Be Inspired: Art

Art can be a good source of inspiration, for subject matter, shapes, colours and patterns. The more interesting and unusual the piece, the more original your piece (e.g. dress) is likely to be.

Here are some inspiring pieces:

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali


Still Life Moving Fast by Salvador Dali

The Circus by Georges Seurat

Ozone's Angel by Banksy

Vivienne Westwood Anglomania fashion show at Selfridges

Selfridges kicks off the 'garage fashion' movement as celebrities flock to underground car park for Anglomania and Moscow Mules.

First, it was a charity sale for Mothers4Daughters, in the famous store’s garage, where the likes of Louise Redknapp, Jasmine Guinness and Yasmin Le Bon manned stalls, and shoppers queued to buy Gwyneth Paltrow’s Balenciaga heels, a pair of shoes signed by Dame Shirley Bassey and Lily Allen’s trainers.

Last night, Selfridges did it again when its car park became the setting for the first-ever fashion show in the United Kingdom of Vivienne Westwood’s funky, Anglomania collection.

Celebrities included Tracey Emin, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Florence Welch of Florence and The Machine, Little Boots, Sadie Frost, Girls Aloud’s Nicola Roberts, Rosemary Ferguson and her husband, Jake Chapman, Shingai Shoniwa of The Noisettes, and actress Bonnie Wright of Harry Potter fame.

It was strange enough to see Dame Vivienne, calmly sitting in the front row, with husband Andreas Kronthaler, on one of the rare occasions when she’s been able to watch one of her own shows, rather than organising things backstage.

Even curiouser was to see Lady Victoria Hervey, also front row, calmly smoking ‘a cigarette’. And no one tried to throw her out! Or called the ‘smoke police’. Or had an attack of the vapours! Of course, it wasn’t a real cigarette, but an American invention called ‘Smoke Stik’, which looks like the real McCoy, works on some sort of electronic gadgetry and emits a water vapour which makes a pretty good job of looking like smoke. Selfridges will apparently soon have them on sale.

The event marked the opening of Selfridge’s exclusive, new Anglomania concept, where the current autumn/winter and resort collections are already on sale, jersey dresses from £185, skirts from £149.

Daisy Lowe was one of the stars of the catwalk show, which previewed the new Anglomania spring/summer 2010 collection, available from late December. I loved the mix of naïve tribal prints and batiks, and the finale ball gown, in shot burgundy taffeta, with a bustle-train in Regency-stripe silk.

Yasmin Mills, who was wearing an Anglomania gold dress, can’t wait to get her heads on the wedge-sole ‘jelly’ shoes with ‘winged’ ankle-straps, by the Brazilian brand, Melissa, which came in gold and fuchsia and blue.

As if fashion, cocktails and celebrities were not enough, the store served up another surprise in the form of budding R&B singer, Dionne Bromfield, the 13-year-old god-daughter of Amy Winehouse, who performed two songs, ‘Foolish Little Girl’ and ‘Mama Said’, with Hawi on guitar. Dionne wore a printed, sweetheart neckline, prom dress from the new Anglomania collection which she chose herself. "Her clothes are so different, you just can't find anything like it anywhere."

See article at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/hilaryalexander/6588708/Vivienne-Westwood-Anglomania-fashion-show-at-Selfridges.html

No wonder Luella went bust. British fashion is too snobby by half!

Does my wardrobe contain anything by Luella Bartley? One of the bags she designed for Mulberry back in 2003, perhaps? No. Too many pockets and fiddly bits.

One of her own Gisele bags? No. Far too expensive. A trouser suit covered in the alphabet? Oh dear God no.

Personally, I have always found the designer, who announced last week that her label has ceased trading, to epitomise the worst of British fashion.

Disproportionately huge amounts of praise from the fashion press, legions of celebrity followers, but very little real wearability.

After studying fashion at St Martins, Luella Bartley worked first in the fashion departments of the London Evening Standard and Vogue before she left, on a drunken dare, to set up her own label.

Her first collection, for spring/summer 2000, was a British-inspired collection entitled Daddy, I Want A Pony and was shown at her friend's flat; her model mates gave their services free of charge.

The fashion press adored her take on the English eccentric: floral sprigged frocks and slimline mod suits, all with a hint of tomboyish punk.

They loved her rock-chick cool, her messy blonde hair, her gaggle of photogenic children and photographer husband. And then it all went horribly wrong.

Last Wednesday, Luella Bartley Limited was forced out of business after its main investor and global licensee, Club 21, withdrew financial backing.

The label was also hit by the recent collapse of Carla Carini, an Italian manufacturer that made her products.

This means Luella Bartley is unable to deliver orders for her spring/summer 2010 collection, which is a huge shame, given it was her strongest showing yet:

'Where for the past few seasons every dress had been multicoloured, flower-printed, beribboned, buckled, or frilled up in various pop-ironic ways, for this outing her clothes have become almost straightforward, in a mid-Sixties Sundaybest sort of way,' trumpeted Style.com.

Note that I am quoting Style.com for the glowing verdict on Luella's final show. I begged for a ticket, but was told I would not be welcome.

Even during a global recession, the designers, the fashion press and the PRs still set too much store by how cool and 'niche' a label is, whether or not Pixie Geldof and Alexa Chung are perched in the front row, and which DJ is spinning the tunes at the after-party.

This newspaper was deemed too ' mainstream' to view what would turn out to be her final collection, while I was judged too potentially critical.

The thing is, I don't care how cool the clothes are. What we really want to know is: are they well made, do they fit, and what is the provenance of the fabrics?

Will they look smart for work, sexy on a date, and will they last and prove good value or will they fall apart?

Sadly, these requirements seem to take second place when it comes to British fashion. Take the clamour that surrounded the show by Henry Holland during London Fashion Week in September. The clothes did not live up to the hype.

I attended the show. God only knows how or why I was allocated a ticket, but I was.

But I was not allocated a ticket for Matthew Williamson, or Jonathan Saunders (I was once forcibly ejected from one of his London shows), Antonio Berardi, Duro Olowu, Giles Deacon or Christopher Kane.

Frustrated beyond belief at the end of London Fashion Week's 25th anniversary celebrations, I wrote to the chairman of the British Fashion Council, Jaeger boss Harold Tillman, complaining at the attitude of the designers and their publicists.

'While I commend your efforts to put London Fashion Week on the world stage, I must tell you it remains elitist, putting being "trendy" before its more important role as an employer of very many people in retail jobs.'

I also pointed out to Harold Tillman that I never have a problem with labels such as Dior, Chanel or Prada. I have not, as yet, received a reply.

It is tragic for everyone she employed that Luella Bartley has gone out of business, but it is a shame, too, that more established British names - such as Amanda Wakeley, Caroline Charles, Betty Jackson and Paul Costelloe - are largely ignored by the fashion press, simply because they have fewer celebrity friends.

I have written before about the fact that an 'edgy' (what an awful word) male stylist, upon leaving a classically beautiful Jasper Conran show, sighed: 'I don't see the point of Jasper Conran.'

That is the sort of exasperating, out-of-touch attitude that will be the death of our home-grown industry.

British fashion schools produce so many young people with talent. London has always led the way when it comes to new ideas. But if we want our industry to succeed, it needs to have more substance and much less style.

Why not encourage our art schools and fashion colleges to concentrate on skills such as weaving and spinning and pattern cutting, not new wacky ways with stretch PVC?

One of the reasons Stella McCartney has flourished is because she honed her tailoring skills on Savile Row. Paul Smith is another rare British success story.

The brand has doubled its turnover in the past five years, posting a 15 per cent rise in profits in 2008. You could never imagine Smith embarking on anything for a drunken dare.

The 63-year-old said recently, 'I've always preferred the creative process of designing and selling clothes to the idea of putting on a poncey fashion show. It's their 15 minutes of fame: pure, self-indulgent theatre.

How many girls were there this year in horns or neck braces with bare breasts? It wouldn't matter if they didn't take it all so seriously, but the fashion world is a dangerous, superficial and fickle place.'

In September 2007 I wrote on these pages: 'I find it unhelpful and frankly suicidal that new stars including Duro Olowu, Marios Schwab and Jonathan Saunders barred me from their shows, preferring to restrict the guest list to fashion editors from cutting-edge magazines with plenty of cool but absolutely no readers; some of these designers will inevitably go bust.'

London's desire to be 'cool' above all else has just claimed yet another casualty.

Article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1228052/LIZ-JONES-No-wonder-Luella-went-bust--British-fashion-snobby-half.html

French fashion designer accuses Chanel of copying one of her patterns

Mrs Colle once produced stunning sequinned tops for Yves Saint Laurent, £3,000 Christian Lacroix cardigans and knitted wedding dresses that were sent down the catwalk by Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Now she says she has not landed any orders from the great and good of French haute couture since suing Chanel for allegedly copying one of her hand-made knitting patterns.

Mrs Colle says Chanel took a sample of a newly designed crochet material from her company, World Tricot, set up to employ jobless immigrant women, and used it as the basis for a jacket, made not by her firm but by another supplier in Italy. She is claiming 2.5 million euros (£2.3 million) in damages for alleged counterfeiting and breach of contract.

Chanel, which is quick to fire off legal warnings to anyone copying its fashion designs, vigorously denies the accusations and is counter-suing World Tricot for tarnishing its name. It insists the “creator” of the jacket is its chief designer, Karl Lagerfeld.

After four years of legal wrangling that has taken 61-year-old Mrs Colle’s company to the brink of ruin, judges are now deliberating on the case, seen as pitting fashion’s Davids — the anonymous artisans known as “petites mains” (small hands) who toil in workshops all over France — against the international Goliaths, like Chanel, who rely on their skills.

“I am not doing this for me or my company, I’m doing this for the women who worked here and created the designs, the small people who are forgotten, who don’t exist,” said Mrs Colle.

In 2000 Mrs Colle’s factory was a hive of productive activity for 90 employees — mainly female immigrants - with a turnover approaching 2 million euros. Now it has a skeleton staff of just 12.

In 1990, to create proper jobs for the women, she took a bank loan and set up World Tricot in a grey factory unit on an industrial state outside Lure. A decade later the small company was making clothes for Christian Dior, Thierry Mugler, Givenchy, Paco Rabanne and Hermès, among others.

By 2004 Chanel was her biggest customer, and to keep pace with its orders she opted to turn down other work.

The following year Mrs Colle flew to Tokyo to promote her own nascent fashion label, Angèle Batist - named after her parents. Passing the city’s Chanel shop she said she was shocked; in the window was a jacket whose pattern seemed identical to that of a sample which World Tricot had submitted earlier that year, but which Chanel had rejected.

“I knew immediately it was from our sample and I was shocked. I thought Chanel wouldn’t do that; to me Chanel was the image of loyalty and noblesse.”

Mrs Colle said she tried to talk to Chanel about the jacket but claims nobody at the company would take her calls - and she has since found it impossible to revive interest in her pattern designs among other companies. “From one day to the next we lost all our business,” she said.

“I would knock on doors and nobody wanted to see me; I would telephone and nobody would take my call. We are the victims, but it’s as if we are the ones who are guilty".

A spokeswoman for Chanel, said the company “firmly rejected” all World Tricot’s accusations. “Chanel claims the creation belongs to it and the that making a crochet sample based on precise instructions given by Chanel does not mean someone else can claim to have created it, “ she said.

“We also contest the accusation that we breached any contract. Between April 2005 and March 2006 Chanel gave World Tricot orders for an amount comparable to that paid annually to World Tricot since we started working with them in 1999.”

Mrs Colle’s lawyer Pascal Créhange argued during the trial that at the very least the Chanel jacket was the product of collaboration between the supplier and the fashion house, and Chanel should have asked for permission to use the crochet sample.

“Mrs Colle is the first woman with the courage to stand up to a major fashion house and say 'This work is mine,” he said.

A verdict is expected on December 11. France’s fashion giants fear a decision against Chanel would open the door to similar actions by other “petites mains,” sparking an industry-wide revolution.

Mr Créhange told the court: “Chanel argues it created the jacket, but so far as I know Chanel doesn’t do knitting."

See the full story at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6569403/French-fashion-designer-accuses-Chanel-of-copying-one-of-her-patterns.html

Be Inspired: Architecture

Another good source of inspiration is from architecture. There's lots of things you can find inspiring about buildings, the shape, the decor, etc. It's nice to see the differences between modern & old fashioned building.



























































































































































It's good to take a sketch book out with you anywhere, just in case you see a pattern you quite like or a shape you think would make a good dress. There's nothing worse than getting a great idea, and then when you get round to writing it down or sketching it, you've forgotten what your idea was (how many times has that happened to me!).
It can also inspire you in the way it makes you feel (e.g. Gothic and dark and mysterious) or what it reminds you of.

New Going Out Looks

Drape, Shimmer & Shape

This look is perfect for the party season with its flattering drape shapes and exaggerated shoulders, with a touch of sparkle.

Lady GaGa, Bad Romance Video

Hi,

You can also find inspiration from music and videos. You have to check out Lady GaGa's new music video for her song Bad Romance.

I thought it was very artistic & inspiring. The outfits are very unusual and fascinating.
Look out for the two different pairs of Alexander McQueen heels!!!





























































The song debuted at Alexander McQueen's catwalk show, Plato's Atlantis.
Check it out below: