THE WEEK IN FASHION: MAY 20th-24th

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

Everything you need to know about the week in fashion is within this blog post. Read, know, then go bank holiday weekend your socks off...

Jenna Lyons (image via tumblr.com)

It's seems like it's been a long time coming, but J.Crew has finally hit British shores this week. For today and tomorrow (Friday/ Saturday), the fashionably preppy US label is hosting a pop-up in a rather fabulous converted shed/ stables at Central Saint Martin's. Jenna Lyons, J.Crew's President and Artistic Director, is in town and used the opportunity to announce that J.Crew will be sponsoring a scholarship for CSM MA students. I popped along yesterday to the pop-up shop where you can get J.Crew's famous cashmere jumpers monogrammed and buy a jewelled collar especially designed for the London pop-up by the J.Crew design crew. A permanent shop is due to open on Regent Street in November.

Visit J Crew's pop-up at CSM by getting yourself to King's Cross Tube, and follow the arrows.

J Crew pop up via J Crew Instagram

One of my personal favourite collars from the J Crew pop-up

The BFC this week announced three new menswear designers to join the NEWGEN cohort in time for London Collections:Mens which is taking place in June. Agi & Sam, Astrid Andersen and Nasir Mazhar will get the backing of the BFC to show and sell their collections during the men's shows next month.

Agi and Sam did an inspired AW13 show in which they took the Marquess of Bath as muse. (catwalking.com)

Fabulous purple/ florals/ streetwear at Astrid Andersen AW13 (catwalking.com)

Nasir Mazhar AW13 (fashion156.com)

Issa, the label favoured by the Middleton sisters and friends, announced last week that founder and creative director Daniela Helayel is leaving. Blue Farrier has been appointed to take over. Farrier has great fashion pedigree, having worked at Stella McCartney and Chloe. Issa is particularly well-known for its flattering wrap dresses- Kate Middleton wore a blue one to match her engagement ring when she and Prince William announced that they would be getting married.

The new Givenchy AW13 campaign has been styled by none other than Carine Roitfeld. She cast Amanda Seyfried and up-and-coming Spanish model Dalianah Arekion in the rather subdued black and white images. It seems that Roitfeld also couldn't resist shooting herself, with daughter Julia, as well.

Amanda and Dalianah in Givenchy AW13 (via wwd.com)

Carine and Julia via Michel Gaubert on Instagram

At Issa's latest LFW show for AW13, models wore gimicky polo necks with hoods attached. Here's hoping Farrier might have a transformative magic touch.

Ugh. Issa W13 (catwalking.com)

Fendi will hold a special photography exhibition during July's Paris couture shows. As part of its pledge to help save the Trevi Fountain, images taken by Karl Lagerfeld (Fendi Creative Director, and you know the rest) will be on display. There will also be a 120-page book published to accompany the exhibition. Another clever high fashion initiative to make the public feel involved in the very exclusive round of couture shows.

Congratulations to Tatty Devine, The Cambridge Satchel Company, Harris Tweeds and Christopher Raeburn who were among the winners at last night's UK Fashion and Textiles Awards. Go Made in Britain!

Tatty Devine's award. As tweeted by co-founder Rosie Wolfenden.

Skate culture has been permeating fashion for a while now and it seems to be reaching a peak, especially with Yasmin Sewell's Beach in the East pop-up, inspired by Dogtown and the Z-Boys. The Guardian brought all the references together very nicely this week. Dazed Digital have done a great piece on the fight to save the Southbank undercroft. And if you have time for a fascinating long read this weekend, then may I suggest this on what happened to the stars of Kids.

Skating at Southbank. Image by Sophie Wedgewood via dazeddigital.com

Browsing in Browns Focus the other day, I was particularly drawn to a very sweet Olympia Le-Tan doodled cotton body suit. Le-Tan is, of course, most famous for her embroidered book cover clutch bags. It turns out that Olympia is sister of Cleo, a French novelist and daughter of Pierre, a highly respected illustrator. If you're anything like me and enjoy being nosy about these fabulous kinds of families, then you should read The Daily Beast's interview with Cleo Le-Tan.

Cleo and Olympia Le-Tan (via thedailybeast.com)

Finally, Cannes is STILL going on. In fact, it's been going on so long now that jewellery thieves have managed to strike twice. Yesterday, a £1.7m necklace from jewellers Di Grisogono went missing, despite the fact it was being heavily guarded at a chateau party. My four favourite stories from the festival this week are:

Nicole Kidman potentially wearing the Valentino dress which Anna Hathaway ditched for the Oscars at the lat minute.

Jessica Chastain wearing Spanx dyed vivid purple to match her Givenchy Couture dress.

And a Psy impostor gatecrashing loads of great parties and fooling celebrities.

Last night, the super, duper glamourous AMFAR gala, held to raise funds for AIDS, took place in Cannes. Carine Roitfeld was in charge this year and organised "The Ultimate Gold Collection" fashion show which was crammed full of specially created gold creations by the world's best designers. To round off The Week in Fashion, here are some of the shiniest looks of the night, as modelled by some of Carine's nearest and dearest, of course. Sun, take note. 

Giovanna Battaglia in Miu Miu (via vogue.co.uk) 

Joan Smalls in Givenchy (via vogue.co.uk) 

Anna dello Russo in Pucci (via vogue.co.uk)

Irina Shayk in Prada (via Vogue.co.uk)

Carine's daughter, Julia Restoin Roitfeld in Valentino (via vogue.co.uk)

CUFF AND CROWNS: THE NEW JEWELLERY

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

Reinvention. Fashion wouldn't be the same without it. Until recently, jewellery had been bobbing along pretty nicely for a long time, minding its own business. There were still trends but they pretty much stuck to the traditional necklace/ earrings/ rings/ bracelets shapes and expectations. Of late though there's been a shift with designers and jewellers pushing the boundaries with new kinds of lovely things to adorn our bodies with. Here are the four big new thing things in jewellery...

1. EAR CUFFS

These are possibly the best established of the new jewellery vanguard, having broken onto the fashion scene in a big way following their appearance in Rodarte's SS13 show. Here, they looked like miniature intricate dragons crouching down the wearers' ears. They were back on the catwalk too for Autumn/ Winter at Dries Van Noten is huge, chunky rock form. Australian jeweller Ryan Storer is also winning lots of fans with his beautifully delicate ear cuffs.

Dries Van Noten ear cuff for AW13 (vi catwalking.com)

A gorgeous Ryan Storer ear cuff (via vogue.com/au) You can buy them here 

2. CROWNS

Sick of the Hen-Party-isation of the tiara, head jewellery thoughts have turned to its even more regal alternative, the crown. Dolce and Gabbana really, really sold this to us in AW13 show by topping off many of the collection's looks with chintzy Byzantine crowns.

Dolce and Gabbana catwalk crown (via allure.com)

Katy Perry does crown as punk at Met Ball (via www.professionaljeweller.com)

3. NAIL RINGS

I first came across these ingenious new finger-location rings at Browns press day, where I had to hold myself back from walking out with a completely beautiful Asherali Knopfer nail ring. They slot over your nail so that even if you can't remember the last time you had a manicure, your nails will look beautiful.

Asherali Knopfer nail rings at Browns

ASOS nail rings £6

4. ROW RINGS

Why buy one ring, when you can buy 3 all bonded together in a row? Lots of designers were creating this impression this season, although the effect can be created from, y'know, just wearing a ring on every finger. Delfina Delettrez definitely did a row of 3 though. Expect many imitations.

Delfina Delettrez rings  (via dazeddigital.com)

Row Rings at McQueen AW13 (via style.com)

HOW TO JUSTIFY BUYING EVERYTHING FROM DIOR RESORT

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

Unless you are extremely lucky, you probably won't get your hands on Raf Simons' Dior Resort collection, which was shown in Monaco at the weekend. I'm a big fan of what Simons is doing at Dior but I think this new Resort offering is particularly fresh; it has that underlying current of being formal which seems integral to Dior but there's also a strong sense of Raf being experimental and fun. In the time-honoured FEAL fashion, I have put my own big head onto some of my personal favourite looks and published them here, along with sound reasons why they should feature in your shopping dreams, or lists if you do so happen to be that lucky.

EVERY WOMAN NEEDS A TROUSER SUIT

It is an apt time for trouser suits which play into the matching thing around a lot right now. The traditional styling boundaries are also being altered all the time. These suits might be worn with the slick heels they were in show but they would be equally right with sharp brogues or even something really casual like Converse. There is something just slightly relaxed in the cut of these jackets (bracelet length sleeves, slightly looses etc) which I think hints that they aren't just for dressing up

 

IT'S ALL ABOUT SEPARATES

Brilliant looks in themselves, with the requisite crop top for those who think their abs are hard enough. But also very pick-apartable. Imagine those silk culottes with a bikini on holiday. Or the tee crop top with one of those huge ballgown skirts from Raf's first Dior ready-to-wear show. Or the slouch trousers with a huge cosy jumper on a Sunday afternoon

 A ZIP DRESS IS AN INCREDIBLY USEFUL THING

There has been much Twitter chatter about the viability of the series of zip dresses which came towards the end of the show. Here, the dress is like a top with a train but in 2 minutes it might become a lovely dress with a little spilt. Plus if you have great shorts, legs or even knickers to show off then this dress lets you do that in quite a new way. If you're a "nothing-above-the-knee" girl then zip up and you're good too.

FOR THE SHEER SHEERNESS OF IT

Are you a work of art? Are you parading your underwear? Did you leave your petticoat at home? Who knows, but you're wearing Dior. 

All catwalk images via Style.com

THE FUNNY THING ABOUT THE GREAT GATSBY

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

When I began working in fashion getting on for two years ago, I remember one of the first things I had to do was look at Resort 2012 trends. Casting my eye back over that work, one of my folders is called "Gatsby". At the time, there was much excitement about Baz Luhrrman's forthcoming new film adaptation of The Great Gatsby which was being filmed at the time.

Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby (via telegraph.co.uk)

Thinking back, I'm not sure there's been a single week for the ensuing two years that an excited "Get the Gatsby Look!" e-mail hasn't popped into my inbox. No wonder, in a way, that lots of us were over it by the time it finally premiered at Cannes Film Festival last week. Our and America's obsession with Downton Abbey has also significantly contributed to a stringing out of the glitzy flapper girl thing. Remember Ralph Lauren's 20s and 30s English aristo homage for AW12? That seemed to plug the lull between on-set pictures of Gatsby filming, confusion about release dates and then, finally, the marketing campaign and release. Phew.

Louis Vuitton Resort 2012

Ralph Lauren AW12

Prada AW11

Before I go making sweeping comments about The Great Gatsby film, which I saw at the weekend, I should probably confess that I've never managed to read the whole book all the way through. I've reached about 2/3 of the way a few times but just found it so boring that I gave up. Seeing the film has made it my Summer's goal to properly finish and lay it to rest. It's also the best way to put paid to any actual desire, if there was any left anyway, to "get Gatsby style".

An original 20s flapper

It might not sound like it, but I love a good flapper dress up. I once had tiered, fringed dress which was not only very 20s, but huge fun to wear. You can shimmy about creating swirls and swishes of fringing around you. Don't do this on a bus though. I did and rather embarrassingly hooked myself on to an unsuspecting elder gentleman from whom I then had to disentangle myself. Fun, fun, fun. The thing about The Great Gatsby though, is that it isn't all great. The film and, from what I can gather, the book both leave a bit of a sour taste for diamonds, champagne, silk, fur and other lovely luxuries. Luhrmann doesn't stress the point but anyone with half a brain cell feels a bit grossed out by the end of the film at those excess things being ultimately associated with a quite horrible situation. If the film had ended an hour or so earlier than it actually does, then it would simply be a fun romp full of flowers, flappers, parties and pretty dresses. But it doesn't. I won't spoil it but those of you who know the story will see where I'm coming from.

Obviously, in the actual 1920s I'm sure there were lots of lovely, kind people who could also afford to charleston with feathers and jewels in their hair. History remembers them too. But for the moment, "Getting Gatsby Style!" feels not only old hat, but a bit awkward.

HAPPY 140th BIRTHDAY LEVI'S 501S

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

Levis (via creativereview.co.uk)

The best kind of fashion is the sort which impacts people not just because it looks nice but because it genuinely makes their lives better. That might sound like a high and mighty statement but just try shuffling about in your seat, breathing out, walking more than 50m in comfort or even going to the loo. I'd be happy to bet that all of those things are much easier to do now than they were 200 years ago, thanks to brilliant innovations in fabric and design as well as social progress.

Sorry, that doesn't sound very sexy does it? But actually it is, especially in the hands of Levi's 501 jeans which are celebrating their 140th birthday today. And don't they look good on it? In the video which Levi's has made to mark the anniversary, 501s are branded "the Uniform of Progress". When you see them next to images of civil rights campaigners, bridge builders and Gay Rights protesters that certainly makes sense. As a side thought, funny that the birthday should fall on a day when everyone is getting up in arms about gay marriage. A good omen for the right result.

But I wonder if Levis somehow magically engineered the recent turnaround in the 501's trend fortunes? Because, somehow, for umpteenth time in 140 years 501s (and the gazillions of denim incarnations which descend from them) are what we all want to wear right now. Good old blue jeans, not too loose and definitely not too skinny-jean-tight. And we're (probably) not even cowboys, farmers or miners. Clever, that.

THE WEEK IN FASHION: MAY 13th- 17th

Posted by Bethan Holt, Junior Fashion Editor at Large

A survey this week claimed that 99.3%* of people felt "significantly cheered up" if they read the fashion news on a grey Friday and/or weekend. With those kind of stats, you'd be mad not to read on.

*This figure and survey is entirely made-up but we suspect this might be the case.

In the tug of war between high fashion and high street, this has been a major week as Mark and Spencer and Versus vied for the attention of fashion keenos.

VERSUS X JW ANDERSON (via style.com)

Aren't the Versus transfers utterly brilliant? JW ANDERSON X VERSUS
(via style.com)

Firstly, in New York Donatella Versace and JW Anderson came together for the major re-launch of Versace's sister label Versus, for which JW Anderson has designed a capsule collection. In an innovative move, Donatella has repositioned Versus as an exciting brand for fashion-mad millenials. The JW Anderson collection will be available exclusively online in a few days and collections will be launched away from the traditional settings and timings of fashion weeks. Angel Haze and Grimes performed at the event Lexington Avenue Armory, making it a quite the fashion and music bonanza. I loved watching/ listening to the video below, J-Dubz and Donatella in conversation.

Backstage at Versus via JW Anderson's Instagram

Stella Tennant on JW Anderson's Instagram

Meanwhile back in London, Marks and Spencer's share price rose 3% and this happened...

EDITD ‏@EDITD16 May

Following the press launch of @marksandspencer's #AW13 collection yesterday, not only has chat increased 272%, but it is 81%+! Kudos M&S.

Why? Because Belinda Earl unveiled her new plan for the ailing fashion side of M&S. The business has pinned its hopes on Earl, formerly of Debenhams and Jaeger, to rescue it from an eighth consecutive quarter of falling profits. Britain's most-respected fashion editors seem to have varying views on how exactly Earl has executed the turnaround...

Jess Cartner- Morley and Sarah Butler in The Guardian

"The bold fashion message on which Belinda Earl is pinning her hopes of turning around the fortunes of Britain's biggest clothing retailer is about quality, not trend."

Laura Craik in The Times

"That M&S has done one too says everything you need to know about its new strategy. M&S is paying heed to the catwalk again. M&S is doing just what H&M, Zara and Topshop do. M&S is back in the game."

The very Celine/ Carven coat, M&S AW13

The very Prada coat M&S AW13

There are certainly plenty of pieces which rival Zara when it comes to "inspired" by the catwalk. A fur trimmed coat, for example, is a dead ringer for Prada's and a pinstripe one with turned-up collar looks like it might have been designed as a result of Stella McCartney's AW13 show. I showed my Mum the new look book. She, I would imagine, is exactly the kind of customer who could be lured back to M&S- she loved it for years but has more recently migrated to Whistles, Cos and whatever's in John Lewis. She said that she liked "some pieces but I'm not sure who they're targeting". The very Dolce and Gabbana lace red party dress is  is "lovely" she said, "but my friends and I could never wear that now, it's so short". Luckily, the sound of better quality and well-edited ranges was music to her ears. Personally, I would certainly consider making a coat purchase. 

My Mum's favourite dress, she wants this. 

David Beckham announced this week that he's retiring from football. From the reactions of some, you'd think that we're never going to see him again. However, it does seem an appropriate moment to pause and remember the various incarnations of "hairstyle" which Becks has paraded on the pitch. I like AskMen's edit. 

It's been the best of times...

And the worst of times...

Beckham corn rows. Errr. (via askmen.com)

More news in brief...

John Galliano may or may not be preparing to do a tell-all TV interview

Tamara Mellon has been using Twitter to suggest that she may be working on a new venture.

Tamara tries it on (via twitter.com/tamaramellon)

Greg Karber is encouraging us to donate Abercrombie and Fitch clothes to the homeless after an executive said that their clothes weren't for "poor people". Watch the video...



Terry Richardson is responsible for the new Valentino accessories campaign, which stars his hands.

Cara Delevingne has had another t-shirt made in her honour. This time she stars on it. Naked. All for Marc Jacobs and skin cancer, who wouldn't?

The UK luxury market will double in the coming five years, according to new research.

Numerous fashion retailers have signed up to a new deal to help prevent further tragedies like last month's Bangladesh factory collapse. Arcadia have now signed after they missed the initial deadline.

Finally in Cannes, aside from some major jewellery burglary, there has been lots of pretty great red carpet dressing. Obviously, for a full run-down you should head over to the Red Carpet Fashion Awards. However, we'll leave you with some lovely actresses in lovely Dior (just don't mention Julianne's toes). Happy Weekend!

Julianne Moore (via perezhilton.com)

Carey Mulligan (via juicy.tuxboard.com)

Nicole Kidman (via tomandlorenzo.com)

Zhang Ziyi (via fashionbombdaily.com)