On Saturday 30th April, Impact Style was invited to the final day of events that rounded up Nottingham Fashion Week 2016. We dropped in at the Style Show Live held at the Nottingham Trent Conference Centre that hosted a runway showcasing six major themes for the upcoming season: Nauticaluxe, Botanicals, Monochrome, Think Pink, Dreamweaver and Colour Clash.
The beauty looks were created especially by Bobbi Brown and featured blossoming pink lips, with a focus on glowing summer skin framed in braids that fell loose in hippy tresses or were pulled back from the face in thicker French plaits.
Praise where praise is due, Nauticaluxe offered up genuinely interesting takes on the traditional colour palette to create a successful combination between classic Riviera ideas and ultra-modern sport pieces. Botanicals was a display of fairly standard summer-party/wedding fare, so our interest was drawn to how to incorporate this theme into men’s; subtle palm leaf prints in muted tones worked really well here. Printed against dark fabrics, these hints of flora proved that Hawaiian shirts need not be your only port of call for tropical glamour.
If you don’t wish to retire the ever-ubiquitous flower crown (sigh), consider straying from the uber pretty garlands and rev up your sartorial references with something all the more daring. These pieces were big, tasselled and frankly a lot more interesting than your bog standard wreath. Frida Kahlo is your friend. Repeat with me.
Elegant styling techniques really lifted these pieces, which were all sourced straight from good ol’ Notts city centre. Half buttoned shirts à la Alexander Wang S/S14 made the plaid-shirt-chinos combo a little more bearable on men’s wear and one-off vintage accessories imbued the looks with an off-piste edge that really flattered the high street offering.
Lola, the stylist for the show explained that all the themes were trend-led and sourced from some of her favourite high street digs including Topshop and River Island, as well as Sue Ryder and vintage stores: “I work with the retailers and chose key pieces according to the scenes that we set for the show”. The show appeared to be an effort to promote the variety on offer in Nottingham as Alice Levine, Radio 1 presenter, opened the show and confirmed all pieces were instantly available to shop, following a pretty similar mantra that is proliferating in major shows across the four cities.
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The show closed with Colour Clash on a Bowie soundtrack – the best looks were unabashed primary tints that challenged our penchant for cooling pastels. Go big or go home, I say.
All the looks are available to purchase from Nottingham city centre now.
For more images, visit: https://www.instagram.com/claireelizabethseah/
Amrit Santos
Images: Claire Elizabeth Seah
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