Mary Katrantzou Spring Summer 2012 Review

Trying to prove that she’s not a one trick print pony Mary Katrantzou pushed her craft further this season with some cool result. Just because she’s doing prints doesn’t mean that she needs to do streamlined, unobstructed shapes that show those prints to their best advantage. The opening look was strong. It was a sleeveless mini dress with a crew neck done in a painterly, abstract red, white and black print. At one side of the hem there was a trail of silk-like fabric with the same print. It was quite pretty. Then a trio of similar looks rolled out with longer trails of printed silk. The colours were bright, punchy and the silhouette was sex.
The prints were pretty amaze. I couldn’t even make out what most of them were and it annoyed me- in a good way. I saw a duck and I saw a bubble that had a man sitting on a bench in a garden. That sounds like I’m describing an acid trip.
Katrantzou took the printing further by employing different fabrics rather than just silk. There was a woven jacquard-ish looking fabric and there were knit pieces as well that from afar look like a print but up close, no, they were knits. There was also a plastic-like fabric that looked like tablecloth fabric you’d buy off the roll from Spotlight. It was good. It’s so hard to tell what she’s manipulating so to her credit she’s stepping shit up and it’s like you are fucking amazing let’s make babies. We’ll have twins and name them Freja Beha Erichsen-No-Trends- Katrantzou and Kelly Mittendorf-No-Trends-Katrantzou.

This baby looks like she had a stroke.

Baby has chemo written all over her. Or is that wrap just a cover for the male pattern baldness she inherited from me? Either way the colours are so on-trend for spring 2012.

 

If you're not familiar with Patrice from 30 Rock then you need to pick up your face girl

Christopher Kane Spring Summer 2012 Review

 Above centre: look 5. No.

I don’t know about this collection. Couture meets sports. Americans have been doing this for years. I loved his earlier stuff because it looked more experimental and now that he’s a got a following I’m gonna take a stab and say he’s trying to be more commercial and tone down the crazy a bit. But he’s always been fairly commercial anyway so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
 As far as first looks go the collection is simple. I know that it’s not upon closer inspection but I think it still looks basic and well, boring. The 60’s shapes were a snooze. There were nice cuts thanks to some expert pattern making and they fit quite nicely with what other designers such as Prabal Gurung are doing. There were plenty of splits and slices but it was all too rigid and looked uncomfortable to wear.
The knitwear. No. The fit was terrible and why would anyone buy this when they can get something similar from an op shop for a dollar? If it’s knit from the tears of an arctic fox then I’ll make an exception, otherwise it’s just merino wool cricket attire.
I love the ideas in this collection what I don’t like is the execution. There were flowers that looked like giant stickers and they were rimmed in reflective silver, just like something you’d find at a stationery shop. The sandals were amazing. Like high fashion tourist slides, perfect for the beach and then buying cheap cocktails that get served in a bucket and then you drink too much and then someone offers you drugs and you’re all like well I am on holiday so I should live a little so you do and then you wake up in a urine-soaked hammock on the beach. Potentially awkward but you've got your Christopher Kane slides so whatever fuck you.

Look five is one of the ugliest jackets I’ve seen. There was the double split skirt which has popped up in a few collections and I loved it. Then it got all old school 50’s couture with Swarovski crystals. Meh. Took 45 hours to bead that top? Meh. And the oversized lapel-like shapes. Blargh. Do not want. Any woman with tits can cross that off their list. Fingers crossed Jade Parfitt will be on hand to slink into it. I just don’t know. I think I need to let this one simmer a bit more because there’s potential that in a month I’ll take back everything bad I said about it and then brand it a triumph.

Burberry Prorsum Spring Summer 2012 Review

 Above: Gettin some Marc Jacobs vibez. That skirt/shirt combo centre is flawless

 Above: The centre coat is giving me 90's memories of sack tops worn by bogans. It would usually have a Jim Beam print on the front. Stay classy 90's. 

Above from left: The below the knee skirt with buttons and pleats oh my!, centre: Giving me mass Proenza vibez but it's less tricky. Right: That shrunken jacket is parfait. I want one. I want ten.

Coincidentally, Burberry Prorsum looked like a culmination of ideas from some of the New York collections. I was seeing Proenza Schouler (the colours, the stripes, Rodarte (that cutaway skirt) and Marc Jacobs (poufy prom dress shapes).

It was an easily digestible trend: Tribal. I'm sure there was a specific artist or whatever that inspired Bailey but at the end of the day the consumer doesn't see that, they just see tribal. Thank god he let go of the studded, spiky jacket thing he did for far too long in seasons past.

Sorry if these London reviews are short and scarce. I think I'll try and do a condensed overview of what I liked eg. those Teva sports sandals at Christopher Kane. Deying/creying.

BRING ON MILAN

Tripped Out Royals

We all know what it’s like to slave away at something for hours only to have people be like, oh yeah that’s nice. Inside you’re like that took fucking hours you cunt. That’s what I felt when I looked at Christopher Kane’s Spring 2011 show.

The inspiration was Princess Margaret in her youth on acid or a royal on crack. This appeared to be the inspiration for 80% of the collection and the other 20% went to tattooed yakuza wives.

There were skirts and jackets in laser-cut leather and they just didn’t quite impress even though they should have. Not only did they not sit well but they looked reminiscent of those plastic tablecloths you buy off the roll at Spotlight.* You’ve got this jacket and it’s like ooh, intricate, delicate leather but no, sorry, tablecloth jacket. From 2002.
Things improved though when Kane sent out trippy neon lace dresses with beautiful knife pleat details.
The pleating appeared heavily throughout the show and it looked flawless particularly on the dresses and a neon yellow blouse.
The biggest problem I have with this collection is I feel like Kane started off with an idea that wasn’t thoroughly expanded upon. I also don’t feel that enough of the clothes screamed buy me and they should have. A neon twin-set should leap out and smack you square in the face but it didn’t. Why is that?**
These clothes needed bags too. Everything was so lady-like that the overall look felt bare and unfinished. A batshit crazy nana handbag would’ve been perfect but Christopher Kane the brand (and the designer too) is young and leather goods are a few years off. Hopefully not too far though. Perhaps a little help from Kane’s fairy godmother Donatella Versace will get the accessories ball rolling.


Ps, I totes would’ve taken Princess Anne over Margaret ANY. DAY.

*Turns out the leather was vinyl coated to make it pleather-esque. Isn't he wicked?
**Because I’m an overcritical wankface. But I fucking love Christopher Kane. Spring 2009? It was pretty very.

pps, another reference in the collection was Cyberdog, hence the neons.

Jonathan Saunders

I love colour-blocking so I tend to automatically love a Jonathan Saunders collection because it's becoming his forte. The choice of colours were nice particularly the yellow with the dove grey. The clothes though, well they're really not worth writing home about. Shirts with sporty raglan sleeves, box pleat tennis skirts blah blah, all familiar shapes, completely wearable and non-threatening. Actually I did like the full cut of the sleeves on the shirts which is something that popped up at Prada too.

Michael Van Der Ham

This is Michael Van Der Ham's third collection and the clothes look like they have multiple personality disorder. Or maybe Frankenstein's wardrobe. In a good way. It's like different dresses reconfigured to make something new. So instead of wearing just one dress with say, a cute print, you get 3 or 4 dresses with lots of varying details. You're getting the best of each dress.
It's something that's been done before by other designers, I'm sure I've seen this type of thing at Moschino but Van Der Ham is more painterly with his colours and textures. Unfortunately the clothes lacked polish but I put that down to being a young designer who's just started and probably has very little money. With the right backers he could go far. One of the highlights of London.

Repetitive at Christopher Kane

Fall 2010 was highly repetitive and was a series of variations on the same outfit: a neat-fitting dress. This dress came with long sleeves, short sleeves and no sleeves. It came with a two piece collar, a two piece collar with placket or no collar at all. It was the same dress with the same fit.

These were done in either black leather, patent leather and black lace or a combination of all three. It was all quite boring really. Beautiful but tedious. Usually florals soften a look but in Kane’s case they didn’t. Embroidered sprays of flowers appeared on various parts of the clothes such as collars, cuffs and breasts.

I’m not sure if he was short on ideas or just metering them out to make a bold statement.

Though it was cool it just didn’t grab me like his other collections such as spring 09. It wasn’t as disappointing as spring 2010 but it was pretty close.

JONATHAN SAUNDERS SPRING 2010

Saunders is back with more colour-blocking, this time in baby blue, pink and faun.
Some daywear pieces looked clunky and either weren’t finished well or the fabric wasn’t right for the look. The white jacket with sheer sleeves was a bit of a mess and a jacket with a blue and white cube print looked amateurish.
However, a faun dress with a geometric pink insert was sexy and chic. The insert had sets of studs tracing the lines of the insert’s print. It sounds more complex than it looks and I’m not really explaining it very well. There was a beautiful saltwater taffy coloured dress with a simple frill and a curling device under a slip that gave it bounce.
I think Saunders works better with more fluid fabrics like silk. These were his stronger pieces.

ROKSANDA ILINCIC SPRING 2010

Ilincic was feeling the 40’s for spring. There was plenty of champagne silk and lame goddess gowns with pumped up shoulder pads that weren’t quite worthy of Margiela.

The collection had more simplified and streamlined looks than her previous work yet it didn’t manage to look effortless. Some draped pieces at the beginning lacked finesse and were a tad over-wrought. There were black feathers worked into some pieces but they just looked wrong. There were echoes of Fortuny in the pleating of a skirt which looked beautiful and an oversized black wool jacket looked smart.

TWENTY8TWELVE

Savannah Miller, sibling of Sienna is the head designer of Twenty8Twelve. For spring there was a grungy 90’s theme with hideous 90’s sun-bleached denim jackets, headscarves, rosary beads, bustiers, loads of mid-riff and a tropical punch print romper. It was fun and youthful.

PAUL SMITH SPRING 2010

Spring for Paul Smith was all about dapper gals who have gone a bit mad with striking colours. Mustard, rust, wine and bark were just a few of the colours on show. Natty suits and blazers opened the show then moved through to a flea market bazaar of print: Liberty, leopard, and checkerboard. Cardigans were haphazardly draped around the body as if they’d paid a visit to Grey Gardens. The finale was Smith’s signature wild stripes in every colour imaginable. The whole collection was so quintessentially British in it’s eccentricities that it was refreshing to see a designer having some fun.