Category: New York
H-two-Oh! x
Caroline Herrera Fall 2015 will never be an out & out rock chic heroine..but Caroline Herrera is still a heroine.
There’s no slip and slide on an outrageous avantgarde walk of the wild. This is soft, respectful and poetic with a sense of attentive stillness and clever touches.
There’s so much to appreciate with her now seemingly old-fashioned stance of taking a theme like water, and milking all the inspiration from it: transforming, transfiguring, transmogrifying. With the materials chosen taking as much precedence as the silhouettes.
Where she needs it, the tone is strong and textural, adding a mean streak with a flash of red and killer-pointed shoes..
Or paired right back: Reflections on water at sunset..
Or snow on a frozen lake: Simplicity and peaceful fragility…(and a rather stunning wedding dress)..
Cultivated, charming and full of quality – it’s a commanding performance with an impressive range, always offering an underlying sense of knowledge and calm in a world too full of dragonflies..
Laters, Kate x
Food for Thought..
Banana Republic Fall 2015 is the faultless streetstyle collection of NYFW.
It’s the Collection for the realities of life: Meeting friends, the school run, a trip to the shops..a quick snap from the paps…it’s normcorm coolness personified..
And maybe that’s where I have my itch, my first wobble of a potential problem, hard to hold back and impossible to shake off..
I love the stripe. But think too deeply and this collection becomes an unsettling vision..like a serpent eating it’s own tail. We have fashion..we have street style..now we have fashion that is street style and because it’s so perfectly of the moment, there’s no sense of pushing boundaries or striving for the next artistic step.
It’s not that I don’t like it..I really, really do..and look – metallics and tassels again..
(All photos Style.com)
It’s faultless, flawless, impeccable – and feels like it’s been squeezed and prodded into life by a profit driven corporate machine…to produce the opposite of anarchy.
The truth is fashion has to sell, but it fundamentally has to walk hand in hand with creativity: We need a heart..but we need a soul too.
Laters, Kate x
Coach Journey..
NYFW is in full force with a royal gallimaufry (look it up) of offerings, each screaming for attention. But sometimes it’s the unexpected that catches the roving eye. This is Coach..a brand I normally associate with tan and handbags..
But these are tough, potent clothes designed for attitude with a modern, fit-for-combat edge, ready to fight the worst of the winter weather with chutzpah and style whilst keeping enemies at bay.
And there’s a duffel..accessorised with a bandana. What’s not to love?
These shoes nail the bitch sentiment…hard nosed, no-nonsense but with just a subtle sprinkling of fairy dust with their glowing gold and cheeky tassel. Never thought you’d like a kitten heel? Look again..
(All photos from Style.com)
This is functional dressing with eclectic additions, it’s hard and seductive, frank and forthright with an awareness of what’s happening…but a determination to strut their own path.
I’ll have some of that..
Laters, Kate x
Depth and Richness x
Christie Brinkley at 61 – SIXTY ONE! in Bruce Weber’s ‘Better thean Ever’ spring campaign for Barney’s New York.
Whatever she’s got…I want.
Laters, Kate x
Shining Light..
Lindsey Adelman light-creations are an empathy grab to the heart, snaring you between brutal, industrial chic and fragile organic forms..
Strangely enough, the girl-with-the-design eye-started her life wearing another coat – that of reader and dreamer. The magic happened in 1992 whilst Lindsey was working as an editorial assistant at the Smithsonian Institution, she walked into the Exhibition Fabrication Department and saw an industrial designer sculpting French fries out of foam for a show on American work…”I think they were for a McDonald’s drive-thru set or something,” she says. But somewhere a connection was made: dreams could be made into reality…and she immediately enrolled at RISD to study design…
Her first lights evolved from playing with off-the-shelf parts: ‘The structures I’ve made come out of an interest in function’ She explains, ‘You have this idea of spreading out points of light in a space, then developing a system of materials and energy..till it ends up looking like a tree because a tree already has it figured out!’
Her Company, Lindsey Adelman, based in Mannhatten, New York, now supports a staff of 20 and deals in commissions from around the world worth tens of thousands of dollars per light…but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t lost her roots..
Her first foray light is still available to order for the bargain price of $145.25. The catch? You have to make it yourself…heaven!
…And it comes with a European wiring option…
Laters, Kate x
Haute Spot x
A new label for me, but one with pedigree: The Adam Lippes brand was launched in 2013 but the bloodline goes back much further..Adam Lippes first started work at Polo Ralph Lauren, before receiving a touch of gilding at Oscar de la Renta, where he became one of the youngest Creative Designers ever, eventually leading to the creation of his own label ADAM in 2004.
The sports lux influence is there, fused with the elegant and refined for clever, multi-functional, multi-purpose outfits..
Comprehensive, wearable designs with enough detail to make you look beyond first impressions.
Add in shearling and padded coats and it’s the stuff of snug bedding translated into fashion..
One to watch..
Laters, Kate x
Objet D’art Lesson..
The effervescent Matisse Exhibition now showing in New York is a joy of art expressed in it’s purest form – as is this photo of Matisse’s studio: A glimpse behind the canvas and a spotlight on those moments of pure creativity where the trains of thought are literally turned into living, breathing, pale-pink, illuminated flesh..
What particularly fascinates me is that light..a visual delight in spontaneity and plaster of paris with a touch of Modigliani thrown in…My mother’s given me an old brass lantern light that’s missing it’s glass to transform for her…I’m now thinking she might get more than she bargained for!
Laters, Kate x
Ace of Spades x
The new twenties inspired arrivals from Kate Spade have warmed the cockles of my magpie heart..
The rings isn’t bad either..
She’s a witty gal, Kate Spade…check out the rest of her range from some pretty cool present ideas…wish I’d thought of her site earlier…hehe!
Laters, Kate x
Kule x
Kule – not a clever play on words, but designer Nikki Kule’s highly appropriate name.
Offering a modern, classic luxury, ‘preppy luxe’ aesthetic thats easy on the eye and edgy in look.
It sits perfectly in that aspirational ‘smart casual’ part of the wardrobe..that essential area that’s surprisingly hard to fill…
Mi piace.. xxx
Stepping Forward x
Fashion: It doesn’t have to be flattering – just capture a mood. But sometimes it does both.
Derek Lam 10 Crosby SS15 with it’s efficient dynamic of form translated into movement is grounded in the classics..but then given wings..
It’s the details that do the talking..the cut of a sleeve, the place of a pocket…it’s a perfectionists attitude fused with giddy moments of occasional laughter..
( All pictures from Style.com)
It’s authentic, wearable and timeless with a clever nod to the memorably wearable..
Laters, Kate x
Maison Bentley Style 