Design Squad

Victoria Beckham has just launched her second collection of designer clothes in New York and it would seem that this collection has been received well by the fashion critics.   I have to say that apart from the price tag (ranging from £900 to £4000) these clothes look wearable, even for the average woman, not just film stars, pop singers and socialites.  The dresses are chic and cut simply with a great deal of attention to detail.  Unlike some designers whose cat walk collections are prototype exaggerations of clothes women might wear, Victoria’s range is definitely ready to wear.

 

I can’t help thinking that Victoria has designed clothes with her own body shape in mind, but who can blame her!  What woman wouldn’t like the opportunity to have clothes made to exactly to her taste and body shape?   Often, when I am looking for clothes, I have a very definite idea in my mind of what I am looking for, and often I have to compromise on colour or cut.   Imagine being able to pick something up and have it made in a different colour! 

 

Victoria Beckham is tiny and has a perfect hourglass figure.  The clothes in her collection are cut for curves and narrow shoulders.  An “inverted triangle” might struggle with the boat neck lines which would accentuate the breadth of the shoulder and the draping fabrics and fitted waist lines would be challenging for “rectangles”.   Most of the dresses are in basic neutral colours that will withstand the years and the designs are classic enough to last more than one season.

 

 I am somewhat sceptical about how much “designing” Victoria has done.   Designers train for years at art school and still don’t make it.  I wonder if she actually draws the pictures herself or whether she has a “sketcher” who puts her ideas into drawings.  I have no doubt that she has put a great deal of thought into what she wanted to achieve and made all the decisions about the final cut.  Her detailed knowledge of every dress is very evident.  

 

While I cannot justify the price tag, I am glad to see a collection of attractive and interesting yet wearable clothes and I wish Victoria Beckham well with this venture.

 

New trends and styles for men’s clothing and accessories are often influenced and preceded by women’s fashion. If floral’s are on the cards for spring 2009 then similarly you’ll see watered down versions in suits through to silk ties.

It might sound ridiculous, but, it has been so for centuries.

Louis Patou a Paris fashion designer made silk ties from women’s dress material, hence the advent of the designer tie.

So the concept is nothing new. The fact is women’s fashion is specifically designed to attract man.

And so naturally including a smidgeon of femininity into men’s accessories, silk ties in particular, makes perfect sense. The other thing is, you’d be surprised at the number of females that design men’s clothing.

It is our good fortune that they do, otherwise we’d end up with nothing other than grey suits, striped ties and tattered old wallets.

I’ve seen the spring summer 2009 silk tie collection, they are drab and colourless, a series of stripes and geometric patterns, no floral’s at all, which, after seeing what women plan to wear is in contrast to logic.

How much longer do we have to be confined to conservative shades of grey?

Well, luckily there are changes afoot and if you’re prepared to look hard enough will be rewarded. There are designers out there who accurately forecast future trends and they’re the ones to watch as they buck the critics view.

The women fashion designers I know of and or associated with all share common traits, the way they incorporate colour and pattern cannot be mimicked by man. And that’s where the great appeal is, it’s the scent of a women in the designs they create.

Rather than follow mainstream, we’ve created our own regime with a small cluster of male and female designers. People may ask, what’s so special about that? Well there’s only one way to find out.

By name, Cressida Bell, Victoria Richards and Vivienne Westwood, Shane McCoubrey, Ian Flaherty, Lbb London and Simon Carter.

By unique product; Falling Leaves autumn silk ties, Bar, mens jewellery, and the famous cube cufflinks by Ian Flaherty.

And if it’s Jewellery for men you’re searching for? The best is deigned by a woman.

Now here are a few historic anecdotes from our data base.

1971: Maverick screen actress Katherine Hepburn, whose long-term lover Spencer Tracey was a customer of Huntsman, takes the extraordinary step of ordering bespoke denim jeans from her late lover’s Savile Row tailor. Hepburn’s commission foreshadows bespoke denim collections launched in 2006 by Timothy Everest and Evisu.

1973: Robert Redford stars in the definitive film of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald was a dedicated customer of Jermyn Street bespoke shirt maker Turnbull & Asser. The shirts that reduce The Great Gatsby’s socialite heroine Daisy (Mia Farrow) to tears with their beauty in the film all bear the Turnbull & Asser bespoke label.

1974: Gieves Ltd acquires Hawkes (and the precious freehold of No I Savile Row) and become Gieves & Hawkes.Tommy Nutter seeks sanctuary at Kilgour, French & Stanbury after his acrimonious exit from Nutters of Savile Row. Kilgour also incorporates the famed hunt tailoring specialist Bernard Weatherill. Nutters of Savile Row continues with Sexton, Roy Chittleborough and Joseph Morgan.Maurice Sedwell hires Trinidad-born Andrew Ramroop who will go on to become Managing Director and a Professor of tailoring at the London College of Fashion.

There will always be a niche to fill and our aim is to do so.

 

 

This year is the beginning of a new era; a New Look in fashion will be characterized by the challenging time we now live in. What becomes unfashionable is influenced by this shifting economic change and what becomes fashionable will be an emotional reaction.

From the excessive gluttonous, ’take all that one can get’ years to a future of growing financial concerns and constraints, we have now entered into a time of more restrictions placed on our daily choices. How will this play into fashion. We live in an era of greatly diverse fashion choices than ever before, when just a few decades ago fashion designers produced a look by virtue of the times. Wars, economic boom times as well as downturns dramatically made their effect known on the world of fashion as well as the world of music and food, interior design, cars and gadgets.

‘What’s in, what’s out’ are determined by are value system and the new financial restraints dictated by this capricious time. The days of consumerism and opulence are over for now.

The monogram bag and showy studs, metal and tacky gemstones, silly frills are about out. Statements of worth by virtue of corrupt financial worlds are out and a more authenticity and simplistic styling are certainly gaining admirers. Society has a way of imposing what we wear by the changing times. What comes with a time of economic criticism of capitalism, possibly a greater independence from the social hierarchy with a growing emphasis on clean simplistic classical lines that avoids fashions excesses.

The 1970’s and the financial crisis of deep economic recession brought us longer hemlines, trousers for women, denim, thrift store hippy finds, and a retro return to the 30’s emphasizing the romantic nostalgia.

Time is right for denouncing gimmicks, monograms on bags and extolling a discreet minimal look with earthy hues. Hmmm, where are we going with this? This is 2009, fashions time for a transformation. So how does the fashion industry deal with this added constraint by consumer resistance to pay high prices for trendy looks. It may be a practical time but with women still holding on to elegance and glamour with a sense of power yet romance and allure while avoiding the unwelcome attention of gimmicks.

Women are admired for their intellectual and perceptive powers, their enigmatic clever wit, their good sense and their lively enthusiasm. Innovation is in the hands of designers to define this new era of fashion that will compliment the woman of today whether she is  a housewife or a businesswomen, a doctor or an artist, living in the countryside or a cosmopolitan city. Fashion demands something new like elegance and practicability.

“Reduction, restriction and the reversion of the complicated to the simple; this is not a cluttered effect. This return to the basics has been repeated time and again throughout the history of fashion.” Gerda Buxbaum

New styles will emerge that will set a new era characterized by simplicity and adaptability. Conforming to this prevailing cultural change will establish a new trend.