2013-05-25T05:29:58-04:00 Lou Stoppard http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=lou-stoppard Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Lou Stoppard Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1293127 2012-02-22T19:00:00-05:00 2012-04-23T05:12:01-04:00

Lou Stoppard http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lou-stoppard/
The British high street has long harboured questionable copyright morals. Today, perusing Zara is like walking around Liberty in some strange parallel universe where everything looks the same but is about a tenth of the price. J-brand-esque ankle-zip jeans for £30 anyone? Or how about a nice Stella McCartney-style tote bag? There are even some Margiela-aping asymmetric skirts if you're feeling adventurous.

It's what makes designer/high street collaborations so humorous. The high street has been in a very one-sided collaboration for years - ripping off designers' creative talent, and thanking its lucky stars that only the super-rich can justify those incredible price points. You can't help but wonder why Mary Katrantzou would design a range for Topshop when it has been knocking off her designs all year, selling printed T-shirts and graphic floral trousers. Sweet noble Mary, does she not see the dark forces at work here?

Still, who am I to complain? The amazing copycat abilities of the high street are what keep the majority of us looking half-decent all year round. Its homage to Celine is what got us all into chic camel coats, and its love affair with Acne has provided me with a very wearable pair of heeled black ankle boots. £60, if you're asking. Bargain.

So in true fashion industry spirit - let's put the ethics aside and look at the clothes. What will be the star trends from this season that will, with the speed of the deadliest virus, filter their way from runway to Alexa Chung to Topshop to Only Way Is Essex stars to the masses. What item will permeate all of our wardrobes? What will be the Burberry aviator jacket or Stella sheer polka-dot dress of this season?

Well print was big news on the London runway, partly due to its vogue amongst the coolest young designers, Peter Pilotto, Louise Gray and the like. Even the less hip labels jumped on the bandwagon. Middleton-favourite Issa offered up a print-heavy showing, with dresses featuring patterns of Russian Dolls and St Basil's Cathedral - very 'gap yah', and thus perfectly in tune with their posh-totty client base. The best knock-offs are sure to come from Whistles and Warehouse - look for oriental-inspired print blouses and bright floral dresses.

But be aware fair shoppers, this is where the high street can make a good trend go bad. Sporting a bad print on an ill-fitting item is like wearing a sandwich board saying "Primark sale bin". The most important rule is stay away from printed body con. Print and lycra - the most evil sartorial union ever created, and one that the high street continues to push at us with ever increasing gusto. No-one looks good when prints are made of such cheap, thin fabrics that they stretch out of shape when worn, giving the wearer a deformed floral vision emblazoned across their buttocks or breasts, resembling a giant warped tattoo on a pregnant woman's belly. Classy.

Texture was equally huge on the catwalks, from leather at Christopher Kane and Todd Lynn, to fur almost everywhere, including Mulberry and Temperley. Poor PETA. This will please Zara who love nothing more than churning out a nice pair of pleather jeans or a faux-suede jacket - the kind of items that look half decent immediately after purchase but loose their expensive façade after a few wears, or the second it rains when black dye begins running down your legs.

The trick of the trade is weeding out the trends that are impossible to translate from catwalk to pavement. Fashion osmosis is a risky business; there are those looks will never warrant a place in our closet. The kind that should stay in the dark place that is the catwalk venue, draped on the body of an emaciated 14-year-old. Take Meadham Kirchhoff's entire collection, full of glitter and tartan - do we love it on the runway? Of course. Would it look great on any of us after being re-created by New Look? Certainly not.

Then there are trends that we can only hope will go global. Imagine if Roksanda Ilincic's understated tailored trouser surpassed leggings in popularity. Or if Peter Jensen's modest shifts replaced the racks and racks of lurid thigh-skimmers stacked in Primark. A girl can dream.

So be savvy ladies. No matter how much you loved the original collection, step away from the crazy reproductions, anything see-through, sequined, or flammable-looking. Instead hunt for the master forgeries - the perfectly copied Jonathan Saunders jacket, or the timeless Burberry-style pencil skirt. Times are hard and we all have to tighten our (knock-off) belts. Play your credit cards right and you'll be able to get all your favourite designer looks for next to nothing.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1203154 2012-01-13T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-14T05:12:01-04:00

Lou Stoppard http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lou-stoppard/ The Iron Lady has arrived. Too lefty? Too righty? Offensive? Inaccurate? Streep? (Take a breath whilst remembering how fantastic she was in The Devil Wears Prada - then continue) An American as a Brit? The wrong choice? With the same rigour as Moses's parting of the Red Sea, The Iron Lady has parted everyone. The politicians. The film-critics. The feminists.

Hold those debates. We have a better lesson to learn.

Thatcher may have done a lot of questionable things, but the lady knew how to power dress. As the film's teaser trailer shows, Thatcher's reign of terror depended on getting into character. The voice, the mannerisms, the gestures, and perhaps most crucially, the look - all engineered to boost her authority. The blue jackets. The court-shoes. The pearls. The perfect-for-thwacking-somebody-across-the-face handbag.

As I glanced around the cinema audience, Milton Keynes's finest, I saw no such sartorial panache. I was clad in my high street best - battered Converse and some kind of shaggy blanket masquerading as a cardigan. To my left there was a drab zip-up hoodie. To my right a floral tunic dress paired with Ugg boots. I even saw a woman in (whisper it) Crocs. CROCS. All around there were jeggings.

Jeggings. The strongest contender for 2012's worst design of the year award. They were everywhere, multiplying like some sick virus right before my very eyes. Ladies, don't you see, it's hard to command any sort of respect when wearing River Island denim-lycra with faux-pockets?

The high street has let us down. The products it pushes at us with such fervour - the 'hottest looks' and 'must haves' - suddenly seemed lacking as I stared at Streep-Thatcher on the giant cinema screen sashaying into parliament in a midi-skirt and blazer. Call me old-fashioned, but none of the trends available to women in most shops seem to celebrate, support or enrich us like Thatcher's wardrobe did for her. Instead they sexualise us, diminish us or, in simple terms, make us look ridiculous.

Just imagine today's high street finds on a female prime minister. A nice wetsuit-style neoprene t-shirt perhaps? How about some pleather quilted shorts? Take the crop top. Magazines and shops are going crazy for it. So sweet! So charming! Pair it with a sequin pencil skirt! Strike a pose! Vogue! It's everywhere. Seriously - try talking about something important with your belly-button on show. Try it. That visible sliver of flesh not only looks agonisingly bad, the worst kind of 90's throwback, but also automatically lessens the wearer's IQ by about 40%. Intelligent, opinionated women reduced to looking like aged members of Atomic Kitten. I'm all for freedom of dress, but has it really come to this?

What The Iron Lady does is reinforce that age-old adage, that clothes maketh the man. Sure Thatcher was a lot - and I mean a lot - more than a snazzy handbag, but that doesn't change the fact that appearance was vital in creating her veneer of power. I'm not suggesting that we all start donning Maggie-inspired twinsets but there is something to be said for properly embracing clothing with clout.

Power dressing comes along ever few years as some kind of trend. Nestled snuggly in the page of magazines alongside 'nudes', 'tartans' and 'fringing'. As if women are only legitimately allowed to look like a powerful female after Alber Elbaz has shoved a model down the runway in a pencil skirt and shoulder pads. As if we only want to dress with authority once every three years during the Autumn/Winter season.

Men have the suit. That classic disguise. The layman's equivalent of superman's red pants and cape. They put it on and suddenly they're transformed. Before, a dishevelled boy, after, a man, a real man, like Don Draper. Men also get the tie. Like that magic 'talking stick' passed around at primary school, it gives the holder the divine authority to speak, to be listened to and to be taken seriously. What do women get in return? We have no wizard-like neckpiece, no sartorial sandwich-board demanding that we be acknowledged.

Remember Teresa May's 'cubist coat'? Course you do. Remember what Cameron wore that day? Or Miliband? No. Naturally. Men get to hide behind the power of the suit, whilst women flounder at the style wayside. Struggling on, through the mounds of high street tat, hot-pants designed for skeletal teenagers and dresses for the cast of Geordie Shore, looking for something, anything, work appropriate.

Important lessons can be learned from the recent flood of historical dramas. Mad Men helped remind us all that we have a waist. Let's hope The Iron Lady helps remind us all that it's okay to look smart, powerful, and even a bit intimidating. (On a side note - take note, men of Britain, of the sheer sex appeal of a red-velvet smoking jacket. See Douglas Booth in the Christmas hit Great Expectations. Swoon.)

Just as Thatcher had to transform her style to cement her status, the high street needs to transform its attitude towards the powerful female. Stop treating her as a passing trend, as fleeting as the polka-dot, as worthless as tulle. Hidden behind the jeggings, there is an Iron Lady in all of us.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1172273 2011-12-29T19:00:00-05:00 2012-02-28T05:12:02-05:00

Lou Stoppard http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lou-stoppard/
It's been the year of hysteria-inducing designer/high street collaborations. Louise Gray's beautiful range for Brora was an indisputable highpoint. Similarly Jean Paul Gaultier for La Perla was top of the Christmas list. But other unions warrant less praise.

I think we can all agree that no one needs to see another pair of legs clad in Henry Holland for Pretty Polly faux-suspender tights staggering their way out of a nightclub, invariably matched with unflattering denim shorts and patent stripper heels.

But the real villain in this tale is H&M. It was the nifty Swedish retailer that got us into this mess with their relentlessly publicised partnerships. There was Stella McCartney-mania, panic-buying at Jimmy Choo and fights at Lanvin. Then this year saw the grand king of collaborations, the dictatorial overlord of the highstreet, Versace for H&M. The collection dropped with an impact that rivalled Chernobyl, its influence seeping and spreading across the world, contaminating fashion magazines, billboards and every Christmas party in a twenty-mile radius of an H&M store.

Pumped up by the success the retailer announced that they would soon be wheeling out another collaboration, this time with Marni. Oh Marni, sweet, noble Marni. How the mighty have fallen. Once the preserve of the chicest, smartest women this wonderful Italian brand has sold its soul to the mass-produced, conveyor-belt devil.

Even as we speak the store is gearing up for the release of the Versace 'cruise' collection, perfect for all those H&M shoppers who aspire to vacation on the Playboy yacht sporting a Spice Girls circa-1996 strawberry print bikini. The high street is mocking us.

I understand the premise - great fashion at affordable prices. The democratisation of style. Except this is not great design and it's not great quality. And most ironically it's still snapped up by an elite group. Those leisurely few who don't have nine to five constraints and can spend half their Thursday morning queuing on Regent Street, or, most likely of all, those who shun the scrum all together and can afford to buy up the collection where most of it ends up anyway - eBay - at a 10-fold mark-up, the same price as the designer label itself. And so the rest of us are left to skim through the average, non-branded slim pickings served up on regular shopping days. Fantastic.

But why are these collections so popular in the first place? The two greatest appeals of designer clothing are quality and exclusivity; the fact that people know that the unique item you are wearing cost the same as the mortgage on a small flat in Ealing. High street collaborations offer neither. They are poor quality, no less itchy or ill-fitting than any other mass-processed item. And given that the collaborations come with such zealous propaganda they don't even boast a veneer of individuality, as everyone who's stepped near a newspaper can instantly recognise at a glance the forty or so heinous items in the collection.

So why the unstoppable appeal? High street collaborations are just one of the many bizarre bandwagons that we've all jumped on. They are the fashion equivalent of cheap 'pre-theatre' meals at fancy restaurants - rushed, careless and nothing like the real thing.

The mindless positive reviews don't help. The Versace for H&M collection became the toast of the fashion town, as Kanye West, Anna Dello Russo and the stylist to every single X-Factor contestant in Christendom fought to get their hands on it. Why? Did they see something the rest of us didn't? It was emblazoned with prints that made the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air look understated, and made of clingy fabrics and fall-off-after-one-wear studs - a very similar aesthetic to the clothing on the racks in neighbouring Primark. The very same rails that sleek fashion-editors regard with disgust, sashaying past clutching their Whistles discount cards, thanking their lucky stars that they have access to the minimal cashmeres of the upper high street. But when branded with a 'Versace for H&M' rubber stamp these lurid items magically move up the style ladder and the fashion-pack blindly follow, seemingly unable to see that they are essentially wearing a Hawaiian print wetsuit. Proof, if ever it was needed, that it's not what you are but who you are by that matters in fashion.

So when you enter a party clad in Donatella's yellow mini-dress, or head down the street in her tropical corset, make no mistake, few will glance at you with jealousy, wishing that they too had the vision and easy elegance of you, the sartorial wizard. No, instead the sane will think of you as that sad trend-slave who queued in the cold. Best get in line for Marni 2012 then.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1150446 2011-12-15T06:55:29-05:00 2012-02-14T05:12:02-05:00

Lou Stoppard http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lou-stoppard/ review of the high street has made its (budget) catwalk debut. There's talk of this leading to the creation of a 'minister for shops'. David Cameron - consider this my application. Finally a position where endless hours spent perusing the rails at Zara can be justified as research.

But undoubtedly this holy grail of jobs, the shopaholic's dream, will go to someone absurd like Eric Pickles or worse Nadine Dorries ('she's female - she must understand clothes') who probably haven't stepped foot in a shop that wasn't Marks and Spencer or Millets since 1975. The kind of people who think that Acne is just a skin condition and Opening Ceremony is what happens at the start of Songs of Praise. Poor Britain. Poor high street.

The government does seem to have strange taste when it comes to picking people to "save" the high street. Unsurprising really, given their record of bizarre appointments, my favourite being Philip Green to advise on how to save government spending - the answer presumably tax evasion. The pictures of David Cameron and Mary Portas striding around Camden this week as if that's where they'd always belonged, rather than in Fulham drinking elderflower cordial and listening to Radio 4, troubled me. I mean Portas? Really?

I know I'm slow on the uptake here - she was appointed as an independent reviewer in May - but lets take a moment to consider this, openly and honestly. What in heaven's name is Portas, with her extensive knowledge of window-displays and TV presenting, going to be able to do to "save" the high street? She may have many talents, including a gravity-defying Lego-man bob, but I'm pretty sure that no matter how much effort she puts into revamping the New Look changing rooms she's not going to be able to singlehandedly waft away the recession and solve poverty and unemployment - because that's what it's really going to take to help the high street.

People aren't avoiding spending because someone was rude to them in Primark, or because they don't like the feng shui of Debenhams. They're avoiding it because - and as a seasoned shopper I speak from the heart - they are skint.

I have nothing against Portas in principle. She's my favourite kind of woman - smart, fearsome, and if some of her sartorial choices are anything to go by, completely insane. But what I find most alarming about her review is it just seems full of contradictions. She was meant to be fashion's knight in shining armour, a champion of British-bred clothing, but now she's hell bent on getting rid of half our stores. What a U-turn.

She used to love the high street, creating a collection to be sold in House of Fraser and helping to revamp hundreds of small struggling boutiques, but now she's its worst enemy, dubbing poor, unassuming WH Smith a 'dump' - I mean what was she expecting, leather-bound copies of Katie Price's autobiography?

She's now arguing that; "we have thousands too many shops. They will have to close and do other things" - hardly a bastion of support for British business. She is trying to help high street stores survive by, um, telling them to close down. Isn't that what they are already doing? Isn't that the problem?

Poor shop owners. They've spent the last few years listening to Portas tell them to improve their service, spice up their stock and redecorate on her Mary Queen of Shops TV programme. I'm not sure that they'll be too happy now she's proposing they just give up. She's advising that stores be turned into gyms, crèches, youth clubs, coffee bars and community town halls. Right. Well - that's probably more of a 'revamp' than they were expecting. It's not really championing British fashion to demand that boutiques start minding children and selling caramel macchiatos rather than actual clothes.

Just like the advertisements bombarding the fashion addicts who trudge the streets of Britain, Mary and this review are giving ever-changing, mixed messages. One season it's leopard prints, the next it's neutrals. One minute the problem's layout and individual staff behaviour, the next it's the rise of e-retail and supermarket monopolies. One minute it's platforms, the next it's kitten heels. One minute it's save our shops, the next it's close them. So what will be the future for Portas's review and the high street? Well, to be honest, it doesn't matter; in a few weeks it will all be so last season. ]]>