“THOSE” PRADA SHOES.

A sneaker tongue tucked into a smart lace-up. A classic brogue covered in hand-attached studs. BLIMEY. Is it just me, or is BOWSER looking like a viable style icon?

Thanks to Celia for being my eyes at the Prada A/W 09 press day when I forget my camera. And thank you, Mrs. P, for two more reasons to buy brown brogues. Nice leather sweaters too!

ANALYSIS OF A LOOK: ANNTIAN

It’s a dull and grey Tuesday afternoon. ‘I wonder what ANNTIAN are up to,’ thinks yours truly. You know- ANNTIAN- Anne Hilken and Christian Kurt. Their clothes are so nice. Clever but cosy. Weighty but wearable. Strange and beautiful. Each season a conceptual departure from the previous, but with the kind of thing DRAPERS might call ‘identifiable handwriting’ running through; taping the clothes to board and painting on them is just one of the many tricks they’ve built up since launching in 2005. These are clothes you’d like to layer up in a protective manner to keep out A/W 09′s theoretical (inevitable?) chill.

Tap tap tap. Several emails later, the wonderful CHRISTIAN had this to say. Not just one look analysis, but three!

The theme:
“‘Directives’: A controversial dialogue about creating own directions and being the subject of directives – in life, so as in creative work. Imagine a rather geometric, abstract paper-sculpture and the effort to transfer it’s aesthetics to a wardrobe or garment. This is basically the foundation of ‘Directives’”

Look 25:
“Here you find an item of our accessories-world: it’s a lamp made for the collection! It’s a triangle lampshade made of pottery, with a hanging system made of braided Jersey-threads that we printed with our collection’s theme screen design! The sweater the boy is wearing involves irregular dots that result from a technique of fixing the clothes with tape on cardboard before printing them. After removing the ready printed, flat laying clothes from the board, we have this as the result!”

Look 27:
“This look shows a variety of different “running” stripes and lines in the knit sweater in an asymmetric pattern! On the basis of the collection’s theme, the huge denim bag and the jeans are constructed in a sculptural manner: we have the pattern of a cardboard sculpture transfered on the bag and the trouser with a variety of colours/shades to stress the different angles.”

Look 32:
“Here we coordinate an oversize black and white striped wool-coat with a matching trouser that is based on a very constructed, conceptional pattern. Imagine a 3D sculpture built out of only triangles as the basis of the pattern!  The challenging aspects were to transfer this constructive method of operation on a garment that is still very harmonic and has a nice fall and look in the end! As the collection theme mentions – “Directives” is about the point where you become to a “crossroad” in building and constructing things, where you have to choose one way to go along and forget about the other!”

MENSWEAR will also be catching up with the designers again for a peek at their CREATIVE AND COLOURFUL ongoing jewellery project with designer ARIELLE DE PINTO, next week.

RAF, COLETTE, SOME VERY TACTILE TEXTILES.

Whilst his a/w 09 show left an odd taste in the mouth- something to do with tailoring, I don’t know, quite late, problems on the door, ‘no backstage’- the appeal of RAF SIMONS just grows and grows.

Lots has been said about the TECHNICAL TAILORING of S/S 09. But it’s the textural, almost naive aspect of the collection I find fascinating, as seen in these pieces from colette. The show grabbed attention for its playsuits and sleeveless jackets, but what about the pressed-paper fabrics, glittery tops and woven fabrics?

That side comes out better in these more commercial, off-the-catwalk pieces. Is it just me, or is there something calm, playful and deliciously clear about this collection up-close? It sounds awful, but the only phrase I can think of is ‘palate-cleansing’… after press days full of bleached denim jumpsuits and whatnot, the simplicity and joy of surface in RAF SIMONS S/S 09 IS A REVELATION.

The show featured the phrase ‘THERE IS A CRACK IN EVERYTHING, THAT’S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN’ (from LEONARD COHEN’S song, Anthem) emblazoned on tops, jackets, boots. But these shorts are how I’d wear the pattern. There is something fantastically 90′s and appealing about wearing words across your person, at least in my mind. It’s got a lick of irony that I can’t resist… the ultimate in ‘wrong’ fashion. Like those hi-tops with the big soft-looking ‘R’ on; so exciting. Honestly, stick a random letter on anything and I get excited.

A shoulder bag and shoes have a hundreds and thousands pattern that would make me spend all day staring into space, stroking them if I ever owned either of them. And that’s not to mention the loose thread texture, which I’m drawn to through its sheer madness.

And as for that quilted jacket… it’s this week’s MENSWEAR LOOK OF THE SUMMER. Tiny shorts, crew neck, wide cropped top. A forward thinking option for those yearning after the quilted diamond patterns of a Barbour but without the ubiquity. The kind of acceptable-meets-wonky, forward looking idea we wholeheartedly embrace.