Fashion and Style
Designer ski season
Don’t be caught off-piste in last season’s collections. The Sybarite have you covered with our hottest picks of designer ski collections Autumn/Winter ’16.
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Can luxury fashion make the move to sustainability?
What does sustainability mean? It’s become a buzzword in recent years but while - when we buy something to eat, opt to walk to work or take public transport instead of climbing in our cars - we have become better about thinking about the impact on the planet, we haven’t done so well on the fashion front. And that’s an enormous concern because, according to the Living Planet Report, if we continue consuming at our current rate in the western world, we would need the resources of two planets by 2030. We’re also at risk of losing huge amounts of the wildlife and ecosystems which we depend on for food, fuel, clean water and more, due to expansion and development in an attempt to sustain our populations. For all that, luxury brands have been slow in embracing clothes that consumers can feel good about as well as look good in.
When luxury meets innovation: meet the season hats founders
Designed by award-winning milliner, Paul Safford, and made by hand using the highest quality materials, London-based luxury headwear company, The Season Hats, offers casual hats, hairbands, headpieces and - their signature - folding hats for special occasions. They aim to create headwear that is simultaneously luxurious and contemporary, directional and flattering to compliment the modern woman’s wardrobe. Providing a business mind to match his creative one is Paul’s wife Selina. Having met at Cambridge University over 10 years ago, the couple married in 2013. During their university years, Paul would create small pieces for his beau to wear to balls, training in millinery “as an escape from a career in accountancy.” Unable to fight his creative passion any longer, yet wanting to combine his creativity with his the scientific logic garnered from his Natural Sciences degree, Paul left work to do a short course at the London College of Fashion. “I loved working with the materials, the tradition and innovation of the craft and it all developed from there”, Paul says. “I ended up apprenticing with Rachel Trevor Morgan (milliner to HM The Queen) and taking a Masters in Millinery graduate degree from The Royal College of Art.”
Versus Versace to collaborate on a new collection with...
The former member of worldwide-hit boyband One Direction will design a collection for the Versus brand, and will be the face of Versus in upcoming advertising campaigns. The collaboration may not come as a surprise to some, as ZAYN has always harboured a love for fashion, wearing a futuristic Versace robotlike arm sheath to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute ball in May and creating a 23-piece streetwear line under his own name earlier this year. The 23-year-old R&B singer has become a known face in the fashion world through his relationship with supermodel of the moment and IT girl, Gigi Hadid, who is close friends with the brand's matriarch, Donatella Versace, who said at London Fashion Week that "“Versus is the rock and roll soul of the Versace family and has always been associated with music." ZAYN will design a capsule collection of men’s and women’s clothing in close collaboration with Donatella Versace for Versus under the ZAYN X VERSUS label. The collection will debut in Versus stores worldwide and on the website in May 2017.
5 upcoming fashion designers from London Fashion Week
But the question on the lips of every self respecting Sybarite is this: who are the new wave of emerging designers following in the footsteps of Christopher Kane and co? With this mind, we present five of the most exciting up-and- coming designers from LFW.
TAG Heur makes a statement at New York Fashion Week
The luxury Swiss brand - whose ambassadors include Cara Delevingne, Cristiano Ronaldo and Chris Hemsworth - unveiled its new Link Ladies Collection with legendary style icon, Iris Apfel, during New York Fashion Week. TAG Heuer debuted Iris Apfel as its newest friend at the MONSE runway show, where they are acting as one of the key sponsors of the afterparty that evening. The fashion legend, 95, was snapped sitting in the front row, sporting a new women’s watch and pieces from the design duo’s collection. The brand will be taking part in NYFW through a series of initiatives during the 10 days of designer runway shows and presentations. With four exciting moments during New York Fashion Week, TAG Heuer takes its place on the fashion stage as the design industry comes together to see what the creative forces behind American fashion will present from September 8th - 15th, 2016.
Meet jewellery designer Imogen Belfield
London-based jewellery designer Imogen Belfield’s signature style is mark making in metal; creating “a fusion between fluidity and texture.” Handmade in the UK, Belfield’s range of “cascading golden nugget pendants” and statement “rockesque” rings are undeniably one of a kind. In June this year, Imogen’s unique jewellery sculptures won her the coveted ‘Best in Gold’ title at the COUTURE Design Awards 2016 for her ‘Goddess’ showpiece necklace from the ‘Amazonian’ Collection. Since breaking into the world of fashion and jewellery in 2010, Imogen Belfield's eye-catching pieces have been featured in a number of influential fashion magazines such as Vogue and spotted on a number of celebrities including Cameron Diaz, Georgia May Jagger, Uma Thurman, Nicole Scherzinger and Rita Ora. Belfield’s love of jewellery design stemmed from a young age, influenced by the silversmithing and metalwork courses she took at 16, as well as her “inherent love for fashion, art and sculpture.” Describing her personal style as “eclectic and bohemian”, Imogen’s latest collection, ‘Amazonian’ focuses on the central shape of a spear-head form. Imogen tells us that the “combination of strength in symbolism and delicacy in the use of materials creates a dramatic fusion of brutality with beauty.”
"I don't follow trends, I set them": Meet shoe designer...
I met Lucy Choi at her recent pop-up event at The Hilton Park Lane. Chicly styled in a smart black tailored two piece, with her sleek pins exposed to highlight her red patent ‘Campbell’ shoes, Lucy seemed completely at ease whilst working the room. Despite her famous family ties to the world of shoe design (the legendary Jimmy Choo is her uncle), Lucy spent her early working life in the City; “I wanted to make sure I had that business skillset under my belt” she tells me. It was after this that she moved into the shoe industry, working for 10 years at family-owned brand French Sole. Here she noticed that there was a gap in the market for affordable high heels that had a long lasting wearability; “How often do you wear a pair of thousand pound shoes?” she exclaims.
Featuring Death of the logo
Forget labels. The fashion mantra for autumn/winter 2016 seems to be if you've got it - don't flaunt it. For while designer logos were popular in the eighties, nineties and noughties - when celebs and civilians alike used them as way of showing off their status and wealth - fast forward to today and every self respecting Sybarite knows that true luxury doesn’t need to shout about its status. We’re still purchasing luxury brands - take a bow Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Hermes et al - but whereas once we would have splashed the cash on monogrammed belts and bags, now we’re purchasing clothes and accessories by the aforementioned labels, sans logos. So why are are we all showing off by, erm, not showing off? The answer, I think, is two fold. Our desire for discreet branding is one way to distance ourselves from tacky reality TV stars, with whom we don’t want to be aligned - say hello to Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, both of whom shot to fame (and fortune) on the back of leaked ‘home’ video tapes and thus have the cash, if not the class, to kit themselves out in high end labels. Ditto WAGs and Russian oligarchs…
The Queen’s birthday commemorated in gold
Born on April 21, 1926, to Prince Albert, Duke of York - later King George VI, and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Elisabeth II became the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth on February 6, 1952, and was crowned on June 2, 1953. To join in the celebrations of this remarkable birthday, many people were looking for commemorative investments for their loved ones. London's coin galleries in Mayfair are busier than ever welcoming clients who are looking for unmissable treasures or bullion gifts for this occasion. In particular The Queen's Beasts 2016 and Her Majesty The Queen’s Fifth Portrait are very sought after. The Queen's Beasts 2016, available in gold or silver, are the most recent releases and celebrate the Queen and Her heraldic beasts. The Beast in fact commemorates the ten heraldic sculptures made for the coronation and placed in Westminster Abbey during the ceremony. The Beast has been designed by Royal Mint Engraver 33 year old Jody Clark.