LFW A/W 13/14 – Ashley Isham

After loving Ashley Isham at the last S/S 13 London Fashion Week, I had high expectations, and he didn’t disappoint. (also this time his designers were not so terribly skinny like last time making the clothes look even better).

His collection was stronger than the last one, I think autumn/winter collections tend to bring that out of designer, with leathers and army greens, reds and beautiful floral patterned velvets. The coats were armour like with extra visible shoulder padding, contrasting lapels, ruffled skirts, and strong shapes to ensure you the Ashley Isham woman is ever so elegant and beautiful. His evening dresses were extra long of course for extra drama, perfectly fitted with elegant 30s style skirt, with beading or leather waist detailing to give it the extra red carpet wow.

LFW A/W 13/14 – Bernard Chandran

Bernard Chandran is a designer already well-known in his homeland of  Malaysia – he is the chief designer of the television show Project Runway Malaysia and has also guest judged in Britain’s Next Top Model. He is known as the darling designer of the royal family, and from seeing his collection, I can see why. 

He started to delve into the fashion world by studying in the International Fashion Training Centre in Malaysia, before he extended his studies at the prestigious Paris Fashion School.

The collection was elegant, with sleek block coloured silk dresses mixed with patent leather, beautifully beading on silks and leathers, and  sky like prints on fabrics bringing together the blue and orange tones. From capes, to jumpsuits… its hard to pick a favourite! I love it all!

 

LFW A/W 13/14 – Zeynep Tosun

Zeynep Tosun is an Instituto de Marangoni graduate, from Istanbul who worked for Alberta Ferretti before moving back to starting her own label in 2008. <There is some beautiful designs coming from Turkey>

Zeynep gave us an opulent collection filled with strong shapes, think big bold collars and sleeves, leather, bright yellow and orange colours and bold graphic prints. Everything that is so very on trend but mixed with a fabrics of lush velvet and ruffled collars of a renaissance era, and oddly, with a twist of cowgirl elements.

 

LFW A/W 13/14 – Carlotta Actis Barone

Carlotta Actis Barone is an Italian born Central Saint Martin’s graduate, who already has five collections under her belt. She’s worked with the likes of Stella McCartney, Balmain and BCBG Max Azria… all very different brands with different looks and aesthetics to the Carlotta Actis Barone woman.

The collection was highly modern, with elegant long dresses with sheer skirts. The silhouettes of the 30s skimmed down the runway, with pleated and sheer fabrics to give glimpses of the woman underneath.

LFW A/W 13/14 Ones to Watch – Yulia Kondranina

Ones to Watch, who we can thank for introducing us to designers like Peter Pilotto and Eudon Choi, introduced us not only to Patrick Li , but also selected Russian-born designer Yulia Kondranina to showcase her collection, another Central St Martins graduate.

Her collection featured fringing throughout the collection but done in a fresh more tailored manor, with sculptural bodices underneath to create a beautiful elegant silhouette. The fluidity and movement of the dresses as the models walked was breath taking.

The collection started with a monochrome palette that brought the focus of the collection to the structure of the pieces, and closed with a bold combination of primary colours for a more dramatic effect.

LFW A/W 13/14 Ones to Watch – Patrick Li

Patrick Li, a Chinese born London based designer completed a fashion design and business studies BA at the University of Brighton. He then did a Womenswear course at the Royal College of Art, and has worked with Hussein Chalayan and Viktor & Rolf.

His specialty is to combine organic shapes with strong structure, keeping a feminine line.

His autumn/winter 13/14 collection contained beautiful architectural lines, fabric layering, a clean colour palette of blacks and whites and a little green and maroon sneaked. Each mixed beautiful fabrics of velvet, leather and splashes of glitter.

LFW A/W 13 Runway Collective – Nihan Buruk

The RunWay Collective debut’d at Fashion Scout showcasing two very different Turkish designers.

The first designer Nihan Buruk, from Istanbul, graduated from the Fashion and Textile Design of Yeditepe University in 2007. Besides fashion design, Buruk is also an interior designer.

Nazari’s collection titled, Nian, was a powerful collection which was beautifully tailored. Each piece was strong, with an androgynous sense and beautiful strong fabrics of wool and leathers. The collection’s colour palette started with monochrome and greys but finished off with bright crimson reds.

The collection was really beautiful and I wish I could fill my wardrobe and keep myself warm with the whole collection, particularly the last crimson red coat!

London Fashion Week A/W 2013 begins!!!

It’s here!!! London Fashion Week starts today!!!

I have received my invites and of course have no idea what I’ll be wearing, but my favourite item of the moment that will be featured are my Philip Lim silver leather collar, my Zara orange clutch, my McQueen coat and hat…and for the first time I’ve jazzled my nails with neon orange and jewels!

Yes, my love for a flash of colour still burns ever so bright!

 

I’ll be sharing the designs of the emerging London designers that I get to see. Very excited to see what they have in-store for us for next winter!

Kraftwerk at the Tate Modern – Electro magic

A few months ago, after continuously pressing the re-dial button to the Tate Modern ticket line, I miraculously secured myself two tickets to the first of the retrospective concerts of the legend-ARY bands of the Electro world, Kraftwerk. The ticket system completely melted down with all the die-hard fans wanting to see Kraftwerk taking over the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, funnily enough, Kraftwerk means “power station” in German.

Yesterday, after much anticipation, I was privileged to being one of the many awed spectators at the Autobahn concert at the Tate Modern. Admittedly  I don’t really know that much of Kraftwerk’s music, but after sitting through a documentary on electro music with my electro music lover bf, I knew that electro music all started off with Kraftwerk…  and I knew that they would be amaaaaazing in concert, especially at the Tate Modern (for the die-hard Kraftwerk fans feeling angry that I got to go… rest assure I was in company of a die-hard fan).

So to the concert. After getting ourselves in the mood for the concert with some bratwurst sausages and sauerkraut and pilsner, we took our little black cushions and 3D glasses handed to us and made our way to the beautiful Turbine Hall and managed to place ourselves right smack bang in the middle of the room.

At 9pm (good’ol German punctuality), the curtain fell to reveal a burst of luminous 3D graphics and Ralf Hutter (the only original member of the group) and 3 other members of the group with their synthesisers, and glowy scuba-like suits.

Words cannot describe the amazing combination of the visual 3D splendour and music that unfolded for the two hour concert. It is so hard to believe that the music from the Autobahn album was created 40 years ago. The music was played to cute  3D images of the autobahn filled with Mercedes and VW speeding past us, then towards us.

After wowing us with the music from Autobahn, they took us through a journey through the favourites of the other seven albums, each with their own incredible 3D animations.

Mechanical arms stretched out towards us during The Robots. Musical notes orbited the Earth that protruded towards us. A train choochoo’d towards us in Trans-Europe Express. A gorgeous wave of neon green digits moved back and forth in Numbers. A space station spun towards the us during Spacelab. It was an incredulous electro musical journey.

  

Tate was an incredible space for such a performance, and was the perfect setting for the beautifully combination of art and music. Loving the fusion!

(apologies for the poor pictures, but we weren’t allowed cameras… and the images are all in 3D!)

See J’adorais’ facebook page for a little video snippet.