So I went to H and M with my friend Isi, when we were both
in New York. We were in a shopping centre
I can’t remember the name of, just down from Times Square near the top (or
bottom) of Central Park. I always go
into H and M, whichever town or city I’m in, as sometimes you find something
they don’t have in any other branch of the store, and plus, I love their
stuff. So the first thought that came
to my mind was ... why is everything creased?
Literally, every piece was hanging, totally wrinkled. I saw the promotions and realised that it was
the store’s opening day, and they must have, only hours before, just taken the
clothes out of boxes. The big news in
the store was a cordoned off, security guarded section, MMM’s line.
Now, I do like fashion, I am a girl. But I am not one of those girls who spends
every morning picking out an outfit, blow-drying my hair, matching accessories,
shoes, eye shadow etc for 2 hours. But I
have been quite interested by the looks this year (Or what I consider them to
be.)
In the spring, round the
end of April, I had a big job interview in Spain, and I went looking for
an outfit through all the Spanish shops, to name a few, Blanco, Bershka, P and
B, Pimkie, Shana, Mango, Zara. I noticed
a serious Spring primrose trend of block colours and I haven’t seen it leave
all year. Block coloured jeans, bold
bright garish jeans in pinks, red, green, blue, plum. And let’s not forget the pastel sensation
that took over the shops, and I saw this is Barcelona in the line of other
shops too (H and M, other international high street stores.) Every shade of pastel (especially mint
green.) And including, peach, cream, yellow, green, blue and any other “baby”
colour you can think of, in every type of clothing and accessory you could
imagine; shirt, bag, dress, jeans, shoes, blazers! There was a blazer craze too
at that time. (You saw them everywhere
in all shades of pastels and brights.)
Now it’s winter I am still seeing plain block coloured
clothing in the high street (obviously among other patterned clothing as well)
the bold jeans are still there, which I like to see, but a darker tone has
crept in and the coats are taking up a large amount of room. Black, Blue, brown and 50 shades of
grey.
So, I stepped into the VIP-esque MMM section and decided to
take a look. This was the lines launch
and the store had pulled the stops out.
There were first day promotions and a DJ. All we needed were flutes of champagne! The most striking aspect of her collection
was the bagginess of it all. The coats and
jeans were all huge. The majority of the
clothes were way too out there and expensive for me to even consider buying,
but some of it I liked. The ballet pumps
with the clear plastic block heel were innovative, and weather proof (think
spice girl shoes) and came in tan and black.
The accessories were wacky. MMM
has combined funky, actually guitar case shaped bags (full size at 400 USD) and
had combined both gloves and the guitar theme on a smaller scale to make bags,
with gloves sewn in as the handle. The
actual clothes took a backseat to the pieces that stood out so obviously. There were a lot of baggy floor length coats,
and inside out jeans, could be quite cool for a different look. The trainers also caught my eye, they had
some bright colours i.e. red, but the collection mainly stuck to beige, brown,
black grey and blue.
The thing that struck me most about it was not the clothes
or accessories themselves but the way they had been designed. It was innovative, the designer has put
together new methods in terms of making things, such as the handbags and
jackets and jeans, so that the actual material almost takes a backseat to the
never-seen-before. Nothing was regular,
everything was unique and tweaked, however at first glance you may have just
seen large long plain coloured coats bags and trainers on the wall. The way the pieces were combined and designed
really was something I had never seen before.
Scroll down for some pics, and hope you enjoyed the blog. J
