the third

purple diary

In fashion month I hold my breath for Paris as long as I can. I hold it for the street style, and I hold it for the front rows, which are generally full of people like Clemence Poesy and Marion Cotillard and not, well, d-list italian soap opera stars or rock star progeny and radio djs. And I hold it for the shows. I actually hold it for three shows in particular. The first is Celine, for aspiration and inspiration and sheer sense of unitary purpose. The second is Isabel Marant, for real life, for cote d'azur summers, for endless glasses of rose. And the third is Dries Van Noten.

It's funny, I don't own a single piece of Dries Van Noten. Not the one. I've toyed with a few - namely bits and bobs from what is actually my favourite collection of all time which, not coincidentally, was also my favourite season of all time, f/w 10-11, Phoebe Philo's first foray at Celine and the season of Isabel Marant's first woolly Bator coats with deep pockets - sleeveless trenches and silk skirts and cropped sweatshirts with tie-cinch waists. I've flirted ostentatiously and without success with those dip-dyed jeans and jackets. I've wanted so much but the timing and the bank balance has always been wrong. But, unlike with other brands, where I get the feeling of buy no or regret it later, I never have that with Dries. Because I know that every successive season will be as good as the last, if not infinitely better. I know that those floral silks or digitally printed shirts that I was so enamoured of nearly 3 years ago will return (this season in grunge-tacular Tartan or watercolour splodge trousers). I know that the heavy brocade applique and attention to detail will re-emerge from the ether (this season on sweaters so glorious it is almost rude to call them sweaters, laden down as they are with puffs of silk organza flowers and strips of beading). I know that the shapes that the Dries girl loves; oversized sweatshirts with silk pants, boxy shirts with fitted skirts, dresses that trail at the back and slim-cut blazers that tuck into a-line skirts will never got old and never go away, because Dries uses them every season.

It's one of those funny chicken and egg scenarios, really, when you think about it. Is what Dries does so popular because it is in tune with a fashion model that resonates at the moment, or because Dries does it? I think the answer speaks for itself. In his entire career - all two decades of it and counting - he has been consistent in voice and tone and ideals. I think it's funny that the moment when he was least popular; in the 1990s, the heyday of heroin chic and tartan shirts tied around the waists of every cool girl and guy with greasy hair and ripped jeans, is the exact same moment which dominates this collection. But Dries has taken grunge and not only modernised it - the washed out colours, the masculine shapes paired with the feminine styling (classic court heels and red, baby, red lips!), that ineffable Dries way of mixing print and fabric and technique - but he has also rendered it even more cool than it was the first time around. Not everyone can do that. When designers delve into the past they either come up with costume or creation, it's always either purely referential on one hand or completely alternate on the other. What Dries has done, what he always does, what he excels at and what makes him so incredibly indispensable in this fashion world, is make a collection that was inspired by a moment that it both operates inside and outside of. This is the kind of thing that girls will wear today and in ten years, those screen-printed blazers with stripey tee shirts and ripped jeans and flat sandals as they stroll pass the Quai Malaquais (where Dries' best store resides). But it's also the kind of thing that Sadie Frost or Meg Matthews might have worn, those tartan pants with a holey sweatshirt, maybe, or a band tee shirt with the sleeves hacked off, curled up on a tatty sofa in Primrose Hill, smoking cigarettes through burgundy-stained lips.

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dip it

twin fashion people

I am not a DIY aficionado by any stretch of the imagination. I'm great with anything that just requires cutting (jackets into sleevess jackets, long skirts into shorter skirts, natch!) but when more than just a pair of scissors is necessary count me out. I'm hopeless with a sewing machine - in fact, I don't even own one - and I wouldn't trust myself with a glue gun. Which is why I find myself completely shocked as I contemplate doing a DIY that involve that most scary of chemicals - bleach. It's a DIY version of the now infamous Dries Van Noten dip-dyed pieces from the Spring collection - dip-dyed jeans, jackets and skirts. The interwebz is awash with successful attempts - Jessie, Geneva and Kate have all given it a go with amazing results. You know I love the dip-bleach look. I already own a little sleeveless black coat like the outer layer of this DVN jacket - the remnants of an older DIY project that only required scissors and a steely resolve as I cut up my beloved stella mac for target coat - if I just bleached the sleeves of an old denim shirt (I'm sure my dad must have one somewhere...) then I could get the look of this jacket stat! The tutorials over on their blogs are great to give an idea of what you have to do in the DIY, but for someone who's never really delved into the realm of personal projects with the exception of ikea projects aided by allen keys, I am understandably very nervous. I mean... we're talking bleach here! That can't be a good idea, right?

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multiple of three

streetpeeper

OH GOD. These photos aren't helping much, are they? I think this might be the case of minty wang part two, although thankfully these are not to be found at any australian stores preventing the trying of them on, which would only clinch the deal I think. Maybe I'll be able to find them when I'm overseas? I can't believe how effortless they look, despite the fact that in theory and on paper they sound a little bit trashy. White jeans? No thanks. But dip them in indigo dye and give them a wide leg and I might pair them with a plain tee shirt and a mannish blazer. I mean, how good does the first girl look? There is class and there is class, and she is of the latter. 

It begs the question, is it clothes or the person that engenders style? I used to think it was the clothes, but more and more recently I've come to realise that you can try as hard as you want to look the part but if you're not comfortable then it won't work. It has to be 100% you. These girls in their bleached jeans make them look so incredible, but I think it's them, and not the jeans, that does this. Maybe these are best admired from afar, no?

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dipped

The more I see of these pants the more I want them. Actually in truth what I want is the skirt version of these pants, but I didn't even know it existed until I saw the lovely Brenda Harvey of Benah wearing it at the Arnsdorf show on day of RAFW. It's a midi length and fantastic and something I would totally wear, but she said it was the only one that Poepke got in, and I don't like my chances of finding it. But these pants are still a bit of alright. Like the perspex frames I think they add just the right amount of cool to an outfit. They do what normal blue denim wide legs wouldn't. The dip dye effect goes that extra mile to take this an outfit that includes these jeans from cool to extraordinary. They just look so normal - as if you might have come from painting your house or doing some gardening. I'm a big fan of clothes that work effortlessly into real life. I am of the opinion that fashion should never be laboured. You can wear whatever you want as long as you are comfortable and happy in it. That includes both couture and track pants - I loved that feature with Sarah Harris in Vogue UK a couple of years ago now where she wore couture every day of the week. She picked her children up from school, did the grocery shopping, walked her dog - all in couture Chanel, Givenchy, Dior, Elie Saab, Armani... And it worked. By that same token casual clothes can slot effortless into a high end wardrobe as long as you are confident and comfortable. Wearing casual clothes at all times is kind of my mantra, and I would love to pair these jeans, a la Emily Weiss, with a sloppy joe, sandals and a big jacket. Oversized sportswear with a nod to the styling at the Dries show. I'm feeling a DIY project coming on!

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cut and paste

One of my favourite things to do is to cut out my favourite pictures from magazines and paste them into the front of my daily diary, so everywhere I go I can have a little bit of inspiration. 

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bleached

Vanessa Jackman

It's funny when you see outfits that initially provoke the outburst of "what the?" that then turn into an intense love. I had this in lightning-quick, sped up form this morning, upon seeing this picture of Emily Weiss from Into the Gloss on Vanessa's blog. My first reaction was "woah this is way too 70s, way too acid wash for me". And then I looked again and I saw what a fantastic interpretation of the 70s look this was, moulded with a bit of modern day chic and effortlessness. I think sometimes people - and magazines too - get too caught up with carbon copies of runway trends or fashion movements. The best looks are those that are inspired by and influenced by those trends and movements, rather than slavish copies of them. To do a good 70s look sometimes all you need is a headscarf, or a pair of flared jeans, or a long fur gilet. Not all three together. That's why that little suede bucket bag - with just a hint of hippy - and the slightly flared jeans do the trick. They recall that mad 70s trend that is so big right now without making Emily look like she's stepped out of a timezone. I also like how modern the look is too. That dip-dyed bleach effect is amazing, just like Christine Centenera's dries van noten jacket during fashion week, and I love how the jeans are both flared, and baggy, which is a different kind of i-stole-these-from-the-house-painter kind of look that sets them apart from the myriad of tight kick flares worn by Emmanuelle et al. I love how she's tucked that little grey marle sweater, perfectly baggy and with sleeves pushed up, into the jeans. I love her big sunglasses too. How chic - this is like something Jackie O would wear - but it's chic with a side of grunge. Jackie would have worn proper, tailored beige slacks with such a sweater, the modern girl, cool and fun and with a mind brimming with ideas, likes her bleached and dyed.

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golden touch

into the gloss

No mascara, no blush, hardly any foundation - just enough to even out pigment and cover any blemishes - clean, dewy skin that glowed golden. That was the look at the Dries Van Noten show in Paris, make up by Chanel. How fantastic that there was just a hint of gold around the model's eyes and a touch of it glinting out of sleek (but not stuffy) ponytails? How beautiful that the lips had just a touch of peachy pink? How wonderful that this was a make up look that required hardly any effort, even backstage at a catwalk, and that could easily transfer itself to an everyday situation - albeit a fabulous one. Sure, you can't go wandering around with gold rims on your lower lids everyday. But on that right occasion, it could be something quite spectacular.

I think these close up candid backstage photos make me like the Dries collection even more. He always has the best styling - think wispy, real-girl hair tucked into the collars of his covetable coats - and this season is no different. It complements and offsets his collection perfectly. How else to translate trippy black and white prints from runway to reality? With make up that looks fresh from the streets.

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it's a cinch

The Dries Van Noten show is one of my most anticipated shows of the season - after Celine of course. I love the way that Dries can successfully match creativity and eccentricity with a mind for commercialism and what women want. His clothes might be a little on the kooky side, but they sell, and people actually wear them - real people, not just fashion people - and they look so damn good. That's what makes him such a fantastic designer. He operates in a world somehow outside the bubble of trends and 'fashion' and magazine clippings, yet he is also at the centre of those very things because of the strength of his design and his ability to start fashion movements. He is somewhat like Miuccia Prada in that respect. I still dream about that fall 2010 collection filled with the doctor bags, the sleeveless trenches, the sweatshirts and evening skirts, the horn-rimmed sunglasses. I am currently - perhaps subconsciously - styling my summer outfits in the spring 2011 way, all oversized boyfriend jackets, loose languid silhouettes, and pastel mixes. He has a power over the way women dress even if he doesn't feature heavily in magazine editorials.

all style.com

I'm not the biggest print person, but I can objectively appraise prints with the best of them, and this collection is full of them. Kooky, almost psychedelic black and white swirls, oversized houndstooth, lashings of an amber and brown pattern that was like a geometric update of his old favourite 'rain' splattered silks, harlequin diamonds and his classic burnished gold jacquard. There was plenty of what the fash pack are labeling 'texture blocking', an idea cultivated by Dries in that fall collection where fur, calico, jacquard, embroidery and leather were all clashed together in one look. Dries has updated this for the new season with a host of tweedy coats with just one fur lapel, silk shirts with heavy embroidered sleeves and jackets with matching tobacco coloured leather belts and collars. He tapped into Chinoiserie and the opulent east with oversized kimonos over wide-legged pants - a look that recalled Phoebe Philo's spring collection at Celine and is a successful way of taking what is essentially a very dramatic and exaggerated look to a more realistic level. For evening it was all about the shift dress with Dries' characteristic slight drop-waist cinch, but this season in all manner of crazy clashed prints. Gone were the sweatshirts, the man-style sports jackets, the denim and the bell shaped skirts. They were replaced by wide-legged pants - still the shape du jour - and a host of boxy, belted coats, lingering tunics over skirts whose hems just poked out from under the top and slinky evening dresses.

But that certain Dries 'look' that is easily identifiable was still there. This is what makes Dries a great designer, rather than merely a good one. He evolves every season without completely leaving his aesthetic behind. Unlike Christopher Kane who seems to emerge, screaming, like a phoenix from the ashes after every outing (the only given with Kane is that next season he'll be doing something completely different), Dries quietly, successfully, forges the Dries girl. She has messy hair, oversized sunglasses, carries her bag in the crook of her arm and wears socks with heels. She loves pattern, belted jackets, jewel tone colours, wrap skirts, silk and ethnic touches. She's a bit of a magpie - gold jacquard trophy jackets and twinkling embroidery are a winner. I've always thought that the Dries girl is like a glamorous lady of leisure, that eccentric grand dame who brings her poodle to lunch and has a toyboy that looks like Baptiste. I'm not entirely convinced by some of the pieces in the collection - like I said, I'm just not a prints kind of gal - but then, that's the beauty of being a consumer. All I have to do is pick and choose what I like. And there was a lot to like.

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