80s-tastic Jale & Ulfire

I've got that Friday feeling (at last!) and so today I am celebrating all things print.  Expect crazy colours and purrrfect patterns from some of my press days from last week.  Like these amazing(ly chavtastic) Jale & Ulfire shell-suit fabric pieces.  This material really has to be seen to be believed - it has such an unusual texture, a bit like semi-transparent shiny paper (imagine spilling oil on filter paper) and the 80s colouring is so bad it's good.  Just don't stand near any naked flames. 

And for those of you who are wondering, the name of the brand comes from the colours described in the novel A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay:

 "Just as blue is delicate and mysterious, yellow clear and unsubtle, and red sanguine and passionate, so he felt ulfire to be wild and painful [and] jale [to be] dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous."

You never stop learning.
xxx
Duck 

PPQ - Fancy a fez or two?

Now you probably know I'm not the biggest fan of PPQ.  Not just because they like to leave me standing out in the cold on a six-monthly basis, but also because of the collections(here and here).  Having said that, I would rather like Santa to send me over a pretty little fez for Christmas... 

xxx
Duck

Snow SS11 Press Day: Joanne Hynes

Joanne Hynes is an Irish graduate of CSM who has been making waves with her designs across the water in her native Ireland.  Despite having dressed fashion celebs like Jacquetta Wheeler and Daphne Guinness I'm pretty sure you can only find her wares in Dublin right now, although I'm also guessing she'll be stocked in the UK soon since she was showing at the Snow press day.  Not all the pieces were really my kind of thing - a little bit too commercial or, dare I say it, sometimes frumpy - but there was something eye-catching about this black and gold bustier below and the one-shouldered sweep of fabric across the black lace dress.  The chunky jewellery is very different and actually quite wonderful - large statement pieces à la Marni, encrusted with gems, beading and threads galore.  I would be very happy with a necklace like that... 

xx
Duck

Snow SS11 Press Day: Pam Hogg

Another designer I was happy to see at the Snow press day was Pam Hogg, to whose show at LFW I had been very kindly invited, but had to miss because of my favourite personal development course in Oxford... Cough...  Anyway, I was certainly in for a surprise!  Pam is well known for her fluorescent and metallic catsuits but it seemed to me she had changed tack completely as I was presented with a collection of very commercial accessories in buff canvas and brown leather with gold fastenings.  Don't get me wrong, these were not unpleasant - I am actually very keen on the double-handled satchel with buckles - but it was certainly not what I was expecting.  However, going through the rest of the collection, this accessories line started to make a little more sense.  The straps, for example, also crop up on coats and jumpsuits which would be well-suited to ye olde fashioned insane asylum (did anyone else dream of being a character in Girl Interrupted or The Bell Jar as a teen?) and certainly have more of Hogg's flare for the dramatic.  There were, however, also the classic metallic pieces (here with floaty chiffon sleeves attached) and some stretchy items with a wood-like digital print.  As a whole, the collection was disjointed and lacked any cohesive thread, but I can certainly see that Pam is trying to step out of her rock-and-roll comfort zone, and I like where it's going...

xx
Duck

Wolf & Badger

On Wednesday night Anna and I headed over to a fancy dress party at a relatively new store just off Westbourne Grove, Wolf & Badger.  The theme was obviously Halloween-related, but the party really served to launch their next season of up-and-coming designers, who can change up to every three months in the store.  Some of the costumes were quite incredible, especially milliner Louis Mariette's entourage, whose extravagant headpieces were matched with expert make-up and even a full-on wedding dress.  There was also a female Uncle Karl and a piece of walking, talking roadkill.  Naturally, the store owners themselves came dressed as a wolf and a badger (who was particularly cute).  Both Anna and I wore Castelbajac; me, a duck (well, of course!) and she, a kooky clown.  We also bumped into a tipsy Amy Jackson (of Big Brother fame), an artist we studied with at Oxford and who has modelled for Anna's jewellery company.  I had never been over to the store before, which opened in February this year, but I will certainly be going back considering the wonderful mish-mash of designers, and some truly fabulous accessories including those solid metal skulls...

Many thanks for inviting us to the party!
xx
Duck

The day of a thousand press...errr...days

 
OK so I didn't really go to a thousand press days, but I did arrange to take yesterday off work to go to four press events I really wanted to check out - BLOW, Snow, Exposure and ASOS. Even though I only did four press days, this was still pretty exhausting (also fitting in an early Christmas shopping trip and seeing an art film by one of Meera's tutors at Goldsmiths) and I have a massive memory card stuffed with photos of SS11 pieces to show you! Here is a just a taster of what's to come - I'm going to try and have one blog post per designer/brand since there are so many things I'm excited about. Also, I'll need to wait a little while before showing what ASOS has in store for you because they want to keep the press under wraps until after their American preview day.  How many of the brands do you recognise...?

I just had time to finish off the day with dinner at Yauatcha with Anna, Meera and Chris.  Chris and Meera had the special meal for two, I had a few vegetarian pieces and Anna had...a lychee martini.  Gotta love the bright green mushroom dumplings!

xx
Duck

Cassette Players

So yesterday was a very exciting/tiring day of PR press days, designer launches, art-house film discussions et cetera, and do not worry - those photos will be forthcoming!  But one of the highlights was chatting to the gayest man on Twitter (it's official), Hugh Wright, who informed me Cassette Playa's Carri Munden starred in this week's The Apprentice show.  Naturally I will be watching that this evening (I can't wait to see what the 'business people' in their oh-so-stylish Reiss suits will have thought of her), but I also just remembered that I bumped into her during LFW at Somerset House and have some fluoro photos lurking on my iPhone... et voilà!  Carri had a crazy digital booth where you could make gifs of yourself playing around with her kooky neon designs and cartoon characters.  Mother and I enjoyed it very much.  If only the photo had been a little bit more flattering...

And just a little snap of Mr Wright, who also writes the hugely successful food blog, TwelvePointFivePercent:

Until ce soir,

Duck
xx

Sunny Scotland

Mama Duck just emailed me these photos from the weekend, when we were posing outside Pollok House in a large country estate right next to where I live.  Welcome to my gracious abode...  The park is actually pretty amazing, I would recommend visiting it if you ever go to Glasgow.  Not only is it massive, but it also contains a very famous art museum (The Burrell Collection) and has fields full of Highland cattle!

I am wearing, from toe to tip, Kurt Geiger boots, Cheap Monday black jeans and green shredded sweater, Chronicles of Never black top, Brora cashmere fingerless gloves, Firetrap black leather jacket and my Tina Lilienthal gold bunny necklace.  Apparently after showing this photo to her colleagues at work (yes, she still does that!), my mother's colleague said I look "very cool".  Unfortunately, he wears Hawaiian shirts...

There will probably be no post tomorrow as I am going to be at some press days in London (and the very exciting Wolf & Badger fancy dress party tonight), but I should have lots of goodies to share with you from Friday :-)

xx
Duck