New season, new look

Abloguity has been spruced up and can now be found at http://hautestreetcouture.wordpress.com/

Dutty Girl

A collective of budding Bristol designers, Dutty Girl oozes all things Bristol-style.

Check out Shop Dutty in Bristol’s Stokes Croft to find vintage pieces with a street twist.

http://duttybass.blogspot.com/

Rupert Sanderson

Currently writing an article about Rupert Sanderson. The man is a genius. I NEED his shoes.

I heart Louis Vuitton

The bunny eared mystery

The image of Louis Vuitton’s leather coated model at the A/W catwalk dominated the pages of last month’s fashion glossies, along with Madonna’s blindingly airbrushed ad for the brand, and for so long, so many questioned its meaning, myself included. ‘What the hell is happening now, and how does this translate to the street.’ Thank god for Marc Jacobs and his love for the confused masses.

In his Fall/Winter campaign video, Jacobs provides the answer, and states it to be the result of a simple fiddling of fabric between a couple of the brand’s design team.

“We were thinking of all these different things like can-can dancers, and I saw this piece of fabric wrapped around Lucy’s head and said, Bunny ears, that’s what we need to finish this look.”

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

It’s all well and good to design such things, but as we all know, it’s us fashion fans and Top Shop devotees that will find ourselves donning such attire and looking ridiculous  in the city streets, not sheek and on-trend at the Met Ball, as was intended.

I am eagerly waiting to see the high street take on this look. Of couse, diluted it will be, but to what extent? So far Top Shop have caught onto the trend with a selection of bowed haired bands, nothing too extreme or humilating.

My verdict – APPROVED. Bows I can deal with, bunny ears I cannot.

Velour’s revisit

Velvet is reappering for A/W 09 and is set to be one of the major trends for the upcoming season. Continuing with the summer bodycon look, Top Shop has just stocked its shelves with an up-to-date version, and at only £20, it’s a high street steal.

Summer collection

July 29 and summer is over, if it ever really begun. Memories of the exceptionally short lived heat wave of June (a good turned bad by my painful swine flu), sun burn at Glastonbury and general summer happiness seems to have been washed away by the unending rain. Today the metcheck, or rather wetcheck, issued yet another severe weather warning for the next day or so, and coupled it with a horrendous August summary. If your recession-proof plan this year was to try a new trend and ‘staycation’ it along British beaches, unless you’re embracing the A/W eighties revival and endorsing a shellsuit, you’re basically screwed.

Every year as the high street fills up with teeny-weeny bikinis and frighteningly short shorts, I have to stop myself from buying any such atrocities and remember that this is Britain, and the likelihood of finding a day hot enough to justify the wearing of said shorts is never going to happen.

But not all is bad. The eagerly anticipated arrival of the Mecca’s September issue will be opening its pages soon enough to showcase A/W collections and high-fashion trends applicable for our ‘summer’ weather.

The croc days are over

It feels like Christmas. Not because of the incessant rain or the damningly cold days, but because something very special has happened. The globally baited breaths of millions can now be released together in a communal sigh of exaltation. Crocs are OUT! Finally.

The company has reported a loss of $185m and as a result will be cutting 2,000 jobs. Sympathies lie, of course, with those who suffer the effects of their extinction, but the news arrives with such joy to so many. I, myself, am ecstatic to no longer be met with the clog-copying footwear that has become synonymous with venom, anger, hate etc. Strong words you might think. But it is less the shape, however disgusting, that is the primary reason for the eye-sore, it is the colours. The glaring shades of rainbow are atrocities on the feet of middle class mothers ‘popping to the shop’ for a loaf. I don’t care how much your husband earns or his corporate ranking, if you have enough money to buy leather soles there is absolutely no excuse to be wasting his hard earned cash on plastic ones.

Rant over; the anger slowly disappears. Let’s remember that this is a day to celebrate crocs, not what they stood for, but for their unexpected and highly anticipated departure.

Florence + The Machine

Florence Welch, along with the usual suspects of this year’s female-off, today became one of the nominated for the Mercury Prize longlist. Kate Bush in almost every characteristic, Vogue featured the sketchings of the Glastonbury couture worn by her and as designed by Topshop. With such endorsement and so early on, and with of course a glorious lp to boost, surely the prize is already taken?

Standing tall

Once again, it’s all gone eighties. The last few years have seen a neon revival and leggings have settled themselves into almost every woman’s wardrobe as a staple, so surely it wasn’t going to be long before shoulder pads, with all their Thatcherite stigma, wormed their way into the 21st century.

Christophe Decarnin’s glorious trophy jackets have set new heights, and trends, and create stauture worthy enough to be deemed nothing less than works of art. Already seen in variant forms – Mossette’s futuristic Balmain number and Rhianna’s softer D&G ruffled tux – it seems that shoulder pads are here to stay.

But are they wearable? I am easily wowed through the pages of Vogue and drool endlessly of Decarnin’s military jacket (and at a price tag of £3,000 – such a jacket will only ever be dreamed of), but are they something that can be thrown on when popping to Somerfield to get another 4 pinter? I very much doubt it. The mecca of glossies deems them smart-cas, and teemed with staggering heels for smart-smart, but I feel that there will never be a time when I would conciously be able to don shoulders with right angles high enough to hide my eyebrows. I suppose unless items similarly fantastic are worn on a regular basis, adorning such clothing is never going to be an easy or blase task.

Maybe if I am attending Bristol’s version of the Met Ball, whatever that may be, I may purchase a pair of foam extensions to insert under one of many dowdy and unexciting dresses in my wardrobe – add a twist. Although with such few exciting events in my such unglamorous life, this is doubtful.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe in a few months you may see me parading down Gloucester road, sporting the hard shoulder.