CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN

anthonymcgrath405 / 09/07/2014

Tour de Smith – Paul Smith in full Cycling mode

If you were lucky enough to have beared witness to a glimpse of the Tour de France past through the country this week, you will surely known that the country seems to be in the grip of cycle frenzy at the moment. Now one designer, who is totally known for his great passion for peddle power is none other than the great Sir Paul Smith.

By special invitation from the British Government, Paul Smith has designed three posters to mark the cultural importance of the Tour de France and its arrival in the UK. With the design taking inspiration from the three UK stages of the tour, the posters celebrate the momentous occasion. One reflects Saturday 5th July, the first day of theTour and when the athletes will cycle 190km from Leeds to Harrogate through the Yorkshire Dales. The second, in green, is Sunday 6th July when they’ll cut a dash over the Peak District from York to Sheffield. The third, bright blue poster accompanies the final stage in the Tour’s visit to the UK when the peloton will race 155km from Cambridge to London ending onThe Mall. After which theTour will continue in France.

Limited edition, signed versions of each of the three posters are available to win by those who post images of themselves with their bicycles using #takenwithmybike on Instagram andTwitter.Winners will be selected at random. Get involved!

No one could accuse Sir Paul of resting on his laurels as he has just teamed up with MRPORTER.COM to launch Paul Smith 531, an exclusive range of specialist cycling outerwear and accessories.

Bringing together Paul Smith’s passion for cycling and the latest developments in technical fabrications, the 11 piece collection features lightweight jackets, cycling essential accessories and an all-black racing bike designed for city cycling.

The Paul Smith 531 range is named after the famous Reynolds lightweight bike tubing used by Tour de France champions. The number refers to the ratio of manganese (5), molybdenum (3) and carbon (1) in the steel alloy. Built in collaboration with Mercian Cycles, a British bespoke bicycle retailer, the bike forms the centrepiece of Paul Smith 531 adding to the MR PORTER sports category.

Take a look at Sir Paul Smith talk us through how he came up with the idea in a short film below.

anthonymcgrath405 / 02/07/2014

Ted-tastic luggage – Ted Baker launch Luggage

Don’t you just hate standing at the baggage carousel, on a right downer after a great holiday and all the bag on it look like yours ?!?! Well those wonderful guys from Ted Baker have thought long and hard on how to solve this problem without you looking a right plum with some day glo yellow, stand out from the crowd, suitcase.

The have come up with both a men’s and women’s range of hard-sided and ultra lightweight polycarbonate trolley suitcases. The men’s range takes inspiration from herringbone. One of the oldest forms of woven linen, dating back over 2000 years to the Roman Empire, where the design was used in some of the finest textiles.

The Ted Herringbone pattern is featured across the framed front panel in either a masculine Navy or Charcoal Grey. The cases have clever little touches to them paying homage to Ted Baker’s quirky and unique style, for instance, the wheels on the case have been cleverly re-imagined as shirt buttons. Plus the organised interior, designed for optimum packing efficiency, and features the brand’s unique “Birds of Prey ” lining, with soaring Eagles, Owls, Falcons and Hawks.

After all we must remember, travel does broaden the mind, but as Ted, himself says, it’s how you travel as much as where you go, that makes the Journey one to remember.

anthonymcgrath405 / 01/07/2014

Ensure you’re looking good at the Nineteenth hole -Trickers X Wolsey

Now what do you do if your one of the oldest existing clothing companies in the world. Who during the 19th century quickly established itself as Britain’s premium manufacturer of finest quality hosiery and a champion of knitwear innovation, opening one of the first steam powered factories in 1859 and you want to produce a pair of top notch golf shoes ?

Well you turn to a 180 year-old family business, who’s a premium specialist of handmade leather shoes; based in home to Great British footwear, Northampton. This company is renowned for its heavy brogue shoes and boots and has supplied his royal highness, The Prince of Wales, for 5 years before being given a royal warrant.

I am of course talking about two sterling heritage brands coming together to produce one sterling product. Wolsey and Tricker’s have joined forces to create a special-edition Golf shoe, which marks the first time Tricker’s is offering an off-the- shelve model. For the collaboration, Wolsey envisioned a simple and timeless design, emphasised by a traditional welted construction. Authentic craftsmanship is evident through materials like calf leather uppers and linings, a leather insole and a stitched leather outsole.

Jamey Hargreaves, Chairman & Creative Director, Wolsey, says of this collaboration.

“Wolsey approached Tricker’s as we wanted to produce a hand-crafted golf shoe made in England. Our shoe is very clean and minimal with our signature Wolsey red as an internal pop colour, which conveys our overall brand aesthetic “less-is-more.”

anthonymcgrath405 / 27/06/2014

Milan Menswear Shows -Shows Review -Spring /Summer 2015

The Milan Menswear Shows have come around again and although many are complaining about London stealing Milan’s Thunder with the hugely successful London Collections:Men, surely no one can moan when your schedule contains such household names as Gucci, PRADA, Giorgio Armani, Versace and Calvin Klein, to literally name but a few ????

Dolce & Gabbana

Now, its not uncommon for designers to cite jaunts to far off climbs as inspiration for their collections, but this season in Milan I half expected Judith Charmers to jump out from the end of the Catwalk and start giving me a review of her stay while in Milano. We had Donnatella Versace falling in love with the people of Cuba, there was Stefano Pilati of Ermenegildo Zegna finding divine inspiration from a temple in Greece and Dolce & Gabbana drawing on the Spanish occupation of Sicily and that was for starters.

Calvin Klein

Apart from all that travel malarkey, Italo Zucchelli for Calvin Klein worked with lots of naked flesh tones for Spring 2015 from pastey whites to sun kissed browns and inserted flashes of primary colours in for good measure.

Missoni

However, over at the House of Missoni nothing could be further from the truth. Angela Missoni working to the tried and trust recipe of producing great clothes in this most wonderful house pattern and not managing to make it look like a dogs dinner.

Prada

Then over at PRADA we saw a collection, where at times you were left puzzled as to whether you were watching a Womenswear or menswear show. Miucchia Prada held her show set around a swimming pool and had both boys and girls parade around it, although very 1970’s inspired garb, at the same time incredibly commercial and equally wearable.

Diesel Black Gold

Diesel Black Gold continued with its reboot under the watchful eye of Nicola Formichetti, who like John Varvatos was on a real military tip mixing a contemporary rebel skater silhouette with Crimean military style jackets.

Fendi

Penultimately, we have an ultra wearable collection for next Spring from Fendi, offering Summer must haves for ever well dressed international jet setters, catering for the rich young things who party in all the beautiful places and insist on being impeccably turned out.

Lastly, we get to those crazy Canadian combo Caten twins, Dean & Dan of DSquared, see the below image as the twins kinda take on military. In their fluro camo print, which we predict will be one of the most ripped off, sorry inspired prints that we see on the high. Street next Summer.

DSquared

anthonymcgrath405 / 25/06/2014

Ola Fashiola- The new way to search for style

International fashion search engine Fashiola launched in the UK recently – Fashiola, ‘The Fashion Finder’ is the new and easy online way to find products from favourite fashion brands from high street to high end designer.

As the first website of its kind in the UK, it enables us to browse for fashion products from all brands at a glance – brands available at the website include TOPMAN, Farfetch, Scotch & Soda, Hugo Boss, Franklin & Marshall, APC, Paul Smith and Diesel with more brands being added regularly

Internationally Fashiola already offer over 3 million products from 500 shops to help sartorial loving shoppers, no matter what their budgets find the items they want with ease. In the Netherlands and Germany, Fashiola enjoys two million search queries each month, and 700,000 unique visitors. Additionally, Fashiola users can set product ‘sale alerts’ and be notified on price reductions instantly( we all love a bargain). Shoppers can also save products in their account and receive alerts when the size and style is back in stock!

Peter Langenkamp, Managing Director of Fashiola, had this to say of his product when we caught up with him recently.

“We believe that there is a great demand here for our service and commitment to providing a fast, easy and unique shopping experience. The strength of our brand is evident in our fantastic fashion brand partners in the UK. There are thousands of online fashion shops, but how are shoppers able to search for a particular piece of clothing quickly online? We
have solved this problem by giving a complete overview of all brands, prices, styles and availability of the goods in the correct size and for the best price in the market.”

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