If you’re looking for fun, head to the circus. If you want discipline enrol in the army. If you want both….well, here’s as good a place as any to look. The mash up of circus ringmaster with parade officer that comprises the high peaked hat and combat peaks are utterly subverted by the housewife cut of the fit and flare Fifties’ prom shape. But that too is transformed by the bronze medal style Polka Dot and the menacing black palette. Is this fit and flare or fit and scare?
Eastpak’s Artist Studio series is returning with a second edition featuring 200 customised backpacks. The collection will round up over 130 artists from 17 countries, each converting the bags into one-off artworks.
The collaborators are all from creative backgrounds with designers, chefs, musicians and artists all reworking the bags. All proceeds from the sales will go to the Designers Against Aids (DAA) charity. Among the collaborators are former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, singer Marina Diamandis, nail artist Sophy Robson and painter Jordan Betten.
The result is an entire spectrum of colorful, printed, painted and studded designs capturing a huge variety of moods, from photographer and blogger Audrey Rogers’ heart embellished look, created with Edie Sedgwick in mind, to Dojo’s barbed wire outline bag.
New York artist Charlie Bowden kept his canvas blank with white styles while Johnny Marr’s duo of design became a playground of musical and artsy iconography. Artist Julie Verhoeven’s were even more embellished with either Eighties’ graffito sprays or seashells featuring. Simpler were Riche Culver’s metallics. But the list really does go on and there is a look for every taste – so long as you like a backpack. The style is certainly having a strong moment, which makes this a well timed collab for any wearer wanting to look a bit different.
Eastpak product director Toon Kympers said: “Each and every EASTPAK Artist Studio backpack is a one-of-a-kind creation. A unique interpretation of the classic EASTPAK form by some of the world’s foremost creative personalities.”
Sales kick off online at eastpak.com from March 19, with prices between €50 and €250
artiststudio.eastpak.com
The print and texture clashing adventure that is Anna Piaggi has been vivifying fashion for decades so it’s only just that it repays her. And here, thick with her charismatic color and finger-pleasing flocks and furs is the playground of the mismatched that she so kookily breathes life into. Eccentric and playful, the look is a children’s book illustration of womanly staples all amped up to the extreme. Big coats, big colors, offbeat prints and, of course, a hat. A supersize statement one please.
To celebrate its 50th anniversary, upscale jewelry brand David Morris has teamed up with milliner Piers Atkinson to create a duo of premium priced pieces called the Love Collection. The collaboration forms part of the London brand’s British Invasion series of tie-ups and is designed to complement Atkinson’s Fall 12 range.
Designer Erin Morris’s creations are a cupid’s-arrow-and-heart hat pin where the heart is studded with rubies and multi-hued pink and purple sapphires, and a leather gold-plated fetish collar-style choker with pink sapphire heart lined with black and yellow diamonds.
The Atkinson range it ties-in to is called “Oh my” and uses midnight blue and black to create a dark and seductive feel. It is inspired by ‘love’, Beauty & the Beast via Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and some of Dorothy’s wilder imaginings in Oz.
The tie up has its roots in last year’s NSPCC Surrealist Ball, when Erin Morris struggled to find suitable head wear. She was introduced to Atkinson who created a Rene Margritte-inspired pear atop a bowler hat, which Morris’s husband Jeremy subsequently wore. Erin was herself so inspired by Atkinson’s blend of wit and beauty that she sought a collaboration.
The brooch retails at £17,700 and the choker at £17,400.
www.davidmorris.com
www.piersatkinson.com
A sexy cling underwrites the austere edge on show on this body contouring militia garb. As the army combo of black and olive adds an offbeat blockiness to the sleek and streamlined, the brass buttons and epaulettes help to underline that not-so-subtle military theme. But as lean as the look is, there’s an ease to the pull-on one piece which makes it daywear ready and cover all crew neck feel more retiring than racy.
Minimal, white and sporty but with the pared down look perfect for the office – if anyone reading this has had to balance out the oft-clashing technicalities of dressing both professionally and to defeat the Baltic temperatures then this should be more than interesting. The sculpted wool looks easy to throw on while that oversized luxury trapper only adds to the luxed up appeal. So make like a Bond Girl and prepare for the ski slope, the office and the five star hotel all at once…
Mary Katrantzou has created her first capsule collection for Topshop. The nine-piece range follows hot on the hem of her two earlier, more limited, lines for the high street giant and includes dresses, T-shirts, blouses, skirts and tailored trousers, all infused with the award winning designer’s trademark prints.
The range, for spring 2012, takes Katrantzou’s F/W 2011 mainline as its jump off point, with structured vase-like peplums and skirts awash with vivid, vibrant and intricate florals and opulent serigraph style print details including crystal flower brooches, lacquered screens and Chinese art swirls.
Alongside the porcelain vase-style images and silhouettes are ditsy floral finishes that bring the English summer garden to life with colorful carnations on dark grounds. Elsewhere are mash-ups of photoreal and gem-like images like the Goldbird silk tunic which boasts a gem-filled bird perched on a hydrangea. Fabrications are lightweight and precious with silk and georgette in the line up.
Katrantzou said: “My idea behind the collaboration was to design for the Topshop girl a range that is as close to the aesthetic of my mainline as possible, with great control over the quality of design and production. I can’t wait to see the Topshop girls in the bowl dresses and for the most daring to see them try the print on print layering!”
The collection launches in Topshop on February 17 with prices from £40 to £350.
www.topshop.com
www.marykatrantzo.com
Christian Louboutin is celebrating two decades of glamorizing women’s accessories with a capsule collection of 20 pairs of those iconic red-soled shoes, plus six one-of-a-kind bags.
Each shoe style in the capsule references a classic Louboutin classic from his archives including the Pensée, the one that sparked the red sole signature and for the capsule is re-imagined as a yellow pump with a floral embellishment on the strap.
The capsule embodies all the key ingredients of the Louboutin universe. Expect references to art, architecture, fine arts and design, plus his love of cabaret all taking the form of high heels with occasional fetish details.
Alongside the Pensée are La Pluminette, a red heel with bird-of-paradise style feather details, which recalls Louboutin’s first-ever designs all of which were made for Paris showgirls. Highness Tina – an ode to Tina Turner – is a sky high suede boot with multi fringe layering, while the delicate Neuron is a bejewelled cage upper recalling the fetishist designs created for David Lynch’s fetish exhibition.
Love is a pair or black pumps which spells out the word Love when the pair stand together while for ultimate glamor, the Alta Dentelle is a fragile knee high in a mesh construction.
But not all of them are vertigo inducing. The Copt is a flat with a Coptic cross upper inspired by a souvenir the designer bought in the Egyptian Valley of Queens.
Bags meanwhile include the pink shoulder bag Artemis, which has a dramatic crystal shoulder piece.
The round-up of dizzying details and perfectly pitched glamor is all open to be viewed on the Christian Louboutin facebook page. Visitors to the page can register to be notified when the capsule will be made available on the brand’s upcoming online boutiques. Or UK fans can just wait until February 27 when a pop-up in Selfridges will bring it to retail.
www.christianlouboutin.com
As New York Fashion week opens the designers’ gambit appears to be presenting sellable and wearable creations with only the most palatable of flourishes. The embellishments are intelligent, the references fairly easily understood and the whole thing looks well geared for modern women. Take this muted take on color blocking. Its modern womenswear used to echo an Art Deco theme. As neither time zone entirely dominates. There’s a touch of Twenties’ flapper but there’s also a dose of Gossip Girl. The slinky result is more daywear than evening – again making it a more contemporary construction – and the net result is achieved with clever, careful restraint guiding it. Sparse embellishments, clever cuts and cool geometrics. All very New Yorker.
The stark meets the spirited here as a duopoly of moods unite. On the one hand there’s a highly polished and professional look – not just office-ready, but near ecclesiastic in it’s pared down simplicity. This could be the nun of the 22nd century. But then this serious daywear is injected with just a shot of zest. Watercolor daubs and silent movie snapshots suddenly reveal a more artistic, romantic mood. But this is no invasion. It’s a perfectly controlled exploration of the two sides of the social coin. And that control makes minimalism fun – what a very New York thing to do. Prim, proper and with pared down prints this is about separates uniting.
