2012 Tokyo Fashion Festival

The 2012 Design Festa at Tokyo Big Sight attracted around 10,000 artists (including performance artists). It's an open exhibit (as long as your art's original). It's a great place to find Japan's up and coming artists dressed in their best. 

Smokers Style

Three Dunhill SS10 looks with archive advertising images providing the backdrop.

The latest Dunhill collection by Kim Jones is everything I wanted and expected it to be. Jones' vision for SS10 is English to the core, classic whilst taking you back to the roots of it's founder, who was known for his love for exploration and travels, but at the same time it all feels very modern. On the surface it was a traditional collection which aimed to bring Dunhill home to a new market. However, as the looks moved from simple tailored day wear in to a more casual weekend and on to a capsule traveller collection through to evening wear, it was cleat that Jones had picked out key inspirations from the past and repackaged them for the new era of luxury.

Alfred Dunhill joined his father’s saddlery business in 1887, ambitious and inventive, he brought new ideas and following his father’s retirement in 1893 he planned to change the focus of the business to cater exclusively for the pioneering motorist. Kim Jones has certainly channeled the history of the brand and undoubtedly understands the heritage. I get the impression he has spent hours upon hours researching the back catalogues of Dunhill and books like Dunhill by Design, finding inspiration and updating these ideas for the 21st century The heritage of Dunhill is so broad and so darn British, from its beginnings with the birth of the car to creating luxury accessories for motorcycling, aviation and the oh-so-fashionable smokers in the Roaring Twenties.

 

"I wish smokers would appreciate non-smokers as much as non-smokers tolerate smokers smoking in front of them."-Diana Rikasari on Hot Chocolate and Mint

Diana Rikasari's Style

Leather folio mystery solved

One of the inevitabilities of the fashion week circuit is that you run into the same people in several different cities. I snapped a photo of this leather folio in London, and it piqued Daniel’s interest as a unisex option for a fashionable Macbook sleeve. I had no guesses as to who designed it but, as luck would have it, I ended up turning my camera lens to the same smartly-dressed lass outside the Paul Smith mens show in Paris. This time I made sure to collect the name of the brand.

The leather folio was made by London-based Jas M.B, and its owner paired it with a simple yet sophisticated outfit of black pants and a silk top, belted to have a peplum effect.

Written by Tania Braukämper.

Some people's wardrobes are about a small selection of pieces that all fit within one aesthetic - Tania Braukamper isn't such a person. With a wardrobe that spans three different rooms, her approach to fashion is a mixture of current-season key pieces mixed with vintage finds she's sourced on innumerous shopping trips around the world's more cultured capitals. Despite a disparate approach to shopping, Tania is adamant that the key to mixing vintage with new season is to stick to key looks and colours that work for oneself.