Head Porter Plus

It isn't very often that I wished I spoke Japanese. But for the practical purposes of online shopping, it would be an advantage. To be able to understand honeyee would be a plus too.
Head Porter Plus via honeyee's online store has the most delectable piece I would like to spend my shopping budget this month on. No Japanese needed to understand that the item's already sold out. At 10,080yen, it works out to be roughly £45. A bargain, to my mind.

New York Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2007

Fashion week fever is abound once more. In New York, Marc Jacobs, 3.1 Phillip Lim and Proenza Schouler are favourites.

Marc Jacobs

3.1 Phillip Lim

Proenza Schouler

All images borrowed from Style.com

APC Mania

Joy this week came in the form of a small white envelope that came through the post. The new APC Summer 2007 catalogue is here.

At least five items have made it onto my wish list.
1) Sparkly knit dress
2) Gold mary janes
3) Cat brooch
4) Cardigan
5) Short-sleeve pullover

And no doubt more items will be accumulated over the next few weeks.

Vogue's Past

For its 90th anniversary birthday celebrations, Vogue is showcasing its past covers, counting from the first issue in 1916, on their website. Here are a few favourites.

May 1935
Edited by Alison Settle

April 1937
Edited by Elizabeth Penrose
Cover by Pierre Roy

July 1937
Edited by Elizabeth Penrose
Cover by Anton Bruehl

All images above borrowed from Vogue

Digital TV Is All The Rage

First there was MySpace, then blogging. Now, there's digital TV. Magazines like Nylon, Vice, Dazed & Confused and Vogue all have started their own digital TV service, featuring prime content that us mere mortals may not be privvy to.

Against the reality of harsher advertising climates where print advertising have taken a hard knocking, magazines need to come up with new ways of generating revenue. Digital television is a different way of presenting content to the consumer and engaging the MTV generation/Internet saavy audience. The writers have access to, say, fashion designers and need to write up their catwalk reports for the magazine. So why not rig themselves with a portable DV cam, record the behind the scenes footage and interviews, then repackage it for digital TV? It's called thinking laterally and being economical with resources.

The success of YouTube could also quite possibly have been another factor, demonstrating how easy it is to upload videos followed by an almost immediate worldwide response and appreciation of popular home videos.

The race of brand extensions continues...

Vice TV arrives 1 Feb 2007. Updates soon.

Vice TV ad from the website

On Dazed Digital Broadcast, there are interviews, behind the scenes footage of bands and recordings of the Dazed Live Sessions. There's also an exclusive with Charles Atlas, the video artist who works with dancers like Michael Clarke and Merce Cunningham. He's also worked with Leigh Bowery. Atlas recently had an exhibition of new video works 'Instant Fame' at Vilma Gold on Vyner Street from 22 Nov to 3 Dec. Tate Modern also showed a series of retrospective screenings of his work from 1975 to 2005 at the Tate Modern Starr Auditorium from 17 to 22 Nov. Both exhibitions I'd read about, told myself to remember to go, then forgotten about. Annoyed... All dance fans out there will no doubt appreciate this piece of digital TV.

Footage of Charles Atlas borrowed from Dazed Digital Broadcast

Nylon TV features Nylon's MySpace blogger, Tracy, showing off the cool gear that streams into the Nylon office and out on the streets of SoHo. The first episode takes her to the Tsubi store looking for boy-fit jeans.

Footage of Tracy in Tsubi store borrowed from Nylon TV

Vogue TV, sponsored by Estee Lauder, carries expert comment and footage of the London, Paris and Milan fashion shows. All shows are presented by members of the Vogue team. The team headed by Alexandra Schulman recently celebrated their 90th anniversary with a special issue. Latest video on Vogue TV is of Karl Lagerfeld in Monte Carlo. Behind the scenes footage of the fashion world is always interesting for the fashion voyeur. Die-hard Chanel fans please take note: this is definitely not to be missed.

Footage of Karl Lagerfeld in Monte Carlo borrowed from Vogue TV

Where Is Silas?

In the past few days, I've been on a 'Rediscover Silas' journey. Searching high and low, trawling the web for Silas stockists, luck hasn't been on my side. According to the Silas website,

The new A/W 06-07 collections are currently being delivered to select stores only. The new collections will not be as widely available outside of Japan. Silas has decided to limit distribution worldwide and concentrate sales, production and distribution in the Far East. There are still a few stores outside of Japan that will carry product.

Why, oh why?

Images borrowed from the Autumn/Winter 06-07 lookbook
Photography by Dennis Schoenberg
Styling by Beth Fenton
Art direction by Ben Sansbury

A Cardigan For Winter

My heart is set on a round neck cabled cardigan from Inverallan (left). Inverallan is a Scottish company specialising in Aran knits. According to their site,

"Our Aran Sweaters are hand knits and the most complex and thus the most exclusive form of knitting, Each Aran garment takes a single knitter, working in his or her own home well over 90 hours and contains at least 25,000 stitches. Each Aran sweater is individual, made with enormous skill, and if treated with care will last a lifetime."

Going by the wet and windy weather of late, a cosy knitted cardigan is a must. The key is a piece that doesn't shout frumpy.

There is a similarly covetable knitted cardigan by APC (below). But after a recent APC spending spree, I'm finding it hard to justify another purchase. Otherwise, I stand the risk of becoming a walking APC advert.

New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2007

Get your New York Fashion Week news here. Coutorture does a brilliant job of pulling together all the fashion commentary into one central location

The latest entry is an interview with Anna Wintour.

Wink Wink

How striking is this i-D cover? As recent i-D covers go, this is one of the most memorable. Photographed by Richard Burbridge, who's originally from the UK and now based in New York.

Read here for an interview with Hintmag's Lee Carter.

Feedback welcome.

Sashay Sashay Sashay

Here come fashion weeks. Fashionistas round the world literally put everthing else in their lives on hold for the next few weeks. Nothing is important next to Marc Jacobs, Margiela, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent etc etc.

New York Men & Women Spring-Summer 2007
September 7 - September 15 2006

London Women Spring-Summer 2007
September 18 - September 22 2006

Milan Women Spring-Summer 2007
September 23 - September 30 2006

Paris Women Spring-Summer 2007
October 1 - October 9 2006

Tri-POP

POP magazine is going triannual. On top of their usual Autumn and Spring issues, there will be an extra Winter issue published this November.

Katie Grand, Editor-in-Chief, says:

“Whilst fashion is moving faster with more importance being put on pre-collection and resort it's time for POP to move in line with the demand for more product from the consumer. The whole team is thrilled to have the backing of Emap to do this, it's a great time for POP to grow, and we can't wait to get started.”

But most important of all, POP will be reporting its first ABC in 2007. What does registering with the Audit Bureau of Circulations mean? Sure, this is only interesting for anoraks. According to the ABC website: an ABC Certificate holds valuable information for media buyers and media owners. It offers both accurate and comparable data, for use in buying decisions and provides an effective sales tool for attracting advertising. An ABC Certificate also demonstrates a media owner's integrity, in their willingness to be audited and to conform to industry standards.

POP magazine is growing up.