Cockney Chic? À la Coke? I don't get it!

HAS the world gone mad.

Kate Moss, that unholy of unholies, anathema to anything mildly resembling taste, sophistication, class or elegance, is set to design for Longchamp, a French brand of leather goods and accessories that seems to me to embody everything that she does not.

+

= say quoi?

The noughties were clearly the decade of the celebrity, where we (and by we I mean everyone but me, seemingly) wanted to eat, beautify, holiday and dress exactly the way celebs did. I was hoping that this decade would be about the celebrity backlash, celebrating individualism and all that but so far all we've had in the fashion world is news of collaborations so ludicrously unrelated to each other that you have to wonder if CEO's of fashion companies are all on crack (Tony Blair and LVMH anyone?)

Moss modeled for Longchamp in 2006 has been more or less a permanent fixture at the brand ever since. She helped design the Legende bag (apparently the red lining was her idea - genius!) and has been featured in pretty much all their ads since 2007. Everytime I saw her campaigns I'd just squeeze my eyes shut and hope that she'd have dispersed into nothingness when I opened them but this nightmare is clearly here to stay.

Oui, Kate. I too mourn the loss of style.

I love Longchamp. I have three Le Pliage totes in varying sizes and colours and have been contemplating adding a couple of their leather handbags to my collection but have been precluded from doing so by a) my proximity, or lack thereof, to anywhere that has anything remotely resembling a Longchamp store and b) my inherent vegetarian dilemma about refusing meat but lusting after leather.

Longchamp stands for reserved, understated chic, a way of life that let's face it, is quintessentially French and seems to belong almost exclusively to the Parisienne, but that's never stopped the rest of us from trying to emulate it in any way, much to the company's benefit. The pairing with Kate Moss makes no sense but is regardless understandable - Kate Moss is widely regarded as a fashion icon (pourquoi, je ne sais pas - outfits one can only call braless wonders, a permanent expression of sneery drunkenness and prematurely wrinkly skin doth not a fashion icon maketh). She fits the mould of the nonchalantly renegade mistress of the social scene that has recently become so desirable to women around the world (for reasons, once again, that are completely lost on me). For a brand that's trying to amp up their street cred and appeal to a younger market, she's a villainously perfect fit, I will admit.

What I don't understand is why Longchamp feels the burning need to sell out the way it has.

p.s. In other news, as was earlier feared, it has now been confirmed that Sarah Jessica Parker is indeed set to take on a definitive role at Halston, although the capacity under which she will do so has yet to be announced. The joy.

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Say it Isn't So!

The net is ablaze with rumors that Sarah Jessica Parker might be taking on the role of creative director at iconic seventies fashion brand Halston (who gave now famous designer Naeem Khan his start). There are so many things wrong with this that it's making my head spin.

First of all, who on earth is Sarah Jessica Parker without a certain Ms. Field? If it wasn't for her incredibly stylings on Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw wouldn't be so much a fashion icon as much as just a whiny, horse-faced, flighty New York City jaded single woman - who, by the way, had nobody to blame but herself for it. Honestly, if you give someone like Aidan up for an ageing, overweight commitment-phobe like Mr. Big, you're not all there in my book.

And girl, please. If you really were all about the independence you'd have ended up with motorcycle guy who threw a fit over the Prada shirt which by the way looked fabulous on him I will give you that OR Aidan, the creative carpenter, was it? That had a house in the woods, was it? I don't remember. I never really saw past the disarming smile and ridiculously nice persona. NOT with Mr. Big because let's face it, you loved being whisked around in a limo and the fact that he said stuff like "I got it" when you were wondering if you could afford the apartment you were looking at together.

Anyway. Real life. Argument for Why Carrie Jessica Parker Shouldn't be Creative Director of Anything, Let Alone a Brand like Halston Number 1:

We all know what her style is like off the sets of SATC:

Just. No. I'm all for experimental fashion and while I can honestly say that I'd make no great haste to get to a Maison Martin Margiela sale, I appreciate the designer's uniqueness. And while indiviudalism is great especially the sartorial kind and hurrah for designers who fly the freak flag high and so on and on, there's just no excuse for cloven hoofed boots that literally look they a) have been shipped to you straight from the bowels of hell or b) pander to their owner's particularly fetishistic taste in well, pretty much everything.

Argument Number 2:

The last time an actress with a flagging career (yes, flagging. Have you seen the trailer for Did You Hear About the Morgans?) decided to install herself as Creative Director of a once-popular fashion brand, this is what happened:

Emanuel Ungaro S/S 10

Which isn't to say that this is any indication that it'll all go pasty-shaped for Parker, of course.

Which leads me to argument Number 3, being that we all know how successful she's been as a designer in the past with her Bitten line, which ended up in discount bins everywhere:

Mmmhmm.

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