I had a good, thorough flip though the September issue of US Vogue over the weekend, and I was surprised to see how boring the advertising campaigns were. Firstly, Louis Vuitton was noticeably absent, which was very strange. And the magazine was also lacking in nice-looking campaigns, which, let’s face it, is usually the main reason we buy the September issues. I know that desperate times call for desperate measures, but the second, third, and fourth quarters of the magazine were crammed with tasteless, ugly campaigns from brands that are not “worthy of Vogue.” I guess they have had to drop their standards in order to fill their pages.

Before I go through my Loves and Loathes for the ad campaigns from the brands we know, I should point out that there was a very good article in Vogue about mothers in the US Army. Not only was it a riveting read, but it made me 1-feel so sad for children whose parents are in the military, and 2-hate the US Army more than words can describe.

I Love…

how amazing Karen Elson looks in this Balenciaga campaign. And the shape of that white furry coat is INSANE.

the way this ad highlights the unusual shapes Bottega Veneta is known for.

Roberto Cavalli at his best: glamour, leopard print, and fur.

these simple Celine ads.

that these Chanel photos look pretty relaxed.

the best trousers of the season, by Chloe.

that despite the fact that Gucci has basically repeated their Spring Summer photos, it still very luxury and on-brand.

Autumn Winter with Michael Kors. Only Carmen Kass can make grey jogging pants look great with a fur coat.

alien eye makeup at Lanvin.

gorgeous contrasts and hardcore hardware at Miu Miu.

that Nicole Miller suddenly looks modern and slick.

Prada's choice of models, Miranda Kerr looks amazing.

that Tommy Hilfiger does the American preppy look better than anyone else.

this beautiful photo. This Valentino dress looks absolutely stunning.

Cleopatra hair and dramatic stairs at Yves Saint Laurent.

I loathe…

the whole concept of this Bulgari shoot, plus the style of the photography, which looks quite tacky.

a boring Burberry campaign. Time to try something new.

ditto at Dolce & Gabanna. They also need to try something new.

when Hermes looks too equestrian.

this Jimmy Choo campaign. It is such a predictable fashion photo set-up, and the shoes look like nothing special.

when a campaign gets done too many times. The cute young Lacoste models jumping up and down were nice for a few seasons, but now they look like silly ravers.

that Ralph Lauren has chosen some of his most boring product for the seasonal ad campaign.

Kate Moss naked in this David Yurman campaign. She doesn't look nice at all, in fact, she looks a bit yuck.

I watched this very interesting TED talk last week, it is Johanna Blakley talking about “copyright law’s grip on film, music and software barely touches the fashion industry … and (how) fashion benefits in both innovation and sales.” The video is 15 minutes long, but defintiely worth watching, and it also raises some intersting points about copyright protection in the fashion industry.

The video looks at how the fashion industry had fewer regulations than other creative industries, and how fashion ideas are very difficult to protect. The first example she discusses is that of Miuccia Prada, when out shopping, buys a vintage Balenciaga jacket, in order to copy the idea and put it into her own collection. My readers in the fashion industry will be aware of this type of activity, it is called research. Essentially, part of the process of finding ideas for a collection is to take other designer’s clothing, and translate it for your own collection. As the TED talk points out, in some industries this might be considered copyright infringement. In the case of fashion, it is just how we get our ideas.

Left, Steve Madden shoe, right, Balenciaga shoe.

Is this wrong? Sometimes, yes. It is wrong when Steve Madden takes Balenciaga’s shoe design,  makes a few minor changes to it, and sells it as his own. It is wrong when Topshop copies Chloé’s dress design (and they had to destroy over a 1000 dresses when Chloé protested over the design.) But top designers don’t do that, they are much smarter and much more imaginative. And they don’t want to copy other designer’s work, they just want to be inspired by it.

Left, See by Chloé dress, right, Topshop dress.

The design research process involves many sources of inspiration, including travel abroad, books, artwork, and culture. Designers also buy clothing for inspiration, which can include very vintage pieces, old costumes, traditional dress found on their trips around the world, and other pieces of old clothing. Sometimes they take inspiration from other designer’s work, usually old work, but sometimes newer work, although it is almost never direct copies of recent designer’s work. I am sure Miuccia would take the aforementioned vintage Balenciaga jacket, and transform it into her own design, making serious modifications ot the original piece.

When I was at Sonia Rykiel, we used to have a guy, (who had the best job in the entire world) whose role it was to travel to flea markets around the world, and buy items of clothing and accessories that he felt we could use as inspiration for our collections. (Don’t ask me how to get into this line of work, if I knew, that is what I would be doing.) One season he brought us a whole bunch of bags, which I assumed were all vintage pieces. At the end of the season, we got rid of the ones that hadn’t been used, so I was allowed to take two home.

A few weeks later, I discovered that one of the bags was sold in a Paris shop, located quite close to our design studios. I also realized that the bag was a design from a new brand, and was being sold as part of the current season. Soon after, I noticed that the second bag was also from a young designer’s current collection. Basically, the items we were using for ideas for our future collection were not only old vintage pieces, but also the work of unknown young designers trying to break into the industry.

At the time, it came as a surprise to me. Then I learnt that this was commonplace in the industry. The young designers were coming up with great ideas, and we were considering stealing them. Those two particular bags never influenced our collections, although I am sure that we had at some point copied other designer’s work.

Left, Marc by Marc Jacobs, right, Wallis.

There are few laws that really protect garment designs, but the ones that exist are set up to protect large companies, and rarely small designers. When Steve Madden copied Alexander McQueen’s boot, they sued him. But when a small designer gets copied by a larger brand, there isn’t much that they can do. Big brands like Louis Vuitton and Gucci have to deal with thousands of counterfeits, therefore they need to rely on the strength of their brands and the quality of their product, to convince customers that the cheap knockoff at a fraction of the price is not worth buying. But small companies, who don’t have powerful brand identities and legal teams, struggle to protect their designs and brand identities.

Left, Alexander McQueen, right, Steve Madden.

What can we do about this? Nothing really. It is the reality of the industry, which is cut throat for nearly everyone in it. Not all big brands copy from young designers, but many do. Fast fashion brands often steal ideas from designer brands, and they are rarely caught out, because copyright laws make it very difficult for designers to protect their ideas.

Sucks, doesn’t it? If you are a small brand, and patenting, trademarking, and even registering design ideas is too expensive for you, there are a few ways you can protect yourself. Keep records of everything you do. If your design is copied, you can use items like press clippings, documents from factories/printers/photographers, etc… as evidence that you designed the idea before the other company. The old fashioned way of sending yourself a copy of all your designs, before they go out into the public domain, can also help. A postdated, stamped, sealed envelope can be used as evidence in court, just make sure not to open the envelope!

Read other Fashion 101 posts:

Fashion 101: How Magazines Cover Trends

Fashion 101: Where do Fashion Trends Come From?

Fashion 101: Designers with Two Jobs

Fashion 101: How Haute Couture Works

Fashion 101: Magazines and their Advertisers

Image sources:
Alexander McQueen and Steve Madden shoe.
Chloé and Topshop yellow dresses.
Steve Madden and Balenciaga lego shoes.
Marc by Marc Jacobs and Wallis floral dresses.

If you want to see more, Fashionista’s Adventures in Copyrights posts a lot of the high street copies.

A Spring Summer 2010 trend feature from online retailer Asos.com.

I’d like to do a Fashion 101 post about fashion trends and forecasting, since it’s an area that I work in, and find quite fascinating. In fact, I am going to write two posts on fashion trends, the first one will focus on how trends come about, and the second one about how magazines present trends. I feel bad for being so mean to the magazines, and revealing their dirty tricks, but in this day of absolute transparency (thanks to the internet), I think its only fair that the readers know how things work. But first, let’s talk about where fashion trends come from.

One of the questions I often get asked is “Why do designers have the same ideas at the same time?” and by answering this, I am sort of answering the question “Where do trends come from?”

A Spring Summer 2010 trend feature from luxury online retailer Net-A-Porter.com.

Designers don’t all have the same ideas at the same time, as we saw on the Fall Winter 2010 catwalks, not everyone was doing the same thing. But there were certainly a few things that repeated: there were a lot more curvy, feminine silhouettes, lots of designers were reviving 90’s minimalism, and there was a lot of sheepskin. So how does this happen? Do they all have a chat and decide what they are going to do? No, in fact its the opposite, designers are very secretive about what they do, until after their catwalk show. They have the same ideas at the same time because they are exposed to similar influences and they are looking for inspiration at the same time.

A Spring Summer 2010 trend feature from Topshop.com.

The fashion industry is small, and whether you are living in Paris, London, or New York, you are going to be exposed to similar inspirational influences as other designers. Firstly, everyone starts their research process after the shows, so in March while most of us were digesting the Fall Winter shows and wondering what we were going to buy come September when the collections were arriving in store, designers are off researching their Spring Summer 2011 collections. They will be looking at similar things, like art exhibitions, new creative work (design, architecture, fine art), new bands or other performance artists, interesting films, new books that have come out (and I don’t mean paperbacks, I mean visual books with creative work, like retrospective books or photography books), etc… Some designers will go off to foreign countries to get inspired, but they may have also been inspired by their last holiday, which was probably to some trendy holiday hotspot that many other designers went to as well. Everyone is exposed to similar ideas, and because designers have often been trained in the same ways, they just tend to move in the same directions. They “feel” things at the same time.

The images from the book Vacant inspired collections by Luella (punk styling), Sonia Rykiel (studs on shoes and knitwear), and Emanuel Ungaro (punk-style clothing.)

I hope this isn’t to vague, but I can give some examples. When I was in Paris in 2000, a book called Vacant: A Diary of the Punk Years 1976-1979 came out. It was full of photos from the punk years, and I remember quite a lot of designers bought it. At the time, studs weren’t that commonplace in fashion (not like today) but there were quite a few designers who were influenced by this book. At Sonia Rykiel, we added these fantastic studded shoes to our collection, inspired by the book. We also stuck studs to our knitwear. At Emanuel Ungaro, they featured punk and rockabilly looks on their catwalk, and blasted Billy Idol during the show. Luella named her collection “Daddy, who were The Clash.” So that punk trend was probably kicked started by the fact that everyone bought that same book.

The next step would be for the magazines to pick up on the “punk” inspiration, and they present it to their readers as the newest trend. I’ll explain more about that part of the process in the next Fashion 101.

Babyshambles and other London indie rock bands inspired Dior Homme.

Was it a coincidence that Sonia Rykiel and Emanuel Ungaro had similar inspirations, when in fact the design teams were friends? No. There is no doubt in my mind that the sharing of ideas between different designers contributes to the fact that there are similarities between collections, even if it is completely unintentional. I remember one season at Sonia Rykiel when we had put a very bright, brash yellow into our collection. we we were worried the the colour was bordering on tacky. Three days before the show, one of our fabric suppliers accidentally delivered a role of fabric to us, which was meant to be going to Louis Vuitton (whose design team, at the time, were very friendly with the designers over at Sonia Rykiel.) Louis Vuitton’s fabric was in the exact shade of yellow that we had put into our collection. The fabric suppliers begged us to return it immediately and not breathe a word about it, which we did. But we also breathed a huge sigh of relief that we weren’t off the mark with our bizarre yellow, because if Louis Vuitton were doing it, then it was definitely going to be cool.

To the left, Sonia Rykiel, other images, Louis Vuitton. All Spring Summer 2000. The yellow looked a lot more garish in real life, in these photos it looks a lot milder.

It is really interesting to track trends through fashion, because you can usually tie trends to something visually exciting that impacted the designers at the time of their research: The Memoirs of a Geisha film came out before Dior did their spectacular Spring Summer 2007 couture show, which was heavily inspired by traditional Japanese kimonos. Chloe’s 2001 horses collection came out shortly after the publication of a book called Rodeo Girl, which featured photographs of cowgirls. In 2005, Hedi Slimane was inspired by the sleazy indie rock bands of Camden Town, like Pete Dogherty and Babyshambles, for his Dior Homme collections.

The Rodeo Girl book inspired this Chloe collection, with images of horses.

So that’s why I tell people who are interested in getting into trend forecasting to be on the ball about…everything. Especially things that are visually interesting. You never know who or what is going to inspire the next major fashion trend.

Memoirs of a Geisha inspired Christian Dior Haute Couture.

One important issue I didn’t explain is the role of the trend forecasters, who generally tend to be inspired in the same ways as designers do. It is rare that a luxury brand designer will get their trends from a forecaster, high end brands have their own ideas, and those ideas will in turn affect the fast fashion trends. Trend forecasters usually sell fashion trend concepts to fast fashion brands, or companies who don’t have strong enough design teams, although some luxury brands will use trend forecasters for ideas on colour and fabric.

All catwalk images from Style.com.

Read other Fashion 101 posts:

Fashion 101: Designers with Two Jobs

Fashion 101: How Haute Couture Works

Fashion 101: Magazines and their Advertisers

Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's SEX store on London's Kings Road.

There’s been so many interesting fashion stories in the news recently that I haven’t had enough time to cover, so I am doing a very quick summary on some of my thoughts on recent headlines.

Malcolm McLaren in the 70s.

• LVMH owns Louis Vuitton, Céline, Marc Jacobs, Givenchy, Fendi, DeBeers, TAG Heuer, and more.
• PPR owns Gucci Group which owns Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, and Bottega Veneta, Boucheron, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, and more.
• Richemont owns Alaia, Chloé, Piaget, Cartier, Alfred Dunhill, Net A Porter, and more.

Natalie Massenet, founder and CEO of Net A Porter.

So what happens when one of the big luxury conglomerates takes hold of the most successful online luxury retailer in the world? Well, I am sensing that LVMH and Gucci Group might be a bit worried…Neither has managed to successfully sell their products online, and now Net A Porter is owned by one of their competitors. LVMH has launched NOWNESS, described as ” an editorial website that offers an exciting new way to experience luxury lifestyle online.” Sounds a bit vague, yes? I haven’t had the chance to properly explore NOWNESS, but I do know that it is not the next Net A Porter. LVMH and Gucci Group are going to have to come up with a better concept to successfully sell their products online, now that Richemont owns Net A Porter. I’m still shocked at how slow some of the major luxury brands have been to warm up to online retailing.

Anyway, well done to Natalie Massenet, the founder of Net A Porter, for banking 50 million on a business that was “never going to succeed, because people don’t buy luxury online.”

Uniqlo campaign.

And finally, here’s something very exciting for North America, Uniqlo has just signed for a giant retail space in New York City, in which they will pay over 300 million dollars in rent for the next fifteen years.

“What’s set to be Uniqlo’s biggest store in the world, with a whopping 90,000 square feet of space in total between 52nd and 53rd streets, is a clear statement of intent. Fast Retailing (the company that own Uniqlo) president and chief executive officer Tadashi Yanai–Japan’s richest man, according to Forbes–is determined that the Uniqlo name will become as ubiquitous elsewhere as it is in Japan.”
-Wall Street Journal

Let us all hope and pray that this will be the beginning of a massive North American expansion of Uniqlo, including shops here in Vancouver. They are the best for basics, they do what Gap does, but way better and a bit cheaper. And they have Jil Sander designing collections for them. Yay!

Image sources:
Malcolm McLaren image.
SEX boutique on Kings Road.
Natalie Massenet.
Uniqlo image.

Last time I visited Avshalom Gur’s studio, it was to borrow some accessories for my outfit for the Christian Dior Fall WInter 2007/08 Haute Couture collections party at Versailles. It was the 60th anniversary of the Christian Dior brand, and the ten year anniversary of John Galliano at Dior. Avshalom lent me some jewelry and foxes to be worn as shawls (which ended up being the most important part of the outfit, since the part took place in the Orangerie at the Chateau de Versailles, outdoors, and it wasn’t the warm July evening that they predicted.)

A trip to Avshalom’s studio always involves tea, catching up, and then trying on beautiful clothes. Avshalom has an incredible background, and has worked for Donna Karan, Roberto Cavalli, Chloe, and most recently as creative director of Ossie Clark, as well as having his own collection. This time Bora Aksu (whose studio is next door) joined us for tea, and we chatted about life, the business, and the forthcoming closure of the famous Central Saint Martins campus on Charing Cross Road. All of the Central Saint Martins Campus’ are moving to a purpose-built building near Kings Cross, so there’s obviously a bit of sadness when discussing the closure of the building where we studied/worked/cried together during our time as students on the fashion design MA.

Some photos of Avshalom's studio.

So much colour.

Works in progress.

The sample sale rack, full of Ossie Clark and Avshalom Gur dresses.

The sofa where we drink tea and chat.

Here's a skirt from the Spring Summer 2010 collection.

The beading is beautiful.

Avshalom has collaborated with some of the most talented jewelry designers for his collections.

Birds are a reoccurring theme in his work.

Here is a hand carved jade bird.

More of the jade birds, which were used as necklaces or belt buckles.

Avshalom Gur in his studio.

I bought some of his easy jersey t-shirt dresses. Here are some photos from his Spring Summer 2010 collection. I love the 60’s feel to the photos, and the colour looks great on the black backgrounds.

Photographer David Roemer and Stylist Kate Ruth.

It Bag. The Chloe Paddington.

I think it was about two years ago that the “It Bag” began its decline. I noticed when I went into Harrods to buy my wedding shoes. (Actually, I was doing a seminar on fashion trends for the Harrods’ staff, and the shoe department did some sort of crazy hypnosis on me which it it impossible for me not to go in there and spend £600 on one of the best pairs of shoes. Ever.) I realized that shoes were very expensive, and I’m not suggesting that I presumed I could find a $20 bargain in Harrods, but really very expensive. Five years ago you could get an awesome pair of luxury-brand shoes for $450, but in Harrods the cheapest ones were $650, and I tried on shoes priced up to $1800 (note: these were not crocodile and covered in diamonds.)

And that’s when I realized that the It bag was over, only to be replaced by the It shoe.

(I’d just like to take this moment to say I don’t like the It shoe. I love an expensive shoe, but I don’t think companies should make the crazy handbag profits on shoes too. My reason is this: when I buy a luxury handbag I use it every day for the next two years, so I get my money’s worth. And a bag can be resold on eBay or handed down to someone. But the It shoe…you only wear the It shoe once a year, because you are so terrified how having someone spill something on it. And they are made of satin with delicate bits. And you worship them. And they don’t last very long. I don’t mind spending a lot of money on a bag, but its always harder on a shoe.)

It bag. The Yves Saint Laurent Downtown bag.

So…I was Googling a lot of the big brand names during fashion week and I was surprised to see how many focus on the word “handbags” way before fashion or clothing or anything on the Google search. Here are some examples:

Loewe, luxury handbags and high quality leather goods. Fashion …

CELINE : marque de luxe, sac et chaussures, mode femme vêtements …

Michael Kors – SHOP BY CATEGORY – HANDBAGS

Marc Jacobs Designer Clothes for Men, Women, & Children. Find Bags …

and I realized that most brands probably still do survive off handbag sales, which is weird since there hasn’t been much talk about handbags in the fashion press. (Although that’s not saying much, because the fashion press don’t exactly represent the majority.)

It bag: The Marc Jacobs Stam.

Sometimes I feel a bit sad that so many fashion brands have to constantly be dictated by products like handbags, perfumes, cosmetics, and eyewear. I love all of those things very much, but the fashion industry should be first about clothes, because at the end of the day, they are the most important part of anyone’s look. In the sixties a brand would be famous for its clothing, but nowadays we know about their bags, perfumes, cosmetics, and shoes before we can name a key item of clothing. I get so excited by all the clothing on the catwalks, but then I realize so many of clothes may never arrive in boutique, or at least, a boutique near me.

I think for fall I am going to spend most of my money on clothes, rather than shoes or handbags. There were so many beautiful designer collections, and the shoes and bags just weren’t as exciting. (Besides, I won’t be needing any shoes for a while, once I get back from London.)

**UPDATE**

I just saw this article, which seems to indicate the It bag may come back. Will that mean shoe prices will go down?

Image sources. Chloe Paddington bag. YSL Downtown. Marc Jacobs Stam.

Chloé’s collection is made up of some of the key trends of the season: minimalism, camel tones, and inventive fur pieces. I didn’t like the fur, but the rest looks fantastic.

I Love…

this modern take on a seventies look. And the combinations of camels. And that big bow belt.

tones of camel mixed together on this long sleeve dress.

this look, which is my favourite of the entire season. It encompasses everything I love about fashion right now: she's got that 1980's Ralph Lauren look, she's very American sportswear, she's wearing a fantastic camel coat on the shoulders over her tailored jacket, her denim shirt makes her look a bit casual, and it all looks super luxury but effortless because she's got her hands in her pockets.

the western influences in this collection, they aren't too obvious.

I Loathe…

jogging pants on the catwalk, and fur that looks like it had some sort of dye disaster.

All images from Style.com.

Going to my parent’s house has become more like a shopping trip than a family visit. On Sunday my husband and I went over there for dinner, and we ended up leaving with a pair of motorcycle boots (for my husband), a vintage Salvatore Ferragamo clutch, a few tacky but cool 80s cotton sweaters, a belt, some mohair scarves, and an old Celine bag. Plus, the piece de resistance, which was my sister’s 1992 Roots jacket.

You would need to be Canadian to understand how this ultra-tacky baseball jacket could possibly be an exciting acquisition compared to a Salvatore Ferragamo clutch and a Celine bag. These jackets were very fashionable when I was in my teens, and anything from your teens is either horrifically embarrassing, “totally awesome”, or a mixture of both. It makes me feel very old, discovering fashion items that were super-desirable to me in my teens which are now (in my eyes) cool again.

It says 1992 on the sleeve!

Here’s a few photos of the jacket. I’m not sure how I will wear it yet, the fit is terrible. The body is quite big, and the sleeves are too short. And its hideous, but in a good way (I think.)

Here are the new versions, available at Roots now. It’s obvious that the only way this jacket can be fashionable is if you are wearing a very old one, sort of like the Club Monaco sweatshirts I talked about a few weeks ago.

The old one is definitely cooler.

Roots is a very Canadian brand, and, like most Canadian fashion, has enourmous potential but fails to deliver. OK, the clothing and branded merchandise sucks, but the leather goods are super good quality and extremely durable. I have this wallet, from Roots, and I got tons of compliments on it. Its nicer and rougher than the Comme des Garcons wallets, and much more durable. So why can’t they make a decent handbag?

I’d love to give Roots’ leather products a makeover, in fact, I am offering my services to them. The leather is great, the product is very high quality, and its extremely durable. But they need to improve their designs, and what better time to do it. People are sick of paying $2000 for a handbag, let’s make some great ones for $300. Plus, I like the fact that they don’t blatantly brand their bags (like Coach…ugh.) Here are some designer brands that they should take inspiration from… Roots people: call me.

All Roots images from their website, all designer bag images from and available on Net A Porter.

The new Alice in Wonderland movie directed by Tim Burton is bound to be a visual feast. It will come out on March 5th, and the stars include Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway. I looked up some of the visuals on the movie’s website, and they look amazing.

Now, with that in mind, maybe someone can explain this disastrous Alice in Wonderland themed window at Printemps.

A bit of background, Printemps is a big luxury department store in Paris. Powerful retailers, such as Printemps, sometimes ask brands to create special pieces for them, which can be exclusive limited edition collections or special display items, which will help the store to sell the brands.

Just looking at this photo reminds me of how much I miss shopping in Europe...

So, Printemps has asked designers like Ann Demeulemeester, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Chloé, Charles Anastase, and Haider Ackermann to design special pieces for their Alice in Wonderland-themed window displays. These are all designers that I respect and like, so I really cannot understand why the resulting window displays do not look very Alice in Wonderland, or fairy tale, or interesting at all. It basically looks like the designers, aside from Maison Martin Margiela and Nicholas Kirkwood, couldn’t be bothered to actually make something for the window, so they took an old piece from an old collection and made up an Alice “story” to go along with it.

Seriously, how is any of this related to Alice in Wonderland? (By the way, the images and quotes below come from an article on Style.com, you can read more about it here.)

Chloe says: "“Running around careless and free in a romantic dress, falling down the rabbit hole, chasing time in a dreamlike state of mind, meeting unexpected characters with many tales to tell—sounds like many a girl’s night out!” I say: boring navy blue dress worn best on a "fat day."

Charles Anastase says: "“I went to John Tenniel’s original illustration of Alice for inspiration. She’s seated at a table having tea, and her dress looks much more asymmetrical and theatrical than that boring Walt Disney version.” I say: A white and blue pouffy dress does not equal Alice in Wonderland.

Haider Ackermann says: "“My favorite character is the Duchess, who at first seems nearly as unpleasant as the Queen of Hearts. When I was designing this piece, I was seeing Alice running, escaping through the forest destroying her shiny dress." I say: This dress looks nothing like Alice in Wonderland, or the Duchess. In fact, that horrible rounded slit on the front makes the dress go from "interesting" to "scary."

Here are some of the better pieces.

Nicholas Kirkwood says: "“I think my favorite Alice character is the March Hare. You can see I’ve made his watch rather prominent. ...this time, I figured, why not just pile as much as I can on top?” I say: Nicholas Kirkwood has one shoe shape he has redone a million times, and its starting to get boring, but at least that one shoe is pretty cool. Especially with all that stuff piled onto it.

Maison Martin Margiela says: "“Alice’s silhouette is a blue upside-down dress with cage sleeve, as if she walked through the mirror and her dress completely reversed.” I say: This dress is beautiful, combining the fantasy of the fairy tale and the innovation of Maison Martin Margiela, and the colour is exactly the right shade of Alice blue.

Cartoon Alice image source.

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.