Next Stop Gotemba

For some reason outlet mall shopping is one of those things that I'm always slightly ashamed to say that I'm doing.  Somehow hopping on the tube/bus to a sample sale in London or clicking about on eBay/flash sale/Yoox is not the same thing as planning a day trip with 1-2 hour train rides involved that is SOLEY focused on discounted shopping.  That's EFFORT. 

Sounds ridiculous when you think of the sort of things I do for a bargain - queuing in sweaty hot weather or snow (yes, that's you Christopher Kane sample sale…),nike soccer shoes, setting alarms for eBay auctions at 3am in the morning and sustaining elbow injuries (I bruise VERY easily like a defective apple...).  I suppose there's also the feeling of a designated outlet mall, filled with basic brick buildings geared towards sterilised discount shopping and lacking in the friendly camaraderie of a messy sample sale, that generally lessens the thrill seeking element of the stuff you buy.

The feeling of shoe-gazing shame definitely crept in as we took a two hour train ride to Gotemba right on the Mount Fuji trail, near the Fuji Hakone Izu National Park for one sole purpose.  To admire the landscape?  To go find inner peace at a temple?  To try a nearby onsen and stay in a traditional ryokan?  No, we got off the train, took a special bus to Gotemba Premium Outlets, part of the group that operate all over USA and sought to get discounted Prada/Miu Miu/Yohji/whatever was going with below-par katsu curry to fuel us for the day…

If it was a clear day, you can in fact see Mount Fuji from the outlet centre.  It was pissing down with rain the day we went, so fortunately I didn't have to do the walk of shame, going from east to west side of the centre, whilst confronted by the magnitude of Fuji.  We err… saw SOME landscape though.  The mall is built over some sort of a ravine and is set into a mountain so that there are trickling waters, craggy rocksand lush greenery to be seen from the less scenic brick outlet stores of Balenciaga and YSL.  We ticked the nature box!  Yay us,coach handbags wholesale!

In truth, it's all down to a certain Mr Oh who a year ago, hauled an envious load of discounted Jil Sander at Gotemba, and has since sworn by the centre's abilities to produce serious bargains.  It was at Jil Sander where I therefore did the same, with a collection that happens to rank right up there in my personal favourite Simons for Sander moments.  In the Jil Sander outlet store, there sat a rail full of S/S 08 pieces at 90% off.  Remember?  Those sunset colours gradiating from perfect pinks and oranges to a dove grey blue?  This collection passed by on Yoox at smaller discounts,CHEAP GUCCI ONLINE, but to see it all in person on a singular rail with crossed off prices triggered off a fruit machine KER-CHING in my head, that resulted in my buying a pair of candy pink trousers and orange corseted button-up dress.  Together with a miraculously matching vintage top, I can now emulate the exact shades of orange cream and strawberry flavours of Opal Fruits sweets (the actual sweet, not the wrappers...).  Worth the slightly shaming trek to Gotemba?  Too right...  

(Worn with vintage Charles Jourdan top, Gap x Pierre Hardy heels)

Wheelin' Around

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>> I didn't get many toys as a child and it seems like I'm trying to desperately make up for this in my old age.  I'm not usually one for 'gadgets', the word already conjuring up useless office desk toys, cheap blinking LED lights and general hunks of plastic that don't do much except to create more toxic fumes in the world.  Only in a moment of madness during this Festive period did I manage to convince myself that this Shoe Wheel by Rakku could be the answer to all of my problems, the design solution where I could happily front a positive testimonial to in an infomercial.  So I gifted myself this heap of flat pack plastic and screws in a bid to a) have some sort of a toy to play with - you'd be surprised how much joy I get from flat-pack anything and b) it's a feeble attempt at compacting my shoes into a space because there are only so many times I can pull the line "But my shoes are like objects,Nike Air Max 24-7 Mens!  It's ok to have them strewn around the living room,discount coach purses!" with Steve.  The shoe wheel that was mean to fit 20-30 pairs of shoes (???) racked up 14 pairs of my shoes, which is fair enough given there are some monster heels in there.  But the best thing about this less-than-pretty object is the spinning factor.  If I was impressed by a cardboard box when I was six, then perhaps my toy instincts are catching up with me and a crappy bit of plastic spinning around is like...waaaaay cool... and for some reason, all I can think of is...Playbus!  What's the sign on the lollipop????   

Another Level

I didn't really want to title this post with a naff band name from the early noughties that covered Silk tracks and called it their own, but all I could really say yesterday, over and who again was "That was AnOther Level!!!"   I am of course speaking in reference to Simone Rocha, which in amongst a slew of brilliant things I saw yesterday, did manage to surpass the rest just because it was her on-schedule debut (discounting her shows with Fashion East) and quite literally took everyone's breath away.  There was a rollercoaster giddiness felt after the show because you were so excited to witness the rise of yet another London duckling that only added to the hub-hub over LFW (I've just added yet another shoutout of "LFW is so great" to the chorus of articles in the latest isssue of Pop).

It was somewhat of an inevitability.  Her off-schedule show had people in raptures and forevermore,wholesale coach handbags, the contrast between white lace trapped in kinky clear PVC stamped Rocha as someone who knows a thing or two about texture games.  She didn't disappoint for her A/W 12-3 collection and refined her aesthetic even more,monster beats in ear headphones, so much so that her MA collection seemed like a distant memory.  You forget, that she's only really been four seasons in.  She upped the tactability factor by looking at tribes of Papua New Guinea and then 1930s street urchin children of her native Dublin.  I'm also reminded of Irish photographer Niall O'Brien's Good Rats series that depics street tribes at their most quiet and strangely beautiful.  It's this mix of regal and untamed that underscores the collection.  Slick mirror leather is the hard counterpart to the soft fluffy wool knit collar.  A spotty print hide or sheeny shiny black ponyskin has a wildness to it that is coaxed back to elegance in a boxy oversized coat.  PVC gets an burst of tufted yarns that could be likened to Papupa New Guinea tribal costume.  The ladylike connotations of Melton and Linton tweed (oft used by Chanel) gets a layering of tulle to form a barrier of refinement.  It's as if Rocha knows exactly when materials start looking cliched and banal and has the ability to stop them from doing so, with the wave of her texture-driven magic wand.

It's this precise knack for contrast and balance that got female hearts racing in the audience.  I came away wanting to dress head to toe and submerse myself completely in Rocha's work.  That's a hard feat for someone who craves the mix n' match. 

In the shoe department, Rocha has long displayed a maturity that is beyond her years.  The idea of working perspex into a brogue has the potential for becoming a design classic, as recognisable as Hussein Chalayan's wooden table skirt or Issey Miyake's Pleats Please technique.  Rocha went for a pure stable of flat brogues and pumps and the perspex became a thin accent embedded in the sole, shining in clear,Gucci Hobo Bag, lime or coral.  With two pairs of Simone Rocha's already in the closet, it invariably means that I'll now have to go the whole hog and continue that tradition with this season.  That's no hardship considering the choice at hand. 

What I won't be eating...

>> I know I know,coach outlet online sale, it's harsh to reduce the city of Montreal to a dish that is probably neither symbolic nor representative of its full culinary delights.  However, I know next to nothing about the city other than this dish here because people seem to love banging on about the lushness of 'poutine' - fries doused in gravy with cheese curds.  I'm fairly confident that I won't concur given that I don't really eat cheese.  So I know what I WON'T be eating...

But perhaps some of you can enlighten as to what I WILL be doing... it's travel-tips hunting time again.  Any words of wisdom regarding what to do, what to see,beats by dre headphones sale, what to eat (other than things involving cheese...),Nike Air Max 2011 Mens, where to shop in Montreal would be much appreciated...

The few things I am sure of are... I know I'll be finally meeting and putting a face to the lovely personality of Angie of I Heart Norwegian Wood... seeing the Complex Geometries boys... seeing Reborn for real... but I'd like to of course, cram the days with plenty more given that I'm there until Sunday.

Who can Soar higher

>> The obsession with playing swapsies with Tim Soar pieces between myself and Style Salvage Steve continues and even a legitimately menswear piece such as this elongated silk dress shirt couldn't escape my clutches.  It is officially Steve's and with his CdG Ganryu suit, he wears it well indeed.  

However with the vividly abstracted print at the back where a man's torso can be traced out under Rothko-esque shades of colour, I couldn't help but  do the "Hey I'm wearing a men's shirt and I just don't care" thing.  Except there are no sexy gams or bed head going on underneath (I'm looking at you Bel of The Hour, who keeps stupidly falling for bonehead Hector, hence the post-coital men's shirt wearing).  Instead, I've gone for some dip dying courtesy of the NY-based interesting sweatshirt line Aiko and some sturdy foot foundations from the Hilfiger x G.H. Bass loafers from the Selfridges launch a while back.  Despite the insociable position, I'd turn my back on people as much as I can just to show off the print.  It especially looks rather good in motion with shirt flailing about in the wind, in manner of Take That circa 1993 in the Pray video.  There's a reference I never thought would ever crop up...   

(Tim Soar shirt,beats pro headphones, Aiko red cotton dress and dip-dyed top, vintage Ozbek navy skirt, Tommy Hilfiger x G.H. Bass Weejuns loafers)

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