Jil Sander SS 09 is a challenge and that can be directional. Image via frillr.com

My first reaction to Raf Simon's collection for Jil Sander SS 09 was that of a fashion philistine, on the order of... "Who wants to ever wear a color blocked jacket? Especially one in yellow and PINK". Even the safe pieces, like the black perforated jackets felt tricky with their melange of zippers punctuated with circles, triangles and squares. As in really, really geometric. Like the color-blocking. Geometric. Techno. Like the soundtrack. ZZZZZZZZZ.

Ute Ploier FW 08 via royboticsteez.blogspot.com

Well today has been all about the last minute inspiration. I've been weeping to the Hiss Squad that I'm facing the SS09 Men's shows with a sense of dread. I can already see the knobby knees in baggy linen shorts rolled up three times for that "editorial" look. What is happening to menswear I've been wondering? Why is it so moribund next to the dynamic breakthroughs we saw in womenswear for FW 08. Well via this really great new blog, http://royboticsteez.blogspot.com/, I stumbled across the work of Ute Ploier. It is a very familiar vocabulary (given than Ute was trained by Raf Simons) but backtracking through the season's there seems to be a very interesting signature evolving through the line. It happens on those more "off"/unwearable" pieces. Ute shows in Paris and what I love about the work of Austrian designer is the way she chooses to explore the tension between street/sportswear and tailored pieces. We'll be watching her SS09 show with avid interest.

B Blessing calls for you!

TI stands in great jeopardy of bankruptcy this weekend!

The Fourth Sex: Charta is legendary.

Simply put, this is THE most perfect book ever on the influence of teenaged culture on the world of fashion and style. No fashion reference library is complete without it and TI is convinced that once it's out of print, this book will be a serious collector's item. I can't top the perfection of the publisher's description, which I'm going to excerpt here:

Red's Tyler Riggs is very coveted for the Milan/Paris Shows FW08

At the women shows I look at the models. At the men's shows, I come with a magnifying glass seriously trained on the clothes. The clock's counting down to the FW08 men's presentations in Milan and Paris and this very specialized market-that of high end designer menswear - is in a very transitional place right this minute. Time was you knew what you would be getting well in advance when it came to "The Shows" . And what entertainment these shows would provide, Tom Ford's flagrant Gucci vs Miuccia Prada's highminded men's line. Raf Simons's art gallery perfect wauldrobe vs Galliano's flamboyant bucaneers. And then the piece de resistance. Hedi Slimane's rock inflected couture level work at Dior Homme. What clear identities they had then.
So what are the shows with the best advance billing right this minute? After being eclipsed by the perverse streamlining at Dior, the Prada suit has a lot of lost ground to cover. Oddly enough Ralph Lauren's return to Milan this season has high expectations building for the glimpse of some kind of spectacle, if not in terms of the looks which are sure to be conservative, then in terms of the show's production values. The revamp of Ferre, as previously mentioned on TI has the label whores (like us) drumming the thumbs in suspense.

Helmut Lang: Journal Gallery exhibition

10 years from now, when all things Zeroes are dredged up in the spirit of ironic retro, will they look at the decade's sustained fusion of art and fashion and giggle? Or will the union of the two most compulsive by-products of late capitalism spawn a deadly serious new hybrid, one with an unnatural long life? It is certainly starting to look that way recently with virtually every fashion publication worth its pulp splicing in a heavy dose of "art" to keep the pages crisp and current.

Raf Simons SS08 at style.com

Home in on these Raf Simmons sneakers. Or are they hiking boots? Or moon shoes? Whatever they are TI's gotta have them. I' ll be haunting Seven in NY like a ghost until they get here!

Untitled Vintage Bomber:2005:Vacuum formed high impact polystyrene 33X 48

I worked all through the weekend, which I usually hate doing. One of the gigs was a shoot where a rising photographer friend of mine said "I like your Imagist thing. Its well put together, but I'm totally confused by it." Truth be told I'm completely confused by it too. After years of a love-hate tension with the thing, I have finally conceded that I'm seriously in love with the idea of fashion. Same for art. Or at least the idea of art. The relationship between the two, art and fashion, is the seed of the confusion my friend was invoking . Artists like Seth Price perfectly solve this conflict for me. Not because Seth Price is fashionable (god forbid!) but because he has really influential ideas about industrial images : the value of those images and the disposable nature of those images. Lately when I look at fashion images it occurs to me that all of fashion is a high grade form of industrial waste. Which possibly makes me love it more.

New. Exclusive. Olympic. Heights. All the words we love!

Designers are my DJ. Really they are. Though all roads probably lead back to Michel Gaubert (except the one that leads to Jeremy Healy) a directional runway can really turn you on to some great music. Remember the season that was full of Depeche Mode remixes, most notably the acoustic treatments of Down To The Bone at the FW 06 Calvin Klein show. Then there was last season's Jil Sander show that featured the note perfect use of Balanescu Quartet's string version of Kraftwerk's Computer Love from the Possessed album. Its Raf Simons who gets maximum "taste-points" in the music department for his use of Swedish " group" Porn Sword Tobacco in that same show. Their latest CD is out (well its actually one guy, Henrik Johnson) and though some might dismiss it as wishy washy ambient shite we prefer forcedexposure.com's invocation of its "frosted glass aesthetics". The cover is very the colours of Oliver Theyskens for Ricci no?