Three-in-one sandals

I saw a repeat of Dragons Den the other day and this sweet Irish/ Australian/ Spanish (??!!) lady Jane Rafter pitched her idea for three-in-one sandals. Not the right time of year to be talking about sandals, what with it raining non- stop here, I know, but I thought I’d better write about her before I forget…

Anyway, I think her idea is very good in theory – one base, three different design uppers, and the sandals look great, really pretty and stylish, but in practise I’ve found that the sole of my sandals always gets destroyed first, so if I am then wearing the base even more often with the three interchangeable uppers, they will most likely not last me more than a few months!!! Although having said that, the bases are made from 100% leather, so are probably much more durable than the average sandal…

In any case, it’s definitely worth checking out her full collection.

Paper prêt-a-porter, anyone?

If I’m honest, to me, the idea of a garment made purely from paper sounds a little silly to say the least.  I can’t help but picture a half-hearted, naive college-student attempt at creating a piece which is more ‘fashion faux-pas’ rather than Christian Lacroix.  Surely the result would just end up as a crumpled mess, right?

Well, wrong actually. It seems the fashion pack have been perfecting the art of creating paper garments for decades.

Paper clothes were all the rage in the Sixties as the industrialised world increasingly became a throw-away society. The Scott Paper Company released the psychedelic Paisley shift in 1966.  Priced at a meseley $1.25, it sold over half a million in the USA!  The paper dress was at the time developed to promote their toilet paper and paper tissues, posted to potential customers along with promotional coupons.

The trend grew popular in the UK 1967, when even the Beatles were wearing paper jackets!

In a similar yet far more appealing and complex fashion, Hussein Chalayan’s paper Airmail dress arrives as a letter and folds out to become a full-length garment. The paper is not ordinary paper, but Tyvek, which is unrippable. Each dress comes with a set of stickers and instructions on how to put it together. ‘It’s something you can personalise and you can also cut it up and sew it back together,’ he says.

Chanel keeps the trend alive on the S/S 2009 Catwalk…

Paper garments are the epitome of modern-day fast fashion fixes.  Just don’t forget your umberella…

Paper Fashion! is an exhibition in Antwerp showing until 16th August 2009.  It now owns more than 200 vintage pieces reflecting the kind of craze that took America by a paper storm in the mid-1960s. I’m hoping the exhibition will come to the UK soon!

And to finish off, beat the downturn with this recession-busting wedding dress, yours for just £5!

A cut Above the Rest

After seeing the image of the beautifully carved Arabic headboard mentioned in our blog on March 20th, I found myself thinking about the intricate art of paper cutting.  And WOW was I amazed at some of the work which has been produced!  Truly inspirational creations which, without seeing the images, I wouldn’t have thought were possible. All of a sudden my talent for creating a short row of cut-out doll figures seems a bit lame!

Below are ‘Parallell Stairs’ and ‘White Diary’ by Danish artist Peter Callesen. Now this is what I call art! Can you believe this is all just paper?

Just look at a close up of the detail in his work, unbelievable!

Just as equally as impressive is the artwork by Hina Aoyama. I can imagine her delicate designs being used as wallpaper or stencils to create the perfect feature wall…

Aoyama says, “They are super fine lacy-paper-cuttings done by a simple pair of scissors. My passion is to create a finest cutoff beyond the level of the very time-consuming needle lace making. I don’t follow traditional but I am trying to create a mixture of the traditional and modern styles and to produce my own world through this super fine lacy-paper-cuttings technique”

See Hina at work on You Tube here

I love the smooth symmetry of this piece by Richard Sweeney- who would ever guess it is made purely from paper?!

For me, the beauty isn’t just in the pieces themselves but in the shadows they create. Take a look at the image below and I’m sure you’ll agree…

Obviously none of the items mentioned were ever intended to be practical. However the cardboard table below by David Graas, perhaps with a glass top protector or pretty tablecloth, wouldn’t look so out-of-place in a modern home. What a great conversation-starter for guests!

How about building a few card Bloxes to create a sturdy wall, maybe an office partition? Apparantly the structure will last for years and isn’t permanent so can be moved around to your heart’s desire!

I’m drawn to this piece below by Kylie Stillman (Lovely Wren, 2005), where the image of a bird has been carved into a book. I imagine it framed, perhaps with two or the others together on a wall. The simplicity is very striking, especially combined with the green.

It seems a paper trend is sweeping its way through some of the major fashion houses too. If it’s good enough to feature in the likes of the Chanel spring/summer 2009 collection, it’s good enough for me!  Below is the catwalk decor.  Stunning!

More on this trend in our next post…

Themes of Africa on the catwalk

It seems fashion designers have just caught up with us here at Coco Målé, with the African theme omnipresent in Summer 2009 collections!!!

Dior: Taming the big game

African drums rolled on the soundtrack. Heads were held high with conical plaited hair. The colours were out of Africa – orange, yellow and sheltering sky blue. Even the feet were perched on shoes with a Masai fertility carving for the heel.

‘Tribal chic!’ declared John Galliano backstage about his Dior show Monday. But where once the designer might have filled the runway with wild elements of his febrile imagination, this time he had tamed the big game. And that meant a youthful interpretation of Africa and a lowering of the runway madness that he had already cooled down for several ready-to-wear seasons.

Extract from the Herald Tribune 29th September 2008. Click here to read the full article.

Out of Africa, the power of green

Call it a love of ethnicity and urge for authenticity, or a way of expressing the power of green. For all those elements are penetrating the shows of this summer 2009 season.

Africa – its nobility, beauty and tribal exuberance, rather than its conflict zones – is often the subtext. And out of Africa, Junya Watanabe’s graceful show took the native practice of carrying items on the head and turned it into a festival of nature. Bunches of dried flowers were held in turbans made from checked gingham, snowy broderie anglaise or the bright prints that dominated the show’s opening.

Extract from the Herald Tribune 30th September 2008. Click here to read the full article.