LFW SS13: SAY HELLO TO BRAZIL'S FAVOURITE DESIGNERS

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

The next few days are, quite rightly, all about British design- that's what London Fashion Week is all about. But there was room for an international slant this morning as The Shop at Bluebird launched 'Brazil Rising', a pop up boutique showcasing some of the South American superpower's most popular designers. Brazil native Lucas Nascimento will be showing for the first time as a NEWGEN participant this season while Charlotte Dellal, whose Mother Andrea hails from Rio, runs her much loved Charlotte Olympia shoe label from London. Add to that the fact that we have just passed the Olympic baton to Rio and it seems an ideal time to check out what Brazilian girls love to wear.

It was Alice Ferraz,  a major player on the Brazillian fashion scene PR-ing over 70 brands, who decided she had to bring a taste of what everyone around her was wearing to London. She told me at this morning's launch that she "scoured all of London's shops on a trip about two years ago. I loved all the department stores but The Shop at Bluebird was really special space where anything we did wouldn't get lost". Ferraz approached Paul Baptiste, The Shop at Bluebird's Operations Manager, who loved the idea. And so, "Brazil Rising" was born. 

Brazilian fashion power player Alice Ferraz

This project is not about giving exposure to young, emerging designers but more to give London a taste of the best of Brazil's fashion offering as well as show off style done the Brazilian way which is why she has brought a gaggle of bloggers from her F*Hit network. They populated this morning's gathering, chatting away in Portugese and taking photos of one another in their head-to-toe designer looks. With the coconut drinks and fruit on sticks, you could have been mistaken for thinking this was a particularly bustling Brazilian store rather than the first morning of London Fashion Week.

 The labels Ferraz  has chosen, including beachwear designer Adriana Degreas and slinky, sequinned cocktail dress creator Barbara Bela, all have a very "Brazillian" look- think skimpy, colourful and very glamorous indeed. But there are definitely some great pieces which translate for the London girl. Patricia Viera's painted leather collection is spirited and unusual, like wearing a tattoo. Plus it comes in great shapes like these scuba shorts. I reckon the Rio girl would wear these with heels and a bikini, but they'd be just as great with hi-tops and and a tee mooching through a London park. I noticed Charlotte Dellal cooing over Viera's laser cut skirt too.

Shorts by Patricia Viera

Hand painted leather shirt by Patricia Viera

Ferraz really wanted to show off the skills of Brazil's artisans which are so embraced by the country's fashion folk. Enter silky, crocheted jumpers and dresses made using ancient techniques by Vanessa Montoro (retailing at around £1000) and couture lace creations by Martha Medeiros who eschews a factory set-up by employing 250 craftsmen from villages across the North East of Brazil. The environmentally conscious theme continues with Osklen, a brand which has set up Instituto E to research eco fabrics. They have created a new kind of leather from salmon skin which would otherwise have gone to waste- I might need more convincing on that one. What's clear is that Ferraz wants to use fashion to show that Brazil can combine the pressures of a rapidly expanding economy with an eye on responsible production.

I'm not sure everything at the pop-up will appeal but there are some great pieces in the mix. What's more, this is the first time that any of these labels have been available to buy in the UK. Time for a visit to The Shop at Bluebird?

Martha Medeiros lace creations. There's a great skirts for around £300

Osklen's collection, apparently inspired by the UN's Agenda 21

Leafy prints from Adriana Degreas

Crochet by Vanessa Montoro

Brilliant printed trousers by Andrea Marques

The Brazil Pop-up shop will run until 28th September at The Shop at Bluebird

TIME FOR NEW SHOES

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Today is A-level results day which strikes fear into anyone under the age of 18 (crap, that could be me one day) and evokes strong memories for anyone who did the exams. As with many of my memories, A-level results involved a pair of shoes. The day after I found out I'd got into the university I didn't want to go to, I went on a very hungover shopping trip with my Mum and she bought me a pair of nearly thigh high suede lace up pirate boots as a reward for my efforts. Rewind to GCSE results and an abiding recollection is a pair of pink and grey striped stilettos with a huge pink bow on the front- another reward for hard-earned grades. Although my tastes were questionable, these are far more pleasant markers in my personal footwear history than the annual trip to my school's appointed shoe shop which would happen at this time each year, like clockwork, from the age of five to sixteen. It was a hugely painful wrangle to confront the fact that I had yet another year ahead of me in my regulation flat, black, boring lace-ups.

Thankfully times have changed and six years on from A-level results, the Startrites which punctuated my younger years have been replaced by much more exciting options. It is pretty obvious from my browsing, and eventual edit, that footwear is rather glitzy right now- think studs, full on metallic and more glitter from Miu Miu- I swear they're keeping the small bits of sparkle stuff industry in the black. The big game changer is glitz for day- it's now fine for trainers, everyday boots and the like to be just as blinged up as their evening counterparts. There's always further to go in the world though and I feel like I'm perhaps half way up my personal shoe Everest, at the top of which lies the most impractical, out of this world awesome and super expensive footwear- some sort of custom made Laurence Dacade/ Celine with a dash of Nicholas Kirkwood? The shoes below are also fantasies, of course. Unless by some freak of nature I pass an A-level in "Magicing from Nowhere Lots of Shoe Money". Something to work on, Michael Gove?

Giuseppe Zanotti at STYLEBOP £780

ACNE at Browns £440

Miu Miu at My Theresa £325

Laurence Dacade at STYLEBOP £625

Charlotte Olympia at Matches £465

Nicholas Kirkwood for Erdem £795

Esquivel at Net-a-Porter £600

ADVENT DAY 11: MIAOW WEDGES

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Tessa Wedges £625 by Charlotte Olympia

There is something about Christmas which seems to make it OK to add a comic element to our outfits. I am actually all for this year round. Animals are my favourite; you will often find me wearing owls/ horses/ fish, usually in jewellery form, somewhere about my person. Charlotte Olympia, with her kitty faced slippers, heels and wedges, has done a fine job of be-catting the feet of even the most non-humorous of fashion consumers. I've spotted many a lady in a classic black jacket, perfect blow dry, beige trousers and, incongrousouly yet perfectly, velvety shoes with cats peeping out from above.

Charlotte Olympia designer Charlotte Dellal in her Tessa wedges (image from coolspotters.com)

These Tessa wedges are the ultimate in humorous luxury. So many mega wedges now just remind me too much of a stripper shoe to face wearing myself. But those sweet whiskers and pointy ears have so much of the kitten obsessed little girl about them that they could not possibly belong to a woman who is dressing just to look 'sexy'. These are shoes for girls.

Having struggled through T.S Eliot's The Waste Land, it's always a comfort to remember that he also penned 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats', a set of poems, with lots of excellent words, which gives cats lives and personalities and which was eventually turned into 'Cats!' by Andrew Llloyd Webber. The below is from 'The Naming of Cats'.

'But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,

A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,

Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,

Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?'

And another famous literary cat, as interpreted by Tim Burton...