whatever, man...fashion!

Whenever fashion week rolls around, I ask two questions:

1) To myself: "do I care?"

2) To the designers, who are not listening to me and who have no idea who I am: "how are you going to make me care?"

And that, at its heart, is why I still keep up with runway shows.  Because I feel like fashion, as an art form, is all too often on the defensive. When I see a collection that feels like its on the offensive, it's an exciting thing.  

I haven't quite come across any New York collections that did it for me, but London Fashion Week has gotten off to a promising start!  

ERDEM

Easter egg snake prints!  Psychedelic florals! Neon pom-pom looking things!  Sure to be called "country club on acid" by many lazy people, but certain other lazy people might just predict what the first set of lazy people would say.   

ACNE

Here's something about me that you might not know but hopefully will not be surprised to learn: I hate hate hate Renaissance Faires. There is nothing redeeming about them; they are simply the worst.  I got coaxed into going to one last year, though, after I worked on a dress for a Ren Faire production that cost upwards of $1000 and kind of wanted to see it in action.  "It will be fun!" they said.  It was not fun. I showed up at about 11AM and quickly started drinking so I could be drunk for as much of it as possible before sobering up to drive home early in the evening and ended up spending all those hours not doing much of anything because everything was really expensive and wouldn't have even been worth doing it it had been free. At about 5PM, I was sober and more than ready to head home, only to find out that I couldn't leave until after the Faire was closed for the day because I had taken advantage of the free staff parking and my car was locked in.  I was escorted to the camping area to wait it out, and a bunch of gross dudes kissed my hand when they introduced themselves (get it? chivalry?) and then I had to listen to them talk about how potential employers expecting them to have professional-looking haircuts is "sexist."

This comes back to Acne because at some point while I was there, I got conned into posing for one of those awful Old Timey photoshoots where they throw a sepia filter over you and want you to pay crazy amounts of money.  If you are a drunk girl wandering aimlessly, people are going to try and sell you all kinds  of things, but I did not purchase a copy. Anyway, the costumes they give you do not function as actual clothes - they tie in the back, so you're wearing half a dress over jeans and a t-shirt.  That's what this Acne collection reminds me of - princess and court jester costumes tied over everyday clothes. But, like, in a good way!

I had not heard of Marques Almeida, but checked it out on a tip from my girl Ana, who knows about these things.  It's sort of easy to glance over it quickly and notice how much it has in common with the Acne collection (flowing lavender and white, chunky 90s sandals, etc.) but I get different vibes from the collections. Marques Almeida is more "Fuck this! I'm going to the beach!" and Acne is more "Fuck this! You don't know my life!"

So yeah, thus concludes a very professional blog post about London Fashion Week.