Alexa Chung for Madewell

Episode number 316 in the series “Celeb Designing for Fashion Brand”: Alexa Chung for Madewell. Normally I don’t post about these sorts of cooperations, but I think Alexa has her own style (ok, borrowed from French 60’s icons like Francoise Hardy and Jane Birkin) and this partnership could be interesting.

I didn’t know Madewell, but after some google-ing it appeared to be a US denim brand as part of J. Crew. Alexa teamed up with them for their Fall 2010 collection. And tadaa….the pictures are here. 

The clothes are very “Alexa”, like  high waisted denim and velvet shorts, tea dresses, slouchy cardigans and boyfriend blazers in tans, blues and grays. And socks in clogs (woohoo)! It’s all been done before, but I’m a sucker for anything 60’s and high waisted, and the styling looks fresh, so tumbs up to Alexa!

Pictures from coutorture.com

More info on madewell1937.com

L.A.M.B. Fall 2010

Yesterday was the showing of L.A.M.B.’s Fall 2010 collection. The difficulty with L.A.M.B. is that their collection can be fantastic, or a complete bummer. Although Gwen Stefani is the “face” of the brand, since L.A.M.B.’s head desiners Zaldy and Andrea Lieberman left, the label became very mediocre. Since then it seems L.A.M.B.  has lost it’s original fifties-ska-punkrock roots. So what about this new collection…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This season was a mature mixture of Gwen’s trademarks:  “vintage, boudoir, military, fifties, sexy, and futuristic.” I personally love all the leather items, I want the greenish leather pants, the leather shorts (hello again!) and the jackets with the pointy shoulders.

Watch Gwen talking about this new collection:

R.I.P. Alexander McQueen

Yesterday the very sad news came that designer Alexander McQueen has died. A couple of years ago I saw one of his runway shows on tv and I couldn’t take my eyes of the screen, because what I saw was like an extraterrestrial, magical world of fashion. Since then I’ve always been a big fan.

Just to show a little bit of his brilliance, here’s an impression of his latest shows.

Spring / Summer 2010

The spring /summer 2010 collection was an apocalyptic forecast of the future ecological meltdown of the world: Humankind is made up of creatures that evolved from the sea, and we may be heading back to an underwater future as the ice cap dissolves. This vision was shown through short dresses with nipped-waists and sea-reptile prints.  

 part1:

part 2:

 

 

Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

The Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 collection was his protest against the predictability in fashion. The clothes were high-drama satires of twentieth-century landmark fashion: parodies of Christian Dior houndstooth New Look and Chanel tweed suits, moving through harsh orange and black harlequinade looks to revisited showstoppers from McQueen’s own archive.

part 1:

part 2:

 

 

One of  his fashions shows that is now legendary was his Fall 2006 collection, in which a vision of Kate Moss appeared: a hologram made by video maker Baillie Walsh, art-directed by McQueen.

Kate was a close friend of Mcqueen and appeared in some of his shows. When Kate had her cocaine scandal in 2005, Alexander showed his support by wearing this t-shirt at the Spring / Summer 2006 show.

In 2009 he made an affordable line for the US retail brand Target, check out our post about that. But the was also made a shoe and clothing line for the Puma Black Label.

He sure will be missed…

Collection pictures from style.com.

Dig!

Spent this weekend with a good dose of pychedelic rock music: I watched Dig! on video (and I saw the Black Angels play in Paradiso). Dig! is a documentary from 2004 made by Ondi Timoner, and it follows two bands over a a period of seven years: the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Both bands are befriended and are trying to make it in the music industry:  the DandyWarhols love becoming rockstars and make a stupid $40.000 music video with director David LaChapelle for “Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth”, the Brian Jonestown Massacre are fucking things up because of a mixture of stubbornness and not conforming themselves to the commerce. The initial friendship becomes rivalry, resulting in the hilarious BJM recording “Not If You Were the Last Dandy on Earth”.

Although the documentary isn’t very nuanced, it has a lot of brilliant scenes, like a vain Courtney Taylor complaining about his looks in the video for “Junkie”, BJM playing for ten hours for ten people and a very young Peter Hayes as a member of the BJM (now of BRMC). Anyway, definitely worth a watch.

But most of all, Dig! shows, to quote former Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann: ” as soon as a bloke gets a guitar in his hands, he’s unbearable”.

Movie trailer:

The Brian Jonestown Massacre – Going to Hell:

The Dandy Warhols – Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth (1997):

More stuff:

www.myspace.com/antonfjordson

www.myspace.com/thedandywarhols

www.thecommitteetokeepmusicevil.com

Veruschka for Gucci

Gucci’s creative director, Frida Giannini, has again used the Gucci archives for another commercial succes. I love the way she uses the history of Gucci in modern designs, like the Flora scarf pattern and the equestrian iconography. For the new watch ad campaign she used black and white images of legendary model Veruschka, shot in the sixties for Gucci. The male in the picture is actor Peter Sellers.

“The images featured in this campaign are some of my favorites from the Gucci archive,” said Frida Giannini. “They perfectly illustrate not only the glamour of Gucci’s past and the many style icons who were naturally drawn to the house, but also show how this heritage can be relevant today.”

 

Pretty cool, don’t you think? I even love the watch…