Ms Peelpants’ rants

Leelee Sobieski: Very fab, not very fug

celebrities in vintage, Ms Peelpants' rants


Cherie over at Shrimpton Couture has already ranted about how wrong and occasionally narrowminded the Fug Girls can be. For the most part, yes the clothes are ridiculous and deserve a public fugging. Sometimes though, you can detect a mild aroma of desperation with some of the choices. After all, the girls must be struggling to fug enough times in a day.

Take, for example, this stunning red dress worn by Leelee Sobieski (errrr…who? I have a feeling she was in Never Been Kissed…..but that’s about it for my knowledge of who she is). I would point out to Leelee that visible bras are occasionally fine (just occasionally, mind!) but certainly not with a plunge dress. And certainly not with a plunge dress so damn fabulous in its own right. Is it vintage? It certainly has a slight Ossie vibe to it, but honestly I’ve given up trying to spot real vintage from the modern repros….I’m sorry, I mean, original designs which just accidentally happen to look like vintage designs. Cough.

Anyway, take away the cruddy bra and you’ve got a fabulous look there. The red dress, the red shoes, the billowing sleeves…mmmmm. The kind of ‘together’ look to which I aspire, and which the fug girls usually claim to promote.

Ossie Clark’s Sons May Sue….

celia birtwell, Ms Peelpants' rants, ossie clark

My flatmate left this article out this morning for me, and I must admit that I punched the air a little bit. I can’t even begin to imagine how painful this all must be for them, it’s painful enough as a fan of the great man himself, to see your father’s memory being tainted and exploited by a tacky relaunch. I also read an article with Celia in the Independent where she skirted around the gross insult that this relaunch is with her trademark steely tact. Yet, in an article in the ES magazine (which oddly fell into my hands on the tube on Sunday night, and entertained me when I noticed the fallen frayed hem on one of the dresses in the background) the twosome spearheading this revival bleated on about how Celia had come around to the idea.

“Celia came along to meet Av and she was absolutely fine with it.”

Not the impression I got, that’s for sure. Especially in light of today’s news.

Anyway, to the collection itself. The snippets I have seen have proved to me that a substantial proportion of the collection is a poor remake of some of Ossie’s original designs. The yellow plunge neck which seems to be being used as the key image so far, more resembles one of his Model T Ford plunge necks with some of the neckline stitched up (you see them on ebay occasionally, courtesy of some very modest original owners). Like they designed with the big plunge in mind, but chickened out at the last minute (either that or poor cutting meant it didn’t sit properly on the body and modifications needed to be made).



Everything else? Yawn. Sorry, most of it looks like bog standard attempts at avant-garde-inspired-by-Ossie (like this puffball of a piece below). The designer is not, as some lackey who posted on my blog a while ago likes to insist, showing any independence of thought or proving to me that he is a creative and powerful new talent in the design world. He may well be, but how am I suppose to know that from all this bobbins?



Oh and that brings me to the prints. Now I know Celia couldn’t or wouldn’t be involved, and I’d have been just as aghast if they’d attempted to duplicate her work but…..seriously? Is this the best they could get? Smudgy, tie-dyed blobs in super dull and dreary colours? I don’t suppose I’d particularly notice the prints in any other collection but when it’s attempting to recreate the Ossie Clark magic, they really do draw the eye and then beat it with a big, dull stick.

I’m a cynic I know, and cynical folks out there will smirk and comment that I always set out to loathe this collection. They’d be right. But I’m also prepared to admit when I’ve been wrong. But this time, I wasn’t wrong. My instincts were all right. This wasn’t about the creation of new and beautiful works of art inspired by the legacy of Ossie. This wasn’t even the duplication-fest I thought it would be. It’s worse than that, it’s fallen between the two stools very, very hard on its bum.

Nice try, but no biscuit.

Price on request? Please! Spend your money on an original. They’ll be a lot cheaper, last a lot longer and you know what? Ossie Clark actually designed them.

Power to the People: The True Meaning of Vintage

Ms Peelpants' rants, topshop

Vintage clothing is the ultimate expression of individuality. Vintage sellers are those who have fallen in love with vintage and want to work with vintage (as well as eat, drink, sleep it….well, some of us…). Vintage shouldn’t be about big business.

Unfortunately, big business always seems to want a piece of vintage. Displayed clinically, major flaws unmentioned and with designer information taken wholesale from places like the Vintage Fashion Guild label resource with no credit and no genuine research, big business doesn’t see the soul of a dress. It doesn’t feel the bizarre, beautiful touch of moss crepe or the sensuality of draping satin. It doesn’t appreciate the time machine element of an Ossie, instantly transporting you back into the heady days of Marianne, Mick and Anita. It can never understand how a Biba dress will make you skip down the road or how a pair of perfect patent shoes can transfix you for hours.

Perhaps I’m too emotionally involved in vintage for my own good, perhaps I’m an old romantic and a daydreaming thorn in the side of the cynical world of fashion. But that’s why I do what I do, and it’s why all independent vintage sellers do what they do.

Why does a multi-million pound fashion empire like Topshop start selling vintage? Why do they crush the spirit of small business by invading our world? I certainly can’t think of a good reason.

But then why do they also duplicate original vintage clothes and make money out of designers who always put creativity before profit?

(oh the irony that they’re now selling vintage Lee Bender pieces, bearing in mind they shamelessly copied her work for the appalling Kate Moss collection)

I’m resigned to it, I’m far too much a small fish against the mighty shark of big business. But I feel my opinion is valid, and I hope some of you fellow lovers of vintage will agree with me.

Kate Moss at Topshop….what a joke

british boutique movement, bus stop, kate moss, lee bender, Ms Peelpants' rants, ossie clark, topshop

I queued patiently to buy some of the Celia magic, I tried to zone out the people standing around muttering “No idea who this woman is, but I know this stuff will sell on ebay”, I narrowly avoided being ripped to shreds as the rails were pushed out and all hell broke loose. I bought the pieces which had some manufacturing integrity (did anyone actually ever wear that botticelli print silk monstrosity?? so badly made I wanted to weep….) and put my years of hardened vintage shopping to good use as I walked around clutching the dress everyone was wetting themselves over and ignoring the black market-level dirty looks and whispers of ‘are you buying that?’

It was fun as a one-off. Something to tell the grandkids about, since I don’t have a Biba experience like that to share.

I didn’t bother second time around, the second collection was a poor relation and I don’t need the hassle. I’d rather spend my time and money getting an original.But at least she designed the prints and had some claim to the copied shapes of Ossie’s. The woman has talent.

Kate Moss in the original (left) and the Topshop copy (right)

Kate Moss at Topshop is a travesty. Normally such a non-event would barely register in the world of Ms. Peelpants. I couldn’t care less about Madonna at H&M, Lily Allen at New Look or even some of the least talented designers in the world getting deals with the same shops (naming no names, but I’ve heard some very interesting first-hand things about one of them lately and am suitably smug that I guessed they had no talent years ago). But Kate Moss at Topshop has affected me on a very personal level, and opened eyes to the true extent of the shallow money-grabbing at the heart of the fashion world these days.

I remember noting with amusement that Kate Moss had a vintage Bus Stop dress I also have. Much like the Ossie jacket she once wore, it’s always a nice little nod to the vintage community that vintage is still cool and it can do wonders for the image of what are, to most people’s minds, just someone’s old cast-offs. We know they’re not, but sometimes the challenge is to change other people’s perceptions. Kate Moss did the vintage community a lot of good in the past, but now she’s cheated on us.

For she has now ‘allowed’ (inverted commas to note that it is not her place to allow such a thing) Topshop to copy the aforementioned dress for her ‘collection’. A travesty so awful, on so many levels it’s taken me about a week to calm down enough to write this. They’ve copied the dress exactly, even down to getting the print copied and the detailing around the neck and on the sleeves. To add insult to injury, the dress in her closet had been hacked with what looks like nail scissors and is now a bum-skimming mini dress. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I see how badly out of proportion even the remake is. They’ve remade a ruined dress.

Lee Bender should sue Topshop. Her work has been copied stitch for stitch. It’s one thing to be inspired, Bender herself would have to admit that the dress was heavily inspired by dresses of the Forties, but there’s no room for the word inspiration here. This is duplication and it’s disgusting.

On a more personal level, one of my absolute favourite dresses has been ruined for me. This year everyone will think I’m wearing bleeding Kate Moss at Topshop. Next year, everyone will think I’m wearing two seasons old bleeding Kate Moss at Topshop. Two years time, perhaps the fashion world with its attention span of a gnat might have forgotten all about Kate Moss at Topshop (or perhaps Kate Moss herself, we can but hope).But my dress will still be tainted by the association and I resent the fact that I will always have to think carefully about whether to wear it or not. To sell it now would be to cash in. To sell next year, well no one will want the same problems I would have. But really, I don’t want to sell it. I bought it for me, and it fits me like it was stitched to my body.

Yours truly in the original dress

I get the strangest feeling….

Ms Peelpants' rants, topshop

…when I walk into Topshop and I start to wonder if they’ve been rooting around in my wardrobe. They’ve crept into my flat, in the dead of night, and swiped patterns from my favourite vintage clothes. At least, that’s how it feels.

Let’s face it, mainstream fashion ate itself a long time ago but are they really trying to tell me that they have NO original ideas to rub together at all?? I might be walking around in fashions of the past, but at least I’m honest about it. High street shops are meant to be peddling modernity; even the Forties revival in the Seventies was done with real glam rock relish and refreshed, somewhat modernised. The Sixties/Seventies/Eighties/Nineties revival we’re currently seeing is a pale imitation of those eras. They can’t even make up their minds, one decade revival at a time is simply not enough anymore. Fashion moves so fast, it must regurgitate its past five times a year.

Where are the fresh ideas? I might not wear them, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to see them. What’s the look of the noughties? Is it a fashion stew? All bitty, overcooked, trying to cater to too many tastes and just winding up bland? I swear I’m even seeing Topshop reproduce pieces I remember seeing in there circa 1993. Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!!!

If you’re going to copy something line for line, at least take it to another level. Try something different with it. There are only so many ways to cut a dress, but don’t just go for the easiest option. It’s dull and usually very poorly made.

Another good reason to keep buying vintage 🙂