There are few words for how much I hate the hair at Jen Kao (and I'm a fan of a short fringe usually), but I did enjoy the collection itself so I guess the bad hair is forgiven.



As a general rule I always think the Brits do knitwear better than anyone else. It's probably something historical -- we have more experience of sheep/dark satanic mills etc.than most, after all. There are so many brilliant British knitwear designers that I quite often discount the rest of the world with regard to wool but more fool me because American designers like Jen Kao are really fucking good at it. I have to admit that I'm not too familiar with Jen, but if she's good enough for fangirl Julia Restoin-Roitfeld then I suppose that's good enough for the rest of us. I really like the textural quality of her sexy/tough cable knits, apparently inspired by Moby Dick?? Hmm. I also am obsessed with the little rabbit fur (sorry) and leather/mesh flippy dress. I guess it's a little awkward around the hips but I'm still pretty physced on it. The other stand out look for me, in terms of textural interest at least, is the fine knit top and trousers, above. If it was an all in one it would be off the hook: if you squint, you can pretend it is. Like a sexier version of the AA long johns. I don't have much time for the trousers because they remind me of something from Dash (not that one) but the top is really nice and I love the combination of leather-trim zip with the fine knit. The strapwork on the crochet bralet is really neat too.

This is one of those shows where I suggest you look it up on Vogue.co.uk where you can zoom in really closely, because for me it's all the about the details that you can't really see on these full-lengths. Here's a link straight to it.

I don't care much for Charlotte Ronson, but I definitely liked the fetching long skirts swooshing along at her show. Regular readers will be aware that Iso and I are probably equally obsessed with maxi (mus Decimus Meridius) skirts, although I'm not convinced they'll ever catch on with actual cool people. As someone with Victorian sensibilities about revealing flesh I'm obviously all for them.

I like the fact that Charlotte's skirts are totally identical to the type I wore with my velvet bucket hat and waistcoat circa 1994. I bet they even have those small bells on the end of the drawstrings.

Coloured hair seems to be hanging around for yet another season. Hurrah! At Vena Cava yesterday the mighty Ted Gibson created scruffy ponies with chunky coloured extensions clipped through. I'm not so convinced on the neon pink but the purple looks great and when I get proper pics through from the show I'll be interested to see which other shades they used. So good how far clip-in extensions have come! We're doing something at work at the moment in reaction to the call for them to be banned (see BBC report) but even so, I've always been a fan of the humble clip-in. No one ever believes it until you see them done properly (ie, well) but they're fucking awesome these days. Andrew Barton did some the other week at a launch and my esteemed colleague Charles had some put in by the mighty Anita Cox McMillan just the other day... they look great, definitely the easiest/quickest way to get nice looking colour in 2010.

Pic: Frisky

It seems like only yesterday I was talking about the Shangri Las... Anyone with half a brain cell can see that the hair and makeup for John Patrick's Organic line (shown yesterday at NYFW) had a hint of Mary Weiss and co, but to my mind that whole first look could have come off the cover of some long-lost LP.

John Patrick described the collection as being "a Joni Mitchell-slash-Sloane Ranger thing" but aside from all the tweed I'm not entirely convinced of his reasoning. This look in particular confuses me. From the waist up it's perfect, but from the waist down... boot cut leather pants? I'll pass thanks, although I guess that's where the Sloane aspect comes into play.

Anyway, my personal tastes aside, you have to wonder why more designers still aren't bothering with organic/sustainable collections. John proves that they don't have to look boring and shit. Yeah, his collection might be on the small side and it's not exactly ground-breaking, but he shows pretty succinctly that it's possible to do a show without being irresponsible with your resources. I wonder how many decades it's going to take for others to get on board?

I've spent most of this weird depressing evening tumblring pictures of Claudia Cardinale. Nice hair makes death less miserable? Along with every single member of the Shangri Las, she's something of an inspiration. I love this 60s cover. It's basically the inspiration for my day to day look. Anyway, I found this cover of her from an ancient edition of Lui and while I'm around 99.9% sure her pink hair is just down to the lighting, it does kind of look like she has nice colour.

There are a million pictures of her on this site, but I do suggest that if you're not familiar with her you check out my tumblr too. Not just saying that because I'm attempting to bring it back to life, there are some really nice pictures of Claudia.

Also, can any brains tell me what film this still is from?