hilkat

Somehow, I missed the arrival of the Emma Cook footwear at Topshop, but as I like to say, it’s better to blog late than not to blog at all.

There appear to be two pairs of shoes and three pairs of boots (I didn’t include a picture of the third pair, but they’re a rather lovely zebra print if anyone’s interested), and frankly, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to choose. They all have the most fantastic wedge heel; absolutely useless for work but fine for tottering around the shops / visiting the library / doing the ironing in. As delightful as the shoes are, (beige or black? BEIGE OR BLACK?) I’m going to go for the boots, thus making them a sensible winter purchase and not yet another piece of frippery which needs to fight for it’s space in my wardrobe. As much as I love the leopard print, I have fallen ever so much in love with the burgundy pair (they match my Gap tights exactly - is this a good thing or a bad thing?) and am pleased to note they’re still available in my size. Hurrah.

Christopher Kane returns for yet another season of Topshop collaboration this winter, giving those of us who missed out on (read: couldn’t afford) the monkey t-shirts of his mainline collection a chance to grab some of the animal action with dresses and t-shirts emblazoned with the gigantic open jaws of a crocodile. (I swear, I won’t make any jokes about ’snapping up’ the pieces before they sell out… honest…) There doesn’t seem to be an awful lot to say about the pieces, really, except for how amazing they are - aside from the snap-happy croc garments, everything seems to be eyelet-ed or studded to within an inch of it’s life, tough-girl chic at it’s best. Kane has taken delicate lace and net detailed dresses, and made them spectacularly grungey, perfect when teamed with the matching eyelet leggings, or sky-high heels. The price point is, typically, not cheap but then Kane is renowned for refusing to skimp on detail or quality, even for his collaboration works.

Although Helmut Lang are my out and out favourites so far (and bare in mind we haven’t seen any of the big guns yet, but by heck, HL are going to take some beating), Preen have definitely come in a close second. According to Vogue online, the collection was inspired by early 1990s fashion, all slip-dresses, underwear as outerwear and grunge (think Kate Moss shot by Corinne Day), but was transformed and brought up-to-date with architectural detailing and blocked prints. There were some rather iffy silver trousers which Vogue harped on about, but you won’t find a picture of them here, since when I saw them, my brain went, “urrghh”, and they were automatically filed in the ‘reject’ part of my mind. Interestingly, as with BCBG Max Azria, there were several appearances of the currently omnipresent sharp shoulder - it would seem this is a trend set to run and run, which means stocking up on sculptured pieces now could be considered a definite investment for the future.
Mostly made up of garments in muted tones, blacks, whites and greys, there was an injection of colour with the pink pieces towards the end of the collection, and also the yellow shoes (a new venture for Preen), but my favourites could definitely be found amongst the blander shades and fabulous printed pieces.

I finally got round to wearing my red Doc Martens this weekend, to visit the Other Half’s relatives and to pop into town to look for a particular pair of purple boots. I didn’t find the boots, but I did manage to break in the Docs ever so slightly - I think it’s going to be a slow process, however, as I was left with pins and needles in one foot and complete loss of feeling in three toes on the other foot. But hey, at least I can walk in them now.

I also recently discovered an online image editor called Picnik, which is nothing short of marvelous. I have a free downloaded image editor called GIMP (guffaw, guffaw) which is not bad, but tends to shut itself down at the most inopportune moments. Picnik does none of this. It does, however, have a million different effects (two million if you upgrade to the pro version), which caused me to spend an hour uploading and clicking, pausing every now and then to shout, “look! I can make everything black and white except my shoes!” and, “come and see! I’m a poster!” There are also options to ‘zombify’, add blood, add a snowstorm effect and various other quirky gimmicks. Watch out for them in the future….

Just a little tiny begging-bowl style post really - I feel a bit like Oliver, asking for ‘more’, however it’s not gruel I want, it’s your feedback. I know you people are out there, simply because Google Analytics tells me that a hundred or more of you log on every day - so how about leaving me some comments, words of wisdom, or just stopping by to inform me that if I post a picture of those black wedge boots one more time, then you’ll come and steal them away in the night? (Sorry about that, but they’re top of the shoe-pile at the moment).

I’d love to hear what you think, although I suppose this could be classed as a bit of a cheeky request since I read all of my favourite blogs through Google Reader and hardly ever comment myself. Maybe if I start, then the comment-karma fairy will come a-visiting…

Anyway, if Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol and Tina Chow think you should leave comments, you can’t really argue….

As soon as I saw the first photograph from the Helmut Lang S/S10 collection, I knew I was in trouble - somehow I had to select a ‘few’ favourites from the forty-three that style.com had kindly put up for us. Is twenty-six really that bad? I suppose you can’t really say I’ve whittled it down very well, but there was just too much goodness to cut out any more - if I had more time and a bigger blog, I probably would have put the lot up…

The collection basically summed up everything I want in my wardrobe for next summer - for me, anyone showing from now on will have a tough time beating this presentation, and might as well give up already. OK, maybe not, but I just need you to understand how much I ADORE what Nicole and Michael Colovos have given us. It’s almost like they reached inside my head and pulled out all of my darkest fashion desires, right down to the ones I didn’t even know were there - until I saw this collection, an asymmetric denim biker jacket had never entered my head, but now it’s all I can think about.

According to the review on style.com, the pair have provided “less inspiring takes on the harem pant, which already feels like old news”, but (sorry Vogue, I know I really shouldn’t argue with you, and I do love you ever so much…) I couldn’t disagree more. The harem pants were completely integral to the collection, and sat perfectly with the waterfall front waistcoats (you must be mine, you must be mine) and jackets, providing a wonderful collection full of interesting silhouettes and clean lines. There was layering a-plenty, which always sits extremely well with me, and the leggings and paneled mini-skirts were nothing short of genius. I have to give a special mention to the dyed effect pieces however, which resembled some sort of shibori technique (I’m probably wrong - sorry guys) and made the garments stand out from the otherwise muted palette - particularly with the injection of colour at the end.

Does this count as art? I like to think it does, since I took the photographs and did all the work on them - I now have visions of exhibitions in Paris, warehouse spaces and being mates with Tracey Emin…

Would you believe me if I said this was a photograph taken from my window? My camera seems to be quite marvelous, and I randomly snapped this plane flying off to sunnier climes a few weeks ago - imagine my surprise when I put it on the computer and it turned out to be rather huge… all the better for editing, my dear…

Sadly, I’m not attending any of the fashion weeks this year (a friend invited me to the Bodyamr party, but sadly work and the real world beckons so I’ve had to give it a miss), but I’ll be doing my best to cover everything as it happens from afar (really must work out how to blog on the Crackberry).

Day 1 of NY FW presented us with, amongst others, a collection from BCBG Max Azria, which may not have given us anything groundbreakingly new, but was aesthetically pleasing all the same. While I’m a big fan of the architectural, artistic and conceptual, I have to admit, I do love a collection with a good amount of wearability - and Max Azria certainly delivered that for Spring 2010. Simple shift dresses were transformed with asymmetric and draped hemlines, while folds and pleats were out in force. I love the fluidity of the white and grey dresses, while the garments with printed and colour blocked panels provided something a little different. Interestingly, the blue dress (incidentally my favourite) has a touch of the sharp-shoulder syndrome - I can’t help but wonder if this is a prediction that architectural eighties power shoulders will be stretching into next Spring.

It’s pretty much my ambition for the winter to own tights in every colour of the rainbow, as well as some in a vast array of patterns as well. My latest purchase was a pair that cost just £6, and they are so thick they could almost be leggings. I was looking for a particular shade of deep red, and hadn’t been able to find them anywhere, until I wandered into Gap on my lunch break - and there they were.

I love Dripbook. Not because, as some of you might expect, I actually have an account, but because it’s such a wealth of artistic wonder and talent, that I can easily spend half a day oooh-ing and ahh-ing at the amazing illustrations and digital artwork.

One such recent find was Judit Garcia-Talavera, co-illustrator of La Tragedia dot net, and owner of many, many wonderful line drawings and ink works. Judit also has a blog, called Ink for Bits, which I urge you to bookmark and investigate regularly - my favourite celebrity appearance has to be Jimmy Page, complete with guitar adorned with birds.

I’d love to sit here and be all arty, and use technical terms and words that really do her work justice, but truth be told, I never paid attention in art history, so you’ll just have to make do with me gushing about how I’d love to smother my walls in her illustrations and how in my dream world, this is the kind of artwork I would produce.