Friday, January 3, 2014

Chimney Chic

While at IF in Soho I saw a long, somewhat itchy-looking, black watch tartan coat.  It had a Beatles collar and was artfully wrinkly. It had a certain chimney chic quality to it, a label I'm giving to Dickens-meets-Mary Poppins types of clothes, a hybrid of chimney sweep and whimsy (dancing penguins and all that).

That coat was by Casey & Casey, and an internet search led me not to them (although it did) but to a designing duo I didn't know I needed to know about; Meadham Kirchhoff. 

These two British lads, Mssrs. Meadham and Kirchhoff have not only been scooped up by the V&A, they've solidified their popular appeal by doing a collection for Topshop.  (The documentary I saw about Bergdorf Goodman noted that Halston was quickly dropped from that venerable store when his designer name became diluted via J. C. Penney.  It then quickly showed how times have changed by showing Philip Lim's collaboration with Target.)

The piece that caught my eye is the blouse above. It is, to me, a perfect blend of Victorian and modern design and I particularly love the navy colour.





A quick visit to the MK website showed me that this season anyway, navy is an anomaly, as the boys like to do up their designs in brights, which suggests a boudoir for clowns (you'll need to watch the short film). But I did like this one dark number:


and the cakes looked good enough to eat. 


Silver pearls on a pinkly iced cake make me crazy with desire.

2 comments:

GSL said...

The top is interesting but those British laddies apparently give a woman's figure the backseat to their whimsy.

WendyB said...

Ugh, I now have "Chim Chim Cher-ee" stuck in my head!!