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Milk carton clutches, embroidered trainers, and French fries for your phone. The autumn/winter 2014 season has thrown up some seriously skewed style statements on the accessories front. Alexander Fury highlights the most covetable of this season’s odd squad
Show all 5 1 /5In Pictures: 2014 Autumn/Winter Accessories In Pictures: 2014 Autumn/Winter Accessories The Gag Bag The Gag Bag Bored of totes, top-handles and even Baguettes? How about a chain-strung Big Gulp cup in satin-lined leather, a pearl-beaded milk carton, or an embroidered leather Kellogg’s Corn Flakes packet as a clutch? The novelty handbag – the “Gag Bag” – is big news for autumn/winter. It was cool even before Solange Knowles tried to clock Jay-Z with her crisp-packet-inspired Anya Hindmarch style in that infamous viral video. The main protagonist is Karl Lagerfeld, who staged his Chanel show in a make-believe supermarket and strung his models with accessories shaped like everything from egg cartons to leather-entwined chain shopping baskets. Waitrose meets Warhol.
In Pictures: 2014 Autumn/Winter Accessories Ugly Shoes Ugly Shoes “Ugly” is a loaded word. But the idea of an ugly shoe isn’t a subjective statement. The whole point of the season’s most interesting footwear is to create something intentionally aesthetically disquieting. It’s no accident that Dior’s signature shoes for the autumn/winter season resemble a cross-breed of a 1950s stiletto and a Saniflo loo unit, nor that Miu Miu’s must-have transparent plastic bootie, with its exposed nail heel, drawstring and contrasts of Pepto-Bismol pink and disinfectant-green plastic, looks like a gussied-up orthopaedic brace. This season, that’s a good thing.
In Pictures: 2014 Autumn/Winter Accessories Prank Calls Prank Calls A daft iPhone cover might seem the preserve of teenage ne’er-do-wells terrorising your local bus stop. Alas, said teenagers have made their way, inexplicably, on to the catwalk: Jeremy Scott sent the then 19-year-old Lindsey Wixson down the catwalk of his debut Moschino show in February clutching her phone to her ear, albeit one wrapped in a lurid rubber rendering of a carton of French fries. The offending, overtly branded item costs £45. Marc by Marc Jacobs and Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci offer similar styles, and there’s a teddy bear-shaped one at Topshop.
In Pictures: 2014 Autumn/Winter Accessories Hold nothing Hold nothing The first ever handbag was called a reticule – a word derived from the Latin for net. It was easy, then, for 19th-century humorists to transform it into “ridicule” – Charles Dickens used it in Oliver Twist in 1838. What was ridiculous? That the bag was necessary at all, the implication being that a woman should be able to carry her belongings in pockets in her dress. How times have changed: today, the micro-bag – championed by everyone from Alexander McQueen to Tod’s – is ridiculed by many for its inability to house a woman’s worldly possessions like the capacious branded binliners of yore. They are undeniably elegant, though. Louis Vuitton’s Petite Malle is the sleekest, and the chicest.
In Pictures: 2014 Autumn/Winter Accessories Fancy Footwork Fancy Footwork Haute couture rarely – if ever – spawns a trend, but the January shows of Chanel and Dior were replete with trainer-derived footwear and frocks. Forget hand-embroidered Air Max-inspired aerations on cocktail dresses; the ready-to-wear interpretation is a touch simpler and, in all truth, easier. Winter catwalks were awash with hyper-embellished trainers: those two couture houses offered bejewelled takes (Dior’s are right), JW Anderson had twisted triple-tongued leather numbers, and Riccardo Tisci launched a range for Nike with all the flash of his Givenchy designs. Brace yourselves for versions on a high street near you soon.
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