Louis Louis

Animal magic becomes animal-mad chic!

If, indeed, there is a God, or an equally omnipotent being, it was very nice of him (or her – why not?) to notice that we the British were, in fact, due a summer, and make up for it by giving us a gracious heatwave, albeit when all persons concerned were back at work, school and related nasally-inclined grindstones!

Sartorially, we’ve had a summer of colour-clash-chic prints, contrasting colour blocking, nautical novelty and fabulous florals spending most of the season with knockdown sale prices, which is surely a sign of the times. For us lucky consumers, it’s a confection of disposable delights given away for almost pennies, for the shops, a desperate measure under desperate recessionary circumstances and for the workers responsible? Probably god-knows-what unimaginably horrific exploitation or abuse of human rights. That said, the head of my fashion course at university said that rather than necessarily hideous slave labour, some manufacturers feed, water and house their workers, providing a full and civilised community.

Either way, in amongst the harem pants, jumpsuits, tribal and Aztec references garnished with a vague sprinkling of neons, there were some trends which, although huge on the catwalks, were by and large overlooked on the high street, much to my surprise. My favourite were Louis Vuitton’s fabulous glitter sequinned animal motifs, revered by the likes of Vogue, no less, as a key look of the season.

Lupine luxury at Ungaro with sparkle and beading

Looking stylishly symmetrical at Vivienne Westwood

Canine chic at Topshop Unique

Then again, perhaps this prediction was further still ahead of its time than expected, if Vogue, once again, is to be believed (you know, quite possibly) with animal motifs once again making a foray into the big trends for autumn and winter, in all their sequinned, embroidered and printed glory. So here’s how to make your own…

Difficulty

Quite easy

Simple, straightforward and self-explanatory, for the most part. Requires a bit of skill, in the non-overlapping-yet-totally-covering application of sequins, and some planning, in putting your pieces together perfectly like a puzzle, but expert technical level it ain’t!

You will need

Giraffe sequinned top

Sparkly fabric - A-Z Fabrics on Goldhawk road - think it works out at about £4 metre in black, turquoise, silver and yellow

Jumper - about £5 from Primark

Bondaweb - £4/m from John Lewis

You also need a pattern tracing wheel, all-purpose scissors (that can cut through fabric and paper) and a pen you can use for tracing. All items except pen available in Korbond’s sewing bag, about £4 from Tesco

Iron and ironing board

Zebra sequinned top

Top - about £3 from Primark

Sparkly fabric - A-Z Fabrics on Goldhawk road - think it works out at about £4 metre - in black, pewter wine and red

Bead and fabric glue for correcting mistakes/ fabric that comes loose - Ells & Farrier do a 125ml bottle

Bondaweb - £4/m from John Lewis

You also need a pattern tracing wheel, all-purpose scissors (that can cut through fabric and paper) and a pen you can use for tracing. All items except pen available in Korbond’s sewing bag, about £4 from Tesco

Iron and ironing board

Tiger sequinned top

Jumper

Sparkly fabric in gold, orange, black and bronze - A-Z Fabrics on Goldhawk road £4/ m

Bead and fabric glue for correcting mistakes/ fabric that comes loose - Ells & Farrier do a 125ml bottle

Bondaweb - £4/m from John Lewis

You also need a pattern tracing wheel, all-purpose scissors (that can cut through fabric and paper) and a pen you can use for tracing. All items except pen available in Korbond’s sewing bag, about £4 from Tesco

Iron and ironing board

 How you make a sparkling statement…

Print out the template of the animal motif you want to use. Print it out A4 size.

Place it on your bondaweb and trace around the edges of the coloured areas

Place it elsewhere on the bondaweb and trace around the outline. This will be for the base.

Using the dotted textured created by the tracing wheel as a guide, mark the edges out with your pen and cut out the pieces individually, write out which piece goes with which colour. Refer to the template if you’re unsure.

Repeat this with your outline.

Iron the pieces of bondaweb to the sequinned fabric and cut them out.

Referring to the template, place each piece, one by one on the jumper/ top, starting with the base, and affix it with an iron.

Alternative sequin cluster method

You will need

All the items already mentioned in the last list, plus…

9g Gutermann tubes of sequins in the relevant colours – available from a range of haberdashers and craft shops

Bead and fabric glue - Ells & Farrier do a 125ml bottle

You may also want to substitute the sequinned fabrics with plain coloured fabrics, for a smoother surface

Method

As before, then after you’ve attached your base fabrics, cover them generously with fabric glue.

Sprinkle your sequins sparsely enough to completely cover each area but not so that they are on top of each other or overlap, as this will cause them to drop off, leaving areas of nasty white glue visible.

And there you have it, an enduring statement and a jolly, roaringly good new lease of a life for the humble jumper!

Chanel Hopping part 2

While still on the happy note of my previous entry, here's a Chic Cheat video tutorial how to make your own affordable version of the moth eaten red and grey jeans from Chanel's Spring 2011 collection, worn recently in Vogue Russia by Blake Lively:

You will need

Grey jeans

1m approx. red jersey - mine was £13 per metre from John Lewis

Matching red thread

Seam ripper - the implement formerly known as the quick unpick

Needle

Scissors

Plenty of time and patience ;)

Chanel Hopping

Apologies for the year-long Chic Cheat hiatus. Owing to changes in my life and situation - namely starting a new job, decamping eastwards with precious little knowledge of local haberdasheries and working a 45-hour week with the added shock to the system of cooking and cleaning up after myself - blogging duties have had to be temporarily put on hold. Finding time and remaining energy after a full working day has been a particularly tough one, especially coupled with having to get up - or indeed have any recollection of what a clock looks like - at 7AM.

Another issue about settling into Peterborough was the culture shock. The place is under something of a mainstream junta in which you're met with a barrage of aggressive, stupefied disbelief if you tell anyone you don't drink alcohol! Still, even in this turbulent sea of conformity I have managed to create a stylish safehaven in my bedroom, into whose dark, intense look I put hours of work...

It's a detailed style I like to know as "sweet excess" and my dad likes to know as "a million bloody trinkets everywhere!" Still, personal tastes aside, as a twentysometing who still gets IDed everywhere as a rule of thumb, I'm also all to aware of being pigeonholed into the angst-addled, Twilight-obsessed current face of goth culture we know and - some of us - love.

I haven't actually read the Twilight books, and refuse to as a matter of principle - young, vulnerable awkward little darlings really shouldn't be looking to to anything predatory as a  magic answer to their issues and isolation, especially of the exsanguinatory persuasion! Then again, maybe I should relish being tarnished with a teen brush as someone who surely can't be as old as 27, and as a stoic native of a generation so browbeaten into bleak aspirations the word "Standard" has become an expression of ultimate approval! That said, it's when you get past your teens that you're taken seriously,  and that anything you embrace could quite possibly be more than "just a phase." Another measure I take to avoid being labelled in any way, shape or form is by elegantly peppering a sentence with any of the following words and phrases:

"Visual-kei"          "Conceptual"            "Anime"      "Selfsh capitalist"    "Symphonic metal"

"Post-modern"  "But what is post-modern"......... and, lest we forget, "But, what is normal?"

And now for the actual point of this entry...See, in addition to finding my way around, I've had to cope without my sewing machine and managed to come up with this Chic Cheat copy of a dress from Chanel's Spring 2011 collection that doesn't require sewing. It can also be done on grey tweed jackets...

Difficulty

Very Easy

A bit of cut, stick 'n' colour with fabrics and clothes.

You will need

A grey tweed tunic dress or jacket - I used a dress that cost £15 from Primark

Half a metre of black chunky check tweed fabric - I got mine from Classic Textiles on Goldhawk Road

Half a metre of white cotton drill - mine was from the same place as the fabric above

Bondaweb - mine was £4 from John Lewis

All-purpose scissors that cut through fabric and paper

Iron and ironing board

...And to turn them into convincing couture?

Cut out as many 5cm wide strips along the length of your check tweed fabric. This should amout to ten strips - with half a metre of fabric - but you may be lucky as some fabric vendors may be more generous with excess fabric.

Cut strips of bondaweb of the same length, whic are 2.5cm wide and cover half of each of your tweed strips.

Iron the bondaweb along the sides of your tweed strips. Your bondaweb should have one soft, fabric-like side and one covered with paper. Make sure you attach it soft side down so that it sticks to your fabric.

Once all your bondaweb is attached, peel away the paper to expose the other adhesive side.

Iron your tweed strips, bondaweb side down, to your dress along all of the seams, neckline and centre front. Also, cover the dart seams at the front and back, continuing in a straight line along the rest of the garment.

Fray the excess tweed fabric, that is the fabric that isn't attached with the bondaweb.

Cut your white twill into small rough ovals, approximately 5-7cm long and 2-5cm wide. Just eyeball these measurements, I put them as a ball park size figure.

Cut matching ovals of bondaweb that are slightly smaller than each of your twill ovals and iron them on, as before, leaving a tiny amount of your twill uncovered, which then needs to be frayed to give them a raw edge.

When you have done this, peel away the paper, as before and iron the twill to the dress, sprinkling them in a random pattern.

And you should have something that looks rather a lot like this:

Chanel your energy into frayed and collaged chic for a unique look!