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Ask Hadley

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Chic without sweatshops

Hadley Freeman can ease your fashion pain

Monday July 7, 2008
The Guardian

I was so shocked by the revelation the other week that small Indian children made some of my Primark clothes. What can I do to make sure this doesn't happen again?
Mary O'Keefe, London

Um, don't buy clothes that cost £3 maybe? Before anyone (ie, Primark's lawyers) get upset, I'm not saying that all cheap clothes are studded with the sweat and blood droplets of half-starved children. But to continue buying cheap-as-chips clothes and then to express shock that they are not made by happy couturiers, sewing the pieces by hand while reclining on goose-feathered pillows and chortling contentedly seems - and I really mean no offence, Mary - a touch naive, let us say euphemistically. Someone is paying the price for those clothes, my dear. And seeing as it's clearly not you, and it's unlikely to be the store (most stores tend to be a bit reluctant to sell clothes for less than they paid to have them made - they're funny like that) perhaps it's someone else. Someone around the age of 10, maybe.

It's like those diets that promise you can eat stuffed-crust pizza, pasta carbonara and deep-fried chocolate gateau and still lose weight. People, it just doesn't work like that - well, not unless the chocolate tastes like rehydrated and artificially sweetened seaweed because, well, that's what it is. And a beaded top that costs £2.50 is either going to be very badly made, sewn by people content to be paid 60p a day or has the wrong price tag on it. Guess which makes stores more money?

Of course, if one takes this argument too far then you end up saying that the only kind of clothes people should buy is couture, which really is made by the aforementioned happy couturiers (although even they might not always get to be pillow-recliners). The reason we buy cheap clothes is because most of us are not Dasha Zhukova and don't have boyfriends who buy us £50m paintings on a whim. But just as the best way to eat is to eat a normal-sized amount of half-decent food - not Michelin-starred, not greasy, battery-farmed offcuts - at reasonably spaced intervals, so the best way to shop is to buy the occasional well-made piece of clothing. Not Gucci necessarily, but something that costs more than a latte, perhaps.

And ultimately, I truly do believe it works out cheaper. Buying one dress for £75 that lasts you a good handful of years is definitely more economical than buying a new £20 dress every time you have a party because the last one didn't make it to 10pm without ripping. So, in conclusion, you'll be living with more money, better clothes and without guilt.

I think I just saw a ray of light break beyond those clothes yonder.

The geatest designer you've never heard of

I have never heard of this man, but clearly, we now need to

The truth is, fashion insiders will climb, probably even crawl, to see Kinder's designs. They've admired his work as the Zelig of fashion for years - he's spent two decades as a ghost designer (the style equivalent of a ghostwriter) creating internationally lauded collections for Calvin Klein, Costume National and at Versace after Gianni's death in 1997 - so news that he's launched his own label has caused a stir. Comme des Garçons's Rei Kawakubo came in person to view his first solo collection in 2007 - and then stocked it at her fashion emporium, Dover Street Market. Madonna has already been seen wearing a dress from his spring/summer 08 debut Aggugini range, as has editor of British Vogue Alexandra Shulman. If you know and love fashion, you know and love Kinder.

Stylist Arianne Phillips, who's dressed the likes of Courtney Love, Madonna and Justin Timberlake as well as receiving an Oscar nomination for costume design, declares herself a massive Kinder fan: 'I find that his creativity, ingenuity and sophistication in fabrics set him apart. I appreciate his wit, style and irreverent classicism.'

'He's got an incredible track record,' says Harriet Quick, fashion features director at British Vogue, 'and he's well known at parties and events because he's fabulously opinionated and discursive. When he left the big fashion machine and set up on his own, people wanted to back that. And his clothes are lovely - they don't date, and the fit is perfect: they show off a woman's body. They don't scream or shout status, but they feel like the real deal.'

read the rest

I've found his website here, and here's a page of his clothes currently being sold by Bowns in London

The dangers of walking down Bond Street during the sales

I'm 50% off, it cried!

Louboutins overtake Manolos as the Hot Shoe

Which is good, because I have a pair of Louboutins - jewelled velvet wedges I got for half price at a Vogue sample sale.

But perhaps the key to his current success (he’s overtaken St Manolo as aspirational shoe god, for heaven’s sake) is those red soles. Louboutin claims these happened serendipitously. “When the first prototype arrived, it had a big black sole. Dead!” He grabbed his assistant’s nail polish and began painting. “Immediately, the shoe came back to life.’’ He thought he would change the sole each season. “But red is more than a colour. It is a symbol of love, of blood, of passion. It’s like the handkerchief that an elegant woman dropped if she saw a man whom she was attracted to.”

It’s also highly visible, in a way no business school graduate would ever imagine. Every time a woman climbs a staircase, crosses her legs, click-clacks down the street, it flashes away, a symbol – never mind blood, passion and love – of a shoe that cost a fortune. When a model mooches down the catwalk in Louboutins, the audience identifies them immediately. No wonder he eschews obvious logos: that red sole is genius – a status symbol that purports not to be a status symbol.

More shoes I'm not going to be able to wear

Hadley writes:

At Balenciaga - pretty much the bellwether for trends that the high street masses will be adopting - the gladiator sandals it knocked out last season have been replaced for autumn/ winter by shoes so pointy they will probably double as weapons for the requisite eastern European villainess in the next Bond film.

Even Marc Jacobs, who is surely Coco Chanel's successor in his tireless promotion of the sweet and girly look, has pushed aside his beloved mouse pumps (literally, ballet pumps with little beaded eyes and whiskers fixed on the tip) for decidedly more grown-up and less rodenty pointier toes, at both his own eponymous label and in the current collection for Louis Vuitton. Similarly, the Lanvin woman seems to have matured from the pretty, round-toed mademoiselle she was just a few seasons ago to a full-on vamp, with black, sharp-toed teetering heels. "Round toes are on their way out and pointy toes are marching back into our wardrobes!" one fashion magazine gleefully announced this month.

In which a piece of music loses its meaning and becomes something else

The more I watch this, the more unpleasant do I find it. Though I suppose if you were unfamiliar with the music the experience would be quite different. But it can hardly be because McQueen didn't know. There again, it's only a movie sound track.

A change of heart

A few months ago I ordered a dress from the website of New Zealand designer Karen Cole. I very much liked the design of the Grecian dress and was looking for something in a deep, vivid blue. When the dress arrived it was an exceptionally good fit but there were two problems: first it was the wrong blue (this is always difficult to see online) and second, it was extremely creased so I sent it back. I also felt that at £132 it was rather expensive for what was, after all, a simple jersey dress. I felt rather bad about this as I like small designers who make clothes for real women, but it wasn't what I wanted.

Before I went to Toronto I found the blue dress I'd been looking for in Nicole Farhi and was disappointed in another dress I'd been waiting to come in, having seen a sample, and which was turned out to be smock rather than empire line. So I still had a space for a dress.

I still kept on thinking about the Grecian dress, because it was such a very good shape, and though I need another black dress like a fish needs the proverbial bicycle, I reordered it. This came it came with no creases.

I spent a lot of time last night looking at this dress. Without the creases I could see that the exact weight of the jersey makes it hang incredibly well and that the cut, which appears simple, is actually quite cunning. It outlines my waist while flattening my hips (a bit). Further, the low neckline is perfect for displaying a scarf, as I discovered when I played around. Which breaks up the black.

Karen Cole is now on sale, 20% off if you enter TWENTY as the discount code. And I'm going to recommend it. Which I usually don't.

A woman's work

Alessandra Facchinetti for Valentino

Audrey Hepburn turns in grave

Givenchy

Haute couture, an economist writes

Do I look a leetle Left Bank?

I was halfway through a very interesting and detailed account in the Guardian of why couture is not subject to the credit crunch when, scrolling back to see if it had been written by Jess Cartner-Morley, the fashion editor, or Hadley Freeman, her deputy, I realised that it had been written by neither, but the paper's economics editor, who they'd send over to Paris for the shows. Fact fact fact fact.

Tim Jackson, principal lecturer at the London School of Fashion, says that the last big shock to luxury brands came after 9/11, because people stopped travelling, and a large proportion of luxury goods are bought by the well-off on their travels. There was, he says, a deliberate attempt to broaden the appeal of brands, with the sale of bags, jewellery and shoes that, while still expensive, were more affordable. "These goods have no issues with what's fashionable or size, and the goods have a high mark-up. There is a huge increase in directly operated stores, but they need high turnover to pay the overheads on the stores." Jackson says it will be this bit of the market - not the more exclusive haute couture niche - that will be affected by the credit crunch. The lay-offs in the financial sector, falling property prices and higher inflation are all likely to have an impact.

In Paris earlier, Sassi made the same point. "The issue is not the super-rich, some of whom are doing well out of the crisis, but the people below the super-rich. Haute couture will last for ever. It will only die when there are no ladies who are interested in beauty or feeling unique, or exclusivity."

While this helps explain the durability of haute couture, it doesn't quite explain why business has been so good in recent years. There are, however, solid economic reasons for the upturn. One factor is that the rich keep getting richer, and there are more of them. The compression of incomes seen in the decades after the second world war has been reversed; in Britain, for example, the gap between rich and poor has widened over the past decade, largely as a result of the salaries for the top 0.5% of earners.

Nick Tucker, market leader for the UK and Ireland at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management, said last week: "Spending by high net worth individuals [HNWIs] and ultra-high net worth individuals [UHNWIs] remains robust. The ongoing strength in both the global art market and luxury industries highlights that the wealthy will continue to spend despite clearly worsening economic conditions and explains why, historically, these industries weather global downturns."

According to a report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini last month, there are now just over 10 million HNWIs in the world with a total wealth of $40 trillion. To qualify, you have to have net assets - excluding the value of your home - of $4m. Qualifying as an UHNWI is tougher; there are 100,000 globally with net assets of $30m or more.

Net a porter sale - up to 60 per cent off

Click on the banner at the top of the page.

Credit crunch chic, or what to wear for Armageddon

Chanel Haute Couture

Depressing, eh? And here's Dior. Betty Boop meets the Gestapo.

And all this without Victor and Rolf.

ebay experiences good or bad?

I have successfully sold quite a few things on ebay, but have bought very little. My recent Gucci scarf transaction went like clockwork and I'm very pleased with it.

My rules are: only buy from individuals; never buy from anyone selling in bulk; look to see their feedback for buying as well as selling; never buy from abroad; ask a lot of questions.

When selling give clear descriptions, brutal honesty about the condition, measure everything and only give refunds if the item is not as described. I had one return when I washed an Issey Miyake skirt which had a small mark, and assumed it had come out in the wash and didn't check before I sent it. It hadn't. Also if you really don't want to let something go for .99p, put a minimum price on it.

Do share your own experiences.

The women who run the high street

These are the eight women who run British high street fashion, being asked how they are going to have us buy, during the credit crunch. Interesting to note that none of these women is size 0 and most of them are, well, my size and shape.

Their success is one reason why our high street remains a world-class symbol of vibrancy. Because if the chains have been partly shaped by us - the stroppy British consumer - then it's because the retail talents on these pages knew how to respond. These are women who developed their passion as fashion-mad youngsters in the Eighties “designer decade” and cut their business teeth in the boom-and-bust early Nineties. They don't see fashion just as a commodity. They wear it, love it and adapt it through good days and fat days, recessions and bull markets. They know what we want because they want it, too. And they all wear their own brands - with the occasional bit of Marni, Margiela, Westwood, Balenciaga and YSL thrown in (hell, they're fashionistas and they're on great salaries).

They will need all their intuition and ballsiness in the coming months as economic factors bite harder. But they reckon they're ready for it.

ebay fined £30m for selling fakes

The Thoughtful Dresser, ie me, is opposed to fakes. I know that some fakes are made in the same factories by the same people who make 'genuine' Marc Jacobs, and that there can be a fine line between fake and authentic when a designer like Prada claims that a bag is made in Italy, when everything but the attachment of the handle is done in China.

Nonetheless, if you buy a fake you are doing so in the knowledge that it is likely to have been made by child labour and the the revenues used to fund drugs and terrorism. Be it on your own head, as my mother used to say.

I would be quite happy to buy a second-hand Chanel or Hermes bag on ebay, and the only thing that's stopping me is that I can't be certain it's not a fake. Now ebay has been ordered by a French court to pay 38.6 million Euros to LMVH, which owns Vuitton as well as much else:

In a statement, eBay said big luxury goods labels had a hidden agenda and were using fakes as a "stalking horse". "It is clear that eBay has become a focal point for certain brand owners' desire to exact ever greater control over e-commerce. We view these decisions as a step backwards for the consumers and businesses whom we empower every day."

The group, which saw around $60bn worth of goods sold across its platforms last year, says that as a host for independent vendors, it has a limited responsibility and capacity to regulate what is sold. But luxury goods groups have accused eBay, which earns a commission on sales, of facilitating forgeries and fakes by providing a marketplace for vendors who knowingly sell counterfeit items.

The site is also facing other lawsuits worldwide: the New York jeweller Tiffany & Co has sued the site for turning a blind eye to sales of counterfeits, describing it as a "rat's nest" of fake goods. It also faces action from L'Oreal in the UK and five other European countries.

It's certianly true, as Dana Thomas demonstrated in her excellent book Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Lustre, that luxury goods manufactuers do indeed want to control distribution of goods. Did you know you can't buy a Chanel bag online anywhere, not even at Neiman Marcus' website? But it's also true that you have to be very savvy indeed to work out who is and who is not selling fakes on ebay. My own tip is always to buy from people who selling from their own wardrobe, and never from anyone who is selling multiples of the same thing.

Scarves yet again

I have a mini-obsession with scarves at the moment. Last week I bought a Gucci scarf on ebay for £37. It arrived in a condition as close to new as I could make out, having been bought in Gucci's Bond Street shop, by a woman in Bayswater selling designer accessories and buying designer baby clothes (wonder what the story is there?) I've seen a sample of Jaeger black winter coat which I'm pretty much decided on buying. Around the neck of which one of my growing collection of scarves will be worn to keep black away from the face.

The designer scarf is an interesting phenomenon. I am not crazy about vintage Hermes designs, with their bridles and horseshoes, but other designers have some brighter ideas. I bought scarves by Dior and Lacroix at Le Bon Marche in Paris last Autumn and have worn them constantly. Not to mention the winter staple, the Etro I got in Hong Kong. Compared to the designers' other accessories they are quite inexpensive, given that they ought to last a lifetime and aren't subject to our old favourite, wardrobe shrinkage. I see that Vogue is predicting the return of the scarf, even suggesting one should knot it under the chin, like our dear Queen. As if.

Scarves really are a good bet to buy on ebay. If you carefully vet the seller, they're unlikely to be fakes, more probably an unwanted present, bought by a weary husband at duty free.

Interesting thoughts on eccentric glamour

To claim it, think of the basic elements of your personal style. Let’s call them your style constants. Whether it’s a glossy, jet-black ponytail, a saucy beauty mark, a nuclear explosion of natural red curls or a penchant for livid-green tango shoes, every gal needs a repertoire of well-chosen style constants. Simultaneously communicating and defining your unique identity, these flourishes are unaffected by fleeting trends or the whims of fashion. They are the glamorous foundations that will remain with you through thick and thin (literally and figuratively).

Now take your style constants and punctuate them with a jolt of the unexpected: a rhinestone bucket bag, a pair of mariachi slacks, a vintage Pucci poncho. Et voilà! Eccentric glamour is the happy result.

Do today’s celebs possess eccentric glamour? No! Red-carpet glamour is the antithesis of eccentric glamour. Hiring a stylist who scrounges free frocks on your behalf from top designers does not really qualify as “creative expression”. And today’s celebs are, for the most part, much too chicken, too risk-averse, too scared of those what-were-they-thinking pages in weekly magazines to indulge in eccentric glamour.

and then some categories

See London before you die

I have some friends staying with me and I sent them off yesterday on a tour of the East End of London with my old mate Harry Jackson who is a London Blue Badge guide. He is a specialist in the East End, Brick Lane and Jewish London as well as all the usual sights. If you're coming to London, I highly recommend checking hiom out at his site. My friends have been raving about how good he was.

If you've read Monica Ali's novel, and want to see the real thing, Harry's your man.

Mao and make-up

Was it only Monday evening, when, after an overnight flight (in economy) from Toronto, and three hours sleep at home, I met Tina Craig of the Bag Snobs on her last night in London and we got through two bottles of Veuve Cliquot and four ginger martinis at Momo? And possibly a bit to eat.

So much information was transmitted during the four or five hours that some of it is still sinking in (what she told me about her grandmother's experience of Mao's Cultural Revolution remains in sharp focus, reminding me that I really must get round to reading Jung Chang's Wild Swans, about fifteen years after it first came out - the author, I can attest from spending a weekend with her and her husband, a lover of Issey Miyake's flawless dresses.)

What I noticed about Tina was that despite the largest number of make-up brushes I have ever seen outside the professional collection of the make-up artist, the impression of wearing no make-up at all was accomplished by the finishing touch being just lip-gloss.

And I have come to the conclusion the lipstick can be ageing,* at least in the summer. A little lipgloss in a colour close to your lips' own natural shade, as Tina was wearing, is fresh, natural and takes years off you. I'm currently using Chanel's Aqualumiere, in Bubble Plum for evening and Freeze for day.

* Unless you are one of those women whose skin tone allows you to get away with a slash of deepest red. Which I am unfortunately not.

A man and his jeans

Harry's post below reminds me of a dear friend who went out to buy a pair of jeans, his old ones having suffered that perennial problem, wardrobe shrinkage, and returned home empty handed. He had tried on his usual jeans in his usual size, 34 waist, but found they were too small. Why didn't you get the next size up, I asked him?

Because they're 36 and I'm 34, he said.

Well, I pointed out, obviously if the 34 are too small, you're 36.

No, he said. I'm 34.

As if it was his date of birth or star sign, or the colour of his eyes, something fixed and static in the universe.

He hired a personal trainer.