Are you feeling fresh, fashion jurors? We certainly hope so, because Spring 2012 will see a lot of mint coming into our lives, with the colour already starting to pop up at many of our favourite fashion haunts. Of course, pastels in general are always big during Spring/Summer, and those of you who don’t like mint will have plenty of tangerines and lemons to suck on instead, if you’ll forgive the expression.
Those of you who DO like mint, however, may like to take a look at our gallery, which is crammed full of fresh, fashiony goodness from the likes of Zara, Antipodium, Paige Denim, Office and more…
This Spring, you’re all going to be wearing orange. No, you will be: the Fashion Gods have deemed it to be so, and you’ll all just have to go along with it, or you won’t get to talk about being a fashionista and “bang on trend”. That would be terrible, wouldn’t it?
OK, we just: you won’t ACTUALLY have to wear orange if you don’t want to. There will be a fair bit of it around, however, with everything from jeans and dresses, to sunglasses and shoes getting a touch of the “Tango” about it.
What do you think of this trend? There’s no doubt that orange isn’t the easiest colour in the world to wear: not everyone can pull it off, although those who can, often look amazing in it.
Which side are you on? Are you for or against the orange revolution?
(Look, we included an animal ear hat just for you! You’re welcome!)
We should probably have included some kind of migraine-warning with this post, shouldn’t we?
Our apologies if you’re currently seeing stars, as opposed to rainbows, but you may as well get used to it: our officers are reporting a big increase in the number of rainbow-coloured fashion items they’ve been spotting on their patrols, and while it’s possibly too soon to call it a “trend”, it’s getting there.
So far, Henry Holland and Christopher Kane seem to be the leaders of this movement, but it probably won’t be long before the high street catches on, and suddenly the world starts to look like bad, Saturday morning children’s TV. All of those primary colours can be dangerous, you know…
So, how do you wear these clothes without looking clownish? Well, we honestly wouldn’t bother, to be perfectly honest with you, but if you must, we’d say moderation is the key. Narrow stripes of colour are easier to wear and less childish than wide ones, and rainbow-coloured accessories as the cheat’s way including lots of colours without looking like they fell into a paintbox.
What do you think of rainbow-coloured clothing, Fashion Police jurors? Is it guilty or innocent of committing crimes of fashion?
Last winter, River Island released a selection of knitted hats with animal ears, and everyone went gaga for them. Yes, even you, our trusted fashion force. Suddenly the streets were full of people walking around wearing the type of headgear previously reserved for toddlers only, and talking about how “fun!” and “quirky!” they were being. The word “quirky” was used a lot that winter: those were dark days, indeed… (Question: is it still “quirky” if everyone’s doing it, or is it only quirky when it’s unique?)
Now, it’s happening again. Buoyed by last year’s success (seriously, people were still wearing those hats during the summer), River Island have just released Animal Hats 2.0, and here they are:
This year’s hats offer a level of realism which was missing from the knitted version, and come in a faux fur, designed to look like you’ve actually just scalped the poor animal and are wearing it as a trophy. We know you’ll all love these, so feel free to gush over them in the comments box: just know that you will never tempt us over to the dark side of the Dress Like a Toddler Trend…
If you do a lot of shopping, read a lot of fashion magazines or just have eyes, you’ll probably have noticed that there’s a whole lot of leopard print goin’ on this winter. (If you failed to notice this, then we’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news.)
Of course, animal print in general, and leopard print in particular, is one of those things that never really go away, whether we want it to or not. Whatever the season, and whatever the year, there’s generally an animal print something-or-other to be found in the stores, and that’s not always a bad thing, either. This year, however, is different. This year, we’re looking at a head-to-toe animal print invasion. It’s on shoes. It’s on dresses. It’s on skirts. It’s on coats. It’s on…look, we could continue here, but we’re sure you can name clothing items yourself, yes?
When it comes to animal print, our personal – and note the word “personal” here – rule of thumb has always been that it’s an “accessories only” kind of print. On a belt, or a hat, or a pair or shoes, say, a bit of animal print can add something to an outfit: a GOOD something. Especially in the case of leopard print shoes, which we LOVE. On clothes, though? On clothes, this is a print which has to be approached with caution, lest you end up looking like a middle-aged barmaid in a northern soap opera. Or worse. So while we’re not totally opposed to the concept – we could possibly imagine wearing the pencil skirt show in the image above, for instance – we do worry about the liberal application of animal print to ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.
Animal print, you see is just not an ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING kind of thing. That stretchy mini skirt, for instance, will give us nightmares now. The dress with the mesh panel is just one can of spray tan and a set of gigantic false eyelashes away from being too tacky to live.
It is The Fashion Police’s belief that the words “leopard print” and “jumpsuit” should never appear in the same product, for when they do, a fashion crime will surely follow.
So, what do you think of animal print? Is it OK in moderation, a comlpete no-no at any time, or are you happy to clothe yourself in it from head to toe?
If you’re not loving the current trend for bright pants, we can only hope that you’ve made arrangements to move to somewhere without internet access and/or fashion victims for the foreseeable future. These things are EVERYWHERE. Red pants, blue pants, yellow, purple and green pants. It really doesn’t matter what colour they are: what matters is that they’re BRIGHT.
J Crew’s Café Capri trousers are just one example of the bright pant trend, and we think they’re a pretty good one: they’re tailored, they’re slim-cut, they hit, as the name suggests, right at the ankle, allowing them to be worn with a great pair of shoes without hiding them.
What do you think of them, though, that’s what we want to know? Do you love them, hate them, just not care? Tell us!
(These particular pants are £103 at J Crew, but if that sounds like a bit too much, don’t despair: we’ve spotted similar looks at most of the usual high street stores – check out ASOS and Topshop for starters…)
Look, everyone, this model is giving us the cold shoulder! Should we be offended?
(Sorry, we couldn’t resist it…)
OK, we speak in jest. Well, sort of. There’s no denying that anyone wearing this shirt would probably HAVE a cold shoulder, is there? In fact, they’d have two. It’s that old conundrum: cold enough for long sleeves, but warm enough for bare shoulders. Philosophers have puzzled over this kind of thing for years.
We’re puzzling it over too, now, because the fact is, this is not an isolated incident. Nope, no sooner had we spotted this offender, than we suddenly started seeing cold shoulders EVERYWHERE. We’ve started to wonder if they’re stalking us, actually, and seriously, a Shirt Stalker isn’t something we’d wish on ANYONE. Trust us on that.
Anyway, having seen this style a lot more often than we usually would recently, we naturally got to wondering what you’d all think of it. Of course, there are worse things in the world than a cold shoulder. Like a cold ass, say. Or a clutchbag that looks like a pair of men’s underpants. But what do you think of exposed shoulder garments? Pretty? Or just pointless?
Take a look at our gallery of this winter’s offerings from Miss Selfridge, featuring our old favourites: colour-blocking, 70s-style, and some very bright tights…
Sure, there are a few skirts here which are knee-length or lower, and if you want midis, well, some of the other retailers we’ve previewed recently will be more than happy to oblige with that. But at Miss Selfridge, hemlines are much, much shorter, with a selection of mini skirts and dresses, and some items that look suspiciously like tops to TFP, but which are being worn as dresses anyway, as if the good people at Miss S are sticking two fingers up at the rest of the fashion world and saying, “Screw, you, fashion: if you want to persist with this ‘midi’ nonsense, we’re going to make our models wear tops and tights: see what you make of THAT!”
2. Colourblocking is giving way to monoblocking
While the other brands we’ve looked at so far this winter have gone for a “every colour we can find, all worn at the same time” approach, Miss S have, once again, gone their own way on this one, and are using an approach we’re going to refer to as “monoblocking”. You know, like in the driveways? This involves wearing just one colour, or different shades of one colour. The colour in question can be anything, as long as it’s BRIGHT. So, in the image above, for instance, we have a bright yellow “dress” worn with bright yellow tights, a bright yellow headband and… is that a CAPE? Because that looks like a cape to us. Are capes going to big in winter 2011? Will we be able to stand it if they are. (*makes note to put a detective on this asap* ). Similarly, we have a tomato red dress worn with tomato red tights, and a pink dress worn with pinkish/purple tights and red shoes. OK, so that one is more like the colourblocking we know and love, but still.
3. 70s style, blah, blah, blah
You know the drill with this by now, don’t you? The 70s will be big in winter 2011. And there’s not a thing any of us can do about it.
We’ve provided more items from Miss Selfridges Winter 2011 Lookbook in the gallery below, some of which are already available to buy – click here to do it.
What do you think of these looks, though? Are you ready to monoblock your closet?
