One to watch: CLaer

I know it's still summer, and therefore realistically far too early to be championing a knit-wear brand that specialises in cashmere, that most glorious of warm fabrics. But the magazines are all trumpeting on about how to get the next season's look and outside it is decidedly grey and rainy, so I feel vindicated.
CLaer isn't a typo, it's just another silly label name. But despite it's slightly odd branding (seriously, the twirly wirly typefce they're using isjust not right) CLaer's clothing is serious stuff. After all you don't get much more serious than a knitwear purist who used to be in charge of all things woolen at arch minimalist Jil Sander.

The label's name comes from that of its founder, Hamburg based designer Claudia Laermann, who was creative head anf designer for Jil Sander's knit and jersey collections for 18 years beofre launching her own line in 2009.
On her website, Laermann refers to Cashmere and Marino wool as "noble fibres" that "caress the body" and "contribute to the feel good attitutde of the wearer", which is rather nice.
She also talks about "feminine coolness" which seems like a rather euphemistic phrase better suited to one of those breezy advert about feminine care, but no matter. What's important here is the clothes, and this is cashmere as it's meant to be - stupidly expensive but versatile and covetable and hard to get hold of.
Most of the new collection, which includes a gorgeous fine knit cape and some very, very chuncky cable knits, woudl sit very happily alongside the key autumn winter pieces from Prada, Celine and Chloe, which judging by the September issues of all the fashion magazines, are what we should be wearing at the moment.
But, even I was financially healthy, I'd quite happily not spend all that money on any of those collections, and just buy one piece from CLaer.
Although even the promise of the rarest fibres harvested by hand from wild goats and tiny baby rabbits and then rolled into wool on the thighs of Christina Hendricks in a process overseen by the ghost of Chanel with assitance from Karl Lagerfeld would never get me into an Alpaca playsuit.

One to watch: Kelly Bergin

It's miserably grey in London today, but the temperatures have been pretty impressive for the last few days. I am not do good at dressing for hot weather in the city. Especially at the moment as I am having a bit of an 'i-have-put-on-weight-and-now-hate-everything-in-my-wardrobe-that-is-strappy-and-isn't-black' crisis.
In LA they know how to dress for hot sticky weather (although they don't have to contend with even hotter and stickier London underground and therefore the floatiness of their attire seems a bit more practical). However, generally I remain faintly underwhelmed by LA fashion off the red carpet - it's too safe but scruffy, too 'trying hard not to look like I'm making an effort'. After all, this is a place where Juicy Couture and Crocs, the byword for everything awful in footwear, are acceptable clothes for off-duty millionaires.
And it's rare that I like an LA based designers work. But Kelly Bergin is an exception.
Bergin only graduated from LA's FIDM (like the London College of Fashion but less experimental) in 2007 and launched her sportswear* line in 2009.
On her website, Bergin says her clothes offer a "modern, paired-down sensibility" featuring "classic shapes imbued with modern details". But whatever. To me her spring/summer collection says "I'm an easy summer in the city wardrobe, gaze upon me longingly while silently preying for the man with the sweaty armpits pressed next to you on the tube to get off at the next stop".
There are a few things in her spring/summer collection that look either a little aging, too young for anyone who doesn't want to look like an extra from The Hills, or just not suitable for me - but an awful lot of it is rather good...

Visit her website to see the full spring/summer collection as well as her autumn/winter 2010 collection which featured a pleasing palette of black, black and more black. A designer after my own black heart.
 http://www.kellybergincollection.com/


*Sportswear is a ridiculous name for every day clothing that the fashion world adopted a long time ago for opaque reasons we are not going to go into here. Suffice to say these clothes are supposed to be of a more hanging out with your friends in the park and not worrying too much about the grass stains nature than most designer clothes, however they are still often dry clean only which kind of defeats the point.

Jewellery ideas that are a bit silly but I like them anyway...

I have found myself with a few spare minutes this week and am not quite sure what I'm supposed to do with them. There's not enough of them at the right time to do anything worthwhile that won't see me a/ hungover b/ wracked with guilt about how much I've spent or c/ trying to get home from Chiswick, so instead I have been rediscovering some old past times. One of those is reading proper books, which I have been trying to squish in to the tiny free moments I've had over the past weeks fairly unsuccessfully.
Now I have a bit more time in the evenings I'm racing through some of my favourite novels again. The stories in Gullivers Travels may no longer seem at all unlikely after months and months spent reading the depressing or absurd stories that pass for news in the newspapers every day but they are a bit of a relief.
I'm also enjoying some time to rediscover all the blogs I used to look at. Here are two of the silliest/greatest things I have seen on the blogs this week;

Stiletto x Eric Kayser x Mauboussin via viacomit.net
Some bright spark at Stiletto magazine had the idea to put a 7 carat Mauboussin ring inside a loaf of bread by master baker Eric Kayser and then give it away. Nice idea but surely a major choking/tooth shattering hazard? However giving this away to some lucky customer is certainly a good way to get people to come to your new bread shop in its opening week. (This is happening in Paris by the way. But of course.)

Chewed by Tuesday (can't remeber how I stumnbled upon this one)
Chewed by Tuesday is frankly a brilliant idea for people like me who like weird things. Created by Melbourne-based designer Vivienne Gibson and inspired by Brooklyn (the place in NY, not something banal) and stationery, the first range features only two pieces - a solid silver bic penlip and a solid silver bic penlid with a chewed end. Becasue who doesn't chew the ends of their pen lids. Well, JFK doesn't, but then he is very precious about his pens and would rarely sink to the level of the humble bic biro. 

(pictures from http://www.chewedbytuesday.com/)

At $250 each plus postage they're more than a little bit out of my price range, but I want one, if not both, very badly indeed.

Beyond the Valley jewellery special

So, a few weeks ago EDF and I were wondering fairly aimlessly through Soho and popped into one of my favourite boutiques, Beyond the Valley on Newburgh Street, to have a nosey around.

Beyond the Valley is a great place to find small labels and really different jewellery and, although they have an online shop, nothing beats a trip to the shop itself as they always have something new on their shelves. Every time I go in I come out itching to buy fabric and make things. Sometimes I even get as far as the buying fabric bit. Right now there's a small bag of creamy diamante studded tulle, the after effect of our last visit, staring at me from a bedroom shelf and making me feel guilty about having failed to turn it into something wearable. 

As ever, this particular trip flagged up a number of great designers I didn't know as well as giving me an opportunity to caress a selection of super soft, fine and witty cashmere knitwear by Kind, which always makes me happy.

Kapow Wow made me want to make things more than any other. St Martin's graduate Mia Morokawa creates crazy ruffled neck pieces that look stiff and hard but are soft to the touch and surprisingly wearable.

(images from www.kapowwowobjects.com)

Also by a St Martin's graduate (they do get around, don't they?) Momocreatura takes fairy-tale woodland creatures and adds some rather nasty gory touches. I loved the more than slightly macabre pierced animal pendants, brooches and bits and pieces. Bit too dark for regular every-day wear, in fact really quite creepy, but I badly want a piece none the less. 

(image via www.momocreatura.com)

But my lust-o-meter was really raised by Noemi Klein. Google might confuse her with the No Logo author, but I think I know which one I'd rather be friends with. 

I especially like her twig collection, which would go rather well with my twig horseshoe ring by Alex Monroe.

(images via Beyond the Valley)

Her bird skull pieces are also pretty awesome...

That's all folks.

One to watch - Ricardo Dourado

While other blogs are obsessed with A/W 2010 already thanks to New York Fashion Week (best shows thus far for me Rag & Bone and Preen - some New York style mavens might think this is blasphemous but I'm not feeling the Wang), I'm still hunting for my big S/S love.

But if someone put me up against a wall right now and said I was only allowed to wear one designer this season, Ricardo Dourado would be a serious contender. Like Wang, he excels at the off-duty model look but with a more European twist.

30 year-old Dourado is hardly a familiar name in this country, but he's been on the scene in Portugal for four years now. I stumbled across him at Wolf & Badger and it was true love at first fondle.

His 90s grunge inspired S/S catwalk show features light silk jerseys, washed cottons and a muted colour palette. Sadly the youtube video demonstrates how some gawky models can ruin a show. Unusually, the stills actually give a much better idea of the quality of the collection but it is much, much better in the flesh (and on someone with a bit more of said flesh that those models).

His lace-up wedges knock the Atacomas out of the water (I have it on good authority that Elle have called in a blue washed pair for a photoshoot) and the man himself is even nice to bloggers, responding to our emails in person and seeming genuinely pleased that we like his work.

Check out Dourado's blog here.