HERE COME THE BOYS

FRESH FROM SETTING MILAN ALIGHT, WITH THAT PRADA STUNT HIGHLIGHTING AN ALL-ROUND STUNNING PERFORMANCE FROM MILANESE MENSWEAR , THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN. IN DE VILLE. SO I'M SIGNING OFF FOR A BIT TO RESUME MY POST AS PARIS REPORTER-AT-LARGE-OF-SORTS, COMME D'HAB, FOR NOTION MAGAZINE. IN MY ABSENCE, DO CHECK OUT THE INTERVIEW I DID RECENTLY FOR FINNISH MAGAZINE FLINGLY, IN WHICH I WAX LYRICAL ABOUT DIANA VREELAND AND MOHAIR.

PHOTOS BY TOMMY TON AND STREETFSN. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CORRECTLY-KNOTTED SCARF WHEN IT COMES TO MALE DRESSING. CASE IN POINT BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED IN THE SHOTS ABOVE. 

I BUILT A GARDEN IN MY MIND, BOYS IN BANDS THERE YOU SHALL FIND

KATE WOODS PHOTOGRAPHY

I couldn't help repost these shots my great friend Kate took of British band Will & The People recently, not simply because they are stunning photographs, but because I feel there is something sartorially perfect about their inherently British eccentricity to their style. This was all 'them', Kate tells me,  from the feathers to the fur collars, and every theatricality is pulled off with such panache. Since the 80s  flamboyant band styling has been lost, killed first by grunge and then by the rise of manufactured G-star clad boybands, which is a real shame, because music and the visual arts (including that of dressing) should walk hand in hand. This look is all their own : at once expressive, inspiring, curious and completely home-grown, much like their music. 

But theatricality or no, it is the nonchalance that is the most important. Hardy Amies once said "A man should look as if he had bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on and then forgotten all bout them."

There is definitely a charismatic nonchalance about Will & The People. Click here to listen to their music.


It's got me thinking about British music, about styling, about boys and clothes and I'm looking back to the 60s and 70s...thinking about the Stones, about the many faces of David Bowie, about the new romantics, about the luxe hippie of Stevie Nicks. 
It's interesting to look back and realise where our influences have come from, but it's more exciting to look forward and imagine where we are going. 


I watched the film Almost Famous at 11 (in secret from parents who religiously adhered to film certificates) and was sold to the dream. For the past few years I've been heading towards fashion journalism but there will always be a part of my soul that rebels against the fixed realm of offices and fashion closets and wants to be out on the road, styling a band. Staying up all night hunched at the back of a tour bus stitching zig zag patterns onto a pair of purple suede jeans, or trawling the most far-out godforsaken shops where clothes come to die, because that's where I know I'll find the perfect worn-through blazer for X and the weirdest looking belt buckle you ever saw for Y. 


If you've never seen Almost Famous, go watch it, tonight. And be sold to whatever part of the music dream calls to you, because it is there for everyone.

LFW S/S 11: JAMES LONG

THEY DIED TOO YOUNG

My favourite men's collection from London. J.W. Anderson came in a very close second (I'm now following him on facebook too, it feels a bit intrusive.) I saw some of Susie's shots from Kenzo over on StyleBubble, and now I have a fashion fantasy of the most sublime, eccentric couple; her in S/S 11 Kenzo and him in James Long.

LFW S/S 11 Best Of The Boys

Menswear Day 22nd September

LFW S/S 11 Menswear Roundup

Boys, The future's bright, the future's orange

Christopher Shannon catwalk shots from GQ style, all other photos my own

I enjoyed a full-on menswear day, flitting from show to show in my flats (it was day 6, come on) like a sprite,

with Michael in tow. I think in hindsight, it was actually my most exciting day of the entire week, and there was a very different atmosphere around Somerset House. Gone were the hoardes of amateur paparazzi and general liggers, instead the cobbles were polished by the clip-clop not of Acne wedges but of Church's polished brogues. Colour was all the rage throughout the women's collections, and the boys didn't miss out on that lead. Flashes of orange and pink against khaki greens and grey caught my eye at Lou Dalton and at Topman, inspired by nomadic lifestyles and British mod culture respectively. I'm determined to get my hands on one of those Topman knits for myself. Christopher Shannon's urban sportswear was not without ceremony either, with beautiful subtle lavender touches and flashes of bright yellow popping up against the sea of pale cloudy greys. James Long and J.W Anderson (hail! hail!) both had me on the floor of the BFC Showspace, craning to get a decent shot with the wrong lens whilst simultaneously wobbling over with excitement. (More on those collections later when I track down someone else's photographs which actually do the clothes justice.

Owner of a Lonely Heart

Dear Nike