A typical "Nu-Rave" ensemble. Disgusting.

Every now and then a fashion trend comes into existence that is so bad, so tragic, and so hilarious, that the only thing you can do is make fun of it and hope that it goes away. Nu Rave was one of those trends, one of the worst trends I have ever seen. EVER. This premise of Nu Rave, which was very 2007 in London, was that it was a revival of the 90s rave scene. Now, I hate to admit it, but I was part of that 90s rave scene, and I can assure you I never wore the disgusting clothes that the Nu-Rave trend regurgitated.

Cassette Playa menswear from Spring Summer 2007. Note: this was NOT a joke.

The worst Nu Rave brand of all was Cassette Playa, designed by the worst dressed woman in London, Carri Mundane.

Carri Mundane. The outfit says it all.

Another really bad brand was KTZ, which was created by the founders of the Nu Rave fashion store on Greek Street, Kokon Tozai. I used ot go into Kokon Tozai with my friends Daniel and Dean just to laugh at the clothes. Seriously. They were so hideous, and so over priced. I mean, a $250 cashmere baby rattle from Hermes seemed good value compared to this stuff. I once asked the sales assistant at Kokon Tozai, what person actually bought the hideous $300 Cassette Playa t-shirts, which were basically an XXL Hanes tee printed with a three colour screen print motif. He said “Fashion students at Saint Martins.” No fashion student at Saint Martins will spend $300 on a shitty, ugly t-shirt that they can whip up on their own in the print room in about half an hour (I know, I WAS a fashion student at Saint Martins.) This stuff was a joke, and I am so glad the brands have sort of disapperaed…well, sort of.

A £215 Cassette Playa t-shirt. That's over $400CDN. Nope, this is still not a joke.

The reason why I brought this up is because my friend Michelle emailed me today and asked me whether this was KTZ for Topshop dress was serious. I had to tell her that unfortunately yes, it was serious. She couldn’t understand why anyone would pay $400 for this hideous monstrosity. I can’t understand either. It is just gross.

Pearl Dot Priss Dress by KTZ for Topshop. This dress sells for £200. That's a lot to pay for a dress that will make you look fat and ugly.

However, I’l take this moment to say that despite this disgusting dress, Topshop is usually pretty amazing, and I’l be dropping a lot of cash when I go there next month while I am in London. Can’t wait!

Cassette Playa images from their website. Carri Mundane image from here. Topshop image from their website.

Before I start this post, I just want to say that I am devastated about the death of Lee Alexander McQueen. I have decided to wait a few days to write a post about it, as I’d like to hear a bit more about the circumstances and the reactions, before I write.  I’ll post something in the next week or so. R.I.P. Lee Alexander McQueen.

It is hard now to go on and talk about fun fashion things, but I feel I am long overdue for a post about the Sonia Rykiel collections for H&M. I never wrote anything about the lingerie (I had a draft written for ages, and then it was too late,) so I definitely need to comment on that, and the knitwear coming out next week.

This body suit is pretty cool.

Not exactly a t-shirt bra, but very cute.

One of my students asked me if I was going to buy anything from the upcoming collection, and, unless I get the opportunity to do so with the least amount of effort, the answer is no. It is not because I don’t like the collection, on the contrary, it looks great but I have a lot of the real thing, so I don’t intend on buying the cheaper version.

But it looks pretty cool!

I had a look in my closet to see if I could show you all some of my fantastic Sonia Rykiel collection, and I realised that my collection consists of bags, shoes, and jewelry, I barely have any clothing at all. My Sonia Rykiel shoe collection is PHENOMENAL, with a lot of pieces that were never commercialised or that were produced in very limited quantities. My bags are mighty cool too. And the costume jewelry is fantastic. There is way too much of it to photograph tonight, so here are a few good bits.

Rhinestones, or "strass" as its called in French, are one of the key elements in all of Sonia Rykiel's collections.

My time at Sonia Rykiel was amazing, and I know I was fortunate to have worked with one of the fashion greats. She is a pretty amazing woman, and she was very invovled in all of the collections, which was rare because she was in her early seventies at the time. I can’t possibly describe the entire experience in one, or several, blog posts, but here are a few short stories that might make you smile.

My beautiful ribbon sandals.

One day Sonia took the design team to lunch at the Cafe Flore, which was across the street from the flagship store and the offices. She is known for being a bit of a swinger, and let’s just say, her love life certainly hadn’t caught up to her age. We were sitting upstairs, and a man came over to the table, which was filled with young fashion designers, good looking gays and girls, eating lunch, and right away he started chatting up Sonia. She didn’t even seem surprised. I was pretty impressed, and hope that I will still be receiving fancy pick up lines when I am 70.

These don't look like much, but the trim is real fur. And I love real fur.

If you work for Sonia Rykiel, and your name is Sonia or Nathalie, you need to adopt a new name while you are working in the company. They don’t want anyone to have the same name as the founder or her daughter. The even weirder thing was that our studio director was named Antoinette, but Sonia hated that name, so she was referred to as Louise while she worked there. Louise wasn’t her middle name or anything, it was a name assigned to her, because Sonia “liked” it.

Sonia Rykiel was not the most generous of brands when it came to giving freebies, particularly to the models. We always told the dressers to make sure that the models didn’t steal the clothing. At one show, I was helping someone dress Alek Wek, and she said she loved the shoes (I think those were the ribbon sandals shown above.) One of the senior designers said to me, “Give her the shoes! Give her the shoes!” We gave her the shoes, and what happened? A few weeks later she is photographed wearing them out, and of course they become one of the “shoes of the season.”

Yes, these ankle boots are amazing...

but even more amazing when you fold down the top and expose the pink lining. Notice the "strass" all down the side.

My favourite one-on-one Sonia Rykiel moment was when she called me in to help her tidy up the studio. I had just started there, so I felt pretty intimidated by her. Our fur supplier had dropped off some colour samples and they needed to be tidied. Now, this didn’t mean they dropped off a few bits of dyed fur, this meant we had about thirty top grade fox skins, dyed in the most beautiful colours (which, once lined with satin, sold as scarves for about $2,000 each.) She was shoving them into garage bags, and asked me to help her with it. She said they were in the way. Here I was, 20 years old, a little Vancouver girl, shoving $40,000 dollars worth of fox skins into a garbage bag with one of the most famous French fashion designers. Welcome to Paris.

My "Glam Star" strass pins.

All Sonia Rykiel for H&M images courtesy of H&M.

The collaboration we are all dreading: Jimmy Choo and Ugg.

There has been so many new product launch announcements in the past few weeks.

• Armani is doing a collaboration with Reebok
• and… Armani is making chocolate
• Diane Von Furstenberg is launching home decor
• Acne has launched furniture
• Paris Hilton is launching swimwear and lingerie
• Bebe is collaborating with Kim Kardashian (barf)
• Versace is launching a cell phone
• Tory Burch and Alexis Bittar are giving Barbie a makeover
• Gucci is launching couture
• Steve Madden is collaborating with Diana Ross

Great to hear these brands are doing so well that their allocating ressources to brand extensions, but isn’t it a bit strange that no one seems content to stick to what they do? Are these new products really going to expand profits or increase profiles, or are they just activities to get short bursts of media attention? I’m all for brands expanding into relevant product areas and interesting collaborations like Louis Vuitton’s artist series and H&M designer collections, but some of these brands are overdoing it, don’t you think?

Image source.

One of my students wore an old Club Monaco logo sweatshirt yeterday, and it looked pretty good. I do think it is terrifying that things that I wore in my teens are now “coming” back and becoming fashionable again, because that means I am old, but I can’t help but love the Club Monaco logo sweatshirt. When I was a teen I had at least two of these and longed for more, preferably one in every colour. I won’t wear them again, beacuse my mother told me you can’t wear a trend again if you wore it it the first time it was popular (although I am not sure I agree with her completely on this…) but I sure wish I didn’t throw mine away. The lesson of the day is Keep Everything! Never throw away old clothes, store it all! When I was 24 I was already regretting the things I threw away at 17.

Prince wearing an old Club Monaco sweatshirt.

By the way, I tried to find some on eBay, but there are none. In fact, when I google “Club Monaco Sweatshirt” there are no images that turn up at all. Boy am I feeling old right now. I guess the place to go is second hand shops or your attic, until/unless Club Monaco relaunch them. But the best ones will definitely be the old ones.

I was absolutely shocked to read this article in the New York Times about the fact that H&M throws away tons of old stock that hasn’t sold. Not only do they throw them away, but they also cut them up, so they are sure that the clothing cannot be worn. Apparently Walmart does the same thing. The article goes into full detail about this, and apparently they contacted H&M eleven times for comment, but no one has responded.

I guess its not unusual that companies get rid of their stock this way, but its upsetting. We all know that there are tons of people who would be desperate for this clothing. I was pretty shocked that H&M were doing this, more so than Walmart. Although H&M is a very big company, they are Swedish and as a brand, they tend to have a generally good reputation. It was very unwise of H&M not to comment on the situation, as requested by the New York Times. In a situation like that I feel it is much better to fess up and announce that you are changing your strategy, rather than avoid saying anythingt, which generally means you are guilty of something.

H&M: Not as cool as we thought.

This brings me to a subject that has been on many people’s minds in recent years: the subject of ethics and sustainability. I would not consider myself to be as ethically-conscious as I should be, aside from food and beauty products, but that is for more selfish reasons. However, I have changed my ways significantly in recent years, and I imagine many people have too. I have always been very against wasting food, but now I am even more careful about wasting anything, and I try and buy fairtrade and organic where possible. The problem of course is transparency, how do you know which brands are genuinely good, labelling is often complicated, sometimes you don’t know what is good and what isn’t.

I am certainly not a model citizen when it comes to buying ethical, eco-friendly, or sustainable goods, but I do support and applaud a few brands that I know are doing some good things. Here is a short list, I am very open to recommendations if you have any other great brands to suggest.

American Apparel: A lot of people don’t like American Apparel, and I can’t understand why. Yes, I know their founder is a bit of a pervert, and his advertising is often pretty controversial, but let’s look at the facts. They do fantastic basics that can be transformed into whatever look or style that suits you, they have a huge selection, and everything is made in the US. They are one of the only companies that actually gives their factory workers healthcare and paid holidays. What’s not to like?

Dr Haushka: Aside from my hair products (see below) I am pretty much loyal to Dr Hauschka. Their holistic products are amazing, its not over priced, and I love the company.

I swear by this stuff.

Barefoot Botanicals: This British company makes the best shampoo and conditioner for problem scalp, as part of their aptly named SOS range.

Marks and Spencer: Marks and Spencer is setting the standard for high street retailers by earmarking 200 million pounds to their Plan A program (Maybe H&M and should read through it…) “We launched Plan A in January 2007, setting out 100 commitments to achieve in 5 years. Through Plan A we are working with our customers and our suppliers to combat climate change, reduce waste, use sustainable raw materials, trade ethically, and help our customers to lead healthier lifestyles.” It’s very long and detailed, but basically they are opening sustainable factories in the Far East, charging for plastic bags, not putting any crap into their food, and generally doing a lot of good things. Plus they do amazing hosiery, great basic lingerie, and I have a crush on the chief executive, Stuart Rose. He is SO charming.

Noir: Not your typical eco fashion brand.

Noir: I have yet to buy anything from the Danish brand Noir, since it is pretty hard to get ahold of, but I like them because they have been doing “ethical” fashion long before it was cool, and they make “ethical” fashion look cool. From their website: “The mission is to provide fashionable apparel that is created based upon Corporate Social Responsibility principles in all links of the supply chain that are meant to, at a minimum, do no harm, and, at a maximum, do good in the communities, cultures, societies and environments in which the companies operate.” Sounds good to me.

Osklen: Osklen is this amazing Brazillian brand that for some reason is barely known outside of Brazil (I am DYING to go to Brazil!) “The brand represents the lifestyle of contemporary women and men in a world where urban and nature, global and local, organic and technological live together. It is precisely this perception of the integrated nature, culture and society, with refined aesthetics, that makes Osklen to be considered one the the ten most influential and inspiring brands in the world by WGSN.”

—-UPDATE—-
Thursday January 6th at 2pm

H&M has finally responded to the New York Times article, and is now saying it will no longer destroy unworn garments. It is explained in this follow-up article, which basically says that H&M claims it was their policy to donate the unwanted clothing, and that they didn’t know why they were being thrown out. I’m still pretty upset that this happened in the first place…and I don’t believe it wasn’t orders from head office. They say they will now donate the old clothing. I really hope they enforce this, and other retailers follow suit.

Here is Part 3 of my summary of the last decade. Click for Part 1 and Part 2.

Building BRIC Countries. Brazil, Russia, India, and China have become new industry superpowers. Luxury brands are opening shop in these newly wealthy countries. China is reveling in its manufacturing powers and looking to bank in on creativity as well. Russian oligarchs own…almost everything. High street brands are opening all over India, with an estimated 700 million Indians living in cities by 2050 (Goldman Sachs.) And Brazil has the world’s 5th biggest population and a huge amount of natural resources.

Louis Vuitton’s Shanghai store under construction.

Too Fat and Too Thin are the words used at some point to describe almost all of the celebrities in the past ten years. With obesity rates rising globally, the blame shifted to the thin people, in particular the fashion industry.

Another distorted fashion image.

Socialising Change. How has society shifted in the past ten years?

A new language is born.

The Axis of Evil. Image source.

Twitter, tweets, tweeting, retweet, etc…

Swine Flu, Bird Flu, H1N1, the flu had many new names.

Image source.

There has been many goodbyes in the past ten years,including the Yellow Pages and the fax machine.

Green is the New Black, certainly when it comes to lifestyle. The words fairtrade, ethical, sustainable, and organic have become a part of our everyday vocabulary. How green are you?

Eating Locally

The Electric Car. Image source.

We all understand what this sign means now.

How many of you grow your own? with the help of your compost…of course.

And the garbage gets smaller as our waste gets redirected to compost and recycling. Image source.

Of course we all carry around reusable bags for our groceries… Image source.

And lets not forget, no trend is a real trend unless a giant American company manages to profit in some way. Here’s to the king of organic food.

When Fame Meant Talent. Our obsession with celebrities intensified in the past ten years, and fame became more achievable. Celebrities don’t just sing songs for us and act in our movies, they design our clothes, the model clothes in our magazines, they make perfumes, yoga clothes, hotels, and nightclubs. And anyone can be famous, land yourself a gig on a reality TV show, and you too can be the next big thing.

Big Brother: the source of way too many useless celebrities.

Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B. One of the few celebrity collections that has a teeny bit of credibility. But not much.

According to UK Vogue, putting a celebrity on your cover guarantees way more sales than using a model, The only exception being Kate Moss, who seems to be an exception to a lot of things.

Poor Paris. She is just…so uncool.

The Hills: I can proudly say I have never watch a whole episode of these ditzes and their boring life. Would it be possible to do a reality show about some people who are interesting, intelligent, AND talented? Or does that defeat the purpose?

The i-Generation. Remember when a blackberry was a fruit? Phones were used for calling people? Maps were used for finding your way? And you used a CD player to listen to music?

And… A few more people to sum up the decade.

Politicians these days have to ride bikes. Image source.

Celebrity chefs: some were cool, some made good good, and other were *?@*&%€ !!!! Above, Jamie Oliver.

“shoes, sex! cocktails, shoes, men, Manolo, shoes, sex! dildo, New York, shoes, Manhattan, shoes, sex! orgasm, shoes, shopping, dress, shoes, New York. And sex!” The Sex and the City girls (or should I say ladies?) certainly liberated the plus forty single woman.

No many artists can go mainstream and still be cool. Banksy = an exception.

Remember when Karl Lagerfeld was fat and carried a fan? Photo from Vogue France.

Not many celebrities can be filmed doing cocaine, not make any statements to the media, and then double their fees.

Three really annoying guys who were generally a nuisance to everyone.

Sex Wizards sells. Image source.

Best Looking Couple. Oops! That award goes to Brangelina. The Beckhams get the Most Annoying Couple.

Let’s also take a moment to think of the many tragedies suffered in the past ten years, particularly the tsunami victims, Hurricane Katrina victims, and everyone else killed in wars, terrorist attack, or from starvation. There was FAR too much of that in the past ten years.

Happy New Year everyone and here’s to a prosperous 2010!

All images from the brand’s or person’s website, except all catwalk images from style.com, unless otherwise noted.

Thanks to the Grahams for their help on this list!

Here is Part 2 of my summary of the last decade. Click here for Part 1.

New Blood in the fashion industry and on the catwalks. Images from Style.com

Christophe Decarnin for Balmain.

Tomas Maier for Bottega Veneta.

Christopher Bailey for Burberry Prorsum.

New designer Gareth Pugh.

Ricardo Tisci for Givenchy.

Alber Elbaz for Lanvin.

New designer Marios Schwab.

New designers Rodarte.

New designer Giambattista Valli.

Stefano Pilati for Yves Saint Laurent.

New designer Zac Posen.

Nicolas Ghesquière for Balenciaga.

And I am not forgetting Jonathon Saunders, Proenza Schouler,  Alexander Wang, Philip Lim, Richard Nicoll, and many others (including revivals of Halston and Ossie Clark.) In fact, when I was researching this post, I realised that in Fall 2002, Style.com showed 114 designers’ catwalk collection on their website. For Fall 2009 the number was up to 262.

A New Retail Perspective resulted in an shopping evolution, or revolution.

Dover Street Market in London.

Dover Street Market, considered one of the “best” stores in the world, opened on London’s Dover Street. Curated by Rei Kawakubo from Comme des Garcons, the store continues to innovate.

Primark’s first central London location had people queuing over an hour to buy £1 tights and £3 t-shirts. Dubbed “Primani”, the store continues to attract crowds and has not felt the recession as badly as most high street retailers.

A new retailing concept: The Pop-Up Store. A temporary retail space, opened for a short period of time, sometimes with a limited edition product. This one is a pop up for Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with Rei Kawakubo from Comme des Garcons for a collection of handbags.

Net A Porter changed the way consumers shop for luxury online.

ASOS (As Seen On Screen) started as a site selling copies of celebrities outfits, but as turned into one of the largest, most-successful multi-brand online retailers.

Gilt Groupe is one of the many discount luxury retailers thriving in the recession.

American Apparel sold basics tees with a new angle: using sleazy and sometimes pornographic images to sell a product made in the US in factories where workers had holiday and sick pay.

A Decade to be Forgotten. How many of these fashion trends do you look back on and smile, or cringe? (in no particular order…)

Kate Moss wearing gladiator sandals, first seen at Balenciaga.

Luxury denim, aka the $300 pair of jeans. These ones from Rock and Republic.

Lingerie becomes fashionable again, thanks to brands like Agent Provocateur.

I remember when there were one hour lineups outside the Birkenstock store.

Bling: a trend I definitely did not embrace.

Nu Rave. The worst trend of the 00s. What were they thinking? This look by Cassette Playa.

The IT bag: Chloe Paddington anyone?

and we certainly cant forget the Motorcycle bag by Balenciaga.

The new IT bag: The IT shoe. From top to bottom: Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, and Christian Louboutin. I think we have Sex and the City to thank for this.

On second thought, Crocs were definitely the worst trends of the 00s, with Nu Rave coming in a close second.

Not wearing pants. A Lady Gaga phenomenon, lets hope this one doesn’t last. Image source.

Leggings. These ones by American Apparel.

Boho, Hippie, Hobo, whatever. A look that kept on giving. Sienna Miller image from Dave Hogan/Getty Images.

Skinny jeans helped us to discover the muffin top. These ones by Topshop.

Maybe it was a decade of really bad shoes…. But unfortunately we still haven’t seen the end of the Ugg boot.

Wellington boots by Hunter. Remember when there were for farmers, not festivals?

If anyone had told me that a company would make millions buy selling velour jogging suits, I would have never believed them. Nauseating.

The Birth of the Recessionista and the credit crunch will probably be one of the defining events of the last decade, even though it took place at the end. The losers were the big luxury brands that didn’t have a strong brand identity, hedgefund managers, department stores, anyone selling cars or furniture, and the millions who ended up unemployed and homeless. The winners were the discount retailers, online retailers, anyone selling an education, and MacDonalds.

Susie Bubble as a Recessionista.

Catch Part 3 of 3 “Remembering the Noughties” posts tomorrow!

All images from the brand’s or person’s website, except all catwalk images from style.com, unless otherwise noted.

My friend Michaela pointed out to me recently that everyone has just sort of been ignoring the fact that we are about to enter a new decade. Well, I wouldn’t say it has been ignored, but I agree we aren’t really making a very big deal of it. Maybe we had millenium overload ten years ago, but no one can deny that a lot has happened since 2000.

I have been working on this post for a while, looking through other websites’ and newspapers’ “summaries of the decade” and trying to think what I felt was really important from the last ten years. I have combined it all under a few categories, and I am probably forgetting loads of important things, but here I go. Also, I don’t agree with Time Magazine, who has called the 00s “The Decade from Hell”, I prefer just using the term The Noughties. Nought means zero in British English. Maybe we can call it The Decade Nought to be Forgotten? Ok, that sounds cheesy. Lets just call it The Noughties.

It is a very long post, so I have broken it down into 3 parts. Here is Part 1. Enjoy!

The Politics of the Stars and Stripes really took over the world stage in the past ten years. First, the Americans had the disastrous Bush era, whose ignorance, terrible international relations, and poor leadership led to the US being the most hated country in the world. That pissed some people off so much that they flew planes into the World Trade Centre towers, which led to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and very long line ups to get through security in airports. Things started to look up at the end of the decade, when Barack Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. He hasn’t been around long enough for us to feel the effect of his good deeds, but it definitely brought hope to the world, and has calmed down their enemies… a little. And his wife is the best dressed first lady ever…she deserves mega kudos for showing off her arms, supporting young American designers, and wearing affordable clothing.

Yay!

These images from are from The Cut’s Michelle Obama Lookbook, they have been documenting all of her outfits. Definitely worth a look.

A Shift of Power took place in the fashion industry, as we saw established designers disappear, famous retirements, celebrities taking over the industry, and revived brands making headlines.

Valentino retires, and so we say goodbye to the man known for red dresses, animal prints, and perma tan.

Emanuel Ungaro also retired in 2004, which resulted in turmoil in the house for several years, leading up the current disastrous state which sees Lindsay Lohan as Artistic Director. The above images are from her first collection for the house, which was bought by only two stores.

Things are not looking good for Christian Lacroix, who has had to suspend his Haute Couture and Pret-a-porter because of financial difficulties.

The Ferre brand is also unstable, since the death of the founder, Gianfranco Ferre, in 2007. Image source.

And some very old brands have been reinvented…

Alber Elbaz is now the Creative Director behind Lanvin.

Nicolas Ghesquière is the Creative Director for Balenciaga.

and Christophe Decarnin is the Creative Director for Balmain.

Luxury Made Accessible by the high street retailers collaborating with big names. Owning a piece by Karl was no longer unattainable, as long as you were willing to wait in a line up.

H&M were the pioneers of the designer high street collaboration.

H&M designer collaborations. Clockwise from top left: Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Viktor & Rolf, Matthew Williamson, Sonia Rykiel, Comme des Garcons, Jimmy Choo, and Roberto Cavalli.

Christopher Kane for Topshop, the famous crocodile print.

Target launched collections with McQ Alexander McQueen, Anna Sui and Rodarte (shown above.)

New Media changed the way we consumed news and information. Time Magazine summed it up in 2006 when they named “You” as person of the year. Web 2.0 changed the way we consumed the web, making users the new contributors. Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Myspace changed the way we searched, researched, communicated and socialized.

The computer screen was a mirror...

This image of bloggers Bryanboy and Tommy Ton (from Jak & Jil Blog) sitting front row at the Dolce and Gabanna Spring Summer 2010 show with Anna Wintour, Hamish Bowles, Suzy Menkes and other big player fashion journalists showed that blogging was being taken seriously in the fashion industry.

Scoot Schulman’s street style blog, The Sartorialist, is known for his well-chosen photographs of men and women of all ages on the streets of the world’s fashion capitals.

Websites like Vogue’s Style.com has allowed us to view fashion catwalk images hours after the runway show itself, changing the way we consume fashion. Years ago, fashionistas would wait until the magazines published the new season’s collections, usually months after the show itself. Now we see the shows immediately after they happen, and hear about them on Twitter as they are happening.

Catch Part 2 of 3 “Remembering the Noughties” posts tomorrow!

All images from the brand’s or person’s website, except all catwalk images from style.com, unless otherwise noted.

I love this installation in the Stockholm Head Offices of H&M by UXUS, a group of designers from Amsterdam. It is for H&M Home, which looks very promising; it looks a lot more exciting than Zara Home, and feels a lot more “designed”. I have no idea when the home collection will arrive in Canada, if ever, but right now it is available in Sweden. Sweden is a mecca for modern interior design, even the most basic of homes look like an Ikea catalogue, in a really good way. The Swedes are just born with great design sense, something I will probably talk about over and over again in this blog.

From UXUS:

“UXUS followed up the Home Reflections presentation with “Interaction”, an installation celebrating H&M Home’s transition from an online and catalogue retailer, to a physical showroom where one can indulge all the senses, especially touch.”

Imagine walking into work every day and seeing this before you head to your desk!

I read about this first on Dezeen, one of the best design blogs.

Images courtesy of H&M.

(By the way, anyone toying with the idea of getting a job at H&M, I heard they are a fantastic company to work for, but they do all sorts of creepy profiling interviews. They also expect all designers to start at the bottom, whether you have 6 months experience or ten years. Probably the reason why I am not living in Stockholm right now.)

I think a very suitable first post topic would be one about something we can’t find here in Vancouver, as I’m guessing a lot in this blog will be about just that. I suppose I am somehow hoping that I can convince Canadian retailers to start to sell more exciting clothes, but I suppose first I need to convince Canadians to want them.

Anyway, for Canadians unfamiliar with Uniqlo, imagine a bunch of stylish Japanese people getting their hands on Gap and injecting colour, style, and cool. That is exactly what Uniqlo is. Then, to top it all off, they ask Jil Sander to come in as Creative Director. Their new line, J+, launched 2 weeks ago, has resulted in line ups outside the Paris store for over a week. So there must be something amazing in there, and I can’t have it. In fact, the only place it can be found in North America is New York.

Here are some photos, and if you really want to upset yourself, have a look at the prices on their website. I should also note there is tons of fantastic menswear, which we all know is very difficult to find if  you don’t want to break the bank.

Photos courtesy of Uniqlo.