BLUE SKY THINKING

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

Bethan is in Italy sunning herself today and I've been busy on a consultancy project. So I thought I would just check in and apologise that the weekly fashion news fix is not up today. If you are, like me, in Britain, then you will be craving the sight of a blue sky. Which kinda sums up my head space at the moment.  Time for some blue sky thinking. Happy Weekend!

OLYMPIC FASHION: GOING FOR GOLD, SILVER & BRONZE

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

I feel grateful that my days of trying to make a fashion story fit with a cultural event, when it quite plainly doesn't or shouldn't, are on the back burner for a while. There are only so many "Festival Fashion", "Tennis Inspiration" "Jubilee Style" "Hip-Hop" or "Lady Gaga" stories a sane woman can reasonably oversee. But still, we fashion press do love, nay need, to take a theme and run with it in order to merchandise a page, and you can guess where I am going with this one. Yep, the Olympics are fast transforming from being "that big event hovering on the horizon" to becoming a reality.  In three days from now the road lanes freshly painted with five white jaunty Olympic circles near my London home will stop seeming an adorable novelty when we can no longer use them.

With Olympic imminence comes the inevitability, for me anyway, of an email in-box filling up with press releases with the subject line "Olympic Accessories" "Sporty Essentials" "Are You team GB?"  etc. Looking at all the red white and blue sporty garb or accessories in the colours of the Olympic rings that sharpen into focus with each attachment opened, it occurred to me that the high fashion world has been on the Olympic tip all summer in the best possible, but also rather non-obvious way, mainly thanks to its current obsession with metallics.

Gold, silver and bronze have been the colours du jour all spring and into this excuse of a summer we are having in the UK. (This morning the sun was actually out, but by noon it was still only 16 degrees). Silver shoes, gold bags, bronze cuffs, the tricolour that represent the apotheosis of sporting achievement are actually the fashion currency of now - really!!

I'm also grateful to the creative team at Miu Miu, who have recognised this, and created the below collection of gold, silver and bronze special edition available in London only bags, shoes and tech-accessories which go on sale on the day the Olympiad begins on July 27. All fashionistas will know that the best gold and silver shoes (Vuitton, heck even TopShop's) sold out at the beginning of the season. So thank you again Miu Miu. You get my fashion gold medal for this precious cache.

Madras Handbag Large - £850/ Small - £795

Small Matelassé Handbag- £885.00

Madras Handbag Large - £850/ Small - £795

Platform sandals - £460.00

Bow sandals - £270.00

Lace up shoes - £400

Large Matelassé Handbag - £995.00

FROM: 27 JULY

MIU MIU 150 New Bond Street London

Tel: 0207 409 0900

www.miumiu.com

FASHION DO IT YOURSELF: BLING BROWS

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Two of my life's great obsessions are eyebrows and Arizona Muse. At the age of four, I decided that I wanted very thin, arched brows (I probably thought they looked nice on a friend's Mum or teacher) and so I took a pair of nail scissors to my room and hacked off my bushy, blonde, baby hair  brows thinking it would create the desired look. It did not, of course. I looked like I had eyebrow-specific alopecia. But there began the many incarnations my brows have gone through before I decided not to pluck them-apart from the middle bit to stop monobrow- for two months when I was travelling two years ago. I came back with thick, long brows which I have been complimented on ever since. 

Arizona Muse is a more recent infatuation but no less close to my heart. I want her hair, her body, her face and, of course, her eyebrows. I like how hers are the same colour as her hair- mine never will be as  blonde is the only colour in my hair comfort zone. All this makes me realise how foolish I was as a four year old to think that beauty might be achieved from the slim, over plucked arches I saw around me. From Cleopatra to Jennifer Connelly via Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor, history tells us that a statement brow is a key indicator of beauty. They are also, in my humble opinion, the most effective way to change the way your face looks without succumbing to toxic injections and surgery. Of course, beauty trends are just as quick to change as fashion trends but it seems that the thick brow has pervaded all the style tribes now from the super groomed Middleton-brow to the dramatically dark, thick and made-up 'scouse brow'.

Audrey Hepburn's perfect brows (image from audrey-hepburn.info)

The parameters of brow glamour were reestablished by Chanel for AW12; the most memorable images of their show were the close-ups of models' faces with bejewelled strips above their eyes. It's no longer enough to have a well-groomed  set of hairy caterpillars, it's time to experiment with bedecking them in jewels or colouring them in. 

Chanel's divine embellished brows from their AW12 show (image from anothermag.com)

Of course, I would be saving up for the Chanel bling brow strips but sadly the press office inform me that they won't be going on sale. So, one rainy afternoon a few weeks ago, me and my friend Harriet (who has beautifully dark brows to match her hair) messed around with some DIY brow decoration. We used eyelash glue to stick the huge diamond sequins to Harriet's brow zone. For my look, we scattered sequins onto the sticky side of a length of sellotape then stuck the strips on with the glue. We've vowed to recreate the our homemade embellished eyebrows for a night out soon and it certainly comes in a whole lot cheaper (if less slick) than the Chanels would have done. Just beware the anxiety of pulling them off and all your carefully grown brow hair falling out- mine didn't but I was worried I'd look like my four-year old self all over again. 

 Harriet and I doing homemade Chanel 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MARKS & SPENCER?

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

I can remember when Marks & Spencer was where woman who appreciated style and fashion went shopping. I can!  M&S was once a fashion destination. Don't believe me? Most young people don't. The 20-somethings around the office think I am having a laugh with them when I say we fashion lovers used to look forward to M&S's seasonal collections. That we (yes at 23 years old!) would shop there with enthusiasm to nab the key pieces before they sold out. Sadly that time is so long ago as to be ancient history.

M&S is good at many things: food (I'm currently subsisting on their two for £4 salads and southern fried chicken pieces), knickers, men's clothing basics and nighties. But since the turn of the century Marks & Spencer, still Britain's largest clothing retailer, has not managed to do anything more exciting than dull dishwater, or even old tea-towels, with its women's fashion offer. A fact proved once again this morning when the retailer's dire trading statement confirmed the worst; non-food sales are down 6.8 per cent, the worst drop since 2008. The store that has more branches in more towns than most of its rivals STILL can't get women to buy their clothes, even when in some cases is the only choice. For this, someone had to take the fall, and it was Kate Bostock the general merchandise director.

Here is an excerpt from today's Telegraph 

Will it? Only if the incoming style director Belinda Earl, formerly of Debenhams and more recently of the troubled Jaeger/Aquascutum can do something to halt the decline. Belinda has had her role created especially, and plans to work at the business part time. Belinda is highly experienced and knowledgeable but, dare I say it, I'm not sure her expertise is enough to stop the flow of blood from this beast.

The women M&S are trying to talk to with their fashion have changed, but M&S hasn't. Today's grown-up woman knows more about what works, she wants to look and feel contemporary, not apologetic. My worry is Belinda has the potential to go with the mainstream perception of what M&S thinks it should be, rather than to try and shake things up. I hope I'm wrong, but if she wants to make her mark, she has to be utterly ruthless. Get rid of the multiple badly-named collections, hone down the too numerous choices of T-shirt or black trouser (at last count M&S offered 57 style of black trouser) and arrange them all into careful, relevant and contemporary edit.  Edit, edit, edit! That's what M&S needs to do, and to have some conviction and authority in what they do again, not the wishy-washy people-pleasing average stuff they peddle to women now.

LAVENHAM: FROM HORSE BLANKETS TO COMME DES GARCONS + ENGLISH SUMMER FESTIVALS

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

The English are notorious for our love of animals. It is well known that our Queen even prefers the company of four-legged friends to that of humans. So, it's hardly surprising that one Mrs Eliot decided back in 1969 that she had had enough of substandard horse blankets and so decided to begin making her own using revolutionary quilting techniques and nylon fabric combinations. Mrs Eliot (as she was always known) would oversee her factory workers in the quaint Suffolk village of Lavenham with Marlboro in one hand, G&T in the other. Not conventional by today's standards but she had nevertheless caught onto something in the psyche of horse owners who were soon requesting coats to match their horses' blankets- matching clothes with our horses, now that IS English. And so, in 1972 the first Lavenham jackets went into production- complete with nifty back flaps for easy riding- and a star of the English country clothing market was born.

The original Lavenham jacket, for horses (image from www.lavenhamjackets.com)

The Lavenham tag being added to a jacket at the Suffolk factory

On a very rainy Friday a couple of weeks ago, I was invited by Lavenham to come and have a look around their factory and then accompany them to the annual Suffolk show- you don't get more quintessential country than that now, do you? Unfortunately, the Great British Weather whipped up such a storm that the show was cancelled thus thwarting what I thought would be the fulfilment of a long-held ambition to attend one of these sheep-show-cattle-parading shindigs. However, I did get to learn how Nicky Santomauro, the company's Managing Director, has turned what could have remained a fuddy outerwear manufacturer into a brand with massive cult appeal in Japan through some well- thought out collaborations and a close relationship with agents in the Far East.

A portion of the factory's swatch wall

More swatches

The rolls of fabric ready to be made into Lavenham x Eley Kishimoto 

When Nicky and her Dad acquired Lavenham in 1995, Japan was their first target. Fast forward 17 years and Nicky now refers to "Rei" (as in Comme des Garcons' Kawakubo) as if she's the lady who lives down the road. As well as collaborations with Kenzo, Hackett, Liberty fabrics, Church's and Eley Kishimoto among others, Lavenham now have facilities set-up in Japan where they offer their distinctively English quilting expertise to brands like Comme and Junya Watanabe . 80% of Lavenham's market is now from Japan.

Panels of quilting 

Quilting swatches

Coat segments

The best-selling festi classic from Lavenham "Southwold" £110

Back to rainy Suffolk and the factory is everything you'd expect from a homegrown, resolutely British enterprise. Nicky doesn't drink and smoke as she strolls around but everyone knows everyone's names and there are generations of the same families all employed under the same roof. The factory makes everything from heavy duty horse blankets to edgy fashion collab coats but it's all done with the same attention to detail and slick procedures, from the giant quilting and pattern-cutting machines to the myriad of pieces to be sewn together, sealed and buttoned.

Fearne in her Lavenham Holbrook windcheater- get yours quick before they sell out again (image from sanecommunications.com)

For the summer festival season, Lavenham have created a range of super fabulous fluoro cagoules which are already a big hit- Fearne Cotton has been pictured in her pink one. At the end of the factory tour, we enter the factory shop and see a couple of locals of a certain age, in their wellies, picking out some good, warm coats ideal for mucking out the horses. When a brand is appealing to Fearne fans AND true country dwellers, they're clearly doing something right.

My Lavenham jacket keeping me warm on Brighton Beach...

Make mine a Lavenham "Boxford" £144 (also below)

I expect these jackets - as well as Hunter boots and micro denim shorts - will be staples at this weekends Latitude Festival and next week's Port Eliot Festival.  If not, why not? Rain is forecast EVERY DAY for the next three weeks! Oh joy...