I was told by my old assistant at Dazed, Flora, who is a proper 'muso-head', that music that young ppl listen to was getting very tropical. I shrugged and said "I dunno?". That was nearly a year and a half ago. I still don't really know whether music got tropical but it's definitely come bursting into fashion. The seeds were somewhat sewn last summer with Stella McCartney's citrus fruits and House of Holland's palm tree prints. Then Maarten Van Der Horst came storming out as one of my top picks from the Central Saint Martins MA show earlier this year. Now it is thrusting through in the men's and resort collections shown last month.
Back in February though, in amongst a lot of apocalyptic oversized cut-and-paste silhouettes came Van Der Horst's refreshing take on the typical Hawaiian shirt, "dragifying" it with pastel vintage nylon petticoats. A low budget means to an end meant that Van Der Horst stumbled onto something that got a lot of hearts racing - Hawaiian Frill. Unsurprisingly, John Waters is a huge influence for Van Der Horst (Waters' book Role Models is my plane read this summer...).
I have been harassing Van Der Horst in the manner of a possessed Fash Bitch, to see if any pieces from his MA collection are up for sale. I'm still hoping my incessant wheedling will result in some tulled-up Hawaiian print on my back. Either way, I'll be looking forward to his debut at next season's Fashion East lineup.
For now though, I've gone down my own low-budget route and dug up an old Topshop tulle skirt and picked up a shirt dress of genuine Hawaii print (Made in Hawaii label verified...) from my favourite haunt The Shop on Cheshire Street for a slightly incongruous pairing of silhouettes. The ante is upped with a vintage Hermes light trench from Strut, my latest vintage shop obsession. I've pegged it as a 80s-90s find but whatever decade it is, it simply is a piece that makes the action of 'slipping' on a coat a pleasure in itself.
An assembly of Maarten Van Der Horst's MA collection...
i-D Online: Mind Over Pattern - Photographed by Justin Borbely, Styled by Anthony Stephinson
Fashion 156 Couture Gardening Issue - Photographed by Shiba Huizer, Styled by Guy Hipwell, Fashion 156 Beauty Colour Clash - Photographed by Shiba Huizer, Styled by Luke Raymond
i-D Online: Introducing Maarten Van Der Horst - Photographed by Greta Ilieva, Styled by Margaret Crow
Dazed & Confused July Issue - Photographed by Amira Fritz, Styled by Elizabeth Fraser-Bell
i-D Hedonist Summer 2011 Issue with Billie Turnbull - Photographed by Ronald Dick, Styled by Hanna Kelifa
