Monsieur Fashion's blog

Monsieur Fashions's Fashion Blog hitlist

 

Bonjeur. Monsieur fashion here. just wanted to point you in the direction of some fashion blogs I've been reading, so if you're looking for a bit of style inspiration you may want to give one or two of these a click and check 'em out.

The Sartorialist - real streets, real people, real fashion. There's an energy here that you just don't get with the synthetic vibe of a photoshoot. The streets/people/fashion give evrything meaning, context and edge. While this form of fashion reporting isn't new (it's been around for decades) it suits the internet well - large photos on a backlit TFT screen have a detail and luminosity that you just didn't get in the pages of, say, i-D magazine. A great blog. 

 

Japanese Streets - apols if I've linked out to this one before. Actually no apols - it's worth linking out to as many times as I see fit. The otherness and familiarity of Japan make for a fashion juxtaposition of mega-cosmic greatness.

 

Style Blog - this is what blogging was invented for. It's got great posts, loads of pictures and real personality - a winner.

 

I'll do some more style blogs later. The sun has just appeared and it's time for me to get my daily dose of it before it clouds over again :-/

 

Bye for now...

Can Sunemployment Land You Work in Fashion Retail?

Pop culture has repeatedly painted the fashion industry as a scary Devil Wears Prada style landscape, with fiery bosses, bitchy colleagues and the pressure to look immaculate at all times – and  this, understandably, can be off putting to anyone interested in getting into fashion retail.

Which is why it is so refreshing to see fashion retailer Peacocks taking part in The Sun’s sunemployment campaign to help welcome and find prospective staff.

Peacocks is set to join a recruitment drive at various locations throughout the UK in order to find the next faces of fashion retail - a pleasant welcome to anyone who is reluctant to begin a job search in the sector because of its unfriendly reputation.

With designer inspired and celebrity collections available in store and online, it is easy to see how Peacocks are dynamic in their approach to the fashion market, so a job in the company could provide exciting fashion industry insights and challenges to employees of all levels.

So stop holding back on that CV writing, get yourself down to the Sunemployment and talk to the nice people at Peacocks – your job in fashion retail could be waiting for you.

Kate Middleton and her Strange Power to Boost Ladies Dresses Sales

Since her engagement, Kate Middleton has had a strange power over the sales of ladies dresses.

Countless fashion companies producing ladies dresses worn, bought or inspired by Kate are reporting a buying frenzy, with sales rocketing on navy dresses similar to her engagement attire, faux sapphire and diamond rings and even the actual items she purchases on a pre honeymoon shopping spree in London earlier this week.

And Kate has given the women of Britain a lot to choose from when it comes to ladies dresses, they seem to be one of her most popular choices of outfit and she wears a mix of high street and designer items, sparking a demand for both.

From a business perspective this is highly interesting, what is it about Kate that manages to shift so many ladies dresses in a struggling economy? Is it her grown up classic choice of ladies dresses? Or is it her stunning looks and friendly personality?

It is probably in this case more to do with the fact that many women admire her grace, elegance.....oh and the fact that she is marrying a prince – so wearing any of the ladies dresses she sports makes them feel that bit closer to being like her.

Or maybe it's just her personal style that incorporates British designer, simple classics and statement ladies dresses which are quite accessible to all.

Whatever it is, Kate Middleton does seem to have some sort of power over the market when it comes to ladies dresses, and for the foreseeable future any fashion brand would be crazy to ignore the Royal Wedding mania.

Take Ivy!

Not long now until the Royal Wedding and to be honest over here at Monsieur Fashion we're not mega-interested apart from of course the day off which will allow me to do some lounging, and maybe even spend some time catching up on my reading.

Talking of reading 0ne book I'll be checking out on my lounge-a-thon day off will be Teruyoshi Hayashida's "Take Ivy" - originally published in Japan in the mid 60s, the book is an examination of Ivy league style - ie what the middle class intelligentsia wore during the years before they all got jobs as senators, astronauts, captains of industry, scientists, academics, magnates, novelists, that kind of thing. 

In fact, much of Hayashida's book brings to life a world not dissimilar to the one painted (in words, obvs) by JD Salinger in his short stories. Groups of people for whom America was built, and who'd go on to live a life that those outside the USA could only dream of.

What kind of makes Hayashida's book unique is that because of his being from Tokyo the cultural difference means he's able to look at the social and cultural context of his subjects in an extremely different way from the way another American or even a European would.

In Hayashida's lens, the Ivy league campus almost takes on a kind extraterresstriality, and the subjects who walk this planet - the Ivy league students - are treated with great respect and yet like all good photographers Hayashida is transparent - the world goes on around his camera as if he wasn't there.

There's another great book of Japanese photography - some dude who came to the UK in about 1979 and did a similar thing, except it was more day to day life than simply fashion oriented but I've forgotten the name of it . If f from that brief description you recognise it, let me know.

Shoes 4 life

 

How many types of shoe do you have?

Types could include:

Walking/ hiking

Sports (specific) e.g. basketball

Formal/ black tie

Gardening

Indoor

Fashion

etc.

The most important rule for shoes - be it men's shoes, ladies shoes, sports shoes, whatever - is this:

A pair and a spare. Your shoes need a rest, so let them relax now and then - they'll thank you for it, and they'll also be fresher and last longer.

 

 

Le Doherty Fashion

"Once upon a time, every working man had a suit and a hat, and those are the days that I long for..."

Maternity fashion and the media

Now that there are more TV channels than ever, more multiplex cinemas than ever, more magazines, more websites, more mobile phones to read websites on ... pretty much more of everything, media-wise - it's no wonder really that large sections of society are celeb obsessed. Celeb obsession takes many forms - from music to football to film to politics, and there are dedicated sites and magazines and cable TV shows to sate even the most enthusiastic celeb obsessor.

A recent phenomenon in the sphere of celeb-watching, celeb-blogging, celeb-papping has been the rise of pregnant celeb fashion blogging. No, I don't mean famous expectant mothers blogging on fashion, I mean people blogging about the maternity styles worn by famous women. And, of course, the news on all the latest celeb hatches.

A good example of the latter is celebritypregnancy.sheknows.com/ which has more info on this stuff than anyone could possibly ever need. Blogwise, although sadly it's lain dormant for a few months) mama-la-mode.blogspot.com shows how to turn on the maternity style.

All of which just goes to show just how much the maternity clothes  market has changed lately. It's become proper fashion, not just some kind of a secondary stopgap, a fashion genre in its own right. And rightly so.

Swimwear collection by Daisy Lowe

Pearl Lowe's collections for Peacocks have all been a success, with the designer's most recent collection garnering plaudits everywhere from magazines to television programmes, and there were even stories of a certain famous lady of the rock world clamouring for the cool designs when they were made available late last year.

Lowe's daughter Daisy has seen the success of this fast fashion phenomenon at first hand, having modelled the Pearl Lowe collections for high street retailer Peacocks clothes. As fashion apprenticeships go, there's probably none better.

So perhaps it's no surprise that Daisy Lowe has turned her hand to designing her very own range of swimwear for Peacocks. The forthcoming range (due to hit the shops in May) is already creating a huge media buzz, with fashion editors everywhere covering the story.

Inspired by an impressive range of influences including 'family holidays in Europe, iconic 50s pin-ups and classic vintage shapes", the range has already seen media coverage from as far afield as mainland Europe, Japan and Russia.

We haven't seen any pics of the range yet here at Style Direction, but we'll be sure to post some as and when they become available.

Military clothes stylee

Military clothes have pretty much always been in fashion one way or another.

Think of the many permutations of the ma-1 flight jacket over the years. Or over the past while, the emergence of the M-1965 field jacket as pretty much the template for just about every casual jacket on sale everywhere.

Of course, it's unsurprising that genuine army surplus (or stuff designed with that influence) is fairly ubiquitous. It's all about form following function, comfort creating coolness.

Lately there's also been a heavy military influence in footwear - weathered, high cut, proper mountain gear.

Maybe like the workwear influence, especially in jeans, the military influence is a fashion constant.

Mens Clothes and Logos

I don't know when this logo thing started - probably a long, long time ago, but the clothing logo has become a ubiquitous part of the clothing world. 

One new logo that I think is pretty cool is the Carhartt duck. The duck looks to me like it's a riposte to the Golden Eagle of Lyle & Scott - much less regal, and more kind of down to earth. Of course, it isn't the brand's main logo (that being the Carhartt C). It's maybe just a temporary one, but it is one cool duck.

And one of the most striking logos of all time isn't really a logo at all, and is much copied to this day. Step forward the drei Streifen of Adidas. Such a simple idea and yet ... if it was really that simple then someone else would have thought of it first. Adidas really made their (3) marks with that one. 

Recently (in the business section of the Sunday Times) there was a story about another famous logo - Superdry - which is doing well at the moment. The writer pointed out that some might see the label's success as being analogous to that of (ahem) FCUK (remember that?) but for me the difference is that FCUK was obviously a humorous selling point, whereas Superdry is the brand itself.

But of course the logo isn't everything. It's the actual clothes that matter. 

What do you think?