33 posts tagged "Richard Nicoll"
While Others Go For The Gold, Young London’s Designers Go For The Red, Blue, And Green
The upcoming Summer Olympics have inspired plenty of designers to think sporty. But even those without court and pool on the mind are celebrating the event in their own ways. The Games are on English soil this year, so U.K. retailer Matches is indulging in a little well-deserved patriotic peacocking. The store commissioned a handful of London’s young guns—Jonathan Saunders, Erdem Moralioglu, Mary Katrantzou, Richard Nicoll, Holly Fulton, Roksanda Ilincic, J.W. Anderson, and the label Herself—to design limited-edition T-shirts whose proceeds will benefit the Disposessed Fund, which fights poverty in London. “London is the center of attention at the moment with the Jubilee and Olympics right around the corner,” said Saunders (above, with a model in his design). “Not to mention the fact it has become the epicenter of such innovative design. I’m just happy to be a part of it in my own way.” His own way being one that won’t look at all out of place once the Games have bestowed their final medal and gone on their merry way. The shirts retail for £60 each (about $94) and are available today at Matches stores and www.matchesfashion.com for those outside the country.
More Details Emerge On London’s Menswear Week
After cramming a city’s worth of menswear offerings into a single MAN Day for the last few seasons, London is planning to give its standout men’s offerings a bit more room to breathe. The first men’s-only London fashion collections (technically three days, rather than a few weeks) will take place June 15 to 17, with opening programs including a launch event hosted by Prince Charles. In addition to the young London designers who have been showing on MAN DAY—like J.W. Anderson, James Long, Topman, Lou Dalton, and Christopher Shannon—the new opportunity has lured several U.K. brands back to their home turf, including Pringle of Scotland and Nicole Farhi, who have been showing in Milan, and Dunhill. E. Tautz, Hardy Amies, and Richard James will show ready-to-wear collections on Savile Row, and Richard Nicoll (pictured) will debut a menswear collection. The full schedule is now available at www.londoncollections.co.uk.
Celine To Move Into Mount Street, Bernard Arnault Takes An Interest In Maxime Simoens, And More…
London’s Mount Street, which has seen a recent influx of luxury retailers, will welcome a Celine shop in the coming months. The LVMH-owned label closed its only London location back in July 2009, shortly after the appointment of creative director Phoebe Philo. [Vogue U.K.]
Maxime Simoens may have parted ways with French label Leonard earlier this month, but LVMH’s Bernard Arnault is reportedly investing in the young designer’s namesake line. Arnault’s usual acquisitions include international luxury brands such as Bulgari, which LVMH purchased last year—which makes Simoens an interesting investment choice. At this time, WWD could not obtain further details. [WWD]
For the alternative bride, Topshop has announced a bridal collection designed by Richard Nicoll. Though no photos have surfaced, the collection is set to hit stores in June. Don’t expect too many girlish frills from Nicoll. [Grazia Daily]
Art-world phenom Damien Hirst reportedly customized a baby monitor for Victoria and David Beckham, whose daughter Harper Seven is now eight months old. Experts say the monitor is valued upwards of £10,000, which means it might just be the most expensive baby monitor in existence. [Daily Mail]
A Boost From Bally
“It’s rare that students get to present their designs in a venue like this, never mind getting to travel to Italy and work with creative directors of a large fashion company right on their turf,” Central Saint Martins professor Louise Wilson OBE said at the Bally and Central Saint Martins presentation at London’s Savoy Hotel earlier today. “I certainly never had that chance like that when I was a student.”
Props, then, to Bally, which is now in its third year of collaborating with Wilson’s CSM M.A. class. For the project, the brand selects two students to create a womenswear and menswear look, with a simple and admirable objective in mind—to nurture talent and to allow students the rare insight of what work life could be after graduation. Needless to say, this year’s students, Alice Bastin and Mei Lim Cooper (pictured), were chuffed to be there. “It was life-altering getting to work with the Bally creative directors (Graeme Fidler and Michael Herz)—seeing how a design is completed from A to Z,” Cooper told Style.com. And their brief? Well, let’s just say it was brief. They were both given a drawing to study, one women’s and one men’s shoe—and then charged with the task of creating a look, with the focus being on outerwear pieces this year. “It was great that the direction was so minimal because we got to use full creative license,” says Bastin, whose shoulder for her men’s jacket was almost an exact footprint, so to speak, of the toe of the shoe.
With Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Richard Nicoll, Roksanda Ilincic, Louise Gray, and Mary Katrantzou as a few of her famous alumni, we just had to ask Wilson if she had an LFW favorite this season: “Well, I don’t like to pick and choose, but it has to be said that Louise Gray’s show was outstanding—she really went to another level of her career. If I was younger, I’d be wearing all that stuff. Well, maybe minus the mohawk.”
On The Assembly Line With Richard Nicoll
Richard Nicoll calls this his sensible period. “More grown-up,” he explained with a laugh before his show this afternoon. “I thought this time would never come! I guess it’s the simplest collection I’ve done so far, and I liked the honesty of it.” Sensible has never been the most exciting of words in fashion, but Nicoll has a hint of provocation planned. “I’m using the presentation as a kind of metaphor for the way I’m feeling about the industry, so it’s art-directed to look like a tongue-in-cheek factory with the girls walking down conveyor belts and all of us wearing industrial workwear uniforms. We’re the factory workers producing these girls and these clothes!” Sensible with a twist, let’s call it.
Whether or not you work in a factory, the designer went on to explain, the collection is all about modern work clothes. “I wanted to approach this collection in a pragmatic way and make it a collection of clothing as opposed to a collection of fashion,” he said. “I wanted to change strategy and change direction and think about what I do for my brand from a more economically responsible way.” There’s a soft leather dress, pinafore-style in hazard orange, leather trousers in uniform blue, and an even softer wool-cashmere gray dress with sharp concertina-billboard folds that flip open, revealing a contrasting blue. “I looked at Jacques Tati’s Playtime, the early-sixties film, where he used a lot of gray and then some pop-y, almost Eames colors,” he said. Despite a sixties inspiration, one part of the collection was entirely modern: the white leather bag Nicoll designed with the English label Tusting. It features a hidden battery pack in the bottom that allows women to plug in and charge their cell phones, thanks to a partnership with Vodaphone, which has been sponsoring Nicoll’s presentations for two seasons.