Welsh Designs & Fashion
Content
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14
International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Fashion
From Macdonald, tropical glitz; at Elspeth Gibson, easy sweetness
Suzy Menkes/International Herald Tribune
A self-portrait of the stylish Michael Roberts adorns the cover of his book, a wry look at the fashion world. At right, the designer.
Feting an unsung fashion hero
By Suzy Menkes
A
LONDON n unsung fashion hero has finally been recognized as Michael Roberts, illustrator, editor, style director and maverick takes his book on tour. On Tuesday, Burberry will fete the British-born Roberts, whose trajectory from art school in High Wycombe in 1968 to the swinging London world of Carnaby Street and Kings Road, to fashion editor of The Sunday Times and today’s role at the New Yorker, was as arrow-straight as the graphic lines in his illustrated book. ‘‘The Snippy World of New Yorker Fashion Artist Michael Roberts,’’ published by Steid/Edition 7L, tells the story in its title. It is both an intricate assemblage of collages, done, says Roberts ‘‘mostly in hotel rooms;’’ and a wry and sometimes scissor-sharp take on the world of style. You would have to look to Cecil Beaton’s very different decorative sketches to find someone with such a beady eye for what makes style. Even the skyscrapers of New York take on a dizzy geometric glamour, as Roberts fixes each image in the context of its time.
The definition of an ‘‘outsider,’’ the peripatetic Roberts, who says ‘‘there is nowhere I can safely say I’d lay my hat and call it home,’’ was born of a St. Lucian mother and was jolted out of suburban Britain by winning a scholarship and a trip to New York where he met everyone who counted in 1960s style from Andy Warhol through Richard Avedon. His career was propelled by two women: first Molly Parkin, an eccentric and original editor at The Sunday Times, and then Tina Brown, who made him central to her 1980s makeover of the social magazine The Tatler. Add to that roster Janey Ironside, the iconic head of London’s Royal College of Art, who had also spotted Roberts’s talent and Vogue supreme Anna Wintour. Roberts describes the frenzied Tatler years, when celebrity was just beginning to vibrate in magazines and Roberts ‘‘left messages in shoe boxes at Manolo’s shop’’ to woo stars and royalty to be photographed for its pages. Haute cobbler Manolo Blahnik is yet another admirer and supporter as is Karl Lagerfeld, whose imprint has published the book.
‘‘Karl goes way back — we first met in the early ’70s when he had just started at Chloé, when he showed in the restaurant Laurent and the hats were two meters wide and there was Kenzo, Loulou [de la Falaise] and Paloma [Picasso],’’ he says. At fashion’s epicenter, yet always a lone observer, Roberts has a unique insight into the fashionable world, which he reduces, like Cocteau, to a few sparing lines. New York features large, although he is ambivalent about its attractions. ‘‘I feel most attracted and repelled about New York,’’ he says. ‘‘There is no strong guiding aesthetic. Everything is for the moment.’’ The respect that Roberts has earned, without ever being a fashion power broker, is proved by the fact that, as well the Burberry event, Bergdorf Goodman launched the book in New York last week and Tod’s will give it a sendoff during the Milan shows. Since Roberts is a fine and sharp writer, what about a words, rather than a picture book? ‘‘I am leaving that to Rupert Everett who is doing his kiss and tell memoirs!’’ Roberts said. ‘‘I’ll keep my secrets.’’
JULIEN MACDONALD
AMANDA WAKELEY
Milano Tel +39 02 546701
ELSPETH GIBSON
By Jessica Michault
JENS LAUGESEN
Photographs by Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas
O
LONDON n Sunday the Welsh designer Julien Macdonald started off London Fashion Week with a show that is sure to keep the fans of his trademark glitz and glamour dresses very happy. With his sponsor Swarovski supplying the shimmering crystals, the designer splashed out on sparkly tropical prints in warm weather colors of flamingo pink, turquoise, purple and emerald green. Flouncy-tiered skirts worn with rope-tasseled sandals and chunky wooden bracelets gave the show a festive south of the border feel while the racy swimwear is suitable for sunbathing only. As always the knitwear was executed with a deft hand, a green and white stripped ensemble was a particular standout. And for evening there were plenty of Macdonald’s sexy, slinky gowns with feathers floating from the hem. But while the ruffled checked taffeta dresses might be a bit much even for Miss Piggy (who was sitting in the front row), the white strapless cocktail dress with the powder puff skirt of laser-cut tulle flowers would be a perfect choice for any young ingénue. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of her line, Elspeth Gibson stuck to what she does best, sugar sweet clothing fit
for a modern-day princess. After offering up tea and cakes to a famished fashion crowd, the designer opened her show with a dress that set the tone for the collection. It was a deceptively simple white satin dress enveloped in chartreuse netting that at once looked feminine and contemporary. Overall the collection had a sense of comfort and ease. The nubby pink sweater with a sprinkling of paillettes across the shoulder with matching shorts and the lacy shoulder straps on a simple white cotton T-shirt conveyed a relaxed femininity. And a strapless mint green dress with a copper tulle overlay in a coin-dot pattern was both whimsical and sophisticated. The choice of metallic-colored fabrics and beading gave the eveningwear more weight and a bit of an edge. But with the final gown, Gibson showed her witty side by making the ultimate cocktail dress in a floor-length dove gray creation with embroidery in the form of sparkling cocktail glasses. The British designer Amanda Wakely’s spring/summer collection was all about quiet comfort. From the free-flowing tunics in a sea grass print to the wide silk pants these were clothes made to not only look good, but feel good. The soft neutral palette of olive, blush pink, and cream helped give the clothes an unobtrusive quality. Key pieces included a leather jacket
with the sleeves ruched up to give the impression of ripples in a still pool and a suede zigzag two-tone coffee and cream halter dress that hit just the right note. A running theme throughout the show was a wrapping of the torso. This came in the form of wraparound, belted kimono-sleeved jackets and pleated olive chiffon dresses tied up in silk ribbons that gave a glimpse, through the folds of the translucent skirt, of the pink underskirt hiding beneath. To the sounds of a rising rainstorm, the Danish designer Jens Laugesen sent out an androgynous collection that seemed to want to capture and encase the female form. Be it a soft white cotton dress cocooned in a tulle overlay, a wide belt slipping through the sides of a jersey top to encircle a waist or a corset cinched tight over pants. In a collection of mostly black and white clothing, Laugesen also returned to a favorite subject, sending out a myriad of interpretations of the tuxedo jacket — from a cape with a pair of high-waisted pants to a top whittled down to just the lapels over a short skirt. The designer also played with the idea of layering, by folding the clothing back on itself as if peeling off a layer to expose the fragile underbelly of the clothing below. Jessica Michault is on the staff of the International Herald Tribune.
14
International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Fashion
From Macdonald, tropical glitz; at Elspeth Gibson, easy sweetness
Suzy Menkes/International Herald Tribune
A self-portrait of the stylish Michael Roberts adorns the cover of his book, a wry look at the fashion world. At right, the designer.
Feting an unsung fashion hero
By Suzy Menkes
A
LONDON n unsung fashion hero has finally been recognized as Michael Roberts, illustrator, editor, style director and maverick takes his book on tour. On Tuesday, Burberry will fete the British-born Roberts, whose trajectory from art school in High Wycombe in 1968 to the swinging London world of Carnaby Street and Kings Road, to fashion editor of The Sunday Times and today’s role at the New Yorker, was as arrow-straight as the graphic lines in his illustrated book. ‘‘The Snippy World of New Yorker Fashion Artist Michael Roberts,’’ published by Steid/Edition 7L, tells the story in its title. It is both an intricate assemblage of collages, done, says Roberts ‘‘mostly in hotel rooms;’’ and a wry and sometimes scissor-sharp take on the world of style. You would have to look to Cecil Beaton’s very different decorative sketches to find someone with such a beady eye for what makes style. Even the skyscrapers of New York take on a dizzy geometric glamour, as Roberts fixes each image in the context of its time.
The definition of an ‘‘outsider,’’ the peripatetic Roberts, who says ‘‘there is nowhere I can safely say I’d lay my hat and call it home,’’ was born of a St. Lucian mother and was jolted out of suburban Britain by winning a scholarship and a trip to New York where he met everyone who counted in 1960s style from Andy Warhol through Richard Avedon. His career was propelled by two women: first Molly Parkin, an eccentric and original editor at The Sunday Times, and then Tina Brown, who made him central to her 1980s makeover of the social magazine The Tatler. Add to that roster Janey Ironside, the iconic head of London’s Royal College of Art, who had also spotted Roberts’s talent and Vogue supreme Anna Wintour. Roberts describes the frenzied Tatler years, when celebrity was just beginning to vibrate in magazines and Roberts ‘‘left messages in shoe boxes at Manolo’s shop’’ to woo stars and royalty to be photographed for its pages. Haute cobbler Manolo Blahnik is yet another admirer and supporter as is Karl Lagerfeld, whose imprint has published the book.
‘‘Karl goes way back — we first met in the early ’70s when he had just started at Chloé, when he showed in the restaurant Laurent and the hats were two meters wide and there was Kenzo, Loulou [de la Falaise] and Paloma [Picasso],’’ he says. At fashion’s epicenter, yet always a lone observer, Roberts has a unique insight into the fashionable world, which he reduces, like Cocteau, to a few sparing lines. New York features large, although he is ambivalent about its attractions. ‘‘I feel most attracted and repelled about New York,’’ he says. ‘‘There is no strong guiding aesthetic. Everything is for the moment.’’ The respect that Roberts has earned, without ever being a fashion power broker, is proved by the fact that, as well the Burberry event, Bergdorf Goodman launched the book in New York last week and Tod’s will give it a sendoff during the Milan shows. Since Roberts is a fine and sharp writer, what about a words, rather than a picture book? ‘‘I am leaving that to Rupert Everett who is doing his kiss and tell memoirs!’’ Roberts said. ‘‘I’ll keep my secrets.’’
JULIEN MACDONALD
AMANDA WAKELEY
Milano Tel +39 02 546701
ELSPETH GIBSON
By Jessica Michault
JENS LAUGESEN
Photographs by Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas
O
LONDON n Sunday the Welsh designer Julien Macdonald started off London Fashion Week with a show that is sure to keep the fans of his trademark glitz and glamour dresses very happy. With his sponsor Swarovski supplying the shimmering crystals, the designer splashed out on sparkly tropical prints in warm weather colors of flamingo pink, turquoise, purple and emerald green. Flouncy-tiered skirts worn with rope-tasseled sandals and chunky wooden bracelets gave the show a festive south of the border feel while the racy swimwear is suitable for sunbathing only. As always the knitwear was executed with a deft hand, a green and white stripped ensemble was a particular standout. And for evening there were plenty of Macdonald’s sexy, slinky gowns with feathers floating from the hem. But while the ruffled checked taffeta dresses might be a bit much even for Miss Piggy (who was sitting in the front row), the white strapless cocktail dress with the powder puff skirt of laser-cut tulle flowers would be a perfect choice for any young ingénue. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of her line, Elspeth Gibson stuck to what she does best, sugar sweet clothing fit
for a modern-day princess. After offering up tea and cakes to a famished fashion crowd, the designer opened her show with a dress that set the tone for the collection. It was a deceptively simple white satin dress enveloped in chartreuse netting that at once looked feminine and contemporary. Overall the collection had a sense of comfort and ease. The nubby pink sweater with a sprinkling of paillettes across the shoulder with matching shorts and the lacy shoulder straps on a simple white cotton T-shirt conveyed a relaxed femininity. And a strapless mint green dress with a copper tulle overlay in a coin-dot pattern was both whimsical and sophisticated. The choice of metallic-colored fabrics and beading gave the eveningwear more weight and a bit of an edge. But with the final gown, Gibson showed her witty side by making the ultimate cocktail dress in a floor-length dove gray creation with embroidery in the form of sparkling cocktail glasses. The British designer Amanda Wakely’s spring/summer collection was all about quiet comfort. From the free-flowing tunics in a sea grass print to the wide silk pants these were clothes made to not only look good, but feel good. The soft neutral palette of olive, blush pink, and cream helped give the clothes an unobtrusive quality. Key pieces included a leather jacket
with the sleeves ruched up to give the impression of ripples in a still pool and a suede zigzag two-tone coffee and cream halter dress that hit just the right note. A running theme throughout the show was a wrapping of the torso. This came in the form of wraparound, belted kimono-sleeved jackets and pleated olive chiffon dresses tied up in silk ribbons that gave a glimpse, through the folds of the translucent skirt, of the pink underskirt hiding beneath. To the sounds of a rising rainstorm, the Danish designer Jens Laugesen sent out an androgynous collection that seemed to want to capture and encase the female form. Be it a soft white cotton dress cocooned in a tulle overlay, a wide belt slipping through the sides of a jersey top to encircle a waist or a corset cinched tight over pants. In a collection of mostly black and white clothing, Laugesen also returned to a favorite subject, sending out a myriad of interpretations of the tuxedo jacket — from a cape with a pair of high-waisted pants to a top whittled down to just the lapels over a short skirt. The designer also played with the idea of layering, by folding the clothing back on itself as if peeling off a layer to expose the fragile underbelly of the clothing below. Jessica Michault is on the staff of the International Herald Tribune.
