Fashion for the Brave

(Telegraph)

The best of British fashion and the British Armed Forces to unite for a charity event like no other.

Eletcronic violinist Linzi Stoppard in Jasper Conran Union Flag ballgown and Gina satin platforms on ‘Tweedale’, with Trooper Sciacca, in Hyde Park this morning for the launch of Fashion for the Brave, the charity initiative with The Household Cavalry uniting British fashion and British forces

Going strictly by the book, the electronic violinist, Linzi Stoppard’s ‘regalia’ was hardly regulation kit at The Household Cavalry Barracks in Knightsbridge, London, this morning.

Beaming broadly – and feeling just a little nervous – Linzi mounted a cavalry black gelding called Tweedale, wearing a long Union Flag ballgown, designed by Jasper Conran, and six-inch red satin platforms from Gina.

Her equestrian exploit was staged to officially launch ‘Fashion for the Brave’, a unique charity initiative which unites British fashion and British forces. Fashion for the Brave, to be staged at The Dorchester Hotel, on October 26th, will mark the first time in the 350-year-old history of The Household Cavalry, that the regiment has ever taken part in such an event.

‘Fashion for the Brave’ will be a black tie gala which will raise funds for three military charities: Help for Heroes, Household Cavalry Operational Casualties Fund, and ABF The Soldiers Charity.

The fundraising target for the night has been set at £1 million.

More than 50 of the country’s leading designers and heritage brands will be featured in the evening’s fashion show, including Jasper Conran, Matthew Williamson, Bruce Oldfield, Victoria Beckham, Julien Macdonald, Betty Jackson, Paul Smith, John Rocha, Caroline Charles, Philip Treacy, Stephen Jones, Dunhill, Holland & Holland, Aquascutum, Austin Reed, Barbour, and Frank Usher.

The Dorchester hotel will be transformed with high-impact, show-stopping installations and ceremonial appearances from The Household Cavalry.

The evening will be hosted by Angela Rippon, OBE, with a special performance by Fuse, featuring Linzi Stoppard, and The Dismounted Band of The Household Cavalry.

Jaguar Land Rover has donated the star auction item of a limited edition 2011 Range Rover, valued at over £100,000. The auction will also feature items donated by Dame Helen Mirren, Stephen Webster, Joanna Lumley and Stephen Fry.

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/columns/hilary-alexander/TMG7984371/Fashion-for-the-Brave.html

New Topshop catwalk for London Fashion Week

(Telegraph)

The British high street chain, Topshop, will showcase emerging design talent at London Fashion Week for spring/summer 2010 in the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo station

Topshop has given a virtual ‘platform’ to emerging design talent by providing sponsorship for NEWGEN ( British fashion’s star newcomers) since 2001, and, for Fashion East, another initiative, since 2003. This season the platform will become a reality as the Topshop shows find a new home where the high-speed trains once whisked millions of passengers to and from Paris.

For this London Fashion Week, the cavernous space will be transformed into a giant catwalk and presentation area, once again play host to foot-traffic – albeit of an altogether more glamorous kind.

The ‘fashion train’ kicks off with Topshop Unique’s 20th LFW collection on Saturday 18th September. Then, the NEWGEN designers, Mary Katrantzou, Michael van der Ham, Richard Nicoll, Peter Pilotto and Meadham Kirchhoff will all pull in to the former station to unveil their new collections in solo shows. Fashion East’s 10th Anniversary show, on Tuesday, 21st September, will signal fashion’s departure, as models strut their stuff in designs by Simone Rocha, Heikki Salonen and Felicity Brown.

Meanwhile, during Londo0n Fashion Week, the style fever will continue in Topshop’s Oxford Street,W1 store with a dedicated NEWGEN pop-up area and a photo-wall of ‘best-dressed customers’. Each show will be broadcast on screens in the Oxford Street flagship, as well as exclusive live coverage streaming online at topshop.com .

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG7979676/New-Topshop-catwalk-for-London-Fashion-Week.html

Lanvin to team up with H&M

(Telegraph)

Somebody get me a chair, the news that Alber Elbaz has signed on with H&M is too much.

Jeans to suit your genes

Shaped to fit ... Levis Demi Curve ID in Skinny Moonray style.

Could it be shape, not size nor style, that really counts in flattering jeans?

That’s what Levi’s now says. The brand that first brought denim jeans to consumers nearly 130 years ago says the longtime emphasis on waist-size and silhouette – boot-cut versus skinny-leg, for example – hasn’t really given women what they’re looking for: jeans that complement their body type.

A new line called Levi’s Curve ID is set to change that, pledges company president Robert Hanson.

“One of the most frustrating things for women is that they are not finding the right jeans for their body,” he says, putting jeans in the same shape-sensitive category as bras and swimsuits.

Victoria Beckham nominated for first fashion award

(Telegraph)

Victoria beckham’s popular fashion brand is nominated for the British Fashion Awards 2010, for the first time.

Victoria Beckham’s fashion brand has made its first-ever appearance in the nominations for the 2010 British Fashion Awards. Her collection has been selected as one of four nominations for the Designer Brand award, together with the more-established names of Burberry, Mulberry and Pringle.
The nomination for Victoria Beckham’s own label brand is an indication of how seriously the former Posh Spice is now regarded as a designer by the international fashion industry.

Mrs Beckham, 36, launched her label in New York just two years ago, and her global celebrity clientele just continues to grow. Her dresses and gowns have been worn by virtually every Red Carpet-worthy star including Drew Barrymore, Madonna, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Demi Moore, Nicole Scherzinger, Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow, Heidi Klum, Cameron Diaz, Brooke Shields, and Leighton Meester, to name a few.
Christopher Kane, Erdem, and Phoebe Philo, whose collections for Celine have led the revival of no frills-no fuss, grown-up dressing, are the three nominations for the Designer of the Year ‘fashion oscar’.
Other nominations include:
*David Gandy, Lara Stone and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley for Model of the Year
*Mary Katrantzou, Meadham Kirchhoff, and Michael van der Ham for Emerging Talent – Ready-to-Wear
*Charlotte Olympia, Husam El Odeh and Jessica McCormack for Emerging Talent – Accessories
*Camilla Skovgaard, Emma Hill (Mulberry), and Nicholas Kirkwood – Accessory Designer of the Year
*Christopher Bailey (Burberry), E. Tautz, Margaret Howell, and Paul Smith – Menswear Designer of the Year
*Nick Knight of ShowStudio, Nicola Formichetti (one of Lady Gaga’s stylists), and the photographer Rankin – the Isabella Blow Fashion Creator Award
The winners, together with the two people chosen for the BFC Outstanding Achievement in Fashion, and the British Style ‘crown’, will be announced at the British Fashion Awards gala evening, on Tuesday, December 7th.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/7975848/Victoria-Beckham-nominated-for-first-fashion-award.html

Joules townie and country fashion, dressing for the rural idyll

Joules has tapped into a townie dream to produce the ultimate “free range” country wardrobe.
 
By Hilary Alexander, Fashion Director

So much of what makes fashion work depends on a genuine understanding and feel for your market. In this respect, Tom Joule has totally got it totally nailed down. He has tapped into the townie’s dream of the rural idyll and, in just over a decade,turned a rather predictable, equestrian-based label, which relied on the county show circuit, into an aspirational lifestyle family brand.

Today, Joules (he added the ‘s’ after he bought out his father in 1994) stands for a chain of 38 stores around the country and four more by the end of the year, a further four in France and two in Scandinavia, a thriving mail order-etail business which delivers 40% of the sales, and a turnover of £51 million last year.

The label’s high-profile fans include everyone from the TV farmer, Jimmy Doherty, and his girlfriend, Michaela, and Ben and Marina Fogle, to the likes of Elle Macpherson, Helena Bonham Carter, Amanda Holden, Jools Oliver, and Kirsty Allsopp.

How Corinne Day changed my life

(Telegraph)

Following the news that legendary fashion photographer Corinne Day has passed away, Belinda White explains her lasting impact.

Back in 1993 I had just left school and was midway through a foundation course at Wimbledon College of Art, my heart set on being the next big thing in theatre design, when suddenly everything changed.
Up until that time, Vogue was a magazine that had never really spoken to me. A working class girl from Croydon, I had no business with all those expensive and glamorous clothes and couldn’t relate to the Amazonian supermodels filling the pages. But when I saw Vogue’s March 1993 cover, I stopped in my tracks.

Staring out from the cover was a fresh-faced, doe-eyed Kate Moss, hair scraped back and unadorned. Here was a girl my age, who grew up around the corner from me and she looked so natural, so different, unfathomably beautiful and exciting.
Kate Moss was only half the story however. The photographer of that iconic cover and the equally iconic fashion story Vogue ran soon after – the one with Kate in knickers, baggy tights and a vest in what looked like a grotty bedsit festooned with fairy lights – was the amazing Corinne Day who sadly passed away at the weekend after a long battle with cancer.
Her style of photography, and that British Vogue shoot in particular, kicked off the whole grunge movement in the ‘90s in a blaze of controversy. No discernible make-up, natural light, girls with flaws (the bewilderment over how Kate Moss could ever be a model at her height, with no boobs and such knobbly knees took years to subside), were Corinne’s trademarks and Moss was her muse. Accusations of her promoting ‘heroine chic’ and anorexia did nothing to halt her industry appeal or her stellar career. Her work was so unmistakably British and effortlessly cool in a way that a million copycats could never hope to emulate, try as they might. Corinne was the real deal.
That week I switched from my theatre course to study fashion. I found out about a new fashion journalism and photography course starting at Central St.Martins and set off on a career which led me, (after a stint at The Daily Telegraph) to work first for British Vogue and then for Cathy Kasterine, the amazing stylist who styled that Vogue bedsit story with Corinne and Kate.
Sadly I can’t claim to have ever met Corinne, although I did come within a whisker of working with her by default a couple of years ago by which time she was already well into her long, drawn-out battle with the cancer which would eventually claim her life. But I can safely say that she inspired me and my fellow classmates – who included Phoebe Philo and Olivia Morris – more than she could ever have imagined.
Corinne opened the door for a whole generation of photographers, designers, models and stylists who suddenly saw that the fashion industry didn’t have to be this exclusive club for the privileged and perfect. Suddenly there was another way, a place where ‘normal’ people were welcome.
Thank you Corinne.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/7972344/How-Corinne-Day-changed-my-life.html

Shock management change at Chloé

(Telegraph)

Geoffroy de La Bourdonnaye replaces Ralph Toledano as chief executive officer of Chloé.

A look from the Chloe autumn/winter 2010 collection

Michelle Obama wears Duro Oluwu

(Telegraph)

Michelle Obama adds another designer to her United Nations fashion portfolio.

President Obama and wife Michelle leaving a restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard, whilst on their summer holidays

What knot to wear

Nude memory yarn shell, $249, and nude matte jersey sleeveless knot tunic, $249, from Mela Purdie.

RACHEL WELLS

Wearable styles come with a hot new twist, writes Rachel Wells.

It occurred to me the other day that people are often ostracised just as much for being fashionable as they are for being unfashionable.

How many times have you nudged a friend and sniggered at a young girl in short denim shorts and thigh-high boots or skinny jeans pulled up to her armpits? Probably as often as you’ve giggled at the middle-aged man in his loud paisley shirt and flared trousers that went out of fashion with mullets and moustaches.