Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Intimately Social 10.13



The plum colour Minna Palmqvist uses for her A/W 13 collection is one of my favorite colours ever. I am generally not a purple kind of person, but somehow my prom dress, my fanciest non-wedding dress, my often-worn mandula dress, and a lovely custom mydearthing dress are all this colour, give or take a shade. Perhaps it's time to add another...Anyway, Minna suggests you listen to Björk's "Mutual Core" while watching the video presentation of the collection (from 0:06 on). With or without a soundtrack, I love what I see. I'll definitely be checking into Minna's e-shop in a few months to see if I can get myself another plum fix.


Entirely unrelated, if you like Neil Gaiman, Stephen Colbert, and Leonard Nimoy (a.k.a three of my favorite people), AND if you're not one of those people who hate short stories, you may want to click here (and listen to the January 27th show). Live long, and prosper.

Edit: Unrelated again, Blogger tells me that this is my 1100th post here on kOs. Crazy!


Friday, January 25, 2013

Hamsterdam



It's all happening. Just barely managing to get it in before I turn the big 3-0, I will actually be leaving my fair continent. Though the 3 I's (Italy, Ireland, and Iceland) have always been at the top of list of places to see first, somehow the idea came about to go on a quick jaunt to Amsterdam (referred to in my house as 'Hamsterdam') and Bruges (thanks to, of all people, Colin Farrell). And, since we decided last weekend to tough it out in our little one-bedroom-no-sunlight apartment for a wee bit longer, the trip is a go! This change in plans led me to searching kOs for Dutch designers, because I couldn't think of any off the top of my head. Which is silly, seeing as there was a very very recent Dutch postee here on kOs, namely Steffie Christiaens. Steffie just posted photos of her A/W 13/14 menswear collection, and, I must say, even outside of shower curtains, I like how this girl thinks. The entire collection is definitely worth checking out (click here), but I'm particularly drawn to these two pieces: the blazer/bomber hybrid (above), and the zip-off coat (below). 


I don't think the tapered back of the hybrid piece (i.e. the bomber portion) would work on a woman, but I suppose that guys deserve some fashion fun of their own. The zip-off coat, however, would work on anyone, as evidenced by that great Vietto coat. Anyway, Steffie is based out of Paris, so I don't know if I'll get to see any of her work up close. Any suggestions for local designer shopping in (H)Amsterdam?

(Photos by Sascha Heintze, via Facebook)

P.S. Speaking of Vietto, you can snag some Vietto pieces in New York next month. Helsinki's Paloni will be setting up a pop-up shop between February 11-28 at the Ivana Helsinki concept store, unleashing Vietto and 36 other Finnish labels (including OutsaPop Trashion) on NYFW. I knew I should've booked a trip during reading week!


Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Vested in a vest




I'm in love with this vest. You wouldn't know it by the lack of zippers, but it's from Montreal's own Denis Gagnon. Creating a silhouette without the regular ol' back cincher is definitely the way to get my vest fix and stick to my stylistic values. I.e., without regressing to the days of my favorite white and blue flower silk vest with pearl buttons. Oh how I loved that vest...And my big pearl brooch pinned over the top button of my blouse...

(Photos via SSENSE.com, where a sale is now on. Sorry, this vest is sold out. Actually, I'm not sorry.)


Monday, January 14, 2013

InAisce, F/W 13/14 (Part 2)





As I was saying, Ger Duany is the perfect choice for this season of InAisce. Also, if that place has insuite laundry, I want it.

(Photography by Xi Singsong, photos via Facebook)


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Seeking a shower curtain for the end of the world



I can't quite remember how it started, but me and my best friend in junior high/high school used to make each other transparent clothes just for fun. For example, for my friend I made quite the scandalous saran wrap bikini (complete with braided ties out of my cross-stitching thread collection and logos of our local NHL team as imbedded pasties), and I myself received quite the jaw-dropping strapless dress with green metallic Christmas ribbon accents made out of a clear shower curtain. Ah, youth. If only we had continued on with our inspired designs, perhaps we would now be well-known names on the runway. Instead, we decided to focus on our dream of becoming the world's first 2-woman luge team (a sport that still does not exist to this day, to my knowledge). Sigh. I will now have to live vicariously through Dutch designer Steffie Christiaens (written about a life-time ago here), whose S/S 13 collection finally affirms that shower curtain-like material is worthy of the runway. Though, of course, the collection would do well even without the transparent pieces (see below). While the collection is meant to be "a wardrobe for the end of the world," I'm ready to wear these pieces now. As in during my long afternoons of translating Plato's Symposium and reading about the philosophy of science and scholarly editing. Trust me, us Steffs know how to have fun.



(Photos via NJAL)

Edit: Steffie has an online shop! Check it.


Friday, January 4, 2013

InAisce, F/W 13/14


I don't quite get the big matted/felted piece(s), but Ger Duany (I Heart Huckabees, anyone?) is a perfect choice for an InAisce model. Oh how I wish I could RSVP that I actually would be attending this show!


(Video via ThisHeartsOnFire's Facebook)


Thursday, January 3, 2013

À LA DISPOSITION



Every once and a while, I come upon a label that makes me think 'almost, but not quite'. As in, I like it, but there's something missing, something big enough to make me not post about the label. Then, in a few of these instances, I get my head out of my ass, do a bit more digging, and realize that I've come upon something great. The problem is thinking that to really like a label, I have to like every collection. And when I'm looking at the newest collection first, that's often a problem. I think that some designers feel they have more time to design what they really want to when they're starting out, resulting in a collection (i.e. often the graduate collection) full of show-stopping pieces. Then, when they start gaining more attention and buyers, there's the pressure of sticking to the fashion week schedule, creating not only two collections, but complete collections with multiple pieces that haven't each been obsessed about for months or even years. When this shift occurs and sacrifices have to be made, in my opinion the best thing to focus on is not a collection of show-stopping pieces, but that one particular show-stopping element that can be repeated throughout the collection. It becomes not about creating a collection full of signature pieces, but about experimenting with that signature detail or two, and seeing how it can be translated in various different pieces. This is how I've interpreted my quick retrograde tour of today's find, À LA DISPOSITION, a London-based label from married duo Daniel and Lynda (née Cohen) Kinne. The most recent collection (S/S 13) of this avant-garde womenswear label definitely caught my attention with the title ('M!sf!t Toys') and the layered rectangles and other geometric/3D details in most of the pieces (see below). Yet the collection didn't quite do it for me...


But, after at look at the Kinnes' earlier work, the collection makes a lot more sense. A look at the 2009-10 collections reveals the Kinnes' affinity to avant-garde officewear, featuring unexpected shapes in basic pieces (for example, the F/W 09 look in the top photo) and plenty of volume (particularly seen in the brilliant 'balloon dress' from the S/S 09 collection entitled 'lighterthanair'; see below).


This aesthetic is then transformed into a fully-realized collection, F/W 11/12 'Utopian Aviary', where each piece is inspired by and named after a bird (see below). 



Perhaps my head is still up my you-know-what, but these earlier designs as a collective whole seem to capture the aesthetic of À LA DISPOSITION more than a quick glance at the M!sf!t collection. Or, rather, they exhibit the fact that there is more often than not a historical context that must be considered in looking at a designer's work, and so a collection should not be viewed in isolation. In any event, how I found this label was through the photo below in Fashion156's preview of the upcoming menswear A/W 13 collections. Meaning that the Kinnes have a lot more up their sleeve, and their story is about to get a lot more interesting...


(Runway photos via UK Vogue, other photos besides the Fashion156 one via Facebook)


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

I was raised on the forest moon of Endor



Why hello there, 2013. So begins the last (partial) year of my 20s. Based on how 2012 went (minus that last minute bout of food poisoning, of course), I have a good feeling about this one. Particularly because I'm quite happy with my decision to quit a well paying job to go back to school. I've never been not bored for this long (boredom is my kryptonite) and have never enjoyed my Christmas break so much (again, minus that last minute bout of food poisoning). Sure, school has also resulted in my blogging time being drastically cut back (something that will continue into this next semester as I will be attempting to re-learn ancient Greek). However, yesterday's nerd fest (a.k.a. the Star Wars Identities exhibit) has clearly shown that my interest in fashion has not diminished at all. I mean, seeing original story board sketches and models used in the (original) trilogy was pretty sweet, but seeing the original Princess Leia, Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Queen Amadala costumes up close was super awesome. Not to mention the fact that the clothing given to the Star Wars character I got to create ended up wearing something I could only dream up of. Seriously, click here to see my character, and check out that coat/dress (I'm not sure it's kosher to post it here). Anyway, continue to expect posts of fantastic designers here as I keep up my mish-mash of interests in the few spare seconds I can find here and there. Such as the S/S 13 collection of a fairly recent kOs favorite, Yulia Yefimtchuk. Yulia had posted the lookbook back in November already, but I believe I was too involved in the New York trip that never happened to notice. Better late than never, right? Thanks NJAL for bringing me up to speed...




(Photos via NJAL)