FIVE BRILLIANT NEW THINGS WE DISCOVERED AT PRESS DAYS TODAY

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

Press day season is in full swing which means we get to see everything which we'll be able to buy for Autumn a good few months in advance. It's also one of the best places to discover the brands which PRs and retailers are taking a punt on. Today, Melanie and I pootled along to My Wardrobe and Relative. Here's what we loved:

1. HARRIS TWEED X MY-WARDROBE

Your search for the ultimate keep-forever, best of british winter coat is done. My Wardrobe have hooked up with Harris tweed to make this lovely velvet-collared coat which will be just £350. Clever fashion.

2. ISA ARFEN TEDDY BEAR COAT

One of the most fabulous manifestations of the fluff trend we've seen so far is this baby blue coat by former Chloe designer Isa Arfen. Our favourite thing about it? It's made from the same material as Steiff  teddy bears, in the words of Isa's PR "it's a big hug of a coat".

3. MARY KATRANTZOU LAPTOP CLUTCH

Was there ever a more stylish way to carry your Mac?

4. ELENA GHISELLINI

Elena's a designer at Givenchy but has somehow found the time to start her own label on the side. The sharp and roomy handbags are new and exclusive to My Wardrobe for Autumn/ Winter.

5. BASSO AND BROOKE

Oh, to be a Basso and Brooke boy with a shirt which matches your bike which matches your skateboard which matches your leather tote.

FANTASY AW13 SHOPPING AT MODA OPERANDI

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

It's now just over a week since the AW13 shows came to an end. That's a full 7 days we've had to compute the big trends, themes and major items which will feature on the fashion landscape in the next year or so. While the inevitable high street tributes could begin to pop up in as little as three or four weeks time, the designer collections won't be in store until July at the very earliest. Anyone who has avidly watched the season unfold, whether in person at the shows or via the magical internet might feel the itch to shop what they've seen but that tends to be tricky.

The final appointment on my LFW schedule was Ostwald Helgason, who brought their collection to London for the first time for a fun presentation at Kettners. They'll have their own dedicated post sometime soon. Anyway, I loved their stuff and soon found out that they'd be doing a trunk show on Moda Operandi a couple of weeks later. And so just before I left for Paris, I put in my order for an Ostwald Helgason jumper. It felt like fashion magic. Now, the people at MO inform me that their AW13 trunk shows are in full swing. Indeed, I logged on today and Nicholas Kirkwood, Roksanda Ilincic and Marni were just a smattering of the designers whose collections were on offer. Each trunk show lasts several days and lets you pre-order from most of the designer's collection, rather than being restricted to the buyer's picks. I like that for someone like me, for whom buying a designer piece is a financial stretch, you pay in two instalments, a deposit then the full amount once you receive your order.

In the pursuit of furthering my AW13 fashion fantasies, I've created my ideal shopping list from today's trunk shows....

Vogue Fashion Fund winner Nicholas Kirkwood is the Fairy Godfather of shoes. The embroidery on these heels is beautifully artisan but the plastic heel keeps them modern and sculptural. A perfect contrast.

Nicholas Kirkwood pumps 790 euros

The ultimate version of a luxe sweatshirt. I'm undecided about the morals of wearing sable on my chest but oh my, this Cedric Charlier jumper is a dream thing

Cedric Charlier jumper 1,290 euros

I have to admit that upon seeing Mary Katratzou's Autumn collection, it was difficult to imagine actually wearing any of it. Not that that is ever a bad thing as so many catwalk looks never get made, nor do many realise that most collections have an extensive commercial element which never hits the catwalk. This dress is one of those commercial pieces, isn't it lovely?

Mary Katrantzou Fauwi Babelonia dress 2,950 euros

A few AW13 collections used brown in such a way that made it almost tempting to me. The trim on this Pierre Hardy would be an ideal starting point, especially as it's set off with that awesome speckled monochrome print. 

Pierre Hardy bag 990 euros

As Melanie wrote in The Guardian last week, this was a huge season for coats. This fabulous, structured tweed Marni parka is right up my coat street.

Marni wool coat 2,290 euros

FYI, plaid and general checks are big news for AW13. This Clements Ribeiro knit is a nice subtle, modern way to do it rather than going for full-on McDonald tartan. Here ends the fantasy shopping. Back to real life.

Clements Ribeiro jumper 620 euros

TECHNOLOGY WILL MAKE OUR FASHION FUTURE

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

If you're following the critical reception to AW13 so far, then you will likely have seen Cathy Horyn's withering take on the first few days of New York. She claimed it was "shocking to see the lack of energy and imagination". That is an understandably upsetting statement for the NY designers it is describing. However, it does say something about how little the clothes we wear are really changing. How often do we see the same old 70s/ 60s/ 50s trends rehashed in some way? They were so new in their time, but not so much any more. That course of action cannot go on forever. We may consider a sharply tailored coat, the best black trousers and the like as wardrobe essentials now, but will we even be wearing such items in a few years? Why will we need heavy layers when perhaps we will be able to wear a single item which regulates our body temperature by reacting to in-buit sensors? It's a baffling possibility, though perhaps already in action on some of the girls who somehow survived Storm Nemo at New York fashion week wearing heels and pencil skirts. Maybe they know something we don't? The possibilities of print were blown wide open with the advent of digital software which allowed designers to play round with images like never before. Think Mary Katrantzou. It may not be so very long before the next big technology leap changes fashion once more.

Mary Katrantzou's print wonders facilitated by technology

If you want to see something that might genuinely be a glimpse at dressing for the future, then you should look up Studio XO. Their work currently revolves around big showpieces for stars like Lady Gaga and Azealia Banks but the film they've made for Crane TV, along with a quick scour of their website, suggests that their work could change how we dress. Studio XO's newsfeed describes how, at a recent conference,  their fashion director Nancy Tilbury, "offered a view on the physical/digital landscape and proposed the opportunity for a connected wardrobe of fashion garments coupled with interactive, intuitive accessories". That suggests to me that this is not just about outlandish, wearable art to wow huge stadium crowds but could be a path to fashion which works for us, in an even more magical way than the best white shirt or miracle dress ever.

SS13: MARY KATRANTZOU GETS HER SWAROVSKI ON

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Cara Delevingne walks at Mary Katrantzou SS13

No matter what happens each fashion season, it's now practically a given that Mary Katrantzou will knock our proverbial socks off with a fresh  and brilliantly baffling take on creating print. I saw Mary in conversation with her good friend Alex Fury (he who edits LOVE magazine) at Port Eliot festival and she said then that she could see a time when she moved away from print. Luckily, SS13 was not that time and last week she presented a collection inspired by postage stamps, defunct currencies and the notion of modernising those historical relics to reinvigorate them relevant once more. Style.com's Tim Blanks called it "an absolute fashion tour de force". An added element to Mary's print genius is her collaboration with Swarovski.  A series of fashion-high inducing pieces were created using Swarovski crystal mesh.  Katrantzou explains “We wanted to essentially use Swarovski Elements to create a new fabric for the collection that is an amalgamation of three different techniques, adding depth to the designs and creating a couture fabric for some very special pieces.” It's yet another excellent example of Swarovski's clever sponsorship programme which sees some of the most anticipated collections (designers like Giles and Wes Gordon are also involved this season) incorporating their products. It doesn't feel stilted or too corporate because the technology can fit so seamlessly. Swarovski created this video backstage at the show on Sunday of LFW...



Meanwhile,  legendary backstage fashion photographer Jason Lloyd Evans took some great up close shots backstage at the show which demonstrate beautifully the subtle sheen which the newly created fabric creates....

DRESSING UP WITH FARFETCH.COM

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

If you're a regular reader then you will know FEAL are good friends of FarFetch.com, the fashion website which lets you shop the edit of 240 designer boutiques from around the world. It's great because it has all the ease of internet shopping but takes away some of that element which can sometimes feel quite clinical of pages and pages of stock rolling before you in a "Buy me, buy me" kind of way, with no real sense of edit. FarFetch.com allows you to enter stores from all over the world and yes, any given label will probably be stocked at at least a few stores but it will be a completely different part of the collection. That's because a buyer working for a French boutique will be catering to very different tastes to one in Latvia or the US. You can behave the usual internet shopper way and scroll through "skirts" or "shoes" OR pretend you're browsing in Miami one minute and Berlin the next. The legendary Browns has recently joined up.

Image from FarFetch.com on Facebook

This week, FarFetch.com showed that they're not just one step ahead of the game when it comes to retail, but also rather forward thinking with their engagement strategy. Enter Tuesday evening's #digitaldressup event which was like a cross between a kids party and a press day. FarFetch.com had gathered samples from the AW12 selections of some of the stores that feature on the site, including shoes and bags, laid on drinks, a photographer and bravely let a load of bloggers loose for a dress up in the pieces.  I suppose it was a little unfortunate that it felt like the hottest night of the year so there was no way that after a long day sweltering in the London heat, anyone can have felt all that fabulous or up for struggling into a whole new outfit, even if it was comprised of uber amazing designer pieces- who dares sweat in Stella? Anyway, some were brave enough and others were provided with a model to dress up rather like a life sized doll in outfits we picked out.

The FarFetch.com team challenged me to dress my model like she was going to work then out for drinks- fairly standard but obviously elevated by the fact that there were Phillip Lim clutches, J.W Anderson skirts and ACNE jumpers among the selection of pieces to choose from   I eventually plumped for a ridiculously cool red sleeved Givenchy blazer (from Concept Store Smets, Berlin), Mary Katrantzou typewriter print dress (from Feathers, London) with a bottle green Calvin Klein satchel bag (not online just yet) and Giuseppe Zanotti heels (from Dante 5 in Bari, Italy)- fashion yumminess. My main thought being the rather predictable one of wear the blazer to work then slink it off for drinks to show off your clingy, sexy yet super edgy dress.

Well done again FarFetch.com for a brilliant event concept. I can't wait to see what you do next.

P.S As we're now into SS13 fashion show season, there'll be no fashion news for a few weeks as usual but I'll be bringing you the latest from the shows and you can click on the new SS13 shows tab to watch live. Happy Weekend!

PORT ELIOT: A FESTIVAL LIKE NO OTHER

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

You might have heard about Port Eliot, the festival which takes place in a nook of Cornwall valley round the grounds of Port Eliot house, just beside the village of St Germans. The one which creates an exodus of London's creative and media community. The one which is really inspiring and beautiful. But until you've actually experienced Port Eliot- like I did this weekend- it's hard to understand exactly what is so special about it. It is a festival like no other but definitely the absolute definition of festival. Not only are there familiar faces around every corner, from Christopher Biggins riding about on a flower bedecked golf buggy to Dominic West chilling by the river but there is also something going on at almost every moment of the day from the early morning wild swimming and yoga sessions to 3am guilty pleasures DJ sets. The frustrating thing is, you can't do it all. 

My weekend included, but was not limited to,  dancing to a ceilidh band, a trip to the circus, cabaret Britney Spears, bhangra, gypsy jazz performers dressed as Elvis, dresses inspired by interiors, flower arranging, a folk band who gave their audience pop corn and crisps and encouraged us to make paper planes, history lessons and existential thinking thanks to a 20s jazz, Gypsy brass, English Folk and Trinidadian Calypso inspired fivesome. There was so much more it COULD have included had we got up earlier and been in more of a military mindset. There were so many workshops going on which I'd have loved to have done, such as Anthropologie's silk printing and ceramics, but most of them involved arriving at 9am to register which is a difficult feat to accomplish after a night of gin drinking and dancing.

It's not just the schedule which makes Port Eliot. The house- a proper example of decaying but beautiful aristocratic living- was open to view for parts of the day during the festival. Little touches like the Macbook left open atop an antique desk and pictures of the St Germans' much loved whippet Roo made it a million times more real than your usual stately home visit. If you needed a quieter moment, or a nice spot to sit with a drink then there were the vast and oh-so English river banks and rolling fields. A final West Country tip, we popped into the Thermae Bath Spa en route to Port Eliot for some pre-festival pampering and it was brilliant- a great way to get a spa experience at a rather reasonable £25 for two hours of steaming in variously aroma-ed rooms and bathing in the thermal rooftop pool. Bliss. Sadly, the festival is taking a break next year but ink it into your 2013 diary right now. 

Here's a tumble of my Port Eliot scrapbook....

The view from our tent- no luxury yurts or winnebagos for this Fash Junior

A grandly dressed tent

Murals inside Port Eliot house

 In the Wardrobe Department where the likes of Louise Gray, Fred Butler and Piers Atkinson were on hand all weekend to provide dressing up inspiration.

Milliner Stephen Jones sketches hair designs...

And Bumble and Bumble bring them to life.

Mary Katrantzou was there to speak with Love magazine's Alex Fury about her career to date, her unique aesthetic and the triptych of dresses which she created after a visit to Port Eliot house with Sarah Mower.

Sarah Mower (in Katrantzou jacket), Alex Fury (in Katrantzou trousers), Mary Katrantzou and Port Eliot's organiser, Cathy St Germans. They are posing with three of the four Warren sisters (Octavia, Aggy, Imogen and Bea) who modelled some of Mary's dresses during the talk.

Mary's triptych of dresses hanging inside Port Eliot house

The estate has a beautiful orangery which ousted the festival's Michael Howells curated flower show. Entrants were asked to celebrate the Jubilee and/or the Olympics...

 The main Park Stage where plenty of evening action took place...

Mobile tea dancing- a man with a car and a boom box travelling around the site hosting mini tea dances. The One Minute Disco was also hugely popular and by Sunday people were running towards it as they saw the van coming to blast out a tune for 60 seconds at a time all around the festival site.

 

 Silk printing and plate decorating in the Anthropolgie tent...

A word of warning, there are children everywhere at Port Eliot. If you're adverse to their presence at festivals, this one's not for you. Many of them were to be found rolling in the mud baths which appeared at low tide...

TRENDING: ANY DRESS AS LONG AS IT'S RED

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large.

London Fashion Week is just about over for another season- it's Menswear day tomorrow. The FashEd and I are back at our desks, drinking our first decent cup of tea for days AND chatting about what we need to tell you about AW12. We've got lots up our sleeves, but one of my personal fashion week obsessions has been The Red Dress.

I'm not going to say anything stupid like 'the LRD is the new LBD' but I definitely feel like a red dress might be an important part of our wardrobe next Autumn. These are my stand out red dresses from LFW AW12... from the brightest scarlett through to the most sumptuous dark blood.

Overblown peonies at Jonathan Saunders

Sheer with leather trim at Christopher Kane 

Typewriters, flowers... and more at Mary Katrantzou

Embossed velvet at McQ Alexander McQueen

HOW NEWGEN TOPSHOP T-SHIRTS HELPED SAVE LONDON FASHION WEEK

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

When I first started out in this career in 1996 Topshop wasn't the fashion hero it is today. Designers moaned about how high street stores like Topshop copied their ideas without paying for them. And they were right to moan. High street stores did copy, often brazenly. For designers, the high street was the Big Bad Wolf come to gobble them up.

Back in 1998 two visionary women working at Topshop decided to see if they could reverse the dynamic. Jane Shepherdson, then Brand Director of the store (now CEO of Whistles) and Sarah Mower MBE, esteemed American Vogue fashion critic and nowAmbassador for Emerging Talent for the BFC was then Fashion Director of Arcadia Group. They had the bright idea to invite designers to collaborate with the store, giving them the opportunity to reach new consumers and make money to help grow their businesses. Topshop also part sponsored their catwalk shows.

"Young designers had zero tolerance of the high street and it was my mission to make sure that [if they collaborated with Topshop] they wouldn't be raped [by the experience]. Over  my dead body," Sarah Mower, told me this morning. "Among the first designers we worked with were Hussein Chalayan and Clements Ribeiro.  We had a dream that London would become the world number one centre for emerging talent. Today when I look at the number of people that have come though NewGen, like Christopher Kane, Erdem and Jonathan Saunders, I feel we have achieved that."

Spookily enough, while researching further into this story I came across a piece I wrote in 1998 in the Independent about the advent of Topshop's work with young designers. (I worked at the Indy as fashion writer from 1996-1999.)

In 2002, seeing further mileage (and now doubt enjoying its rehabilitated image as the saviour of young designers, rather than the usurper) Topshop began its headline sponsorship of the NEWGEN program. Today it not only sponsors NewGen, but also Fashion East and it has created the Topshop Show Space at London Fashion Week, which offers a free venue and production for the hottest young British designers. This brings us neatly to the photos you see here, the store's way of celebrating their 10 years of supporting NewGen.

On February 17th on the first day of London Fashion Week, Topshop owner Philip Green is scheduled to do a presentation that will outline his plans for his next ten years of fashion industry support.  Also on the 17th these T-shirts launch in-store and online at topshop.com. In the meantime enjoy 10 of the 20 £30 T-shirts shot by Scott Trindle on a selection of new models (all profits go to homeless charity Centrepoint) and decide which one/s you want to get your hands on. I love the Erdem, Chris Kane and Mary Katrantzou tees... What about you? You can catch the other 10 T's in this weekend's edition of The Times.

                                                                        Francesca wearing JW Anderson

Ashleigh wearing Erdem

Mia wears Marios Schwab

Grace wears Christopher Kane

Georgina wears Jonathan Saunders

Sara wears Peter Jensen 

Olga wears Meadham Kirchhoff

Agnes wears Holly Fulton

Natasha wears Mary Katrantzou

Jaz wears Roksanda Ilincic