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Burberry is one of the most well-established & recognised fashion labels in the world.  Formed in 1856 by Thomas Burberry, the company invented gabardine, dressed Roald Amundsen & Ernest Shackleton (the most revered explorers of their time) & designed clothing for officers in the British army.  “Burberry classic check”, also known as “haymarket check” is instantly identifiable from it’s black, tan & red pattern.

Burberry had a public image problem in the 1990s, when it fell victim to the problem all fashion houses dread: counterfeiting on an enormous scale.  As Burberry had become popular with fans of English football, their classic check started to appear on all manner of items, & sold on almost every street corner.  It become the unofficial uniform for less savoury groups like chavs & football hooligans, & severely damaged the public perception of the brand.

When Christopher Bailey joined Burberry as creative director in 2001, the tide began to turn for the British icon.  The house turned out truly fashion-forward looks at the speed of light, garnering a gaggle of young new fans.  They secured the top British talent for its advertising campaigns, including Emma Watson, Agyness Deyn, Lily Donaldson & Kate Moss.  Today, their image is of utmost quality & brave style.

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4.20 (10 votes)

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The L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival is like any fashion week anywhere in the world: designers, models, buyers, editors & stylists revelling in a sartorial orgy which lasts for the longest seven days of your life. By the time of the closing night party, blisters are rampant, skin is dehydrated and sallow, and everyone is feeling just a tad bit blind from the non-stop camera flashes. Your bed is calling your name; your name has never sounded sweeter. 
But this year, Melbourne’s fashion week has a point of difference. It has a simple and straightforward slogan: “Get Happy”. In the advertising campaign, there is nary a sour or sultry look to be had. No — instead, the models are smiling and laughing. Photographed by Stephen Chee, models Katya & Tina look delighted just to be in front of a camera, and let’s face it, they probably were.

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2.33 (6 votes)

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For most of us, the day of the first Spring blossoms is one of the best days of the year. It signifies an end to the bone-chilling temperatures & incessant layering-up, & beckons with a finger full of promise. The end of dumpling-wear! Rejoice! 
With this, of course, come the questions. What can we expect to see ourselves in this season? After all, no matter how little you like fashion, what is in style dictates what is available for purchase. 
The recent Spring 2010 collections shown in Paris are the best indication of where the industry is at. So, where is it at?

Chanel
Karl Lagerfeld’s “neon baroque” collection for Chanel will surely be a huge influence. He has taken what was already mid-revival — say, studded footwear & oversized hair-bows — & simply done it better than everyone else. While most of us have just been wearing a big floppy bow on the side of our heads, he has made them ornate & frothy, & placed them smack in the middle of a heart-shaped bouffant. He has combined a high-heeled bootie with a studded platform (two huge trends in & of themselves), but made the shoe entirely silver with an extravagant heel & jewel-encrusted buckles. While Chanel’s immaculate & easily identifiable cuts are still there, they’re in frosting hues: pastel pink & sweet lavender, with glittery silver & shimmering grey-blue.  Just like a couture cupcake.

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3.15 (13 votes)

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Who is Chanel Iman?  At 19 years old & with neverending gams, she is one of the most well-known & successful models of the moment.  She signed with Ford in 2006, landed her first Vogue cover at 16, & regularly books the most prestigious shows at fashion week.  With an African American father & a half-Korean mother, she has her own very distinctive look.

Chanel Iman recently fulfilled one of her all-time modeling goals: to be a Victoria’s Secret Angel.  The highly-coveted positions are only offered to top models.  Chanel is one of five new Angels, joining Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Miranda Kerr, Marisa Miller & Doutzen Kroes.  She’ll be joining them in the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show, which happens in New York City on November 19th & is broadcast globally.

What makes her so charming?  It’s a combination of her personality — of which she has plenty — & the fact that she has remained grounded.  She is a delightful contradiction in terms.  She caught Anna Wintour’s attention when she winked at her during a runway show, but her mother still cuts her hair & keeps her on a budget of $5,000 a month.  Her favorite food is chicken & waffles, & despite being constantly surrounded by the best clothing the world has to offer, her favorite places to shop are flea markets & Forever 21.

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2.48 (21 votes)

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Sometimes I feel bad for men. Their sartorial options are so limited.  Your choices are essentially pants and amp; shirts. Women get to wear dresses, jumpsuits, miniskirts, bikinis… Men get pants and amp; shirts.  It’s not all terrible though — it just means that designers have to be more creative within the bounds of what they’ve already been given to work with.  How can they make trousers better, for example?  They spend hours pondering what makes a really great shirt. It’s about continual improvement or refinement, rather than just blowing the category wide open and amp; sticking a big bow on it.

So as man who has to dress within these confines, what can you do to make your outfit a little more exciting?  …especially if you work in an office?

You can buy a great tie.

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2.69 (16 votes)

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What do you do when you feel that your work has been ripped off — not by another artist, or even another store, but by one of fashion’s most influential houses?
If you’re Carmen Colle, you file a $3.7 million lawsuit. The social-worker-turned-seamstress started her business, World Tricot, in 1987, with nothing but a crochet hook. Her vision? To employ & establish a sense of pride in some of the illiterate female refugees in the small town in eastern France where she lived. Like a fairytale, it all came true. World Tricot is one of the many suppliers that the large couture houses use to provide them with the intricate handiwork they use in their garments. Called petites mains, these suppliers work with feathers, beads, lace & crochet which are then used by the likes of Dior, Givenchy & Chanel. In 2005, World Tricot’s profits exceeded almost 3 million dollars.

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3.00 (23 votes)

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Patricia Field is like the fairy godmother of every capricious, madly-dressed fashionista on the planet.  She is legendary in scope, her name falling in alongside the likes of Betsey Johnson & Vivienne Westwood when it comes to women who do it their way & succeed.
Born & raised in New York City, she has been a Manhattan icon since the late 1970’s, when she started her own line of clothing & accessories for club kids, ravers & other wild personalities.  However, she started to really cement her place on the international scene when she began work on the now legendary Sex & The City. While she worked alongside other stylists, one of them long-term girlfriend Rebecca Weinberg, Field was always at the helm, pointing the way. Her adventurous, creative & fun way of looking at clothing & how we use it to express ourselves suddenly had a worldwide audience & a cult following. As the show became more & more popular, she took bigger sartorial risks, making enormous flowers, a mix of high- & low-end, & a super-colorful palette much more accessible, exciting & desirable.

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3.00 (16 votes)

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Designer collaborations with retail giants like Target, The Gap & H&M seem to be a dime a dozen these days. Kate Moss works with TopShop, Rodarte teamed up with Target & even Alexander McQueen has released capsule collections so that people who aren’t on the very top of the fashion pile can get in on the fun.

What’s the value of these deals?  It’s really all about economics.  Of course — like there was ever any doubt! The appeal of the designer label brings a new type of customer to the mass-market retailer, while women who don’t read Vogue are given more exposure to the high-end label in question.  There’s definite hype factor, too: the idea that those of us on a modest budget can suddenly own something by one of our most desired labels sends the internet all a-flutter.

But is it really worth it?  One of the most highly anticipated collaborations, Jimmy Choo for H&M, launches on November 14th, & the reaction has been mixed.  As one would expect, the pieces are luxe & sexy, with over-the-knee boots, studded dresses & more fabulous pairs of stilettos than you can shake a bunion at. But the question remains: if Jimmy Choo can make shoes at such a low price-point, what have we really been paying for all this time?

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3.05 (21 votes)

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Known for their distinctive & bold use of color, wild silhouettes & a radical, subversive sense of humor, WORLD are one of New Zealand’s most fantastic exports.  Founded by Denise L’Estrange-Corbet & Francis Hooper in 1989, they say that “the initial idea for WORLD was hatched at a bus stop late one night”.  Having both returned from London & bored with their retail jobs, they decided it was time to shake up New Zealand’s fashion industry.  They were certainly the right people to do it: L’Estrange-Corbet had graduated from the London College of Fashion, while Hooper had been working with John Galliano & Rei Kawakubo of Commes Des Garcons.

They have come a long way from their beginnings in 1989.  20 years in the industry has seen their aesthetic become more sophisticated, though not necessarily more wearable!  Always with an air of drama, WORLD has retained its very tongue-in-chic mindset.  Designing for both men & women with equal panache, they seek to recreate themselves from the ground up every season.

They say their raison d’etre is “to act as conceptual leaders, constantly striving to give form to new approaches to fashion, & to fulfill an educative role, reflecting that the mainstays of any creative industry are ideas & experimentation.”

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3.00 (16 votes)

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