A Favourite Fashion Brand

Launching in 2012 from her L.A garage, continuously Anine Bing has captured simplicity in to all her pieces with a statement Edge and energy setting her above the high street. To me she is the symbol of quiet luxury, a way of dressing I have consistently drawn ideas from, either in store or online – as key words I type into Pinterest season upon season.

Falling in love with the entire aesthetic of her brand, neutral tones and bold silhouettes, has me going back to Bing time upon time again, intrigued as to what garment she will drop next and what I should be looking for in the high-street until I can afford her items myself.

Anine Bings garments and styling is an ongoing inspiration, adoring her use of going back to her Scandinavian roots and homing in on staples combined with the rock and roll chic she dressed herself in when starting the brand. Putting out luxurious simple and statement pieces, she represents what is to invest in your wardrobe and items that will outlast you, reducing the need for unnecessary consumption season after season, on top of focusing on making her brand more circular with the way in which garments and packaging is produced. With statement garments imbed into her collections with texture, print and colour – such as the use of tartan, zebra print and burnt umber in Fall 23. This allows for her customers to invest into their personal style alongside basics to build upon that will outlast archives, veering away from micro trends encouraging elegance and individuality with each drop from suits to sports wear.

Anine Bings brand captures what a style is to me as-well as the ethics and values that should go behind a brand.

Currently, my favourite fashion brand would have to be Chanel, after recently doing research on the history of this iconic fashion house. In watching the BBC2 programme, ‘Coco Chanel Unbuttoned’ I have gained a historic insight in how the brand came into fruition. Affectionately named ‘Coco’, Gabrielle Chanel had a tragic childhood which resulted in her movement to a convent.This is likely to have influenced her understanding of female empowerment in the patriarchal society she grew up in, as she looked on the nuns there as role models. Her mindset is not the only influence she gained from this experience, as it is thought that her traditional black and white colour palette was resemblant of their uniform. Chanel is also known for her use of pearls to pair with simplistic designs, which could be compared to the rosary of the Catholic convent. 

Despite having a plethora of important men in her life, Chanel only used them for her own gain, which highlights her proto-feminist attitudes! For example, her first true love ‘Boy’ Capel financially supported her in her hat business, which became the first step in her fashion journey. Many socialite women had fled to French seaside towns and she recognised the absence of hat makers and ateliers and put this to her own use. During this time, she designed the 1920s flapper dress which is greatly referenced in contemporary society as synonymous with the roaring 20s. These garments were often tasseled, which caused them to crease less, as Chanel’s main priority was to make women comfortable, which is unusual considering the presentation of upper class women at the time. This becomes the focal point of her designs. She also spent 10 years of her life with the Duke of Westminster and his friend Sir Winston Churchill. By experiencing British society, she was able to continue her work, as she saw how men could be comfortable in their sports with a jersey material. She began experimenting with this fabric, which led to the androgynous appearance of skirts and trousers which she designed and modelled herself. Also, in England, she became interested in tweed, which began to feature in her slightly later collections, a whole wall of which are on display in the V&A’s sold-out exhibition ‘Gabrielle Chanel: A Fashion Manifesto, which I have been lucky enough to visit. 

Finally, her debut of couture collections around the 1950s mean she was also responsible for creating the hype around the little black dress. As Chanel had experienced much grief throughout her life, she is said to have rebranded black, less as a colour of mourning and more of sophistication and simplicity. This remains relevant today particularly in night-life around the world where this is still a common staple. As a result, her legacy and influence as a fashion icon and her subsequent fashion house has led me to respect her all the more and decide to share why this is my favourite brand at the time. Not only did she revolutionise female dress, she also played a huge part in the perfume, jewellery, hat and accessories business. Her iconography and influence on the fashion world continue to remain prevalent today, particularly her mentality that ‘fashion should die and die quickly, in order for commerce to survive’ as she told Paul Morand for the semi-autobiographical book ‘The Allure of Chanel’.

Jil Sander

At their first store in Shanghai is where I first learned about Jil Sander. I can still picture how lovely the decor and decorations were, drawing me in.

Jil Sander plays an significant role in minimalism and combines comfort and sophistication. High-quality fabric and exceptional craftsmanship gives each piece—trousers, shirts, jackets, and jumpsuits—an authentic and lasting quality. The brand also possesses a deep understanding of fabrics and incorporates sustainable materials throughout their collections, such as natural fibers and eco-friendly alternatives. Minimalism is a sustainable lifestyle that is earning a place in sustainable production and consumption. The fashion industry is facing an increase in its environmentally polluting supply through production. Despite the widely known environmental impacts, however, the industry continues to grow, in part due to the rise of fast fashion, which relies on cheap manufacturing, frequent consumption, and short-lived garment use. Accordingly, minimalism involves eliminating the excess in people’s lives and fashioning resources to focus on what matters most: the human being. The definition of Jil Sander’s minimalism style relied on the clarity of silhouettes and lines of cut, high-quality materials, and virtuosity of products. There were no decorative lines, frills, or other types of decorative trim in minimalist clothing models, and there will never be. Even zippers and tone-on-tone buttons were being replaced by a secret clasp. Jil Sander says: “I defined the modern global uniform with this in mind: clothes should be long-lasting and durable. It expresses an environmentally friendly and sustainable conception for Gen Z. Also, in the 1990s, the second wave of the word feminism, Embracing the spirit of rebellion instead of reform, third-wave feminists encouraged women to express their individuality. While Jil Sander expressed to the public that it is an alternative to show women’s sex appeal and frazzled to look attractive and confident, She revealed a fashionable principle that means subtraction, not addition, while at the core of her design was the absolutely feminist idea that a woman dresses for herself, not for a man. Still emphasize the very essence of humans without concentrating on the decoration. And if she is comfortable with things, it gives her confidence much more noticeable than any other decoration. Jil Sander was at the top in the ’90s, when there was the year of the victory of feminism. Wearing her collection in the ’90s was a real announcement.

Founded in 2017, AVAVAV is a fashion brand based in Florence, Italy that aims to decrease the fashion waste problem in the fashion industry. The Italian brand, AVAVAV, that built itself on sustainability, seen during multiple Milan Fashion Weeks, has left an impression on the fashion industry. The brand has conveyed sustainable messages and demonstrates their stance on fashion and ethics through the fashion shows, rather than “claiming” it on their website. One of their latest shows in Milan has the clothes ripping off the models’ bodies. At the beginning of the show when the first item broke, it seemed surprising as luxury brands are known for their high quality products and appeared as “careless” by the brand. However as the show continued, it became increasingly obvious that the simple “mistake” was intentional and the products broke more drastically each time. Finally, the show ended with even the wall collapsing. Personally, this show has stood out since it gave the impression that the brand was criticising fast fashion and that itself communicated the values of the brand. “Unconventional” was the term that the brand AVAVAV had been labelled as by several articles. Typically within a fashion show, it is simply to present a new collection by a brand therefore the crowd has become accustomed to the simplicity. Nevertheless, AVAVAV continues to revolutionise that fashion beyond “just clothes”.