Manolo Blahnik: shoe heaven in London and Paris

Wall of shoes in Manolo Blahnik’s new boutique in the Jardins du Palais Royal, Paris

Could it really have taken until 2019 for Manolo Blahnik to open a shop in Paris?  The first shop in Chelsea’s Church Street, opened in 1973 and was followed by a Madison Avenue store in New York in 1979.  But Parisiennes have had to wait until now for their own shop.  It was certainly worth waiting for.  The gem of a shop nestled in a corner of the secluded Jardins du Palais Royal occupies the historic site of the Cafe Corrazza, Jacobin HQ in pre- and post-revolutionary France.  The shop has been sensitively re-purposed, the original tiled floor the same one that Napoleon’s feet are said to have trod.

Now the revolutionaries have been replaced by walls of the most exquisite shoes, many in styles that would have delighted Marie Antoinette herself.  With shoes as delicate as confectionery, who needs cake?

Back in London’s Burlington Arcade, Mr Blahnik has taken possession of a former pen shop to open a man’s shop next to the ladies’ store.  A rainbow of suede brogues now sits on little fold-down shelves that once held a prism of coloured inks.  The till is housed in a pedestal and a steep winding staircase takes you up to discover two more floors of bliss.

Best of all: the mens’ range starts at size 5 (38) which makes them popular with many females who, like me, may adore high stilettos but appreciate even more the comfort of a lace-up.

So now Mr Blahnik bestrides the Channel – whether you are in London’s Burlington Arcade or Paris’s Jardins du Palais Royal you will never be far from shoe heaven.

Les Jardins du Palais Royal, Paris: home of the new Manolo Blahnik boutique

Best of all the Wallace Collection has just extended its Manolo Blahnik: An Enquiring Mind exhibition until 27 October, so there are many more opportunities ahead to view his beautiful creations.

http://www.manoloblahnik.com

The Most Beautiful Umbrellas in the World

It can take M Heurtault more than 300 hours to make one of his umbrellas or parasols, depending on the style and detailing, which could include antique lace, ostrich feathers, embroidery, jade or horn.

These umbrellas bear no resemblance to those that you might pick up in a convenience store during an unexpected shower. These are hand-crafted accessories, carefully calibrated to bathe the holder in a flattering glow and to sit beautifully balanced in the grip whether sheathed or open.

The silk twill is sourced from the same suppliers as the top fashion labels and treated to be fully waterproof and the whole umbrella is intended to be a life-long artefact not a disposable commodity. The mechanism is firm and sturdy in the hand: these umbrellas are built to stand wind and rain as well as to look stunning.

M Heurtault has been awarded France’s highest honour of artisanship: the Master of Arts, his workshop a Grand Atelier and you have probably seen his work in films and TV.

He sells his beautiful constructions at Galerie Fayet, a jewel of a shop in the picturesque Passage Jouffroy, only a few steps but a world away from the neon of the Boulevard Montmartre. Here in the shop, you enter a world in which a walking cane can hide an epee or a stiletto, or perhaps hold a minature picnic kit.

I found a wonderful umbrella here. It was a simple monochrome striped silk twill, sleek and light as a quill but with a steel frame strong as an exoskeleton. It was an accessory straight out of Cecil Beaton’s conjuring of Ascot races for My Fair Lady.

Now, equipped with my brolly and a rather natty Maison Michel black fedora, I’m ready for whatever weather the English autumn throws at me.

http://www.galerie-fayet.com
http://www.parasolerieheurtault.com

The three-day fedora (almost)

With a long, late summer bank holiday weekend on the horizon, it seemed like a good opportunity for a millinery project to get me in a more autumnal mood.  I had an ocelot-print felt hood and suddenly the time seemed right to turn it into something, but what? My eye has been attracted to high crown hats just lately so I started to think about a fedora-cloche hybrid with a steeply sloping, narrow brim.  I made a few sketches but decided to be guided by the felt itself.  Instead of blocking the hood like a cloche, I would drape and crease the felt and just see what folds it naturally took.

The inside-out felt hood

Day 1: I started by stiffening the felt hood.  I made up a solution of 1 part PVA glue to 4 parts water and then added an equivalent amount of methylated spirits and whisked it up into the foulest cocktail you’ve ever seen.  Then, taking a short, stubby brush, I turned the hood inside out and started working the stiffener into the felt in circular movements, spiralling down from the crown.  Its really important to do this in a well-ventilated place – outdoors if possible – because you’ll be exposed to potent fumes for at least 20 minutes (depending on how many hoods you are working on). Once that was finished, I left the hood to dry and stiffen overnight.

 

 

Day 2: The next day I readied my block, covering it with clear plastic to protect the wood but avoid risk of colour transfer from the plastic to the hood. I held the hood over a boiling kettle to soften it enough to turn it back the right way around again.   Then, placing it on the block I was able to start gently moulding the felt.  It seemed to fall naturally enough into the dimpled crown shape of a fedora, and then moving downwards, I turned up the brim on one side and worked it around into a steep slope.  The hat was starting to take shape as a forties-style, draped and slant-brimmed hat.  As I worked I tried it on every so often to check that the style worked for me, not only in a front-facing view but all the way around. It can be so easy to forget that the side profile of a hat can be even more striking than the front view. Having checked the sides, I decided that the brim needed better definition. Borrowing from cloche technique, I took some cord and cinched it around the circumference where I wanted the crown to meet the brim and where the sweatband would sit inside and the hat band outside.  I nailed it in place and then left the hat to harden into shape, sitting on the block.  This marker line would be a crucial guide for aligning the interior and exterior bands with the position of the hat on my head, especially important when working with an asymmetrical brim.

 Sweatband pinned inside the hat

 

Day 3: I faced what I knew was going to be a tricky step.  As I suspected, the hat was a little too large.  This was because the high crown had lowered the position where the conical hood would sit on my forehead.  What to do?  True milliners please look away now: as it was not a dramatic mismatch, the unorthodox solution I devised was to sew in a sweatband that fitted my head snuggly and hope that I could make it align with the hat.  It was somewhat of a bodge job but it worked. Pinning the sweatband into place was difficult but once I started stab-stitching it in, things got easier.  I smoothed the band against the felt as I went and made sure I kept the band aligned with the marker line I had created.

Hatband #1

The final stage was to add the exterior hat band.  I experimented with several different colours: mustard is always great with leopard, pale blue was interesting, oxblood was bold, emerald was opulent but limiting.  I settled on a pale primrose that seemed subtle enough to blend with the print but keep some contrast.  I cut the ribbon to the circumference of the hat with an additional 2.5cm overlap and ironed it into a curve before sewing it together.  Then I cut a second, 12cm piece of ribbon to wrap over the join and sewed that into place too.  By tradition, for ladies’ hats the ribbon join is positioned on the right.  I gave the hat a final check on my head before putting in a few tiny invisible stitches to hold the band in place.

Hatband #2

 

 

Day 4: A day later, the primrose band just looked wrong. I replaced it with a new hat band in oxblood and now it looked right.

 

So where did inspiration come from? As I looked at the finished article, a remembered image started to re-surface and a quick rifle through some of my files uncovered it: a picture from Vogue Paris, perhaps 2 years old, featuring a leopard print coat with a stunning pastel blue Stephen Jones hat.  Subconsciously, I think this image was guiding me all the time, I just never realised it until the hat emerged.

Snap up some Louboutins and Dress for Success

Fancy a pair of Louboutins?  Or a Lanvin vest dripping with flapper-style beading?  Or perhaps a butter-soft Chloe perfecto in lush olive suede is more your thing?  Then you need to know about Dress for Success and their pop-up shop in Covent Garden’s Neal Street.  It opened today and will be there dispensing gems like these to lucky clients until Saturday 19 August.  Miss it at your peril.

Even better, you can feel good about every purchase you make because Dress for Success is a charity doing wonderful work.  If you’re reading this blog then I don’t need to tell you about the power of clothes to make a person feel confident, strong and ready for challenges ahead.  But clothes can also be a source of anxiety.  We’ve all known the problem of having nothing to wear, despite a wardrobe bulging at the seams and rails buckling under the strain of too many hangers.  But for some women, the problem of having nothing to wear is real, especially when it comes to facing the crucial test of a job interview. Dress for Success has their backs because it not only clothes them but preps them for the interview, boosts their confidence and – once they’ve been offered the job – provides them with a capsule working wardrobe.

So if you’re in London drop into the shop and snap up some Louboutins.  Or even better, donate some clothing or volunteer your help.  As a volunteer for them myself I can’t remember a time when I had so much fun, met so many wonderful people and laughed so much. So beware: you may get much more out of this experience than those fabulous Louboutins.

#DFSlondon

35-37 Neal Street, Covent Garden, London; 11-7pm until Saturday 19 August.

Is there enough velvet in your life?

Kim Basinger smoulders in the film LA Confidential

Velvet – isn’t it just the height of glamour? Always chic but especially on-trend this winter, with Prada’s luxe midnight velvet hiking boots, Gucci’s gorgeous teal velvet bag and Demna Gvasalia’s strapless gowns for Balenciaga.

Why do we love it so? Its extreme softness and delicacy has made it a luxury down the centuries. Elizabeth I actually made it illegal for any subject below the rank of knight to wear velvet, so concerned was she about devaluing its currency as a mark of nobility.

Collection of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

She need not have worried: velvet has maintained it luxury edge down the centuries. When Charles Worth, the man widely credited with creating the first haute couture fashion house, opened his design salon in 1858, he quickly became known for lavish fabrics and embellishment. This richly beaded velvet jacket from Worth even draws clear inspiration from tudor style with its structure and puffed sleeves.

Velvet seems to have originated in Baghdad in the 9^th century.  It reached Europe in the middle ages through Venice, the main thoroughfare for the spice route between Asia and Europe.  The city has maintained a close association with velvet through the ages, culminating in Mario Fortuny’s exquisite devore and printed velvet cloaks, coats and tunics, produced in the city in the early twentieth century, and recently celebrated by A S Byatt’s excellent book, Peacock and Vine. Fortuny was an inventor and an artist – fashion was only one of his talents which also extended to lighting and theatre set design. To this day, no one has managed to discover the process he invented (and patented in 1909) to create his signature creased and crushed silk “Delphos” dresses. Lucky ladies buying the dresses received them rolled and wound in boxes.

Velvet can be made from cotton and linen – typically heavier textiles – as well as in lighter silk or silk/rayon mixes. The fabric lends itself to a range of textural effects, from devore, in which the velvet is burnt with acid to create a pattern, to crushed velvet (see left). It can also be woven in combinations of colours to make it appear iridescent.

Since the start of the twentieth century velvet has featured strongly in every decade’s fashion. In the Jazz Age of the 1920s flappers wore lustrous embroidered velvet opera coats, referenced by John Galliano in his 1998 haute couture collection for Christian Dior (below).

Christian Dior haute couture 1998 opera coat from the collection of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

1913 illustration of a “white velvet coat embroidered with pearls”

Art deco of the 1930s brought a more minimalist feel in which colour and design were pared back to bring out the beauty of luxury fabrics themselves, as seen below in a panne black velvet necktie trimmed with ermine.

The 1940s and 50s saw the return of colour and pattern, especially in hats as velvet was used for percher hats and half-hats. The shimmer of the fabric highlights and flatters skin tone (see above).

Balenciaga green velvet opera coat from the collection of the Fashion and Textile Museum, London

The greatest couturiers of those decades, Christian Dior and Cristobal Balenciaga, also used velvet frequently in their collections. Dior’s H-line collection (Autumn-Winter 1954-55) was inspired by tudor court dress, while Balenciaga manipulated green velvet into a pattern mimicking astrakhan fur for this opera coat.

The 1960s saw the rise of perhaps one of the greatest designers to use velvet in his collections: Yves Saint Laurent. Who can forget his black velvet flamenco hat from the iconic portrait of Lou Lou de la Falaise by Steven Meisel? Black velvet was a staple ingredient of his evening dresses and featured strongly in some of his most famous collections – as bodices in the “Russian” collection of 1976 and as knickerbockers in the “Chinese” collection of the following year.

Lou Lou de la Falaise by Steven Meisel

Lou Lou de la Falaise by Pascal Chevallier

And what better lesson for us all in how to wear it than to study Lou Lou above? Velvet needs attitude for sure but it also needs a little disrespect. Pair it with jeans for Parisienne glamour, with leather for a rock chick edge, vamp it up with black jet to reference Victoriana, or go classical with contrasting white satin.  No wardrobe is complete without it.

This post first appeared as a guest blog for The Gathering Goddess

 

 

A Capeline never fails to flatter

A classic image of the wide-brimmed capeline is Bette Davis in Now Voyager and Bette and her genius costumer designer Orry Kelly, knew their stuff.  I’ve yet to meet the person that isn’t flattered by a wide brim.  Especially when the brim is wired – it means you can play with it, shape and angle it for maximum flattering effects.  Dipping it down over one eye, a la Bette, is a good way to go, as is getting the brim to run parallel with your jaw line, helping accentuate it.  The capeline is a marvel of engineering – practical, ergonomic and beautiful.

#LHW London Hat Week 6-12 October 2016

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The pillbox hat – glamourous minimalism

A black velvet pillbox hat is a classic example of 1960s minimalism.  This one reminded me of the fabulous little pillbox that Audrey Hepburn wears in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, especially with the addition of some white spot veiling to recall the more flamboyant white feather on the front of Miss Hepburn’s hat.

The film clearly shows the transition from 1950s studied glamour to 1960s spontaneity.  The clean lines of Hepburn’s Givenchy wardrobe and hats have the simplicity of combinations she has come up with on the spot.  They look youthful and fresh compared with the high glamour of Patricia Neal’s Pauline Trigere ensembles that have the feel of an entire top-to-toe ‘look’ crafted by the designer.  Over a decade after the original ‘New Look’ of Christian Dior in 1947, it was time for a fashion re-set and the pillbox was then, and is still, the perfect minimalist touch.  Add a few feathers or a veil and create some drama.

Are you going to London Hat Week?

#LHW London Hat Week 6-12 October 2016

http://www.londonhatweek.com/

The cloche hat: Jazz Age modernism

Nothing so epitomises the Jazz Age like a cloche hat.  First appearing around 1914 in designs by French milliners Lucy Hamar and Caroline Reboux, it was a reaction against the wildly extravagant picture hats of the Belle Epoque, groaning under the weight of their embellishment.  It summed up the modern, practical spirit of a world of female emancipation, motoring and minimalism.  The cloche looked fresh and youthful and crucially, helped to keep newly bobbed hair smooth and sleek, as it still does perfectly today.

#LHW London Hat Week 6-12 October 2016

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And check out Jazz Age Style at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum at their Autumn blockbuster exhibition – http://www.ftmlondon.org/

 

 

Glamourizing the beret

Berets are classics and for good reason.  Everyone can wear a beret but the trick is getting the angle right.  Just experiment with it: is it better dipping to right or left (very few people’s faces are symmetrical so the effect will be quite different).

Or perhaps you prefer it pushed back off the face a la Faye Dunaway’s Bonnie Parker?  Or maybe your beret is the serious kind – a French intellectual, or a tudor-style Thomas Cromwell?

This one was inspired by Steichen’s iconic 1924 image of Gloria Swanson, eyes piercing through a veil of black lace.

#LHW London Hat Week 6-12 October 2016

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Percher hats – an easy-to-wear shot of elegance

Percher hats are usually small and light and secured by covered elastic to the nape of the neck.  As daywear they bring instant pzzazz – see Gucci’s AW 16-17 ad campaign that pairs a black percher with an 80s style suit in Times Square.

For evening they can sizzle with glamour with the addition of veiling and some sparkle.  If in doubt, check out Woody Allen’s latest, Café Society for the classic Hollywood take.  They also convey something of the Air France hostess – when air travel was still something for which you actually dressed.

This is a vintage hat, revamped with a little modern embellishment.  Easy to wear – just decide which side of your head to tip them and adjust to the best angle for maximum effect.  If its good enough for Alessandro Michele at Gucci, its good enough for me.

#LHW London Hat Week 6-12 October 2016

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