Knees went a little weak as soon as I clicked onto the forty-second look from the Giambattista Valli Fall 2014 couture collection. Could it possibly be any more beautiful? Without a doubt this is my favourite look from the shows so far.
J JS Lee aw14
For her autumn/winter collection, J JS Lee was inspired by camping. The collection was crisp and formal, anything but what you'd expect to wear on a trip where you stay in a tent. But there were traces of her inspiration throughout - cue coats with tire treds embossed across them and a colour palette taken straight from trees, their leaves and the sky.
John Rocha aw14
When I think of John Rocha a couple of things instantly come to mind. Among them is volume, romance and utter beauty. The designer's most recent collection had those trademarks in spades. The show was full of moody black dresses. Some looked like they had been spun together from spiderwebs that were slowly following apart
Luxury with an edge
Pringle isn’t a brand I’m super familar with. Of course the name rings a bell, it channels a sophistication and a certain class. Turns out that Grace Kelly has been a fan since the 1950s, so it makes sense that I might be drawn to the company, right?
LUCAS NASCIMENTO ss14
You know that feeling you get when you go to a museum and you've been there for a couple of hours?You've seen so many paintings by incredible artists that you've become overwhelmed by it all. Your mind is a muddle and it has all melted into each other. No matter how breathtaking the next piece is it won't register with you - you've seen too much. At the time I didn't realize it, but that's how I felt when I saw the Lucas Nascimento spring 2014 collection.
A bright future
So, before I go and pop a hernia on this delightfully sunny Monday morning I thought I'd best pour out my thoughts on the Celine AW 11 collection that landed in Paris yesterday. As I'm sure you already know, Ms Philo has been rocking the fashion world with her notoriously cool and achingly minimal creations: read tonal milky colour combinations, silky draped fabrics that billow in the most flattering of ways, block colours in shades that will make you pee yourself, and oversized gloriously soft handbags in the most non-discript of shapes... but with the all important perfectly clean 'Celine' etched in (because otherwise it might as well be from Zara). More than an obnoxiously loud 70s revival or a banana print, what Celine sends down the runway quietly influences what real women will be wearing for the season to come. Which is why I nearly popped a vein when I saw her AW11 collection on Style.com this morning...
Taking the whole seventies revival a wee bit too literally, one might argue, came this tripartite wooden cabinet creation. Literally including everything but the kitchen sink... because surely even those weren't wood effect back then? While I might be to young to remember when this trend rocked the kasbah the first time around I think I'll pass go on this one, because if it's too heinous for my cupboards it doesn't belong on my body*.
Ah, if anyone can single handedly bring back the white roll neck... This, for me, is Celine at its best. An austere, no fuss, sleek approach to dressing. Celine manages to continuously reinvent simplicity and minimalism in a way that looks decidedly familiar yet new. If this collection is anything to go by, come September we'll all need a pair of slit ankle trousers with a vertical half stripe, pops of red, pointy tan booties, and a grown out fringe that we can sweep to the side. Well, at least the last one won't put a dent the size of China in our bank accounts.
* how fickle is it that the 70s wooden cabinet print is already starting to grow on me? but not head to toe... well, I say that now...
All images from Style.com. View the entire Celine AW11 collection here.