I have always had a love hate relationship with Hot Couture. John Galliano with his homage in 1997 to Dior's new look and Christian Lacroix with his 18th century inspired huge dresses. Pure creativity without any financial barriers or commercial thinking. The sweetest dream of any young designer!
Since then things have changed. The couture week has become smaller and smaller. The recession appears everywhere. I've missed one of my favorite designers Christian Lacroix, who hasn't shown this season as his company has gone to administration. The hot Couture fashion week would never be the same.
Karl Lagerfeld, in my opinion still stick to his guns and showed a romantic, sexy collection, which kept Chanel spirit throughout and on the same time was updated with the desirable trends. That's the thing about Hot couture, if you do it well- it's like entering someone else dream, like a fantasy, pure desire, but if you do it wrong- it can be a nightmare :) I can safely say that there were no nightmare on this fashion week, but unfortunately it was very clear that the recession is here and the designers are very much aware of the financial point of view. I can relate to this conflict but it has left me a bit disappointed as the core of hot couture week is a fantasy, an impossible dream, and it wasn't hard to see the cracks in this dream.
Here are some of my favorite looks from Hot Couture Week Fall 2010:
First of all the great Karl Lagerfeld with his pastel colors collection, silk drapes with jewelry details.
A breautiful contrast between the delict greek drapes with the stiff sparkly embroideries.
John Galliano for Christian Dior with his huge theatrical sculptured dresses.
and a bit more vintage romantic...
Givenchy showed combination that I like, like this big light pink top (almost like the model complexion) with casual trousers and over the knee boots. I liked the gap that the trousers and the boots created.
This look is like a puzzle pattern. lots of parts in blue hues combined together. The hues and the partition creates beautiful movement.
and who doesn't love ruffles...
These were my highlights of this Hot Couture week. Tell me what you think!
All the pictures are from style.com so you can check the entire collections there.
Ohhh and one last thing... I'm on Facebook now and I invite you to be my friends!
OK, so it's now official... there are idiots on the net and they don't know how to spell boobs correctly. I've looked at what searches people did that lead them to my blog and among the obvious searches, I've found the following key words: mature bube, old bube and bube mature. So lets make it clear guys (and girls...) I'm not going to show my boobs in my blog, or even my bube... :-) (at least for now...).
For those of you that interested with what bube mainses means, it is in Idish language, which is an old jewish language, and it means 'grandma stories' or in other words endless stories that do your head in...
And now, back to what this blog IS really about, I had an interesting interview with Buffy Leigh, she has a great fashion blog that I really recommend you to go and check, you can see my interview here:
I thought you might be interested to read...I really enjoyed giving this interview.
To those who still didn't understand that this is NOT a blog about porn... here are some fashionable naughty pictures for you to enjoy... What can I say, these morons inspired me ;-) I actually think that fashion and sex is a good combination.
These pictures are by one of my favorites artists, Trevor Brown.
The picture at the top of this post is by David Lachapelle. and another one here just for fun.
The winter is here in it’s full power. I’ve never experienced a cold winter like this. In Israel we do not wear coats. If we are cold we put a jumper on. getting used to the million layers was very new to me. I bought my first coat 5 years ago when I moved to London.
Winter - The coldest season of the year, after autumn and before spring.
The oxford dictionary defines winter very clinically and a foreigner like me may mistakably think that all you need in the winter is a cool and warm coat.
Other then the need for the perfect coat, the winter brings many other needs which are much harder to obtain. As the cold reaches under my duvet the longing for my past crawling into my veins. The comforting embrace of my mom and endless laughter with my family. The distance makes the winter here even colder. The coldest the winter – the biggest coat I need.
Maybe that’s a good explanation for the oversized coats trend that we see lately. It seems like I’m not the only one that try to substitute human warmth with fashion.
My sweet husband knows me well and took me to Dover street market to feed my addiction with synthetic love and bought me a Junya Watanabe coat.
I like to wear quirky cloths and dress up but I don’t like to get out of the house as much. It was a good excuse to get out of the house in the freezing weather.
So I put on my gothic black coat on top of a black net 50’s crinoline, my warm glittery green socks and flat patent black shoes and went out to get my new coat.
In the winter it doesn’t really matters what top you put on, you can wear your pyjamas as long as you have a cool coat on top and some punk kinky accessories. As for me, it defiantly my glittery socks and my mescaline patent dress shoes…
We took the Jubilee line to green park and on the way we grabbed the paper from the man near the station.
I was very happy to see a feature on winter fashion and flipped the pages quickly straight to that one. I was very disappointed to see that the feature wasn’t about fashion at all. it showed few celebrities wearing coats, and most disappointing mainly fur coats. There is nothing cool about fur coats. It’s just few murdered harmless cute little animals on a famous lady. There is nothing fashionable about that. You can achieve glamorous expensive look without killing beautiful animals. It’s even more cynical to wear fur coat on Xmas and New Years eve as the holidays suppose to reflect good deeds and hope for a better future.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the big flamboyant look but the days of killing an animal instead of being creative are long gone.
I think that designers should take part in this activity against fur in fashion and support the existing campaign against cruelty towards animals. Stella Mccartney shouldn’t stand alone.
We got home with a big coat inspired by the big comforting duvet. I wonder weather the winter makes Junya also romantic and melancholic that all he wants to do is crawl into his duvet and be a kid again.
The melancholic romance is not always negative, I thought. There is a bitter sweet joy which takes place. I find the English winter quite inspiring. The melancholy sometimes can bring the best ideas, like the brilliant “Ophelia” by Millias. The Pre Raphaelites probably suffered from a winter depression to achieve this perfection. There is nothing like a tormented beauty.
The image of a beautiful woman with a smudged makeup from the rain, dirty soaked dress and huge overcoat has always inspired me. With that thought I’ve started to sketch.
Thanks to my good friend Shirley Sivan who always has a good tune for every occasion!
I can’t believe how much determination it took me to get to my second post. Lets agree that only after 10 posts I’ll start to think of myself as a blogger. I’m still unconvinced I can really do it.
So Xmas was sucks. This was my fifth Xmas as I’ve never celebrated it before I arrived to the UK. Israeli people don’t celebrate Xmas we have “Chanuka” instead, that compared to Xmas looks pretty lame…no parties, no gifts, no sales but we do have donuts and other very fatty food and we light the candles of the “chanukia” as we gain weight.
I spent Xmas with my husband at home, I really wanted to work in my studio as I do every year to distract myself from thinking about home. I couldn’t work. Don’t know why. Every attempt to sit in front of my sketch book or my mannequin failed. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I realized this week that there is a good chance I won’t be able to do a show again this season. This will be my third time not to be able to show and it makes it very difficult. I know I need to be mature and I keep telling myself that big and famous designers didn’t survive the recession but for a young designer like me this is the only chance to get feedback from people and to get my energy to keep being creative. But here is where things get complicated, I need my energy now in order to be creative but I won’t be able to reach the source of my energy, the people, my audience.
I actually was so down I had second thoughts about this blog thing. I really don’t have a writing talent and in English it’s a real struggle but most of all I was bothered with what exactly I should write about…the truth is that most of my work takes place in my head rather than in my sketch book. I think 80% of the time and 20% do the physical work like draping and sketching and working on the patterns. People who work close to me usually see my staring at the mannequin as if I see a ghost. Its a funny vision seeing people wondering around, sawing, cutting, drawing on big paper sheets, lighting another cigarette or making their fifth cup of coffee of the day and a very small lady sitting in the corner watching a naked mannequin all day. I do see a ghost in the shape of my fears. Like a young blogger sitting in front of a blank screen, frightened that she won’t know what to write about.
Someone said once, a lion cries after he comes (it sounds much better in Italian), well people, I guess that’s how a designer feels after he finishes creating another garment. The mannequin is left naked and he is being left with the fear that it might be the last garment that he will be able to create. What if I won’t have any more good ideas up my sleeve?
Welcome to my reality, no happy happy joy joy for me this festive season.
We do celebrate New Year though, so the next post might be more optimistic.
The rest of my week I spent on other things like my online shop (which I’m actually quite exited about) and my new logo (which I’ll tell you all about later on).
It’s always good to have a “non fashion design” project tucked in for a week with no muse, something worthwhile to invest your (my) time in.
The work on my shop and logo was productive and distracted me from my guilt of not progressing with my designs. I was pleased. I can’t wait to make the shop active already…start saving your money people!
Ohhh and if you go to a good party don’t be an ass and tell me about it as the situation now is – new year’s eve= me + my husband + pizza + a shitty movie. Who says designers have a sex, drugs and rock&roll life? Write me people! Happy New Year!
So this is my new website and the first time I’m writing to you (my parents probably, as I don’t think anyone knows about this blog... yet).
I would like to emphasize that this is me, Inbar, writing and no one else is writing instead of me. That’s why my English can sound broken and sometimes I will have a “Borat” English (yagzimash!)
I thought I could share my thoughts and design process with you. Young designers do not have an easy way and this blog is going to be my big escape from the chaos in the studio.
Now I’m working on my next collection and before I share my ideas with you I would like to show you my studio, the place where I am at when every body thinks I’m working... the place where I get all my headaches and where everything starts.
I will try to write every week and show you my process and I will be happy to hear your thoughts people!
A young fashion designer showing in London Fashion Week working in a small East London studio.
Blogging about the other side of fashion, before the lights go on and the models line up.
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