Kenzo

Kenzo Takada is a Japanese fashion designer, or should I say businessman, he is the founder of Kenzo, which has a worldwide brand of perfumes, skincare products and clothes. He got a love for the fashion industry at a really young age from going through his sisters magazines, he attended the University of Kobe which wasn’t his thing at all and against the will of his family he left and joined a fashion school, Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College, which had only just opened it’s doors the male designers. After earning his diploma, he moved to Paris in 1964. This was a way from him to make contacts by going to fashion events and selling sketches. I’m guessing luck went his way, because look at his designs now, the designer designing for Kenzo now is Antonio Marras. Photos are taken from his Fall 2011 RTW collection.

Kenzo's first designs started because he could only afford to buy his fabrics from flea sales. As a result, Kenzo had to mix many bold fabrics together to make one garment. This really shows in the designs today, which I think is refreshing what I also think has made the company use bold colours and prints together is because of the time that Kenzo himself started out designing was the 70’s this would be the era that they wanted to show the most of in the designs as he would like it this way, it’s his style. 

Rather than the designs being in your face hippie Kenzo is definitely not, it is a lot more subtle in my eyes especially with this collection, I mean it still has the print and retro colours, but there is a massive fashion edge to it, some things are very different maybe it being a jacket that a dress is put with, it brings a more clean cut type of style, something that maybe a less loud hippie would wear someone that believes in the hippie way of life but maybe doesn’t want to scream it to the rest of the world.  

I don’t see Antonio letting Kenzo down one bit especially with this collection it has really shown how he can use Kenzo’s love for pattern from his background and up bringing and make it into high-end fashion and make it something wearable for loads of different people. It may not all be happy-go-lucky type of hippie fashion with bright colours following you everywhere but was that really what it was all about? 

Anna Sui

It’s not often you find your self so happy and energetic after looking at someone’s collection, but Anna Sui’s runway collections never fail to amaze me. Famous for her amazingly bold style and her retro references, Sui has a lot of different inspirations over her design career: the New York Dolls, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, Uzbekistan, the American West, etc. Despite all the noise, Sui manages to get the style right season after season. Sui was born in Detroit to French-educated Chinese emigrants in 1964. She had youthful dreams and was always at the flea markets this opened her eyes to colour and pattern. She landed herself a scholarship and Parsons, after 2 years of studying she threw herself straight into the industry, learning things that she wouldn’t have learnt studying. She was designing sportswear and styling for different photographers. In 1980 she took one of her 6-piece collection to a New York trade fair, and got spotted by a Macy’s buyer, a window and an advert in The New York Times soon followed. For the next 10 years she ran her business out of her apartment, until she was persuaded to step up to the real runway in 1991. After a year she opened her boutique in Soho, and these days she has 30 boutiques worldwide. These photos are taken from her Fall 2011 RTW collection.

Looking at Anna Sui’s designs I can see that she is very inspired by the hippie style, it’s different and inspirational. Her designs look more like what the hippie would wear and are also cut to the style of a hippie outfit, but there is something new and different about her designs. I think it’s the way she used the print and colour in her design, she keeps the colour all together yet at the same time mixes it up a bit, but adding some colours that wouldn’t normally look right together but they do. She also put her designs with accessories that make her garments into a finish outfit, using hats and big chunky necklaces this brings the outfit together and makes her spectacularly different. Something that I see in her designs is her upbringing, she was brought up to be free, she would make clothes for her friends and people she was closest too, but never really made herself known to the industry until she was made too. I think she this love for making clothes as more of a hobby than a career shows in her designs as she has fun with it. 

What I feel about Anna Sui is that her designs will never fail to make me smile or bring a bit of brightness to my life, she has it in her blood the way she is brings happiness and love to her designs and I don’t think anyone can change this, so hopefully there will be plenty more collections full of the same colour and boldness, that when people watch them at fashion week they’ll come out more happy than they did going in. 

Etro

Etro is a Milan designer founded by Gimmo Etro in 1968 and now Gimmo's daughter, Veronica, is the current womenswear designer, and her brother, Kean, handles the menswear line. Colourful prints are Etro's thing, patterns splashed everywhere it's an amazing current hippie style. These are some outfits from the Fall 2011 RTW collection.

What I love most about Etro, is that the designs have amazing prints and bold colours that of the hippie style, but they have such a modern twist to them, with using fur, and the cuts and styles of the clothes which are very modern. What is also amazing is Etro is a Milan designer, and Milan is know as the “grey city” well not in the case of Etro I don't think they have ever designed something dull. There is colour everywhere, and it's exciting. You can see the love and happiness that has gone into these clothes and designs, which makes it a lot more fantastic to look at with the brightness and blooming colour each pattern and design brings a new ethnic and abstract feel.

I could easily see a hippie of these days pulling off some of these outfits. They are so refreshing to look at with the mixed up patterns that shouldn’t go together but yet it still works perfectly fine, it doesn’t seem to matter that her designs are so bold, because the way these outfits are put together is so smart, the cut is so slick that having this much bold print and colour together doesn't matter. What also makes her designs look so hippie like is that the prints are all taken from the 60’s, using the retro colours and the big bold floral pattern. Although the patterns can be said to be 60’s inspired, I’m not too sure if it is intentional, I think it’s more to follow in her fathers footsteps than anything, her father set up the business in 1968, and these styles would have been very in, and I think for her, these designs are more to keep her fathers spirits alive in the design than the love for the hippie style itself.

   I think it’s the family love and happiness that has made this business work for 43 years, that makes the clothes and designs so special, each one looks like it’s designed with the same desire as the first design would have been. I also think this is why the clothes are so big and bold, and give me the feel of hippie. A hippie was all about love and happiness, and whether it was intentional or not the hippie vibe comes through. I really hope that Etro stays a strong family company for many years to come because their designs definitely bring me happiness. 

Hippie Muse & Designer

Muse- Juliette Lewis

Juliette Lewis is an American actress and musician, and I see her now as a modern day hippie. Attending and playing festivals around the world.

Designer - Veronica Etro

Etro is a Milan designer founded by Gimmo Etro in 1968 and now Gimmo's daughter, Veronica, is the current womenswear designer, and her brother, Kean, handles the menswear line. Colourful prints are Etro's thing, patterns splashed everywhere it's an amazing current hippie style. These are some outfits from the Fall 2011 RTW collection.

My design for Juliette Lewis in the style of Etro...