Vol. 1: The Industry Michaelmas 2012

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Welcome to the first issue of ‘Industry’, Oxford Fashion Society’s new magazine.

More penetrating than the customary glossy, Industry aims to explore the fashion industry from every angle, delivering insights from behind the fashion lines and into the business structures of global companies, the experiences of interns and the careers that are there to be carved out.

Industry gathers together reviews of catwalk shows with student fashion features, comment articles on the impact of the fashion and beauty industries in our lives and interviews with leading figures in this vibrant sphere.

It is a resource for those interested in more colourful careers than those represented at a standard careers fair, but it is more than that. Industry also hopes to remind why you wanted to enter this field in the first place, by producing ambitious and creative content. There is everything from a cultural history of the global denim phenomenon to a bird-inspired beauty shoot perched in these pages.

To get involved email editor.oxfordfashionsociety@gmail.com Happy exploring, The Editors x

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Published by Oxford Fashion Society Editor-in-Chief / Kathryn Gilbert Managing Editor / Elizabeth Culliford Creative Editor / Grace Buck Artistic Director / Lavender Au Photography Editor / Dan Fox Fashion Assistant / Anna Stelle Writers Arpita Ashok, Anna Stelle, Matthew Robinson, Finola Austin, Aleksandar Cvetkovic, Ceri Fowler, Aurora DawsonHunte, Elizabeth Culliford Illustrators Georgia Wells, Inez Januszczak, Helen Reid, Sage Goodwin Photographers Dan Fox, Charles Roberts, Caroline Ames Oxford Fashion Week photographers Claire Williams www.clairewilliamsphotography.co.uk Martin Prechelmacher

Michaelmas 2012 ’tis the season

5 Oxford fashion week 14 Trends 18 Mainstream 19 Anti-trends

town & gown

21 Arpita, queen of shops 22 Would you rather 23 Accessorise Oxford 24 From Cornmarket to Rue au Cambon 29 Youthquake

work

33 Q&As 34 Barbour business tree 38 Student view 40 Alumni

men’s fashion

42 The gentleman’s guide to the suit 44 Beauty’s last taboo 45 Wondergirls & wonderboys 47 Albert dello russo

beauty

50 Birds of a feather 53 Product thoughts 56 Faerie queenes

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64 Global denim 70 Bodies behind the clothes 72 People who changed the world and what they wore to do it 75 My quarter life crisis 3

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.� - Coco Chanel

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Photos courtesy of Claire Williams

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Photos courtesy of Martin Prechelmacher

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xford Fashion Week 2012 kicked off its show schedule with the Cosmopolitan Show, featuring a host of Oxford shops and boutiques.

The organisers did a fabulous job of evoking the atmosphere one would expect from its more highprofile counterpart in London. Guests were welcomed into the beautiful town hall with trays filled with Hotel Chocolat’s finest, suitably moody music and goody bags containing, amongst other things, a disposable electronic cigarette. Red and beige, as well as the perennial favourite black, were the dominant colours on the catwalk, whilst tailoring was a clear favourite amongst designers. Oxford preppiness occasionally fell foul of a stifling ‘yummy mummy’ vibe, and so where the organisers really shone was in their lingerie offerings.

The prêt-à-porter sections showcased the likes of Hobbs, LK Bennet, and Gerry Weber and local boutique Powder Room. This segment did cater towards the older market, whereas it would have been nice to see a little more variety. Hobbs NW3 opened the show and was certainly one of the stronger collections, staying loyal to the current berry trend with a well-deployed shade of burgundy used for cosy knits and tailored trousers. It was best where it played to its strengths, with youthful country-meets-city looks including a long-line tweed jacket and a relaxed white shirt poking out beneath a beige jumper.

But where we really saw something new was when Powder Room took to the catwalk. Working on a vague template of grey slouchy separates, the styling combined winter comfort with beatnik luxury. Trilbies were another staple, adding a touch of smartness to an otherwise relaxed collection, and departing from this winter’s newfound love of the beanie. Tailoring, a trend throughout the show also appeared in this sec-

tion in the form of a beautiful black trouser suit. With buttons shaping the trousers around the calves and a jacket that plunged into a tight waist, this was androgynous tailoring at its feminine-flattering best. The highlight from Powder Room was a delicate black shift with sequin detailing embellishing the seams, styled with a patterned coat that created a wonderful juxtaposition.

However, the Cosmpolitan Show’s highlight was undoubtedly its lingerie collections. Pure Chemistry, Marie and La La Loula were dotted in-between the ready-to-wear designers, and were a welcome injection of variety. Oxford local Emelia Penny’s label, La La Loula, has showed at Oxford Fashion Week before and by now we know what to expect. Weightless ivory chiffon hung delicately off the models’ shoulders in camisoles, bed jackets and bras. Peach lace overlays were also used judiciously to add a little interest to relatively simple designs. It was also nice to see the incorporation of camisole shorts into a lingerie collection, and worked perfectly with Penny’s designs that appeal to the woman who dresses for herself.

Industry’s standout favourite was Marie. The Abingdon boutique stocks £98 Marjolaine French knickers and Aubade bras from £48 – the type of garments that the student-filled audience could only dream of owning. But that, of course, was part of the appeal.

Monochrome shades tempered the decadence of bondage-esque straps and sequin-adorned bras, which were accessorized with demure black veils. But it was a Pleasure State baby doll dress that took centre stage – think Moulin Rouge burlesque with a Gareth Pugh edge.

The Cosmopolitan Show, whilst not Industry’s OFW 2012 highlight, certainly delivered an incredible evening and some truly impressive aesthetic feats. If noth7 ing else, we’ll certainly be taking a trip to Abingdon…

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Photos courtesy of Martin Prechelmacher

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cutting-edge platform for Oxford’s up-and-coming designers, the Concept Show showcased aesthetic representations of ‘Elysium’, some of which had quite a dystopian feel. The first line courtesy of Crimson-Rose O’Shea had models walking in ball gowns constructed from iridescent wrapping paper. When viewed up close, you could see an unbelievable level of intricacy with tiny seashells and silks sewn into traditional embellishments of frills and folds. From our seats by the catwalk, the models wafted down the catwalk seemingly dressed in colourful lights.

Standing on wedge heels with wide straps, this line was a tribute to maximalism, carnivale-esque in its sculptural feel. Wide brim hats were juxtaposed with transparent, tinsel cage dresses and the designer introduced a selection of flowing long gowns, reminiscent of chic ladies sunbathing on the Spanish Riviera.

Use of strong colour continued with Yiannis Karisiotis’ bright yellow dresses accompanied with structured, perspex necklaces. Drawing on the exoticism and sunshine of his Greek background, the dresses were flowing, warm and the technical perfection of the careful drapery was showcased when in motion.

We then viewed the offering from the student designers at Oxford Brookes University who gave the audience Jackson Pollock-esque print dresses paired with strong, geometric jewellery. This line was primarily concerned with playing with the shape of modern materials such as latex, paying particular attention to cut. Modern, sleek plastic was used to create structured bags while abstract print and lines of orange and black paint served to highlight the fall of the fabrics.

Using flat, graphic shapes, inspired by natural motifs of flowers and leaves, Nayuko Yamamoto presented us with a collection that was both romantic and

feminine. Inspired by leafing through poetry books, she placed delicate, papery cut outs against heavy material dipped in blue-tone watercolours to create a muted, subtle beauty.

A brief interval in the fashion showcase had Popham Hair Design pay tribute to the recently deceased genius, Vidal Sassoon. Curls were set in voluminous shapes while a visual contrast was provided by sharp bobs. Concerned with structure and clean lines, even the long hair was poker straight and cut blunt at the ends.

Returning to tailoring and cut, Chloe Reynolds used different fabrics to create languid black dresses that slunk down the catwalk.

The detail in her pattern-cutting belied the simple, monochrome palette and accompanied with laser-cut metal accessories, this was a collection that achieved a depth and texture that needed no colour.

A personal favourite, the last line from Sarah Palin used print carefully within the layered construction of her pieces.

As the models walked down the runway, we caught glimpses of detailed print, intriguingly revealed then concealed. Deconstructed skirts and artfully disturbed symmetry when taken to traditional silhouettes such as the pleated skater skirt made for an interesting, crumpled imperfection.

A twist on traditional shapes and motifs, the Concept Show was a must-see for those interested in fashion not only as ready-to-wear, but as a careful, artistic construct, unrestrained by ideas of practicality.

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t was Saturday, 11th November - the final night of Fashion Week. The last couple of days had been incredibly varied, from ready-to-wear to concept fashion to ethical shows to lingerie at the Cosmopolitan Show. On this evening, haute couture designers from all over the world would be presented to an exclusive audience on the runway in the intimate surroundings of the Ashmolean Museum.

The mood of the evening was set early as guests were welcomed with a glass of champagne in the downstairs gallery of the museum. To those who had attended the shows on the preceding nights, it soon became clear that the evening was laid out very differently. The audience- selected. The designers- exclusive. Accompanied by the sounds of smooth jazz, the crowd made their way to designated seats.

The choice of designers was diverse. The first brand to be showcased on the runway was Ghori Couture which, despite its base in London, really recalled the designer’s Pakistani background. Azim Ghori’s clothes highlighted that very special allure of both the exotic and the feminine in women’s evening dresses. The last dress to be presented by Ghori was a masterpiece that played with the female body shape and different kinds of fabric.

Over the next 40 minutes, the audience was presented with an array of designers from Paris, London and Dubai. There wasn’t a moment to rest your eyes through Nina Jovanovich’s heavy skirts, Zoe

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Elisabeth’s patterned evening dresses, or Wish Want Wear’s gown selection. My two personal favourites, however, came later. The Vivienne Whelan, black-velvet embellished dress with a matching fur stole, really summarized for me what haute couture represents - elegance and extravagance all in one. The next designer to hit the runway was Rachel Elbaz. I have seen many gold sequin dresses in my life, but the one Elbaz sent down the runway- a gold sequin dress with a velvet lined sheer black cape - gave an entirely new dimension to evening wear.

The following designers, each in their own way, brought out yet more defining aspects of haute couture fashion. Pierre Garraudi took the show to an extremely sensual level and Clements and Church brought it back down with their classic suit selection.

In the end, it was Dar Sara, an haute couture fashion brand based in Dubai, who closed the show. The sparkle, the grandeur- Dar Sara was the summary of Fashion Week 2012. As the last model walked the runway in a luxurious gold ball gown, I decided that this show was not just about fashion, but in the words of Carl Anglim, the founder of Oxford Fashion Week, ‘it is about culture’.

Oxford Fashion Week brought to us the designers of the world. In the course of an hour we travelled across the most fashionable cities and experienced the global variety of ways in which fashion can be interpreted. It was an extraordinary experience.

Photos courtesy of Martin Prechelmacher

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Styling by Kathryn Gilbert and Grace Buck Modelled by Allamin Daggash and Grace Buck Photography by Caroline Ames

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Grace wears Jigsaw jumper, ASOS skirt, vintage satchel, Topshop beanie and Zara boots.

Allamin wears J Crew trousers, Ralph Lauren shirt, Hackett socks, Church’s shoes and Pampeano belt

Grace wears vintage coat, ASOS dress, Zara boots and model’s own necklace.

Allamin wears Ted Baker jumper, : 7 For All Mankind jeans, Gucci shoes

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Grace wears Topshop shirt, jumper and leather trousers, Zara shoes and Matt & Nat clutch.

Allamin wears Giorgio Armani suit, Givenchy shirt, Louis Vuitton tie, Lacoste shoes, Hermes belt

Grace wears Paul Smith Black Label jacket, Jigsaw t-shirt, Topshop shorts and Zara shoes.

Allamin wears Dolce & Gabbana jacket, Calvin Klein t-shirt, Dolce & Gabbana jeans, Lacoste shoes, model’s own watch

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his season reads much Industry’s Arpita Ashok like ‘things the offers some words of wis- mainstream has fidom on how to rescue your nally caught up on’.

Consequently it also originality marks the death of the prized possessions of those who relish life on the edge of fashion, teetering between brilliance and insanity. (Is this blazer ‘end of a long day at Wimbledon or ‘creepy school child from Shining’?)

Their – or our – quirkiness has been snuffed out. There is absolutely nothing cutting edge about head-to-toe sequins during the day or velvet slippers for a casual lunch date anymore. The flipside is that we no longer have to stare at the masses of terribly dressed people but still... we were here first!

How can we be original in an outfit feature in Look magazine?! How do we take fashion risks and reap the rewards (compliments, respect, the top prize of jealousy from other fashion-lovers)? Here is a little guide on how to maintain that mysterious entity of ‘style’.

LEATHER Whether you like it or not - and if it’s the latter, you prude!

- your wardrobe and life definitely need spicing up - leather is everywhere you look. No longer is it garb of curb callers and Hells Angels. It all started a few seasons ago with the return of the biker jacket (see Topshop for great, good value options), then there were leather shorts (£45 Sparkle and Fade, Urban Outfitters are a wise investment) and now even Hobbs has jumped on the leather band-wagon (Marisa peplum belt £99). That’s right, I said Hobbs. Fashionable on two counts.

Madness. Even Oasis has basically launched an entire collection devoted to that risqué hide. ‘Tales of Opulence’ has smatterings of leather everywhere and my favourite piece is the gold leather cutwork skirt. As the website will tell you this was ‘seen in InStyle magazine’. This is terrible. Mainstream strikes again.

My usual advice would be to juxtapose leather with feminine florals or chiffon. But mixing leather with chiffon has become so mainstream that Rosie Fortescue (from Made in Chelsea - hats off to you if you didn’t recognise the name or show - you are a better human being than I) could be considered a style icon.

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MEN’S CLOTHES A few years ago I tried on a lovely jumper in the men’s section in Monsoon (don’t judge, it really is nice - the only true gem amongst overpriced bedazzled kaftans and ugly clutch bags).

When I asked for a changing room tag the shop assistant glared at me with moral repugnance. How times have changed. It’s hard to read a magazine which doesn’t feature the ‘boyfriend’ look or advise you to be ‘super fashionable’ in men’s wear. I feel bereft.

H&M is the perfect example. The women’s knitwear is so sickly sweet it wouldn’t have looked out of place in Tammy Girl. However, the men’s section is a bounty of fairisle, flecked knits, elbow patches - everything you would wish for in a good jumper (around the £30 for the best looking ones). Similarly compare Topshop and Topman. The former’s star item has to be the ‘Knitted Feather Stripe Jumper’ £85. Looks like someone mistook an emu for a ball of wool. I dare you to Google it. But Topman is full of beautiful knits (around the £40 mark). You can even justify buying two or three. They are just presents you will never get round to giving.

Another yummy man-trend being lapped up by the masses is the oversized coat. All the usual suspects featured these Balenciaga, Celine, Jil Sander to name a few. The best place to find one is to go vintage - Ballroom or Reign should have some lovely options. If you have no luck there, Zara’s ‘cream minimalist coat’ and beige ‘hand made coat’ are around the £100 and are great wardrobe staples. A timely swap from figure-hugging to figure-forgiving trends, with the season of overeating just around the corner. And for when you need to take your coat off? Hide the food-baby-bump with peplum.

Thank you fashion.

Long story short, you won’t be getting any strange looks for asking to try on a man’s jumper any time soon.

HOW TO RESCUE YOUR ORIGINALITY FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH Up the ante. See how far you can push your fashion choices without getting it oh so wrong.

Resist the calls to ‘juxtapose manly coats with feminine figure-hugging dresses’ - it’s just too obvious. Instead pair it with a male dress shirt - one of my go-to pieces worn long before any of this was on trend - or cigarette trousers. Do try to go more androgynous than transvestite but basically just resist the obvious mix. Wouldn’t you rather be a Tom Collins than a vodka and Coke?

For leather, keep it real by mixing it with other interesting pieces, rather than muting it with basics. I challenge you to pull off sequins and leather, together, during the day without looking like a lost LIDO dancer. See you on the other side.

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ur modern wardrobe is too often built around trends that seep into our minds from the tabloids and catwalk photos that are plastered around our modern media world. We are presented with the ever changing polarisation of the fashion world; the juxtaposition between that which is ‘in’ and that which is distinctly ‘out’, thermometers of ‘hot’ and ‘not’. But when fashion fads seem to be on a thirty year cycle, and that which was once deemed obsolete is suddenly reclaimed as a sartorial necessity, it makes it difficult to know if we can really trust our own judgement.

So much of modern fashion is built around reclamation of past styles and former fashion faux-pas. Rather than paving the way for our own identity, we sacrifice our own artistic innovation and present a mere reinterpretation of what has already been. Double denim, once the epitome of fashion following the universal presence of American cult figures such as James Dean, later fell into decline in the post 1990s period. Embarrassing flashbacks to double denim Steps-inspired flares and crop top combinations perhaps sealed its fate once and for all. Yet despite taking such a heavy battering, double denim has had a sudden resurgence due to the support of key fashion figures such as Dolce & Gabbana featuring it in their catwalk shows. What was once deemed distinctly 90s has gone full circle and recaptured its position at the centre of sartorialist’s hearts once again.

Another trend which still plagues the fashion world and which even the most progressive ‘fashionistas’ may still reject, is the much berated ‘socks and sandals’. No matter that it is ugly, that it is everything we deemed wrong with the pitiful ageing British man, void of any continental style and sophistication. It is here. No longer donned by the socially obsolete and sartorially unconscious, it is now a staple feature of both catwalks shows and red carpet events; the most notable supporter being Rihanna combining socks and stilettos,

Scrolling through Facebook albums, you realise you can’t tell whether your friends were at a bop or just a normal night at Babylove. Matthew Robinson explores the phenomenon of the ‘anti trend’. . . creating an interesting hybrid of geek and glamour.

Our fascination with socks has gone to the new extremes of destroying the very trousers we wear to make room for our new obsession. Tom Browne’s recent collections have featured cut off trousers exposing resplendent sock designers, whilst “jack-ups” and rolled up trousers have become a ubiquitous feature of the mainstream fashion scene, exposing the ankles of the nation in a way that would have made the Victorians blush.

Finally, the time old dilemma of “short shorts” must not be forgotten. For years they were a taboo, donned only by 80s tennis players, and opposed by the wave of long boarded shorts that symbolised our noughties fascination with what could optimistically be called Australian ‘style’. But British men have now plucked up sufficient courage to reveal their pasty legs and embrace this geek chic. It would appear that we shouldn’t be too quick to berate the fashion faux-pas of our predecessors, as history seems to suggest that we’ll be queuing up to commit the same blunder in no time at all.

It is a sad realisation that our age of fashion appears to be void of a coherent movement or iconic image to attach onto; there is no symbolic mini skirt or Mohican defining our time, merely an amalgamation of the past fashion spreading right back to the 1920s, creating a distinctly confused and confounded identity. It may be time to ditch our timid or ironic attempts to recapture the past and look for a truly innovative and iconic way of dressing.

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“I’ve no idea when I’m going to wear it, the girl replied calmly. I only knew that I had to have it. Once I tried it on, well... She shrugged. The dress claimed me.” - Isabel Wolff A Vintage Affair

Claire WIlliams

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As Christmas approaches and we all feel the need to wish ourselves some seasonal cheer, Industry’s Arpita Ashok shares her tips for shopping on a student budget

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person who has £50 left in her bank account might not seem overly qualified to give tips on savvy shopping... But trust me - I’m a sale veteran and the least you can do is learn from my mistakes. ‘Do as I say, don’t do as I do’ and all that.

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. Know when to invest.

Sometimes you just have to fork out the not so hard earned student loan for wardrobe staples. It’s OK to spend £100 on a decent trench coat. It is most certainly not OK to spend £50 on a checked shirt in Zara. Despite the pretty gold studs on the pockets. You know the one. The rule is that wardrobe essentials must reak of quality: a cheap pair of ballet flats stick out like a sore, gangrenous thumb. However, if you want a plain chiffon blouse, one from Zara is vritually indistinguishable from a similar one at, dare I say, Primark. It’s true.

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. Know when to say NO!

Don’t think that this gives you free rein to use the words ‘invest in key pieces’ as an excuse to bleed your account dry. My rule is, when considering whether to invest in a wardrobe staple, to ask myself whether every outfit this , for example, navy blazer could go with could already go with something in my wardrobe. My other navy blazer for example. If it can don’t invest! Never by something that is just a ‘version’ of a piece you already have.

The only exception to this rule is a decent pair of shoes as it’s best always to have two options so the first pair doesn’t get worn down too quickly. It’s prob-

ably this reasoning that has got me to my £50 status.

Woops.

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. How to tackle Christmas sales Think back to your days at school and picture the really annoying kid who was always organised, always on time for everything and always showed you up. It is time to impersonate them / think back to your younger days (likely that many of you readers were actually that person , come to think of it).

Make a list of things you need. This does require knowing what’s in your wardrobe so maybe a clean out is in order. Be realistic about what you hope to find.

I have the terrible habit of never buying a beautiful party piece because I’m hoping it will be in the sale.

It never will be. I also waste more than the amount it would have cost at original price in petrol for trips to visit it and stare at it. More realistically, look for a decent winter coat, a nice scarf, some on trend jewellery and a pair of winter boots. That cobalt blue silk dress will never ever be in the sale. Buy it original price or kiss it (passionately) goodbye.

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. Mother’s words of wisdom

My mother has never bought a single thing unless she ‘loves’ it in the shop. Perhaps a good rule but do bear in mind she recently converted our guest room into an extra wardrobe. The apple does not fall far from the tree.

Now my parent-esque line for you: Do as I say, don’t do as I do. Happy bargain hunting and may there be more than £50 in your account post-Christmas sales.

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Every student, like it or not, has to budget. But what if you spent all that money on fashion? Instead of frittering away your student loan on boring things like battels, textbooks and nights at Bridge, you could be having all of this...

Lunch in hall or Stone Teardrop Chandelier Earrings from Primark

£12

Six tequila shots or Mabel Vintage Jewel Brooch, AW12 Opium Collection at Accessorize

£45

£3.50

A bike lock or Waterfall Necklace from East

Sports kit or Urban Outfitters Jumper

£20

A ball ticket or Black Embellished Shift Dress from River Island

£229 + £179

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Ski-trip or Hobbs Cherington Bag + Anoushka Court Shoe

£120

Introducing team Industry’s cost-perwear favourites for the New Year Life at Oxford is hard. Your student loan is wiped out (and then some) by extortionately high rent, your days stretch into the night from Monday through Sunday as you try to write several exceptional essays simultaneously and then at some point it’s, you know, nice, to see your friends. Time, and money, is not on your side.

So we thought we’d help out by compiling your Christmas list early. Now, parents do not generally look too favourably on requests for them to spend their hard-earned money on your overpriced whims, but we have matched those whims with very important Oxford occasions. Just remember to deploy the line: “But Mum, it’s for Uni!” Give them the opportunity to ease your student woes with our round up of the High Street’s finest winter accessories. Why accessories? Because you’re not going to get bored of wearing the same bag for three months (or at least in the case of Ally Capellino’s rucksack team Industry haven’t). Accessories are the ultimate costper-wear buy, and we feel that’s becoming underrated.

We hope our choices give you some food for thought when you’re wondering where to start on that list.

The Rad Cam There are few more soul crushing journeys than the ascent of the Radcliffe Camera’s steps. And what’s worse is that it comes accessorized with the only flimsy tote bag that you could cram all your books, WHSmith notepad and lidless biros into. Time for a change, we think.

Ally Capellino 13” Canvas Rucksack, £99 (12% NUS discount available) Perfectly constructed to fit a 13” MacBook Pro or Air and The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Swinging your workload over your shoulder has never been so satisfying.

Liberty London Leather Ianthe A6 Notebook, £45 Make trawling through that hefty reading list a little more bearable by keeping your notes in this beautiful notebook. And you can definitely justify it to the parents by pulling out the education card.

Smith & Canova Leather Pencil Case, £20 at John Lewis So it’s actually a make-up bag, but is perfect for the job. After all, there’s only so long you can justify repeat purchasing the cartooned Paperchase versions.

Christ Church Meadows As charming as the meadows are, there’s nothing enjoyable about piling on the thermal underwear and fleeces you begrudgingly allowed your Mum to shove into your luggage in 0th week. But there’s no reason to drop the ball on this one with the help of a few key items.

NW3 by Hobbs Maple Bag, £149 There’s nothing we don’t love about this beautifully compact rucksack. It does come with a sizeable price tag, but you’ll be thankful for its leather exterior when the showers start pouring.

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ligatory heel, the satisfying sparkle and the unspoken necessity: comfort.

And best of all you can wear them the morning after to jazz up a tutorial.

NW3 by Hobbs Fox and Owl Broaches, £45 each Hobbs’ NW3 has done it again with these cute broaches, ideal for adding a bit of polish to layer upon layer of thermals.

Accessorize Tweed Feather Trilby, £25 Don’t let Made in Chelsea’s Millie hijack the trilby for good.

This one is a bit different from your usual number, with meadowsappropriate autumnal hues and feather detail.

ASOS Jewelled Collar, £TBC We couldn’t resist sneaking in this gorgeous collar that toes the androgynous line to perfection.

Cocktails at The Grand Café Cocktails are surprisingly complicated as there’s no easier time to get the balance between dressy and casual wrong. But who wants to be casual? Return to the nostalgia of your younger self’s birthday parties with our unapologetically girly choices.

£8.50

Oxford Fashion Week Show Yes, OFW is over but relive the magic and pretend to be someone in the fashion ‘know’ for the day with our pick of suitably chic accessories. We’ve opted for a more androgynous look to stave away fashion cliché.

Topshop Roller Bowler Hat, £25 This is a hat for the everywoman, not just edgy girls. And it conveniently fights the good Fashion Week fight – how to stay warm in the entrance queue whilst looking like you are just too darn fashionable to care.

Hobbs Lisset Bag, £199 So it looks like we just can’t get enough of Hobbs, but with good reason. This beauty will fit your notebook (we recommend Liberty’s Ianthe) so you can scribble your thoughts on the show.

And with this bag, who would question your judgement?

Office Nikita Boot, £65 This ticks every box – the ob-

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ters.

Topshop Rhinestone Double Ring,

Forget everything you thought you knew about rhinestones. And although we’re still on the fence about rings that aren’t, well, just rings, this one is classy enough to convince us to test the waBiba Clutch, £TBC at House of Fraser Cocktails go hand in hand with clutches. Imagine that in your hand with Topshop’s rhinestones twinkling elegantly against the midnight blue background. Perfection.

Office Over the Top Wedge, £70 These aptly named wedges, are, we admit, terrifyingly high. But never underestimate just how grateful you’ll be of a platform when you’re trapped at the bar exchanging awkward small talk. *All

photos property of their brands

Oxford is not a name generally rattled off in lists of stylish cities. It doesn’t roll of the tongue like the litany of Paris Milan and New York, and you are more likely to see the influence of the university town’s style in a Harry Potter film than in Coco Avant Chanel. But Elizabeth Culliford argues it has contributed to our wardrobes more than one might think

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he Oxford Guide to Style is a popular book by Robert Ritter, available used from £17.95 on Amazon and no doubt thumbed through with eagerness on arrival. One of the most scintillating chapters deals with whether or not you should capitalise words derived from proper nouns such as ‘Hellenic’ ‘pasteurise’ or ‘Dickensian’. In the popular imagination, ‘Oxford style’ seems to have always been more about grammatical rules and a way of forming your vowels than any kind of aesthetic panache. But this is changing –and not because it is only a matter of time before a Gangnam-inspired flash mob are shouting the words ‘Oxford Style’ across Cornmarket Street, but because the fashions of this university town are having a resurgence all over the world.

It is best if we are brave and just give colour-popping chinos the column space they warrant, instead of leaving a red-trousered elephant kicking its feet in the middle of the room. This is not the first time that the hue has been on the world stage, but if you think they should have stayed as part of Santa’s comforting two-piece or been laid to rest with Michael Jackson after his scarlet leather Thriller ensemble, you would not be alone. Red trousers have been said to give the wearer the appearance of attending clown college – and, the author of this statement added ‘not even a prestigious clown college, a community clown college’.

The website ‘Look at my fucking red trousers’ is a picture gallery of men without chins but with red-trousers,

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guffawing at being written parking tickets, gurning with the lads and slinging guns over their shoulders.

There are photos which seem to point to the fashion’s Oxford roots; one boy standing in replies to a friend’s captioned question ‘how was your journey down?’ with ‘It was atchy rally rally boring’ . There is a clichéd but impressive shot of mid-chunder, carefully avoiding the crimson legwear, and – the clincer that shows something is linked to Oxford – a photo of a bunch of Durham boys trying to do it as well, from the university’s Red Chinos’ Society.

But the real sense that the website gives is that red trousers have marched their way across the country, onto tubes and into festivals. The Sabotage Times wrote that the red trouser has done a Gary Barlow and managed to go from completely ridiculous to actually kind of okay’. This is an understatement, as this trend is a few steps further than okay – a few steps down the catwalk further.

Fashionistas’ sunglasses are finally practical as we see women’s Marc by Marc Jacob’s silky red trousers sashaying down the runway at New York Fashion Show, and RED Valentino’s wide legged pants sear their burnt orange hue into our retinas. Any anti-red trouser fashion that is tangled up with British class animosity is not shared by the global industry. Retailers such as Japanese Uniqlo and stateside American Apparel have been knocking out the brightly coloured legwear and Dolce&Gabbana paraded men’s red velour trousers in the Fall 2011 Collection .

There is a bit of origin debate surrounding the issue, especially as Nantucket Reds – a style of the ‘guaranteed-to-fade’ cotton pants, produced by Murray’s Toggery Shop and based on the uniforms of the New York Yacht club – suggest that red trousers have American ancestry outside of the dreaming spires. However, the irony remains that these beauties - so long associated with the ‘privileged youth’ on both sides of the pond – are now being priced into the designer range above the Oxford student budget; no wonder Ralph Lauren’s stretch chino trousers are blushing crimson at the price of £159.

Now, from the faintly ridiculous to the timeless classic. The Oxford shirt is named after the Scottish fabric it’s made from, but it has long been associated with the Oxfordian look. It became fashionable for the young Victorian gentleman, its button down collar and distinctive weave the sporting man’s uniform of choice. It has been courted by designers throughout the century,

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featuring in Tommy Hilfiger’s first collection, where the Icon piece took the classic blouse, slimmed it, put a French cuff on it and added a brass engraved top button on the collar.

The Oxford shirt has been worn by everyone from Audrey Hepburn to Matt Smith as Dr. Who. JFK helped solidify the Ivy League version of the look for the States and it is becoming a staple piece for American designers like Ralph Lauren. For Oxford look the colours should be muted – the shirt white, the fabrics heritage, the trousers tailored , for the Ivy League look you can add dashes of colour. A bright red jumper, navy blazer, a light blue Oxford, the preppy possibilities are endless – and a non-white alternative is interesting as in a coloured Oxford shirt only the threads running one way are dyed, to give its distinctive look.

The Oxford is having a comeback – if you can say something has a comeback that never really went out of style. French Connection and Paul Smith have been pointed out as places to source these shirts, and Humor gives a modern take on the classic button down.

To size up the Oxford look, we will end at its feet.

‘Oxfords’ are brogues, a style of laced shoe characterised by shoelace eyelets that are stitched under the vamp. The Oxford is derived from the Oxonian, a half boot with side slits that were popular for university students. The side slit became a side lace that moved to the instep as students rebelled against knee-high and ankle-high boots. Maybe it is their cushioning against the cobbles of Radcliffe square, or their versatility to sign off flowery dress to androgynous cigarette trousers with a flourish, but these shoes have definitely stood the test of time.

Yasmin Le Bon has worn Bottega Veneta’s brogues at the end of her tanned legs for years, but it is the new generation of skinny Alexa Chungs which have stamped this trend into people’s heads. Brogues and brothel creepers have been seen at Chanel, Commes des Garcons and Paul Smith. Dolce & Gabbana added glossy brogues to slouchy three-piece suits while Sonia Rykiel put studded-soles at the bottom of her sequinned cut-out dresses. Gone are the days of understated plain leather too; Kurt Geiger boasts ‘paint splash brogue’ or ‘sparkly brogue’, you could spend £475 on ‘Brenna Brogues’ from Ralph Lauren Collection with a tan mesh. Louboutin pushes the boat – or the punt – out, by reinventing this Oxford classic in patent neon, and Lanvin’s slipper-like Green Velvet Brogue looks like it was made by elfish shoemakers.

Coat by Queen’s Wardrobe, vintage playsuit, Zara blouse, vintage earrings and model’s own boots

YOUTHQUAKE Styling by Kathryn Gilbert Photography by Dan Fox Modelled by Leonore Carron Desrosiers With thanks to the Covered Market

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Vintage blouse, vintage skirt and model’s28 own necklace

Vintage coat, Marks and Spencer poloneck, Topshop trousers, vintage earrings and ASOS shoes

Topshop top, Vero Moda trousers, ASOS shoes and model’s own jewellery 29

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Vintage coat, Marks and Spencer poloneck, Topshop trousers, ASOS shoes

Topshop shirt, Whistles jumper, vintage skirt and model’s own 31boots

“Design is a constant challenge to balance comfort with luxe, the practical with the desirable.�

- Donna Karan

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Could you give us an outline of your career to date?

I began my career in New York where I worked as an editor for a range of women’s magazine including the beloved Jane (RIP) and contributed to titles such as American Vogue, InStyle, Marie Claire and Essence to name a few. I eventually segued into newspapers, working for Metro International, a company that moved me to London where I currently live and work as global style director, and I’m also a contributor to Vogue.it.

What are the highs and lows of the job?

It’s hard to point just one high. Seeing Alexander McQueen’s last runway show, attending my first Chanel couture show and working with Karl Lagerfeld to produce a special issue, which was guest edited by him, are definitely some of my most memorable career moments to date. One of my favourite aspects of this job is meeting so many incredibly talented people. The closest thing to a low would be the intense round-theclock deadlines during fashion weeks.

What would you say are the fundamental skills to have and processes to go through to get into the industry?

A positive attitude, a thick skin, a sharp antennae and boundless energy help. So much is changing in the media landscape these days that there are no longer any set rules. When I attend a fashion show, there are people who got in the room through more traditional channels such as a course in fashion school and years working up the ladder at a magazine. However, there are just as many people who got there by starting up a blog and building their own audience. So while there are fewer traditional publishing jobs out there, recent graduates have more gateways into the industry than, say, five or ten years ago.

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Could you give us an outline of your career to date?

Most of my working career has been involved in the modelling industry. I started in a small London based international agency in the mid 80’s, as a trainee booker. After working with one other London agency, I was asked to join Models 1 in 1993 where I concentrated on the men’s division and in 1998, John, Karen and I succeeded in a Management Buyout at Models 1, as the original founders wished to retire.

We are very involved with the day to day business What are the highs and lows of the job? [Any anecdotes would be great!]

Thankfully, there are more highs than lows to the job as a booker. We are dealing with two clients, the model and the person casting or hiring the model, so we have to keep both sides feeling happy and special. We also have to manage the ‘let downs’ of the models, if they are disappointed in not getting confirmed for a big job, if they were on the short list.

If a new face gets catapulted straight into an international fashion campaign from a polaroid, because they have the right look which the client and photographer are looking for, then the new face gets instant recognition globally, in the fashion industry, when the campaign comes out, which can lead to many other career moves for the model.

We work internationally, so the models often have representation with one agency in each major city globally.

What is the working environment like?

At Models 1, we have a large open plan office and different booking tables with bookers for different divisions, which are Men, Women, Image, New Faces, Models 1 plus and Special bookings, and it is important that we all ‘cross fertilise’ across the divisions when it comes to talking about castings and budgets for the models appearing in forthcoming shoots.

There is always a buzz in the agency as models and photographers come in and out during the day. It is not a corporate environment, so there is a more relaxed atmosphere, with music in the background. We all work hard, but there is an air of creativity, supportiveness and fun within Models 1.

Are you involved with any other projects outside of Models 1?

Models 1 takes up all my time, which I am happy about, no day is ever the same.

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How much can those working on the business side of modelling expect to earn, and how does this vary?

If one is hoping to start a career as a booker, the starting salary is circa 18K, as, usually, the candidate has no experience, but has a huge interest in the business and an eager capacity to learn. Models 1 recognises those employees who are committed, loyal and hardworking early on and will reward them as they continue to gain experience as a booker.

A senior’s booker salary will vary according to experience, but it can be an extremely attractive package.

What would you say are the fundamental skills to have and processes to go through to get into the industry?

It is quite a difficult industry to break into, without knowing somebody inside it. We have an internship programme and we can sometimes offer the intern a permanent position as a junior booker. We also employ about five ex models which can be a huge asset to the team as they have had direct experience in the industry, especially if they work on the new faces divisions, giving great advice to the new models as they can talk about their past experiences. We look for passion for the industry, calmness when under pressure, confidence and a natural aptitude towards dealing with people.

Models 1 is fortunate that our staff have been with us a long time, we do like to promote from within the company and some of our bookers have joined as receptionist and have been offered the position of a junior booker when a position becomes available. They already have a flavour of the business from being front of house and we like to train the new recruits the ‘Models 1 way’ !

Any last words of advice?

Model bookers, generally, find the job hugely rewarding and, for most, it becomes their sole career. It is also a good platform for other careers in the fashion industry. I always say to anybody entering the fashion industry as a model booker that there is no finite term for the training. After 25 years, I am still learning, as the industry is forever diversifying and changing, which is why it is never boring. The industry, globally, can become all consuming, so bookers have to make sure that they do find time for themselves and to pursue their hobbies.

A booker’s working life can be very demanding and I have seen only a few over the years change their career paths but some of them have returned with a balance in their lives having greatly missed Models 1 and this crazy industry !

If you have an interest in the modelling industry as a booker or a model, please do get in touch with Models 1.

What attracted you to the beauty industry?

I began collecting perfume samples from the age of 6-7. It became a game for me to smell people and guess which scent they used. That process of smelling and remembering was the start of my interest in the perfume industry.

First I wanted to become a nose (né), who create fragrances according to a concept but I was not keen on taking a masters degree in Chemistry or Physics, which is a necessity for that side of the business. So, I decided to enter business school and majored in marketing, particularly in luxury brand management. I had teachers in the industry of fashion and perfume and I became more aware of the marketing side of the perfume industry.

Can you describe your experience in the perfume industry?

The European Apprenticeship program had me assigned to Christian Dior in an intern role. I was involved in the launch of the scent ‘Hypnotic Poison’ and supervised the retail format on the front line of promotion.

Events are a great way to connect with interested customers. Working directly with the Managing Director, I attended launches where I would explain the product and the concept. Perhaps surprisingly, I learnt the most on the sales floor of Gallerie La Fayette. That kind of direct interaction with customers allows you to realise firsthand what draws them to the product. In Milan I worked in operations where I focused on merchandising and placement of the perfume. That involved research into the best distribution channels and analysing turnover.

Something that disillusioned me concerning the industry was the way I began to question the meaning of

luxury. Although I was working for a brand that many would perceive as luxurious, I would see customers buy ten or twenty bottles a time. This approach to the brand made me redefine my concept of luxury and realise that rarity is an integral part of what I consider truly luxurious. In addition to the high price, I find the image and the way in which certain brands For me, luxury is like Hermes, more about image and environment, Dior is too tacky and cold. Luxury is about the price but also the image and the story of the brand.

What was the working environment like?

I must admit there is a lot of judgement about exteriors. Working in luxury also means people tend to be more snobbish. When you work in fashion or beauty you cannot say that you do not care about the way you look and do not consider that important.

What advice do you have for people in the beauty industry wishing to have international careers?

The best advice I can give is not to over-evaluate yourself but also not to under-evaluate yourself. I learnt the most in the sales booth of Christian Dior and I believe in any career you must experience the industry at its most basic level. It is easy to slip into being pretentious about this but in the lower positions you are directly in touch with your customer. You can feel the brand, the customers, the image and what the brand evokes.

Next, I cannot stress the importance of languages in our day and age. I would focus on one foreign language and recommend learning French or Italian if you wish to advance in the fashion or beauty industry.

My last piece of advice would be to travel and visit stores all around the world to feel brands. I have spent a few years in Japan and find the stores incredible.

Luxury and marketing in general is about telling a story and making a history.

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Two Oxford students share their different approaches to breaking into the industry last summer

Lilly Grosse-Buening, the current President of Oxford Fashion Society opted to take course in Luxury Management Which internship to choose in your second year can be a tiring experience, especially if you don’t feel like going down the more conventional routes such as banking or law. What I didn’t realise was that deciding what I didn’t want to do was already important in moving me a lot closer to what I did want. After many hours spent on making lists of strengths and interests, it suddenly hit me. I had always been interested in brands and the way they affect us, why people buy a Prada bag for 1000 pounds when a similar design is available for 200.

They say that marketing in any industry is essential, but in the luxury industry it is defining.

Naturally, making a decision and executing it takes place on two different levels. LVMH, Richemont or PPR- those companies seem a long way away from everyday life in Oxford. Imagine how ecstatic I was when I discovered a summer course in Paris that was tailored specifically to those students interested in a career in the luxury industry. The program looked perfect: three weeks of intense seminars and lectures at ISC Business School covering a wide range of aspects, starting with a general introduction into the luxury industry and moving on to more complex topics such as brand strategy or cross-cultural management.

Additionally, I would get the chance to meet experts from the industry; managers, consultants and university professors. The one con: the price. This lead to yet

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another evaluation of pros and cons and how I could justify to my parents that rather than doing a paid internship I was planning on doing a 3- week course in Paris. Luckily, the pros outweighed the cons and I got to go to Paris.

During my time there, I completed three weeks of six hours of lectures per day. The course enabled me to get a general insight into the different industries: wine, hospitality, fashion, auction houses, cosmetics and accessories all formed part of the curriculum. What I found especially useful were the case studies we had to work on: one day I had to evaluate the Hilton Honors program performance against that of Starwood, the next day I got to analyse Salvatore Ferragamo’s performance in China. The other participants of the program had come from all over the world: Russia, Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam and India were all represented in the seminar room at ISC Business School. The program was incredibly varied so that there was no day that I would be doing the same thing. Along with cultural visits, tests and group work set by the professors, my time in Paris flew by.

What I have taken away from it? The confidence that this is what I want to do and the reassurance that this is the area where my strengths, interests and ambitions meet, along with a great amount of knowledge and, of course, one of the best experiences I could ask for. For all those among you who feel that, despite Oxford’s incredible career options, there is something else out there, I urge you to define it and pursue it. I know that by making this decision I am laying the foundation to what I hope to be a successful and exciting career in the industry.

Our L’Oreal insider shares the experiences of a six-month internship at the global luxury brand and asks, “L’Oreal: is it worth it?”

Everybody told me that L’Oréal was the best stepping Everybody told me that L’Oréal was the best stepping stone into the luxury industry. There was a point when I thought my beautiful Telescopic False lashes, flawless Lumi Magique skin and Elnett Satin soft hair would do the trick. Not quite. Nobody told about the countless numerical tests - I assumed that was only for investment banking, which really isn’t my thing - and endless interviews on the phone, on Skype, in person... in English and French.

Miraculously, my application was accepted. I found myself a swanky studio apartment in the 18th arrondissment and the day after moving to Paris I began my new life as a stagiaire parisienne chez L’Oréal. On my first day I had no desk and no computer - not quite the glamour I had been expecting. But by the end of the week I was shooting videos for online marketing, drinking champagne at lunch and photocopying my colleagues’ derrières at midnight.

So how did this global brand come about? I now know that it was established in 1907 by a chemist called Eugène Schueller. He named his first hair product “l’auréole”, French for “halo” because it would make the user look like an angel. After Schueller’s death in 1957, François Dalle took over the company. Dalle had a vision to sell products through different levels of distribution, corresponding to economic, psychographic and psychological trends, as well as consumer needs: Sally buys for convenience, Lauren likes her stylist

to decide for her and Hannah will only take what her pharmacist recommends. Then, when the company’s products entered the US market after World War II under the name Cosmair Inc., growth boomed.

By 1963 Cosmair had acquired $6 million in US sales alone. Over the following few decades L’Oréal had a series of mergers and acquisitions with several other market leaders – Lancôme, Garnier and Maybelline to name but a few – which greatly increased its consumer reach.

Here in my office in the banlieue de Paris, I can see the work that goes in, trailing the internet trying to find a way to break into foreign markets. From what I’ve learned of L’Oréa it’s no surprise that the brand came to dominate the cosmetics industry. L’Oréal realised the power of the global corporation early on and set up international brand teams, which I suppose is what I’m doing now. The motto is: “We sell the United States to the Americans, the United States to the Chinese, Italian elegance to the Japanese, French beauty to Africans, and Japanese chic to Brazilians.”

My colleagues are level-headed, business-minded professionals, but ones who would rather sell Glam Shine lipgloss than a Lamborghini. It’s an exciting industry but it is hard work. By the end of these six months, I think I’ll be needing Revitalift. Perhaps I ought to bag myself a few free samples now... or maybe I’ll spend the money and make a purchase. Because I’m worth it.

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At every Oxford career event you come away with more flyers than hands, for more investment banks, consultancy firms, or law firm that you ever thought could exist. Firms named after three and that offer comfortable pensions beckon you into their dark suited arms. If you are unfortunate to have only got in to do an arts degree and have no interest in The City then TeachFirst will delay your impending unemployment but apart from that, there aren’t a plethora of options advertised. But there are those who find careers not advertised on stalls at the Exam Schools. Industry rifles through the records and has a look at the Oxford’s alumni who have found more fashionable homes for their talents. . .

Danica Lo, Senior Online Fashion and Beauty Editor of Glamour.com Subject at Oxford: Masters in Women’s Studies College: Wadham Previously studied: Linguistics BA at Dartmouth College, then studied Fashion at Central Saint Martins The job is: Overseeing the fashion and beauty verticals at Glamour.com Location: The Americas Path taken: I lived in Egypt for a year after my MA and worked at the American University in Cairo teaching in the journalism and mass communications department and overseeing the university newspaper.

After completing a fashion degree, I was hired as a fashion columnist at the New York Post. I left the Post in 2010 to launch the national site Racked.com and was recruited in 2011 to be the senior fashion and beauty editor at Glamour.com.

Leanne Gelderd, Chanel’s Senior Management Accountant Subject at Oxford: Mathematics College: Worcester When she wasn’t looking at numbers: Charities and RAG Rep, Rowing, Swing dancing, Football The job is: Forecasting, budgeting and monthly management accounts reporting Running presentations and leading a team of management accountants Supporting the business from a finance and cost management perspective

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Path taken: Worked at Conde Nast Publications for four and a half

years, then trained as Management Accountant and became CIMA qualified. Promoted to Head of Management Accounts, worked for BT for six months and then started at Chanel in December 2010 Best parts of the job: It’s a very commercial role so I am involved in the business and the decisions made. I enjoy managing a team as it is rewarding to help their careers progress.

Worst parts of the job: There are mundane tasks in any financial role such as checking reports and reconciling differences.

Pearls of wisdom: Start in the right sector early as it is very difficult to move sectors, especially in the current economic climate when all employers are asking for prior industry experience.

Stephan von Perger, Business Development Manager of StylistPick Subject at Oxford: Computer Science College: Lady Margaret Hall When he wasn’t looking at a computer screen: O x ford University Investment Finance Society The job is: The business side of a fashion driven e-commerce start up based in London Location: Europe Path taken: Internship at the global management and strategy firm Booz & Co, then direct hire into McKinsey after my Bachelor degree. I worked there for 2.5 years and then joined a start-up in London. ** Information taken from Oxford Career Network

“The man who, as is often said, can get away with wearing a trench coat over his dinner jacket, or an old school tie for a belt, is the one who in fact understands best the rules of proper dress and can bend them to suit his own personality and requirements.� - G. Bruce Boyer

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T

he suit can literally be everything and the suit

can do everything.

The colour and pattern of a suit’s fabric can project an image - sharply suited lounge-lizard, dapper dandy, or professional businessman. The cut can enhance the shape of the body; a well-shaped suit will make a large man appear slim, the short man tall and the skinny man well-built. Tailoring really is an art form and- take it from a suiting obsessive - it will reward the man who pays attention to what he’s putting on before he chooses to wear it.

Very few men realise that a suit will always look better hanging on that peg in the shop, unless you think very carefully about a number of important issues. In this feature I intend to blow the whistle on all the devilish little details relating to fit, cut and colour that will ensure that, when you wear that suit, you’re the best dressed figure on the street.

First things first. Nowadays, a lot of gentlemen use one suit for everything and flog it to death, but one should remember that different suits have different purposes. Since the lounge suit emerged in the 1880s, right up until that dastardly affair that was the ‘casual revolution’ in the 1970s, various suits have projected very different images. Formal events in white tie and tails gave way to the dinner suit (and please, it is not called a ‘tuxedo’) in the 1920s and the lounge suit has steadily been evolving ever-since – just compare the flamboyant three piece dress suits of the Jazz-Age to the super-slim Mod Suiting of the 60s.

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With over one hundred years of tailoring history to draw upon, there is no excuse for us modern day gents to not embrace the concept of dressing formally in a variety of ways. This means a business suit to look professional and clean, a lounge suit to wear to parties and brighter, louder fabrics with less traditional styling for dressy formal occasions. Are you trying to nail an internship or cut a dash at a cocktail party? You need to know.

Choose the right suit and just watch it do its job properly. . .

HEADS. . .

Three key words here gents; fit, cut and colour. Mastering these concerns truly does separate the men from the boys.

Remember that different skin tones will suit different colour palates. Chaps with darker skin, hair and eyes will suit cooler colours such as icy greys, RAF and French blues and taupes, whereas guys with paler skin and fairer hair will look best in richer hues; chocolate browns, deep charcoals, royal and navy blue for example.

Avoid plain black like the plague - even for sub-fusc suits, I have checked, you can wear any dark colour.

As a dye, black does not take well to cloth and consequently, all too often plain black suits look cheap. If you have to have black for a dinner suit then make sure it is cut in really good fabric.

As for patterns, stripes will elongate the silhouette while checks will make you appear more broad, so you may want to opt or avoid particularly flamboyant versions of either pattern, depending on your physique.

SHOULDERS. . .

Jackets are by far and away the most tricky element to fit properly; trouser proportions are all pretty self-explanatory so just make sure that trousers are snug and sit on your waist instead of slouching around your bum - a less elegant image I have never seen.

A suit should hug the shape of the wearer’s body; shoulders should be snug inside the jacket, and reach the end of your collar bone where your shoulder sits in its socket, leaving your arms to actually fill into the jacket armhole.

Many people think that the shoulders should fit right over to the outer-edge of the arm - not true, wearing your jacket like that is the most common faux-pas that will ensure that it hangs off you like a bed-sheet.

The back of the suit should curve in-line with the spine, not hang-off it shapelessly like a sack. This will also help the waist to fit properly and provide the slim, masculine hour-glass figure that it’s supposed to. In a similar vein, a waistcoat is, by its very definition meant to define the natural shape of the wearer’s waist, so should be figurehugging.

GET THOSE KNEES AND TOES OFF TO A TAILOR. . .

You can’t cut a dash in something that hasn’t been cut to fit you. Often, a tailored garment will only fit properly if you have it altered to fit your body more closely once you’ve bought it - find yourself a reputable, skilled alterations tailor and for £25.00 he will take the jacket in through the waist and get it draping around your middle properly, providing a tailored shape instead of something that just hangs off you and flaps around your torso in a disgustingly shapeless fashion.

There are also aspects of suits like ingenious ‘facing’ and ‘reverse’ trouser pleats, which can work in a variety of combinations to produce different leg shapes, but sadly which are now the preserve of bespoke tailoring, rather than off-the-peg suits.

Trust me here, the little things make all the difference.

Words by Aleksandar Cvetkovic Illustration by Sage Goodwin 43

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Matthew Robinson outlines the inconsistencies and oddities in the marketing industry for the popular phenomenon of male cosmetics

e live in a post-alpha age, where the presence of male cosmetics has reached out of the shadows of the theatrical minority and into a new metrosexual population. With men discovering newfound comfort in male grooming, the aesthetically unconscious male stereotype seems to have disappeared. Male cosmetics are everywhere, but before we declare a win for this new found liberality, we might need to question the intentions of its marketing. In many cases this marketing is no less antiquated than the original male stereotype that cosmetics such as ‘manscara’ and ‘guyliner’ appear to reject.

You need go no further than Boots to see how male cosmetics are being marketed to appeal to a male audience. What is regularly described as an ‘age eraser’ is in reality nothing more than liquid concealer, and so-called ‘cover up’ is just foundation. This blatant disguising through cosmetic terminology is even more prominent amongst highend brands who often opt for covert and hidden names for their products. ‘L’Homme YSL Radiant Touch’ says nothing about what the product really does, but most certainly avoids the dreaded words ‘concealer’ and ‘foundation’. Ingenious packaging presents male make-up as something completely disconnected from women’s cosmetics, regardless of the fact that the product itself is absolutely identical inside the different shaped bottle. The issue is that this differentiated marketing then bolsters the idea of fundamental differences between men and women, the kind of basic binaries that should surely be undermined by the very market of male cosmetics.

Whilst male cosmetics unpick the ‘man’s man’ chain mail, does the androcentric branding belittle the progress made? Or does it create a self-perpetrating denial which will continue to render makeup as something alien, and stop men from truly claim-

ing it as their own? With this attitude, make-up will continue to remain something which is distinctly ‘other’, rather than truly redefining its gender association. These men are not fooling anyone; people know what make-up looks like and no one should feel the need to delude themselves.

Make-up doesn’t have to be something to hide and deny. Men have worn it for centuries; it has always been associated with tribal warfare, it forms an intrinsic part of the theatrical world through the ages, and is often medically prescribed for the side effects of skin conditions. The most sought after male pin-ups in the media are partial to a bit of slap, painted up for hours before television appearances or live shows. It doesn’t make sense for us to berate male cosmetics when we so readily idolise figures who use the products. Moreover, make-up shouldn’t be regarded as something necessarily feminine; it doesn’t have to accentuate the eyes, add red to your lips and blush to your cheeks, it can merely be a way of covering up imperfections.

There is no reason why men should have to walk around with glaring blemishes when women have the freedom of covering them up, and no reason why make up shouldn’t be seen as a simple tool for self-esteem.

A rejection of the veiled marketing of male cosmetics, would not only liberate men, but also women. Men’s reclamation of cosmetics might down the stark dialectic between the presentation of men and women and create a more liberated, less gender-assigned image. So it might just be time for men to make a bit more of an effort, and the cosmetics industry should be straight about this.

Regardless of the more open and liberated attitude towards male cosmetics, the antiquated marketing methods do nothing but reinforce typical gender roles. Considering male cosmetics are a product which aims for the very opposite, the industry of cosmetic marketing seems misguided.

Anna Stelle examines the contribution of male and female designers to the fashion industry

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t’s no secret that fashion is thought of as largely the domain of the female. There might be a real prevalence of male designers - Lucas Ossendrijver, Kris Van Assche, Paul Helbers, Alessandro Sartori , the list goes on. The figures might indicate that sales of luxury menswear, which currently comprises over 40% of the global market, are growing at nearly double the rate as those of its feminine counterpart. Despite all this, the media’s incessant focus on the womenswear market ignores this trend. What’s more, this failure is ultimately in line with our intuitions: the phrase ‘high fashion’ conjures images not of suits, but of haute couture. It recalls lavish Galliano gowns and slinky Valentino playsuits, and doe-eyed models at Chanel gliding down the runway like pallid angels. Inaccurate as the perception may be, it is difficult to argue that fashion-like ballet, like cheerleading, like needlepoint-- is seen in popular culture as for, and about women.

Historically, and somewhat counter-intuitively, fashion is a men’s game. Perhaps this focus can be traced all the way back to the days of Charles Worth, master dressmaker of the later 19th century and ‘Father of Haute Couture,’ whose designs were worn by everyone from French Countesses to the great Sarah Bernhardt.

Elevated to fame by his adoring female clientele, Worth is significant not only for being the first designer to have gained international repute for his work (and the first to have sewn labels inside his dresses), but for being a powerful influence on the cultural milieu of his age. And here is the truth of the matter – that although the fashion industry so intent on dressing the female form, it is dominated almost entirely by men.

For every Chanel or Schiaperelli, there are twice as many Patous, Poirets, Balmains. The 60s and 70s saw the establishment of Mary Quant and Vivienne West-

wood, but only as distinctive exceptions to a Cardin, Ungaro, Lacroix-heavy rule; and while the 80s and 90s may have been the decades that brought us Donna Karan and Miuccia Prada, they will likely go down in archives of fashion history for being the era of Halston, Calvin Klein, Armani.

In 2005, The New York Times observed that of the 37 prizes the Council of Fashion Designers of America had awarded to young designers since 1986, only eight had gone to women. The situation in Europe is no different; a passing glance at the runway reviews of any recent season will reveal that the vast majority of major

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European fashion houses (YSL, Dior, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, Rochas) have male directors.

Even those such as Lanvin, Chanel, Nina Ricci, which were initially established by women, currently have a male at the helm. And while the fashion world hungrily searches out its next Marc Jacobs or Christopher Kane type ‘wonderboy’—its more discerning devotees are left with the realisation that the closest thing to a ‘wondergirl’ in recent memory has been the young Pheobe Philo at Chloe...in 2001.

The reason for the status quo is less clear. The most likely explanation might simplest; that women have traditionally worked in fashion houses as pattern-makers or beaders instead of as designers for the same reason they have worked in offices as secretaries and not as executives. The fine work of sewing and construction was long seen as the woman’s domain; and the exercise of authority, both creative and managerial, as the man’s. It is also possible that family commitments have barred the ascension of women in an industry known for its long hours, solitary work nights, and singleminded dedication. Whatever the reason, the result is

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that far fewer women than men hold executive design positions in the fashion industry today.

Things, however, may be changing. The fashion world might not have had a proper ‘wondergirl’ since Pheobe Philo but it has arguably come close with the recent appointment of Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. In 18 short months at the house, Burton – McQueen’s former personal assistant – has reanimated the bold vision of her former mentor, gained bucket loads of acclaim for her first collections, and was even commissioned to the design the Royal Wedding Dress.

And she is not only one—Philo’s old boss Stella McCartney establishes herself each season as the one of the foremost designers of chic, modern womenswear in the world. The past few years have also seen the installation of Maria Grazia Chiuri at Valentino, the rise of red-carpet darlings Marchesa and Rodarte, and the growing popularity of newer faces like Isabel Marant, Alice Roi, and Mary Katrantzou, among many others.

With these shifts in the houses of McQueen and Valentino, as well as recent shuffles in leadership at YSL (now ‘Saint Laurent Paris’) and Dior, the current theme in fashion is to embrace change through the lens of regeneration: the best of the old, made new. This vision of heritage can also be a useful lens for appreciating the rise of the female designer. For it would be a shameful inaccuracy to say that the rich catalogue of male-dominated fashion hasn’t produced stunning and unparalleled pieces of design. Lagerfeld dresses, Lanvin shifts, and Balenciaga gowns are things of exquisite beauty. They deserve to be worn, admired, sighed over; and they have rightfully earned their inscriptions in design history. Increasing amounts of female creative teams will not diminish this, or eliminate the perspectives that make these houses great; they will simply add new and equally valuable perspectives to our catalogue of choice.

If the hallmark of a great male designer is the ability to understand what women want, and the unique talent of a great female designer is the ability to understand what women need, then perhaps the great advantage in have access to the best work of each is that men design for who women want to be, and women design for who women are. Any discerning client wants—needs— both, the dream and the reality. In supplementing the more traditional structures creative leadership with talented female voices the rapidly changing landscape of modern fashion makes our present from the very best of the past. And thank goodness for that.

Industry’s resident Guardian of Fashion, Albert dello Russo cuts to the fashion quick

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1 Yes she is my sister

She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes - Lord Byron

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Birds of a feather Make-up by Kathryn Gilbert and Grace Buck Modelled by Ruth Alice Broadbent Photography by Caroline Ames Illustrations by Georgia Wells

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birds of a feather

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Estee Lauder Disappear Smoothing Crème Concealer, £17.50 If you buy one product from this list, make it this one. One tube lasts a year and it’s hands-down the best concealer we’ve ever come across. Giving incredible coverage without caking, and lasting all day, this product is great value for money and deserves a place up there with the Touche Éclats of the beauty world.

YSL Touch Radiant Touch £25 Christian Dior Skinflash Radiance Booster £26 A battle between two industry musthaves, having tried both, the Diorshow offers more coverage but the Touche Eclat has a greater brightening effect.

Both are easy to blend into the skin and combat dark eye circles.

YSL Le Teint Touche Éclat Foundation, £28 Yves Saint Laurent has reinvented their cult classic, and it gives exactly the results you’d expect - the elusive ‘dewy glow’ foundation. If you’re looking for all-day wear, we suggest Estee Lauder’s Double Wear Light Stay-in-Place foundation £27.50) but this gives you an unrivalled complexion.

53 Illustrations by Inez Januszczak

Burt’s Bees Pore Refining Green Clay Face Mask, £14 Mix with carrot juice for mature skin, tomato juice for troubled skin, green tea or grapefruit juice for oily skin. The mask dries speedily after application and after washing off, pores and blackheads are visibly minimised. No heavy fragrance, just a slight smell of menthol.

DHC Deep Cleansing Oil, £18.50 This Japanese brand offers a line based on the anti-oxidant, plumping properties of olive oil and Vitamin E. Team with a foaming cleanser or even Cetaphil’s tried-and-tested Gentle Cleanser. You might not think applying oil on oily skin would be a way to combat spots yet this cleansing oil unclogs pores and gently removes make up.

Kiehl’s Super Fluid UV Defense, £31 Lightweight and not at all oily, Kiehls have created the only moisturiser with high levels of both UVA and UVB protection. The texture is akin to a runny lotion and it sinks into the skin very quickly.

Admittedly, the price is rather high but a tiny blob spreads around the face adequately so if you are judicious in application, a tube can last a while.

Neal’s Yard Rehydrating Rose Facial Polish, £15.50 Many facial scrubs can be too diluted or too abrasive, but this one gets the formula just right. It’s lovely to use, smells great and for once you can actually see the effects straight after rinsing it off.

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Maxfactor False Lash Effect Fusion Mascara, £11.99 Every mascara says it can do all manner of wonders, yet in our experience there’s only such much one product can really be capable of. But this mascara is the closest we’ve found to perfection yet, keeping the balance between dramatic and natural.

MUA Starry Night Palette, £4 Coming in at just over 30p per shade, this palette is ideal for those of you who want to experiment with eye shadow.

The colours are all highly pigmented and go on smooth, so are just as great to play around with as they are for daily wear.

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion, £14.50 Wave goodbye to days of eyeshadow creasing and fading. This primer keeps eve shadow and eyeliner intact throughout the day. Even low pigment eyeshadows are given more vibrance if this is applied as a base. A very small amount will suffice per application.

Barry M Bold Waterproof Eyeliner, £3.99 The holy grail of liners, combining the longevity of liquid with versatility of kohl.

In terms of value for money and quality, this eyeliner far exceeds its expensive counterparts from the likes of MAC and Benefit. This is one product where paying more doesn’t necessarily pay off.

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain, £7.99 Essentially a crayon for your lips, this stain is easier to apply and is far more longwearing than its marker pen alternatives.

Unlike conventional lipstick it won’t cling to chapped lips or fade after a few hours.

Fool-proof in seven different shades.

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Roses red and violets blew, And all the sweetest flowres that in the forrest grew.

Edward Spenser - Faerie Queene, Book iii, Canto vi

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Concept by Kathryn Gilbert Styling by Kathryn Gilbert and Grace Buck Modelled by Claire Williams and Lucy Adams Photography by Charles Roberts With thanks to the Turl Street Kitchen 56

ASOS dress, bespoke Georgia Wells headband

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Three Floor dress and Temperley clutch

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59 Coast dress

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Left: Hannii Y dress, right: ASOS dress

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62 BCBG Max Azria dress

Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it. - Yves Saint Laurent

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‘This talk of blue jeans was making me very jealous.

Of Levi and Strauss. I wish I could invent something like blue-jeans. Something to be remembered for. Something mass.

‘I want to die with my blue jeans on,’ I heard myself say.’

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975)

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lot of people do fulfil Andy Warhol’s dream and die with their blue jeans on.

A recent UCL study on global denim showed that on any given day, more than half the world’s population is wearing denim. The basic faux-indigo cotton twill with double stitching and rivets are almost identical in markets from Laos to Turkey to Mexico, and it is no longer a surprise to any anthropologist that there are shamans in Wranglers in the most remote parts of the world.

The blue stuff is high on figures not just in breadth but in depth, with the average American woman owning eight pairs of jeans.

In August 2006 Ruby Warrington wrote an article in The Guardian on the death of denim. The world had been predicted to end two months before the article was written, on the date 6-6-6, and pundits’ claims of the end of the global denim industry are becoming like these Doomsday prophecies; every year someone hits the news with a theory about a comet or the four

horsemen of the apocalypse, and every year the world gets past the day they circle in red on the calendar.

And it is still wearing its Levi’s.

We are rough with denim. It is one of the few fabrics that we are comfortable speckling with bleach, tearing at the knee, staining with rust and fraying, breaking the material down as if in a costume department before the jeans even enter a store, let alone are purchased.

In the 1970s there was a flood in the hotel room where Georgia salesman Hal Burgess was storing jeans, and so Burgess asked the hotel owner if he could rent out the pool to wash the flooded jeans, which shrank and became the first marketed ‘pre-washed’ jeans. But denim was never the princess of textiles; it is a bit dirty, both in the sexy way 15 year old Brooke Shields told us that nothing comes between her and her Calvins and in the way that it makes garments for industry; ‘the jeans that built America’ (Wrangler) and ‘the official uniform of New York’ (DKNY).

Diesel married the muddy with the lusty when it ran

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‘the luxury of dirt’ ad campaign where a maid rips jeans off a young man to try and wash them, and when, in 2005, an 115 year old, oldest wearable pair of Levi’s in existence was auctioned for $60,000,000 it was said to have been the slurry and mud never washed off from the mine that helped with the preservation.

There is something anti-fashion about the material– as well as its ubiquity making it invisible, maybe it’s the almost blasphemous use of it to make your mum’s gardening jeans, or the fact that it is an outward symbol of not knowing what to wear, and also, of course, the tightrope walk done between double denim and looking like a mid-western country singer.

The economic theory of a fashion industry that creates demand based on the requirements of fashion production doesn’t fit with denim – it is about the most conservative item that we wear, the popular brands stay popular and the style remains very basic. So while commerce finds ways to make denim profitable and capitalism may help to account for designer denim, for the industry as a whole it contributes very little.

Also, despite good ole’ denim waist overalls in the factories manufacturing American dreams, there are many reasons to think that denim can’t be just seen as the blue in the star spangled banner and that the industry should be understood in relation to concepts of the global and the local. It’s been said that our love of it is down to James Dean, the rebel without a cause in a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Or Marilyn posing in light blue. Or Bruce Springsteen’s denimed bum on the album cover of ‘Born in the USA’ against the red and white stripes. But the explosion of the global denim industry isn’t down to any of these iconic stills, it is down to movement - of everyone from Italian sailors to thirties cowboys and everything from the market crash of 1929 to the deregulation of imports to the US and Mexico in the ‘80s.

The story of jeans begins far away from Victoria Beckham’s sprayed-on Rock for Republics, in the sixteenth century in the Italian city of Genoa. The corduroy-like fabric was used for all-purpose trousers for the Genoese navy that could be easily rolled up while swabbing the decks, and when they were sold to French stevedores at the port, they were described by the French as ‘de Genes’ which has blurred into the term we use today. In the French city of Nimes, weavers tries to reproduce this material but ended up producing another kind of twill fabric, a fabric ‘de Nimes’, and this word too was quickly abbreviated.

German-born Loeb – later Levi – Strauss arrived in San Francisco in the 1850s in the midst of the Californian Gold Rush, armed with a lot of calico to produce tents for the miners. He was a little late with that idea as

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there was already a surplus of tents, but he did find that there was a shortage of material for making durable work trousers. He got hold of some denim and teamed up Jacob Davies, who had been using metal rivets on horse blankets, and wanted to try reinforcing pockets with them.

The five pocket look - the tiny one not originally for coins or condoms but for a pocket watch – together with the rivets, became the uniform for miners, farmers and working men of the USA until the 1930s. The travelling Wild West Shows of figures like Buffalo Bill Cody also introduced blue jeans to the city kids of the eastern states and later the Hollywood production of ‘Westerns’ helped establish the wardrobe staple over the world.

Crises like the Great Depression and World War II precipitated the events that first elevated jeans to their status as an icon of American modernity, travelling over the globe on the thighs of soldiers and marines.

But jeans are not just American and the strands from Italy, France and Germany which had woven together to begin the story of denim jeans, have frayed off at every rim like a well-loved pair.

In Brazil jeans are sold as ‘bras for the bum’, marketed as giving lift to achieve the locally desirable figure, in Berlin there is a penchant for carrot-cut jeans, while in America Kanye West caused controversy by drawing attention to cultural restrictions on jeans, saying ‘Black people can be. . .the most discriminating. Especially among ourselves. It wasn’t white people who said all black men have to wear baggy jeans.’ Jeans have become a staple of Bollywood films and denim has even become a contender in material chosen for Muslim hijabs. During the Cold War, when jeans were seen as a corrupting Western influence by Communist leaders, some would pay 250 roubles to get their hands on a smuggled pair when the average monthly wage was 200 roubles. In South Korea they see Japan, not America, as the jeans producer to watch and copy.

Giorgio Armani said ‘Jeans represent democracy in fashion.’ He was right. Denim is of the people. I was born in 1992 and it would only be a couple of years before I would have my first pair of little jeans to waddle around in, getting them dirty like the sailors and the miners. But the year I was born was also the year of the 100th issue of Vogue. And for the front page of high fashion, Anna Wintour chose to dress her models in white t-shirts and matching denim jeans.

Elizabeth Culliford

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Once upon a time, they just made the clothes. Now, Finola Austin looks at the role played by designers in marketing their products in the fashion industry.

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he fashion industry isn’t fair. Trying hard won’t make you a supermodel. If your interior decorating budget can only stretch to B&Q then your house won’t be getting a spread in Vogue. No one owes you a place working at Dior and if your legs don’t reach to your armpits you won’t get onto the catwalk.

But away from the mirror shine hair of the top models and the wives of oligarchs who are buying up all the Haute Couture, there was an ideal of the creative, the artisan, the designer who’d sketched out outfits since someone bought her a toy fashion wheel. It didn’t matter what she looked like or how much money her family had. All that mattered was her vision. She could work hard, rise to the top and see her collections clothe the world.

This fairytale-esque idea of a girl at a spinning wheel is fast proving to be a false one. For one thing, the fashion industry’s obsession with the female form is extending to the bodies of designers. Ask anyone on the street to name women designers and the names you’ll hear are likely to be those of celebrities, whether collaborating with High Street chains (think Kate Moss at Topshop, Myleene Klass for Littlewoods) or setting up their own brands (a la Danni Minogue or Lily Allen). Male designers’ attractiveness is largely irrelevant, but where female designers are involved, it’s no longer enough for a beautiful woman to model the clothes - at every stage of the creative process brands want to involve the women whose faces can sell magazines and to suggest that bodily perfection and creative skill come hand in hand.

Nowhere is the potentially disturbing and sexist nature of this trend clearer than in the recent spate of celebrity lingerie designers. Having a celebrity design a range is a promotional dream. Not only is there the opportunity for a glossy spread of images, as there would if she were just modelling, but there is a high level of media interest in securing interviews, due to the potential titillation of reading about a beautiful woman’s inspirations for designing highly sexualised goods. This September’s Elle had its cover interview with model-turned-(Transformers) actress-turneddesigner Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley, following her lingerie collection for Autograph at Marks & Spencer.

The headline? ‘Rosie Confesses’. Second question?

Her boyfriend’s reaction to her designs. Last line of the article? ‘There’s so much more to Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley than lips and legs’. Who could doubt

it? On the opposite page there she sits, mouth open, straddle-legged, top falling off her left shoulder to reveal her self-designed bra.

The genetically-blessed Cruz sisters (Oscar-winning Penelope, top model Mónica) will shortly be designing a diffusion line (L’Agent) for Agent Provocateur.

‘It is so exciting for me and Mónica to embark in this new adventure’, Penelope explains. I’m expecting to see scantily clad sisters draped over each other in photoshoots and questions about whether they’ve ever shared a boyfriend by the time the collection launches next year.

Taking this to almost parodic levels is the story of French 20-year-old Zahia Dehar. Embroiled in the country’s sleaziest sex scandal of the decade, Zahia was an underage prostitute who was flown to Munich as a ‘birthday present’ for French international football star Franck Ribéry. The case has lifted - and continues to lift - the lid on the wholesale pimping of often young and vulnerable girls to France’s elite, yet the career trajectory of Zahia herself (a household name in the country) has been extraordinary. She has made the apparently natural move from high class escort to lingerie designer and (of course) model. Making money from her body when she was 16 made her a victim – now she is a savvy businesswoman. Her designs have made it onto the Paris Fashion Week catwalks, she is a ‘muse’ for Karl Lagerfeld and her name has become a brand.

Yet key to this reinvention is the fact that it is hardly a reinvention at all. Zahia’s designs may be made from luxury materials, yet they consistently reference her sordid past – models wrapped in ribbons (the ‘Gift’ collection) or the woman herself appearing styled as a fashion doll to emphasis her youth, bikini clad in a plastic box. While Zahia’s desire to carve out a post-scandal career for herself is understandable, the fashion industry’s fetishisation of the sex trade and the obsession with the objectification of women, even as they take on a creative role, is much more worrying.

Lagerfeld situates Zahia in a tradition of powerful eighteenth century French courtesans, but there are many ways in which this could be read.

The fashion industry does look unfair to those struggling to get into it – to young designers seeing untrained celebrities get coverage they could never dream of – but what it can suggest about the very women it does hold up as icons is potentially more sinister.

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Elizabeth Culliford looks at the power of clothes in other fields, charting the garments that have become synonymous with individuals who have changed the world both through good works or immense destruction

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ark Twain said ‘Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.’ Whether it is Adam and Eve donning their fig leaf outfits or the French revolutionaries identifying themselves as the sans-culottes to make a statement against the aristocracy, fashion has always played a vital role in our cultural history and informed social change.

Think of Joan of Arc getting her trousers on for battle, or the Kennedy/Nixon debate where a light grey suit finished a president’s career. Remember the Israeli President Shimon Peres rubbishing the flamboyant Gadhafi in his lifetime by saying “Who needs this Gadhafi person? He should go work for Dior instead.’

Industry takes a look at the people who changed the world over the last century and what they wore to do it. . .

Suffragettes The ‘soldiers in petticoats’ wore their blouses soft and their hair long to counter the accusations that they were mannish or had no decorum. They were Burberry fans, had a special relationship with the newly opened Selfridges and you can see adverts for ‘charming hats for the June 17 demonstration’ from Derry and Toms.

In 1908 a new law was passed that stopped women wearing hat pins no longer than 9”, because people worried that the suffragettes would use their hat pins as weapons. This crack down changed the style of hats to more scaled down smaller pieces of head wear.

Charlie Chaplin

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Chaplin made the world laugh and made film an art, but the Tramp costume that he did it in came about in an emergency. A cameraman told him to go and make himself look funny – cue the baddy baggy trousers, tight coat, large head, small hat, what Chaplin called ‘raggedy but at the same time a gentleman’.

Albert Einstein The genius did refuse to wear socks, even when invited to the White House, though the myth that he had a wardrobe full of copies of the exact same shirts and suits so as to be able to spend more time thinking about the ‘big questions’ in life isn’t true. .Einstein’s second wide, Elsa, took charge of his fashion while she was alive and pictures of them touring the world show Einstein in everything from a kimono to a Native American headdress.

When Elsa died and Einstein moved into Princeton his staple clothing shrunk to sandals and jumpers.

Mahatma Gandhi The shooting of Indian coal miners made Gandhi adopt traditional Indian peasant dress, saying that it wouldn’t be right to wear European mourning dress. Clothes were a huge part of Gandhi’s statements; he held bonfires of foreign clothes, and popularised the Gandhi cap for independence activists in a country where headwear is hugely divisive.

Coco Chanel Chanel championed a style that had been unthinkable for women – the sailor suit, minimal hats, the skinny suit, the dress shirt, short hair. These ‘garconnes’ are the precursor to the women’s liberation .

Frida Kahlo The artist is noted for mixing indigenous and traditional Mexican garb with chunky jewellery and for braiding ribbons and flowers in her hair. She also used her bohemian style as a shield against her physical deformities; her signature flowing broomstick skirts veiled a maimed right leg and her peasant blouses concealed a stiff corset.

Adolf Hitler The dictator wore plain military uniform to inspire confidence and suggest he was a man of the people – just as Napoleon wore the colonel-in-chief uniform of one of his guard regiments. Some of the outfits look ridiculous now – the Sun printed a photo-shoot of Hitler in shorts, leaning up against a tree which the heading ‘Mein Camp’, but not then. Powerhouse fashion brand Hugo Boss even provided uniforms for the Hitler Youth and the SS. Jackie O JFK’s first lady supported creative adventures in the fashion industries and is known for her iconic round sunglasses, pillar box hats and sadly that blood-splattered pink suit. She loved Dior and Chanel but her look was easily translated to American women, and Michelle Obama even seems to have stolen her trademark pearls.

Martin Luther King Dr King has been hailed as a public figure who understood the art of the three piece suit, with high armholes, proper jacket sleeve to cuff ratio and a tie that hits perfectly just above the belt.

The Beatles From the famous Vidal Sassoon-esque bowl haircuts and narrow-cut mod suits to the

garish Indian garb of the Sergeant Pepper phase, The Beatles changed popular culture with their outfits. Not only were they selling a few records; they were also selling trends, as millions bought Cuban-heeled boots and little John Lennon glasses.

Mother Teresa Mother Teresa wore the same outfit every day: a white sari with three blue stripes, reflecting her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience – not even bulking up when she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in the snow.

Nelson Mandela It’s been said that before 1994, you could have mistaken parliamentary sessions in South Africa for a contest of whose suit is the greyest or whose hat has the biggest brim. Mandela changed that: his signature Madiba shirt of brightly printed silk, named after his clan name, gestured towards his heritage and gave a splash of colourful optimism to the future. The Madiba shirt was designed by Desre Buirski and was first worn at the dress rehearsal of the opening of SA’s first democratic Parliament.

Chairman Mao The Zhongshan suit, a development which combined Western and Eastern fashions and that was based on the Japanese cadet uniform became Mao’s own personal brand. The three hidden pockets became four outside pockets to adhere to Chinese ideas of symmetry, and now the tunic, always in a stale grey, green or blue, represents communism around the world.

Princess Diana In 1994, just as a documentary on Charles’s infidelities was airing, a leggy Princess Diana wore that LBD to a Serpentine Gallery – a ruched mini dress that hit the front pages instead of the marital story. Ever mindful of the power of fashion, three years later she auctioned off 79 of her favourite gowns at a Christie’s auction that raised $6 million for AIDS and breast cancer charities.

Vladimir Putin It’s more about what Putin doesn’t wear. He likes to ride stallions, catch fish and hunt animals bare chested – apparently he is trying to be of clean living, as well as showing that he could probably kill you with his – equally bare – hands.

The Obamas On his days off Obama might wear questionable, high-waisted mummy jeans but most of the time he looks like a leader in finely made dark suits, crisp white shirts and camera-friendly ties. His style is not about branding, it is about not belonging to anyone else. Statuesque Michelle really is the ‘first lady of fashion’ with her armbaring dresses, block brights and puffy skirts, and the four Obamas are famously colour coordinated for public events.

Illustrations by Helen Reid

An Erasmus student’s attempt to experience a real life outside of the Oxford bubble, a life to be looked back on with wrinkles of joy and not regret... and all draped in sartorial splendour.

DISCLAIMER Have been in Germany for over two months now. Inevitable collateral damage: death of my senses of fashion and humour.... hardly the prelude to a great fashion article. Read on if you dare and at best with very low expectations.

Day 1: Return to Oxford I’ve been away a month. What have I missed most? My parents, my friends, the rolling hills of my youth, a good cup of tea with FRESH milk (what is with the German obsession with UHT... seriously), crossing the road when the man is red without being arrested for crimes against humanity? Above all, Topshop. Fine... perhaps my boyfriend does scrape joint first.

So I return to Oxford with what can only be described as a buzz of excitement down below. That’s right. I’m wearing my recently purchased velvet shorts! Let me explain my excitement.

I spent two years bemoaning the lack of H&M in Oxford.

Avid aesthetes, calm down! It is the last and only resort when already broke in 4th week. Well, apart from P*****k but let’s not be vulgar. The only place to shop in Constance is H&M. Irony, screw you right back.

Returning to Topshop is like coming back to an old lover flattering, familiar, and knowing just how to tickle my fancy.

I’m beguiled by these slinky black shorts. Declining 20% student discount event tomorrow, I pay the full £32. This should alarm for two reasons: 1. I am a serial bargain-hunter, whose skill is matched by none.

2. £32 = 15 beers for a German student. A sacrifice to be sure.

Karma’s a bitch. It follows that fashion karma is an überbitch.

(Yes I’m fluent already.) The next week I spot the infinitely better, McQueen-esque, oxblood version. 30 beers’ worth on piddly shorts? Doubtful.

Day 2 : Expert’s Guide to Surviving a Hangover Step 1: Pillow talk re previous night (Replace blackout with shameful realisation)

Long-distance/long-suffering boyfriend: (Plaintively) ‘Can we please not have a drunken argument tonight?’ I have a lot of making up to do.

Step 2: Dress appropriately Sober resting body temperature: hypothermic reptile (No exaggeration. I can’t even use Blackberrys as they don’t recognise my touch as human.)

Hungover resting body temperature: earth’s core.

Fashion’s answer: Dress as skimpily as the (cursed) night before. I choose my navy blue playsuit (Urban Outfitters): backless for increased airflow to molten body.

Step 3: Replenish energy (stuff face) Go to Wagamamas/Edamame for the sweet solace only ramen can provide. Bowl must be bigger than own head to cure effectively.

Step 4: Rescue relationship Flying in the face of fashion, I wear my boyfriend’s hoodie over my playsuit. An existential crisis? (First and last time I wore a hoodie was DofE). A sweet show of solidarity? I wish.

It’s just so goddamn comfortable. The German practicality has influenced me beyond recognition.

Step 5: Hair of the dog.

Turf. Old Rosie.

Day 3: Catching up with an old friend This outfit is an absolute homage to the importance of knowing how to sale shop. Pay attention as it is my (only) area of expertise.

Once in a blue moon, H&M gets it right. Even less frequently, H&M customers get it right. The result is that you might be able to find a gem which has gone unnoticed by the undiscerning and undeserving eye. Four years ago I bought what is still the crème de la crème of my wardrobe.

It’s a silver sparkly slouchy jacket for only £10, left to rot in the sale section in favour of the equivalent Lana del Ray get-up of the time. I genuinely believe the jacket has magical properties, rendering any outfit immediately fashion-forward. It can be thrown over a T-shirt / a dress / worn alone but belted: it is versatility epitomised. I pair it with a Topman green printed shirt (£12.50 in the sale). Topshop sales are getting increasingly lacklustre but Topman has an abundance of sale shirts and jumpers (from £10!) which are right on the money, pardon the pun.

To complete the sale-rail ensemble I wore my Carvela flats (black velvet, sparkly toe caps). At £20 - originally £40 - they were well worth the trip to the miserable treasure trove that is TK Maxx. The outfit was almost too hipster to function but sartorially sublime. I finished it with my black Mulberry bag, ALSO purchased in the sale by Mummy Dearest. She knows her stuff.

Day 4: Travelling in style Packing frantically on the night before my very early flight.

The mother comes into my room to ask (read: assess) what I am wearing tomorrow. I gesture towards an oversize Topman denim shirt on the bed. The shame is blatant, the maternal advice mock-subtle: ‘When I travel, I always dress well. That way people do you favours!’

I don’t need to school you on the power of looking good.

The advice is particularly pertinent, however, as I have chosen to hobnob with the fat cats in Swiss Air over slumming it in Easyjet. Problem: all my clothes are packed and the residue is a bounty of fashion faux-pas and sentimental garb: that cream smock, that T-shirt from Seaworld etc. ad (literal) nauseam.

Hardly the stuff of ‘Allow me, Madame’.

So attempting to dress to impress at 5am the next morning starts to get pretty eclectic: gold dress (hitherto worn only as fancy dress), black glittery boots (completely inappropriate for that ungodly hour) and the glue holding the confusion together? A beige checked coat (very 1920s...male).

Rolling my suitcase along, it’s fair to say I looked like the 9-months-later evidence of an orgy between Sherlock Holmes, Alice Cooper and Cleopatra. But the amalgam met with my mother’s... approval. Long story short, my baggage weighed 5kgs over the limit. The grumpiest check-in woman ever declined to give me the 50 Euro fine. The power of looking good strikes again? A mother always knows.

Day 5: Dinner Party My trip home has re-anglicised me. I go all Karl Pilkington and force everyone to have a roast dinner party. I also discover that my desensitisation to the Germans’ penchant for 24/7 casualwear has finally worn off. My county must take the credit: the Garden of England (with a distinct lack of understated English roses), where dressing down is skipping the third layer of fake tan. I break out the black, bodycon, (as described by a male friend) ‘titty dress’ and accessorise with Alice Cooper boots and black tights scattered with the silver letters of HOUSE OF HOLLAND. Scandal just follows some people. Considering the designer, the odds of H and O appearing in quick succession are very high. As I whisk Yorkshire pudding batter some spills right next to H-O. The crude image provokes and eruption of laughter and jokes matching even the unsubtlety of EL James herself.

Titty dress and HO-bag hosiery... You can take the girl out of Kent....

Day 6: Fishy Interview With much chagrin I realise my choice to live (and die) by the wine glass requires funding far beyond my grant from my Sugardaddy, Erasmus. I wrangle a job trial at a fancy restaurant.

I am instructed to wear a formal black shirt. I agonise over whether a (very) sheer black pussy bow blouse would suffice/ get me arrested. I meet (and judge) the other waitress wearing a plain black T-shirt. Formal wear?! Oh the cultural difference. When I tie my apron around my waist, the boss sniggers, ‘Nicht wie eine Oma’. Help me. high waist·ed: only acceptable waistline known to fashion world. high waist·ed (Germany): grandmother’s girdle.

I pulled the apron further down. My hips felt violated.

I feel quite glamorous scurrying between the bourgeoisie of Baden-Württemberg with their mounds of moules and mulla (it is a special sea food night), lighting candles and polishing glasses. The bubble soon bursts. There are prawns everywhere. As I tackle the mound of washing my pussy bow delights in bathing in the fishy residue. After 3 washes I can still smell those shells. It’s probably permanent psychological damage at this point. Should have worn a T-shirt.

The next day the boss offers me the job. I refuse (to smell like a dead mermaid once a week).

Day 7: First day of Uni Now for a guilty admission. My most fashionable outfit to date: silver skirt from Topshop, cinched with black and gold leather belt, vintage black leather jacket, Topshop flat rattan sandals with black suede detailing... And the top, you ask?

Doors T-shirt... Men’s Section... H&M. Looked bloody brilliant too.

The next day I apply for a job at H&M. This may the last fashion article I write. Thank you and goodbye.

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