Fairytales, Fantasy and Marchesa dresses

Marchesa Luisa Casati

Of course it’s always exciting to see the barmy, controversial and never-done-before creations that are thrown up every season by a select few designers.  But every now and then I just like to swoon over the more elegant designs. A few posts ago I mentioned Marchesa, a label that that takes inspiration from Marchesa Luisa Casati. There is nothing I love more than labels with interesting muses, and seeing as Luisa Casati was a woman who paraded cheetahs around on diamond encrusted leashes and wore snakes as jewellery, you can predict that Marchesa as a label will be fraught with opulence and charm before you’ve even studied the clothes.

And the clothes, of course, are intensely beautiful and womanly, hence the huge celebrity following. Sometimes I get bored of edgy, ultra modern designers like Wang or Betsey Johnson, and just want to revert to my 7 year old Cinderella-loving self and appreciate Georgina and Keren’s fairytale and fantasy-like creations which have the power to turn any woman into a princess (….or a poisonous yet beautiful witch, or a fearless Mulan-style, warrior girl!)

Hey, it’s ok to make fashion mistakes…

I came across this absolute gem of a video the other day! Harriet Mays Powell chats to Anna Sui about her A/W 2010 collection, and I know I’m trespassing on old collections here, but it’s the video, rather than the clothes that I’m interested in. Look at H M-P’s fashiony blunder at 1:06 where she mistakes one of Anna’s tops for a child’s dress. How refreshing it is to witness something like this! What this says to me is, even fashion directors of renowned magazines make slightly embarrassing mistakes sometimes, so it’s ok to get Gucci and Pucci confused or to think Elie Saab is a women… (it is, however, still not ok to pronounce Versace, Vur-saiss, just to be clear).

I love Anna Sui, she’s just so cute and modest, but I have now developed a genuine admiration and almost affection for Harriet Mays Powell. What a hoot she is! There’s none of the austerity of the standard fashion editor with her, she can laugh at herself. The video acts as a nice little reminder that the fashion world isn’t all severity and aloofness with po-faced editors dictating left, right and centre what we should and shouldn’t be wearing…  cheery editors also dictate left, right and centre what we should and shouldn’t be wearing!