like a rainbow

When it rains, it pours.

Having such a fun chilled night, multi tasking: Mr. Dot keeps trying to get me to watch Wimbledon with him, and my attention was diverted with tweets about Christopher Kane's 2011 resort collection, which got me so freakin' inspired I started playing around in photoshop some MORE. I'm grabbing the opportunity of him talking on the phone to post this, against the background of Wimbledon highlights, at high volume.

It's uncanny, actually: I SWEAR to you, when I started going in this direction with David Koma's line from last September last night, I hadn't yet seen Christopher Kane's rainbow designs - which I've then adapted to what I was already doing. Sorry if that doesn't make sense: the tennis is on really loud. Claps of thunder in the Centre Court, the roar of the crowd.. 'what a way to lose the game', as the announcer just said.





I don't know if they still do this, but when we were younger, we'd do these paintings we called 'scratch boards'. I started the day chatting on facebook with a friend from school, and another from work, about our favourite Crayola crayon colour (periwinkle, hands down) which led me to thinking about how we'd draw rainbow colours on white board with crayons, then paint them with black paint. Then you scratch away the paint, revealing the rainbow.

And lo and behold, I'm ending my day seeing it manifest before my very eyes, with these gorgeous lace numbers:





While I don't love everything in this collection - he's not a god, after all - I just cannot decide which of these looks shown here I love more. There is a genius to this man. But David Koma, for me.. oh, let's face it: both guys are simply wonderful. I tip my hat to you both.

dress me up in elber albaz

Those of you who knew me way back in November 2009 might remember how excited I was about the Dress Me Up charity thingy at Topshop. I posted on it a few times (for example: here). Our favourite celebrities and designers donated their dresses for charity, and people were able to rent them for their Christmas parties, with the idea that later, the dresses would be auctioned off.





Anyway, the auction is now happening, thru the wonderful Kerry Taylor Auctions. (The Christopher Kane 'Atomic Bomb' resort dress, for example, starts @ £50). By bizarre coincidence, I went to their Audrey Hepburn pre-auction viewing. Which I posted about a few times. I didn't realise that Kerry Taylor was doing the auction for Dress Me Up as well.



(I should add: Topshop doesn't get anything for this, and neither do I: it all goes to charity for Age Concern, and since we're all headed in that direction if we don't manage to get ourselves killed first, I feel it's a pretty good cause).




The auction is Tuesday March 16th at 10.30am, with viewing open to the public on Sunday 14th 12-4.30pm and Monday 15th 9.30-5pm. It's too large to be held in their Pall Mall space, so it's out in Dulwich at their warehouse: 40 Martell Road, West Dulwich, London, SE21 8EN
Just go to their site, or via Invaluable. Should be great fun, I'm going to try to make it on Monday, so maybe I'll see you there. If not, please spread the word!




As you can see I'm in a kind of sea green/nudes sort of colour mood today, altho I've shot a ton more than I'm showing here. From top to bottom: Patricia in Kate Moss's Lanvin by Elber Albaz, Nicola Robert's custom made tour dress, Olivia Palermo's Armani frock, Kimberly Stewart's beaded number by Antik Batik, Richard Nicholl's print dress + Christopher Kane's Atomic Bomb resort dress (starting price: only £50!!), Jourdan Dunne's Herve Leger, me trying to stuff myself into said Leger, and back full circle to Patricia in Kate's Lanvin dress.



No wonder she's smiling. I bet Kate's got plenty of happy memories in this dress. Have a lovely weekend, everyone. Hope you're busy making your own happy memories.

fluff

There was a girl in our school - a friend, actually - named Pam, who, in a sea of rich, thin, spoiled, beautiful girls, was particularly rich, thin, and spoiled (I remember, for example, her dad gave her an orange Porsche for her 16th birthday. She had the cutest boyfriend in the school, and when he accidentally totalled it, her dad simply gave her another one, also in orange: just a different model). She was still a perfectly nice girl, and, like most style icons, was shrouded in mystery because she rarely spoke. She had a bedroom so vast, in hot pink and lime green, that one of her walk-in closets, larger than some people's bedrooms, was devoted to just her handbags and shoes.



I thought of Pam when I met this sweet model, because Pam had a coat just like this one. Her brother brought it back from someplace exotic, like Afghanistan or Uzbekestan, and she was wearing it one time, in 'the city' (NY, that is) at a store like Bergdorf's, or was it Bloomingdales, and a buyer spotted her and asked to borrow the coat to copy it, and it became a whole line that season. Pam was that kind of girl.



Christopher Kane, as you're probably all quite aware by now, showed a lot of beautiful ethnic flowered embroidery, in his case on black (leather, knitwear), and of course, the other genius that is Christopher, Bailey, did some wonderfully unexpected turns with leather, Shearling, and fur, at Burberry. I mean, can we possibly get anything more perfectly yin/yang than this?



That same year, btw, I had that exact same mohair hat, in the same shade of beige. There was a girl named Maxine who couldn't have been more opposite to Pam. She nicknamed me Fluff and ribbed me mercilessly, but I loved that hat and wish I had it, still. Funny, the things you remember. Do you have a favourite item of clothing that has disappeared? Or, while we're at it: has any major department store copied your coat?

lime green

Also after Kane.



When it rains on Kane, there really are two ways to go: dress for the weather (black, muted tones & shades of grey) or be bold, and bright.



Sometimes the brightness is all in your head. There was a lot of red (for hair) - a whole range, from flaming orange to magenta - last season, and not only hasn't that trend cooled off, it's now widened its range to shades of pink & even peach.

Speaking of Peaches, lots o' girls are following her lead, and going grey (or white, as they call it). Actually, I guess it's really Kate Lamphor who started that one. Anabelle, shown here, accents her white with lavender highlights, which sparkle in the right light.

As for me, I try to let a smile be my umbrella.

after kane: smoking in the rain

After the Christopher Kane show, all the cool kids were hanging out on the street corner in the rain, smoking.

I remember reading or hearing when I was a girl, that only Parisian women had style. I remember two things specifically: they knew how to tie a scarf round their neck, and they knew how to smoke.



So when I ran into my Garance Dore outside the Topshop flowers venue after the show* I didn't know if she wanted me photographing her smoking. She laughed at the very idea of it being an issue. How.. American of me. (We had already had a lovely chat the day before, when I met her at Somerset House with Scott. She is as warm and friendly as everyone says, and no, I'm not going to tell you what we talked about, it's private).




She was with the brilliant and delightful fashion journalist and girl about town Indigo Clarke, who among other things blogs for Harpers Bazaar Australian, altho she's currently based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And I'll save my portrait of her for later cause my husband, Mr. Dot, feels this is too long a post, and he's the boss.




*(BTW I didn't see the show: if you didn't either, here are some photos & the live streaming is here. Lots o' black leather & lace, all prettified with flowers: slightly peasant, slightly girly, but with an edgy twist. Cool.)

charlie's an angel

Sometimes I wonder where I've been all my life. I mean: last Saturday we went to the Dover Street Market for the first time. I've seen that name everywhere and assumed it was another street market, like Camden or Spitalfields or Portobello Road. So often, someone would wear something great in a magazine or something, and it was from Dover Street Market. More recently, through bloggers I've realised it's actually a shop.

Only it's not just shop, as I discovered. It's a whole building, a world, a unique experience. There's a little tin hut on one level, another is like a potting shed. Feeling and holding real Christopher Kane velvet ribbon dresses in my hands... and Azzedine Alaia.. Comme des Garcons.. it's a movable feast of fashion as art. And the customers are the most style savvy folk I've seen in one place, outside of London Fashion Week.



The staff are so stylish, as in, not slaves to fashion, but with their own, unique style, their inner niceness just glowing forth. You know what I mean. Take Charlie, for example. He was such a star about helping me, that just had to take him outside and shoot him. I didn't ask where he got anything because I didn't want to keep him out too long, didn't want him to get in trouble. Hopefully I'll get permission to shoot inside, but for now, you'll just have to take my word for it.

serious cowboy boots (and, serious kane)

I don't have my notes handy & can't recall her name, but this girl was SO NICE & I remember her saying the boots were a favourite pair from a thrift shop in NY from years ago. She told me how much she paid for them and it was very little. I love that she chose to wear them for the first day of London Fashion Week, and it was such an original, un'styled' choice: red plaid dress, pearls, black tights, and then those fabulous brown leather vintage cowboy boots with copper sequin like embellishments.



It was clear people had chosen carefully (some people). I noticed this woman because each day she had a fabulous look. HER choice for Day One was Kane. The real deal, not the Topshop tee. And I wish I'd asked what that guy with the tattoos did: they both had such great attitude, in a good way. Serious fashionistas. Oh my! He's wearing my friend Carry Sommer's wonderful panama hats (Pachacuti). I'd recognise it anywhere. I think in fact I've seen him in another distinctive one, soon as I dig it up I'll show you. How funny, I didn't even mean to post these shots tonight but they kind of opened themselves.

feeling blue

Was walking home after meeting my fabulous & fun friend Isabel for coffee at our latest favourite hangout & trend-spotting spot, Jaks, on Walton Street. Shot all these shots in the order seen, and didn't even realise til now that I was shooting a consistent colour scheme. Even when I saw the bird, it was more like 'ooh, what a cool bird.'



The shoes are from Zanotti, of course, and right across the street, at Joseph on the corner of Brompton Cross, was this intriguing window. I went inside & spoke with a nice sales guy and asked who made those knitted creations and he said 'Rodarte'. I asked him to spell it and he started to write it down but then said 'actually it's in the window' (sure enough, it is: along with a cute little bunny rabbit). I could so see wearing the black & blue dress on the left with a pair of 80s inspired sheer black tights with little dots, and those blue patent Zanotti booties. Can't you?



I assumed Rodarte for some reason was a man, but they're two sisters, based in LA. And I like their sensibility: they were quoted as saying 'If we could dig a ditch and bury our drresses and dig them out ten years later that would be the ideal of how we'd want them to look.'



How do I know this? Because everything is connected, and I just happened to buy the November issue of Vogue, where there's a whole piece on STREET STYLE. It's really cool, if you can get Vogue UK, they chose Christopher Kane in London, Philip Lim (another designer I only just discovered - DUH - via Joseph, as a matter of fact), in NY, and Rodarte in LA. In the Vogue issue, each of the three went street style hunting for the day, with photographers, and picked out people whose style they liked. Note to Chris: next time you want to go street style shooting in London, ask me!! ; )

london fashion week: top shopping tips

These shots from Day One contain some of this year's biggest trends: leopard, hound's tooth (sorry, DOG's tooth in British) and everyone's wish list dress, top, the Christopher Kane crocodile print dress for 60 quid, with a black leather jacket. I don't know why I'm even posting this, apart from I love the dress, and love her look: by the time you wake up, smell the coffee, and see this, that dress will be long gone. Sold out. Still, you never know: it's worth a try. I'd so love to wear that dress with my Topshop Sequin Motorcycle Jacket, which I've seen on so many people @ Somerset House I thought I was in one of those circus mirror thingies.




The other big hits this week, hands down, are sequins, and lace. Oh, and patterned tights. Which in this case, are leopard pattern, so, along with the black booties, that pretty much covers all the trends in one go. And she looks absolutely smashing, don't you think?



Don't ask me why but I love that woman in the leopard coat. After seeing leopard prints on everything from top to toe, literally, it is such a relief to see it as a classic, hopefully fake, fur coat. Even tho it was like a zillion degrees. I also love how she's rocking the red lips, and classic black tights and pumps: no massive wedge height, no leggings or thigh high stockings, no STUDS... just classic, but with a twist.

Okay, apart from fabulous shoes, this pretty much covers the spectrum of what everyone will be wearing this A/W. There's also black black black, and gold studs, but I'll save that for another post.