Fashionable Furnishings

 

 

A rising star on the runway for two years now, Mary Katrantzou’s Ceci n’est pas une chambre collection for SS11 was quite literally picture perfect. Images scanned straight from the pages of Architectural Digest and World of Interiors were digitally printed in all their high-life luxury upon a parade of dresses, capturing crystal-clear swimming pools, sprawling gardens and palatial parlours in pleasingly polite pastels of baby pink, mint and duck-egg blue. 

Simply put, the concept was just so…clever. Where photography had flattened the architecture into two dimensions, trompe l’oeil prints played at bringing it back to life. But there's more! Katrantzou then took things full circle, decorating her dresses with physical furnishings - candelabra necklaces, billowing chiffon curtains and, best of all, structured skirts modelled on the most kitsch lampshades you’re likely to find outside of the designer’s native Greece. 

Such hyperrealism isn’t just art for art’s sake though – much like its inspiration, René Magritte’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe, Katrantzou’s re-imagined interiors cast a fresh eye over familiar objects and play with our perceptions of them. Seventies soft furnishings are suddenly seen as objects of beauty, and surprisingly wearable to boot. A room of one’s own? If only...

Tilda Swinton: The Thinking Girl's Fashion Icon

Strapless? Er, no. Smothered in Swarovski crystals? Not a sparkle in sight. Sun-kissed glow? What is this ‘sun’ you speak of?

So what's left? Let's see. Slicked-back choirboy hair, demi-couture Jil Sander skirt, crisp white shirt, furrowed brow. Now THAT’s what I call a cool approach to Golden Globes glamour. 

Strange Fruits

Fashion is a strange fruit, straddling a strange dichotomy. It prescribes what people should wear whilst celebrating personal expression: clothes are at once a reflection of self and a reflection of season. But when it all boils down to it, which is it really? As February’s issues of Vogue, Elle and Harper’s thud softly through letterboxes this week, stacked full of SS11 trend guides, does studying them signal an act of individual interest or one of sheep-like compliance? 

Skeptics seize upon the latter description, scorning seasonal shifts in what is considered stylish as the workings of a mob mentality. Yet fashion insiders have always insisted upon the former, fashion as self-expression, adamant that what they wear is never anything but personal preference. Alexa Chung declares, “I’m not very good with trends. I don’t really know what’s in or out.” But with such pledges of non-allegiance, of unaffected originality in the face of current fashions, where can trends ever come into the equation?

Herein lies what it means to be fashionable today – it’s the trick of being both seen and unseen, to become a part of the crowd whilst at the same time setting oneself apart from it. Chung slips on a new-season Christopher Kane dress, aligning herself with those who can recognise the designer and trend it belongs to, but then diverts the look from its expected editorial direction with a personal twist, a battered men's briefcase or a grandma knit. This roundabout route is the road to fashion itself: an insiders-outsiders club of non-conformity, where entry begins with a trend and ends with the individual. We may all start in the same place each season, with the same magazines and shows and clothes, but where we might end up is a different, far-reaching matter entirely. 

So as a little inspiration for your own individual mapping of the coming season, take a look at these gems from the legendary Japanese street-style magazine, Fruits. Shot by Shoichi Aoki throughout the ‘90s, the resulting book, also called Fruits, is a cornucopia of the weird and wonderful, and one which shows that caring about fashion is never about following, and always about having fun: sheep we are most definitely not. 

 

 

 

Theyskens' Theory

 

 

 

 

Impossibly flat stomachs slanted skywards, naval-grazing T-shirts draped just so and a blissful blank canvas of clothes to choose from. Could anything be more appealing after a month of so much excess? Although minimalism was already established as one of AW10’s most coveted looks, Olivier Theyskens’ debut collection as Artistic Director of Theory somehow manages to make the trend that much cooler for SS11. It’s less elegant, more urban, and a whole lot more wearable than autumn’s pristine palette and don’t-touch-me tailoring. You could take a ride on the Tube in those perfectly slouched pants without last season's forensic fear of dirtying your just-dry-cleaned camel coat. It isn’t loud, but it’s certainly a collection that Theyskens should be very proud of. I’ll be having one of everything, please. 

American Vogue Goes East

The Cecil Beaton original, as featured in Vogue in 1948

There was a small flurry of criticism last month over a US Vogue December feature on Far-East Asia’s supermodels in the making. Entitled Asia Major, the controversy came in the subheading, “A new crop of models from China, Japan and South Korea is redefining traditional concepts of beauty”, where “traditional concepts of beauty" were placed in opposition to the models evidently ‘exotic’ appeal.

It's a disappointing thing for US Vogue to compartmentalise the growing prominence of Asian models into a curiosity of fashion rather than a fact, makeup artist Dick Page adding in the feature that “It’s mostly economics […] Everybody in the fashion/beauty industry recognizes the importance of global markets, and currently, China, Taiwan, and South Korea are at the forefront. The upshot is that customers want to see some version of themselves represented.” Drawing this kind of conclusion pinpoints the popularity of Asian models as an inevitability of economy rather than a mark of fashion’s increasing diversity, serving only to further sever the models from any valid connection with Western fashion other than one of profit.

Whilst the results of the shoot, photographed by Steven Meisel, are undeniably stunning – a baroque-and-roll tableau inspired by a 1948 Cecil Beaton portrait, where Grace Coddington mixed aristocratic Oscar de la Renta gowns with spiky mohawks and macaroons – it’s also undeniable that there’s something uncomfortably uniform about the way the models have been styled. With identikit makeup and perfectly poised facial expressions, there’s simply no interest in the individual in the way there would have been had it been an editorial involving Rosie, Karlie and Lindsey rather than Hyun, Tao and Liu. Interestingly, US Vogue still has yet to feature an Asian model on its front cover. 

So in celebration of Asian individuality, I leave you with Tokyo-born Tao Okamoto – who else could nail cool-as-ice androgyny better than this? It almost makes me long for a pudding-bowl Beatles haircut myself. Ok, maybe not. 

 

 

Christian Dior's Couture Cuts

 

It may have been rather literal in the rendering, but by God it was beautiful. John Galliano's Fall 2010 collection for Christian Dior Couture saw fashion and fantasy collide in an effervescent flower-bomb of frocks, with dip-dyed silks draped petal-like upon the models and heads shrink-wrapped in cellophane courtesy of Stephen Jones. The inspiration was plain to see - a study in floral form that grew into a bouquet of gowns so exquisitely true to life, so vibrant and verdant, that they seemed freshly cut from Galliano's personal garden. A pure and unadulterated tribute to nature’s own sartorial show-offs, and one that, for me, captured the very essence of haute couture.

See some of the looks in motion in SHOWstudio’s behind-the-scenes video of Nick Knight’s shoot for AnOther Magazine, Dynamic Blooms:

SHOWstudio is also currently featuring an exhibition on foliate still-lifes, Florist, at its Mayfair gallery, running until 13th January 2011. Find out more here, and for now feast your eyes on these beauties:

Irving Penn's still-life portraits:

Ori Gersht's Exploding Flowers:

Make Mine A Mulligan

2010 was the year when fashion fell in love with Carey Mulligan. Whatever that elusive ‘It’ is that some stars naturally possess, Carey's Prada pockets runneth over with. Perhaps it lies in the combination of spirited youthfulness and beyond-her-years wisdom that served her so well in 2009’s coming-of-age film An Education. Or maybe it’s that schoolgirl smile of mischief that appears from behind the bike shed, bored and boisterous, at red-carpet events and photo shoots. But on top of all that, it’s her charming sense of style that really cements her status as Britain's brightest young thing.

What's likeable about Carey is that she’s so much more than a clothes horse: there’s an unpretentious delight in the way she works designer gear, like one playing dress up rather than just dressing up. Who else would wear a cutlery-encrusted prom dress to the Oscars? Or rock a mauve Miu Miu mini amongst a sea of floor-sweeping gowns at the Met Ball? Carey's sartorial choices shy away from the usual fake-tan-and-tits territory (just try and imagine her bandaged up in an Hervé Léger body-con number) and instead keep us guessing with quirky, contemporary designs that never take themselves too seriously. Carey, you are hereby crowned 2010's Queen of Cool. Here are her red-carpet highlights from the past year:

Next up for Carey is a starring role opposite Keira Knightley in the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, released this February. If you've read the book you'll agree that the plot's pretty grim, set in a dystopian alternative reality with few laughs to lift a love story that’s sodden with sadness. Will I go and see it anyway? Hell yes – there’s nothing that Mulligan grin can’t conquer. Take a look at the trailer below...

Nicole Richie's Marchesa Meringue

Admittedly, I’m biased - I’ve had a stalker-like style crush on Nicole Richie ever since she launched her delectable House of Harlow 1960 jewellery line in a perfectly pitched silk frock and swathes of black and gold accessories. But you’ve got to hand it to her, the Marchesa dress she wore for her winter nuptials to Joel Madden last week is the most adorable thing to grace the celebrity-wedding aisle in a long time. It’s a meringue! And a surprisingly chic one at that, given the usually negative connotations associated with looking like a pudding on your big day. 

Taking inspiration from the long-sleeved lace dress that Grace Kelly wore to her own wedding in 1956, apparently more than 100 yards of silk-organza and tulle was ruched and ruffled and ravished to create that mother of a mille-feuille skirt. And this is only the first out of three Marchesa gowns that Richie wore on the day – the third has yet to be seen, but the second (see below) was a hand-embroidered affair with a delicate, lace-trimmed spine adorning the exposed back. In the words of her ex-stylist and calorie-counting companion Rachel Zoe, I die!