Category: style icon
Julie Pelipas x
Julie Pelipas: Street style star, Vogue Ukraine fashion director and up cycled vintage fashion label owner – a one woman, stop at nothing powerhouse. She says,
‘When it comes to creating clothes, we can do better, we can create beautiful things ethically and thoughtfully, that is the challenge and the magic.’
I love her take on masculine tailoring – an obsession since her school days when she started adapting her Grandfather’s suits. Loose, lounge-able and louche; I want.
(All pics Pinterest)
Laters, Kate x
Style Icon x
Leandra Medine has a sense of fashion which is not just about trends, but an organic amalgamation of all the wrong things being right purely because she’s given herself permission to step out of the invisible circle of expectation and just be. She rarely wears make-up, explaining she sells ideas, not bodies – ideas and clothes – or rather a love of fashion, a love of the visual and the impressions they make.
But the best thing is, whilst the hyperbole is fab, the real reason Medine doesn’t wear make up?
Because she’s lazy – she doesn’t want the faff. And because – drum roll – she’s comfortable with her look.
(All pics Pinterest)
And that is what makes her a beautiful, special treasure.
Laters, Kate x
Close up x
This has to one of my favourite outfit combinations. Of all time: The shrugged nonchalance of everyday pieces thrown together, the intention comfort rather than impression, the impression just a byproduct meaning the zeitgeist it creates is pure enigma. As delicious as cedar woodsmoke on a crisp autumn evening. The brilliance behind this look is the Argentinian model, Mica Arganaraz. Look and weep.
(All pics Pinterest)
So chic, it makes my heart ache.
Laters, Kate x
Style Icon x
Style icon and new guilty pleasure – I’ve recently discovered Karen Britchick aka Karen Blanchard on Youtube – walking the streets of New York she eyes up the fashion, asking people about their outfits. The pleasure is multi-layered – first, it’s sitting on her shoulder, being in unfiltered New York, where you can see the steam and smell the energy. Then it’s that she doesn’t go for commercial outfits – everything is unusual, a progression, pushing a boundary, an art form, something different, unusual, which makes it exciting. And finally its the idea that style isn’t an expensive brand, it’s about passion, expression and understanding how things fit together. In fact, the less commercial, the better.
(All pics Pinterest or go to Youtube)
Get me to an oversized unstructured 80s blazer now.
Laters, Kate x
White hair, don’t care.
There was this post, about Sarah Harris, the Vogue editor who went grey at 16, who learnt to embrace her natural colour despite being called mad. And then grey became a thing. Peroxide’s been a thing for decades, you only have to think of Marilyn Monroe. But more often than not, it’s been associated with a polished, professional look and a fear of dark roots: Those that want to go blonde, want to convince they really are blondes – maybe they really do have more fun. There’s also issues with length – the unspoken rule that women of a certain age shouldn’t have long hair, like they don’t deserve it, that their hair no longer qualifies. But now there seems to be a change, a relaxing of stance, a recognition of merging grey with white, blonde with white, grey with blonde. And as for length…you only need to see the last pictures of Sarah Harris with her almost waist length, now almost white hair to know power in motion.
(All pics Pinterest)
Walls can be as wide as an ocean or a thin, permeable membrane. They’re a word, an action, a sign, a look, an atmosphere, a perception. And it’s for us to challenge them.
Laters, Kate x
Style Icon: Zoe Kravitz x
Maybe it started with knowing which kitchen you loved in Big Little Lies; for me, it was always Bonnie’s warm welcoming one…and so it started, because although Zoe Kravitz was just playing a part, part of her natural soul was on show too: the piercings, the tatts, an effortless grace. And then there was her singing the Elvis Presley cover of ‘Don’t’ in the final episode of season 1. I still have it saved to a play list on Spotify…
Authentic, honest and holding a space in the world that is all her own.
Laters, Kate x
Style Icons x
The Olsen twins. Couldn’t tell you who was who, but combined they’re a force to be reckoned with: Effortless layering, unafraid of volume, an eye for proportion and natural insouciance.
(All pics Pinterest)
A million miles away from the Kardashians, this is my tribe of cool.
Laters, Kate x
The perfect vintage x
Iris x
In astrological terms it’s the first day of spring tomorrow, which didn’t stop winter having it’s final blast over the weekend. Not that I’m complaining: Bad weather is the perfect excuse to hibernate and indulge in some serious sofa surfing meaning I finally got to see, amongst other delights, Albert Maysles film about Iris Apfel, the beloved New York fashion icon and self-styled ‘geriatric starlet’.
Where Iris hits the sweet spot is not her age, her joy of life or her performance art. It’s her deep seated belief that style isn’t about fashion or money or even beauty: Style is about believing and doing.
Until watching the film, I hadn’t realised that Iris had her own shop: Rara Avis, meaning for ‘Rare bird’ where you can purchase her designs and covert a little bit of her.
But it might be more rewarding to follow her sentiments and look at life with a new set of black framed eyes.
Laters, Kate x
So Wright..
The news around the world isn’t great at the moment. Condensed down, the underlying message I’m hearing is that big things don’t work (Didn’t we learn anything from the Romans?). And yet the drive to continually make everything bigger and supposedly better runs deep, because if you don’t…you’re a failure; The economy has to grow, companies have to grow..countries, even religions all want to expand till they become these slow moving bloated beasts that eat up everything in their way, with no joined up thinking except feeding this thirst for size and dominance. It’s a big day for Greece today. I don’t know what the right answer is..I’m not sure there is one, except maybe they should never have joined the EU in the first place. But it seems to me that things are becoming more and more about power plays than people.
Thank God for the whimsy of fashion….and the joy that is Linda V. Wright, former model and fashion editor, born in Texas but oh-so far removed from a rodeo riding stetson toting stereotype.
Now living in Paris and running her own shop, Crimson Cashmere,
She’s a lesson in graceful, chic yet expressive dressing.
Like the world’s best perfumes, she’s layered in classics all with subtle, different flavours.
(All pics from pinterest)
You want to sit down with her at a striped bistro table in a busy Parisian street and ask, is this really all possible? Can life really be this easy? This sassy?
Laters, Kate x
Maison Bentley Style 