni, Marni’s creative director and founder, based the H&M collection on the brand’s archive. “I wanted to create a true Marni wardrobe by revisiting all our favourite pieces in signature fabrics and prints,” she said.
Items initially selling well were the large circular printed skirts and jackets, the signature plastic jewellery, wooden-heeled sandals and a printed pyjama set.
This collection is selling online and at 250 stores worldwide. H&M has also previously collaborated with Karl Lagerfeld, Comme des Garçons, Jimmy Choo, Lanvin and Matthew Williamson.
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]]>With the cream of the world’s best-dressed all fighting for attention, it’s not easy to stand out on the front row at fashion week. But as the Paris shows draw to a close on Wednesday, the eyes of the fashion world are on one 49-year-old woman. She’s pale, long-haired and lanky. And with the type of hats she favours, they’re all hoping they won’t be sitting behind her.
Anna Dello Russo has swiftly become a huge draw for fashion photographers. As one blogger breathlessly put it: “No one is more inspiring and creative in fashion right now.”
Described by Helmut Newton as a “fashion maniac”, Dello Russo – or “ADR” as she styles herself – worked on Vogue Italia for 18 years before editing L’Uomo Vogue between 2000 and 2006. She is now editor at large and creative consultant for Vogue Japan. She was spotted in 2006 by street style blogger Scott Schulman of The Sartorialist, who turned her into a phenomenon.
Widely regarded as the woman who likes to wear the most outlandish catwalk creations as everyday outfits, Dello Russo says: “I like to wear evening outfits in the sunlight.” She is seen as the Lady Gaga of fashion, with traditionally jaded fashionistas rubbernecking to catch a glimpse of her latest outfits.
For the recent launch of Victoria Beckham’s autumn/winter 2012 collection at Harvey Nichols, she wore a headband that looked like an Afro of silver bubbles. It also had a veil. At the Marni show in Milan she wore a Balenciaga wimple and was the first to be seen wearing a pair of Prada’s much-coveted “flame” shoes from this season’s 1950s kitsch collection. (Dello Russo has another 4,000 pairs at home.)
Last week she was spotted wearing a Jil Sander beanie hat – also with a veil. Editor-in-chief of Grazia Jane Bruton has been tweeting pictures of Dello Russo in various eccentric garbs and declares her “wonderfully uplifting”. Grazia has written of her as a “style stuntwoman who could give Superman some lessons on how to do a quick change”.
Bruton said: “What I love most about Anna Dello Russo is her spirit and sense of fun. She exudes a genuine love for fashion, and every time I see her on the front row with giant grapes on her head, or a policemen’s helmet teamed with a Balmain dress, she lifts my spirits instantly. ADR doesn’t just get dressed, she transforms herself every morning into a fashion idol, and we love her for it, especially in these gloomy economic times.
“One of our favourite phrases in the Grazia office is ‘What would Anna Dello Russo do…’ She’s inspiring – OK, most of us aren’t going to go out in a lime-green feather coat teamed with a watermelon fascinator, but we might add feather earrings or a mad pair of heels to an outfit and feel a little tingle of ADR fashion fabulousness as a result.”
Dello Russo’s visual impact gives her a global appeal. Mexican fashionista Hector Mucharrazcorrect writes: “I love ADR. I love her style, uniqueness and will to wear whatever she wants. She wears couture exactly as it appears on the runway and she pulls it off.”
Dello Russo was the first major-league fashion editor to embrace digital media. Her own chaotic, maximalist blog appears in English and Japanese. It has a full archive of everything she wears to events, including credits for hair and makeup.
She has turned from an oddity to a figure of fascination. At the “Irreverent Dinner” hosted in Paris last year by Carine Roitfeld, the former editor in chief of Vogue Paris, Dello Russo wore her most extraordinary headgear yet: a gigantic red swan with a sequinned beak sprouted angrily out of the top of her head, flapping a 6ft wing span in its wake.
She is pleasingly self-aware. “Where I’m from [south Italy], eccentricity is alive. People have great taste and love colour. When I was young there were religious parades in the street, like carnivals. The powerful expression impressed me.”
Her catchphrase? “I don’t want to be cool. I want to be fashion.”
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]]>It’s a big year 2012, a year fat with events. This summer there’s the Olympics (double PE with an inflated sense of self-worth and even more rules about plimsolls), there’s the end of the world itself in mid-December (argh!), and before that, on 29 February, there’s Leap Day, the one day every four years when women are encouraged to propose to their boyfriends.
One day every four years. One day out of 1,460. That’s around 0.068% of the time, compared with, like, 100 minus 0.068% of the time, when it’s thought to be completely inappropriate and really quite gauche. That’s weird, isn’t it? Seriously – isn’t it? I do have to ask, because I know sometimes I get things wrong. Sometimes I think things are weird and then they turn out to be completely unweird, like keeping condiments in the fridge, or belief in God, so I do need to be told. It feels like bad maths, more than anything. It feels like the marriage equivalent of Take Our Daughters to Work Day, a day of mild hysteria and awkward chat about GCSE options. A day that occurs so infrequently it seems to revel in its oddness, its wrongness – it’s the antique stamp with a missing perforation, a thing whose abnormality adds value.
And it happens on 29 February. Because this is a day that shouldn’t really exist. It’s a blip on the calendar. It’s out of time. It’s the midnight of the year – a no-man’s land, a gauzy curtain between night and day, a time when ghosts appear. Leap Day is the day when weird things are allowed to happen, when the usual structures can melt just slightly, when spoons bend and women are given this inch of power, this moment they can ask for what they want.
The American tradition, Sadie Hawkins Day, is based on a 1930s comic-strip character who was so ugly no man would ever propose to her. Some historians believe the British tradition (dating from the 19th century) spans the whole leap year. Others say it was tightened to just one day as men felt too vulnerable: if women were planning to propose, they were expected to wear red petticoats as a warning – the opposite of a red rag to a bull; a sign for the man to run away. Online, postcards from leap year 1908 show women catching men with butterfly nets, and old maids with many chins setting silver bear traps.
But it’s not that women actually do propose on the 29th – it’s that the day highlights the fact that the rest of the time it’s the man’s decision. In the “tradition that legitimises the subjugation of women” charts, it’s right up there with the taking of the husband’s name, isn’t it. As a day of pseudo-strength, when the woman is gifted a few hours of power, it serves only to underline her powerlessness the rest of the year, the rest of the four years.
Why do we perpetuate this bizarreness? Why today, when it’s widely realised (in my extended world at least) that men are no more afraid of commitment than women, why might they feel emasculated by a proposal in 2011 but not 2012? And what would happen if women were encouraged to propose marriage whenever they were ready for it? Would more relationships shatter? Would the high street be a parade of weddings? Would Britain turn into a 3D-version of Bridezillas, one long, long hen night, the sky dark, sunlight obscured by penis-shaped deely boppers, a wave of black sambuca slowly washing all rubble, all mini-sausage rolls away to sea?
Or would it be, sort of, OK? Would it help make us all less freako about relationships? Would it help make women less anxious, less driven by “rules”, and men more likely to phone them the day after simple sex? I do have to ask, because sometimes I get things wrong.
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]]>It is as reliable as the appearance of the first crocuses: every spring, fashion embraces colour. This year, however, colour will be different. The couture shows on the runways of Paris last month have made it clear that consumers are being invited to face up to a riot of layered, clashing, bright digital prints like nothing seen before.
While fashion pages have already warned cautious British women to prepare for a palette of cheery pastels this Easter, it turns out that striking patterns and bold floral photographic images on fabrics are just as likely to mark out the look of 2012, both in home furnishings and on the rails of dress shops.
The sudden flurry of colour and rapid spread of busy prints is largely the result of the new ease of computer printing in fabric design. Five years ago London-based Turkish designer Erdem was one of the first to set the trend rolling, with his distinctive blurred photographic fabric designs, many digitally printed.
As the technology has become more and more affordable, the hyper-real digital look has spread not just to the famous design houses known for their vibrant patterns – such as Italy’s Missoni and London’s Liberty – but even to more restrained fashion houses such as Chanel and Armani, where customers are being urged to consider wearing contrasting prints in a rainbow of hues.
“It has become easier to manipulate these images, particularly to do the sort of layering of images that is popular,” said Devon-based international fabric designer and painter Kate Rowley. “So some of the new photographic look is down to the ease of new digital printing, or to its influence at least.
“You have always been able to create bright colours, but the photographic look and this kind of layering of images has become much easier.”
Vanessa Gounden, the South African designer of celebrity clothes behind the label Vanessa G, sees the new techniques as essential to her style. “Digital prints allow for a higher level of creativity, with enhanced flexibility and versatility,” she told the Observer.
She also argues that she works on the border between fashion and visual art, where bright colours and digital printing have also had a strong influence. David Hockney’s exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art is the latest and most powerful testament to the impact of the iPad in creating works of art.
“Technology allows me to translate pieces of artwork into print in the most realistic manner and my signature is ‘art’outure’, the merging of art and fashion,” said Gounden, adding that both commercial and artistic creativity have to reflect the digital age.
“I draw my inspiration from real life and current events. This medium of communication allows me to freely express my emotions and moods as a designer. It allows for individualism.”
Digital fabric printing was developed by the British/Brazilian designers Basso and Brooke in 2004, and had picked up a wide following by the end of the decade. The late Alexander McQueen’s 2010 spring/summer collection was hailed for its use of computer graphic design.
“Digital printing has levelled the playing field,” Philip Delamore, director of the Digital Studio at the London College of Fashion, has said. “Emerging designers can compete with large, established houses without having to have the huge investment required with other techniques. Printing digitally means the cost of printing one or 1,000 colours in an image is no different.”
Other fans of the technique are designers William Tempest and Peter Pilotto. Pilotto’s spring 2012 collection was applauded in Vogue for using “images of mercury to digitally enhance the kaleidoscopic line of their prints”. “That slight cyber distortion,” the magazine went on, “made for an otherworldly, Avatar-like brilliance.”
The new prints are also a reaction to the grim economic climate. Designers planning fabrics for 2012 have been able to calculate for some months on a new appetite for colour. “In a recession people want to be cheered up,” said Rowley. “They want colour and they want recognisable images. I am a furnishings designer who pays attention to fashion and in furnishing you want designs you can recognise in a time of recession.”
Coco Chanel once said: “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” But for the British consumer making such a date with vibrant colour is perhaps a bigger ask than in other international markets. “The English people are quite afraid of colour,” said Rowley. “There is a lower-middle-class timidity about attitudes to it. There have been times when wearing sombre colours was a way to seem like a serious and intellectual person.”
In America, Rowley has noticed a steady demand for colour in a fabric category known as “tropical”. “It is a constant. Demand may change with fashion, but basically you know it will be there. In furnishings, where I mainly work, it might be a bit less bright and colourful than in clothes, because there is only a very small percentage of people who are going to want a psychedelic sofa, but if you think of Hawaiian shirts that kind of thing always sells in America.”
Our tentative love affair with colour came in, Rowley says, as part of the fashion for 60s and 70s looks: “On one hand you had smart shift dresses, reminiscent of Mary Quant, but you also had the swirly colours of psychedelia from nostalgia for the hippy look.”
Working women who need a smarter, business look tend to use bold prints by going for the “block colour” look, much favoured by television newsreaders.
Rowley sounds a final note of caution: “National taste, of course, does take account of skin colour, as it should. We look dreadful in acid yellow. Yet you can sell it in Italy, so it is to do with skin tone and the quality of the light. In Britain, if we want to be bright we wear red.”
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]]>It is a centrepiece of Britain’s social calendar, a place where pageantry, fashion and thoroughbred animals have come to be part of the mix since Queen Anne first saw its potential as a racecourse 300 years ago.
Yet after organisers at Royal Ascot decided that sartorial standards have been on the slide in recent times, not even her descendents are being spared a clampdown that could end the wearing of fascinators in the royal enclosure.
The item of headgear, often favoured by the Duchess of Cambridge, is under threat as part of a move to tighten and clarify the dress code at the annual summer event, which also happens to be the Queen’s favourite race meet.
Nick Smith, a spokesman for Ascot, said: “It is stretching a point to say standards have collapsed but there is no doubt that our customers would like to get back to a situation where it is universally acknowledged that this is a formal occasion and not an occasion where you might dress as you would at a nightclub.
“It is probably fair to say that the dress code hasn’t necessarily been enforced quite as rigorously as we might have liked.”
Along with the royals, thousands of visitors who flock to the less formal grandstand enclosure during the week-long meet in June will also be obliged to adhere to strict new guidelines. The less formal Silver Ring is not expected to be affected by the changes.
A new dress code states: “Hats should be worn; a headpiece which has a base of four inches (10cm) or more in diameter is acceptable as an alternative to a hat.”
Women will also be expected to wear skirts or dresses of “modest length” that fall just above the knee or longer.
This clarifies previous guidance which stated that miniskirts were “considered unsuitable”.
For men, a waistcoat and tie are now compulsory in this area of the course and cravats will not be allowed. Black shoes must also be worn with morning dress.
Although rules on the wearing of fascinators in the royal enclosure will be tightened, a hat or fascinator will be compulsory for women in the grandstand, which is open to the public and subject to less stringent rules.
The move comes amid criticism of sartorial standards, often led by some press coverage bemoaning the supposed display of too much flesh at race meets, and marks a significant change to previous years, when female race-goers were advised that “many ladies wear hats”.
Strapless or sheer-strap tops and dresses will be banned. For men, a suit and tie will now be imperative.
Charles Barnett, Ascot’s chief executive, said the overarching intention was to be “as helpful as possible” to visitors and to assist racegoers in understanding what is “cherished” about the dress code at Royal Ascot. “It isn’t a question of elitism and not being modern in a world where there is less and less requirement to dress smartly – far from it,” he said.
“We want to see modern and stylish dress at Royal Ascot, just within the parameters of formal wear, and the feedback we have received from our customers overwhelmingly supports that.”
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