Once again I have a post I started at the beginning of the week and am just now getting back to writing. For all of my efforts I have not yet managed to keep to a schedule and I suppose given the rather unpredictable and erratic forces shaping my life right now it is time a came to terms with that. But for now, back to the inspiration files.
This second post focuses on items I clipped from the March issue of Town and Country magazine. There is some repetition, as in this photo from Prada of another version of the same coat I posted a few weeks ago. It still fascinates me. I like the other colorway better for me, but saved this picture for the better detail of the embroidery. This coat is way outside my budget, but that doesn't mean that I can't have my own extravagantly embroidered coat someday. (assuming I ever get enough time and peace to do it).
I did take the time to look up the items I liked online, found two, and clipped them to pinterest but the entire process made me feel like I was circling the edges of a black hole, afraid that if I fell in I would never resurface. This is part of the issue I still have to deal with, it is multi-faceted, and I just don't have the time to do anything but continue circling.
These are the two items I found online.
The jacket on the left is by Armani and is elegant in its simplicity, but what attracts me to this jacket is the subtle play of the colors of the jacket with the soft aqua lining. Now using a contrasting lining is nothing new, but imagination can still be caught and held still for a minute.
The pink leather jacket is by Ralph Lauren and I just love it in all its pinkness. I think the way it is styled here, from the Bergdorf Goodman website, is too nice and ladylike for this jacket. Because it is pink, it needs to be toughened up a bit, worn more casually, tapping into its moto-roots. But I still like the jacket itself and the jumbled up messages sent by the combination of soft, pink, exposed zipper, and motorcycle.
Another motorcycle inspired jacket caught my eye in the magazine but I was seriously dissapointed in the online photographs. This is where imagination gets to shine. Getting inspiration from photographs versus real clothes is completely different. In the stores, fabric and cut shine, and you might see things that you would completely miss in a photograph. But photographs allow you to imagine things as you would like them to be, unencumbered by disappointing details like fabric and cut that don't match your imaginings. The same can be said of seeing an item flat (or on a hanger) versus on a model. This Vuitton Crocodile jacket is the perfect example.
Town and Country photographed this jacket flat. You don't really get a feel for how it fits on the body. If you read the description -- crocodile, you know it is going to be kind of substantial and not soft and drapey like the lambskin jacket by Ralph Lauren. This is a distinct contrast to the soft color, a contrast I rather like. But, when I looked at the runway photographs I had a distinct aversion to the strong architecturally contrived look of the shape on the models. I am sure it appeals to some, but not to me, and it may look completely different on a woman with real curves rather than it did on the model. But I can't tell anything about that. I have to go by what I see and how I interpret what I see. I see details, color, texture and an idea of sense of shape that do appeal. A crocodile jacket is completely out of my price range anyway, but I could come up with something inspired by this, in a more fitted shape than the original, echoing the color the details, the richness of the texture, even the tongue-in-cheek details of the large white buttons. This jacket has far more of a tough-girl edge despite its obvious luxury. If anything I think there is much more to play with here in terms of inspiration and style, it is simpler, less contrived, and could work in anything from croc, to embossed leather, suede or even wool, each having its own feeling but each option working its own unique way.
Lastly, I clipped this image from a Bottega Veneta ad. I only needed a part of the picture to capture the idea. This skirt is simple in its basic shape. The interest is all in the fabric, center panels of wider pleats stitched down and not hidden, with narrower pleats on the outsides, and the long vertical lines caused by the shiny trim between the sections. This is fiddly detailed work to get it perfect, and the quality of the workmanship would be very obvious here. A cheap knockoff would never have the same cachet. And yet if one had the skills I think the effort would pay. If one doesn't have the skills, it is a reminder of something to strive for, that details do matter.
1. photo from Prada spring ad campaign. Scanned from Town and Country Magazine, March 2012
2. Armani jacket, spring ad campaign, here.
3. Ralph Lauren Jacket, Bergdorf Goodman.
4. Vuitton jacket, scanned from Town and Country Magazine, March 2012.
5. Bottega Veneta skirt, Bottega Veneta ad campaign, scanned from Town and Country Magazine, March 2012.
