Recapping Capellino

This is an occasion where pictures are best left to do the talking.  Once again, Style Salvage Steve has been acting as the intrepid reporter for Style Bubble.  I may make him a badge.  Or design him an email signature.  Oh right, need to get round to doing those things for myself.  Though of course, sending him to the Ally Capellino 30th Birthday exhibition at the Wapping Project meant he has quite rightly pipped me to the post and you can read about his more menswear related musings here.

I can only deduce little bits from the pictures and the accompanying blurbs but let's backtrack to say that I found it fascinating just even learning about Ally Capellino's ready to wear past that spans from 1980 to 2000, and thereafter, she started her more familiar accessories label.  It seems like the exhibition AC30 was conceived as an ode to the fans and longtime wearers of Ally Capellino pieces and so the interactive element on her website includes a gallery, where people owning Capellino have submitted photos of themselves with their bits of Capellino as well as a bag recycling project, where people with their old Ally Capellino bags can send them in to be repolished and added to the vintage collection and in return, they get vouchers to get themselves a new bag.  This bag exchange resulted in the magnificent wall which forms the centrepiece of the exhibition…

I think the numbered tags correlate to details about each bag… each with a tale to tell…

The Ally Capellino wearing fan clan…

This was where I got truly "whelmed" (not over or under… just whelmed…)… the chronology of Ally Capellino's ready to wear beginnings as a young designer in 1980 are tracked with archive pieces, press clippings, lookbook photos and other accompanying printed paraphernalia.  Ally Capellino aka Alison Lloyd started off her label with then-partner Jono Platt making hats and jewellery.  Her five piece collection of clothes was actually an accident.  From the get go, I detected a Margaret Howell-esque simplicity with an added quirk and wit that I'll probably appreciate even more once I have been through the exhibition in person…

I quite like this quote (not sure of the date) that pretty much sums up the Ally Capellino aesthetic and why she has had such tenacity in comparison to a lot of 80s British labels… ""We are sensible rather than outrageous. We have made many mistakes in the past, but we have learned from them, and we made them with our own money rather than relying on handouts." 

This graphic printed t-shirt and trouser set inspired by the Moscow Olympics surely needs a reissue? 

More prints in this bustier and shorts set…

The mid to late 80s yielded more of a loose and leisurely look…

Which then gives way to a feminine exploration of Sherlock Holmes in 1989…

Another one for the reissue list…

An exploration of British-sourced materials and techniques is an ongoing strand in Ally Capellino's work and here in 1990 she explores Jacob's wool and hand knits in Wales.  It was in 1988 that Ally Capellino signed a licensing and consultancy deal with Coats Viyella allowing her to produce her collections and sell internationally, especially to Japan. 

An Ally Capellino girl/boy? 

The 90s to millennium period for Ally Capellino shifted towards the concurrent androgynous and minimal aesthetic… though I think her tactile sensibility remains quite staunch… I'd be interested to know why she decided to stop her ready to wear and move onto accessories. 

I love the hem of this skirt and the way it curves out…

Then we move onto the bags… I don't think I've ever done a post on Ally Capellino before but like Jas M.B., it goes without saying that her bags are my kind of bags… given that I only have the odd IT-bag-lust glitch, the rest of the time, I am mainly interested in the sort of anonymous looking designs that Ally Capellino does very well.  Again, another good quote that sums up her bag aesthetic… "People should add something of themselves, so that the bags become theirs not mine."  A lot of simple leather and canvas designs in roomy utilitarian shapes are ready to be beaten up, worn out and overused by the wearer… illustrated well by the wall of donated bags…

Like I said, I haven't physically experienced the exhibition but I will be doing so after this initial bout of image temptation…