Big days out – today’s fashion page
Did you catch it? And, more importantly, have you a fashion query I could answer? Email them to rmaccabe@irishtimes.com!
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Pick of the week – Dunnes’ colour-block sandals
€30, dropping into Irish stores in June. Get in line.
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H&M’s A/W 2012 lookbook
The H&M A/W 2012 lookbook has arrived online, and it is a serious corker. I’ve had a feeling that, between designer collaborations, H&M had kind of lost its own aesthetic along the way, but this selection of A/W duds places it firmly back in the running. It can’t help, of course, that Zara has been cornering the high fashion-inspired segment of the high-street market for the past six seasons or so – but the folks at Inditex should be worried if these pics are indicative of what is coming down H&M’s line.
Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if Ireland will get these designs – and then, which stores will get them. You can guarantee that not all stores will, and that Dundrum or South King Street may be the only stores to stock the higher end items. This wouldn’t be a new departure for H&M – their designer collaborations rarely reach outside the city limits, and the red carpet collection as part of its Conscious line didn’t even make it to the Republic. I wonder if coming to Ireland was even worthwhile for H&M? I feel like it hasn’t done quite as well as perhaps the Swedish bigwigs thought it would.
I really hope this is a new direction H&M is heading in – pared-back separates in slick fabrics with sleek silhouettes and a lot of attention to detail, without overwhelming us with said detail. More pics after the jump. (more…)
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Competition: win a €100 voucher for Jervis with Jervis’s Top Model search
Jervis Shopping Centre is currently running a model search, in association with 1st Option Models, to find Ireland’s next top model – every day until May 16th, contestants can enter between 12pm and 5pm in the centre by recording a video audition.The top 10, as voted for by the public on Jervis’s Facebook page, will strut their stuff in a catwalk show in Jervis on May 19th and the winner will be chosen by Brendan Courtney.
To celebrate the launch of the competition, which offers as its prize a contract with 1st Option, a €300 shopping spree in Jervis and a double-page spread in U magazine, Jervis is offering one lucky Fash Mob reader a €100 voucher for the shopping centre!
To enter, leave a comment below! But first, make sure you like Fash Mob on Facebook, Jervis on Facebook and either share or tweet about the competition – easy! This competition will close on Wednesday, May 16th at midnight.
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Mango A/W 2012
Mango has produced its A/W 2012 lookbook, starring Anna Selezneva and looking really quite brilliant – I’d have pegged this for an editorial in Glamour or Elle if I hadn’t seen it headlined as a Mango lookbook. My only problem with it – and yes, I’m being picky – is that I feel like the items are a little too current. Will I still want beige flared jeans in autumn? Who knows; my heart is as fickle as the fashion calendar.
I find myself, of late, with several questions playing on my mind. (I was going to say “conundrums” because I really like the word “conundrum” but then I thought: is it “conundrums” or “conundra?” Answers on a postcard.) Reproducing fashion shoots has become almost moot; with Pinterest, I can merely pin the photographs I like and direct other people to explore them more fully via the link created by the pin (I know, head spinning …). So I find myself pinning far more often than I save images – whereas, in the past, I used to frequently save images and reproduce entire shoots.
But what do you, my loyal readers, want? Do you want shoots? Do you want news? Do you want lookbooks, such as this one? (Although it will surely have been forgotten by the time autumn/winter rolls around and I will have to do a Mango refresher course.) Are you on Pinterest? Or Twitter? Or Facebook? Would you rather have one place for everything (I’m hoping that, if you say yes, you mean this blog)?
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Warehouse – an A/W preview
Warehouse held its A/W 2012 preview recently and, although I missed it, I caught up on its press site and I am really excited about this upcoming collection. Along with Oasis, Warehouse is one of my favourite high-street stores for the simple reason that it seems to suit my shape (apple-ish) and it produces consistently good, trend-led designs that don’t fall apart at the drop of a hat (take some tips, Zara and, to a lesser extent, Topshop).
These are seriously cool, casual Etoile Isabel Marant inspired looks (I suspect) – and I would honestly wear each and every one of them. In fact, these outfits remind me of those “what our staff were wearing” pages in Elle and Glamour magazines (how do they look so effortlessly cool all the time?!)* – there seems to be a look for everyone!
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Arizona Muse for Next
You must have seen these images – of Arizona Muse for Next‘s S/S ad campaign – cropping up in magazines over the past few weeks. More sun-saturated Miami-themed imagery, because God knows we need it. Still, isn’t it a nice balm for the wet, windy afternoons we’ve been having lately? Do summery campaign images make you feel like holidaying or like committing homicide? (I, personally, veer towards the latter, though I do appreciate a good tanned leg.)
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Zara man April lookbook
The men in Zara‘s April lookbook are a vision of suited, booted sleekness – all slim fit trousers and fitted shirts, with single breasted blazers and James Dean-inspired hair. I’m not quite sure I can see the Spanish retailer’s vision of male fashion catching on on our shores, mind you; I’ve witnessed many an Irish man’s horror at the idea of wearing trousers without socks, for one, so this slick-living suiting might not be up their alley.
Click through for more shots from the lookbook – and shop it over on Zara.com!
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The day I made an enemy of American Apparel (welcome to the past)
This is the story of a moment in my not-so-distant past, a moment in which I was blonde and, evidently, a mite more body-confident than I am now. American Apparel had just opened in Dublin, and my idea was to write a piece – with explanatory photographs, for my sins – to illustrate how to wear their particular brand of bodycon (remember, this was 2009, before bodycon became the teenage uniform of choice) without having their particular brand of body.
In hindsight, this was not the best idea I’ve ever had – and the folks over at American Apparel didn’t seem to think so, either. An insider later told me that the staff in the Westmoreland Street store were slightly irked at my use of their product – most brands will be quite particular about how their items are portrayed, and to have their blend of Brooklyn hipster chic appropriated by a distinctly un-hip, non-Brooklyn burd, well, that wasn’t to their taste.
Still, even now I’m pleased with how the pages turned out – check ‘em out below, and keep on scrolling for more of the pics, all by Irish Times photographer extraordinaire, Alan Betson.
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High summer at Oasis
Today was the Oasis high summer press morning in their Stephen’s Green store, and the guys at Oasis couldn’t have hoped for a better morning – it was just sunny enough to shoot film, which was lucky as Xposé was there doing its thang, and to get great photographs of Rozanna and Sinéad, without them gurning into the glare of the sun!
Roz (top) and Sinéad (above) looked great in a range of duds from Oasis (which, I’ll make no secret of it, is one of my favourite stores – its clothes just fit me, and I love their slightly 1950s aesthetic, plus, there isn’t a season that goes by that they don’t produce a print I really, really want in my life) – and it was such a treat, too, to see the girls in-store dressed up in clothes from the latest selection.
PS I’m adopting a new policy of not writing about press days – I’ve got a bit tired of reading blog posts going, “so we went to a press day for these items you can’t buy for six months and we ate mini croissants and I bumped into this person and that person from this tiny, cliquey media world” – unless they are directly relevant (ie, items available in store now).
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