A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH ALEXANDER MCQUEEN'S AMAZING ARMADILLO SHOES

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

The "Armadillo" shoes at the SS10 McQueen show were jaw-droppingly amazingly weird and wonderful. Not even a brave experimental fashionista could wear them for a night out without fear of breaking a bone, you could see that in a blink as extremely focussed on not falling over models made their way along the catwalk. So I knew that if I didn't go to the McQueen press day I would never see those shoes again. Apart from maybe in an art gallery or museum. The PR confirmed the fact that these shoes were NOT going into production. So here they are one more time. I photographed them next to my latest footwear obsession - my winklepickers from Underground. And I tried them on, and walked in them. It was a fun moment. The shoes were created by designer Georgina Goodman at the behest of McQueen. Everything sensible in me says I should dismiss these shoes as a publicity stunt - but I can't help it - I think they are amazing, and I'm stupidly happy that I tried a pair on and had a giggle in them. Basta!

YOU CAN'T GET MORE FASHION INSIDER THAN THIS...

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

This is the very first in a new series of interviews I'm doing with those major players in global fashion who operate in the open, but keep themselves below the radar. Who better to kick-off with than revered fashion critic and A-list journalist Sarah Mower? I am lucky enough to count Sarah as a friend, and when your blog is in "pilot mode" you need your friends. Anyway. Mindful of the fact Sarah only talks to strangers when she has a pen in her hand, and aware that while she knows a lot of things about a lot of people, we know very little about her, she let me turn the tables and all it cost me was a bottle of red wine!
(for career and personal bio, plus further reading on/by Sarah, scroll to the end of this posting)
Sarah interviewing John Galliano after his own label show in Paris on 6 October 2009.

FASHION INSIDER: #1 SARAH MOWERWith her uniform of peak-shouldered Margiela tailoring, extremely high heels, dark shades and a penchant for not smiling or making small talk, Mower cuts something of a mysterious dash around the fashion capitals. Most people are intimidated by her. Which stands to reason as she attends several major-league shows a day, and while most fashion people are sleeping or partying she writes several critiques in razor sharp prose, puts them online, and STILL gets to the 9am show on time. In real-life though, she is simply, by her own admission “something of an introvert.” What she’s really saying is that she’s shy. Behind the uptight veneer is a very endearing character for whom the mantra “with great power comes great responsibility” could have been written.

AND THEN SARAH INVITED US INTO HER HEAD…I thank god every day for Google. Because when designers start quoting their influences to me, at least these days I know what obscure artists, photographer or blah blah they are on about because I can go back and check it.

My job...to me it’s being alive. I don’t know; feeling your synapses jump, and the electricity of ideas cross-fertilizing and connecting. That’s what I like. Really that’s why this role of Ambassador for Emerging Talent has come out of it. You know quite a lot of things about a lot of things, and about a lot of people and you can see who needs what, and you can right wrongs and knowing how the whole system works, you can enable people.

I know I have a very grumpy face, but that isn’t what I’m like inside.

I’ve learned not to be riled at fashion shows. There isn’t any point. You can get anxious about getting into the thing. You can get anxious and annoyed about waiting. You can get annoyed with PR’s who don’t know who you are. What I’ve learnt is that it’s just not worth it. Because in the end all that stays with you are the good things. You just have to let the rest go.

I never had the patience to be an artist. My mother was an art teacher. As soon as I was old enough to hold a pen she encouraged me to just draw all the time. All I could do, ever, was draw. Get an idea down quickly. There couldn’t be any palaver between me thinking of an idea and expressing it.

When I started out, I was really scared of designers. And very intimidated. They were older than me. Gradually they got younger and younger, and I learned more and more. I now see what it takes for a designer to actually be able to do it.

Embarrasingly, I have cried at a show. Oh god! I used to sob at Helmut Lang shows and I don’t know why.

Being a fashion critic is very complex. You have to judge or assess what a designer is doing in relation to everything else: the trends that are coming up, or the feeling or mood that is rising from the season. You also have to connect how it relates back to their body of work. So you are judging them against their own track record. I know all this inside of me when I sit down to a show.
I have googled myself. I’m happy to say I have only ever found two spiteful things about me. One was hilarious: it said “Who is Sarah Mower? Has she ever done a day’s work in her life?” And that did make me laugh. Those who know me will know I work every single hour I could possibly work.

I’m big in Japan. I have an illustrated column in Japanese Vogue. They like me in China too. when I was in Shanghai, a girl came up and said “ Oh, Sarah Mower! You’re like a Manga hero!”

At the start of LFW [in the eighties] designers really couldn’t do it. They were designing things on their kitchen table and just thinking fashion was all about the catwalk show. They didn’t know anyone who could manufacture, they would send their clothes off to Italy and they would come back rubbish. And that would be the end of the latest wave of enthusiasm for London designers.

Back in the 1990’s Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan were putting on the most incredible shows we will ever see. It was beyond fashion. It was Barnum and Bailey. It was absolutely mind blowingly theatrical, visceral, moving and terrifying. They were rivals. It was like the Blur and Oasis stand-off.

I don’t get my legs out much because I’ve got terrible legs. And you can write that.

Know who you are. If it’s a frilly moment, and you are not a frilly person you can’t give into frills. When I was a kid you had to wear a mini-skirt or bellbottoms. Now fashion is so diverse. And Thank God.

A lot of people ask me what makes a good designer. When they're able to articulate who they are while capturing something about the times-while making clothes that can be worn, that’s the key. A designer is bad when they're derivative, run after every trend and don't have the skills to make things properly.

After 9/11, London fashion was so dead. Everything was so hopeless. The rest of fashion became so polite. Then suddenly all those kids Christopher Kane, and Marios Schwab and Gareth Pugh suddenly came up with this sense of confidence. But it wasn’t an aggressive sense of confidence. They weren’t snotty. They wanted to learn. I didn’t know if I could help them, but I was going to try.

For me, the less identifiable clothes are, the better. I wouldn’t wear the obvious thing by a designer. Dressing for me is a process of many things; trying to dress your own body, accept your own body. And whatever age you are – know it and celebrate it.

I’ve met Martin Margiela. [the famously private designer, who hasn’t been photographed for over a decade] He is the best mentor and teacher there could ever be. He talked to me about how he does things. I can’t tell you what I learned from him, because I swore to him that I would never, ever break that confidence. And I never will.

What keeps me going is the idea that I'll witness something that's never been seen before. After 20 years of watching shows, that can still happen.
THANKYOU SARAH. xxxx

MOWER CAREER BIO:
Sarah has been at the forefront of fashion journalism for twenty years working for titles including Honey, The Observer and Vogue UK. From 1992-1999 she was the fashion features director of American Harpers Bazaar. After that, back in London, she edited her own short-lived magazine The Fashion before signing up to US Vogue where she remains. When in 2000 she was asked to start writing catwalk show reviews for American Vogue’s new website Style.com she says “It was a very, very lowly thing. The challenge was to conquer designers’ fear of the web. Many designers weren’t keen on letting style.com into shows; they thought it would mean more copying.” A decade later Sarah is a commanding presence at the global fashion weeks; designers read Mower's reviews of their shows the morning after. Journalists and stylists read style.com to see what she is thinking, because her thoughts are often the barometer of where fashion might be going. Then there are the few million fashion fans who read style.com too. In 2009 Sarah was appointed as the British Fashion Council’s Ambassador for Emerging Talent, which puts her in charge of discovering, nurturing, and promoting the next wave of British fashion talent to the world. No pressure, then!
MOWER PERSONAL BIO:
Sarah lives in Shepherds Bush with her husband Steve, and three children Tom, Maisie and Phoebe. She is currently in mourning at the departure of Martin Margiela from his Maison.
FURTHER READING: Stylist: The Interpreters of Fashion ; Gucci by Gucci: 85 Years of Gucci; New Role at BFC; Style.com Martin Margiela SS10 review
A version of this interview was published during London Fashion Week in The Daily. Link coming soon!

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE ALL GO HOME FROM THE SHOWS?

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

So, what do we fashion pro's do after the shows? Its a question I'm always asked. If you are someone like the superfabulous-blogger (but fashion newbie) BryanBoy, you go to America to see you sick Aunty (hope she is OK, Bryan). If you are a proper fashionista with a proper job and everything, you come home from the shows and ....

1) On the first couple of days back I tend to regress to being 14 on the sofa while watching re-runs of CSI (Miami or Las Vegas) and eating microwave Spaghetti Hoops. Meanwhile my family shouts at me for absolutely anything/nothing because they are annoyed with me for being away and being back. Every fashion editor I know experiences a version of this.

2) Then we have to GO BACK TO WORK, where colleagues think we've been off having a long and glamorous party, and try not to sound ungrateful. Avoid croissants.

3) In my case after Paris I sat in front of my laptop for five days straight and anyalysed the shows, the trends, the pieces then created a 200 page master document that will be my bible for the next six months. Not only for work, but for what I want to buy next season. That's why my blog has been quiet. But I feel like a walking encyclopaedia. I will share it all with you over time!

4) This is the bit that we are all doing now, people! Ten days after getting back the work starts kicking in again.

a) If you are the TOP EDITORIAL STYLIST I met in the park this morning while walking my little black shaggy dog, W, then you are being booked for global ad campiagns and pitching to your magazine/s for shoot ideas. Apparently budgets are down for even the A-List stylists this season, and everyone has to fly economy. Well, Conde Nast have just made ten people on American Vogue redundant. Times are still tough.

b) If you are a FASHION JOURNALIST like me, its time to pitch feature stories, profiles, general ideas at your various editors, and attend some of the decent press days to see what is going on at street level.

c) If you are a FASHION BUYER you are only just getting back from buying collections in Paris, and are still at the CSI/Spaghetti Hoops stage, but at least you have decided what is going to be in your shop next season...

d) If you are a FASHION DESIGNER, you are looking at your books and working out if you have had a good or bad season, (us Brits are doing well becasue of good collections, and moreover a favourable Sterling exchange rate). And designers will be designing their collections for AW10/11 too.

So you see, it ain't over when the shows are over.

ERDEM TELLS ME ALL ABOUT THE MOST EXPENSIVE DRESS HE HAS EVER CREATED

The pouty house model for Erdem in the most expensive (and intricate) dress the designer has ever created.

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

I have known Erdem Moralioglu ever since he came onto the London fashion scene. And I can safely say he is one of the loveliest men alive. He is charming, with a dry humour, a good business head and above all he is a super-talented designer with a laser sharp couturiers eye for detail. His intricately detailed and very beautiful clothes are timeless and modern all at once. So

I'm not at all surprised that his fame is spreading at a pace. Sarah Brown (wife of British PM, Gordon) and Michelle Obama are fans of his clothes; but its not just first ladies who like him. Racy ladies do too. Thandie Newton is a confirmed fan, as am I (and my style is the polar opposite Mrs Brown and Obama); Keira Knightley and Halle Berry are partial too.

I dropped in to see Erdem during Paris at the London Showrooms, the one-stop address for up-and-coming British designers in the city, and he told me he was having his best season ever for sales. He also told me his inspiration for the season were the Modan Gaaru - this is Japanese for Modern Girl - who were the Japanese equivalent of flapper girls.

"They were self sufficent, they smoked, had sex. They took their kimono's and cut them up," he told me. I like the sound of the Modan Gaaru.

In the process of designing the collection Erdem found he had created his most expensive dress ever. "Do you want to see the most expensive dress I have ever created," he teased. "Look here," he said inviting me to eye-ball one of the 3,000 hand-embroidered flowers that make up the multi-coloured floral shift dress. "Each one of those took an hour at least. So that's 3,000 hours before you get to constructing it as a dress." Woah. Wonder who will buy one?

My pictures look good, but I have to say they don't do the detail in the individual flowers justice. Next time I'm at his studio I will do a close-up and update the blog.

Fonally couldn't resist a shot of Erdem with his dress, especailly as we was wearing his signature look of stripey top, jeans and his adorably geeky specs.

SS10 TRENDS: HIGH HEELS ARE DEAD, LONG LIVE THE PETIT STILETTO!

Above: The new lower heels at Roger Vivier

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

Very high heeled shoes have always struck me as illogical and incompatible with daily life. The wearer of a 95mm heel, or 110mm with platform will look amazing standing still in them, and feel on a par height-wise with others, and indeed the shoe itself may be a work of art (and I'm all for that, beauty is what keeps me going). But once in movement, the wearers of very high heels hobble, pigeon-step, hold onto walls, railings or the nearest person for any sort of relief from the agony of wearing them. These multitudes of women look disabled and in pain. And for what?? Fashion. That's what. Dur. And fashion can be cruel.

So TFG then for Paris fashion week where designers decided en masse to bring heel heights down dramatically. After years of seeing beautiful yet ridiculously high, impossible to walk in shoes on the runways it was a refreshing not to have to worry that a model might take a tumble/break an ankle/burst out crying as she traversed a catwalk in super-high heels. (Though this worry was resurrected at Alexander McQueen: those shoes were insane.)

At Roger Vivier the PR's made a huge point of telling journalists about their new lower heels (see the lovely photos I took at their divine showroom, I want to live there), and how they resurrected the mid-height stiletto that all women wore in the 1950's early 1960's. Indeed HM The Queen wore said heel height by Roger Vivier for her coronation Also at Vuitton and Giles it was almost weird to see the girls walking close to their own heights. At Giles the shoes actually hadKitten heels, which was scary until I realised it wasn't the heel I disliked it was the name. Myself and Ben and Lily (the girls from label LP.BG) had a go at renaming them, but only got as far as "Cat Heel" and "Talon Heel" before I had to rush off to the Givenchy show.

This all adds up to good news. I have always advocated a lower heel. At our magazine we christened it the "inbetween heel", which says it. However, last week in Paris French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld called this new workable, walkable heel the "Petit Stiletto" which I think is just right, and why I gave it the capital letters!

This fashion changeover to a lower-heels is catching on as I write. My friends who are still in Paris buying SS10 collections for their shops are getting into the trend. It's about time we had a reality check.


Below: The 1.5 inch heels on Vuittons shoes looked like squat brass pillars (last season they were almost a foot high!)

DO WE STILL NEED FASHION SHOWS?

PARIS TRENDING TOPIC: FASHION’S BIG CHANGE OVER TO WEB

The McQueen show Live Streaming consent form for tonights show. Do you like my hotel bedspread?

- Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large in Paris



This Paris fashion week will be remembered more for the Internet revolution (part II), than the clothes. In a digital era defining week, we have seen more journalists wielding Blackberry’s as note-taking devices than ever. Many of them filing straight to blogs, or twitpic and twitter instead of putting their notes down using old fashioned pen and paper. Next season we’ll probably all have Kindles, or something,

In New York, Marc Jacobs put bloggers, including Tavi and Bryan Boy, on the front row. In Milan, not to be outdone Dolce Gabbana put bloggers on the front row with laptops so they could cover the show live. (It was at this point, btw, that I decided to become a moonlighting blogger.)

In London Burberry put laptops on tap for bloggers who wished to report live from the party. (Didn’t see many takers, we were too busy rubber-necking Dav Patel, Frieda Pinto and Victoria Beckham.)

Anyways, now we are in Paris, and tonight Alexander McQueen is live-streaming his show to the Internet via ShowStudio.com. My invite says “if you attend this show, you will be deemed to grant your consent to being filmed”. Well the show is in three hours, and I’m getting my glad rags on now, and ringing my mum to tell her “I’m going to be on the Internet!”

All this Web hullabaloo is the cause of great debate amongst fashion’s power critics, who are wondering to themselves whether their services will be required next season. Or indeed if we need fashion shows anymore at all. “What is the point of a fashion show critic if you can see the show on the Internet?” "What is the point of a show, if you can put it straight on the Web?"seem to be the big questions. Well I guess in time, the point will be that the general public can read their critical review before deciding they want to watch the show or not. And fashion shows will become the popular entertainment everyone seems to want them to be. Not a trade show anymore, Toto!

One more thing, just been with Roland Mouret who is also filming his show to go out online. His won’t be live-streamed, but he is working with his parent company 19 – who are doing an excellent job at letting him get on with it – to create the first web fashion show you can see in hundreds of thousands of combinations. Even from the point of view of a model, or Anna Wintour (that is, if she hadn’t left Paris already.) He is using 28 camera's each with 360 scope.
This is my McQueen ticket, it's a hologram, and the girl's face becomes all pretty when you wobble it around.

A TRIO OF FASHION SHOW REVIEWS BY LOUISE WILSON

FROM THE FASHION EDITOR AT LARGE IN PARIS....

First, a gratuitous picture of the gorgeous Natalia Vodianova that I took from my perch at Stella McCartney this morning. I’ve been thinking about doing this blog properly for too long. Time to do get on with it! And what better way to start as I mean to go on, than by kicking off with the most straight-talking women in fashion, Professor Louise Wilson, OBE, head of the MA course at St Martin’s. A significant majority of the best young designers working in the world of fashion design today are her former students, and she is held in high esteem by all (that is, if they're not scared of her). These include Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Sophia Kokosalaki and many others. This weekend Louise Wilson was invited to Paris fashion week by Alber Elbaz of Lanvin, her first trip to the Paris shows since 1986. (“Because I’m always in my f***** office.”) I caught up with her at the ‘Guy Bourdin: His Movies’ launch at Le Bon Marche, met Alber Elbaz (jeeezus!) popped a glass of Champagne into her hand, and asked for her personal reviews of the catwalk shows she has seen so far. I was laughing so much while she recounted her views on Margiela that I could barely decipher my notes afterwards. Over to you, Louise!

Louise Wilson and Alber Elbaz last night at 'Guy Bourdin: His Movies' launch at Le Bon Marche in Paris.

LOUISE WILSON ON MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA

“It was horrific on many levels. Having been a long term fan of Martin Margiela you wanted to weep at how a parent company cannot enable their designer. How anyone with a modicum of understanding of the house of Margiela could produce things as bad as that, (Style.com), I don’t know. How anyone could clap for a skirt as long as a runway I cannot imagine, unless they were the people who made the damn thing. The giggling models, and streamers that burst from the lighting rig at the end of the show also ruined it for me.”

“Martin Margiela has left his house because they could not enable him in his work. His work had integrity. I never knew he used Italian mixed jersey. [What she means is, he didn't use the fabric, ever. So further proof he is not actually working there]. The company [Staff International, owned by Diesel founder Renzo Rosso] doesn’t know the brand, and should know better. The show I saw wasn’t trying to appeal the the faithful fans of Martin Margiela, of to lure in new fans, or attract the young to the brand. I don’t know who they were trying to appeal to, maybe a motorbike rider in Rimini?”

Maison Martin Margiela photos by Chris Moore/Catwalking.com

BACKSTORY: (It was confirmed at the weekend that press-shy Belgian Martin Margiela has departed the label he founded in 1988 after it was bought by Diesel owner Renzo Rosso and both clashed on the direction of the company. Rosso told WGSN that Margiela had "left a long time ago". Meanwhile my source says he finally left the building early this year, and had little to do with his Autumn/Winter 2009 collection, and nothing whatsoever to do with the one just presented in Paris. His die-hard fans are in mourning. Though on an up-note for those still pining for genuine Margiela designs, I hear that store-buyers are finding plenty at the showroom. Small consolation, but a consolation nontheless.)

LOUISE WILSON ON LANVIN

“ What I thought of Lanvin was it restored my faith in fashion. It rocked, and it felt young. A lot of fashion is not young enough. And this also felt like an event from cocktail to final dress. What I liked was the angriness; the sexuality; the colour; the crassness of the beading. I think every young designer looking at it should endeavour to put that much work into a collection.” Lanvin SS10 photos by Chris Moore/Catwalking.com

BACKSTORY: (This was mine, and everyone else’s for that matter, show of the week (so far, anyway). Alber recieved a standing ovation at the end, and while watching it, you felt instinctively that this was the best a fashion show could get.)


AND FINALLY, LOUISE ON COMME DES GARCONS...

“Loved the pieces. Loved the silhouettes, but it didn’t feel new. I am someone who is constantly searching for new, and feeling 99.9% of the time that I don’t see it. When I look at the way Comme present their shows I think it’s old fashioned. They are only talking to a certain kind of person. [She means conceptual] The clothes could be relevant for totally different people. I could see some of these as event dresses, for an audience entirely unlike the one they currently have. I am about applauding people trying to do new. If they can’t take that forward themselves what hope is there? It’s like not changing your hairstyle for years. You can get trapped in a look."
CDG SS10 photos by Chris Moore/Catwalking.com

Thank-you Louise. Now all we have to do is find that biker from Rimini you were talking about.