Gieves & Hawkes AW08 suits.

When bespoke suits come to mind the typical association is a consumer in their mid 40s with an undeserved lord-title living on family residuals. Given that image, Gieves & Hawkes went upstreams against all other Savile Row tailors by having young models look posh in the fall 08 campaign.

The campaign shots look very refreshing and are very relevant to younger fashion conscious under the age of 40. Since G&H are obviously trying to etch themselves onto the hearts of people between 20-35 years of age they better start offering some student discount of some sorts because their suits aren’t exactly bargains. Their top selling three piece gray suit look very compelling but the £650 is quite a hurdle, especially when the sales guy will hustle you into buying a shirt to go with it. 15-20% Discount would ease purchase decision for many fashion loving academics. With a student grant at their disposal a fine quality suit to wear during a life time is an unregrettable purchase. After all isn’t this what students use their grants for, buying a new cell phone, laptop or wardrobe?

Recession beard.

The “Wall Street meltdown” head lines on every single morning newspaper might not have had a direct affect on ones habit of buying a bottle of Fanta every Friday nights, but it’s a sign of how the Western economy is suffering. So on Monday give your boss a nice cuddly hug as a prevention of him/her sacking you when it’s time to kick people off the ship. More importantly starting cutting down on your living costs!

Although it’s a sensational feeling rubbing and touching your jaw after a good shave keeping the face smooth as a rubber bracelet, it’s can be a pricey cosmetic treatment. Razors, shaving cream, moisturizing and aftershave can add up to a sizable chunk of money so why not relinquish the caveman inside you but not shaving for a while. Grow a mean and commanding beard like Triton in “The little Mermaid” movie. A beard makes you look older and age is associated with wisdom. Superb way of making sure you’re taken more serious by a sales guy when you’re turning your phone in for a questionable warranty claim.

Beard role model of the moment is undoubtedly French model Patrick Petitjean who one character to put to memory. He’s on the cover for October GQ Style and is the front man of Prada’s AW08 ad campaign. Dense as tropical forest Patrick’s impressive beard makes him look like an immortal 203 year old Greek god rising from the ocean to takeover the newly completed Atlantis hotel in Dubai. What’s shocking is that he’s merely 24. Don’t kid yourself, this is a bear only few men can grow, but one can always try.

Back to the Future: Slow up for the past.

Guess who was feeling a little blue during New York Fashion week at Zac Posen? Jefferson Hack! The name might not ignite sparks but he’s a heavy hitter on the fashion seen as one of the birth parents of well renowned Dazed & Confused fashion magazine as well as ‘Another Magazine’ for men.

As a fashion editor this is your essence, to lead and serve rocking trends before they become trends. While the men’s SS09 fashion weeks just ended a few weeks ago Hack has already managed to get hold of an all surf blue suit well before they hit the showrooms in February next year. Without exaggerating his appearance with other primary colours the suit was in the spot light as he chose to wear a classic white shirt under the blazer. The big question is if he can ever wear it again because it can be compared with a fire cracker, awesome the first time, boring the second time and lame the third time. He could always try selling it to an executive at Dell or Intel to wear during annual internal press conferences.

Karl Lagerfeld for Dom Perignon

Fashion week and champagne go together like beer and Oktoberfest. The Kaiser of German fashion commissioned an advertisement campaign for pompous French champagne manufacturer Dom Perignon. Using his sense for fashion and skills accumulated from his hobby, photograph, Karl Lagerfeld managed to create some very sensual and compelling shots depicting the oh-so-expensive beverage in the same habitat as the popularized Cristal which is amongst the young and successful. Although buying a bottle at a club won’t guarantee attractive women flocking to your table, drinking too much of it can make you perceive the lighting in the room to be red.

Sweepstake: Walk On Water Punchline

Walk On Water

Punchline Collection

Granted you’re reading this off a computer rather than an HTC Touch or Wii many of us blog readers use laptops and when leaving the house they need to be dressed as well. Looking slick from top to toe there is no reason why your laptop shouldn’t be dressed fabulously as well. The choice for trendy people has been Crumpler which turns out to be a mainstream choice selling neoprene skins that don’t blend nicely with an elegant outfit.

The savior in the world of geeky laptop skin is here and the Swedish company is called Walk On Water. Like a pearl drifting up on beach they manufacture fashion accessories for laptops. Taking Scandinavian design to more bold and innovative direction Walk On Water are here to break the spell of boring laptop skins/bags, camera and ipod cases. With an emphasis on high quality their products are as durable as they are attractive. Creating numbered limited edition collection Walk on Water sell laptop skin that you will likely not see anyone showing up with at your local Starbucks. To put it into perspective 58, 61 and 114 numbered units of each color pellet of the wallets, 15.4 inch skins and 13 inch skins of the Punchline collection have been manufactured.

Good thing come to those who wait and it’s time for all you loyal iluwfashion readers to be rewarded with a little treat. Translated into straight forward English one Bronze wallet and one 15.4(widescreen) inch laptop skin from the Punchline collection will part ways making their way to happy home.

Instructions:
1. State your name, age and gender.

2. Answer the following collections:

-Who is the design chief at Walk on Water?
-What are the official names of the two other colours the Punchline products are offered in?
-Which store in Gothenburg/Göteborg is selling the Punchline collection?

Answers can conveniently be found on walkonwater.se

4. Write a little message about ANYTHING that's on your mind(max 69 words)

5. Send it all to the email address listed in the right column.

Anyone living on planet earth can enter.

The competition is running until the Friday the 26th of September 23:59 London time. Winners will be contacted by mail and will have three days to respond or else someone will inherit the gift.

If unmoved still unmoved then let the photos below seduce you, and both the wallet and skin comes with a black carrying bag.

Rock your winter jacket.

As much as well all share a common interest in fashion there’s difference in our and most importantly geographical location. Not all of us live in beautiful Singapore enjoying 365 days a year of 30 degrees Celsius sun rays beaming at us all day long. While some people have never bought a winter jacket in their lives others don’t even own a pair of shorts.

Like with condoms we only buy jackets to protect us from external contamination coming along with bad weather. Since we rarely buy a jacket because we really want one the purchase is rarely made with passion and fashion conscious thought. That ends with the winter jacket dusting lonely all forgotten in the wardrobe over spring and summer until it’s finally time for it to protect and serve again, which might not happen if you suddenly realize what a horrible choice you made last year and feel for a completely new jacket.

Instead of acquiring a new winter jacket solely for its primary function, why buy one which you actually love and want to adopt to your wardrobe. Take it up a notch and get a jacket that you can build outfit with it in as a starting point. That might not be such a crazy idea considering the fact that a winter jacket is worn every single day during the winter. There are days where one wants to dress smart but it’s too bold to just wear blazer, and wearing a jacket on top of the blazer looks bulky or makes you feel stuffed like an astronaut. Given that, wearing a winter jacket alone is the only option but that doesn’t mean the one has to look less smart than someone wearing a blazer. With carefully chosen accessories and trousers the result can be smashing.

Image control: Zac Efron

Zac Efron! The name might not ring a bell but the face shall get your brain cells working. Unless you’re familiar with `The High school Musical´ the chances of you being able to associate him with anything is zero.

High School Musical is pretty much what Efron does for a living and is what has made him rise to moderate fame hood. With a fan base consisting 99% of pre-teen girl hanging posters of him in their locker at school Zac Efron has the youngest image in Hollywood. He can impossibly land a cover on GQ right now because he’s so strongly linked to phenomenon such as Disney, Nickelodeon and other teen related tomfoolery. Although the High School Musical and his fan base is to blame for that, he’s equally as accountable for his image.

Constantly wearing a hobbit styled hair cut he looks like a 16 years old Vans and Quicksilver wearing working as a newspaper boy during the summer holiday. Despite turning 21 years next month he looks like kid on and off screen. As he gets older and will aspire to do bigger things like getting a role in block buster movies he is in serious need of an image change. A sex scandal with Madonna would give the right publicity although a simply change in what he wears off set would have the greatest effect.

At the Video Music Awards on Sunday last week he did something special, he finally turned into a man. It was one of those Cinderella moments when someone transforms into something you’d never imagine them as. With the hair combed back and some compulsory facial hair stub Efron actually looked presentable for an audience above the age of 18. Credit is due when credit due and he does deserve compliment for the choice of suit which is cut quite nicely. Who ever chose the colour deserve a curfew, it’s neither pitch black, nor light grey, it’s just dull! More depressing is the tie that is of the type worn by a Manhattan accountant during a 07:00 meeting during a cold February, let’s not get started on how misaligned it is. His stylist should be fired.

British Internationl Motor Show.

Three months ago in July eXcel London hosted the British International Motor Show. As a dedicated petrol head I couldn’t restrain myself from visiting the show during at the press day to get personal with this year’s hottest cars. With an appetite for big non-environment friendly luxury cars I conducted a comparison between two similar but somewhat different executive sedans.

Note: Excuse the crappy pictures, don't know what happened that day. I became the most unsteady photographer after Michael J. Fox.

Budget(Lexus LS) vs Luxury(Maybach)

First up was the £84 000 Lexus LS600h which is the top of the range version in the LS lineup. The “h” suffix stand for hybrid meaning that the car is powered by electric engine that drives the car up to approximately 50km/h where the petrol engine takes over. Lexus didn’t spare any effort trying to impress visitors at the show as the LS600h was dressed in black with a panda white interior that can only be kept clean if no one is allowed in the car. With contrasting panels in the form of graphite good panels the overall presentation of the car couldn’t have been any better.

Crawling into the backseat my eyes bulged as I was struck by how fully loaded the car was. Buttons where everywhere with a 12 inch-ish sized screen could be flipped down from the ceiling for watching documentaries about South American dictators. The cookie jar was the center console dividing the two back seats. Here was two remote controls, a small fridge and various buttons controlling the seats that could ventilate you, heat you, huge you and kiss you. A funny feature was the massage function that triggered the sensation of petite Japanese geisha tip toeing on your back, felt cool at first but got spooky and annoying after a while. There were also body sensors in the car that will make sure you’re body temperature is at the user defined degrees making me curious as to what would happen if I tossed in a frozen chicken into the cabin.

Designed to be enjoyed from the backseat the seats could be reclined or extended with an ottoman. It was clear that the car is targeted towards diplomats and people who spend a lot of time getting driven around. The LS600h is not a car to buy for kids to enjoy in the backseat since buttons in the back are able of controlling the seats in the front. On the downside the rear seat comfort and hybrid engine comes to the cost of a rather smaller boot. To sum it up the LS600h is a highly impressive sedan that comes with rear seat hospitality no Mercedes, BMW, Audi can match.

You only live once and hesitating to buy an expensive product can sometimes lead to a purchase for the sole reason that you simply can! That is where cars like the Mercedes Maybach 62 come into the picture. Named 62 the car is 6.2 meter long as opposed to the short wheel version of it, the 57 that’s 5.7 meters.

They say that beauty comes from within and that applies to the MM 62 that looks very underwhelming from the exterior resembling the W220 Mercedes S-class that in fact, the car share technological underpinnings with. Many people might not notice it but those that are car enthusiasts can pick up on the many details that do give the negative mass production vibes you don’t want to get in a £270 000 car. Ultimately what you feel when inside the car is a sense of self importance.

Unexplainably the Maybach makes you feel like you are some, a person of importance that has accomplished something big in life. It gives you the sensation that you have Warren Buffert, OJ Simpsons lawyers, Prince Albert of Monaco and Jay-Z on speed dial. No other car sucked you into fantasy land like the Maybach did. The most striking aspect about the car is the overzealous leg space. Sitting in the Lexus I was impressed by the leg space but the MM 62 is just in a different league. Long as a bowling alley you can almost get down on the floor do push-ups in the back. Not exaggerating a single bit, the rear doors are no shorter than rectangular four seater dinner table. The generosity(I’m 180cm tall) is borderline excessive and more than you could image you’d ever need on a journey to work.

Moving on the entertainment in the back it’s no less daunting than in the Lexus. Like you would expect it comes with a fridge but also with a pair of €600 silver glasses designated for sipping champagne in. DVD, satellite TV, radio, internet, connectivity for Xbox/Wii is all there. Not only that but the car comes with two headphones and in the case of backseat passengers having distinct music taste they can in fact chose not to listen to the same music. The list of options is endless and even extends to ostentatious intercom systems that consists of microphones and speakers on the exterior of the car and allow people on the inside to eaves drop on those outside. More ridiculous options are be dwelled about for pages, features can be added accumulating to half the price of the Lexus.

Sadly the MM 62 does feel a leave you a bit cold. It doesn’t have the same charisma as the Bentley Flying Spur or Rolls Royce Phantom. The interior combination on the one exhibited at the Motor Show was gaudy and crass. Mercedes did cut corners to get this car out on the market quickly and the result turned out to flop. Sales are down the toilet and are falling with each quarter. The car can be compared with Hotels and restaurants in Las Vegas where a lot of the luxury feels fabricated, fake and superstitious lacking any form of class or character. Is there is a future for the Maybach? Maybe, it will depend on Mercedes’ and their ability to make their future Maybachs true luxury cars coming with bespoke designs not resembling any Mercedes.

Conclusion: The MM 62 cost three times more than the LS600h but is it three times better? It’s a debatable question but both cars have their fine share of quality. With sporty design, reasonable price and hybrid technology the Lexus is a very desirable car.

Surprisingly the Maybach does all the back seat hospitality much better. Just think about the front/rear seat sound proof divider that enables the owner, with discretion, squeeze the thigh of a mistress in preparation for the next kink in the rear without the driver hearing a single moan. Unlike the Lexus the Maybach comes with a connoisseur button that gets you into a contact with a person who will grant your every request whether it’s getting a helicopter ready or searching the city for your favorite Ben&Jerry’s ice cream. Similar to the carriage a Duchess might have used for long distance transport the comfort in the Maybach is unmatched. There’s simply no car with a better equipped back seat. Pictures say more than a thousand words and the one above says it all.

How to dress in white.

American television network and movie studio Paramount Pictures kick started their new 90201 TV-Series this Monday in hopes of surfing on the same success enjoyed during the era when the original series featuring Tori Spelling was biggest TV-series on the planet. Not living up to the hype the pilot episode was a vegetable stew of various types of concepts we recognize from TV-series in the past without a new twist of any sort. Continuing on with the negativity the new 90201 is poorly directed capturing unconvincing actors who look like they are on their first casting. Neither was the choice of clothing anything that kept the adrenalin pumping throughout the episode. That can’t on the other hand be said about the latest episode of Gossip Girl.

Mischa Barton’s reign as the “it” girl has ended. Proportioned perfectly like a porcelain doll Leighton Meester shined brighter than the polar star during the second half of the episode. Dressed in a cute and adequately short dressed high lighting her slender legs the grace in the dauntingly neat appearance is amongst the best wardrobe styling ever broadcasted on television. When Edward Westwick appeared in the same colours as Meester one had a second reason to applaud the wardrobe stylist for the superb work.

Walking with a sinister gaze Westwick painted the perfection picture of how a man should look in an all white outfit. Unlike women men rarely ever wear white from toe to head, expect when we leave the shower in a robe or dress like `Karate Kid´ at Halloween. Thanks to “Miami Vice” and P.Diddy wearing an all white outfit is almost an impossibility without coming across as showy or flamboyant. Nobody wants to look politically incorrect at a public but thankfully we’ve been presented with a solution for looking socially acceptable in a bright saint-like outfit. An off-white suit with a black border on the collar mixed with subtle sunglasses hanging tastefully over the shirt has proved to be quite a striking combination, especially with a black scarf with white dots tied around the neck.

Westwick didn’t look less impressive when he and Meester shared a frame pausing time like a solar eclipse. Like two swans by the fountain at the castle of Versailles they made every other actor blur. Now drown your Thursday sorrows in these gorgeous screen caps.

A Monogramouflage Keepall with large fries, thank you.

If you were out of contact with the internet the past 3 months the news might have escaped you that eBay lost against LMVH in court back in July. The feud was over eBay not being apprehensive enough in preventing sellers from listing bogus LV bags. As expected an “I’m sorry”-card paired with a 400g pack of Toblerone and a teddy bear wasn’t enough for an apology as Paris court ruled that eBay hand over 40 million Euros to LMVH. But was it really about money? Let’s investigate!

LMVH is a giant, a juggernaut and one of the world’s most profitable corporations. In fact, they are the most powerful corporation in the fashion/luxury industry and profited in excess of 3.5 billion euros last year. In other words they make enough money not to be jealous of the few dollars eBay(includes Paypal) are making from each fake bag sold in auction site. eBay has long been a platform for buying/selling fake goods and LVMH winning the court room battle is a giant leap in the their battle of protecting their image.

2 of the villains in Louis Vuitton’s tarnishing image are undeniably Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton. The spoiled and untalented duo and their filmed shenanigans lugging a substantial number of LV suit cases between homes across the US gave the company free exposures other company can only dream about getting……….Well Von Dutch did get theirs as well but ended up becoming unfashionable with no one on the streets wanting to be associated with them after year 2006. Amusingly all the Von Dutch designs reincarnated into Ed Hardy which is a brand worn by the same type of people who loved Von Dutch. Ed Hardy death clock is ticking and by 2010 the brand will be as extinct FILA shoes.

Paris and Nicole’s `Simple Life´ reality show became incredibly popular over the course of a few months and suddenly ever women under the age of 30 knew what a Louis Vuitton bag was. Getting into 2004-2005 big cities were flooded with fake LV bag with young middle class women dreaming about life as a young and attractive socialite. One of those is an immature highly unproductive ex-colleague of mine. Three months ago she told me that she wanted to buy a LV wallet, which doesn’t sound very odd at all…….…until you find out that she’s 17 working her first job. It’s preposterous for a middle-class 17 years old girl to consider a £300 wallet that will on a daily basis carry less money than the value of the wallet itself! Sadly this is the reality of modern day LV with a good portion of middle class consumers putting themselves in debt for street kudos. LV has thanks to high exposure in media become pop culture and a status symbol.

In London there are not only one but two big LV stores as well as three departments in shopping stores like Harrods, Harvey Nicholas and Selfridges. In Selfridges they even have ropes by the entrance restricting the flood of people that frequently descend upon the Louis Vuitton department with ques are similar to what you see at Mcdonalds during lunch hours. With tourists and locals pulling swiping 2-5 different credit cards until one gets approved the most common consumption is unsurprisingly LV Monogram Canvas bags. They are the cheapest, most accessible and most recognizable LV products.

Coupled with the constant introduction of Monogram Canvas remixes like denim and lately camouflage there is no denying that LV’s image is a on a down hill journey. Even Marc Jacobs expressed his concern over LV milking their success. With increasing retailers and production LV are selling bags to anyone who can afford becoming the liking of people with new money or borrowed money near the verge or turning LV into mainstream luxury. It looks like the greedy stake holders and executives at LV are turning the world’s most prestigious fashion house into the IKEA of luxury.