Tagged: model
THAT TIME I INTERVIEWED SHAUN SAMSON
With London Fashion Week and his SS14 collection just around the corner, here’s an interview I did with American menswear designer Shaun Samson last season for Platinum Love magazine.
WHY CAN’T I BE YOU? VOL VIII: RUBY ALDRIDGE
In general I’m always a bit dubious about models as stylistic inspiration as I can never really trust if it’s their wardrobe I want or their crazy-good genes (this does not include mentalist Hanne Gaby, who as I’ve said before, has an amazing wardrobe but does look a lot like a dinosaur), but #unpopularopinion – I ‘m not actually an Aldridge #stan at all so I can let myself off on this one.
As with all of my WCIBY crushes, Ruby’s style is mostly monochromatic, androgynous and built around staple basics. ALL GD THINGS. Another reason I’m a big fan of her street style is that despite being 8ft 3ins tall and weighing the same as a bag of flour, her sartorial choices aren’t things that can only be carried off by genetic freaks, but are universally wearable (apart from maybe the microscooter).
SS14 / MENSWEAR / ROUND-UP
The mens shows got off to a good start, with a really strong season from the new major players of London fashion – standouts included variations on a theme, androgynous menswear and experimental cuts from JW Anderson, pleasing prints from LCM babies Agi & Sam and heavy sports influences from Christopher Shannon. Paris really stuck with the enduring prints theme, Frankie Morello went for burger and sushi prints, Moschino showed lightning bolts amidst jewel-toned stripes and nerdy jacket and cardigan combinations, Paris brought the expected level of cool minimalism, Marni and Tillman Lauterbach were particular favourites.
Milan was…Milan…Dsquared2 was the usual display of maximum homoeroticism and minimal actual clothing, Etro took Mexican inspiration to rather a literal level, sending a heavily moustasched model down the catwalk in a whacking great sombrero. Probs not one we’re going to see on many street style blogs, but always a good go-to for fancy dress parties.
Overall, SS14 is looking good for menswear, lots of minimalism, androgyny, ~WaCkY pRiNtS~, with some added louche looks from Haider Ackermann’s quilted smoking jackets in a luxe pallette of wines and navys to Dries Van Noten’s muted tonal florals.
Surprising highlight collections for me were Iceberg and Opening Ceremony, both really clean and sharp, centered in the focus colours for next season – navys, blacks and creams/whites. I wasn’t sold on Givenchy’s prints this season, though for me the religious iconography was a real winner so it would’ve been hard to top anyway. I was surprised to like Louis Vuitton, usually not a collection I pay much notice to, but I really liked the Talented Mr Ripley vibes.
Obvs, there were some absolute car crashes. No surprises for guessing who I’m coming for here. Hedi Slimane continues his one-man destruction of Yves Saint Laurent, sorry, Soft Grunge Laurent, sorry, Saint Laurent Paris, every season managing to churn out more and more overly commercial, cheap sartorial high fives to dated pop culture references. This season the vibe is ‘Glam Rock by George at Asda’. (oh and obviously the standard set of models who wouldn’t look out of place in an in-patient facility. Good work, you absolute tit)
Moving on from blood-pressure raising train wrecks, here’s a look at recurrent themes for SS14.
BLOCK COLOUR
TUMBLR
MONOCHROME
ANDROGYNOUS / LADY PARTS
BLUE IS THE COLOUR
ALL WHITE EVERYTHING
“FLORALS FOR SPRING? GROUNDBREAKING”
LEATHER
KHAKIS/ NUDES/BEIGE/WHALE TUSK/OLD BISCUIT
MENSWEAR / LN-CC / BEST OF THE SALE
The sales are what God created on the 8th day, to make the horrible equation of ‘wanting + buying = 20p noodles for the rest of the month’ easier on us all, probably after spending his rest day looking at clothes he couldn’t afford. The smug thrill of getting something with a major fist-bump discount is an emotion so amazing that it can only be topped by telling people about it. LN-CC has long been a favourite of mine for menswear and is always my first go-to during the sales, particularly as it means I can shop from the comfort of my freezing office rather than dragging my sweating, harrassed, afro’d corpse around actual shops. Here’s my pick of the best of the current sale stock:
STREET STYLE ROUND-UP / MENS / VOL III
I’ve been really heinous at this blogging lark lately, partly because #realliferesponsibility is fly-kicking me in the head slightly but also partly for EXCITING (and somewhat unbelievable) REASONS!1!!1 which I can hopefully post about later this week. Anyway, here are some nicely dressed boycats in the meantime.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM
Shout out to my favourite Calvin Klein giraffe, Maggie Maurer, for the mention in this weekend’s New York actual Times, referencing this post of mine.
A very surreal discovery to say the least, particularly as there’s a photo of me as a baby/puppy on the original post. For the full NYT article, click here
THIS IS FOR LOVERS
I love a creepy/unintentionally hilarious documentary about freaks, and Channel 4 are usually pretty good at delivering. Fresh off the cringing, shuddering heels of my faves, 15 Stone Babies and My Fat Fetish, came ‘Dogging Tales’. For a documentary about rough couples shagging in a cold forest off a motorway, I wasn’t expecting it to be so ~artsy~, it’s more like a weirdly tense film than a standard ‘ha-ha-weirdos’ documentary. Also, a particular highlight was the participants all wearing animal masks reminiscent of those in the Anna Sui AW11 show:
This is Les. I don’t know what freaked me out more, his love of dogging, his having 18 children, or the fact he was willing to be filmed using Lynx.
This is Les’ girlfriend, who is quite clearly on the verge of some sort of breakdown. I’m not sure how much her eyeshadow would really show up in headlights but A+ for effort.
World’s Happiest Doggers via Anna Sui.
The most obvious example of fashion endorsing a love for the great outdoors is Steven Meisel’s 2008 editorial for V magazine (originally refused by Vogue Italia), simply entitled ‘Dogging’: