J.W. Anderson / Advent 2014

December 15, 2014 | Design & Culture by Ed

December 15: J.W. Anderson is the young London-based designer, which seems to be really busy at the moment- four collections for his womenswear, two for menswear and… four more collections for the historical Spanish label Loewe, a year. That’s a lot! But nothing makes Jonathan feel out-of-ideas: he can once be full of sharpness, once full of femininity. And for his debutant collection at Loewe presented earlier this year, he thought about using leather (Loewe’s biggest attribute) in new ways and forms. And that’s just the beginning of what this ultra-open-minded designer can bring to Loewe, and of course to his own brand, J.W. Anderson.

Simone Rocha / Advent 2014

December 13, 2014 | Design & Culture by Ed

December 13: What I like about Simone Rocha, the London-based female deisigner, is her ironic romance kept in her clothes- a pearl-applied dress might seem to be naive, but in relity it shows a lot of body; the florals she intensively used in her SS15 weren’t just florals you imagine- that was a strong connection to her Korean grandmothers way of dressing and Irish parents conceptual style. This girl got secrets…

Cherevichkiotvichki

November 30, 2014November 30, 2014 | Design & Culture by Ed

The impossible to pronounce CHEREVICHKIOTVICHKI (in Russian: Черевички от Bички ) stands for “a shoe by Victoria” in the old Slavic language, but said in a playful childish manner. The beautiful story of Cherevichkiotvichki begins in Lithuania where Victoria grew up surrounded by the remains of Soviet culture and the uprising of Baltic heritage. Born in the family of factory workers she grew up to be fascinated by the extinct utilitarian lifestyle and nurtured memories of her childhood past transforming them into series of everyday objects – shoes. This stunning self-taught shoemaker performs copious amounts of research empathizing traditional craftsman-ship between her London studio and the atelier in Italy. I am truly in love with this brand- the shoes feel so full of attitude, like if they had their own life! And the way the accessories are presented also feels unique.

Cute Love. Simone Rocha SS15

September 18, 2014 | Design & Culture by Ed

I hear Vanessa Paradis Pourtant when I look at Simone Rocha’s SS15 collection. It’s so romantic, oh my! Ad cute! Those model’s curly hair styled with these fur trimmed broques and fragile dresses feel so truly naive and sublime at the same time… Rocha has always been ambitious with her textiles, but what felt new this season was the sensitivity and specificity with which she deployed them: a light touch of embroidery on pink mesh, the graphic counterpoint of floral embellishment on a sheer white sheath, that lurid marabou snaking around a dress of silvery brocade. The collection, having a lot of themes, felt all the time truly girlie and interesting (my heart belongs to those shoes with fur!) with those rose appliqued sheer dresses. Surely, this will be a retail challenge- but Simone’s fashion is always best-sellng at London’s Dover Street Market, so no worries!

Show Girl. Tom Ford SS15

September 18, 2014 | Design & Culture by Ed

Tom Ford sexy ups his label with every season. But this was over the top! Tricky velvet suits, sheer tops, sequin flowers sticked to nipples, Gucci-esque white gowns… a real show-girl time. The soundtrack was a narcotized female version of “Addicted to Love” (the vocalist’s emphasis on the addiction, rather than the love), to which extraordinarily proportioned girls—rail thin, seven feet tall in their platform clogs—teetered down the mirrored catwalk, eyes laden with mascara, hair in teased-out shags. Tom’s SS15 isn’t really about the “sexy” office go-out, but it’s surely for women which feel sexy in their skin… and attitude.