Nils Butler is the Calvin Klein man. It makes perfect sense. Who else to make desirable a rather indifferent spring collection? Mr Butler could make anything look possible. Complete cuteness. Below are some backstage candids - enjoy!
Showing posts with label Spring 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spring 2011. Show all posts
18 January 2011
Calvin Klein Man
Nils Butler is the Calvin Klein man. It makes perfect sense. Who else to make desirable a rather indifferent spring collection? Mr Butler could make anything look possible. Complete cuteness. Below are some backstage candids - enjoy!
13 January 2011
Beautiful Jil Ads
The Jil Sander ads colours look very fresh, don't they? I love those bags especially, they remind me of those Pleats Please ones I used to collect, and Maison Martin Margiela carrier bags were shaped like this, but in white.
02 January 2011
01 January 2011
31 December 2010
Weekend Reading List
I must say I wasn't given many promising things this last Christmas, and I certainly didn't get that many books. I was, for instance, given a black leather CK bag (I gave it to my nephew JX to use for the new school year). I should think books are the most obvious things to give me, and I'm not that hard to please. I think.
When I unwrapped the neat package that my designer friend EC had sent to my room at the Traders Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, I knew it was a book. Not surprisingly, it was a buddhist book, Peace: A Compilation of Short Teachings by Tsem Tulku Rinpoche. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche is EC's guru, and EC is truly devout. I want to just quickly note here that the Traders Hotel is a wonderfully civillized place to stay if you ever find yourself in KL - my room, very spacious and no-nonsense (I like no-nonsense rooms, don't you?) overlooks the park and the KLCC twin towers (they look like twin phallic maize, don't they?). My colleagues and friends keep telling me that the hotel is 'very central' but that's nonsense to me (central? central to what? why does everything need to be central? Are taxis quite unheard of? Am I interested in the malls at Bukit Bintang? Shudder, and repeat). The hotel's service is clockwork, housekeeping is prompt and thorough, things work, and that's all you can want from a hotel. The bedside clock, for instance, lights up when you lift it - I found that out when I brought the clock to the bathroom to time my bath. Of course my friends kept talking about this impressive Sky Bar thing to which they repaired each night, but I wouldn't know a thing about it to tell you, now would I?
I was given a food book by M There's No Carrot in Carrot Cake: 101 Hawker Dishes Singaporeans Love, by food blogger Leslie Tay. Now, I don't know why M thinks I need this food guide which describes food I know and eat often, but there you go. It's prettily designed, like a Tang's paperbag, but that's about all I can say for it.
F made me buy the winter 2010 issue of Acne with Leigh Bowery on the cover. I must say it's visually very convincing with stories on Lucien Freud, and other artists' studios which appear fascinating. There's a portrait of Dame Agatha Christie by Lord Snowden which is lovely (pictured here). There are Deborah Turbeville interiors. But I've been flipping it, not reading it. It's truly inpenetrable. One can't get into it however determined one is, and then one is asleep, the lights still on. And then one feels guilty. It's the same with the winter 2009 issue of Acne. I took it back from the office because it seemed so interesting on first flip (Tilda Swinton as the mad muse Marchesa Casati? Sold!) but again, unreadable. Very dull, if fetchingly designed.
So lets resolve, shall we, to only take to bed things that have quality and innate value, in the new year, instead of merely pretty things, hollow, but well designed.
Bookwise, and otherwise.
(Ms Swinton by Paolo Roversi)
When I unwrapped the neat package that my designer friend EC had sent to my room at the Traders Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, I knew it was a book. Not surprisingly, it was a buddhist book, Peace: A Compilation of Short Teachings by Tsem Tulku Rinpoche. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche is EC's guru, and EC is truly devout. I want to just quickly note here that the Traders Hotel is a wonderfully civillized place to stay if you ever find yourself in KL - my room, very spacious and no-nonsense (I like no-nonsense rooms, don't you?) overlooks the park and the KLCC twin towers (they look like twin phallic maize, don't they?). My colleagues and friends keep telling me that the hotel is 'very central' but that's nonsense to me (central? central to what? why does everything need to be central? Are taxis quite unheard of? Am I interested in the malls at Bukit Bintang? Shudder, and repeat). The hotel's service is clockwork, housekeeping is prompt and thorough, things work, and that's all you can want from a hotel. The bedside clock, for instance, lights up when you lift it - I found that out when I brought the clock to the bathroom to time my bath. Of course my friends kept talking about this impressive Sky Bar thing to which they repaired each night, but I wouldn't know a thing about it to tell you, now would I?
I was given a food book by M There's No Carrot in Carrot Cake: 101 Hawker Dishes Singaporeans Love, by food blogger Leslie Tay. Now, I don't know why M thinks I need this food guide which describes food I know and eat often, but there you go. It's prettily designed, like a Tang's paperbag, but that's about all I can say for it.
F made me buy the winter 2010 issue of Acne with Leigh Bowery on the cover. I must say it's visually very convincing with stories on Lucien Freud, and other artists' studios which appear fascinating. There's a portrait of Dame Agatha Christie by Lord Snowden which is lovely (pictured here). There are Deborah Turbeville interiors. But I've been flipping it, not reading it. It's truly inpenetrable. One can't get into it however determined one is, and then one is asleep, the lights still on. And then one feels guilty. It's the same with the winter 2009 issue of Acne. I took it back from the office because it seemed so interesting on first flip (Tilda Swinton as the mad muse Marchesa Casati? Sold!) but again, unreadable. Very dull, if fetchingly designed.So lets resolve, shall we, to only take to bed things that have quality and innate value, in the new year, instead of merely pretty things, hollow, but well designed.
Bookwise, and otherwise.
(Ms Swinton by Paolo Roversi)
Auspicious Red Things
Venetian Plaster (over gold plaster)...
Before Calvin Klein.
Japanese Peony
Riding coat, worn and torn, so quintessentially English.
Edison, before the fall - he still looked touchingly unbroken and fresh.
Sadao Hasagawa painting - the painter committed suicide in the Pinnacle Hotel Lumpini, Bangkok.
Mark Rothko painting.
13 December 2010
04 December 2010
25 November 2010
03 November 2010
Iman YSL
These ads were shot by Gianpaolo Barbeiri. The clothes are as relevant today and could be from Spring 2011.
07 October 2010
Giotto Babes
The gorgeous Lanvin Spring 2011 collection made me think of Giotto (1267 - 1337). I think it's the very special decayed colours, and also the draping. Also, I think the idea of the chasteness, and the purity of the Lanvin woman, in particular, one very specific sheer beige dress.
Paris On a Chill Pill
This Paris collection will revolutionise fashion: Instead of thrusting urgently forward, as has been the trajectory of fashion in the last decade, this season sees fashion changes slowing down. Designers turned away from making extreme statements, and took baby steps forwards. Some labels have even taken steps backwards and went back-to-basics: Stella McCartney’s collection was almost timid in its stripped down practicality (pinch yourself - is this Paris?) and Valentino’s designers, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli have gone back to the label’s roots (as have other labels seeking safety in the tried and true) of pretty lace dresses. Pretty, and pretty safe. They were lauded for this un-radical turn.
There’s certainly been plenty of safe, unchallenging white – clothes the colour of a blank first page, the freshness of a new chapter. There is a feeling that designers are polishing their visions instead of greedily grabbing for new trends, and cleaning out the excesses of the past (the bold shoulders, the gold hardware, the Baroque door-stopper shoes and decorated handbags). Cliched as it sounds, less is definitely more this season. Even usually challenging designers gave their collections a lighter touch: Viktor & Rolf, the designing duo given to heavily conceptual designs in the past sent out an angelic white collection full of puff sleeved-shirts and soft ruffles and Tao Kurihara, the young Comme des Garçons protege, was all sweetness and light, presenting sugary ruffles and naive smocked blouses in innocent gingham. Is pretty the new black?
Other trends include the gentlest of colours – nudes and pastels sharpened by sporty pings of primary brights and bracing stripes. These are all shades of the schoolyard, and represent rejuvenation. There are plenty of frou frou and frills (often lace and chiffon), but these billow and float, injecting a buoyancy, and a child-like charm. Shorts worn every way freshened the day wear, while skirts were mostly longer, and full and lightly fluttering. Shoes have gotten down to earth, and are now simple versions of the crazy shapes we have been seeing. The freshest of these are flat sandals, even for night, instead of some towering atrocity — even the humble ballet pump looked new. These simple accessories are a symbol of fashion’s new relaxed mood, a big step away from the tired idea of change for the sake of change.
(My complete Paris report will appear in Business Times on Saturday. Pictured: My favourite collection - Dries Van Noten)
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