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In this rainy wintry weather looking at Junya Watanabe’s men’s collection in Milan I was reminiscing about college. For those of you unfamiliar with the Canberra education system, years 11 and 12 at public schools are called colleges, are located on their own grounds, have no uniforms and the teachers are called by their first names. There’s no HSC, assessment is close to the university system and generally they’re far nicer places to be. Anyway when I was at college the boys used to dress like this, themselves nostalgic for some sort of 80s punky/motorcycle rider style.

Junya watanabe chequered pants
From Vogue.co.uk


These chequered pants were particularly popular, although often worn with those faux leather straps connecting one leg to another and with those heavy boots which you can wear for most of the year in Canberra (I always feel sorry for sweaty Sydney goth types). It is the details which reinvent this ensemble for the naughties, the rhinestones where steel caps should be and that cute little buckle on the jacket.

Junya watanabe cotton motorcycle jacket
From Vogue.co.uk


This one is a bit more of your Italian rebel ex-aristocrat (he was jettisoned by his family ten years ago). The apparent softness of a pinky red shirt under a jacket whose style screams leather but is softened through the choice of cotton. I love the skinny but not stocking-like black pants and those f-off boots.

Junya Watanabe motorcycle helmet
From Vogue.co.uk


This model manages the bank robber look quite well. The front row fashionistas are feinting nonchalance but if he walked into your local convenience store I imagine there would be far less calm.

Junya Watanabe black
From Vogue.co.uk


This is the boy I would take home to my parents for Sunday afternoon tea with that shiny leather jacket, hair which can only be described as grotty and that pouty serious smirk he’s working to good effect.

Junya watanabe zips
From Vogue.co.uk


And to return to the nostalgia of my college years, this looks like someone I knew, all zips and skinny white boy with big black boots, although the boots really need a good scuff on some local mall escalators.

Thanks Junya, for the trip down memory lane, I love your work.

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In my habitual internet trawlings I came across quite a feat on the Prada website. Admittedly I didn’t much like this season’s collection but the means by which it is represented is a true cultural document. Prada demonstrates wit, self-reflexivity and pastiche in a way that many other ‘postmodernists’ should envy. As a European luxury brand, descended from a grand tradition to a commercial reality, Prada is a modern day icon but the self-representation offers an entirely new perspective on the brand.

Prada sunglasses
From Prada.com

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Gucci sucks

June 13th 2007 00:43
Just about anyone with any style steers clear of Gucci on the whole and their Autumn/Winter 07 collection only affirms that general principle. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Lily Donaldson in Gucci
From Gucci.com

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French, a singer and daughter of Serge, Charlotte Gainsbourg had to be gorgeous. Obviously inheriting more of her actress/model mother's (Jane Birkin of Hermes Birkin bag fame) looks than her brooding crooner dad. Recently she gained greater Australian exposure in The Science of Sleep, starring alongside Gael Garcia Bernaz as a Parisienne neighbour gradually drawn into a world of fantasy and phantasm. As you can see in this picture there was minimal attention paid to her hair and makeup, her wardrobe was dowdy and still she radiates beauty.

Charlotte Gainsbourg in the Science of Sleep
From MSN.com

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VivienneWestwood.com
From Viviennewestwood.com


After visiting the Victoria and Albert exhibition which travelled to the National Gallery in Canberra a few years ago, I’ve been obsessed with Vivienne Westwood. It’s not just that she’s sixty and has a beautiful thirty-year-old Italian lover, although that does impress me, and it’s not just that she’s been an inspiration for generations of fashionistas, mostly it’s because for Westwood, fashion is thought


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Balenciaga, Vernacular Fashion

May 31st 2007 00:33
Gemma Ward Balenciaga
From Style.com
After using Balenciaga as an example in my white shirt post I remembered what a stand-out collection Nicolas Ghesquière produced for Fall 2007 collection and I was reminded by our very own (why are we so patriotic when it comes to beautiful people) Gemma Ward wearing Balenciaga at Cannes.

Balenciaga Dress
From Style.com

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Bottega Veneta

May 23rd 2007 23:48
Bottega Veneta jacket
Exquisitely detailed leather jacket


This is a brand to which I was largely indifferent before stumbling across some of their pieces on net-a-porter.com which is incidentally where these images come from. Their recent string of advertisements in British and American Vogue also helped. A certain wistful nostalgia resonates through the garments while an accompanying attention to detail and quirk of cut pulls them out of the average everyday


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