Saturday, January 10, 2009

Your lapel has options

As soon as I clicked on Valet (for my daily dose) yesterday I was treated to another look at Antonio Azzuolo ss09 collection. I have to admit that I gave most of the Spring/Summer 09 shows little more than an unimpressed, fleeting glance...more fool me. A couple of month on and now I am finding myself noticing more and more from these collections. Antonio Azzuolo collections are always styled well and this time round the flowers in the lapels were replaced with pinned plumage (designed by Brooklyn Artist Christian Fastrup) which dandified the collection. The feathers were the highlight for me and now need to beg/borrow/steal or indeed make something similar.

As I debated with myself as to which feathers would look best in each of my jackets, I noticed the below text...

"You likely haven't tacked anything onto your jacket's lapel since senior prom, but these jaunty feather boutonnieres have a lot more style than that little flower
."

This is sadly true for a lot of us...I guess when we are feeling crazy we might pin a flower (or at the very least a poppy on Remembrance Sunday) but on the whole, our lapel is often naked. In recent weeks I've noticed that there are a wealth of options to dress up an old/new jacket. Below are my two current favourites and ones I'm eager to try...

Feathers


According to Valet and Antonio Azzuollo, 'Real Men wear feathers.' I'm not sure that I consider myself a real man...I would still class myself as something much more like boy like...but I aspire to wear feathers, peacock and pheasant feathers in particular. As soon as I get the chance I will take a trip in to central to marvel at the plumage on offer at MacCulloch&Wallis (the best haberdashery around). The Valet feature showcases handmade feather pins by a German company which has been producing them in a small factory on the outskirts of the Black Forest since 1924, and they a bargain at $40 from the Cooper-Hewitt museum shop.

Lego


This is probably the lapel choice of the moment. Will it last? Who cares, I just like Lego so why not have a little fun with it! As soon as the Lego brooch appeared on the lapel of Kanye's well cut suit during the promotion of 808s and Heartbreak, it was destined to be talked about and desired by many. We featured the designer twins (Dee & Ricky) who were responsible for the brooch but this would make for a relatively easy DIY project. I really wish I hadn't had to throw all of my bricks away...Brandish recently suggested Hamba beads as a cheap alternative.

These are just two of my current favourite ways to breathe fresh life (and colour) into a suit jacket. The options really are endless. I plan on experimenting with as many as I can this Spring, including the floral pins by Kate Cusack I mentioned yesterday (thanks again to Blindman's Circus for bringing these to my attention)....Of course once Spring actually comes, there will be a plethora of real flowers to pick from...then again as EJ posted last Valentines Day there are always flowers out there which can be clipped and pinned on to brighten any winter coat all you have to do is look for them.

Which lapel accessory is to your personal taste?

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