the classics

Sorry for the ages-long gap in blogging. I am in a bit of a fashion funk at the moment, but anyway here is a nice reminder that it's not all bad:

Evening dress (1958) by Madame Grès, silk jersey, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

There's a good little piece here on the links between classical art and fashion. In particular the wet drapery of classical sculpture is echoed in many of Grés' extraordinary designs.

Unknown artist, "Muse Terpsichore" (Roman copy of Greek original), marble, 2nd century AD, 

State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

I spent a while looking for a good example of wet draping in sculpture before settling on this one of Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance. In the sculpture the 'fabric' suggests movement and the form of the wearer's body below. Conversely, Grés' silk creation seems to do the opposite, the dress conveying a sense of deep stillness - as if hewn from marble, I guess.

And just because I can't bear not to share this image, here is another example of fabric in sculpture:

Raffaelo Monti, "Veiled Lady", c. 1860, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Gail Sorronda S/S 2013: Oh My Goth

If there's one story that'll break this little patriot's heart this week (well, a patriot as far as fashion is concerned), it'll be the tale of Tim Blanks (i.e. the world's best reviewer of contemporary fashion) and Bryan Boy (Celebrated person of some sort. This isn't about him.) being denied entry to Brisbane designer Gail Sorronda's presentation.

My god, are we trying to make ourselves appear provincial? The horror, the horror.

What makes things extra awful is that Sorronda is one of the most interesting local designers around at the moment. I would love to know what Blanks would have made of her collection, "Oh My Goth". (Not that Blanks has been particularly prolific in terms of reviews so far this week. Hey Australian Vogue, not getting your money's worth much?)

Quite the departure from her beautiful and austere black and white collection last year, Sorronda's palette this time around was all like:

Sweet but not saccharine. And though I'm no great lover of polka dots, Sorronda's manage somehow to avoid being too twee.

And quite frankly, at this point any respite from moody symmetrical florals is okay with me.

Photos stolen from Vogue.com.au

Romance Was Born S/S 2013: BERSERKERGANG

Luke Sales and Anna Plunkett presented their Spring/Summer 2012 collection on Monday this week, the product of a deal Romance Was Born inked with Marvel to gain exclusive access to the comic book behemoth's archives. Being nought but a lowly blogger, I was unable to wrangle an invite to the show this week, something I sorely regret as they clearly know how to put on a show.

In keeping with RWB's previous collections  - and especially fittingly given the Marvel connection - the show was driven primarily by print designs. Ben-Day dots were especially effective in referencing the comic book theme while remaining attractive and wearable:

Elsewhere the prints worked best when slightly abstracted, one piece bringing an unexpectedly baroque flavour to proceedings:

Romance Was Born has never had any trouble attracting column inches - the mainstream media loves a wacky designer about whom they can write tedious "What's all this crazy fashion stuff about" articles. Case in point.


The question is, do these sort of clothes sell? I for one hope so because when Romance Was Born are good, they're electric.

That said, there was some pieces in the collection that didn't pull their weight.

The inspiration for the collection being what it was, RWB were wise to mostly avoid designs that might bring to mind halloween costumery of the cheap and nasty variety. But a couple of pieces felt a a little too "Sexy Spiderman" for my liking.

And as for this piece:

Well, I kinda feel like The Blonds have a lock on this genre:

And given the impeccable fit of the New York label's garments, I'm not sure that the comparison is one that works to RWB's favour.

Photos stolen from Vogue.com.au

MBAFW predictions

So Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week is approaching (yippee!). And what better way to wile away the hours between me and April 30, than coming up with some predictions and wishes for Australian Fashion's week of weeks.

What I'd like to see:
1950s/ 60s-style uniform floral beading a la this Mainbocher... erm, leotard, I guess?

Mainbocher blouse, circa 1950, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Oh, the loveliness. For some seasons now a lot of designers have been taking a rather unsentimental approach to florals, particularly in fabric prints, wherein various blossoms have been pixelated, multiplied and generally distorted to look anything but organic. The kind of dense, repetitive beading often seen in 1960s shell tops would be a nice progression of this trend, methinks.

What I expect to see:
Mary Katrantzou-style symmetrical and digitally collaged prints.

Fall 2012 RTW, Mary Katrantzou

And to be fair, who could resist sneaking a bit of that delicious pie (...that's definitely not a phrase). Though it's worth noting that Romance Was Born have been playing with similar and similarly beautiful prints for quite some time:

Renaissance Dinasour, S/S 2010/11, Romance Was Born 

What I'd like to see:
Wide-yoke dropped waists. Not heard the term before? Well I kinda had to make it up. This is a style I've been sweet on since finding a vintage Cue dress featuring it some years ago. Unfortunately I can't find any images of the style that are both contemporary and attractive, so all aboard my time machine...

Sweet, eh? And so flattering. As I envisage it, the modern WYDW should not have as tightly nipped a waist as these from the 1940s and 50s. In fact they could act as a soothing transitional garment, gently paving the way towards the dreaded (regular) dropped waist. Speaking of which...

What I expect to see:
Diluted 1920s anything, Art deco, flappers, dropped waists, flappers, geometric beading, beauty and damnation, etc.

Chanel Haute Couture S/S 2010, photographed by Mario Sierra

Hey, I'm not complaining. Damned good era. But mark my words, designers, women are not buying it - yet.

It often astounds me to hear intelligent women describing certain styles of garments as being objectively unflattering. In my opinion, we currently see the drop waist as unflattering, or as being only suited to modelesque body types, precisely because it is not in fashion. I recall the hesitancy with which many of my friends approached the waisted silhouette when it came back into fashion (for the first time in our lives, or at least for the first time since we had actually developed waists), around 2006. It was suggested that one needed either a straight 'up and down' figure or a perfect hour glass silhouette in order to look good wearing one of those monstrously wide cinch belts that stores stocked at the time. These days the waisted silhouette is considered 'natural', feminine and universally flattering.
Don't trust your brain, ladies. It knows nothing.

All this said I think it'll be a few years yet before waists go properly out of fashion.

What I'd like to see: 
BISHOP SLEEVES (NO I WILL NOT SHUT UP ABOUT THEM, THEY ARE THE BEST.)

S/S 2012 Haute Couture, Valentino

There has been quite a bit of Gunne Saxxe/ Young Edwardian naffery wafting around for a while (helped, no doubt, by one Florence Welch). I can see the style appealing to a lot of local designers and it would nice to see it picked up. And if it is picked up, please Yahweh, let the bishop sleeve come with it. Let it billow. Let its cuffs be elongated. Let it be fire-hazard huge.

What I expect to see:
The pajama thing. Unless you're wearing these - 

Pajamas, 1939, Elizabeth Hawes,  New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

- wake me when it's over.

What I'd like to see:
Rounded shoulders created by a magyar or raglan sleeve.

Fall 2012 RTW, Jil Sander

This Balenciaga-ish style works better in thick and stiff fabrics so perhaps its a long shot for a week of Spring collections - but can't a girl dream?

vroom

Oof! I know I'm late to the party but, good gracious, Prada's Spring/Summer 2012 campaign video is nice:

Though, full disclosure, I'm a sucker for anything that features a lap steel soundtrack.

Also, I'm surprised to notice that Natasha Poly is letting the team down a bit in the video. She's so modelly. Girlfriend should stick to stills.

fairest

Apparently this stunning self-portrait by Helmut Newton is about to go up for auction:

Helmut Newton, Self-Portrait with Wife and Model, Vogue Studio, Paris, 1981

I want it.

I have been thinking about mirrors quite a lot lately (possibly due to the recent deluge of Snow White-related stuff). Did you know that during the Renaissance, French officials kidnapped some Italian mirror-makers in order to glean their mirror-making secrets? Someone make a movie of it!

Anyway I'm thinking of buying a nice little compact mirror.

This one's a little grotesque but, you know, I kinda dig that.

belters

A while back I sent out a call for a rigid metal belt, without much luck. Nowadays those babies are a dime a dozen*:

Matthew Williamson

Maison Martin Margiela

Sass and Bide, as worn by the beautiful Nicole Warne of Garry Pepper Vintage

Shakuhachi

*In a manner of speaking. There are a lot around but they're still heaps expensive. I thought capitalism was supposed to take care of this shit.

I ain't people.

Oh lordy, I just realised I've never done a Singin' In The Rain post. For shame, Pavement Frippery. I really dig Walter Plunkett's costumes not because they're beautiful (for the most part they're not, really) but because I love the idea of seeing the 1920s via the 1950s. Unsurprisingly, Plunkett sneaks in a few unlikely nipped waists and pointy busts:

One particularly spectacular scene is a fashion show-musical of sorts:

Quite a few designers have been showing drop-waists in the past couple of seasons. It seems to have accompanied the art deco trend which I think was largely ignited by the buzz around Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby remake. I personally have an enduring love for drop-waists but I'm not ready to say sayonara to my waist just yet.

Lina Lamont wins the award for best outfit with this very excellent number:

Black Velvet

Guess who just got a hold of her all-time favourite shoes?

Me! It was me! They are black velvet and red lacquer wedges, by Yves Saint Laurent (Tom Ford-era and Fall 2004 RTW, to be exact). Oooh yeah, life is good.

p.s. The feet in the photo belong to Hana Soukupova, who was apparently rocking the hairy leg look at the time. More power to her.

NSFW. Possibly just NS.

In the past week I've watched three films; feature length British horror flick The Awakening (2011), the music clip for Zebra Katz and Njena Reddd Foxxx's song, "Ima Read" and Agent Provacteur's video short, Fleurs Du Mal. Only two of them were scary.

I live in hope that one day someone will create a horror film as perfectly suited to me as The Others (2001). You know - eerily beautiful, with a good twist and strong child actors, set in the interwar period, starring Nicole Kidman... I'm not too picky, am I?

The Awakening actually ticked a fair few of those boxes, obviously borrowing from (or paying homage to) The Changeling (1980) and (like The Others) Henry James' short novel The Turn of the Screw and The Innocents (1961). Now, as sources of inspiration for horror film go, that ain't a bad bunch. Unfortunately The Awakening just doesn't lift off. I guess you can't simply reference your way into making a scary movie.

Far more freaky is this ad for undies:

Apparently its director, Justin Anderson, took inspiration from the Hammer House of Horror TV series:

Watching it I also felt the influence of Michael Haneke's Funny Games (2007, I haven't seen the original. Boo, hiss.) and the rape scene in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971). Disturbing stuff.

Finally here's the video for "Ima Read", a song which has apparently exploded since being used as the soundtrack to Rick Owens' Fall 2012 RTW show:

I'm calling it - scary is the new sexy.

Rodarte Fall 2012

Clem Bastow has written an interesting article on Rodarte's use of Aboriginal prints (or, more to the point, Aboriginal-esque prints) in their Fall 2012 collection.
It's a tricky issue but I do on the whole agree with Bastow when she says that there's no excuse to go the 'vaguely inspired' route when there are living, breathing Aboriginal artists with whom Rodarte could have collaborated. As a side note, and by some great coincidence, I have discussed Rodarte in terms of nostalgia for a national landscape before.And just to preemptively respond to an annoying counter argument that always seems to crop up, no, using fake Aboriginal prints and labelling your Made In China plastic dreamcatcher earrings 'Navajo', does not compare to the occasional fad for kilts. As far as I know there haven't been any government-sanctioned attempts to decimate Scottish culture in living memory - the same cannot be said for the Australian Aboriginal and Native American people.I must take issue with one point of Bastow's, however. She describes the collection's silhouettes as being 'Victorian-inspired'.


Babe, please. That's 1930s all over. AND ANOTHER THING. How could you write a commentary on that collection without mentioning the shoes?

Yes, those are sand bottle heels. Please Rodarte, just do more of this kind of stuff and less with the staggering cultural insensitivity.

Oh ho!

A dress from Alber Ebaz's Fall 2012 collection for Lanvin:

And its doppelgänger from Romance Was Born's Spring 2011 collection, 'The Oracle':

I'll take one of each. Cheers.

Pleasure never is at home

Dion Lee's Fall 2012 collection has earned him a really lovely review from Style.com's Maya Singer.

Personally this is not my favourite of Lee's collections to date. I kinda wish he would use less of that cute cocktail dress silhouette - I associate it with a certain breed of pretty and wealthy Sydney girls (whom I of course loath and envy) and find it detracts from the more interesting aspects of his designs.

Sheer geometric inserts recalled Versace's Spring 2011 RTW show, though I preferred the PVC used in that collection to Lee's isabelline mesh.

Versace Spring 2011

That said, Singer's review suggests that one of the collection's greatest strengths lies in Lee's innovative used of materials and I'd imagine that his are garments that you simply have to see in the flesh, so to speak.

Finally, how's this for a gorgeous appraisal of Australian fashion:

But what makes Lee really interesting, and eventually, perhaps, significant, is that his intellect doesn't work at cross-purposes to the unavoidable sexiness of his clothes. There is something deeply Australian about that: For whatever reason, designers from Oz seem to have a totally non-vexed relationship to sex and body-consciousness, and Lee embraces that, mitigating the potential aridity of his designs by integrating vampy notes.

Oh Maya, you do make a nation blush...