piątek, 28 października 2011

Haider Ackermann goes dandy. Spring summer 2012 collection.


          “We’ve been doing elongated silhouettes reaching the sky for seasons . . . there’s so much high heels and sexiness that now it’s nice to have an army of Lord Byrons coming your way!” - said Haider Ackermann.
          Well, not only Lord Byrons but also Charles Baudelaires and David Bowies from the Ziggy Stardust seventies. I like this masculine attitiude a lot. Haider Ackermann mixed all these individualities and created something with the elegance of a nineteenth century drama and nonchalance like the dandy style with a dash of wilderness of the seventies. For women.
           But that's not everything. He did it in his own special way. Every detail, colour and textile is carefully matched with another. And all these matches make this collection incredibly rich in every possible way. All brought together: the blinding colors, the brocade fabrics, the chiffons, the silks, the leather and then the asymetric cuts, the neglected shapes, the unpredictible draperies and the transparent layers. If I had to describe this collection in one word it would be "intensive". Very, very intensive.
             But it isn't exaggerated. The balance is perfectly kept. As it's always been. It's Haider Ackermann.  



środa, 26 października 2011

Diving for McQueen

          The New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn meets Alexander McQueen Creative Director Sarah Burton at the label’s Paris atelier to explore the house’s intricate, marine-inspired Spring/Summer 2012 collection in Dustin Lynn’s stunning portrait film. From: nowness.com

niedziela, 16 października 2011

My souvenir from my trip to Latvia / Riga.

          My beautiful souvenir from my trip to Latvia / Riga. The ring is Russian and has nearly 100 years. It remembers the Tsar's era. Made of silver. 
          Photos by Mad Alice.

piątek, 14 października 2011

An unexpected position change/ Lithuania & Latvia.

          A week ago I found myself near Poland's eastern border. What else could I do? I crossed it. Actually I went a bit further. In nearly two days I went to Vilnius, Kėdainiai and Riga. It was fun. Next time I'm planning to reach Tallin. 
          I've always had this hunger for travel. Especially to the East. 
          All photos by Mad Alice. 

Kėdainiai is one of the oldest cities in Lithuania. It's rather sparsely populated (nearly 30,000 people live there).
 But it has awesome pigūs rūbai!
 Which means second-hands!
And Riga, you are a true beauty. 
The old town:
Been there. It's really good muzejs.
Antique shop:
 And one of my favourite parts: Riga's flea market: 
 Unexpected meetings:
 Yes, it's authenic:
That building in the background strongly reminds me of some other building. Actually it's quite the same as this other building. Any ideas?

wtorek, 11 października 2011

piątek, 7 października 2011

Alexander McQueen spring summer 2012


              It's been Sarah Burton's third collection for Alexander McQueen, after the king decided to leave the building. It's been the third nice, feminine, unsurprising collection. I'm slightly giving up my unconditional love for Alexander McQueen. Don't get me wrong, Sarah is doing just fine, all these collections are beautiful and each part of them is nearly a masterpiece in sewing, but it isn't Alexander McQueen anymore. There's no darkness and apocalypse anymore. Everything became too mild and a little bit too predictable. There's no brilliant madness here anymore. 
        “It’s all about Gaia, the wonder of nature, the sea.” said Sarah Burton about the spring/summer collection 2012. Sure, why not, the "Plato's Atlantis", the last spring 2010 show of Alexander McQueen was about the sea, too. There were all kinds of sea creatures there, but there weren't any mermaids. Who cares about the mermaids? I'm asking, where are the skulls? Where are the demons which were hiding in the depths of the McQueen sea? The sun doesn't shine at the seabed. 
            It would be unfair to say that all of Sarah's designs are equally boring. Sure thing. This collection  has a few truly beautiful pieces. In some of them, you can still hear the echoes of Alexander's creatures. Like those black demonic dresses which twine around the models bodies. And the ones made of sharp mother-of-pearls pieces or corals which remind of the early McQueen's designs, where models were risking their lives wearing his dresses. Masks are surely in the good-old festish style, too. But Sarah is systematically changing the direction in which Alexander headed. I'm guessing that after a few more shows, the kingdom of mother Gaia will entirely overthrow the McQueen kingdom. Sorry, but you won't be my queen. I'd rather hold on to the past, with my beloved demons.  

Beautiful backstage photos by Kevin Tachman
Runway photographed by Marcus Tondo/gorunway.com
You can see complete collection here: Vogue UK