The art of bespoke: how fashionable shoppers are investing in individuality

October 29, 2012 by admin
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We want everything and we want to make it our own. The cynical might say it’s simply a reaction to the ubiquity of, well, pretty much anything these days. Others may suggest that it’s simply nice to be in possession of something that entirely reflects you and your tastes.

Either way, customisation and bespoke services are on the increase among fashion houses this season, with two major launches for the pickiest aesthetes at ultra-luxury labels Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton. The first takes inspiration from the brand’s elegantly understated tagline “when your own initials are enough”, and gives customers the chance to decorate its distinctive woven leather holdalls and handbags with chunky, Scrabble-esque letters in a range of eight colours.

“It allows us to take the customer-centred philosophy of Bottega Veneta one step further,” explains creative director Tomas Maier, whose aesthetic at the label is very much about individuality and personal taste. “The process is fun.”

Likewise with Louis Vuitton’s new Haute Maroquinerie service, which now operates from a private salon in the London Bond Street store. Customers are involved in every stage of designing their handbags – choosing from five styles (three of which are already iconic among the Vuitton back catalogue) and then deciding on colours, lining and hardware. When you’ve finished playing with supple and smooth fabric and leather swatches, or picking from the coffret of zips and clasps, the entire package is sent to the house’s workshops in Asnieres to be made up by Vuitton’s own in-house artisans.

But it doesn’t end with bags. Of course, bespoke has its roots in clothing, from the ateliers of Paris to London’s Savile Row – but the trend for one-offs now extends to stationery (at Smythson, initials can be added for a small fee), life admin (Anya Hindmarch’s bespoke services will create document wallets and files decorated with names and other details) and even your underwear drawer. Loredana Tarsia’s firm Lingerie d’Elia is an Italy-based company which has created made-to-measure silk and lace pieces for the likes of Lauren Bacall and Princess Diana from its boutique on Rome’s Spanish Steps.

“In a world where everything is available, a truly handmade and bespoke product is very hard to find,” she says. “A bespoke service places customers at the centre – their desires are handmade for them.”

“‘Bespoke’ is used pretty loosely in the world of luxury at the moment,” says Penny Martin, editor of The Gentlewoman. “It can refer to services that will guarantee a better fit, customisation to ensure your expensive garment or accessory is somehow distinct from all the others in the room, or some expensive handwork so tricky to reproduce that nobody could turn up with a fake – perish the thought.

“What unites all of those options is that they require the purchase of a fairly simple, classic item in the first place: not an outlandish one-off,” Martin continues. “So what the rise of bespoke tells us is that it’s aimed at a fairly conservative consumer who is prepared to decorate a staple item that will last them several seasons rather than invest in radical design.”

Certainly this is the case with Prada’s popular Made To Order service on handbags and leather goods, which means customers can choose the colour and finishing details of their purchases – the label’s Galleria tote is a popular choice to reinvent in any shade, made from a range of leather, skins and silks, and is a suitably timeless piece of arm candy.

It re-enforces the point – and it’s a significant shift in the market – that those clients who may once have traded in their It-bags with the arrival of the each new season’s range are now looking for something that stands the test of time; that they won’t tire of or see thousands of being carried down the street in front of them.

If the It-bag was a status symbol, then the perfect-fit bag is even more so, as it implies one has opted out – or is above – the vagaries of relentless trend cycles.

“Customers are looking for exclusivity, quality, creativity and timelessness,” says Erich Hager, European Retail Manager at Goyard. The French house has been creating made-to-measure trunks and luggage sets since 1853, and is able to cope with even the most unusual requests, perfectly calibrating its hallmark tessellating prints to each order, be it for a tea-chest, a case for a folding bike or even a jet-set canine armoire.

“At first, we have an interview to understand the expectations of the customer,” continues Hager. “Then, from personal requirements given to satisfy a need or eccentricity, we realise sketches with measurements and then a watercolour. It is a real exchange because a special order is a unique item marked with the personality of the customer.”

Personalised luggage first came about organically, in an age when a travelling bag was much of a muchness. The seasonal migrations and grand tours of the upper classes necessitated the marking of luggage with initials and, for the showy, coats of arms, all carefully stencilled onto pigskin and leather-bound trunks placed on steamers and locomotives. Through the ages, famous faces such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Joan Collins and Liza Minelli have all trundled their very own, embossed baggage through the arrivals hall. While you might not have the budget to stretch to luxury luggage – and you might not spot a Goyard sailing round the luggage carousel after your Ryanair flight, either – customisation is becoming big news on the high street too: initials, it seems, are one trend that everyone can buy into, whether Varsity-style on Whistles’s autumn baseball jacket (the letters are applied free of charge, subject to availability) or stencilled onto a trusty retro bag.

“We have seen a steady rise in the proportion of bags that customers would like embossed,” says Julie Deane, founder of the Cambridge Satchel Company, which offers a customisaton service on its nostalgic leather schoolbags.

“The most popular request is for initials, but we’ve had some more elaborate ones – including one for a marriage proposal! Receiving something that has been tailored especially for you makes it feel that little bit more special.”

That sense of individuality and uniqueness is perhaps what has been missing from a homogeneous high street offering and designer handbags that are copied as soon as they are unveiled in the showroom. Customisation, while reassuringly expensive, is just another way we can treat ourselves.

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The Pros and Cons of ‘Shipping

October 29, 2012 by admin
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Obsessing over TV couples has turn utterly a hobby for fans. The renouned pastime, ordinarily famous as “‘shipping,” has even grown over criterion and heterosexual relationships. Sometimes definite chemistry between dual actors of a same sex can lead to an illusory regretful pairing, a transformation famous as “slash.” But either we adore a scripted integrate or an illusory one, a mania consists of a critical romantic investment in a pairs’ relationship. But are fixations like this healthy or does it usually lead to some-more heartbreak?

Photo Gallery: TV duos who should do it

Pro: It gives we something to base for

Picking your favorite onscreen integrate raises a stakes of examination a uncover (though it can also be utterly a gamble). But as any poker actor will tell you, there’s no fun though a tiny risk! Choosing sides in a character’s adore life can emanate an sparkling adversary with other fans that outlasts any given partial or season’s story line. For years, we tuned into Law Order: SVU not usually to see how they solved a murder of a week, though to watch for any new developments in Benson and Stabler’s relationship. The pair’s tighten bond had me invariably seeking myself, “Will they finally do it?” along with, “Do we even wish them to?” These are questions I’ve debated with fans in a past- and still do, notwithstanding Stabler’s deficiency – that assistance to rouse SVU above a dozens of other procedural dramas.

Grey’s Anatomy Scoop: Is there wish for Cristina and Owen?

Con: Will-they-won’t-they romances can turn frustrating and predictable

As author Wilkie Collins once said, “Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait.” But sometimes, no matter how many we giggle or cry, a wait simply isn’t value it. When a span is apparently unfailing to be together, what’s a indicate of boring it out other than to adult a fans’ frustration? No one has mastered this art of romantic strategy some-more than Grey’s Anatomy showrunner Shonda Rhimes. After Meredith and Derek finally got their act together and started being happy, Rhimes simply switched a tragedy over to Cristina and Owen (and now Callie and Arizona, too!). It’s gotten to a indicate where saying a content, organic integrate during Seattle Grace would be distant some-more startling – and interesting – than nonetheless another span on a rocks.

Are New Girl’s Nick and Jess a new Ross and Rachel?

Pro: The compensation when they finally get together

I hardly remember what we had for breakfast this morning, though we remember a impulse when Veronica and Logan initial got together on Veronica Mars perfectly. Watching a integrate close lips on a Camelot terrace, we felt a fun indifferent for many people on their marriage day. we gifted a identical feeling when Friends‘ Ross and Rachel smooched inside Central Perk and Gossip Girl’s Chuck and Blair got down and unwashed in a behind of his limo. Seeing these dear couples get together gives me a clarity of wish for my possess future. If Chuck Bass can find love, because can’t I?

Con: Satisfaction can be passing
Typically famous as a Moonlighting curse, infrequently carrying a fan favorite integrate get together is a radio homogeneous of a interest to a heart – positively deadly. When Moonlighting‘s Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) and David (Bruce Willis) slept together in Season 3, a array achieved a top ratings ever usually to drastically plunge in a post-coital aftermath. This begs a question: Can TV characters be happy? If each onscreen couple’s attribute was all roses and white booze spritzers, where’s a conflict? Where’s a story? Victoria competence have been right on How we Met Your Mother when she pronounced a expectation – or “the drumroll” before a lick – is a best part. Maybe we should all settle for a lifetime of unoccupied longings, lest a dreams be dashed on fulfilment (at slightest when it comes to TV couples).

Supernatural: Is Wincest dead?

Pro: It creates we feel special

Supernatural is one of a many meta shows to ever strike a tiny screen, though they outdid themselves when a Winchesters came face-to-face with their many unfortunate familiarity yet: a Sam and Dean slash-fiction writer. But fans of a unusual integrate have been removing validation for a pairing prolonged before showrunners wrote a Wincest author into canon. Since a initial season, Supernatural has enclosed cheeky nods towards a brother’s infrequently insinuate relationship, permitting supporters of Sam and Dean to feel they’re in on a special fun that other viewers don’t utterly understand.

Con: Some loves will never occur
While many Wincest fans are calm with a anticipation “what if?” universe of fan-fiction, not all condense fans are so simply appeased. Supporters of Teen Wolf‘s Stiles and Derek have started requesting a attribute to go canon. Though a showrunners and actors play adult a illusory romance, even filming a dual actors cuddling for a promo, when it comes to down to it, Stiles and Derek are never going to happen. This unhappy existence many expected also relates to any Rizzoli Isles hook-up, a Rachel and Quinn intrigue on Glee and a verbatim bromance between Sam and Dean. (Though, when it comes to bizarre incestual couples, a jury’s still out on Arrested Development‘s George Michael and Maeby. If they aren’t blood related, is it still so wrong?)

What TV couples do we base for? Or do we consider ‘shipping gets in a approach of enjoying your favorite shows?

View strange The Pros and Cons of ‘Shipping during TVGuide.com

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