3 posts tagged "Liberty of London"
At London Fashion Week: The News Is Shoes, And More From Liberty
Nicholas Kirkwood isn’t the only London-based designer with shoe news, it turns out. At the party i-D threw for him, Christopher Kane revealed that the heels on his Fall ’10 runway (left) are the first styles in a new collaborative range with Giuseppe Zanotti. And on Tuesday, at her traditional London fashion week tea, Charlotte Olympia designer Charlotte Dellal ‘fessed up that she’s opening a store off Bond Street in seven weeks or so. Come fall delivery time, shoppers will find satin-covered footwear in rainbow colors, vertiginously high or ballet flat, and each pair will come in a set with matching stockings, a first for the brand. “We’re not selling the stockings separately,” Dellal explained. “They’re designed to go with the shoes, tone-on-tone.”
London shoppers looking for a louder volume, meanwhile, should head to Liberty. The buzz in the U.S. has centered on the store’s collaboration with Target, which will bring Liberty-print apparel and housewares to both countries, but on Tuesday, the celebrations were for a different collab—with Milan’s 10 Corso Como. Liberty CEO Geoffroy de La Bourdonnaye and 10CC’s Carla Sozzani co-hosted a cocktail party to celebrate the effort, which prints bikinis (below), sun hats, wallets, and scarves from the Milanese store with Deco-era Liberty prints from the archives. Yasmin Sewell, Liberty’s chief creative consultant and one of the driving forces behind the update of the store’s fashion floors, was on hand and took the opportunity to talk up the latest local designer to blow out the doors. “Michael van der Ham is killing it,” Sewell said of the designer, who showed his second collection earlier in the week at Fashion East. “We just got his first collection in, and it’s selling out.” Coincidentally, we’d caught up with van der Ham the day prior, at his stand at the New Gen installation at Somerset House, and he’d explained that one of the inspirations behind his collaged designs is a series of Warhol films composed of sundry, spliced-together footage. Van der Ham is on the laconic side, and he speaks softly, but it’s worth pricking up your ears: You’ll be hearing more from him soon.
Liberty in London Has Some Work Done
“It’s got to be a bit mad, doesn’t it?” said Yasmin Sewell, creative consultant for the recently revamped Liberty store. “It is Liberty, after all.” After an extensive renovation aimed at modernizing Liberty and restoring the landmark to its concept shop roots, the store debuted its new look on February 15. “We’ve tightened our edit considerably,” Sewell explained as she led the way through the new Avant-Garde room, which devotes its space to designers such as Margiela, Anne Valérie Hash, Acne, Dries Van Noten, and Rick Owens. The former buying director at Browns, Sewell is also bringing Liberty up-to-date by locking down exclusives with designers such as handbag phenom Katherine Fleming (who will host a trunk show at the store on Wednesday) and jewelry makers Eddie Borgo and Pamela Love. But the Liberty heritage remains front and center: Tamara Salman’s store brand gets pride of place in the accessories department, for example, and the historic sewing floor remains intact. (Sorry, out-of-towners, quilting classes are booked through spring.) “I’m happy to say,” notes Sewell, nodding at the browsers paging through fabric bolts and hunting for thimbles, “that you can still get pretty lost up here.”
a day in the life of: yasmin sewell, buyer for liberty of london
Wednesday, October 1
8 a.m.
I’m not so great with early starts, but during Paris fashion week I need to break all my rules. I’m sure I’ll perk up once I see the extraordinary dresses at Balmain, which is my first appointment. I’m thinking I need to wear a nice dress today—I’m tired of looking like a slouchy boy. I decide it’s time for my new YSL stone wool jersey dress. The temperature dropped about ten degrees overnight, so that pretty much marks the end of my summer wardrobe until May.
9 a.m.
Balmain is out of this world—and so are the prices. One of the hardest thing any buyer has to do is work out which $25,000 dress to choose. And what size? It’s really a guessing game when you get to that level. The team at Liberty, including the CEO and I, deliberate over this for most of the morning without reaching a decision.
12:30 p.m.
Lunch with Antonio Berardi at Bouledogue. He’s one of the loveliest designers I know and a pleasure in every way to work with. We both eat some damn good swordfish with sweet potato. Batteries recharged for about two hours.
2 p.m.
I have an appointment with David Seeto, a personal favorite of mine. I’d like to order every dress I see. His color palette is divine this season—he has a way of designing the chicest dresses that are just so easy to wear all the time, with no expiration date.
3 p.m.
Meaning 4 p.m. because of the late start. It’s the Dries show. This is an important one to attend, as it’s a big one for Liberty. It’s not as strong on print as last winter and summer, but I guess he couldn’t continue that OTT floral print for yet another season. It’s still beautiful, though, and I know it will work well in the new Liberty space.
I find it impossible to feel grounded when I’m doing a lot of shows and appointments in one day. There’s so much around me that is capturing my attention and dozens of people to tune into…it’s hard not to come across a little scattered!
5 p.m.
An appointment with Acne, my other personal favorite. I should note that today is a particularly lovely day. It’s not always this pleasant, believe me! We are doing Acne’s first big space in Liberty when we relaunch next season. It’s a label that ticks every box—even boxes you didn’t know you wanted to tick! It’s a time-consuming appointment, as we are discussing their area and the many collaborations we plan to do together as well as the buy, which is usually a minimum two-hour appointment on its own.
8 p.m.
Back to my hotel, where I’m having a little dinner party on my private terrace. Just good friends, all of us here for fashion week. These kinds of nights take our minds off the job. There’s nothing like good music, great friends, and Hôtel Amour’s famous roast chicken to bring you back down to earth.