Giddy with Giles

The fun time gal is heading our way next season and I fully intend to join in on the proceedings.  There's still a TON of fun to catch up on from S/S 11 but I guess if I'm busy HAVING fun, it stands to reason that the fun-times-catch-up is slow.  Pah… actually, that's a lie – I am incredibly chocker-block with work that is sort of related to the blog but not really (I'm ever evasive of course…).  Still, I must plug away as before you know it, A/W 11-2 (!!!) will already be upon us – it is afterall always a shockingly short season change.

So I give you the man who makes me think of one thing and one thing only.  Ken Dodd's infamous lyrics from 'Happiness'.  Happiness IS all of those things that Dodd sings about – sunset, ocean, a field of grain – all that jazz of course, but let's add an adendum about all things Giles Deacon that's going on at the moment.  And it's a LOT. 

First off, his own collection which made its return to London this season and incidentally was my first Giles show experienced in person.  I feel like the past few seasons, since he started showing in Paris has been a gradual crescendo to Giles defining his brand and what it is – lavish and cartoonish rolled into one.  Yes, he is about extreme feminity (zee hair, zee variety of girls, zee BIG skirts that command a fair bit of floor space.)  But throw all of the pop-culture bits and bobs and along the way, a mix that is uniquely his own is the ker-ching result of a crazy pinball journey that pings between Anne Boleyn, legendary London tranny DJs and Kew Gardens.  The ACTUAL results of this trip are hibiscus prints spearheaded with arrows and oozing with bloody, pom-pom mohawks, flying eyeballs, plaster prints mingling with ribbons on full skirts that look deceptively frou frou from a distance all.  Those Pacman googly eyes get asserted as a Giles signature, which I will probably welcome over and over again, especially if they make it onto twisted Fairisle knitwear that has been made in collaboration with Sid Bryan of Sibling…at the point when that came out in the show, there was a little physical air punch…

Then the legend that is Veruschka in all her 71-year old glory came and closed the show.  Second air punch…

(All backstage photography of Giles S/S 11 by Morgan O'Donovan for Dazed Digital)

Finally the models all trooped out into a three-storey exit that I was lucky enough to see heads on…  (thanks to whoever did the seating plan…)

Then a hop to Paris brings us into the much-anticipated Ungaro debut.  I wasn't really sure what I was expecting, knowing what had gone before under other *ahem* 'creative directors (loved the LiLo reference with the Herbie VW Bettle car in the set of the presentation overgrown with 'bright new blooms' – GEDDIT?) yet also knowing how evocative as a Parisian house, Emmanuel Ungaro once was.  With an ever-more cartoonish zane injected into his own collection, it left him a route of going down his idea of what French chicness is about and so it bloomed, like the flowers on the amazeballs set, into sequins, sexy draping, ladylike tweeds, OTT embroidery, feathers, glitz, and PLENTY of lace.  It could have been a strange pastiche and whilst there were throwbacks to an almost antiquated or old-school idea of 'glamour', the key was again in casting variety which had everyone from a young Bambi to Kirsten Owen to Anna Dello Russo stamping the approval on a return to frocks and pretty things that isn't over-thunked. 

That sumptuous and decadent side of the balance could have dipped too far had Giles not pulled it back into his world with little touches such as floral motifs on sunnies, shots of neon, cut-outs made to look like feathers on a gown…

And of course…

FUNGARO… thanks to the Love Mag peeps for letting everyone know the name of this creature that Anna dello Russo was babysitting for the presentation.  I nearly went away trying to come up with a name for  a hybrid creature between one of those strange goat puppets in The Lonely Goatherd bit in the Sound of Music and a My Little Pony….

Then we go back to Giles and his side bits and bobs and we have this new collection of jewellery here that rounds up all of Giles little critters – the character Eek (mouthless teddy with inquisitive/nervous eyes…), a decapitated Bambi, a wee little thing called 'Gonk', gremlines, dinos and other staple motifs like paper clips, spanners and a jaw-like 'Man Trap'….

Then I have the cheesy Christmas announcement.  I'm not into gift round-ups (PR emails insisting that I do one will be ignored…) but this is a recommendation I can't pass up.  In a similar fashion to Stella McCartney's seven-day knicker set that continues to tickle my fancy, Giles has got together with those other happiness-givers, Happy Socks to do a box of socks for the week, due to be released early December.  25% of proceeds goes to Elton John AIDS Foundation, limited edition…ecetera ecetera… but what I'm interested in is the promised 'specially designer box'.  I want little individual sock drawers with maybe a few holographic elements for the Crimbo feeling… time will tell what will show up…

Gotten your happy fix yet?  You giddy?  Gleeful?  Filled with joy?  I can just about accept it if you aren't any of those things.  Too busy with fun times to care though…