Dressful

May. The month when you want to blend with the increasingly hot asphalt, but you should be in your room, studying for your exams (irony: once you do start studying, the thought you have to read more than one hundred books encapsulates your lungs with steel power and your immune system collapses in a matter of seconds).

The month you realize you'll never see your favorite pair of Spring/Summer 2011 sandals on the shelves again. You will, however, meet them once more in August in the street in Italy among much less stylishly clad pairs of feet. Though not the jealous type, you will inevitably give your sandals more scatterbrained looks than you'd like to admit, notice they don't even go with the rest of her outfit and think, oh, what a neophyte (it's so easy to be full of yourself in fashion).

The month when it becomes too humid for your spring perfume.

May comes with a set of neuroses, upset stomaches in knots and endless silent but trenchant internal debates about whether some things I did after months of hesitation and self-directed agony (outlined concrete plans for my future; blocked a few numbers in my phone; sharpened my instincts on where I do and do not belong) really were worth it. May is when everything I do feels like I'm galloping up an endless stairway full-speed.

May is when I think about February and the morning before my first runway show. The little lilac toy I got in my Kinder Surprise on the train from Trieste to Milan. I decided it would see all the shows with me in the future. My lucky charm, though I wouldn't know what to tell you if you asked me if I believed in lucky charms.

On the train from Trieste to Milan I felt just as uncertain as right now, only much more excited and, I guess, happier? How about they abolish the waiting time between fashion weeks? Make the adrenaline levels sky high as often as possible, please.

May is also the month you become aware of your crisis of impossible proportions the one moment you want to sit down and relax. Touché.

Mary Katrantzou Spring/Summer 2011 collection

I've been wanting to write about Mary Katrantzou's Spring/Summer 2011 collection for a while and when I was reading about her work online, I came across her nickname: the princess of prints. I cracked up upon the discovery that fashion recycles not only trends but also nicknames, as designer Emilio Pucci was nicknamed the prince of prints all the way back in the 1950s.

Emilio Pucci, an aristocrat who had many other interests in life than fashion (he was a politician, pilot, sportsman ...), started out doing skiwear. His kaleidoscopic prints quickly gained enormous interest and in no time he opened boutiques in Rome and Capri, catering to international jet-set including Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.

Old photo of my Emilio Pucci skirt | by Nuša (http://mea-camera-obscura.blogspot.com)

... Notice how Pucci was doing color-blocking way, way, way before Spring 2011?

I've noticed a few interesting differences between Mary Katrantzou and Emilio Pucci's prints. Pucci's prints have a warmth to them that Mary Katrantzou's are lacking entirely. James Sherwood of The Independend once described them as: "Classic Pucci prints were wild, hot and madly stylised; a grab-bag of sinuous Art Nouveau blooms, Op Art graphics and Arabian exotica. The designer's bold colour clashes were always brilliant. But the shapes were the last word in ease: shift dresses, pyjama pants, tunic tops and billowing djellabas. Pucci had the soul of a modernist: there was never a superfluous seam or fastening."

Katrantzou is the antithesis of Pucci; the best thing about her Spring 2011 collection really is that all the (very colorful and intense) prints are of interior design, i.e. objects we know well because they surround us all the time, yet somehow they feel foreign and distant, far away from our actual lives. If Pucci's clothes are (were?) modernist, Katrantzou's are both surreal (in how they're portraying an irrational reality) and hyperreal (the details are highly realistic, giving a three-dimensional effect).

I love how Emilio Pucci and Mary Katrantzou, each in their own era, put a highly specific and individual spin on prints. It appears their nicknames are the only thing they have in common.

Gucci, Prada, Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2011

I'm completely and utterly stoked about the bright and bold colors trend for spring and summer 2011 going mainstream because I love it when city streets are infused with colors.

When I was in Zara stores in Milan and Paris during fashion week, checking how they'd styled the mannequins, I saw looks consisting solely of bright pieces for the first time ever (I was born too late to have witnessed the events of the 1980s and geniously revolting aerobic outfits firsthand). Grass-green pants, fuchsia shirt, ultramarine blue blazer.

I never imagined an insane ensemble like this could look so awesome.

I paused in deep thought amidst ardent shoppers rushing from one end of the store to the fitting rooms and back (at Zara there's always that one more thing you have to try on): "This is a revolution!"

Paris didn't quite catch up on the trend, but Milan streets were full of Prada, full of Jil Sander. It was as if someone had declared a "Dress like Anna Dello Russo" week and the participants cultivated the most colorful eccentricity. They looked like Zara mannequins, only a bajillion times more expensive.

(Of course, as you can see in my report from the Emporio Armani F/W 11/12 show, Anna Dello Russo was the uncrowned queen of bright and bold fashion week outfits. Someone really should give her that crown though. Why else do you think she's wearing fruits on her head if not to compensate?)

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Imagine my disappointment when days later I went to Zara in Ljubljana and discovered it's having only a fraction of Milan's exploding colors party? The mannequins are shyly clad in one, maximum two bright pieces at once. The rest of the look is neutrals.

It's nothing compared to the vibrant, brilliantly bold clothes that had me so excited in Milan and Paris, so excited I'm still thinking about them two weeks later.

The looks also entirely lack energy, as if there isn't a single person in this city who could wake up one morning fashion-starved and scream at the top of her lungs, "I want to be Anna Dello Russo today!"

Anna Dello Russo would probably cry at the sight of it. Remembering Milan, I almost did too.

It was then that I realized I'm sick of Ljubljana having the reputation of not being really fashion-forward when this impression is often a result of what someone else has selected for us.

Emporio Armani Spring/Summer 2011 sandals

Don't you think it's curious how the fashion system lumps together spring and summer, fall and winter? Indeed having shows twice a year is enough of a chaos as it is. It'd be all kinds of complicated to double the number in order to specifically cater to every season, but the latter is precisely what I do. I dress differently in spring than in summer. There are colors and clothes that fit fall but not winter.

With the Fall/Winter 2011/12 collections being presented when the Northern Hemisphere's Fall/Winter 2010/11 was just coming to an end (to me, the 24 hours I spent in Paris for the Hogan by Karl Lagerfeld event were the first hint of spring, Milan was still very cold), i.e. more than half a year in advance, I too am skipping one season, already thinking about what I'm going to wear this summer.

Artdeco nail polish

Due to my love for black, many beautiful colors are severely underrepresented in my closet. One of them is coral red, to which I'll be giving more attention this summer - these Emporio Armani sandals (sans heel!) are going to be my "everyday shoes". You just slip them on - shoe hassle is for winter, not summer.

I'd also like to get a summer dress in another bright color (maybe orange?), not very expensive so I won't fret too much if it gets ruined (who am I kidding though - I haven't ruined a piece of clothing since I was what, 6?). A dress for meeting friends in town after the sun has set and it's not so devastatingly hot any more.

I was thinking about dressing for spring 3 months ago. Perhaps this means I'm adapting to the fashion industry's insanely rapid pace. It can be overwhelming, but on the other hand, it's fascinating that compared to the rest of the world, fashion is always one step ahead. Why not?

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Impressions from Milan and Paris I wanted to share with you that didn't find their place in other posts:

MILAN
Seeing the genius and bold Prada Spring/Summer 2011 collection in store, squealing at the sight of my favorite blue platform sandals.

Everyone wearing shoes from the Prada Spring/Summer 2011 collection.

Realizing that after a long time I belong somewhere again, confirming my October decision that fashion is what I'm going to do in life.

PARIS
An incredibly elegant 40-something woman wearing a Chanel suit and an orange Birkin, looking at sheer, pastel-colored tops at Zara.

The alluring old Guerlain store on the Champs-Elysées that I didn't have time for.

Stylish Parisiennes in flats, despite fashion week demanding more effort.

Paris being so cosmopolitan and relaxed that I wonder why it took me all these years to realize it.

I've prepared a new stylish giveaway for you! One lucky winner will receive this gorgeous Vivienne Westwood necklace. Bright and bold tangerine is going to be one of the hottest colors this spring and summer, so the necklace will keep you super fashionable for the season. At the fasten there's a small silver chain with the iconic Vivienne Westwood orb, the detail that makes VW products even more special.

The necklace retails at €100 and comes with a Vivienne Westwood pouch.

Giveaway is open worldwide and ends at midnight February 27 (Slovenia time).

How to enter:
1. Like Dressful's Facebook page
2. Tag yourself in one photo in this album

Choosing the winner:
I'm going to choose the winner using random.org. The winner will be announced on Dressful's Facebook page on February 28. If you win, you have 48 hours to email me your address. If I don't receive your address in 48 hours, another winner will be drawn.

You don't need to leave any comments on this post. The winner will be chosen on Facebook.

Good luck to all of you and thanks for participating!

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