Luella SS09
Yohji, Lacroix, Escada, the recession has now at last come a-knocking at Britain's proverbial fashion doorstep. Its latest victim? Go-to designer for the socialite looking to dress the part without looking like the carbon copy of mummy. The dresser of London's Gossip Girls (Sienna, Alexa and crew), Miss Luella Bartley, forced out of business after one of her main suppliers bit the dust.Luella's announcement has rocked the foundations of the London fashion scene: unlike the flirty, pastel-ridden collection she sent skipping down the SS10 runways of LFW to great critical acclaim, no one saw it coming. And Monday night was business as usual for the designer as she hosted a party at Liberty to kick off the Christmas grotto and window display which she designed. Give me Liberty or give me death, indeed.
While she has, over the years, successfully carved out a solid niche for herself, I guess there's no need for a prom dress if there recession has strangled the life out of such frivolous fun. And if you're going to sink upwards of £800 into a tweed suit, you might as well splash out another couple hundred and head a bit further down Sloane Street to Chanel. Those ruffle-adorned, heart-shaped cut outs won't look so cute two years from now when you hit 25. That's the bottom line these days, while her clothes smack of mid-market on account of their cuteness, they don't ring up mid-market. With buyers more cautiously guarding their purses and hedging purchases, Luella's limited looks (one tea party per outfit, please) fall in that dangerous no-man's shopping land.
"I love the Luella character and hope that after we have survived this challenging time the Luella girl can have an exciting future ahead of her, whichever incarnation she takes on next," the designer said in a statement yesterday. "We have a number of options open to us and are considering these over the coming months."
It's a long way to fall for the designer who started building her ruffled empire nearly a decade ago, I will always remember how desperately I coveted one of those Gisele Mulberry's with all my heart. Chunky hardware, leather pony and heart-shaped key chain type adornments--I very nearly credit Miss Bartley's Gisele with the rise of the last decade's "it" bag. But, as the circle of fashion dictates, what goes up must come down, and so, it seems Luella's long reign of the princesses of afternoon tea has, like the way of the Gisele and the handbag movement of "itdome" which it ignited, is, at last come to an end.
Gisele Bag
Luella SS09 at the Serpentine
2 Whisper-backs:
" unlike the flirty, pastel-ridden collection she sent skipping down the SS10 runways of LFW to great critical acclaim, no one saw it coming"... umm weren't quite a lot of people critical of such a boring collection?
Personally, I didn't love it. But she's pretty commercial in her designing, and so the mainstream media never really turns that exegetical an eye on her. Style.com wrote:
"As it was, without the surface froufrou (excepting the tulle-frilled dress and skirt), the collection looked well made and set fair to compete on the same kind of ground as Marc by Marc Jacobs—although these clothes are going to read as several degrees more dressed up and formal than Bartley's usual offerings"
But I do agree with you, Anastasia, BORING! But it's still sad
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