one more interesting article from Colin McDowell (sunday times)
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Fashion and property - what's the difference?
by Colin McDowell on February 16, 2007
Which is crazier: London fashion or the London property market? I had an opportunity to compare yesterday as I dashed from fashion show to house viewing and back again throughout the day. But I was disappointed in both, because the hype in each world has really reached a level where sanity barely prevails. Let me assure you, my needs in either case are simple. Good wearable fashion which is not a warmed-over stew of previous design ideas or, worse, almost identical to the clothes available in every shop in town; and a central pied de terre which justifies the £500,000 cash which I am prepared to pay. You might as well be looking for faery gold.
The thing that most shocked me is the misuse of words. As bored estate agents extolled the virtues of a "living room" eight feet by five feet, with kitchen attached (a knockdown at £480,000) or a "compact" studio with a fold-up bed and a "terrace" (six wobbly paving stones accessed by a skylight in the roof), I despaired for civilisation. The property market in this city is, as everybody knows, deranged, and yet nobody seems the slightest bit interested doing anything about it.
So it's back to the mobile home in Willesden Green and some calming contemplation of a day's London fashion, largely devoted to designers who have been around a bit and are therefore spared the hype which threatens to overwhelm and even destroy some of our more tender young talents. Designers like Nichole Farhi, Margaret Howell and Betty Jackson have built up strong businesses by sticking at it and ignoring the needs of hysterical journalists and picture editors. They prefer instead to give women what they want and - whisper it, because this is to many in London fashion the dirty bit - sell some clothes while growing a company of real commercial success.
So they miss out on the hysteria that has people standing three deep at Gareth Pugh but, you know what? Those people, fashion's liggers do nothing at all for London fashion. Serious fashion shows are best off without them. They are also infinitely more professional occasions.
So what of Gareth and his running mate, Giles (we're all very matey and Christian name-y at this level of London fashion)? What, indeed? Gareth gave us the mixture largely as before and was ominously greeted by several international fashion buyers without even a cursory clap. Giles took well-known recent high fashion themes and gave them an extravagant treatment in a show where super-Hollywood safari met... what? That's the rub. Every season, Giles gives us another story. None of them seem to relate to each other - and that is the cine qua non of serious fashion trajectory. It does, after all, take more than a bit of over-scaling and a few silly hats to grow a business. As Mesdames Howell, Farhi and Jackson know. The boys could learn a thing or two from their achievements.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------my english is not so well, can somebody explained this article to me
I think Colin McDowell is try to blame the unwearability of the london fashion designers like Gareth pugh and Giles, right? He think those designer have to be more commercial appeal just like Nichole Farhi, Margaret Howell and Betty Jackson. Am i get it right?
and also please tell me how u guys think.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fashion and property - what's the difference?
by Colin McDowell on February 16, 2007
Which is crazier: London fashion or the London property market? I had an opportunity to compare yesterday as I dashed from fashion show to house viewing and back again throughout the day. But I was disappointed in both, because the hype in each world has really reached a level where sanity barely prevails. Let me assure you, my needs in either case are simple. Good wearable fashion which is not a warmed-over stew of previous design ideas or, worse, almost identical to the clothes available in every shop in town; and a central pied de terre which justifies the £500,000 cash which I am prepared to pay. You might as well be looking for faery gold.
The thing that most shocked me is the misuse of words. As bored estate agents extolled the virtues of a "living room" eight feet by five feet, with kitchen attached (a knockdown at £480,000) or a "compact" studio with a fold-up bed and a "terrace" (six wobbly paving stones accessed by a skylight in the roof), I despaired for civilisation. The property market in this city is, as everybody knows, deranged, and yet nobody seems the slightest bit interested doing anything about it.
So it's back to the mobile home in Willesden Green and some calming contemplation of a day's London fashion, largely devoted to designers who have been around a bit and are therefore spared the hype which threatens to overwhelm and even destroy some of our more tender young talents. Designers like Nichole Farhi, Margaret Howell and Betty Jackson have built up strong businesses by sticking at it and ignoring the needs of hysterical journalists and picture editors. They prefer instead to give women what they want and - whisper it, because this is to many in London fashion the dirty bit - sell some clothes while growing a company of real commercial success.
So they miss out on the hysteria that has people standing three deep at Gareth Pugh but, you know what? Those people, fashion's liggers do nothing at all for London fashion. Serious fashion shows are best off without them. They are also infinitely more professional occasions.
So what of Gareth and his running mate, Giles (we're all very matey and Christian name-y at this level of London fashion)? What, indeed? Gareth gave us the mixture largely as before and was ominously greeted by several international fashion buyers without even a cursory clap. Giles took well-known recent high fashion themes and gave them an extravagant treatment in a show where super-Hollywood safari met... what? That's the rub. Every season, Giles gives us another story. None of them seem to relate to each other - and that is the cine qua non of serious fashion trajectory. It does, after all, take more than a bit of over-scaling and a few silly hats to grow a business. As Mesdames Howell, Farhi and Jackson know. The boys could learn a thing or two from their achievements.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------my english is not so well, can somebody explained this article to me
I think Colin McDowell is try to blame the unwearability of the london fashion designers like Gareth pugh and Giles, right? He think those designer have to be more commercial appeal just like Nichole Farhi, Margaret Howell and Betty Jackson. Am i get it right?
and also please tell me how u guys think.
