3 Ways To Wear It: Neon Jeans

It’s been a while since my last edition of “3 Ways To Wear It” so I apologise for making a big hoo-ha about bringing the post back as a regular thing and then somewhat failing to deliver. Hopefully you’ll forgive me though as I feel this is a good one. Neon jeans… so OTM (that’s “of the moment” don’t you know) yet so very, very easy to get wrong. I know this from bitter experience having teamed a green pair with pink shoes and jumper just last week then catching sight of myself in a shop window and realising that I looked like a giant piece of bubble gum. This season Armani Exchange have come up with a collection of the brightest, tightest colour flash denim imaginable. The jeans come in eight different shades but I decided to really challenge myself by choosing the most in-your-face hue, highlighter yellow. Did I pull it off? That, my fashion loving friends, is a verdict I leave down to you…

Armani Exchange Colour Flash Skinny Jeans, £68, available at all UK Armani Exchange stores , click here for locations and details

Casual

When trying to dress down a potentially attention-seeking garment, nothing does the job better than a plain white tee. Fond though I am of clashing brights, I wouldn’t want to give anyone a headache by teaming these babies with more fluoro hues for a casual trip to the library. One of the best things about these jeans is that they instantly up the fash factor of a fundamentally minimum effort outfit. Just imagine how much less interesting this ensemble would be with classic blue skinnies?

Preppy

Want to distract from the fact you’re wearing an extremely brightly coloured pair of jeans? Team them with an even brighter bag of course! I feared that this ensemble might err on the side of bubblegum but as I refrained from throwing pink into the mix I ~~think~~ hope it just about works. There’s nothing I love more than pastel hues during the Summer months but wearing them head to toe can sometimes be a bit dull. I think the neon-ness of the jeans and apple green bag add just the right amount of “zing” to an otherwise playing-it-safe look.

After Dark

Choosing how to style these jeans for “after dark” was where I very nearly came unstuck. After trying them on with an endless selection of embellished blouses, pendant necklaces and platform heels I decided that the best option would be to keep things simple. Clean lines, fuss free silhouette, modern accessories and minimal detailing stop the combination of bold print top and even bolder neon jeans from looking too garish.

Which look is your favourite?

Love Ella. X

Ps) Armani Exchange are currently running a denim competition! They will be giving away 3 pairs of their colour flash jeans to 10 lucky customers. What’s more, you don’t even have to buy anything to enter, just get yourself to one of the stores before May 26th and ask how.

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Ella Catliff in Fashion 3 Comments

3 Ways to Wear It

London Fashion In Film Festival

Much as I love a glamourous bash – and I really do love them – now and again it’s nice to do something a little different. You know, wear flat shoes after 6pm and challenge your mind rather than your liver. Luckily for me, such events do exist even in the world of fashion. For the past week, London has played home to the 4th Fashion In Film Festival. Entitled Marcel L’Herbier: Fabricating Dreams, this season focused on the work of “one of France’s most innovative but internationally overlooked directors whose career straddled the avant-garde and mainstream cinema”. Apologies for quoting the press release but, philistine that I am, hadn’t heard of him before this so any description I gave would either be rubbish or copied from Wikipedia. Just to give you a bit of background, Fashion In Film is a fascinating project encompassing the festival itself, exhibitions, publicaions and research into the subject. Curated by Marketa Uhlirova, Caroline Evans (both tutors at Central Saint Martins besides being fashion history and theory authorities) and Dionne Griffith, it aims to explore the relationship between clothing and the moving image (that is, fashion and film… duh) by enlisting a range of seriously smart speakers including designers, writers, filmakers and archivists to join the conversation and share a little of their expertise with anyone who cares to find out. Suffice to say, I was both intrigued and a little nervous to go along.

We arrived at The Horse Hospital in Russel Square expecting to be immersed in an environment unlike your usual stylish soiree and we certainly weren’t disappointed. After slipping and sliding my way down a slightly trepidatious ramp (damn grip-free ankle boots) I entered a darkened, underground space with a projector screen at the front around which a gaggle of intellectual chic attendees were already seated. Having read not the evening’s description entirely thoroughly I was delighted to discover that writer, Ken Hollings would be the first speaker up. The evening began with a discussion of the bizarre (at least in 21st century terms) spectacle of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, an extravaganza designed to give civilians a glimpse into the industrial future.

Ken is both witty and wise in equal measure and his deadpan delivery of facts such as the working title for Dali’s “Dream of Venus Pavillion” being “bottoms of the sea” sent many a ripple of mirth through the audience. Interesting though it was learning about the Fair, after a while I began to wonder how Marcel L’Herbier’s work would play into it. Had I actually read the Fashion in Film pamphlet I would have known full well how it would all tie together, but of course I hadn’t so when it finally transpired that the French government had commissioned L’Herbier to make a fashion film for the event I had a bit of a lightbulb moment.

L’Herbier’s film, La Mode Rêvée, premiered in the “Hall of Fashion” at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. Designed to reassert the supremacy of Parisian Haute Couture, the film and indeed the entire pavilion offered an often shamelessly self promoting but undeniably impressive look at some of the world’s most exquisite garments designed by the likes of Patou, Worth and Nina Ricci. I won’t describe the film from start to finish because you really must watch it for yourselves, it’s mesmerising. While slightly silly at times (e.g when the women in a Watteau painting come to life, skip out of the Musée du Louvre and off for an afternoon’s shopping), La Mode Rêvée is enormously interesting in that it demonstrates a desire to escape to an idealised past at odds with the rest of the Fair’s future focused bent and no doubt related to the international uncertainty that would shortly herald the start of World War II. Besides that, L’Herbier’s bizarre and beautiful piece of work also perfectly illustrates the power of material on the move.

I’m not sure how much more I can write about my experience at the Fashion In Film Festival. Despite annoying everyone by making notes on my iPhone throughout, none of them seem to make much sense out of context! All I will say is that if you are remotely interested in fashion or film beyond the odd trip to Topshop or evening at Odeon then I seriously recommend checking it out. On Sunday (May 19th) it wraps up with a screening of L’Argent and I’m pretty sure tickets should still be available. See www.fashioninfilm.com for more info.

Love Ella. X

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Ella Catliff in Fashion Leave a comment

Culture

The Street Style Files

Image by BostonTrader.nl

Between Suzy Menkes’ vitriolic anti-peacocking piece, The Circus of Fashion and a panel discussion I attended at this year’s Vogue Festival featuring Anna Dello Russo, Susie Lau and Garance Dore, recently I’ve been wondering what it is about street style that we find so irresistibly compelling? I reckon Susie “Bubble” Lau hit the nail on the head during said talk when she described it as “voyeuristic”. But as I suspected all along and forty five fascinating minutes of listening to her, Anna and Garance confirmed, our international obsession with what other people wear is about more than just that.

Image by Candice Lake for Glamour Magazine

Anna Dello Russo, Susie Lau and Garance Dore are perhaps the three most important women on the planet when it comes to the street style/blogging movement so I was counting on them to enlighten me as to why we are so fixated by strangers wardrobes. Despite their very different backgrounds, styles and appearances, I thought that the overall message they each gave during their discussion at Vogue Festival was the same: fashion is personal. To some extent it always has been. Women in particular have had an emotional relationship with clothes since the dawn of time (or at least since the late 18th century) but the significance of that relationship has never garnered such widespread attention nor been so celebrated as it is today. While in previous years magazine editorials were the end of the line for fashion inspiration, street style is now not only a sartorial genre in it’s own right – do you know any fash mags without a section devoted to it on their website? Nope, didn’t think so – but it perhaps appeals to us as much, if not more, than traditionally styled shoots thanks to its presentation of fashion as something personal and to an extent, accessible. I’m not for one second knocking the wonder of an exquisitely created, fantastical Vogue editorial shot by Tim Walker and starring Stella Tennant dripping in couture. But while I enjoy gazing at such images in wonder ultimately they’ye presenting a dream, not the reality. The difference between that and the women Garance photographs, Susie Lau and even catwalk-look-clad Anna Dello Russo is that unlike models styled in next season’s runway fresh finery, they really do wear their clothes. What makes Susie’s unique brand of kooky cool and Garance’s stylish Parisiennes accessible and fascinating is that whether they’re dressed in Topshop or Balenciaga, they have a personal relationship with the clothes on their back.

Menkes may lampoon the poseurs outside Somerset House and many other people I know (but won’t name) dismiss street style full stop. Admittedly, it is pretty mainstream these days and perhaps not “organic” in the way it once apparently was. But regardless of whether street stylers are posing or captured unawares, I feel that the fact we’re interested in and often openly covet clothes that are owned, worn and loved often by *shock horror* non-model civilians bodes well for us all. Fashion is not, and most likely will never be, an exactly democratic world. But with clothes snapped in reality now often as influential as those showcased on the catwalk, is seems that perhaps the playing field is slowly but surely becoming more level than before… What do you think?

Love Ella. X

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Ella Catliff in Fashion 1 Comment

LPA Loves: Tara Jarmon

For the past few months I haven’t been able to make it down Bond Street (dahhhling) without stopping at Tara Jarmon. Generally speaking I’m careering along as fast as my impractically shod feet will carry me, late for one thing or another, so I’ve not yet been able to go in for a proper browse. But that, my fashion loving friends, will all be changing pretty soon. Tara J might just be my new style obsession.

How I’ve only just found out about this brand is conclusive proof that I really don’t know as much as I like to think I do. With its penchant for ice cream hues, ladylike silhouettes and pie crust collars beyond a Park Avenue Princess’ preppiest dreams, Tara Jarmon could not physically BE any more up my sartorial street. The Canadian born, Paris dwelling designer launched her label with the aim of offering a contemporary take on Audrey Hepburn elegance and boy, does she deliver. Cinched waists, crisp shirting and cute capri pants exude pulled together polish while barely there city shorts and adorable detailing add an element of flirtatious fun. One of my favourite pieces from the SS13 collection has to be this divine pastel green number (above). I’d pair it with my embellished L.K.Bennett pumps and ice blue Alberta Ferretti clutch for a deliciously girly daytime look. Arch minimalists and tomboys, I’m afraid Tara’s creations may not your thing. But if, like me, you feel no wardrobe is complete without a hefty dose of pink then form an orderly queue.

You can shop Tara Jarmon online at John Lewis and My-Wardrobe

Love Ella. X

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Ella Catliff in Fashion 1 Comment

LPA Loves

Should I Do It!? Liberty x Nike Trainers

Ok people, I need some advice. As you may remember from my multiple posts on the subject, for several seasons I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a pair of Liberty x Nike trainers. Every time they release another yet more covetable style I consider investing in some, waste hours debating it with myself and eventually conclude that I’m just not a high tops kinda girl. Then they sell out and I inevitably regret my decision. Last week Liberty unveiled their latest oh-so-pretty styles, tempting my finger towards the “buy now” button with their ice cream hues.

Shop the collection here

On the one hand, it might not actually be the trainers I’m after as you could cover pretty much anything with Liberty print and I’d probably want it. On the other, my poor feet have probably are probably so traumatised from the torturous footwear I favour that they’re simple screaming for a pair of sneakers. So I put it to you dear readers, should I, dare I join the trainer brigade?

Love Ella. X

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Ella Catliff in Fashion 6 Comments

Liberty London

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 71 72 Next »