Style Bubble

Future Vintage

It's that time of the year again to cosy up with fellow Bicester buddies (errr.... well, actually just Alex Fury of Love Magazine who is also my Yoox/eBay sage because we collectively love a bargain) in fashion and head on up to this Oxford shopping mecca to see the launch of what is now the fourth British Designers Collective.  What started off as a tiny shop in Bicester Village's sprawl of outlets that include Prada, Marni, Celine and Versace (alright just rattling off my personal faves there...), has now turned into a strongly curated affair with a storefront that is sure to grab curious passers-by, even if they've not necessarily heard of say Peter Pilotto or Mary Katrantzou.  

This year's British Designers Collective was given a meaningful umbrella theme of "Future VIntage", essentially branding pieces by this set of mostly young British designers, as highly collectible, something which I'd certainly concur with, looking to the way I buy into Brit designers, not just for aesthetic value, but possibly for posterity's sake as well.  Yasmin Sewell, multi-tasking fashion consultant extraordinaire, together with her team was responsible for curating the space as well as overseeing the visual merchandising of the store, which is definitely a vast improvement from previous BDC stores.  A powerful image of Queen Elizabeth I as the headline graphic is likely to draw the crowds in, even if they get lured in under the impression that they might find Tudor-themed souvenirs inside.  As an expert in retail, Sewell has also ensured that there's a good stock flow going in and out of the store, so that it's regularly replenished and never looks stale.  Oh, and Rita Ora is fronting the campaign this year if that interests you.  When asked by someone what I thought of Ora, I couldn't even lie through my teeth and feign knowledge.  I literally have NO opinion of Ms. Ora, not knowing her music or anything about her.  And yes, I do like living under the cooling shade of my habitable rock.    

The likes of Jonathan Saunders, Preen, Nicholas Kirkwood and Holly Fulton are old BDC hands but joining the roster of labels are J.W. Anderson, Lucas Nascimento, Meadham Kirchhoff, Mary Katrantzou and millinery power from Noel Stewart and Piers Atkinson.  Hussein Chalayan was the new addition from the established set of designers and to emphasise the future vintage point, had a dress from his seminal a/w 2000 collection made from 250m of tulle on display in the window.  On the accessories front there are additions from scarf designer Athena Procopiou, sunnies from Prism and Linda Farrow and jewellery from Annina Vogel and Imogen Belfield.  The selection is the richest it's ever been and could well be worth multiple visits over the course of the year, to take in not just BDC, but the other delights that Bicester offers.  The ever-wise Mr Fury advises that visiting mid-week is potentially better for scooping those fresh Celine deliveries and that super low markdowns may occur around the August period.  Don't take those words as golden though.  The beauty of dizzy shopping (dizzy=discounted) is the sheer surprise so a chance visit on a random day could result in... well, whatever is your personal dizzy shopping dream buy.

Archive Hussein Chalayan tulle dress from A/W 2000 collection

Meadham Kirchhoff

Mary Katrantzou // Peter Pilotto

Nicholas Kirkwood

Jonathan Saunders

Mary Katrantzou

J.W. Anderson // House of Holland - wonder if this particular design is undergoing a bit of revival?

Piers Atkinson

Holly Fulton

Mawi

I didn't strike it lucky anywhere outside of the BDC but I did get in on some heavy embroidered Peter Pilotto action from their S/S 12 collection.  It's weighty and I fear that I might cause accidents with broken threaded bugle beads but for future vintage's sake, this is one piece that the likes of Kerry Taylor (speaking of which, they have a brilliant auction coming up judging by the catalogue) might be interested in, 40 or 50 years down the line.  

Worn with Cécile t-shirt, Karen Walker cap, Sheriff & Cherry sunglasses, Nicholas Kirkwood shoes

Taking in Bath

I'll be the first to admit that Style Bubble is woefully inadequate when it comes to writing about fashion going on in areas outside of London in the UK.  I'm painfully not well-travelled in my own country and the joke still goes that the only time I leave the confines of the M25 is when I'm leaving the country.  Therefore I took out two days to take a painless 90 minute train ride to Bath, to experience the still on-going Bath in Fashion proceedings.  When I got to the Paddington train station to get my tickets, the lady at the desk said "You're going for the fashion week?" to which I replied "Errr... I guess so."  It's not a fashion week as such but rather it's a curated week of talks, events and some shows that brings an opportunity to experience fashion in one of England's prettiest cities.  For those with a penchant for fashion and living in the local area, events such as Roland Mouret interviewed by Susannah Frankel, catwalk illustrator David Downton doing workshops, textiles legend Kaffe Fassett doing book signings and London figures Princess Julia and Julie Verhoeven descending down to Bath are definitely treats to see.  For those from outside of town, Bath as a World Heritage Site is of course a pleasure all by itself, with the added bonus of fashion-related exhibitions and a chance to take in a talk or two.  

I was eager to revisit Bath because of my own vividly rose-tinted memories of the place, from a school trip I went on when I was 14.  Roman Baths.  Georgian architecture.  The home of Jane Austen.  Historical fantasies about fashionable ladies in the Regency period walking around in empire line dresses, taking the famous waters at Bath and promenading around the Crescent or the Royal Circle.  What's not to like if you were like me, a dorky teenager and liked to run around Hampstead Heath dreaming about court mantuas, Bronte and liked sniffing old books?!  Turns out Bath is every bit as quaint, gentile and charming as I had remembered.  When walking around the compact city centre, the burst of independent shops, each with their own specific niche, was quite lovely to see.  In London, independent bricks and mortar shops come in pockets that are often spread out.  In Bath, the lovely cheese shop, butchers, baker's, vintage guitar store, indie book store and a clutch of vintage clothing shops are within spitting distance of each other.  It's all beautiful presentation, old-fashioned signs and bordering-on-twee aesthetics.  The tweeness isn't irritating though.  It's a respite from the self concious hipster notions of twee that are prevalent in London, because it feels genuine.  So of course there's a shop selling antique buttons or teddy bears.  It seems only natural in Bath.

There's a deluge of quaint indies in Bath but here are some of the things that caught my eye... Mr B's Emporium of Reading delights purely because the name is so awesome, the exacting coffee beans at Colonna & Small's, which unsurprisingly is owned by an Aussie, the fact that you can find buttons shaped like little cars at Jessie's Button Box in Bath Antique Centre, the facade of Jolly's department store and the fact that it's called Jolly's, the awesome refurbed light selection at Felix, the yummy food of Sam's Kitchen complete with a plinky plonk piano inside, the exacting stationery delights of Meticulous Ink... 

On the vintage shopping front, I didn't investigate every vintage shop (and it's a burgeoning sector in Bath) but found a solid trio in Susannah, Scarlet Vintage and Vintage to Vogue.  Susannah reminds me a little bit like Annie's in Camden Passage in that it's all Victorian to Edwardian underclothes, linens and ribbondry with patchworked quilts made up by Susannah using remnants.  I optimistically bought a skimpy Edwardian cotton slip thinking of summer days.  Scarlet Vintage is small but well-selected with its mix of designer and top quality pieces.  A 1960s checked coat and matching dress caught my eye there.  Vintage to Vogue is great for both womenswear and menswear and veers towards classic pieces so that all ages of women and men shop there.  It makes a change from the youth-orientated retro rags that occupies so much of the vintage sector.   

As part of Bath in Fashion and as a pertinent reminder that Made in Britain is now a covetable and solid option as opposed to an unrealistic ideal, inside Milsom Place is a pop-up shop set up by British Bag Makers, who also design a much loved local bag brand called Liz Cox.  With a few machines and pattern-cutting desk set up inside the shop as well as a selection of leathers, the idea is to allow customers to see a glimpse of the process that goes on in their local factory just 10 miles from Bath and to encourage the idea of custom bag designs, selecting leathers, tweaking straps and getting a made-with-love and made-locally bag.  If cheeses, charcuterie and breads fulfill those duties, why shouldn't leather goods do the same, especially in an area which has historically had factories such as Clarks Shoes.  The serious upshot to all of this is that British Bag Makers aren't just creating smallscale artisanal goods for the area.  They also take on the manufacture of bags for companies like Mulberry and Dunhill, outputting around 600 bags a week and employing around 60 people.  That's something for British designers and brands to take note of if the possibility of bringing bag production back to Britain should arise.  I'll hopefully be visiting the factory soon to get a better idea of what this company does.     

Also in the Milsom Place drag of shops is a young weaver called Katherine Fraser, who hand weaves the most beautiful silk scarves and home furnishing textiles, mainly revolving around her signature uneven check designs.  Fraser said she loved the idea of making up orders as they come in and selling one-off designs and really revelling in her own 21st century take on the cottage industry.  In fashion, it's normal to throw around language of upscaling production, wholesale and stockists but Fraser seems content with working away at her loom by herself and keep things on a small scale, which was refreshing to hear.  I'll be hitting her up with a cray-cray order of neon and grey blankets and cushion covers for the new casa (still progressing painfully slow I might add).  

Bucking the trend of all things twee, quaint and quintessentially English is concept store Found, overlooking the Avon Canal.  Owners Olivia Brewer and Nik Blake had never owned a store before but found a distinct gap, not just in Bath but perhaps in the UK as a whole, of designers mingling with stationery and homeware and it's their selection that really makes them stand out.  Having lived in Auckland, New Zealand for a while, they bought back some of their label finds, which are suffice to say, impossible to get hold even in London, such as bag label Deadly Ponies, Twentyseven Names and Australia's Kinoak.  Solid brands like Karen Walker eyewear and ready to wear, YMC, Dr Martens and Cambridge Satchel Company rounds out the selection as well as the lovely stationery and homewares sections.  Mucho heart.   

What's a trip to Bath without taking the waters of UK's only natural thermal spa, a pastime that dates back to the Roman times?  The Thermae Bath Spa, opened in 2006 after extensive work to restore and update the historic bath houses, is a great intersection of Bath's spa history and modern spa facilities.  It's a unique spa experience precisely because the rich mineral waters bubble up naturally from the Hetling, King's and Cross Springs and that you can experience that from what seems like a standard roof top pool, albeit with the rolling hills and Bath's skyline around you.  I emerged after two hours of pool-hopping and steam room sampling (they have five different scented steam rooms) with super soft skin and feeling like I could doze the rest of the day away.  

In between meandering around shops, taking the waters and quaffing perfect flat whites, I also slipped into the beautiful Octagon Chapel to take in the Norman Parkinson exhibition entitled "Mouvements de Femme", curated by Roland Mouret, marking the centenary of Parkinson's birth.  “I find the thing that excites me most about women is the way they move” said Norman Parkinson in 1984 and as one of the most prolific fashion photographers, working from the 1930s up until his death, he saw many women move in front of his lens.  The exhibition traverses through Parkinson's vast bodies of work, with each decade bringing new exciting backdrops and clothes to create enigmatic and lasting imagery.  Mouret chronologically and thematically groups up the photographs as you make your way around the octagonal-shaped room with one wall at the end devoted to the images Parkinson shot in Bath for British Vogue.  

I'll be posting about the other current exhibition delighs of Bath from my beloved Fashion Museum and the Holburne Museum in the next post just to ease up on the image load here.

& Other View

The phones have been ringing non-stop.  The rails have been emptied.  Sizes are out.  The Regent Street branch of & Other Stories cannot wait for stock replenishment day fast enough (it's a Tuesday by the way, if you've been out of luck with styles/sizes).  Suffice to say, it's been a successful first week of opening for H&M's new addition to its roster of fashion chains, one that has been shrouded in mystery beforehand and finally got its big unveil last week.  I was unfortunately still in Paris, despite my dying curiosity as to what & Other Stories is all about.  Therefore, I delayed my visit and can now happily report that all the hushed-up-hype, Twitter lovin' and customer demand are all quite rightly warranted.  & Other Stories creeps into you as you find yourself grabbing hanger after hanger, piece after piece.  It's also the first high street chain that from the get go, observes and cleverly lifts aspects of how girls today use the internet as inspiration fodder, and incorporates them into their branding, visual merchandising and aesthetic.  I left impressed and eagerly anticipating new stock.  

First up, what of the clothes?  Well, the ready to wear isn't the main focus of & Other Stories as is the case with say H&M and COS.  Even the way it lists out Shoes, Bags, Accessories, Jewellery, Ready-to-Wear, Lingerie Beauty in its brand description shows that the clothes are merely one component of all the acoutrements needed for a & Other Stories lifestyle - a key word when wandering around the store.  But the clothes will undoubtedly the primary focus for most people.  Currently they are divided up into various stories (geddit, geddit?) - hard-edged industrial gear for Berlin girls, ditzy florals and bobo simplicity for hanging out in Le Marais, directional minimalism from Stockholm and glamourous art deco jewel tones for a reimagined Studio 54 in New York.  I'm told by the store manager that Paris is currently leading the way in the sales stakes.  I'm veering more towards the stiffened satins of the glamour story, the ocean prints from Stockholm and the leather pieces from Berlin.  

There are definite aesthetic similarities with fellow Swedish brands like Acne or WhyRed but that's down to the team, which & Other Stories is quite transparent about.  I was sent a press release with the names of the design team, what their previous work backgrounds were (unsurprisingly Acne and WhyRed popped up...) which brings up an interesting point Sarah Sá Couto made on the blog as a comment - that the high street gets penalised and criticised more because they are faceless.  Annonymous design teams can take the flack.  Here we have & Other Stories being very open about their team - a change in behavioural tact, away from the mass-produced fashion norm.  

The comparison with fellow like-minded chain COS is a natural one because that's the aesthetic, which many people were anticipating.  The clothes occupy a niche that is perhaps younger than COS, and less austere and rigorous in style.  They flirt with forward design, whilst not exactly slavishly adhering to seasonal catwalk trends.  The prices are COS-esque, perhaps slightly less expensive and you're imbued with that same feeling that you're getting a lot of bang for your buck.  Aesthetically speaking, there's something for everyone, but not in the way that H&M caters to the masses.  There's an independent, creative-spirited and slightly leftfield common ground that they've carved out for their customer base - like if i got chatting with the customers there, we'd discover similar likes in art, music, photography and films.  At least that's the feeling that I get.

The look and feel of the store has clearly been informed by a giant dose of Emmas Designblogg.  It's like walking around a "work-in-progress" space or somebody's creative studio, drawing customers into the intimacy of a behind the scenes process.  Lookbook images are tacked up, garments sometimes come with plastic-covered images like you get backstage at a fashion show, room dividers, boxes dot around the room and accessories are haphazardly scattered in their trays.  Nothing looks too neat or orderly.  The placing of copious amounts of pictures is a nod towards the fact that we are now ingrained with an innate desire to see how "real" people wear it from online personal style sites and blogs.  Lookbook imagery therefore is deliberately non-uniform.  Some of it even looks a little DIY-ish, self-shot with a remote control perhaps.  It's close-range inspiration rather than high n' lofty aspiration.  

& Other Stories have immediately introduced collaborations into the fold but they're all done on the quiet.  They're "Co-Labs", created with designers who aren't exactly household names but I'm personally equally happy to see on this side of the Atlantic.  Abigail Lorick has created lingerie and clothes, The Lake and the Stars has done lingerie and Claire Vivier has done a small collection of totes and clutches.  Alyson Fox is up next with a jewellery and clothing collection.  Interestingly, they're all fairly small designers from the States and are introduced on the rails with not too much fanfare - a singular hanging introduction and some lookbook imagery.  These co-labs are likely to drop in and out without too much press prelude.

If shoes, jewellery and accessories are the sideline areas in high street stores, which are often the hor d'oeuvre to ready to wear's main course, then & Other Stories seeks to change that.  Shoes get a spacious section on the top floor with plenty of styles to choose from as well as a selection of Nike trainers - a nice addition that completes the sort of lifestyle overview which & Other Stories has carved out.  Likewise, jewellery and accessories are scattered liberally throughout the store as opposed to being relegated to a section, making sense with the nearby clothing.  "Endless Styling Choices" says the & Other Stories website.  A person who is perhaps less sure of their own style may find the shop overwhelming but for most with a grasp of themselves and what they like will find this pick n' mix scattergun approach heaps of fun.  

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that & Other Stories was originally supposed to be beauty-only, when conceived in its initial phase, with the other components coming in later when H&M realised this could be more of a lifestyle brand.  With that said, the beauty section is surpremely well-considered.  They have fantastic collaborators onboard such as make-up artist Lisa Butler directing the cosmetics range and Ben Gorham, the independent perfumer of Byredo, directing the bath and body range.  Being a huge Byredo fan, I was so excited that I started testing every lotion and found that !hurrah!, every scent lingers and has Byredo-esque complexity.  Beauty fiends will have a ball, if not with & Other Stories' own products then with the cult beauty section, where other brands such as This Works, Stop the Water, W3II, Dr Bronner and Eyeko.  None of that means anything to me by the way.  You know what I'm like with beauty.  Still, a one-stop drop shop like this in town will be useful when I in a daft beauty mood.

I fear this post is only adding to the heap of praise that will drive some people a bit nutty as & Other Stories have been somewhat overwhelmed by its initial success.  Like I said, styles are selling out, sizes are running low and both the website and stores are doing brisk business.

Browsing the site might be your best bet, which like the store is a Tumblr-esque mish mash of imagery, looking like a blog that happens to have shoppable links, rather than a slick e-commerce machine.   

Of course with all this gushing, I have some proof to back up my words.  I was fairly restrained though given that I was *ahem* being profesh and supposedly "reporting" rather than "shopping".  Couldn't resist the stiffened nude satin mini-skort and matching jacket (both already gone from the site) along with the navy racerback vest or the green jacquard marble trousers.  

All & Other Stories except for shoes and Body Editions burgandy body.  

Unfortunately the final big dud ending to all of this is that & Other Stories is only shipping to certain countries in Europe and the physical stores are only in London, Denmark and Sweden right now with upcoming openings in Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Amsterdam and Berlin soon.  As Fashionista noted in their review, it's something for people to look forward to if they are ever on jaunts to Europe.  For those that aren't?  Erm... find a friend in Europe who can take parcels for you?