Style Bubble

Lulululuella...

I don't feel so guilty in overindulging in what can only be described as Lula-isms(rumours abound that the mag is gone for good?) seeing as I'm probably quite unlikely to pack so much Luella into one singular outfit and it really is for the purpose of photographing my picks from the mega sample sale that was so overflowing with stock, it got extended until Friday.  Thank you to the peeps who reported back with their tales of glee... tis' good when the sample sale fun can be had by many... though hopefully nobody wilted in the queue (saw a woman pass out the other day on the bus...was trying to telepathically send out thoughts of the ice bath over to her to cool her down...).

Like I said in my mini-post, the bag sale was pretty bargainous with bags going for mostly in the £75 region and only the big giant ostrich/croc fests going for £250 max.  I think I chose the oddest bag of the lot just because I'm personally not really into the Giselles or the err...other famous Luella bags that were on offer (you can tell I'm completely out of my comfort zone when I start talking about those errr....bag things...).  Mainly, it was the suede saddle and horse head tag that swayed me... and it's also lined with sheepskin which will make a cosy home for my shivering hand in colder months. 

It sits rather well with two pints...

Clothing wise, I didn't go too crazy with spending unlike other people, who were laden with about twenty items in their arms, excited by the £15 to £100 price range.  I went for a double breasted tail coat with net sleeves that also came in gunmetal grey.  Not exactly sure what season they are but it could well be a piece that never made it into the shows.  Have finally hit the tailcoat mark as the last time I was tempted, at the Veronique Branquinho stock sale in Antwerp, it was slightly too big. 

Oh, and I had to wear the things today in a very LITERAL and matchy matchy way with an old Zara dress and the Luella shoes I got in the sale... promise there won't be so much compacted Luella into one outfit ever again. 

Walking with my Head

>> I know I've been slacking off but like I said on my Twitter, all I could think about is dunking myself in an ice bath... or alternatively, running through a fountain like the one at Southbank... I have nothing remotely sartorial to write about when I'm wearing what are essentially shoes that appeal to the inner child... yup, the type of floral Docs that inspire hate threads on The Fashion Spot and are considered trite and 'try hard' (when did a verb and an adjective come together to become a properly established adjective?).  I'm only going to say this much... they're incredibly useful for making me feel five again propelling me to run through fountains...

Anyhow, onto weightier matters... since the mind is most occupied with ice baths and fountains, an easy exhibition at the Hayward, that's heavy with largescale and literal installations made sense... 'Walking in my Mind' is on at the moment and for the occasion, Yayoi Kusama has tacked her polka dots on the trees alongside the Thames , in an astro-turfed garden and inside the gallery.  Illustrator Yoshitomo Nara has reconstructed the coolest hut that mirrors his working studio.  The work that astounded me the most was the room that Chiharu Shiota had constructed which was an expanse of black thread cat's cradle...each line held taut to intertwine in a super complex web that protects a circle of white wedding-like dresses in the centre.  I don't have images of the actual room at the Hayward but with her past work at other galleries here... you get the picture... the cat's cradle technique is a repeated motif that crops up to different degrees...

I wonder what the dress trapped inside this entanglement of thread is supposed to represent... I'll attempt to think about it in my ice bath...

**EDIT** Ooops...gender bender mistake... I knew Yayoi was a woman but wrote 'his' but wasn't sure about Chiharu... apols...

Sturdy We Go

>> After hearing of Queen Michelle's woeful Tristan Blair shoe troubles, I thought I'd bring us down a peg (or inches) and post shoes on a Friday that are unlikely to fall apart, trip you up and are the sturdy shoe friend that we're meant to shun because we're supposed to be elevated by bad ass shoes that give us vertigo.  I made an eensy weensy point yesterday about the semi-skewed but ever alluring world that the likes of Jak & Jil presents (no diss to him of course as he's a friend and of course his work is fantastic even if his commentors are a little disturbing...) and what it does to wishful onlookers.  Shoes figure into that a lot and I'm sure somewhere out there people have been duped into thinking they're inadequate for not wearing 4inch plus footwear.  I for one was quickly brought down to earth with my errr ... my ankle injury and rediscovery of my love of certain trainers and now, a lovely shoe store in Seattle called Lambs's Ear.  Their brands are the kind that whilst have some height to them also have a great deal of stability and in fact it's these completely flat grey oxfords by Zeha Berlin that caught my attention first and foremost.  Their sturdy shoe roster also includes the affordable F-Troupe, LD Tuttle's 'height-without-pain' and Loeffler Randall's 'mid-heels-that-don't-look-awkward'.  

They've also wisely chosen one singular jewellery designer and it's none other than the lovely Arielle de Pinto who I met very briefly last season in Paris...trust me to lust after the two items that are out of stock...

I've had an inexplicable urge to visit both Portland and Seattle in one isolated trip... and once I've built up enough concrete reasons to go forth, that should be a surefire upcoming trip.  Lamb's Ear is of course one of them... oh and This is Naive's Lo-Fi Portland guide is another...

The Countdown

>>**EDIT** Have added prices and names...

>>I got my dates bungled up and this post was really supposed to go earlier as a preview to what will be available on the ASOS Ltd 100 project site - quick recap, 100 pieces by London College of Fashion students go on sale on ASOS TODAY at 1pm with all sales going back to the students... the last project sold out in two minutes hence why I was trying to be smart and all that by posting preview pics...

So bungled is this post that I have no prices and I only remember a handful of the students' name off by heart so again, that information will have to come later... a rough guideline me thinks is that pieces will range from £50-£300.  There's a rather scary clock thing counting down and there's less than four hours left...

I've already posted about overall winner Tian Wang whose jacket and trousers will be on sale...

Tian Wang, Digital Print Jacket £250, Digital Print Trousers £160

The brass accessories on these pieces are the perfect accompaniments...

Cecilia Ku Wun Ting, Oversized Blazer with Brass Belt £180, Zip Back Coat Dress with Arm Bands and Brass Trim £200

Prism prints...

 Para Manko, Digital Print Shift Dress £200, Placement Digital Print Shift Dress £200

This jacket felt really good on and the fringe is suitably heavy too...

Kate Underwood, Fringe Detail Leather Jacket £300, Fringe Detail Leather & Wool Dress £250

Ah...the Pepto Bismol coloured leather trews...

Joanne Jones, Zip Back Leather Trousers with Detachable Ankle Straps £200

Kiran Kumar Gobi, Pleat Detail Giraffe Print Zip Dress £150

Seung Woo Lee, Padded Sleeveless Dress £150

I loved the colours in this whole collection... the softness constrasted with the lazer cut squares...

 Alicija Aputyte, Laser Cut Detail Kimono Style Dress £150

Natsumi Zama, Shoulder Bow Detail Dress, £200

The shoulders on this dress are a bit like a rubix cube...

Yunwei Jiang, Shoulder Detail Long Sleeved Print Dress £100, Origami Pleat Detail Print Skirt £120

Lon Yin Paris Chan, Digital Print Pocket Detail Blazer £100

Fannie Sciavoni, Chain Detail Print Dress £120

Miriam Ridha, Printed Sheer Shift Dress £100

Anna Rachel Hobbs, Button Through Layered Tie Front Dress £100

Menswear was dominated by Kwung-Hwa Kim, designer of the two jackets below, who won the menswear prize...

Kyung Hwa Kim, Sleeveless Drop Shoulder Jacket £300, Drop Shoulder Long Sleeve Coat £280

 Vinita Ram Nagpal, Ruched Back Grandad Shirt £50 - apparently a little too reminiscent of a Henrik Vibskov shirt according to one commentor...

Rachel Esswood's scarf weighed an absolute ton but it supremely well crafted...

 Rachel Esswood, Oversized Hand Knitted Scarf £150

All Hail Marit

Prepare to have your pretty little minds blown away (ok my brain is small and petite, yours are humongous and filled with intelligence)... I was just about to shut up shop on the blogging front and couch out in front of Today at Wimbledon with an anchovy pizza and a beer...then I got this email from Marit Fujiwara and so the post must go on...

It couldn't wait a day, an hour or in fact, a mere minute.  I hassled her to unlock her Flickr and allow me to share her graduate collection 'Wound' with you ENLARGED in all its detailed glory.  Marit Fujiwara is a BA Textile Design grad from Chelsea College of Art and Design.  That's about all the info I have but this is a case where pictures can do an IMMENSE amount of talking...

Look, look closer, rub your eyes a bit if you have sleep/sweat and look again.  I took literally blinked at those detailed shots and then started bemoaning and wailing into the sky shouting "Why god?  Why am I such a talentless melting potato?"  This is mind bogglingly detailed work to a crazy level that is probably above and beyond the call of a graduate trying to get their work noticed.  This is a collection that I imagine being done by a minute perfectionist where one strand can't be out of place and the colours of the threads have to go in a specific order so as to not upset the balance.  This is where shapes of garments can be chucked out of the window because the kind of textile work going on is so intricate, with a supreme level of depth and innovation (not that Marit's shapes are poor anyway...).  She labels some of her images as 'cake' and the reference is not lost when you think of the devastating anal precision that goes into a patissier's work... these are in fact probably the clothing equivalent of Antonin Carême's creations (just re-read his bio...too good). 

I've already rambled far too long...  couldn't help myself with the superlatives... 

Further samples of her textile work...

Hot and Bound

>> In all honesty, all I've been thinking of for the past hour or so (I start to wilt and melt after 3pm in a pool of my own sweat and languid thoughts...) is I need to be submerged into an ice bath right now.  I'll do it naked if I have to but perhaps wearing one of Luiza Bondadiman's cut-out and tightly bound swimsuits from her latest S/S 10 collection might be a better option, lest I leap out of said ice bath yelping and screaming, lady lumps all over the joint and frankly resulting in a not so pretty sight. 

Fashion Rio was a few weeks ago and I must confess, JC Report's succint round-ups help me out a lot rather than trawling through sites that for some reason keeps coming up with a message that I've been hacked by someone Turkish... 

It was this multi-coloured, brightly pastel toned tied and bound swimsuit that caught my eye immediately and thus formed the basis for my dunking in ice bath get-up.  Or just on its own over a white sheer mesh top and some big clunky shoes.  I can just guess the comparisons to a certain leotard-loving, thigh-baring chica that will ensue...

Open Air, Open Forum

As I've been trawling through a gazillion menswear S/S 10 show images for work, I noticed that there was a mini tendancy to hold shows in outdoor spaces, fully visible to the passing public as opposed to being locked away behind a beefy security guard, an anxious PR and an invitation that bears your name, and your seating/standing fate that makes you feel big or small depending on where you're sitting or... *gasp* standing.

This of course could be a practical thing, given that it was 30 degrees and hotter.  It could be an ambient statement on Dries Van Noten and Kris van Assche (for Dior Homme)'s part.

It most probably ISN'T an act of democratising fashion, in the way that Henrik Vibskov does with his shows which is to ask the public to cough up either money or packets of cigarettes to attend his shows in Copenhagen. 

Still, I am fascinated by reactions of people peering into and stumbling upon fashion shows, unlikely to know what exactly is going on but being interested nonetheless.  I'm not about to start ripping up the rulebook and declaring 'Vive le Fashion Revolution!', 'Power to the People' and all that but seeing as I'm supposedly part of a blogging community that is making fashion a 'democratic' thing (an unsteady point that actually hasn't been verified but journalists love to throw around nontheless...) I'd like to throw the idea of open-to-all fashion shows out there.  For once, I'm putting forth the question 'Yay or nay?' instead of forming my own opinion (I have no concrete conclusion...)...

I'm specifically talking about the BIG FOUR of course given that public access fashion shows already take place elsewhere.  The fashion hierarchy that we are painfully obsessed with via Jak and Jil (is it envy, anger or adulation?) would be chipped a little save for the top tiers of the triangle that of course still get to sit front row.  Only there would be a somewhat larger crowd sitting behind them.  Or perhaps there could be a tombola system... see what seat number/row you pull out of tombola and you can sit your arse there.  Hey, I'm of course just pondering the mere possibility...

Not that any of this will actually happen in an organised public access system... the fashion industry has just about got over the fact that mere mortals can get hold of show images hours after the show... letting people into the hallowed sweaty halls (more often than not, shows are sweaty affairs...) would be another matter altogether...        

Get ye down there!

>> I have to apologise very quickly here as I have precisely two minutes to type this.  So the Luella mega sample sale actually started yesterday at 4pm and a lot of people queuing had some sort of print out.  Sorry if I didn't communicate this on the post yesterday but the general flyer for some reason only had today's date on it.  I dropped by out of curiosity when I was out doing an interview and couldn't resist even though I really had meant to go today.  Hot, sweltering queues had formed as they were operating a one-in-one out system.  The crux of it is.... GET YE DOWN THERE... I'll keep it brief - bags range from £30-£250 and a decent sized leather bag will cost you £75.  The S/S 09 collection in all its purple, pink and orange glory is priced at £100 for a dress.  It's incredible that they're selling current stock for that such a small amount of money.  Small trinkets, tees etc are about £15 (no headbands I'm afraid, Selina...) and there's plenty of clothes from past seasons to trawl through... catwalk and factory samples too so there are some pretty unique pieces there.

It has started as we speak... GET YE DOWN THERE...bring a bottle of water for the queue and good luck.

I didn't buy a huge amount as I was being quite picky... but one of the coups are these S/S 08 Dr. Marten-type chunky heels used in the show...

Not Just a Label Round 2

I was semi-excited about Not Just a Label's shop launch but even more so now that Diane Pernet has made her selection for the July edition of the e-shop.  Her tastemaking skills are of course evident on her blog but made even more apparent with her selection and actually in some cases, she's surprised me with some of her picks.  The pieces that she has selected for the store is quite well-rounded and varied in aesthetic style... 

Oh and finally, I'm more excited this time round because the pieces truly come alive on models as opposed to still hanging shots...

I was going to select a few more menswear pieces but why bother when this Ethosens shirt (£145) that comes from a collection based around the idea of the 'Gentleman' is clearly the star piece...

I'm also grateful that Diane has selected Aoi Kotsuhiroi's jewellery, whose images and skills have been amazing me but for some reason I never got round to posting about it properly....

Oh, oh... and Style Bubble readers get a 10% when buying something.  Just enter STYLEBUBBLE at checkout... ho ho ho....FIRST time in all three years of this blog that I've broken out with a discount code... I'm such a selfish bastard...

Sample, Sample, Sample

I know I used to update my right sidebar with sample sale notices but because the good ones tend to be invite-only and then the generic ones you can find via Daily Candy and what not, I thought I'd get rid of it.... these are for Londoners to escape from the heat.. enjoy and possibly see you there!

The Jackson Tidbit

>> I know the Jackson tribute posts have been going completely rampant... out of the 400 blogs that I have on my Bloglines, over 250 had posted SOMETHING about Michael Jackson.  I suddenly felt like I had been left out in the cold cold world of a minority, shunted into the realms of blogging without taking any notice of what's going on in the real world.  Ok, it's not that drastic and no, I'm not feeling cold at all... but what the heck, I found the perfect opportunity to join the bandwagon... seems Jackson-mania extends towards footwear as well as album sales as these Repetto Jackson jazz shoes have been selling out at stores and have now garnered a waiting list at their Paris store.  Months ago, I did actually really want them in white patent and the patent loafer thang has been brewing since Peter Jensen's A/W 09 shoe range...now though, me thinks I've lost my chance.  Good luck to those seeking these out for the next few months...

Denim Challenged

It's got to be said that I'm one of those people that don't really rely or need denim to necessitate outfits.  I don't have attachments to jeans or actually, after a recent purge, do I actually have a pair of jeans existing in my wardrobe.  This isn't to throw out an airy statement that is supposed to be nonchalent or something because I am in fact basically denim-challenged.  It's hard for me to find the stuff be it a natty denim jacket (remember when everyone was on the search for one of those specimens of denim jackets after Kirsten Dunst traipsed around wearing one for the whole summer...) or a bum-lifting, leg-legthening pair of jeans.  Then of course I get distracted by all the other good things that don't require as much thinking and it's bye bye denim, hello sequin shorts/crepe de chine dresses/mesh t-shirts... etc etc...

London-based French photographer Babette Pauthier's latest set of photos for Portuguese online mag Pure makes me realise that of course, given the right denim piece, it suddenly becomes a lot more interesting and my attention can be fixed on say... a cut out denim jacket, denim prints onf soft fabrics, bleached out spots... denim-challenged me needs more of these 'difficult' solutions to not eliminate denim entirely from my wardrobe (that said, thank god for The Urban Collection keeping me in frayed denim oversized jackets and vintage Jordache...)

Where's my Birthday Suit?

>> Kat turned me onto Pagesonline, an Aussie e-zine which I actually already had on my links but doofusly hadn't checked out.... Pagesonline then turned me onto Aussie costume designer/outfiteer Birthday Suit which has one of those annoying websites that gives zero information but lots of flashing images that you have to painfully screencap.  I've decided 31 degrees celcius heat is too hot to do multiple screencapping so it's just this one image from Pagesonline that I'm putting up.  This ensemble is in fact the Birthday Suit of my dreams.... to either be born and pop out of my mother wearing a miniature tropical flora and fauna blazer and matching bustier....or to give birth to a child wearing it.  Scientists surely need to make this happen.

Florence's Lungs

>> Apologies that I can't find better images of the lovely Florence Welch (Florence and the Machine) performing at Glasto (no I wasn't there...were you?) but Getty is the best I can do.  Last week, I was having a love affair of Roksanda Ilincic's lacquered flowers for Whistles and the flame-haired songstress has taken the flowers to another level adorning her band's drumkit and mic with slightly dishevelled blooms.  More to the point, the gold and black roses adorn her stage outfits which oddly are designed by Topshop, exclusively for Florence.  I say odd, only because high street stores don't tend to do custom designs for people, especially ones that aren't going to be sold in-store.  Still, Topshop have gotten onto that stage train with gusto and given Florence fringed capes, shoulder pieces, giant rose embellishments and custom-fitted tulle sleeves for her to flutter around...

**EDIT** Found better images courtesy of Roger Sargent...

 

It does pain me a little that these shoes that Topshop also made for her won't be sold but does tempt me into a simple DIY task with some fake flowers and grosgrain...

 

I was going to post the original video for Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up) but I've decided the Jamie T/Lionheart dance remix is actually pretty good, equalling the original if not surpassing... 

Dirty Digitaria

I've been meaning to check out Digitaria after Buck Style's writeup but haven't had the chance over the past few weeks.  It's been open for a few months and I've had some good words coming back so on the balmy Saturday I had to go take a peek...

It's the oddest kind of treasure trove to be found in London and adds an interesting label roster that can't be equated elsewhere in London.  It also benefits from a cool location at an old tailor's shop hence why it's got the old fixtures, mirrors and wooden panelling.  Digitaria is an Athens-based label that makes the kind of loose and interesting silouettes that would be welcome in most wardrobes.  The menswear is especially interesting with tightly pleated wide legged trousers and double layered shirts.  I might talk about Digtalia, the label elsewhere as here's it's the shop that's the star.  Other than the Digitaria label, the shop has gathered up a number of labels that I've not heard of... and ones that I'm just getting wind of... Tian Wang who I talked up last week was selling here for a bit. 

There's an impermanence about the labels moving in and out, showing a flexibility that means every week, it could be different.  When I visited, it was stocking Euphemia, Stone of Surrey and paper neckpieces by Millie Cockton.  I can't even give links, that's how new most of the pieces are... next up, I'm excited that Katie Eary and Gemma Slack will be coming into the store...

Millie Cockton..

Downstairs is a gallery area that will be rotated regularly...

I loved the mannequins that Lee Benjamin, a close collaborator of Leigh Bowery's has designed for the store...

Loving these pieces by Euphemia... exactly the sort of interesting muted pieces I crave for summer layering...

I came away with a white satin finger painted top by Stone of Surrey...

...and some rather controversial (or maybe not...) printed thigh high socks by Lee Benjamin's label Sanatorium....yup, it's pretty obvious what's printed on them.  I can't really explain why I bought them other than the fact that I love the sort of rubbery texture of them (though they're not rubber...thank god...) and the way the print is on a very neutral colour.  I wore them today as below and they did get a few eyebrows raised but I'd like to think that we're not five anymore and we don't have to go "Uuuummmm!  I'm telling, I'm telling!" over something that's just a print and nothing more. 

Woody Woody...

>> This has been knocking around for a bit and I keep forgetting that I need to get myself over to the Kemistry Gallery to check out illustrator/artist Damien Poulain's cute totems.  'Cute' is I guess a bit of a derogatory term I guess for Poulain's efforts to capture moments of 20th-21st century history in wooden 'totems'. A totem is apparently

"any supposed entity that watches over or assists a group of people, such as a family, clan, or tribe"

In Damien's world events like Britney shaving her head, the fall of the Berlin Wal and the TV test card all deserve to be made into totems, carved out of reclaimed wood and hand-painted.  He also has added a few designers that for him are significant fashion 'events' of he past...

Gareth Pugh

Comme des Garcons

Viktor & Rolf

If I was skilled enough to carve anything into wood (never ever worked with wood in D.T...), I'd have a different set of fashion events/figures to carve, entirely personal to me and not in any way significant in the grand scheme of things probably...

... Alaia's contribution to fashion in general...
...Boudicca's V&A Fashion in Motion show which I accidentally walked into...
...Discovering vintage for the first time in Rokit when I was 13...
...The Face (old, not the supposedly new digital version which someone is trying to unleash...)...
...Katy England...
...A pair of old Miu Miu platform shoes that were officially my first pair of proper serious heels...

Deep into the Heath

>>I know this is very very lazy of me and these are gratuitous personal larking about shots that should go into the personal folder of the blog (think there's one of me snorting an olive and basil breadstick somewhere in this batch...) and I know it's not fashion week or anything so lazy outfit posts are completely inexcusable... but... I was quite impressed with the number of colours Style Salvage Steve and I managed to break out in yesterday despite the fact he was a bit illin'.  I've finally converted him to the therapeutic wonders of wearing something new/colourful, which thus lifts your spirits.  So he had his 50% COS colour block t-shirt and I had my stripy stripy Cooperative Designs dress which I layered over a Twelve by Twelve cheapie purple knitted dress because I'm feeling longer lengths now (it's a defiance act against the confuzzling fact that it's actually incredibly hard to find below knee length skirts/dresses on the high street...).  Random outfit post over...

Sorger Soars

I got to see embroidery, sequin and general embellishment extraordinaire Richard Sorger's work on Friday in person when I was invited to be a part of the Vauxhall Fashion Scout panel, selecting the peeps that will make up a chunk of the off-schedule for London Fashion Week.  Without saying whether or not Sorger will have a part to play in the schedule, I'm merely posting about his A/W 09 collection which once again is heavy with all the good things in life... sequins, holographic card, beading, embroidery and always in the right places as opposed to being patched on in random places. 

This jacket was particularly eye-catching with its scrunched up crepe de chine and raffia detailing...

There's that ubiquitous pailette again but backed up with satin ribbon coiling on the skirt...

I loved this long leather coat/dress and yes, that's right, I did just say I liked a 'long leather coat'...

I also completely forgot that Richard Sorger did some fantastic work for Meadham Kirchoff's A/W 09 collection; the embroidery on the trousers, dresses, jackets and shoes.  I love how the gold embroidery looks like it's sort of exploded into a mass of gold thread on the dress...

(Pics by Patrick Lindblom)

Let's Pretend it's Hawaii

I can't praise the colour coral enough it seems... five posts on coral (coral 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) this year and now another.  I love typing the word and saying it.  Even if the colour is not QUITE coral, I still like to label it as so.  It's a happy sort of pink that never reaches the depth of red and thank god it doesn't because then I'd start getting the fear.  I've been waiting to break out with this new Tim Ryan fringe scarf (he's now stocked at Browns and is FINALLY gonna get with the times and have a website...). I must have dropped the coral hint pretty heavily because he came up with this amazing arrangement of colours of fringing on the scarf... deep deep coral, a sort of dark dusky pink and a bronzed peach on sewn onto pink lurex.  I'm treading into Nigella Lawson lascivious language here but the fingers can't help it when you're staring at these kind of colours.  Wearing it on the neck has sort of been out of the question as it's been getting up to around 28 degrees celcius in London even for someone like me who oddly doesn't sweat that much.  So, around the waist it went today in a sort of Hawaiian grass skirt formation.  Unlike grass though, this silk stuff was swinging around in a soft 'swoosh swoosh' motion, and has given me the major coral fix for the summer and beyond, boosted by other coral finds (EUR1 lace crop top, underwear, nail polish etc etc you get the idea...).

Getting Shady Again

>> My Bernhard Willhelm visor shades made a mysterious disappearance around the time when I jaunted off to Bournemouth for the weekend leaving me with the visor attachment but no glasses to attach them onto.  The visor part is a painful reminder that novelty glasses are no fun when one crucial half is gone and that someone at Bournemouth Ramada is missing out on the crucial point of those sunglasses.  I need to stop dwelling and instead focus my attention on these sunglasses option by London-based fabric sculpturess Romina Karamanea.  Now, it was surprising to me that these beauties from her S/S 09 collection that looked like styling tools are actually going to production and available for sale (best to contact her via email if you're interested me thinks...).  Even more surprising that she hasn't produced them through the likes of Linda Farrow, who does erm...everyone's sunnies.  There's something odd, chic, sleek and a like Romina's designers, undeniably architectural.  I especially love the gradiated lenses which means I can make some eye contact (I still don't really like looking directly at people wearing blocked out sunglasses...am I the only one?).  So quest for the replacement shades has ended...just need to save up the moolah now...