Freja Beha Erichsen is a girl after my own heart. When it comes to style what she likes, I like. Case in point is this beautiful Valentino dress currently available on Net-a-Porter, and which Freja chooses for her Christmas wishlist. I'm a great admirer of the work of Pier Paolo Piccioli (PPP) and Maria Grazia Chiuri (MGC) who have reinvented the Valentino look for the 21st Century. When I interveiwed PPP and MGC for POP Magazine last year both were beyond delighted that Freja was set to become the face of the brand. "We want a modern girl who is beautiful but with something unexpected about her." The two make a perfect couple.
"I love lesbians. My best friends are all lesbians. It's very easy for people to live as lesbians. Men don't dislike women, why should women dislike women?" - Karl Lagerfeld
In this year-old film Freja comes across as extremely intelligent, self contained and far more mature than her modelling persona suggests.
Azzedine Alaia creates the world's most beautiful shoes. The same way Azzedine's clothes are sinuously body-conscious or angled to create new shapes around the body, so his shoes are languidly serpentine, simultaneously coiling about the foot and placing them on a pedestal. No woman can resist the charms of an Alaia shoe. Even Alaia shoe boxes are works of art. With these under your Christmas tree you will feel like Cinderella.
"Cinderella: [singing] A dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep. Whatever you wish for, you keep. Have faith in your dreams, and someday, your rainbow will come smiling through."
Check out this so bad its good mash up of Disney's Cinderella with some crazy dude rapping badly about shoes over the Glass Slipper scene.
This week's news begins with some of our favourite editorial images released in the past few days...
Italian Vogue Editor-in-Chief Franca Sozzani has been shot by Terry Richardson and styled by Katie Grand for the cover on Industrie, the magazine which charts the lives of fashion's insiders.
Editor becomes model
Kate Moss is transformed into Ziggy Stardust for French Vogue's Music issue. Shot by Mert and Marcus.
Image from telegraph.co.uk
Resident Italian Vogue photographer Steven Meisel has captured Karlie Kloss in a series of nude and clothed contrasted images for the publication's January issue. Entitled 'Body by Kloss' , it's making us think twice before delving into the mince pies...
Transsexual model Lea T has scored her first major cover this month with Elle Brazil. She is dressed in Givenchy as designed by her good friend Riccardo Tisci.
When you work in the fashion industry, it soon becomes clear how many unspoken heroes there are behind the scenes; beautiful clothes cannot be created by one person alone although it is often easy to slip into that way of thinking when designers are superstars. Francois Lesage was one of those behind the scenes people. His death this week came after a long illness. However, Monsieur Lesage should be remembered for his fine mastery of haute couture embroidery. He leant his expertise to the creation of couture at the most esteemed Parisian houses including Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Chanel and Givenchy. In 2002, Chanel bought Maison Lesage in order to guarantee the survival of its unique contribution. French Cultural Minister Frédéric Mitterand told WWD this week: “He was one of those people who make you aware of the slim border between art and craft. He was also known for his generous spirit and waggish humour.”
RIP Francois Lesage.
Work by Maison Lesage- Yves Saint Laurent 1988
As our friends at Editd so astutely point out, the Versace x H&M collaboration has had huge effects across the world of fashion and had a huge uplift in social media awareness for Versace and Donatella. We have definitely seen how lots of the SS12 high street collections have been 'inspired' by the line, of which there's more to come in January. For their next partnership, H&M have chosen a much more fashion-insider brand, Marni.
Although editors frequently sing the praises of the label designed by Consuelo Castiglioni, it does not have the fame and brand power of Versace. Lots of people were pointing out on Twitter when the news broke on Monday that Marni would probably be confused with Armani by those who didn't know better! The collection which as with Versace majors on print, launches on March 8th. We expect rather a different queue to those Versace ones the other week.
Marni's designer Consuelo Castiglioni and H&M's Margareta van den Bosch
style a model wearing a dress from the collection
(image from vogue.co.uk)
I had a dig at Dame Vivienne Westwood a few weeks ago for what I perceived as her hypocrisy at launching stores in China and then supporting OCCUPY London. So, I was very pleased to hear this week that she has donated £1 million from her business to Cool Earth, a climate change charity which is campaigning to halt deforestation in Borneo, Peru and the Congo Basin. Westwood said 'Governments…are so slow that we can’t wait for them any more. We have to get this thing moving and hope that they’ll join in'.
It's no fun being extinct, says Vivienne Westwood
After winning Red Carpet Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards on Monday, Stella McCartney was happy to hand the limelight to Jennifer Saunders (in full Edina get-up) on Tuesday as she turned on the lights at Stella's Bruton Street store. Ever since the very first images of the forthcoming Ab Fab episodes were released, we've known that Eddie has transferred her Lacroix fixation to much a more now Stella addiction. Later, we learnt that Stella is going to be making a cameo appearance in one of the episodes, the first of which airs on Christmas Day. Oh we feel spoilt! And to whet your appetite for Ab Fab's return, a little teaser clip was released this week... Enjoy!
'Eddy' with Stella and Emma Bunton who both star in
the new episodes (image from dailymail.co.uk)
Next week, Thirty Seven Feet , a new designer shoe hire concept, will be launching with a pop-up shoe emporium at the Old Truman Brewery to raise funds for charities such Small Steps and Muscular Dystrophy. There will be a launch event on Thursday evening which you can get tickets for by visiting the site. There are loads of exciting items up for grabs including pieces previously owned by celebrities and donated by top brands like Mulberry and Lanvin. We here at FEAL encourage you to pop along to make some purchases, all in the name of charity.
SHOPPING ROUND-UP...December is traditionally the time for many things, one of them is FASHION SAMPLE SALES. The FashEd tells me that they are not always great but if you get there early and with sharpened elbows you may get what you want. Here are a few we recommend.
On 8th December, creator of utterly divine shoes, Nicholas Kirkwood, will be holding a sample sale. Prices start at £25 (!) and doors are open from 10am. Be sure to get down to The Music Room, 26 South Molton Lane to get your hands on some beauties.
Nicholas Kirkwood SS12- sadly these won't be at the sample sale but
items of similar fabulousness will be available
Barberini Fashions will be having a sample sale on 9th December (12pm-8pm) and 10th December (10pm-6pm) at Unit 7, Suna House, 65 Rivington Street. Some of the brands there include Pam Hogg, Ashley Isham and Magenta 8.
Erdem SS11 (image from catwalking.com)
LFW darling Erdem has a sample sale on December 8th (1pm-8pm) and December 9th (10am-6pm) at The Future Gallery, 5 Great Newport Street, WC2H 7HY. Prices start at £80 and the pieces will be from SS11 and before.
LFW darling no.2 Christopher Kane is getting in on the action too with a sale on 8th December from 1pm to 9pm at Mercer Street Studios, 16 Mercer Street, WC2H 9QE. Bring it on!
To see a full list may we direct you over to Susie Bubble's sample sale calendar.
As if you needed further reminder, today is the 1st day of December which means the official countdown to Christmas can begin- hurrah! This advent time we will be bringing you a new fabulous product each day- it may be a very practical item to add to your Santa's list or a completely fantastical, escapist fantasy of a purchase to give you a moment's respite from pre-christmas to-do lists.
Christmas is traditionally a time for charitable sharing as well as luxe item lusting and our very first choice combines the two rather appropriately. As well as being the first day of Christmas countdown, it is also World Aids Day today. Gap has been playing its part for a few years now with its (red) collection. Back in October, I got massively overexcited when I heard Gap were collaborating with Isabel Marant. Sadly, a range was not to be but this t-shirt is Marant's contribution to raising funds for this extremely worthy cause. 50% of profits made from the t-shirt will be going towards the continuing fight to eliminate AIDS- a very worthy start to the festivities.
Isabel Marant t-shirt £24.50 from gap.eu and Gap stores
'I won't be a rock star. I will be a legend'... Freddie Mercury
You're going to be noticing a few changes in the next few months here at FEAL- most notably, we're going to be moving onto our very own website, rather than the blogspot. We've been poring through all the FashEd's photography books for inspiration whenever we have a spare moment . We were so in love with so many of the images that we decided it was high time we got around to sharing our favourites with all of you tumblr-aholics out there.
We've made a start today- this week is all about the 1930s but every week we'll have a new theme as well as a constant stream of anything we're loving right now. We hope you like!
The Savoy is surely the most glamorous location in London. Fitting as I've never seen the gathered fashion industry look as glammed up as they did last night. Theres nothing like economic gloom to inspire people into their gladrags. I spent the evening at a table hosted by Topshop with designers Nasir Mazhar, Michael van der Ham, and Mary Katrantzou, Alex Fury of Showstudio.com as well as Kate Phelan, Mary Homer and Sheena Sauvaire from TopShop. I love the images Bethan has gathered below, they sum up the night brilliantly. Hooray for Twitter. Now onto a few observations of the evening.
*Kristen McMenamy (below) was my best dressed of the night. She looked insanely brilliant.
*As Laura Craik of The Times pointed out on Twitter, with their girly slightly cockney accents Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham sound very alike.
*Alexa Chung needs to eat a bit more
*Ed Meadham of Meadham Kirchhoff rocked a pink feather boa, making him the campest designer of the night
*Victoria Beckham is cute when she cries.
Here's what I wore, taken by Mary in our kitchen. Oh the glamour! I liked it, but I'm not sure I'll be having a Gatsby moment again anytime soon. Its just too retro. I like modern. Still, it worked for the Savoy. The dress is vintage 1930s from Lucy in Disguise, shoes Louboutin, and John at Daniel Hercheson did my hair, he also did Charlotte Dellal's of Charlotte Olympia. Anyway, thats the last you'll see of me for a while!
Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large
I've gathered up some of the pictures which guests were tweeting and tumbling as a bit of change from the night's official pictures.
There also are a few videos from the night's proceedings. If you weren't there then this is surely this is the next best thing?!
Abbey Clancy with Kristen McMenamy(from LOVE magazine's twitter)
Model of the Year, Stella Tennant, with Kristen (from LOVE magazine twitter)
Amber Le Bon in Peter Pilotto *jelz* (from net-a-porter tumblr)
Caroline Sieber's shoes- pretty sure they're Charlotte Olympia (from Net-a-Porter's twitter)
Christopher Kane, winner of the New Establishment Award (and soon to be Uncle to sister and business partner Tammy's new baby) from Net-a-Porter's tumblr
Chris Kane accepts his New Establishment Award....
Daphne Guinness in Gareth Pugh (from Grazia's twitter feed)
David Gandy chats in the Net-a-Porter lounge (from net-a-porter tumblr)
Kate Moss with Sam Gainsbury, to whom she presented the
Isabella Blow Fashion Creator award
Kate on stage (from Laura Craik's twitter)
Fashion blondies, Poppy Delevigne and British Fashion Cultural Ambassador,
Laura Bailey (from Laura's twitter)
The 'Loser' table- I can definitely see Paula Reed from Grazia, Jonathan Saunders and
Kristen McMenamy. Losers indeed! (from LOVE magazine's twitter)
AW, Mary Katrantzou (Emerging Talent winner, yay!) with Alexander Fury from showstudio.com (@fashedatlarge)
Watch Mary winning...
Sarah Burton backstage after winning Designer of the Year (Grazia's twitter)
Sarah accepts her award as Sam Cam looks on (from @fashedatlarge)
Watch Sarah collecting her award...
Stella looks on as her mate Kate poses (Grazia's twitter)
Stella and Kate (BritFashAwards twitter)
Watch Stella getting her award...
You can watch all the event highlights here:
And the winners were:
DESIGNER OF THE YEAR - Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen
DESIGNER BRAND - Victoria Beckham
RED CARPET AWARD - Stella McCartney
ACCESSORY DESIGNER - Charlotte Olympia
MODEL - Stella Tennant
BRITISH STYLE AWARD - Alexa Chung
MENSWEAR DESIGNER - Kim Jones
EMERGING TALENT AWARD - ACCESSORIES - Tabitha Simmons
EMERGING TALENT AWARD - MENSWEAR - Christopher Raeburn
ISABELLA BLOW AWARD FOR FASHION CREATOR - Sam Gainsbury
NEW ESTABLISHMENT AWARD - Christopher Kane
BFC OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN FASHION - Paul Smith
Backstage at Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2012 show, by Jason Lloyd Evans
Tonight is the British Fashion Awards and I am hoping, (though to my mind it is a foregone conclusion), that Sarah Burton is crowned Designer of the Year. It has been such a roller-coaster for Sarah since February 2010 when she took over the creative reins at Alexander McQueen. Throughout the tumultuous process of losing a friend, gaining a major role at the company and quietly and brilliantly dressing a royal bride she has conducted herself with grace and modesty all the while producing exquisite breathtaking work. I have huge respect for her, and thinks she deserves all the accolades possible tonight. If she doesn't win, there is no God. Fingers crossed!
Go Sarah!
Ok, so I'm now off to do what a girl has to do to get ready for the BFA's. Nail bar, hairdresser, then home to dress! I'm wearing vintage tonight - a lovely 1930s dress from Lily and Sarah Allen's boutique Lucy in Disguise. My clutch will be Alexander McQueen, for luck.
The Fashion Editor at Large blog is the independent work of Melanie Rickey, the views are my own. The Fashion Junior at Large is Bethan Holt. PORTRAIT: Neil Haynes
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