Nothing beats a great pair of Converse high tops. Everyone needs a pair in their closet, it is the absolute must-have cheap, perfect shoe. I have a few pairs, one plaid pair from when I was 14, that is completely falling apart (I’d like to have them bronzed), a pair of denim Converse that my friend Daniel re-designed by splattering bleach all over them (it makes a nice pattern) and a pair of plain red ones. If was in the market for a new pair (when am I not in the market for a new pair of shoes?) I’d take these blue ones. I love that they are completely blue, aside from the sole. The blue label, laces, and lace holes make them look…different. In a cool way.

It is a shoe-love weekend!

Image from Hypebeast.

I finally picked up my Chanel “Temporary Skin Art.” (and here I was calling them tattoos…how gauche!) I love that they are such a serious brand, but they do some really fun products.

Here is the skin art.

And here are some other amazing Chanel products. This is a true lifestyle brand.

Chanel Skis

Chanel Snowboard

Chanel Tennis Racket

Chanel Surfboard

Chanel Weights

Chanel Scooter (perhaps the least cool of the items I've featured)

Chanel Golf Clubs

Chanel Bicycle

Chanel Basketball

Chanel Football

Chanel Bocce Set

Chanel Boomerang

Chanel Inflatable Raft

Chanel Guitar

Nice.

All images, except skin art, from Chanel.com

I don’t discuss denim much on this blog, although, like most people I’m sure, it plays a very important part in my wardrobe. I don’t really do designer denim, I have yet to understand why one needs to spend $300 on a pair of jeans, when you can get a perfectly good pair for $50 or $100. I have a couple pairs of Lee Jeans I really like, and the last pair I bought was from Uniqlo, which are great, and very cheap. I will definitely be spending some time at Uniqlo when I am in London in March.

There’s been a couple of announcements of denim collaborations in recent weeks, including Vivienne Westwood with Lee, and Henry Holland with Levi’s.

Some of my Vivienne Westwood jewelry.

I had a very, very bad experience in the Vivienne Westwood store in London a few years ago, which resulted in me writing a nasty letter to them highlighting the fact that their customer service sucks, and the response from their retail manager was basically “tough shit.” So I will never shop at Vivienne Westwood again, even though I have tons of the jewelry, which I still wear, and have recently been given some more of the jewelry as a gift, which I also love. (I do think her collections are a bit boring, she did a whole bunch of cool things a long time ago, the pirate boot, the platform shoe, the corset, the big pouffy satin ballgown, and the amazing tailored suit, and she hasn’t really evolved since then. Her fashion shows almost all look the same.)

Vivienne Westwood catwalk looks. From left to right: Spring Summer 2006, Autumn Winter 2007, and Autumn Winter 2008. They all look the same. Images from Style.com

Vivienne Westwood Anglomania brand is collaborating with Lee jeans, and according to WWD, “the debut collection for fall will launch to buyers next month, and will include styles such as superskinny jeans and microshorts for women, along with bondage jeans and skinny jeans for men. Washes will run from indigo denim to metallic gold- and copper-colored denim to denim printed with a trompe l’oeil lace design.” If the collaboration is half as good as her ongoing Melissa shoes collaboration, then I am sure we can expect great things. But I won’t be buying it.

Amazing rubber shoes. Vivienne Westwood Anglomania for Melissa. Images from Melissaplasticdreams.com

The other denim project announced was Henry Holland’s collection for Levi’s. I have never met someone working in the fashion industry in London that didn’t think Henry Holland’s collections were a complete joke. His original slogan t-shirts were cool and catchy, but his attempt to turn them into a full on fashion collection were a complete and utter failure, which only captured media attention because Agyness Deyn was his very close friend and used to model his shows. One day when I write a post about models, perhaps I will be able to express my disdain for Agyness Deyn, the one-trick-pony model with terrible poses and who never closes her mouth. But today is about jeans.

The slogan tees were a bit tacky too, but they have their place in fashion history.

I think Sarah Mower summed up Henry Holland’s last catwalk collection quite well on Style.com, by describing it as “a presentation with very little substance and plenty of ironically tacky clothes that are actually genuinely tacky, too (how else to describe tangerine lace?)… he’s a one-man self-marketing wiz who instinctively knows how to brand himself (the quiff, the glasses, the Agy, the cheeky northern wit) and is now using his runway chiefly to display his collaborations with other companies.”

Why did Levi's have to hire Henry Holland to make these jeans look ugly?

Well, his collection for Levi’s is no better. In fact, I think it looks tacky like the rest of his stuff. You can tell he is not a designer.  I’m very bored of Henry Holland, and I wish he would go away.

More ways to ruin a perfectly good Levi's jean jacket, by Henry Holland.

Levi’s by Henry Holland images source.

The fashion news of the day is that Puma has sold its majority stake in the Hussein Chalayan brand back to Hussein Chalayan himself. However, he will apparently stay on as Creative Director at Puma.

I thought this was pretty interesting. When Puma bought a majority stake in Hussein Chalayan in 2008, we presumed the brand would become a bit more commercial, and at the same time, Puma would become more exciting because Hussein was going to be the Creative Director. The fact that he bought his company back, would imply that he wasn’t happy with the arrangement, but since he is staying on at Puma, I’m guessing there are other reasons behind todays. news, and maybe this was part of the original plan.

Hussein Chalayan is another one of London’s super edgy designers, although he is from a Turkish background. His career has been bumpy, because he has often refused to do many commercial products, and therefore has often been tight on cash. He is best know for his incredible fashion shows, but some of his other career highlights included designing clothes for Björk, working with TSE cashmere, designing for Marks and Spencer, and receiving and OBE from the Queen (Order of the British Empire.) I also found this quote on Wikipedia: “A passionate fashion designer, Chalayan has made his feelings for celebrity-based fashion clear when he publicly announced how he felt about Kate Moss’s collaboration with high-street clothing label Top Shop, calling the move ‘insulting’” Go Hussein!

Puma is also a really cool brand, when it comes to sportswear. They have always been the edgier than their competitors, and I feel that in many ways they have more integrity than Nike, Adidas or Reebok. Puma is more of a fashion designer’s brand than the others. They dedicate their efforts targeting the early adopter community (the cool people who pick up trends first) instead of the mainstream, which means their products are usually more interesting and innovative. It made sense when Puma and Hussein Chalayan joined forces, as Puma would benefit from his creativity, he would benefit from their cash, and the brands would not clash. By the way, Puma is controlled by Gucci Group PPR, so there was also the involvement of a luxury conglomerate.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the brand now. I hope he works on expanding his diffusion line, Chalayan, and widening the stockists, so we can buy it in Vancouver. Let’s look at some pictures from Hussein Chalayan’s collections.

Hussein Chalayan Spring Summer 1998. This show caused a lot of controversy, for obvious reasons.

Hussein Chalayan Autumn Winter 1998

Hussein Chalayan Spring Summer 1999

Hussein Chalayan Autumn Winter 1999. The last two images show the dress as it opens up.

Hussein Chalayan Spring Summer 2000. Second and third rows down show another dress opening up.

Hussein Chalayan Autumn Winter 2000. This incredible collection shows a set of living room furniture turning into clothing, the highlight being the coffee table turned skirt at the end

Hussein Chalayan Spring Summer 2007 featuring the famous Bubble dress.

Hussein Chalayan Spring Summer 2009.

And here’s a little bit of interesting information about Puma. Their red Clyde shoe was considered to be the shoe of the best breakdancers in the 1980s. In fact, you couldn’t wear this shoes unless you were one of the best, it was a status shoe. Here’s a image and some more info from the Classic Sports Shoes website.

“Definitely the most legendary and popular Puma style of all time, this classic has a place in history and in every Hall of Fame. At the 1968 Olympics, the newly released Puma Suede was worn by Tommie Smith, the prominent Olympic athlete, when he took to the Olympic awards podium with one fist held defiantly in the air.

Walt Frazier wore this style in the 1980’s and this shoe became known as the “Clyde”.

The Suede is widely regarded as the original B-Boy shoe. It was made famous by early break dancing crews, such as the New York City Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew, who rocked them religiously at early Hip-Hop jams in New York City.”

Catwalk images from Hussein Chalayan’s Website.

This week I dragged Jason out shopping again, as I still haven’t managed to see all the important Vancouver shops. Lyndi came with us, she does PR for Style Republic Magazine, and another one of Jason’s friends, who is Canadian but speaks Turkish and Mandarin. Her linguistic skills were probably the most exciting discovery of the evening, which doesn’t say much about shopping in downtown Vancouver.

I started alone in American Apparel, and I managed to get out without spending over 100 dollars. American Apparel is great, it is the brand that is not a brand, you can wear it in so many different ways, so practical , so simple, and so easy. While I was waiting for my shopping partners, I wandered into Adidas on Granville Street. Adidas is a fantastic brand, the clothes, shoes, and visual merchandising all look great. I am not very into sportswear, but since I became a contributor to View2 magazine a few years ago (which is a trend forecasting magazine for the sportswear and casual wear sectors) I developed an interest in some of these brands.

Look at the amazing running shoes in the Adidas store, I want the ones with the wings.

I'm trying to think of an outfit where I could wear these without looking clumpy.

Also very cool.

So many pretty colours and textures!

So our shopping destination was Leone, which is a high end store in Sinclair Centre that used to focus on Italian brands, but sells quite a few European brands as well. They carry brands like Versace, Roberto Cavalli, Prada, D&G, Jimmy Choo, Dior, and John Galliano. For those of you who don’t know it, this is one of the high end shopping destinations in Vancouver, probably second only to Holt Renfrew, our luxury department store.

There is definitely some nice stock in there, lots of it desirable and expensive but not ridiculously expensive. The problem was, like most Vancouver stores, the visual merchansiding. First of all, the brands weren’t grouped together, and luxury brands each deserve to have their own space (unless you are merchandising them like a boutique.) The sales people didn’t know what season the clothes were from. And the signage… oh my god the signage.

Can you imagine using a generic neon sign and tacky red sales tickets in a luxury store?

These signs were taped on several of the walls, all over the store. First of all, can't they get professional, classy signs made? Second, print them on expensive paper, not regular photocopier paper. And third, find a nice way to attach them to the wall, not globs of gluey stuff. Even H&M wouldn't use signage like this.

This is a shoe rack with Jimmy Choo, Miu Miu, Dior and other fabulous luxury shoes. They are displayed the same way you would display $29.99 stripper shoes. I bought a pair in London once, and they were displayed exactly like this. Can you imagine there must be at least 20,000 dollars worth of shoes on those cheap shelves...

Come on Leone! You can do better than this…