It does not really come as a surprise that after four months of dealing with severe cold and achieving the lowest cost per wear ever – on my thermals that is – I am craving for a snugly coat like this. Note to self for next fall/winter.
Tags: paris fashion week, streetstyle
There have been stories about this circling around the internet for the past couple of days already, but I wanted to share my point of view anyway. Apart from visiting few of the shows, I regularly hang out backstage during all four major Fashion Weeks – partly for a new project I am working on -, have appointments in between, but also very commonly wobble on my heels in between de Tommy Ton’s and Scott Schuman’s to photograph the cool people in looks that I personally think are worth snapping.
Last Friday, on my first day during London Fashion Week, I recall myself holding my camera in my hand waiting for them to arrive. Fact is that they never really came.
Trust me, I am not saying everybody in the city of the Big Ben and the red phone booths is just dressed badly, it sure has a lot to do with taste et all. But I got the feeling it was more about dressing up than getting dressed. There was this guy walking around on heels all day (something that I usually do not find disturbing at all. I mean who declared that it is normal for women to walk on heels, but not for men anyway?) pretending to be blind and another guy was dressed as a sex doll. Final score: one streetstyle picture in four days of London Fashion Week (above). There might have been a few looks that I would have wanted to shoot at Burberry if only I had not been on such a tight schedule.
Now for a little moment there I thought I could have just travelled to the south of the Netherlands to celebrate what we call ‘Carnival’ – a dress up party just as big – taking place during the British week of fashion.
On that same first day, I had a conversation with two well-known streetstyle photographers about London being a complete circus, which was before I read Suzy Menkes ‘The Circus of Fashion’ on T Magazine, a piece Leandra Medine also picked up for publishing her genius own thoughts on this whole thing.
And even if I only joined that ‘circus’ a few seasons ago myself, I am noticing the exact same thing. It is not only about the shows any longer, the what Menkes is calling ‘fuss’ around it not just seems, but is equally as important.
At Lincoln Center, Somerset House or in the Tuileries Gardens, there are bloggers that are looking for a tiny teeny little piece of fame in between the already established ones by hanging around there all day everyday. But I also very regular spot some of the biggest editors pretending to be calling someone or fake-hailing a cab just because they know it looks better on a streetstyle image.
There is a fine line between getting dressed for oneself and getting dressed for either your readers, the photographers, to get attention or even that tiny teeny little piece of fame. Of course have I found myself occasionally letting go of my – quite simple – style a little bit in the past, for the sake of getting photographed. I mean it is easy to either get lost or loose your mind somewhere in between New York and Paris. And if I am being completely truly honest, I even got out on another metro exit once, because I knew that was the place to catch more photographers (and it worked!).
Even though it is absolutely fantastic to get featured on the homepage of American Vogue – that other metro exit might have even been worth it – and I am convinced of the fact it helped me to get where I am right now, getting photographed is of course not what Fashion Week is about.
Fact is, I am still young, I like to experiment with my clothes every once in a while and I am definitely putting more effort in getting dressed in the morning when it is Fashion Week than getting dressed for the office (which is currently my living room), but I find that very logical. Wether it is a green plissé skirt some of you loved to the bones and some of you hated so much you wished you never even followed me in the first place or a pair of heels that made some of you think I had no toes left by the end of the day while I was sweating my *ss off backstage because I was dressed too warm to handle. I get dressed in the morning in something that I want to, not in something that I know will only receive positive comments.
And maybe that is exactly what the pretending blind and the sex doll were up to, even if I find that hard to believe. I am just very curious what’s next? And what should be next? Should we go back to the exclusiveness of the nineties Menkes is talking about? Back to being a crow instead of a peacock? Is that even possible?
Hello, one of the most gorgeous smiles of the entire world.
There are so many interesting details in this look, I can not just point out one. Tell me, what part do you like best?
Tags: paris fashion week, streetstyle
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