SWAROVSKI LFW INSIDER: ERDEM

Erdem with his SS11 moodboard

"You can't run the preview until after the V&A launch," so instructed Erdem when I went to see him last week before his London Fashion Week show. Well, that launch for "Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909 - 1929" was last evening at the V&A, and now I am allowed to reveal that lucky Erdem was granted access to the imposing Blythe House, the V&A archive in west London to get some time with the beautiful costumes of Bakst and others for the Ballet Russes over the summer.

From the V&A:
"Diaghilev’s extraordinary company, which survived a twenty-year rollercoaster of phenomenal successes and crippling problems, revolutionised ballet. As importantly, Diaghilev’s use of avant-garde composers, such as Stravinsky and designers such as Bakst, Goncharova, Picasso and Matisse, made a major contribution to the introduction of Modernism."

A detail from SS11 and the Swarovski palette Erdem chose

"This is the first time I have really intensely researched something. I was given unlimited access all summer. I turned the Ballet Russes costumes inside out. I looked at the scrims. What is surreal is that all the costumes are stored beneath ghostly white covers on stands, and the spaces within the clothes are filled with white wadding. It created these naive shapes. It seemed colour was bled out of the work. Then as you pulled off the covers, something so bright and beautiful was waiting to be discovered. With the costumes the sense is of structured clothing with diaphanous flowing skirts, which I have tried to put across with the collection."

These dresses were inspired by the stored garments of the Ballet Russes at Blythe House

"Blythe House is actually quite a creepy," he says. I can concur  while visiting this summer, it felt like stepping back 100 years to shadowy rooms full of eerie white-wrapped shapes. "It was impossible not to feel totally inspired by the Ballet Russes," said Erdem. "When I asked Nick Kirkwood to do the shoes, he was equally inspired. The colours I chose were kelly green, lime, red and touches of orange, and of course, white. The way I worked with Swarovski this season was to take small crystals in those colours and hand sew them onto the flowers that match, and to incorproate them into the diamond patterns."

Crystal application in the studio

The Grazia team loved this dress

 

My three favourite looks

Images: Catwalking.com

Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909 - 1929 begins on Saturday

to book tickets go here.

THE CAR BOOT-IQUE

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

Look at all these fabulous pieces by the members of the young British fashion fraternity. There is work from Christopher Kane, Holly Fulton,  They are all one-offs. Would you like one? Thought so...

If you want one you have two days left to bid for them on eBay. They are all part of Mercedes-Benz's Car Boot-ique, a car boot sale type affair hosted by eBay, in which all the funds raised go directly back to help the next generation of British talent through Lulu Kennedy's Fashion East scheme.

I cannot think of a more satisfying way to shop. If you make a successful bid, you gain a one off item at a less-than-retail price, and the money helps the incoming talent onto the London Fashion Week. I asked Mercedes to send me the lots being released today and tomorrow. And here they are.

Christopher Kane

Goodone

Hannah Marshall

Hasan Hejazi

Hasan Hejazi

Holly Fulton

Holly Fulton

House of Holland (these are blingy car-dice, quite large)

Jonathan Saunders

Margaret Howell

 

Maria Francesca Pepe

BID!

http://donations.ebay.co.uk/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=40449

MCQUEEN MEMORIAL:

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

I couldn't get to David Koma and Holly Fulton's show this morning. After the very strong showing of Peter Pilotto at Waterloo's old Eurostar terminal we headed across to St Pauls Cathedral to pay our respects to the memory of Lee Alexander McQueen. Time to be still.

It was an exquisite, finely tuned event in what Shaun Leane pointed out in his address "would have been his ultimate venue. We did alright didn't we, Lee?" he asked gazing up into the majesty of Wrens dome.

When Michael Nyman played "The heart asks pleasure first" the key piece from his Oscar winning The Piano score, ourt hearts soared and broke just a little bit. It was funny when his closest girl friend Annabelle Neilson said Lee's sense of direction was so good, he often claimed he was born with "The Knowledge", (the three year training all London cabbies must complete). Anna Wintour was right when she said he was an artist who transcended fashion.

I caught my breath as Bjork emerged from Minor Cannons Aisle dressed in a gilded ostrich feather gown, wings rising five feet behind her. It was an image from another era. Bjork proceeded to sing Gloomy Sunday in her inimitable style, and it was a a perfect moment; beautifully sad.

I wanted to share the words Gloomy Sunday. You need quiet time to read them.

The photo used for the memorial of Lee is the shot above by David Bailey. It sums up the best of his sprit to so many people.