If you do one thing today … Joanne Hynes sample sale!
It starts in an hour. Be there or be square – oh, and pick me up one of these, wouldja?
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Avoca S/S 2012
Last week I headed along to Avoca on Suffolk Street with my lovely – and much missed! – intern, Hannah, to check out what the Irish store has up its sleeves for S/S 2012 (how mad to think about S/S while I’m in London thinking about A/W … fashion can be confusing!). I learned a lot at the press preview – for example, that Avoca’s Anthology label is stocked in more than 1,800 stores worldwide. Did you know that?!
The Irish-owned store is very much about colour, print and almost rural influences – lots of knits, lots of soft, natural fabrics and even their own jeans (which I also didn’t know about). I particularly loved the shirt in the middle with the mixed florals and the kaftan on the bottom right, which would be great for the beach but which I’d definitely wear with skinny jeans and ankle boots in winter / Irish summer!
The thing I usually don’t like about Avoca’s clothing is their tendency to take a perfectly nice item and add twee detailing, but this season appears to be much more restrained – see, for example, the coloured buttons (as opposed to buttons in the shape of flowers); the gorgeous simplicity of the swing coat on the top right; and the simple but oh-so-cute prom dress on the top left.
What do you think? Is Avoca a destination that you like when it comes to fashion, or do you go for the baked goods and leave with a cup every single time? (Or is that just me?)
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Gillian Anderson in vintage Sybil Connolly at the BAFTAs
Before we get all carried away with my thus far stellar London Fashion Week coverage, let’s take a look at last week’s BAFTAs, which went by in the blink of an eye, so much so that I almost missed Gillian Anderson wearing vintage Sybil Connolly, as pointed out by one of my painstaking Fash Mob readers. (But look, if you aren’t a fan on Facebook, you’re nobody to me.)
When I posted the pics on Facebook, Gillian’s dress divided people – but as it happens I love the salted caramel colour on her, and the shape – which, without the texture, may have been dull and, dare I say it, a little too Disney Princess for her.
What do you think?
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Buying Irish – notebooks by Ursula Celano
If you’re looking for unique and interesting gifts, you could do worse than to take a look at Ursula Celano‘s firmly Irish designs – the notebooks, which cost €9.95 each, are printed in Dublin on paper from managed forests and feature very specific Irish designs. Dublin landmarks on one notebook, Irish dancers on another and, on a third, the view of Inis Meáin.
Super sweet and unique, they’re definitely worth considering the next time you head for the Moleskine display in Hodges Figgis!
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Antique Library – a new candle from Cloon Keen Atelier
I wrote about Cloon Keen Atelier’s Bataille de Fleurs a couple of months back, but it would appear the Galway-based artisan candlemakers and perfumers have found a new hero product in the form of Antique Library, which is, quite frankly, the sexiest candle I have ever smelled.
It’s described as containing nutmeg, citrus, cedar, patchouli and beeswax, but what I smell when I smell it is, for want of a less crude term, man. It is a sexy, sexy male scent – all muscle and brawn and Alcide in True Blood*.
It’s €26.95 which is a fairly expensive candle when Dunnes and Penneys are selling 10 million for a fiver**, but this baby will burn for 60-70 hours and comes in a hefty metal holder. It’s just really impressive, aside from smelling like sexual heaven. Yes, I went there. Definitely one for the Santa list***.
* Gratuitous, possibly NSFW topless pic there.
** That is not entirely accurate.
*** Specifically, my Santa list, because I gave my own Antique Library to my housemate, which, granted, means I still get to smell it as it’s, y’know, in the house, but means I don’t have one of my very own any more. Sigh.
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Debenhams S/S – John Rocha in print shocker!
Last week’s Debenhams trip yielded some pleasant surprises – one of which is, obviously, that Benefit’s brow bar is amazing – among which, a sneak preview of John Rocha’s S/S 2012 offerings. A very Marni-esque print goes through the collection, which is really interesting and very wearable. I love the idea of wearing the print dress to a spring / summer wedding, actually, if I ever got invited to one!
What do you think? I’m quite excited (although probably by the time S/S rolls around I’ll be yearning for A/W again . . . them’s the breaks!)
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Lady Gaga in Simone Rocha . . . it was only ever a matter of time
She’s worn Irish designers before – Una Burke, anyone? – but her latest outing, in Simone Rocha S/S 2012, is a coup for the Irish designer and daughter of the John Rocha (whose S/S collection for Debenhams, between you and me, is worth pining for). She also wore Simone on the cover of next month’s Elle, on what I think is the subscriber’s cover:
I really like this look from Gaga, which is soft but with that trademark Gaga edge in the form of the eye mask . . . I love it! But I’m a big Elle fan so it wouldn’t take much, and I generally like what Gaga has to say, even if I find her music a bit derivative. Plus, I adore this video. Take a few minutes out of your busy day to embrace the madness.
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And, in a break from regular programming . . .
Yesterday I did a bit of a search for Irish fashion websites as I was trying to put something together for this Wednesday’s paper – the column is going to be a cracker, I’ll tell you now, and I ain’t even talking about Christmas – and I turned up Irish Design Shop, a website, well, selling Irish designs.
It’s a really slick site and some of the products for sale there are, frankly, brilliant. I don’t even like craft, as a rule; I object to things that look “home-made” and even more to things that are home-made, as gifted by people who just can’t be bothered thinking about what one might actually like. I appreciate that may not be a very popular point of view. (Feel free to disagree in the comments!)
One of the items for sale on Irish Design Shop is this map of Dublin by Alljoy, a design company based in the city centre.
It’s a laser-cut paper print of Dublin city, with all of its trademark landmarks in tow – can you see the Molly Malone? Trinity College? The DART? I love it. I think it’s just such a sweet idea, really well executed and a really beautiful print that anyone should be thrilled to put on their wall. Top marks. I’ll have one for each room, thanks. At €48 each, that’ll give change of €200 . . .
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Hairy Baby launch pop-up shop in Gallery Number One
So last night I headed along to the launch of the Hairy Baby exhibition at Gallery Number One on Castle Street, where the Hairy Baby crew have put in place a really fun and colourful space showcasing six years’ worth of designs – T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and tote bags, and all with a distinctively Irish spin. As the press release says, Daragh Murphy wanted to offer something “a little less begorrah” than the usual “Oirish” fare.
I love this design. It reminds me of this post Annie wrote about leaving the immersion on, and of Colm Toibín’s Brooklyn, in which Eilis is thrilled and amazed by the disregard those Americans have for the price of leaving the heat on.
While chatting to Ciara after the launch, she leafed through the catalogue, and told me a story about how her great grandmother used send her kids to mass while she sat down the road, not going to mass. Afterwards she would find out who’d said mass, and what the sermon was – so that she could fill her dad in when he asked her. It seemed a really cute and very Irish story.
Last – but not least – of course, a story no non-Irish person will understand: that of the haranguing of Joan on Tonight with Vincent Browne. For shame! For shame.
I’d recommend going along to check out the exhibition; it’s a sweet way to spend 20 minutes, and there are some hilarious designs to choose from. Perfect Christmas presents for Irish folk at home and abroad. I know, anyway, what I’ll be decking my nephew out in, come Yule Tide . . .
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Paul Costelloe S/S 2012 at London Fashion Week
There’s a flurry of excitement as we take our seats for the first show of fashion week – Paul Costelloe at Somerset House, 9am. Photographers crowd around someone in the front row, snapping wildly. In the row opposite, young fashionable folk snap pictures on their iPhones and tap, tap, tap at impressive speed. This is the new world of fashion journalism – but that’s Jimmy Choo, and some people will outlast the changes in the industry to retain their celebrity, no matter who’s tweeting about it.
The show itself takes place to a punchy soundtrack, which is in stark contrast to the soft, babydoll styles being paraded down the runway in pastels. Hemlines are short but tailoring is loose and relaxed; it’s a distinctly girly take on aristocratic holidaymaking, all frou frou shapes and sweet saccharine shades.
For the men, trousers have got looser while jackets – macs in green linen – have got longer. There are also accents of royalty – can we blame Downton Abbey? – in the form of laced smocks and denim-look waistcoats for the gents, and brocade dressed with Elizabethan collars for the ladies.
In a way it’s a return to past indulgences – this is a louche kind of luxury that hasn’t been centre stage for a few seasons, and, interestingly, Costelloe has moved away from the 20th century vintage we’ve seen – the 1940s and 1970s this season, the 1920s for next if Caroline Charles’s show is anything to go by – and to a more modern interpretation of 19th-century fashion.
For all its sweet girliness, it’s a look that won’t be heralded as “sexy”, making it a refreshing move. For all the short hemlines and sweet pastels, the cuts remain loose and relaxed – it’s a stylish kind of laissez faire, and long may it last.
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