Fashion Voyeur

People will stare, make it worth their while.

Categories: The Fashion Closet

The Ouze present The Process Is the Point for London Fashion Week AW26

For London Fashion Week, jewellery brand The Ouze made a formidable return with their second presentation entitled The Process Is the Point – a reflection on making, material and the value of visible process.

Rooted in wax carving and the lost wax casting method, The Ouze’s jewellery is defined by how it is made.

The aesthetic is a direct consequence of the process. Fingerprints, exposed hallmarking, raw surfaces and texture are left intentionally visible, celebrating the handcrafted rather than refining it away. There is no final piece without its past failures. Wax casting introduces an element of risk, where outcomes are never guaranteed. These moments of uncertainty are not edited out, rather they are essential to the finished work.

To extend this idea beyond jewellery, The Process Is the Point draws a parallel with music, another art form shaped by repetition, rehearsal and mistake. Throughout the presentation, London based cellist Ramilda gave a haunting performance in the BGC showspace which was decked with sheet music as part of the installation, with the music unfolding as an ongoing process rather than a polished recital.

Finished jewellery was showcased alongside wax models, half made pieces and silver objects, allowing the journey from idea to final form to remain visible to the audience.

The Process Is the Point is a quiet but deliberate statement on craft, embracing imperfection and placing value on the work that happens before a finished object exists.

Categories: The Fashion Closet

Sustainability Hits London Fashion Week

With more and more focus on sustainability, contributors to London Fashion Week have had to seriously up their game in recent seasons. Since going fur free in 2018, huge strides have been made to introduce not just a focus on sustainable fashion, it’s no longer enough to just state it and make a few changes. Designers are now expected to produce ethical collections; from the way fabric is manufactured or sourced, to the distance it travels to reach a studio. Fibre miles are every bit as important as conscious collections, circular fashion and the wages that are paid to those involved along the way. Sustainability is everywhere in fashion right now. What once was a buzzword thrown around for quick credit, has become a status symbol amongst some of the biggest fashion houses out there and some, like British designer Phoebe English are setting a stellar example.
Creative designers who are fully invested in sustainability are shunning the fashion calendar’s ‘seasons’ in favour of an annual collection produced in a far more environmentally economical way, resulting in less air travel, fibre miles and carbon emissions, opting for the slow fashion model which spends more time on ethical sourcing of dead stock, off cuts and foraged fabrics which can be hand dyed using hand collected natural and native ingredients to produce very specific colours which have not only meaning, but relevance to where they were collected and produced. Phew, deep breath. Basically sustainability as a whole picture, is king right now.
This SS24 season has seen the words “sustainable” “circular” and “reworked” used more times than ever before and a quick search on Instagram tells us that these terms are searched for more and more frequently when it comes to updating our wardrobes as the end user. More than just a buzzword, clients want to know more than just where their clothes were made, but with what,  by whom and how far it has travelled, what chemicals were used during production and how it got to be that “sunflower yellow” colour.
Of course there have long been the stalwarts like the afore mentioned Phoebe English who has championed every aspect of circular fashion since her graduate collection in 2011, through to Paul Costello’s who produces a “shop window” style collection meaning that the collection you see on the runway is produced to show you what you can request if you like what you see. Nothing at all is produced in wholesale or stored in large volumes completely eliminating waste from the process but remaining accessible to serious buyers.
Jayne Pierson SS24
Stuart Trevor’s reworked vintage
Jayne Pierson SS24

 

On the “trendier” end of the scale, designers like Jayne Pierson and Stuart Trevor are producing edgy, even fun collections which tell a story, but maintain those sustainable production credits. Trevor with his reworked vintage collection is a perfect example of this and with his collaborations with up and coming artists this works as a kind of “ethical handshake”.
Whether you buy fast fashion at online chains, or high street fashion in physical stores, there’s no denying the (electric) juggernaut that is the sustainable model for slow fashion, the anti-thesis to the archetypical fast fashion the British buying public seemed to enjoy pre-pandemic. However now, post-pandemic, as we’ve all seemed to slow down our overly Fast paced lives, isn’t it time we did the same for our wardrobes?
Categories: The Archives, The Fashion Closet

Stuart Trevor Launches Customised Vintage Collection at London Fashion Week

I’ve been friends with Stuart Trevor for a few years now and knowing that if he says he’s up to something, it’s most definitely looking out for, has become one of my spidey-senses.
So, if the name sounds familiar it’s because it most definitely is. As the founder of All Saints (the clothing brand not the band), Trevor has been in the fashion industry for certainly as long as I can remember. From the first time he put a vintage tailor’s label into a machine washed leather jacket, he determined his signature style; modern vintage.
With dalliances with Reiss, Immortal and even Leon (the food chain) under his belt, it was only a matter of time before we saw Stuart Trevor the man, become Stuart Trevor the brand. His ideas are simplistic but super effective and they gather pace quickly, in essence, Trevor has an idea and it hits reality at the speed of light.
With this latest self titled brand, Trevor takes genuine vintage pieces, mostly military, and furnishes them with either hand painted designs using local artists (in this case it’s the artist Timothy Midnight and his Cats Who…. Collection), or picks them apart and introduces new and contradictory fabrics such as a military shirt with a lace back, or a flight suit with that now infamous tailors label. Whilst his previous offerings have been in high end high street fashion, think accessible luxury that everyone had to have a piece of; the new Stuart Trevor brand sits somewhere between high street and just out of reach for mere mortals.
The pieces are all numbered and produced in small batches in order to retain their uniqueness, but also to cut down on fibre miles and environmental costs associated with producing huge, twice yearly collections. The collection is currently in production, during London Fashion Week we attended a storehouse type presentation and live photoshoot showcasing the completed works on which the rest of the collection will be based. I’ve already put my name down for some painted Cats denim and a flight suit….
Categories: The Fashion Closet

Pam Hogg SS24 – Dedicated to Sinead O’Connor

Dr Pam Hogg has always been the enfant terrible in the fashion industry, the rockstar romantic who pushes boundaries. It’s clear to see why the fashion designer has become a favourite of Lady Gaga and Kate moss amongst others.

Known as the Caledonian Queen of Cling, Hogg defies convention in her continuously re-purposed collections using vinyl, leather, PVC and netting to produce a provocative, punk inspired capsule.

Hogg has always championed the unconventional and this has been visible season after season in pieces and symbols which have become synonymous with her style. Her front row is always packed with a who’s who of icons who champion Hogg’s unconventional choices. From Nick and Susie Cave, to the members of the band All Saints. Lisa Snowdon to Jaime Winstone, her supporters are many and line up time and time again to see what will stomp down the runway in her latest collection.

SS24 was inspired by the return of the Goddess and entitled apocalypse. Hogg found herself troubled by thought of Sinead O’Connor’s terrible and tragic fate throughout the creative process of repurposing this current collection and as a result, made the difficult decision to use her voice as the opening to the show.

Hogg’s runway shows are always high up on my list of priorities during London Fashion Week, however this season felt new and inspired. Showcasing at a new location on a runway filled with light, in the past we’ve been used to viewing in a darker, more club-style atmosphere but this was a different experience altogether and one that allowed the viewer to immerse themselves fully in the spectacle.

Gorgeous, unpredictable and as slippy as always, can’t wait for next season.

With thanks to I.Dea, Nici Eberl and Elise K for imagery.

Categories: The Fashion Closet

Prophetik Let Them Be Naked for SS24

You might not have heard of  sustainable fashion brand Prophetik, but you’ve must definitely seen it. Jeff Garner is the visionary behind the label, and he’s as gorgeous inside as he is out. With the idea that it’s better to be naked than clothe ourselves in synthetic materials, Garner’s vision for his SS24 collection grew from his connection to nature, and his complete commitment to create interesting, relevant plant based fashion.

A firm favourite with Miles Cyrus, Sheryl Crow,  Taylor Swift, Kings of Leon and many more, Garner found himself and in turn, Prophetik, the subject of a documentary on sustainable fashion called “Remastered” available on Prime.

For SS24 Garner’s vision is clearer than ever. Looking at the processes which go into producing our clothes and the level of toxicity in those fabrics, he sought to produce a collection as close to pure as possible. A firm believer that art should not exist purely for commerce, Garner and Prophetik look to the past for inspiration in this new collection.

With thanks to The Pop Group and Frank Macdonald, House Photographer for imagery.