hilkat

For a day out with my other half and our Boy, I decided to go casual - ripped jeans and a sleeveless kaftan, covered by a menswear cardigan from Primark and finished off with my slouchy studded bag and flat black boots seemed perfect for rolling about in the park and trekking round the shops looking for birthday presents (yes, I know you’re reading this, and no, I’m not giving away what I bought. Ha!). As always there were purchases galore and many, many photo opportunities - both signs of a cracking day out.

I discovered shoe-supernova Mai Lamore a couple of weeks ago in magazine (Harpers? Vogue? I forget which…) and was so enthralled by her quirky designs and sculptural detailing that I had to find out more. From the website, I learned that Lamore grew up in the African Republic, and was blessed with a vivid imagination and a love of stories from the outset. A particularly inspirational tale, it would seem, involved her Grandmother, and a pair of fantastical sandals made of jewel-set gold pieces - looking at the collections, it’s easy to see that Lamore has weaved the finer details of the stories into her design process.

The website in itself is an experience - the quirky images and interactive pages (on the ‘biography’ page, the painted lady follows your cursor with her eyes, and if you happen to roll over her red lips, she’ll blow you a kiss) make for a memorable visit, and that’s without even viewing the shoes. Lamore works in both haute couture and RTW lines, both architecturally genius-like, and both equally covetable. My particular favourites are the white lightning-strike heeled boots and the fantastic feathered creations that drew me to the website in the first place.

Haute Couture

Ready-To-Wear

Ever since I saw the studded boots on the Topshop website (not to mention the numerous designers that used them in their AW09 collections), I have been coveting a pair like mad. Sadly I am a) broke as a broke thing and b) a tightwad that refuses to pay £80 for a pair of boots. I just physically can’t hand over that much cash for one item (even though technically boots count as two, I suppose) and I don’t believe in credit cards since I had a little bit of trouble back in my teenage years, that involved a long period of grovelling to the parents.

So once again, I am left to the power of the DIY. After the success of the home-studded bag, I decided to recycle a pair of battered old brown boots that frankly, have been looking a little less than on-trend lately. I’m pretty pleased with the outcome, and even more pleased that I’ve now got yet another pair of ‘new’ shoes.

I’ve been a little post-lite on the outfit front lately, simply because I’ve hit a style slump. I’m feeling particularly uninspired, and crazy clashing prints really aren’t me - I’ve always been more of a rock / grunge gal I suppose, with a few trendy titbits thrown in for good measure. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’ve got a stubborn collection of weight around my midriff left from the Boys time on The Inside (aka the fashion nightmare that was pregnancy) and the same seems to be going on around the hip area. Pre-Boy I was a size 8, so looking in the mirror to see curves all over the place makes me feel slightly baffled, I suppose. The fact that I work exactly two minutes from a Krispy Kreme stand doesn’t help matters in the slightest.

Anyway, this was yesterdays outfit - I’m actually wearing a skirt under the t-shirt, but because of the odd way I’m standing it looks a touch like shorts. It’s not. I don’t do shorts. Anyway, it’s all rather straightforward and unimaginative. It is, however, a good excuse to peer through my fingers while wailing “I haven’t got anything to weeeeeaaarrrrr, I’m so faaaaaaat” at the other half while he rolls his eyes and agrees to a shopping trip. Every cloud, as they say.

The winner of the Most Inventive Ad Campaign AW09 without a doubt must be awarded to Hussein Chalayan. Rather than resorting to high gloss photographs and airbrushed imagery, Chalayan has combined his development and construction notes and sketches with images of the final garment, giving the viewer a more rounded experience.

For a more in-depth article and analysis of the campaign, visit fashion wondersite lexposure.net.

Sundays are all about comfort, and you don’t get much more comfortable than my outfit for the park in the afternoon - the purple tunic is actually a size 16, so the result is a rather wonderful amount of volume, particularly when combined with a pair of lovely black jersey harems. I suppose I could have followed the traditional ‘large-top-small-bottoms’ rule, but as you know by now, conforming just isn’t my bag. I love the shape of the tunic as well, the tailored points almost hidden by the flow of the lines but just visible at certain angles.

In an earlier post I said I’d got round to buying some Doc Martens for the winter (in the tReds sale, Cheapy McCheap Cheap, hurrah), and I realised last night that I’d never even posted a picture. So here are the red-lovelies, not quite broken in, hence the photo of them on my bedroom floor and not my feet.

This is a pretty big deviation from the type of posts I usually do - but my personal style and sartorial interests cover such a great range that I tend to follow whims and go through phases… clashing colours one week, nineties grunge the next, with some grown-up chic thrown in for good measure. I do have a preoccupation with anything vintage, however (I mean real vintage, 1920s and 30s, not an old t-shirt from the eighties), and the reading habit I got into at university stuck - I’m often immersed in great costume tomes, full of colour or black and white plates, wishing I’d been there, or had been given the chance to handle just one of those magnificent gowns. The early twentieth century and the following years were a great time for fashion and art - changes were abound, and the world was evolving rapidly, both economically and socially.

Paul Poiret, Elsa Schiaparelli and Charles Doucet all have one thing in common: aside from the fact that they were some of the greatest couturiers the world has ever known, they all enjoyed a great deal of notoriety. Even to this day, when asked about the big guns of the early twentieth century, few people will utter the word, “Vionnet” as a reply, which leaves me quite baffled. I first began researching Madeleine Vionnet while working on an essay at university, and it’s been a subject I’ve remained interested in ever since - how can anyone not be interested in the woman who single handedly revolutionised the way women dressed by inventing the bias cut?

Madeleine Vionnet began her career working under the instruction of Parisien couturier Jacques Doucet in 1907, and after five years branched out on her own and began experimenting with fabric, it’s properties and it’s relationship with the human body. Using the vastly radical draping method, she approached her designs considering them as structural and engineering projects, rather than simply cutting the fabric and then stitching it together. Unlike her predecessors, Vionnet was consumed with the desire to accentuate and celebrate the female form, rather than hiding and reshaping it through the use of corsets and bustles - she was quoted as once saying, “the rectangle of fabric, when it is well chosen, is better for making the human form emerge. The angles form exterior parts which, in falling, rise up upon themselves in tiers and sinuous falls, giving the body an outline of the happiest effect, an accompaniment which is brilliant and rich but without superfluity.”

Finally, in 1922, Vionnet engineered a sartorial discovery that would change the fashion industry forever. Her single handed invention of the bias cut involved the fabric being cut across the grain rather than with it, resulting in a piece of material that would fall into a smooth shape against the body, before being moulded into the flowing folds that she so loved. Fabric was commissioned two yards wider than usual, to allow for the draping, and she used techniques such as diagonal seaming to create garments that would fit sympathetically to the body - she was in fact quoted on the subject, saying, “the dress must not hang on the body but follow its lines. It must accompany the wearer, and when a woman smiles the dress must smile with her.”

I find it absolutely mystifying as to why Vionnet doesn’t attract the same level of fame as her design counterparts - she transformed the way women clothed themselves and changed the direction of fashion forever. She used ground-breaking methods and personal inspirations to create garments which finally celebrated the female form and revolutionised the relationship between the dress and the body.

Until the end of January 2010, there is the wonderful opportunity to view some of Vionnet’s breathtaking designs at the Musee Des Arts Decoratif in Paris. The Madeleine Vionnet: Fashion Purist exhibition runs until 31st January 2010, and showcases her major works between 1912 and 1939, all fully restored. I am currently sans passport, but am heading to the post office first thing on Monday morning to fill out the forms - the exhibition started in June, and I’ve decided that I can’t possibly miss it. Susan Tabak, owner of one of my favourite Paris-related blogs, Chic in Paris, visited the exhibition and posted this excellent video, which only made me more determined to get there in person.

When it comes to ad campaigns, I don’t really have a preference for style as long as the photographs are well shot and the concept is memorable. I’ve already blogged about how charming I found the Stella McCartney AW09 campaign, and at the other end of the scale appears the gritty, grainy, minimalistic images courtesy of Miu Miu.

What I like most about the style chosen by the team behind Mrs. Prada is that it is literally all about the clothes. The models have been reduced to androgynous subtlety, the brief clearly being not to detract from the main focus - the garments. The neutral tones and high contrast imagery fix themselves to the memory, making sure that you remember what’s really important - that sumptuously tailored woolen winter coat and the thick chain-handled padded bag.