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.
Dries Van Noten
Haider Ackermann
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.
Louis Vuitton
Iceberg
Opening Cermony
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
Walter van Beirendonck
Walter van Beirendonck
Shaun Samson
Opening Ceremony
Les Hommes
Kenzo
Jonathan Saunders
Issey Miyake
Iceberg
Givenchy
Givenchy
E Tautz
Dior Homme
Dior Homme
Dior Homme
Damir Doma
Agi & Sam
E Tautz
E Tautz
Burberry
Burberry
TUMBLR
Richard Nicoll
Richard Nicoll
Raf Simons
Bobby Abley
Dolce & Gabbana
Christopher Shannon
Christopher Kane
Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein
MONOCHROME
Shaun Samson
Pringle
Pringle
Opening Ceremony
Marni
Lou Dalton
Les Hommes
Lee Roach
Lanvin
Kokon To Zai
Kenzo
Kenzo
JW Anderson
Jil Sander
Christopher Shannon
Christopher Kane
Andrea Pompilio
Adrea Pompilio
Alexander Wang
ANDROGYNOUS / LADY PARTS
Lou Dalton
JW Anderson
JW Anderson
Damir Doma
Damir Doma
Christopher Shannon
Astrid Anderson
Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen
BLUE IS THE COLOUR
Agi & Sam
3.1 Philip Lim
Agi & Sam
Marni
Burberry
Calvin Klein
Christopher Shannon
Christopher Shannon
Dior Homme
Damir Doma
Jonathan Saunders
James Long
Issey Miyake
Kenzo
Lanvin
Les Hommes
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton
Craig Green
Miharayasuhiro
Opening Ceremony
Richard Nicoll
Sibling
Viktor & Rolf
Walter van Beirendonck
Kokon To Zai
ALL WHITE EVERYTHING
Opening Cermony
Moncler Gamme Bleu
Marni
Kokon To Zai
Kenzo
JW Anderson
Jil Sander
Iceberg
Christopher Shannon
Astrid Andersen
Alexander McQueen
“FLORALS FOR SPRING? GROUNDBREAKING”
Topman Design
Jil Sander
Dries Van Noten
Dries Van Noten
Dries Van Noten
LEATHER
Shaun Samson
Richard Nicoll
Les Hommes
Les Hommes
Kokon To Zai
Comme Des Garcons
Andrea Pompilio
Alexander Wang
KHAKIS/ NUDES/BEIGE/WHALE TUSK/OLD BISCUIT
Alexander McQueen
Astrid Andersen
Christopher Raeburn
Christopher Raeburn
Christopher Raeburn
Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier
Iceberg
Iceberg
Issey Miyake
Lee Roach
Bobby Abley
Topman Design
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.
McSandwich
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’:
KAOMI FOREVER
A VISUAL CELEBRATION OF TWO OF MY FAVE BABES <3
WHAT I WORE TODAY VOL.III
After this morning’s kerfuffle with & Other Stories over their photo of a wantonly thin model, I thought I’d dig out this AW07 Dior Homme look. The drapery really flatters my pin thin silhouette, and is also perfect for wafting around the office leaving only a faint smell of vomit in my wake.
& OTHER STORIES, & OTHER MENTAL DISORDERS
There’s I was having a little Tumblr browse this morning, when I found this post from the & Other Stories official page.
Co-creatives & Other Stories
We invited our favourite personalities and greatest style inspirers. They got to choose their best-loved pieces from our SS/13 collection to create their personal look. They captured their own story with polaroids and we find the result truly inspiring.
Mimi Xu aka Misty Rabbit, DJ, Paris/London,https://twitter.com/MistyRabbit
1 Notes”
I saw the image before realising who the blog belonged to, and my immediate thought was “oh god, another 13 year old posting thinspo…”, then realised it was a newly launched (so obviously keen to garner good press) fashion brand, owned by a massive retailer. So far, so irresponsible.
Models being too thin is a dead horse that has been beaten more times than Rihanna, but as this image proves, it is still a very serious issue. Now, it says here that Mimi has photographed herself in her best-loved outfit. Well why the fuck would you approve a girl as thin as Mimi Xu here shot with so much shadow, which has no stylistic merit here other than to really make a point of exaggerating the visibility of bones on her chest? You can’t even see the clothes – which according to the post were chosen by Xu herself as her “best-loved pieces”. Why did no-one take a second to go – okay, so we’ve got a girl here who looks more like a transformer than a person, maybe we shouldn’t let her photograph herself in a bikini..
In terms of advertising the clothes, this is a pretty piss poor photograph. Shooting a bikini in a dark room, on a girl who is sitting down…This isn’t even ANTM bad, this is like a “moody” GCSE photography project, with added 13 year old weight-wank.
The last part is what really gets me, “we find the results truly inspiring”…The result being what, you’ve let a tremendously thin girl use your fashion to brand as a platform for her own weight-wank, thus garnering you bad press? Is that inspiring to anyone outside the realms of people with a “specialist interest” in eating disorders? The fact that this was on Tumblr as well is another thing that has wound me up, Tumblr is under huge pressure to ban and block the truly RIDICULOUS number of “pro-thinspo” and “pro-ana” (I use quotation marks because both these phrases make me cringe so hard I get a cramp) pages on the site, an effort which is undermined by posts like this, which whilst not directly labelling themselves as pro-ED, are none the less obviously going to be triggering, but who cares right because, like, y’know, all publicity is good publicity? and, like, people are too sensitive? It gets me as well that this image was probably seen by upwards of 20 people before it got uploaded, and none of them had an issue with it enough to pull it. Good one, guys. Great job.
You can see the post here
