CAN'T WAIT NOT TO WEAR: in my Woolrich parka, GAP khaki's and motorbike ankle boots
CAN'T WAIT TO WEAR: my new pair of what I am calling my rose-tinted spectacles from the 70's.
A quick post on the END OF THE WINTER SEASON. When you are a fashion journalist on daily or weekly print meda, January is a long month. This is because in fashion-land, winter ends with the cessation of winter sales and the arrival of new season spring stock into stores. Today was that day, and the longest month of the fashion year is now over. I will celebrate with one YAY!
This is good news for me as a fashion journalist on the simple level that I can now write stories that have follow through (imaginary or otherwise) at retail level for readers. All the information gleaned and absorbed at the SS10 shows in London/Milan and Paris now has relevance to the fashion-loving public and the fashion journalist can unleash all those thoughts, ideas and fashion facts. After all, there is not much use writing about the trend for wearing pink with khaki if there are rails of sale coats in the shops.
For me personally, the first day of fashion spring is a one for me to hit the shops to see how retailers have bought into the collections. What is in a shop - high end fashion, or high street - is almost NEVER exactly the same as what was in the lookbook you saw, or the catwalk show you viewed for that season. Strange, but true and the reason why a shopping recce is essential.
ANYWAY. I shopped in a carefully planned and perfectly executed manoeuvre on the Marylebone High Street today, and the experience served to remind me 1. that there is a whole new fashion uniform to get to grips with this season and 2. that my wardrobe is in desperate need of an overhaul. There are things that I love, such as my Woolrich parka - the fashion parka of the winter hands-down - and my Gap khakis (three seasons old) and the motrocycle boots by Gap (even older) that I have come to rely on heavily in this lull of darkest winter. Wearing these items yesterday on a jaunt to Brick Lane Market, (which I see through new eyes since being shown around by my old friend Tamsin O Hanlon just before Christmas) I realised they needed retiring.
This brings me neatly onto the phenomenon I have only just cottoned onto in my own life which I am calling the "I can't wait to wear" frisson. The items listed above (and what I'm wearing in the picture at the top) are things I now CANNOT WAIT NOT TO WEAR, because I want winter to end, and to start wearing my new clothes. (More about them later this week - for I bought two items of CELINE!!!! And a pair of Phillip Lim 3.1 carrot leg khaki's.)
ALSO, I found the rose-tinted spectacles I'm wearing in the picture at Brick Lane yesterday for £25. These glasses are my new Spring facewear, items I CANNOT WAIT TO WEAR a whole lot more!
Now, I'd better go. A glass of Cotes-du-Rhone calls....