Saturday 12 November 2011

[C] Kult

[C] Kult was a two day event last weekend held in Galerie Joseph, a beautiful exhibition space in the heart of the Marais, Paris. The event was to showcase up-and-coming designer's collections, and attracted young talent from around Europe.


Alicia Antosyzczyk

Alicia Antoszczyk was using a waterproof, but breathable fabric for her modern designs. I liked
the addition of the jersey lined pockets, if you're wearing a waterproof item chances are the weather is less than perfect and I always like somewhere cosy for my perpetually chilly mitts to warm up.

Jewellery designer Kamila Wasilewska is another fan of using minerals in their raw state. I liked her angular geometric metal rings.


Artist and fashion designer Klara Mec limited her colours using fabric textures as her impasto paint to form her garments.
I'm a big fan of single colour layering, in particular this black dress which I think would pair well with my black pan leo collar.
Clara Mec

Inspiration behind Clara Mec deisgns


Her work is uncompromisingly brave and bold, but beneath the theatre and fantastically wild styling the pieces themselves can easily become exciting additions to a wardrobe with good construction and interesting texture in a way that reminds me of early Westwood.


Heureka's slick designs had a bold, feminine pallette in the colours of cosmetics, a powder nude and lipstick red highlighted with photo-prints of lipstick like bullets with flashes of their gold casing.




I was really impressed with their fantastically practical but lovely looking laptop bag/purse combo with detachable strap.



Here's Cissi demonstrating it's functional features;

a bag of two halves

carry me...


Such a fab item and not an obvious looking "laptop case", as a useful hand bag in itself, but
perfect for when you want to ditch your laptop but don't want to empty out your purse and swap bags. Like the mix and match colours too as you can have interchange the nude and red! (Also
comes as a decent sized but simple purse in the same idea, which I think would be useful for separating a growing collection of travel/train tickets/loyalty/library cards for when you quickly just want the bare essentials in a single neat purse.)


More red and nude, but this time a girlish peach also paired with black in the lovely designs of Milde based in Berlin, using fair trade, organic and vintage. For me the collection had a feel of a modern fairy tale, a combination of young and playful but with an adult edge behind it.




Blouses had old-fashioned stitched collars, a black jumpsuit was made with a deep cut out back, but lightened up with a sweet and girly peach silk bow peeping out and cute dress shapes were found in materials like red leather dying to be worn layered with a roll neck top, toasty woolly tights and mary-janes.




This was summed up a heavy red cape that could also be worn as a skirt, which I think is a great way of justifying a cape purchase as I find them a bit challenging for every day.


Get your mileage from the easy to wear skirt whilst still having a fun option of cape-age when in the mood/suitable weather conditions-perfect!


Now here is Siob.she. I'm glad they made the trip to Paris, as I'd not seen them in their London base and the backdrop of a foreign country made their British style more apparent as I feel they sum it up brilliantly. I feel an affinity to them, as any young woman who has grown up mixing their mum's old clothes with high street purchases, something which is now considered the norm for most, but in early years as a young teenager in a small town baffled some, "what do you mean, it's not NEW someone's worn it before???" (looks disgusted).


All of this lead to a favourite vintage dress becoming the "go to" for day or for night suitable for a variety of occasions. It fits perfectly and is in that particular pretty shade/print/fabric that suits so well and will be worn forever until (tragically!) shrunk in an accidental machine wash, mysteriously lost in a house move or literally fallen apart beyond any more repair.

gorgeous vivid colour


flattering feminine shape


The pieces in Siob.she's collection all have this vintage feel, through certain careful details of fabric choice or print, skirt length or shape of sleeve but are undeniably modern and refreshingly new.



The delicacy of the raw fabric edges on some pieces also allude to this fragility of an irreplaceable vintage find that demands that little extra care or attention due to it's age, or previous wear.


More vintage aesthetics, from Dutch designer Sanne Jansen the sweetness of this collection collection conjours up young newlyweds from the 1950s.



L.R.D

"Slow fashion, for him and her", the concept was to make a garment every month building a collection over time with wearable pieces made to last and transcend seasons.



Rather like a young couple setting up a home, building a life (and a wardrobe) together bit by bit.



In contrast to the instant hit of mass production and fast paced fashion where seasonal items are available wayyyy before necessary, the items stay available for as long as the material does so you build up items as and when you need them.




It was a great place to meet the designers, see their work and also buy pieces directly from them with really good prices for such well made, thoughtful pieces. There's definitely a few I've got my eye on...



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