Phannatiq at Esthetica LFW

I cannot believe our house wi-fi decided to disconnect just when I have loads of material queued up for the blog. I also can't believe I survived being internet-less for 48 hours. Phannatiq is a brand that I've been super eager to share since I met Anna Skodbo at her Esthetica stall on Sunday.

Phannatiq is inspired by Hackney both on a great night out and the long walk home in the morning. The tights and ready-to-wear collection are printed with scenes of metropolitan decay using natural dyes. Like the origin of the dyes contrasts the urban motif, so do the soft and feminine silk lengths contrast with the rawness of fig tree bark. 

  

I ended up talking to Anna about the plant material used to create the yellow. Annatto is totally natural and we eat it is minuscule amounts every time we have cheese - so who's to say we shouldn't dye our clothes with it? I love the way the fabric has texture and colour depth / variance but is far from being tardy washed-out hemp. Click here to watch her SS13-film.

Katrien van Hecke AW13 at Esthetica LFW

This season I totally forgot about fashion week until the last minute and threw myself into the mission of squeezing in some time for the Esthetica exhibition. Katrien Van Hecke is showing at LFW and Esthetica for the very first time. Her collection is a series of dresses and scarves made from her naturally dyed silks in the most beautiful hues of autumn.

 

 

The detail in the natural randomness is like a beautiful sunset and I adore the way Katrien van Hecke manages to cut interesting pieces from large plain pieces of fabric in a way that makes them fall with shape. You can really see it from the quality of her work that she's worked with Hussein Chalayan. The simple cut makes the print centre of attention and as she expresses it in an interview with White Blog:

...I create my own language starting from plain, pure fabrics, threads or fibres that I paint and sculpture into clean, clear images...

LFW events to go to

Oh shit. It's fashion week time again. I feel caught off guard. But I've had a look around and it seems most Ethical fashion events are spread out further than just the few official LFW dates.

Tomorrow you can catch a talk at Pure London. Safia Minney of People Tree will be there. I haven't seen/heard/met her before so I think that would be quite interesting (but guess who's got a 9-5 job now). Wednesday there's an Intelligent Futures event called 'Social Media and OpenData for CSR' presentation at the Google Campus.

During LFW itself there's of course the great Esthetica at the exhbition area where all the best ethical and sustainable designers showcase their newest collections. Hopefully they'll all gain loads of buyers and press coverage. Christopher Raeburn is the only designer in the official show programme. It's going to be exciting to see what he's come up with.

Phannatiq is one of the new exciting designers at Esthetica.

From Belgian Katrien Van Hecke's AW12

On Sunday and Monday Ecoluxe returns with a showcase of more than 20 responsible designers in the Kingsway Hall Hotel. There's a great variety of UK-based and International designer to look forward to. It will be a great opportunity to meet the creators behind the labels and meet others interested in a sustainable fashion future.

One last event not to forget is Wonder-lust. A new concept by e-tailer Fashion ComPassion that allows you to buy limited edition products made from socially responsible and sustainable sources. The evening will be a fabulous mix of fashion, art and vodka made on fairtrade quinoa. How much more do we need looking forward to? I am definitely excited about being back in London.

Style from Delhi Fashion Week

 Finally managed to do a little edit of the street style photos I took at Fashion week.
 

Just thought I'd put together these two strangers. The front-row woman had such a calm energy emanating from her, the Japanese buyer so restless.

Kiran, founder and designer of Myoho Studio.

Prateeq wears bracelets and a naturally dyed scarf that he made with techniques he learnt from village-people in rural India.

Day Four at Delhi Fashion Week

It's not exactly my day four, but that's what my entry card said. With the last day coming up tomorrow it was time for the up-and-coming designers to show what they had in store. First I went to a combined show of three young designers.

Kallol Datta 1955 is run by a graduate from CSM and it shows. The strong lines, the quirky print on structured garments all kept in the monotone made me temporarily wish all colours away. However, tonight I decided to colour it in a little anyway. So here are my runway pictures and doodles:

 

Please take an extra moment admiring those shoes before we go on to Anand Bushan and Rimzim Dadu. I have to say straight out that during the shows of those designers I lost track a little. There were too many looks and sub-collections. Also, my camera went a little fussy (nope, I'm not yet the photographer I was hoping to have become after thousands of pics in Jaipur).

Anand Bushan had a lot of mystically sparkling triangle pieces all worked around a fresh blue.

My camera really went crazy during Rimzim Dadu's show. I wish I had captured the final looks of lushy green sequins. I will update this space when find better coverage. Although the collection as a whole had some looks that needed discarding, there was really a lot of good pieces.

Gaurav Gupta SS13 - Delhi Fashion Week Day 3

Monday I managed to catch some catwalk action since apparently a student ID from a renowned fashion college gives you access to the show venues. Somehow my friend knew someone, who knew someone, who had extra passes for Gaurav Gupta.

 All photos in this post @SartorialDiary

The show was divided in two parts. The one I didn't like screamed early noughties, and took its inspiration from Christina Aguilera's white baggy pants. The styles above are all from the other half of the show. The shoes are gorgeous, reminding me of an old Miista style that I loved to bits, but in fresh neon colours and an interesting blocky heel. The fabrics looked so soft, the collars so fierce yet elegant and the colour combinations - absolutely incredible. (Just see the yellow shoes with the blue and white dress above).

There is little coverage from Will's Lifestyle India Fashion Week, but I did find Strut120 who create a slideshow of all the best looks.