We still cannot get over our Isabel Marant obsession. Our fringe-boot lust seems to reach new heights every day.
We couldn't fit this amazing shearling on the page but we still wanted to share it with you. We're thinking white patchwork mega coat plus burgundy leather skinnies plus white fringe boots equals AW11 Marant heaven.
The Fashion Editor at Large also has her own column this week in which she spills the beans on the new fashion stalking/shopping obsession that is http://hardlyeverwornit.com/ . Click in to play 'Guess the previous owner' on items such as a vintage mink bolero (Ms Moss maybe?). The FashEd is also boldly stepping forth into AW with a full-on snake print look which she carries off rather fabulously don't you think?
I'm really looking forward to tonight at Selfridges Oxford Street. Myself and the Fashion Junior will be on the third floor in the denim area hoping some of you will come along so we can chat about blogging, what jeans to buy now and general stuff about fashion, the wonderful Grazia and all that jazzmatazz.
On a personal note, I haven't been wearing jeans as much as I used to lately. But then jeans were my fashion item of choice 90% of the time for the majority of the noughties. However, after a break from my skinny-leg J Brands and my ACNE Hex jeans (swapped for Dom & Ruby skinny leather trousers) I've found myself also wearing a high-waisted black slim-leg pair from Nobody (an Aussie brand), and hankering after a pair of Theyskens for Theory wide-leg jeans.
More than that I'm starting to feel for a new sexy boyish aesthetic that is excellently portrayed in this Buffalo inspired shoot styled by Kate Phelan and photographed by Daniel Jackson in the march edition of UK Vogue.
I'm getting to Selfridges early today - I'm in the blogging area from 5pm - so I can try on these jeans:
This morning was one of those mornings where everything just comes together really neatly. I popped into the Mandi Lennard PR press day to have a ganders at AW10 Gareth Pugh and Roksanda Ilincic (both gorgeous up close) and emerged with a pair of Vivienne Westwood for Melissa shoes and a Barbie doll.
There are 12 dolls in the Barbie Basics range, and four different accessories packs to choose from. Meet Fashion Junior Barbie...
Long dark hair. Thick fringe...
Magazines, and (most importantly) a laptop. Make your own now on ASOS.
Next stop was the Christian Louboutin press day (more of which later) where I spied the Louboutin Barbie collection (complete with skinny ankles. In a recent interview the designer was quoted as saying 'I said to them that the one thing that could really give her perfection is to give a curve to her ankle. It's not like she's going to suffer for it'). The new red carpet Louboutin Barbie (in the booklet below) goes on sale soon.
Finally, on Mandi's recommendation, I headed to Selfridges to check out the Barbie pop-up store in the Wonder Room. Curator Sharmadean Reid (of WAH Nails), has assembled a cultural retrospective of black Barbie dolls. As a child of the 90s this was my favourite:
'Barbie and The Beat: In the wake of the 90s revival, this Barbie is very much a cultural icon of history in a time when black clothing and music started to become mainstream in America. The 1990s was a time for De La Soul, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the movies of Spike Lee and Yo MTV Raps! and Barbie and the Beat reflects the adoption of black music and language into the homes of little girls everywhere. This Barbie looks very much like a Californian girl who could have had a cameo in Saved By The Bell' - Sharmadean Ried
There's also an entire wall of Barbies playing house:
(Check out Beyonce dancing up a storm on the telly)
These So In Style dolls (which are dressed in Rocawear by the way) were created by Stacey McBride-Irby - an African-American mother who wanted to make a collection of Barbie dolls that her daughters and community could relate to.
The dolls retail for £25 each and will hopefully be sold on Selfridges' new website at some point soon.
So did the Nineties shop at Selfridges live up to yesterday's stroll down memory lane? Well it gave me a lot of food for thought.
Today I met with the lovely Lucy Willis and Linda Hewson, the two curators of the shop for tea and we chatted about how the idea came about.
"We wanted to kick off the new decade with something provocative and nostalgic," says Linda Hewson. "A lot of people who lived through the decade as adults actually remember very little about the Nineties. Maybe they were having too good a time."
"There was a lot of laughter when we first got the product list through, " says Lucy Willis. "We had opened the criteria right up, so each buying department had their bit."
It's true that what you get in the store is a bit of everything. Classic books of the decade - for me the ultimate was Trainspotting - old magazines, CDs. Spice Girls AND Nirvana? I noted. "They were as important as each other in their own way" says Linda. For me it was Massive Attack and Nirvana all the way.
Also on sale are CD Walkmans, a bit of Damien Hirst YBA merch, limited edition T-Shirts from 90's club night WORK IT (which I hear is the best party in London right now), make up, perfume, sunglasses and clothes. Cue CK One, Thierry Mugler 'Angel' and Mac cosmetics.
My favourite aspect from a fashion point of view was seeing a cardigan from a 1994 collection by Marc Jacobs (Official Grunge if you please) supplied by Rellik on one side of the room, and then the kind of beige Acrylic Grandad cardian with "woven" leather buttons for £15 from Beyond Retro on the other side of the room. The very kind of piece that inspired Marc to do Grunge in the first place. There is also some great Alaia tailoring, some Pam Hogg, a precisely tailored black Comme jacket with a split through the ribcage, and a Perspex Chanel link belt - but be quick. Everything supplied by Rellik is one off. Sadly NO Helmut Lang there today.
I got magazine collection envy when I saw the below. I collect magazines but lost HALF of my 90's collection - precious copies of The Face and Blitz - when a flat-share I had in Stoke Newington went wrong and I was locked out by my Bi-Polar flat-mate. As a die-hard fan of the youthful beauty of Kate Moss I might be back for the below set of covers. But will I ever regain the June 1990 cover of The Face featuring Kate that I used to treasure?
I will sign off tonight by showing you the products I am most likely to buy from this shop; namely the limited edition T-Shirts from the girls behind WORK IT. And here they are!
Oh and a big thankyou to Linda and Lucy who gave this blogger a good time. What fun they had creating this shop!
That's Lil Kim on the left; a crop top that says Work IT in the middle (not for me) and Biggie Smalls on the right. May he RIP.
The 90's are Vintage shop at Selfridges is open until 31 January with new stock arriving every week until its over.
May I suggest you read this post while listening to the above.
I went to Africa to see in the new decade. I love Africa. It's a good place to clear the brain. I was very VERY glad to say goodbye to the noughties, and this new decade feels so full of promise. I've been back from my Africa jaunt for a few days now, and still my brain is scrambled. It's churning like a washing machine with visuals from films, fashion references, music, books, sights, sounds, smells, thoughts each appearing at intervals as they would if you were staring into a little round door.....
Today is the first day for the rest of my blog. A day will now not go by without at least one post. So I've been wondering what to start with. This is my best offer: a glimpse inside the washing machine.
LISTENING I'm obsessed with The XX, and the track above especially. This number is a bit old hat now if you are on the edge of the edge of new music (I listen to NME Radio when I'm not tuned into Radio 4 so I'm doing OK). If I were 22 now I would look like the singer in The XX. In fact when I was 22 I DID look like the singer from the band. I love this track; I listen to it on repeat. Also can't stop playing Exlovers cover of Wicked Game by Chris Isaak.
THINKING ABOUT THE 90'S Selfridges opens a concept store dedicated to the 90's tomorrow morning. The 90's were my formative years, I did it ALLLLL in the 90's, and I'm going to Selfridges tomorrow for a walk-through of the space with the creative director and can't wait. Reading about the store and its products - original 90's fashion supplied by Rellik, bumbags, CK One, Nevermind by Nirvana etc - has given me all sorts of flashbacks, so I went down memory lane for a walk............
As you can see this was me in 1991, just after I left home. (I'm NOT the girl puffing on a large reefer). All we wore was puffa jackets and novelty jumpers with coloured jeans in the winter (even indoors as you can see, no heating), and in the summer Stussy T-shirts, high-top trainers, and cut -off jeans. Not so different from what I've been wearing today in the sub-zero temps.
Not long after the previous picture I cut my hair off and wore tiny cotton vests and boyish jeans for quite a while loving Helmut Lang (and wearing Muji copies) while listening to Massive Attack, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Portishead, oh and worshipping Kate Moss (just a year younger than me) and generally working the androgynous look that the 90's was all about. The other girl in the picture (on the right) is my gorgeous sister Jennifer.
Yeah, I know I look hilarious. But things got better for me as the decade wore on. By the end of the 90's I was working for the Sunday Times Style as Fashion Features Editor, was dating a fashion designer (Sonja Nuttall), and wearing labels like Helmut Lang, Yohji Yamamoto, Hussein Chalayan, McQueen and of course copious amounts of Ms Nuttall's gear. I also unfortunately streaked my hair blonde (see below), lived in an east london loft on De Beauvoir road, right around the corner from where Giles Deacon now lives (I will never live in a loft again - so 90's, so loud, so cold) and listened to a CD walkman on my way to work at Wapping. I also wore CK One and my favourite film was The Matrix.
Here I'm wearing minimalist Sonja Nuttall and some denim wedges I think they were from Russell & Bromley.
Other things on my mind: (I will be exploring all of these more this week)
1. What will this 90's shop look like?
2. New dressing for a new decade - our wardrobe staples have changed - I think I've pinned down the new essentials
2. African prints - aside from the pastel mania that has been reflected prettily on the February covers from British Elle and Vogue, I am seeing Africa everywhere, and NOT just cos I got back from there.
3. I'm getting bored of Lady Gaga - I thought her hat hair this weekend was just stoopid. Not clever or funny, or a statement - just bla.
4. My Tax Return
5. Why am I re-reading The Fashion System by Roland Barthes?
