RAMZI MUSA FOR BROWNS FOCUS

Unfortunately I'm completely behind on adding to the online hype surrounding Ramzi Musa's capsule collection for Browns Focus. All of it my own fault, and I feel especially guilty considering Ramzi is a fellow student at the University of Leeds, a fact which I am exceptionally proud of. Ramzi and I met a year ago, on the train I was taking back from my first London Fashion Week, still giddy and with my head filled with the week's new fashion. We got chatting briefly buying coffee in the dining car, he told me about upcoming fashion projects, I told him as a fashion blogger I'd be very interested and we should stay in touch. 

I remember being impressed by his confidence and his obvious motivation, but when he got in touch to say he'd collaborated with Browns Focus on his own name capsule collection, before he has yet to graduate I was completely blown away. Not to mention that the designs are well, absolutely slamming. Fresh, fun, colourful ...these are clothes that you know you're going to have a good time in. In the time it's taken me to get this post out, the leopard jumpsuit (top left) has sold out, much to my woe, and I anticipate the rest of this so-hip-it-hurts collection will follow.

See the entire collection HERE via BROWNS.

And keep an eye on this talented young protégé, and on the North in general. I see a huge amount of talent from all artistic inclinations being nurtured in this city. I can't wait to see what Ramzi will do next.

THE ART OF FASHION

A/W 11 AT THE TATE BRITAIN

The intensity of a 'fashion week', let alone a fashion month, can make it easy to lose perspective. You forget about 'normal' things, like sitting down to a meal or having a conversation with someone that isn't about fashion. Suddenly,  doing anything that isn't fashion becomes desirable, so come the Monday afternoon, Michael and I decided to take a fashion week break and visit the Tate Britain. Something that neither of us, shamefully, as Art student and Art fan respectively, had never done before. 

As it turns out, we still couldn't get away from fashion. We ended up playing 'spot-the-latest-collection' round the gallery, imagining that all the London designers had gone on some sort of pseudo-school trip to the Tate to seek inspiration for their A/W 11 moodboards.  Unlikely, but still fun to play. Here were our findings...

GEOMETRIC SHAPES OF WARM COLOUR TONES

DAVID KOMA & BERNARD CHANDRAN + DAVID BATCHELOR'S RECTANGLES

ELIZABETHAN OPULENCE

CORRIE NIELSEN + ROYAL PORTRAIT FROM THE 16TH CENTURY

VINTAGE GRAFFITI

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD MAKEUP + FRANK BOWLING'S TEXTURED OILS

QUALITY MINIMALISM

OSMAN'S COLOUR PALETTE + MARC VAUX

PEARLY QUEEN

HOLLY FULTON'S JEWELLED INTRICACY + CERITH WYN EVANS' CHANDELIER

COBRASNAKE'D

GRANDLIFENYC PARTY, MADDOX, 21/2/11

All photos poached from The Cobrasnake. My own camera got pinched by some creep who kept insisting I was 'the girl from the Antonioni film.' He then took pictures on it of me and  Tona and Emma and then disappeared. 

Last season's GrandLife NYC party was an absolute fracas. The open bar ran all night, all the New Yorkers fashion crowd were networking upstairs, appalled at the British drunken debauchery going on on the dancefloor downstairs, and everyone lost everything; coats. cameras, phones, dignities...

Someone must have put their foot firmly down this time round, because the bar closed disappointingly early.  I think the bottom shot perfectly captures my "HOW MUCH for a gin&tonic?!" horror. Recession restraint perhaps, probably wise considering the fashion industry seems to run on alcohol. And when I say that, I don't mean that everyone is an alcoholic. In my experience, I have found that being at the right parties at the right time is sometimes when the best opportunities come along. Accosting your industry idol while they're rushing to a show or trying to anonymously grab lunch at Tom's Café will never receive the warmest reception. However, at a party, work is done for the day, those gratis cocktails are working their magic and you never know who you might fall into conversation with.  Here, all in one room, altogether, are the most creative, motivated and fascinatingly crazy people in the whole country, not to mention the best dressed. Peacocking is taken to an entirely new level.