6 posts tagged "Browns"
London Parties For Fashion Week, With Dinner, Drinks, And A Few Well-Placed Torsos
You don’t get to much shopping in the course of a busy day of London fashion-week shows. But last night, two of the city’s marquee boutiques found another way to welcome fashion weekers to town: Over in Chelsea, Joseph was hosting dinner at the store’s Joe’s Café, and back in the center of town, Browns had set up shop in the Royal Academy vaults to celebrate the store’s launch of Club Monaco in the U.K.
First, dinner. Joseph served up a nicely British repast of beet carpaccio and sea bream, one partaken of by Charles Anastase, Pat McGrath, Tamara Mellon, and Katie Hillier, as well as acclaimed chef and British-cuisine cheerleader Mark Hix. Meanwhile, over at Browns, where the likes of Tracey Emin and Sophia Hesketh could be found, Hix’s team of mixologists from his pop-up Speak Easy were treating guests to high-class cocktails, including a dangerous dark-cherry-flavored concoction. The spirit at Browns was a bit more Frenchified: The party’s host was Lou Doillon (left), and Le Baron’s André Saraiva had hopped the Channel to deejay. Or perhaps the mood was more transcontinental, what with Club Monaco being an American-owned brand, and the after-party going down at London’s recently opened outpost of the Box. Welcome to the global village.
Best to down another cherry cocktail, stop thinking about geography, and start looking at the art decorating the scene. The Royal Academy vaults had never before been opened to a private event, and the sculpture-strewn space may have been the real star of last night’s party. Vaguely creepy and seriously cool was the general verdict, and designer Saloni Lodha, who had presented her collection the previous day, was already making plans to relocate her show to the Royal Academy next season. “You think they’d let me do it?” she mused, staring up at a bank of muscular stone torsos hanging off one wall. “I mean, I don’t even know how Browns managed to pull this off. I didn’t even know this was down here!” As Doillon might have noted, après moi, le deluge.
Ask The Experts: Favorites Of London Fashion Week
London fashion week is drawing to a close, and the fashion set is headed for Milan tomorrow, where Gucci opens the week. But as we’ve scooted around town for the innumerable parties, shows, presentations, and teas (this is London, after all), we’ve been asking everyone along to name their picks. Below, a few of London’s finest sound off on what they liked.
“I thought Peter Pilotto was outstanding.” —Jefferson Hack (He was cautious to add, “But it’s not over yet—a lot more could happen.”)
“The bags at Topshop were amazing, and it had a lot of tasseled dresses and swimsuits. I really, really liked it.” —Julia Restoin-Roitfeld
“I saw Erdem, which was beautiful. The whole setting was perfect for it and what a perfect day for it! I [also] liked Roksanda [Illincic]. The colors were beautiful and also the fabrics she used were so soft.” —Browns’ Mrs. B
“I’ve loved a lot of things, actually. Meadham Kirchhoff, I thought was amazing. I thought they really honed their aesthetic—[there was] some continuity of what they did last season but better, I think. Also, I really, really loved Holly Fulton, Erdem, Louise Gray, Richard Nicoll…the list goes on, to be honest!” —Style Bubble’s Susie Lau
“My absolute favorite, hands down, has been Meadham Kirchhoff (left), without a doubt! It was so excellently executed, so beautifully layered. The colors were amazing. They basically did what Courtney Love should have done back in the nineties!” —Browns buyer Erin Mullaney
If Only All Ambassadors Dressed Like This
Browns has been an English institution for four decades now. Mrs. B isn’t one to let an occasion like that go under-celebrated. For the store’s 40th anniversary, the pioneering retailer—who brought Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Sonia Rykiel to England and was an early booster of Hussein Chalayan and Marios Schwab—put together an exhibition, opening tomorrow, of 40 Browns “ambassadors” in finery pulled from its archives. Paolo Roversi shot Marc Jacobs in Halston (above), Eva Herzigova in Mark Fast, and Ann Demeulemeester in her own collection (both below), among many others. And as for Mrs. B herself? The lady chose Marni for her close-up (bottom, left). Continue Reading “If Only All Ambassadors Dressed Like This” »
Globe-Trotting For Less
There’s nothing new about England’s storied Globe-Trotter—the company’s been creating luggage since 1897—but it is having a bit of a moment at present. (J.Crew recently started stocking its cases, and Marni’s Consuelo Castiglioni customized one for Browns’ 40th anniversary collection.) What’s been good enough for explorer Sir Edmund Hillary (who took a Globe-Trotter on his Everest expedition) and Queen Elizabeth II (who toted a Trotter along on her honeymoon—rawr!) is certainly good enough for me; it’s the unapologetically high prices that stand in the way. Luckily, when Terence Conran announced he’s shutting the doors of his 59th Street flagship in Manhattan and moving his operation to ABC Carpet in Union Square, he docked prices across his inventory. The Globe-Trotter Centenary air case (pictured) dropped from $1,000 to $272.50; a trolley case that hovered close to $1,700 retail is now $421.25. Now the only question is, where am I off to? And Liz II, you coming with?
Browns’ Mrs. B On English Matrons, French Schoolgirls, And Young London’s Fashion Victims
Joan Burstein—Mrs. B, as she’s popularly known around London—is an English lady of the old school. Remarking, for example, that the hot water in her house has been out for two weeks, the founder of the venerable Browns boutiques says simply that she remembers the war, and how to boil a kettle. But since founding Browns in 1970, Burstein has taken a much more tender approach with the designers she’s nurtured, among them John Galliano, Hussein Chalayan and Marios Schwab, and Armani, Rykiel, Ralph Lauren, and Calvin Klein, all of whom she introduced to England. This year, Browns is celebrating its 40th anniversary by launching Browns pop-up shops around the world and introducing the Future Collectable line, which comprises archival and specially designed pieces by notable Browns-stocked designers like Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Christian Louboutin, and Alexander Wang. (We’ve got a few sneak peeks, below.) Here, Mrs. B talks to Style.com about four decades of must-have finds.
What inspired you to open Browns?
Well, there wasn’t anything else around like it, you know. 1970, it was just the beginning of fashion in Britain. There was Yves Saint Laurent, and there was Biba. That’s it. I wanted to attract another customer. And to create a wonderful ambience and a natural feeling of shopping.
Was there a particularly English fashion sensibility you saw going unrepresented?
Oh—nothing like that. The English, we’re quite good at street fashion. But the old-fashioned, upper-class English women, they’re quite conservative. That’s if they bother about what they wear at all. No, they don’t embrace fashion; they have other priorities. School fees, the country house. I don’t judge whether that’s right or wrong, but it’s something you wouldn’t see in America, women with money being careless like that about their clothes. What I wanted to create at Browns—well, how do I say this? At the time, my children were enrolled at the Lycée Français, and there was a uniform, you know; cropped Shetland sweater, kilt, knee socks. And on the top, a Marks & Spencer raincoat tied at the back. Very smart. And I thought, this style, it’s great. That’s the image for Browns. And of course, I found what I was looking for in Paris.
Are there any particular high points, for you, in the history of Browns?
The discovery of the designers. Anytime I’ve found someone and thought—oh, I must have that, we must sell it! That’s exciting. As I said, it happened in Paris first, with people like Sonia Rykiel and Emmanuelle Khanh, and then it happened again in America. We introduced Halston, Geoffrey Beene, Bill Blass. And later, Calvin and Donna and Ralph. It’s all timing, isn’t it, in fashion? You can be too early or you can be too late. We got to America at just the right time.
How so?
Well, no one was buying American fashion back then. Not internationally. Calvin, for example—he had a name in the States, but when we found him, his business wasn’t even set up for export. We had to train them. Ralph, too. Of course they were quite keen, but the relationship required nurturing. If you want to know what I’m proudest of, it’s that tradition at Browns, of nurturing new talent. And not just by buying. For example, you asked before about English fashion; what we’re really good at, where we really excel, is at producing raw talent. I make a real effort, still, to get out to all the degree shows and so on, because that’s where you find that kind of raw talent, you know. And I believe that when you find it, you help it along.