Anna Dello Russo for H&M

I.
When the press release announcing the collaboration between Anna Dello Russo and H&M landed in my inbox, my initial thought was that these collaborations are getting old. While I had anticipated a number of them in the past with curiosity and enthusiasm, they no longer feel as exclusive and special because there is no space to breathe between one collaboration and the next. Once the hype in the media and online has subsided, you just know there's going to be a new collaboration tugging at your subconscious consumerist strings very soon. This cyclic course should really be linear because the way to progress is innovation, not repetition.

Though this is of little concern to H&M as their marketing strategy is collaborating with big fashion names – not even necessarily designers – to bring in tons of money, I would be infinitely more excited about high street brands employing young, emerging designers. It would reintroduce suspense and freshness, two elements almost all previous H&M collaborations have lacked (if you're familiar with the designer's signature style, you have a good grip of what the collaboration will be like) and contribute towards a less self-obsessed fashion industry.

Elsa Schiaparelli hats

II.
While H&M's decision to collaborate with Anna Dello Russo makes perfect sense in terms of appeasing the evergrowing online crowd of fashion bloggers, readers and commentators, the news about the revival of Schiaparelli took me by surprise. Diego Della Valle, CEO of Tod's, plans to open Maison Schiaparelli in Paris during menswear fashion week in June. His statement that "we won't be chasing the commercialism of the fashion world: this is a project that aims for the best in terms of taste and quality, and will provide all the calm necessary to achieve that" (source) indicates a possible radical shift in the brand's vision and aesthetic, much like revived Balmain. Elsa Schiaparelli was anything but toned down with her claw gloves, trompe l'oeil designs, walloping headpieces and lobster dresses. If she were alive today, her number one customer would be Anna Dello Russo!

The aim of the old-new brand is to revisit Elsa Schiaparelli's ideas in a contemporary style. Has fashion really become so dull that nobody has their own ideas? I don't think so. Besides, Schiaparelli's ideas were revolutionary in that moment in time. They would not have the same effect today, no matter how skillfully appropriated and turned inside out. It was easier to stand out in the 1930s than during reign of singers wearing raw meat to get attention.

III.
Refusing to employ new talent and ideas in the fashion industry is an enormous and deliberate waste of creative potential. As a creative person, you can achieve a lot by self-initiative, but you improve the most when you have to meet increasing demands that do not depend entirely on yourself.

The fashion industry is increasing its demands everywhere but in creativity.

Wanted: Non-Designers, Dead Designers is a post from Dressful.
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There are as many reasons for having a fashion blog as there are fashion bloggers. The degree of monetization that allows the blogger a comfortable lifestyle (I'm vary of "luxurious" over "comfortable"; a blog is not an accurate representation of the blogger's life because it only shows what the blogger wants you to see) is widely regarded as the peak of fashion blogger success. However tempting it sounds, there are bloggers who would actually not be interested in dropping everything on the spot to become the next Famous Fashion Blogger for reasons such as being in school, having kids, enjoying their current job etc.

Why do I blog?

My motive for starting this blog was essentially what I've accomplished in the past year: 1. establishing myself as a relevant blogger and writer attending major fashion weeks and 2. being accepted to London College of Fashion to study fashion journalism. It was through blogging that I realized I want a career in international fashion. In order to land the kind of jobs and projects I'm interested in, I need to be physically present in one of the four fashion capitals. I have a blog, but nobody is going to hand me a career, let alone my dream job, over the internet because thousands of others have tried harder, moved to New York or London and relentlessly started working their way up the fashion ladder. In this industry trying harder often pays off better than being talented.

Though the purpose of this blog has been partly fulfilled with my acceptance to London College of Fashion, quitting blogging is not on my agenda. In fact, one of my dreams for Dressful has always been to publish exclusively original content (photos and writing). I think that's the number one thing a quality blog should have. I don't post outfit or street style photos, so creating original content that fits the theme of this blog constantly is only possible in a city with a huge fashion scene and many events. Therefore the fulfilled blogging purpose opened the door to a new purpose. Let's hope London will be everything it's cracked up to be and more.

Why do you blog? is a post from Dressful.
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Mogoče bo humoreska, mogoče drama, vsekakor pa žur besed, idej in lepega. Na eni strani odra modna ustvarjalka Janja Videc, na drugi jaz, modna blogerka. Ne, ne bo STEREOtipov!
Pridi, noter te spustimo brez kakršnekoli vstopnine.

Vidimo se v sredo, 25. aprila, ob 19h v Kinu Šiška!
//pofočkaj se na Facebooku//

Obleka: Janja Videc. Fotografija: Tania Mendillo.

Art dialog: Eva Domijan in Janja Videc is a post from Dressful.
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I got accepted to London College of Fashion to study MA Fashion Journalism two weeks ago. Since then I've been experiencing a burnout further intensified by seemingly endless pages of uni work. You can always choose a few different paths in life and all of them will be relatively good, but studying fashion journalism at London College of Fashion was what I was putting the majority of my hopes in for the past year, there weren't really any other options. When I got accepted at the interview with the course director in London, I was thrilled that now I had a future and a chance to learn, improve professionally and do much more than I could ever do in Slovenia. It also meant, however, that the once vague idea that my life would change drastically one day suddenly became reality, hence the burnout. Whenever you work hard for something, regardless of whether you succeed or fail, in the end you're left with this vast nothingness. I suppose the next half a year (I move to London in September) will primarily be about adjusting.

London Calling is a post from Dressful.
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fashion week is the flirtation of clothes with buyers and press

Fashion week is when it becomes crystal clear to you that it is impossible to write properly about collections based on photos. The flirtation takes place on the runway, not through the screen. However, often not even a front row seat will ensure you will be able to see and take in every detail on the garment (this is especially true for haute couture, which is built upon exquisite craftsmanship). I think the ideal way to experience a collection is this: first, you go to the show to see the clothes on models, in motion, to discover how the garments behave. After a day or two, you go to the showroom to take in the details and see how the garments are made (the runway is always about the bigger picture). Buyers work this way, as well as editors and (some) fashion journalists.

Last week I saw a Maison Martin Margiela dress, the defining aspect of which was the sound of velcro straps holding the skirt together being pulled apart. If I saw a photo of the dress, I wouldn't give it a second thought nor realize that due to adjustable velcro straps you can wear the dress in countless ways. It's not just individual garments: many times I've attended a show and the official photos released afterwards didn't look nearly as dashing as the runway. Though photos make clothes immortal, they often don't convey all their magic.

Experiencing clothes is a post from Dressful.
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The 11 brands that participated in the exhibition were: AI_Andrea Incontri, Pedro Lourenço, Leitmotiv, Benedetta Bruzziches, C.B. Made in Italy, Mungo Gurney, Vernissage, Joanne Stoker, Shourouk, Hexa by Kuho and Ricostru. Of course, with a large number of designers comes an equally large number of (different) visions. The exhibition was too diverse to be summarized in a single post, so today I'd like to share just my favorite part of it: shoes by Joanne Stoker and AI_Andrea Incontri.

AI_ANDREA INCONTRI
The pink pump with silver specks is fairy tale material, almost too fragile to be worn. Then again, fashion never comes quite alive when put on display.

JOANNE STOKER
Because I see an abundance of beautiful clothes and accessories at fashion weeks, my friends often ask if it's difficult for me to constantly be exposed to covetable pieces, all of which I obviously cannot have. The truth is that the more I immerse myself in fashion, the less often I feel the desire to actually buy it. I think it's precisely because I see so much of it – as terribly ephemeral as it makes it all sound, if I skip something I like, there will most likely be a new, similar piece soon that I might like even more. With Joanne Stoker's shoes, however, I immediately knew I need not look any further: the first pair, perhaps in a slightly brighter colorway, might as well be my dream pair.

Joanne Stoker shoes at Vogue Talents Corner is a post from Dressful.
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At Sonia Rykiel's Fall/Winter 2012/2013 show in Paris, I experienced the ugly side of the fashion industry for the first time.

I was supposed to attend the Maison Martin Margiela show in the 8th district before Rykiel, but I hadn't received the invitation and the PR people didn't find me on the list either. They told me to wait and once everyone has been let in, they would check again with someone else, but I was afraid that if I stayed, I'd miss Rykiel – for which I did have the invitation – so I decided not to waste time and head directly to the Tuileries by metro.

The show was running standardly late; in the meantime, a giant group of photographers gathered on the side of the venue near the entrance, snapping photos of celebrity attendees, front row, the usual fashion week distractions (do you remember when the press actually focused on, you know, clothes?). The surprise that left a bad taste in my mouth was that in the midst of this superficial paparazzi chaos, Sonia Rykiel's arrival went literally unnoticed. Emerging from backstage, two men supported her as she walked; once she sat down in front row, it was as if she wasn't Sonia Rykiel, one of Paris's most legendary designers, but a completely anonymous woman. Her entrance got approximately as much attention as mine. Nobody bat an eyelash. Nobody took her picture. Nobody interviewed her on camera. Flashes kept flashing and cameras clicking on the other side of the venue, undisturbed by the presence of the woman who had founded the house whose show we were there to see. Some people came to say hi to Rykiel after a few minutes, but you could see they were old friends who have known her forever.

Though Sonia Rykiel has quit designing (last March was when her daughter Nathalie took her bow alone for the first time after the show), this naive ignorance was very bad manners. In fashion, I've been lucky to have been surprised with mostly good things so far. This, however, is the other side that many fashion insiders are happy to keep secret. Why? Because it doesn't make everyone look saintly and appearances are everything.

+++

The Sonia Rykiel Fall/Winter 2012/2013 collection by Nathalie Rykiel and creative director April Crichton was a big step away from Rykiel's signature playful, bright and sexy Rive Gauche chic towards a mature look that seemed more "global" than "Paris" (even headbands looked serious). This change of vision has been apparent for longer than one season, but it also goes hand in hand with the Rykiel family having recently sold 80 per cent of the label to Hong Kong-based investment company Fung Brands.

It will be interesting to observe how this move will affect the upcoming collections. The new investors are planning Rykiel's expansion to the US and China, therefore it is likely they will encourage further globalization of the label so that new customers worldwide will be able to relate to it (and spend money on it), not only existing Rykiel enthusiasts. If the aesthetic of the label changes majorly, though, the loss of the label's essence will alienate precisely these enthusiasts who have sworn by Sonia Rykiel for years. Much is at stake here, but I do hope Rykiel's identity will be preserved despite the increasing need to sell more, more, more.

Sonia Rykiel Fall/Winter 2012/2013 show is a post from Dressful.
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Yohji Yamamoto Fall/Winter 2012/2013 show.
March 2, 2012.
Lycée Carnot, Paris 17e.

Attending Yohji Yamamoto's show at Paris fashion week was an experience so out of this world that I took a few days off to process it and collect my thoughts before writing a review. To illustrate just how important it was for me – if you asked me at the beginning of the season, "If you could attend any show at any fashion week, which one would you choose?", I'd have answered Yamamoto without hesitation. While I refuse to have a favorite designer – I think it's not good manners to cultivate such subjectiveness when you work in fashion – Yohji Yamamoto is my most important designer. Discovering his work when I was 15 was the foundation for everything I've done in fashion since then. Without Yamamoto sparking my interest in what I call "fashion beyond the surface", I would have never started blogging. He showed me that women and garments can be beautiful in a much more mature and intelligent way than what is perpetually being pitched to us by the majority of fashion magazines, beauty ideals and clothing conventions.

Apart from extraordinary shapes, cuts and deconstruction, Yohji Yamamoto's garments possess such elegance that I remained not only intrigued, but in love.

By your third season attending fashion weeks, you learn not to take unapproved show requests personally. Still, dining in a small brasserie overlooking the Arc de Triomphe on Thursday, I was suddenly consumed by a pulsating, anxious thought that Yohji Yamamoto's Fall/Winter 2012/2013 show was to take place the next day – not only in the same city, but also in the same district, only 20 minutes away from my hotel – and that I wasn't going to be there. It ached. It ached, though I know by now that shows are never larger than life; I couldn't go to Yamamoto last October either and I was able to shake it off. This uncanny, overwhelming feeling really was my sixth sense telling me it was time to make an exception and consider abolishing my only fashion week rule: not trying to get into shows without invitation.

Sneaking into shows past security is considered the most impolite thing you can do at fashion week, and I certainly wouldn't want anyone to remember me for that. Instead, I decided to ask Yamamoto's PR ladies if I could go in though I didn't have the invitation; if they said no, I would respect it and not be disappointed because I did try. I was encouraged by the maneuvers I saw at Barbara Bui earlier that day. They let in everyone who had asked after having seated guests with invitations, a refreshing change from the usual show uptightness and elitism. Somehow, I knew that because I feel so connected to Yamamoto and the brand is not like the others, they would probably understand me.

Though going against my invitation rule made me slightly uncomfortable at first, I realized that maybe the best way to show Yamamoto's PR team how much attending the show means to me might just be to go and tell them.

The show was scheduled for 7:30, which meant it wasn't going to start until eight. I decided to walk to to Lycée Carnot because it was near, but of course, I got lost along the way (with a map in hand). At one point, I wanted to go back because I was late, I thought I'd miss the show and I had no idea where I was, but luckily I knew better than that and kept on walking. When I finally found the street, I rushed to the entrance. There was no queue any more, only two PR ladies, security and a few photographers waiting for people to come out of the show.

The following was the most magical conversation I've ever had with anyone at fashion week, and I will remember it forever:

"I don't have the invitation, but I'd love to see the show. Can I please go to standing room?"
- "Because you asked very formally and you have a nice international accent, I say yes."

That was it. No fuss. She understood immediately.

As indicated by the lack of queue, the show was just about to start, so I ran in as fast as I could, shouting back "Thank you so much!".

When I got inside, I found myself in a standing room space right by the second row. Essentially, I've never had a better view at a show before. I couldn't believe my luck. I was at the show I wanted to attend the most and I could see everything perfectly, even take photos! Though I was overwhelmed because I had made it, I relaxed completely when the show started. While shows are usually pure adrenaline – rush, heat, no space to breathe, music pumped up to the max – this one felt like total zen. Just calm sounds and beautiful garments. So Yohji.

I saw the collection as an exploration of the different meanings of red, most notably love and danger/aggression, the two polar opposites (though are they really?). In some looks, red felt warm, inviting, gentle and poetic; the peak of this was the soft, voluminous, almost-pink coat. In other looks, red was high voltage. This was not the only play of contrasts. It's signature for Yamamoto's garments not to reveal too much of the body, however skin was exposed here and not where you'd expect it (some people deemed this "Yamamoto's sexy collection"). There was a long white turtleneck sweater rendering the body silhouette invisible, but this sweater had an open back. The electric blue and red streaks in models' hair looked like an extension of the garment from afar, especially when the garment was in the same color, a brilliant visual effect.

It was indescribable to see how these complexly structured garments moved as the models walked, as well as how the outfits looked from the back and from the side. Photos where you can only see the front of the look don't do Yamamoto's collection any justice. I strongly believe that seeing clothes in motion is the only way to comprehend the beauty and technical perfection of their construction.

Though I said that shows are never larger than life, I was a little perplexed that the world didn't stop after this one, that people stood up from their seats just like that and left, rushing wherever they were supposed to show up next while I temporarily got stuck in a Yamamoto time capsule. So many times at fashion weeks, the only thing I can do after attending a show or presentation that really spoke to me is wander aimlessly around the city in attempt to process it before I can go back to my hotel and translate what I experienced into words.

Though I returned from Paris to my quotidian worries in Ljubljana in the meantime, this inexplicable and romantic post-show dizziness is lasting longer than usual. I don't mind it. It's like being in love. To think that a single show has the power to send me to such beautiful and mysterious places ... Who said fashion was frivolous again?

Yohji Yamamoto Fall/Winter 2012/2013 show is a post from Dressful.
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I still have lots to write about Milan Fashion Week, but one thing I should say before I tell you anything about Paris and the Barbara Bui show is that the organization in Milan was a disaster. Waiting to get into shows basically looked like this: first, a humongous group of people amassed in front of the entrance. Then security called in guests with numbered seats. These people started aggressively shoving their way through the crowd (so much about fashion people being elegant). Photographers did the same, only they also carried sturdy camera bags without caring how many people they hit with them. Feeling like livestock on the way to the slaughterhouse instead of a runway show most of the time, I couldn't stop thinking why is it so damn difficult to form three queues (one for guests with numbered seats, the second for photographers and the third for standing room) and make everyone's life easier.

The Barbara Bui show at the Westin yesterday was different, and I can only hope it was not an exception to the Parisian rule. The fashion clique was more relaxed; only the models that had been casted for the show excused their way through the crowd – politely and with grace because after all, they're models.

The fact that so far Paris fashion week has manifested itself in a less neurotic light to me than New York and Milan doesn't mean Parisians take shows any less seriously. Waiting for Barbara Bui, a boy without invitation (and manners, obviously) tried to talk me into saying he was my assistant to security so that he could go in. Ten minutes later one of the security guys was showing me to my seat. When we couldn't find the seat number, we realized it was because someone else had occupied my place. I don't understand why anyone would do this, especially 20 minutes before the show when the venue still has to fill up and it's highly likely security will boot you out.

Barbara Bui's Fall/Winter 2012/2013 collection is an eclectic mix of refined and cutting-edge with Chinese influences. The first part of the show consisted of a dozen classy and wearable looks in white, black and olive green. I loved the two all-white suits and romantic blouses; designers usually incorporate white ensembles in Spring/Summer collections, but white is much more delicate in winter, recalling snowflakes, perhaps the most ephemeral substance in existence … Bui's signature metallic fabrics followed in the second part, creating an almost futuristic atmosphere; you'd think a metallic leopard print would be an aesthetic faux pas by default, but Bui's actually looks dashing and contemporary instead of tacky.

Though the pieces with Chinese traditional motifs and embroidery towards the end of the show stood out the most, I found that part of the collection the weakest. I felt that the Chinese inspiration was taken too literally (you see the same tiger and dragon imagery on wall tapestries in Chinese restaurants), especially compared to the rest of the collection that was sleek and poetic.

Leaving the Westin, I noticed that the street style photographers were predominantly occupied with models, not show attendees. I found that a refreshing change from raising a cult of personality around whoever deliberately dresses the kookiest (Mary Fellowes outlined this superficiality in her brilliant article on instant fashion week street style fame), however I do still think that the real stars of fashion week are the collections.

Barbara Bui Fall/Winter 2012/2013 show is a post from Dressful.
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Daniela Gregis staged her Fall/Winter 2012/2013 show in a small oratory at Piazza Sant'Ambrogio. It resembled a performance more than a regular show with glossy runway, VIP front row and music so loud it poses a danger for people with heart conditions. Here, a man played the xylophone throughout the show, and other than that there was total silence (after all, we were in a sacred space), except the sound of models pulling red wool threads out of a wall.

It seemed that this unusual approach to staging the show followed the intimacy of the collection. Every look was voluminous and baggy (think early Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo), not accentuating the shape of the body at all. Models were wrapped in huge knit shawls and wore thick socks. I appreciated the collection as a mix of rough and fine fabrics and shapes, but I felt that went in too many directions color-wise. While the combination of red and natural beige, straw and grey looks worked, the more playful looks with vibrant splashes of colors recalling contemporary paintings felt out of place, perhaps also because the show itself was so quietly solemn you didn't really think of frolic.

Daniela Gregis presented an uncommercial collection removed from the conventions and intrigues of Milan fashion week; the unconventional show further ensured we'll keep Gregis in mind (and not at the back of it!). I think her strong identity will be her most important asset in the upcoming seasons.

Photos: Daniela Gregis official.

Daniela Gregis Fall/Winter 2012/2013 show is a post from Dressful.
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