Acne F/W 2012

I can probably count the number of fashion shows I’ve been to on two hands. I’m not going to pretend I’m some kind of authority; I’ve only been around since 2008, and I readily admit that the clothes side of fashion doesn’t really get me excited (and yes, there are other sides to fashion). In fact, I used to think of fashion week as being a bit of a spoiler that stopped the online flow of editorials. What I do remember from attending these shows and spending time with the journalists and editors who attend them, is that they all have real opinions that they loudly voice as soon as the show is over. “That was awful! Ew, did you see those jank bracelets he made them wear? That was all styling—there was no design aspect. Let’s go to La Perle for a bière.” In fact, the arguments people have on tumblr about Raf being overrated and Riccardo being hit-and-miss are eerily similar to the conversations had by editors of very important websites. Every fashion week, the one recurring motif was the bombardment of complaints that “everything is going downhill; nothing is original; it’s the same every season; I can’t think of one stand out” etc. I agreed, since I only truly liked a handful of the collections I saw, until this fashion week (read: month). I haven’t really done the whole study-up-on-the-past bit that’s apparently necessary to put everything into context, but I’d like to say that this menswear fashion week was the best I’ve ever seen. It was consistently extraordinary, from the music, to the bags, to the hair, to the shoes, to the padding (which, we’ll get to later). So let this be my first official series of reviews, starting from the best.

ACNE
I’m a bit partial to Jonny Johansson’s creative direction. I have yet to see a bad Acne collection. The cropped jackets and eggshell coats and the fuzzy sweaters were just to die. Looks 26 & 29 were a bit Dior Homme-y but luckily Dior Homme was good this year, so we’ll just brush those off. The whole padding trend seemed to continue right until the very end of fashion week with Acne, that I’d like to think started with Moncler Gamme Bleu in Milan, that I’d like to think started with Calvin Klein Collection F/W 2011 in New York. This makes me want to buy a padded coat and roll around on hard surfaces and take up fencing. Even the furry things seemed to reference a vivid 90s image of Cher Horowitz or Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed. All in all, Jonny’s collection had everything and continues to prove that menswear isn’t just boring suits, can be wearable and not completely obvious. Typing this much about one collection makes me think that I’ll save the rest of my “reviews” for another day. Full collection here.

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The Pastel Plague

A pastel trend in editorials has proven itself immortal, like a weed, whose removal seems onerous, if not altogether impossible. I still haven’t decided if I’m simply indifferent, or fond. One thing is for sure: this trend has been exhausted like Coco Rocha on every social network ever invented. There are even tumblrs dedicated to this muted colour scheme that revel in its pallor. It will not go away. In fact, pastel-themed editorials have been around since Karl Lagerfeld was fat (see below). However, the meteoric rise of Easter as the holiday of all holidays has put a bad taste in my mouth. Can you imagine if they sold Mini Eggs all year round? There is, believe it or not, too much of a good thing. I’m going colour blind here. This isn’t Easter Parade. Major culprits include Wonderland, Charlotte Free, The Room, Lana Del Rey, and Matthew Stone. The horse has been flogged.

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Ethos / Justin Wu + Nick Bateman

I wrote the monologue voiceover for Justin Wu’s new video Ethos featuring actor Nick Bateman. I’m very excited and gracious that I got to be a part of this. It’s pretty cool when your words are put into some greater context that gives them meaning, or even an audience. I’ve been doing a lot of writing recently for a score of publications (read: like, two), and with rewrites I feel like Suzy Menkes without the Pebbles ‘do. Nick Bateman is that guy on the Abercrombie bag, and he was in Hobo with a Shotgun.

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Visionaries: Tom Ford

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Anna Wintour Interview / Vogue Archives

Access to 400,000 pages of fashion history can be yours for $1500, a nominal fee equal to what it would have cost you to buy every issue of Vogue in real life when it came out, in order to look at it in “crisp detail, with all the illustrations and ads” on a screen. Do you live in the 1920s and wonder what shoes you should wear out in the rain? $1500 for the answer. Or free here (just saying). Anna Wintour and Hamish Bowles (rhymes with fame, not the sandwich) bark in their posh English accents about this “treasure trove” of “memorabilia” for the “nostalgic” or uncultured. I apparently blog whenever Anna Wintour moves, which is, believe it or not, a rare occasion. But this, I feel, is another sad ploy by an old woman who “doesn’t follow market research” (CELEBS!) and “goes by instinct” (CELEBS!). Bizarre the best-selling issue of all time was fronted by models. I’m just waiting for another “risky” cover featuring a “risky” celeb, like Anne Hathaway. Who knows where that girl’s career is headed…

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