UNIFORM

Can you imagine being out in the middle of a turquoise ocean stuck on a float... A pastel coloured float, that keeps on bobbing despite the fact that these little movements, beyond your control, are scaring the fuck out of you - Lord knows how deep the water is down there. This blog is basically me finding my sea legs and since my last post to date, I have been so blankly uninspired that my uniform has been dictated by mythical pastel colours, none of which live in my wardrobe - except from like two beige tops, everything is black.

It is a massive struggle to transition from season to season. Every year after growing accustomed to the winter - AW13 seemed incredibly long in the UK - the summer arrives. I hold back from saying I hate it, but until I can redefine the boundaries of my wardrobe and get botox in every part of my body to stop sweating, I hate summer. Summer in the UK seems odd, especially in London where the "stand on the right" sign is adopted as the holiest of TFL rules and the raucous behaviour of passengers will attest to this. 

So this is usually the point where I go shopping, or tell you all the great things I bought, or show you pictures, but I am finding the consumption of fashion rather bland and this, quite simply, could be the result of the epic influence of Family Guy on my world perceptions. Sometimes I wish to refer to all clothes as different uniforms and although this almost defies the entire concept of fashion, especially as a means through which one can express oneself, but the word uniform is essentially an appropriate description.

The McStroke episode (season8episode6) features Stewie Griffin tryna be cool describing a situation all too familiar to kids on the internet -

"so I'm shavin' last night at this make out party. I took a bunch of pictures. You can see  'em on my MySpace page, along with my favourite songs and movies and things that other people have created but that I use to express my individualism." For arguments sake the word MySpace could be substituted for every blogging platform on the internet, but well, that's another story...

We can debate the democratisation of fashion and dispute the fact that it was terrible because now there's like a few million more kids who name drop designers whose shows they've never attended and whose Creative Directors they don't recall, but that is only defying the definition of fashion, fashion as a huge scope of things has always been defined by the public and to quote Game of Thrones, "the power resides where men think it resides".

My blogging absence has mainly been due to the fact that we have arrived in fashions upcycling of trends, to the early 2000s and quite frankly, I was alive and fully aware of my existence so this is a pretty shit season. Somehow not gripped by the epic poolslides that Phoebe Philo and Jonathan Saunders, among others bombarded us with, this season is full of colour. The highstreets have interpreted this with through the usual ,printed pieces in complementary colours, now styled with sweeper coats and strappy camisoles: haven't you seen that before?

And then, there's my uniform. Feel free to criticise my lack of originality but the black, the blue and the white are and shall be all I will wear until maybe we get back to winter and turtlenecks can be my bff again. Ebay mules, 

Bowen Aricó

Bowen Aricó's work in Oyster Magazine (feat Marthe Wiggers and Nike Gyakosou) amplifies the sports bra lust life - no t-shirts, just sports bras and cropped pants. While his work for Friend the Magazine (feat Sophie Hirschfelder) features summer's perfect lightweight cotton, the bottoms make me think of Comme Des Garçons polka tees versus catwalk Comme Des Garçons which I found channelled through maybe the most epic skirt I've ever owned at COS. The sense of dynamism Aricó portrays in a studio setting is fascinating, maybe brought to life by the model's gaze and pose or faux motion in the hair. It's cool anyway.

James Robjant

This season's denim however is knocking my socks off! Levi's at LN-CC balance the perfect silhouette, length and taper that makes me wish I had £500 to splurge on jeans. Aside from this navy everything (t-shirts especially) are *equalssign* wardrobe staple. Did I mention raw edges? Hemming is almost always the last part of the production of a fashion item, by which stage, I am admittedly too lazy and too irritated - having pricked myself with sewing needles - to hem most (if not all) of my product. So yes, raw edges are life. James Robjant's feature in Used Magazine with styling by Luke Raymond (models Josh Wicks and Maddy Elmer) embodies the aforementioned characteristics. I'm thinking of that denim COS dress and Acne Studios totes in her dress straps.

It would totally be a sin not to mention Céline... The AW14 lookbook had me drooling at first sight, not just because of the fur and the MAC Sin-esque looking lipstick but because of the way those pleats fall imitating a liquids flow and then the blue lines that accentuate the symmetry and asymmetry. I know the season isn't even here yet, but this is channelled in &Other Stories' sweatshirt and t-shirt combo, I wish they had matching pants though. (Also, how did Céline manage to successfully imitate the Air Force 1 design, I swear that must be patented?!? Either way, that is not allowed, you can't do that, no-one cares if you're Céline, the designers should have enough flare and creativity not to have to mimic a leading sports apparel brand. Same goes for you Karl Lagerfeld, stop it.) 

I digress. Still on that pastel pool float, bobbing around in the ocean.