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Posts Tagged ‘Christopher Kane’

“Blink” Events: British Fashion Awards, 2012

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

Last night the British Fashion Awards were held at The Savoy. Attended by the great and good in the fashion world, this is another opportunity for British fashion to raise a glass or 3 to celebrate it’s brilliance. We are in the midst of a very exciting period in British fashion where we seem to have matured in to a sophisticated and significant destination on the fashion circuit, at the same time as delivering huge amounts of innovation through an incredible surge of deeply talented new names. Yes indeed, we have got it all going on if we say so ourselves!

So, Stella McCartney was deservedly named Designer of the Year, the highest accolade at the British Fashion Awards. In a brilliant double whammy of fashion approval, her brand was also awarded the Designer Brand prize. Both of these awards reflect the incredible achievements for Stella and her business this year, including her contribution to Team GB at the Olympics. Christopher Kane and Mary Katrantzou were both finalists for the Designer of the Year award. Alexander McQueen, Burberry and Mulberry were finalists for the Designer Brand award.

Amber Valetta, Stella McCartney and Salma Hayek at the British Fashion Awards. Photo: Getty

Manolo Blahnik CBE received the Outstanding Achievement Award this year. This special award celebrates and recognizes one designer who, throughout their career, has made an impact on the global fashion industry. With a career spanning almost 40 years, Manolo Blahnik certainly fits that criteria. Blahnik is one of the world’s most influential footwear designers and has been British Fashion Awards Accessory Designer of the Year three times in 1990, 1999 and 2003.

Image: Manolo Blahnik

“It is a great honour to be receiving this award from the British Fashion Council. To be recognized for doing something I love is really wonderful” – Manolo Blahnik CBE

Congratulations to everyone who was recognized at the British Fashion Awards last night. Its a great time to be part of the British Fashion Industry.

For more great events posts, just click here.

Tags: Alexander McQueen, British Fashion Awards, Burberry, Christopher Kane, Manolo Blahnik, Mary Katrantzou, Mulberry, Stella McCartney, The Savoy
Posted in Events, London Fashion Week | Comments Off

“Blink” Retail: All Aboard the Liberty Express this Christmas

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

Some month’s back I was delighted to be invited to the Liberty Press Day. That was pretty much in the midst of Summer time and I am only now feeling mentally ready to admit that Christmas is in fact just around the corner and so I am prepared to share some seasonal joy with you…

Liberty took inspiration from the Victorian age of luxurious steam train travel as well as classic Hollywood movie train moments from the like of ‘Brief Encounter’, ‘Some Like it Hot’ and ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. The Liberty Christmas windows will be transformed into a whole Victorian steam train, bursting with sumptuous and luxurious gift ideas, gold paper chains and festoon lights.

Here’s some highlights from the Christmas Press Day, and let me tell you, if Stella McCartney did an adult version of that super cute bunny onesie, I wouldn’t be wearing anything else for the whole Christmas holidays!

Liberty London, Christmas 2012

Christopher Kane at Liberty London Christmas Press Day

Stunning silk scarves at Liberty London Christmas Press Day

Stella McCartney kids at Liberty London Christmas Press Day

Marvellous millinery at Liberty London Christmas Press Day

British made product featured strongly at Liberty London Christmas Press Day

Richard Nicoll at Liberty London Christmas Press Day

For more retail news, just click here.

Tags: Christmas 2012, Christopher Kane, Liberty London, Richard Nicoll, Stella McCartney
Posted in Events, Retail | Comments Off

“Blink” Retail: Fashion Prozac, part 2

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

The other collection that has caught my eye from all of the great Resort and early Spring drops, is the fabulously fluorescent Christopher Kane collection. Loving his work with J Brand too. This is another collection that fills me with joy, just like the Stella looks we shared with you a little earlier. I think it’s to do with the energy packed in to the pattern and colour combinations. The shapes are graphically simple, allowing the focal point to the be the surface detail, be that the eye popping solid shades or the wonderful rainbow hued print and pattern. The high sheen silver additions add a whole new level of excitement too.

Christopher Kane Resort 2012 collection

Christopher Kane Resort 2012 collection

Christopher Kane Resort 2012 collection

Christopher Kane Resort 2012 collection

Thanks to Style.com for the images.

Enjoy! Lucy

Tags: Christopher Kane, fashion inspiration, fashion trends, Pattern, Resort 2012
Posted in Inspiration, Pattern, Retail | Comments Off

“Blink” Events: H&M’s Design Award 2012 Finalists

Monday, January 30th, 2012

We’re at the next stage of the inaugural H&M Design Award. Here’s our first post on this, so you catch up if you missed out!

All six national winners have now been announced. Have a look at the video to see all of the wonderful collections and to hear from the jury, which includes the brilliant Suzie Lau aka Susie Bubble, the inspirational Christopher Kane and the fabulous Hilary Alexander, alongside fashion journalist, Kristopher Arden Houser and Ann-Sofie Johansson, Head of Design at H&M with Margareta van den Bosch, Creative advisor to H&M.
We are particularly proud to announce that the British winner is the incredibly talented Stine Riis. I mentored Stine in the run up to her graduation from LCF, and was delighted when she won the prize for ‘Innovative Use of Textiles’ for her graduate collection. We’re really hoping that her winning streaks hold out! Click here and here to see our previous posts about Stine’s great work.

Stine Riis, British Finalist

For more posts about H&M, click here. For more on Graduate Fashion Week, click here.

Enjoy! Lucy

Tags: Ann-Sofie Johansson, Christopher Kane, H&M, H&M Design Award, Hilary Alexander, Kristopher Arden Houser, Margareta van den Bosch, Stine Riis, Style Bubble, Susie Lau
Posted in Events, New Designers | Comments Off

“Blink” Events: H&M launches ‘Design Award’

Monday, January 16th, 2012

H&M has announced the launch of a new design award aimed at empowering and supporting graduates from major design colleges around Europe, as well as inspiring upcoming generations of designers. The selection is being made from fourteen major design colleges across six countries. The participating colleges are Beckman’s College of Design, Stockholm and Borås Textilhögskolan, Borås in Sweden; DKDS, Copenhagen and Design Skolen Kolding, Kolding in Denmark; Universität der Kunste UdK, Berlin, University of Pforzheim, Pforzheim and Weissensee, Berlin in Germany; University of Brighton School of Architecture & Design, Brighton, Central Saint Martins, London and London College of Fashion, London in Great Britain; ArtEZ Institute of Arts, Arnhem and AMFI, Amsterdam in the Netherlands; Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp and La Cambre, Brussels in Belgium. The winning designer’s collection will be showcased at Stockholm’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week on 1st February 2012, along with a prize of €50,000. The winner will also get the chance to have chosen pieces from their collection sold in selected H&M stores later in the year.

“I’m very excited about the H&M Design Award. It´s our first ever prize for new young designers, and it’s been such an inspiring experience to meet these talented graduates, to hear the vision behind their collections and to see the final result. With the award I hope we encourage young designers around the world to believe in themselves and their creativity. I can’t wait to share the experience with everyone on-line.” Ann-Sofie Johansson, H&M Head of Design.

From 13th January everyone with an interest in fashion can follow the awards process online through a series of films at designaward2012.hm.com. Videos and images of the graduates work will be posted online, meaning everyone gets to follow the progress of the award and to see 2012’s best new talent from around Europe. H&M’s Head of Design, Ann-Sofie Johansson, will blog about the process, and there will also be interviews with judges and glimpses into life at some of the world’s most prestigious fashion colleges. Visitors to the site can also vote for their favourite collection, the winner of which will receive a special People’s Prize. What a great opportunity to get involved! We’ll be following all the stages for sure. What an exciting addition to the fashion calendar.

Enjoy! Lucy

Tags: Ann-Sofie Johansson, Christopher Kane, H&M, H&M Design Award, H&M Head of Design, Hilary Alexander, Stockholm Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week
Posted in Events, New Designers | 2 Comments »

London Fashion Week: Streetstyle, Clutch Control

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

I think this is pretty much our final streetstyle post from this September’s London Fashion Week. Its been immense, but you have to draw a line somewhere. There will be other posts about the event (yes, there are some things that we haven’t shared with you yet!), including some great videos, a couple of brand profiles and our favourite catwalk looks from New York, London, Paris and Milan.

Before we move on we wanted to focus on a key accessories trend. Lets just start by saying that we have never seen so many Celine bags in any one place at any one time, and that may well include the Celine boutique. These ultra luxe shoppers were the practical option for those in the fashion world who had to tote around a lot of very important files, folders, brochures, ipads etc etc- but if you were into a far more minimal approach (and maybe had a willing assistant to carry all your baggage) then the envelope style clutch was a really popular look too. We have been looking at the rise of the clutch for several seasons and this slightly more portfolio style looks functional and linearly impressive, working well from mini to a pretty good armful in size. We spotted a couple of Christopher Kane‘s stunning plastic pencil case style clutch bags too, looking really innovative but not especially capacious. The fashion mags are referencing the ‘grab’ which is all about gripping on to a softer, less structured clutch, and there is much talk of Louis Vuitton‘s S&M inspired handcuff attached clutch bags, but we think this option is the more functional way to go, and therefore the more commercial. That’s not to say that we’d refuse a Chris Kane jelly bag if offered one…