Kingdom Of Style

Psychopets

Belle Sauvage continue their magnificient digital print route for FW12, with a collection, entitled 'Psychopets', infused with contemporary pop art animal and money prints. This season, we see leather taking on a dominant role as we saw in earlier Belle collections, complimented with gold chains and studs and oversized shoulder details.

It's odd to me that this is a label which hasn't quite spilled out into the mainsream consciousness yet. All the elements are there for it to have commercial success but it's still relatively unknown. Tney were among the first wave of designers who were really experimenting with digital print to create magnificent patterns, which many wrongly attribute to Alexander McQueen, when in reality it was these small label, like Belle Sauvage, who had already been doing this for years.

Like most independant label much of their stuff is not affordable for most of us, but they cleverly started their diffusion line, Leopard, a few seasons ago whcih seems to be doing really well. The great thing about Leopard is that it's not a watered down version of the mainline collection, but rather it has it's own aesthetic which, while still evocative of the Belle Sauvage mainline, it has it's own voice.

The animal theme of the mainline collection is carried through to Leopard, with digital prints of puppies and exotic cats adorning dresses and tops.

Queen Michelle

can you see it yet?

When it comes to optical illusions, I am beyond useless.

So it will come as no surprise that no matter how hard I try, I cannot see the time on these limited edition Kisai Optical Illusion watches from Tokyoflash. 

I've tried. I've really tried...

With a touch screen display, the watch has time and date, alarm, EL backlight, animation and a unique optical illusion so that the time can be viewed through a maze of high resolution lines.

The Kisai Optical Illusion displays the time digitally, hours in the upper half of the screen, minutes in the lower half of the screen. Just touch the screen to reveal the time.

  The direction of the lines in the display allow your eyes and brain to process only the lines that make up the digits to reveal the time in hours and minutes.

 Kisai Optical Illusion also has an animation mode. When activated, the watch will automatically transition between puzzle mode and digital time mode every 20 seconds. This is a very useful option which allows you to see the time in digits at intervals and will also catch people's attention. 

 

They say - "You can also train your eyes to see the time through the optical illusion. Like many optical illusions, it's really easy to see once you know how"

I say - "Oh bollocks, I'll never know what the right time is ever again..."

If you think you could manage to use one, then you can buy one from here for £128.19

 

The guy who narrates this clip is so laid back, it's genius.

Oh how we love a boy with a northern accent here in The KIngdom.

Queen Marie

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Dack And Cover

Manuela Dack is a London based designer and Middlesex University grduate who caused a bit of a stir with her AW12 collection, with coverage in the likes of Japanese Elle, Italian Vogue and W Magazine. Her beautiful mix of hard and soft, with leather nestling alongside sheer, diaphanous materials, have earned her another year of sponsorship from Vauxhall Fashion Scout.

I caught up with and asked her a few questions about her work...

What's the inspiration behind the new collection?

The starting point of all my collections comes from using leather and silk together. I love contrast and think that balance is incredibly important in design, so I like to use very different textures and weights together. I grew up on the tiny Caribbean island of Grand Cayman and the spring summer collection is inspired by that, from the use of sting ray printed leather to the embroidered lobster kimono. It is a collection of very luxurious easy pieces. The sting ray leather is printed using a similar technique to patent leather resulting in a soft and beautifully tactile finish.

A/W '12 is along a similar thread creating intricate beautiful pieces that are beautifully made and can work seamlessly with the rest of your wardrobe. There has been a huge trend in women buying well crafted investment pieces over the past few seasons and we really noticed that in our A/W '11 sales. The most expensive but highly crafted and unusual items were the most popular, and I think thats what women are looking for when they are buying a new designer.

For the new collection, A/W '12, I was inspired by a collection of carved and inlaid wooden boxes that I own, so there is alot of cut away leather and layers of texture and foiling. It is quite angular and is more of a uniform that spring/summers relaxed vibe.

Do you have a favourite piece in the collection?

My favourite piece from spring summer is probably the sting ray leather dress. The shape of the skirt with the stepped hem is so striking that we ended up producing it in as a skirt too. Both are available online at Avenue 32 and at The Shop at Bluebird.

How important is getting sponsorship from Vauxhall Fashion Scout again? How do you feel it helps your label?

Our sponsors are hugely important to us and have been wonderful in supporting us right from the start. Vauxhall Fashion Scout is an amazing platform and continues to get better every season. They have also just moved to a new showroom in Paris which looks amazing, so I am excited to see the new space. This season we are also supported by the Centre of Fashion Enterprise who provide invaluable business advice for new designers and have been key in our development this season.

Thanks to Manuela for taking the time to talk to me.

Queen Michelle