Richard Chai Love - AW10 Collection
The nineties are now vintage according to a pink neon sign in Selfridges window. I smiled at the tongue-in-cheek humour of the statement until it dawned on me that perhaps the Nineties really is being classed as vintage. How? How can a decade - that I remember so clearly - now be vintage?
I had a stall on Portobello Market in the Nineties. The era of grunge. I'd swan around the market wearing scuffed 1970's retro trainers, full length slinky skirts with a 1930's bias cut and loose knit, moth eaten sweaters. All worn with a thrown together - yet carefully styled - nonchalance.
Now it's back on the catwalk. Richard Chai's Love collection shown in New York this week has all the hallmarks of Nineties grunge. Fortunately, Richard Chai's collection is not a retrospective of the era - he has revived grunge with a modern edge.
His collection reminds me why I enjoyed Nineties fashion so much: The layers. Layering different textures, layering garments that are not usually worn together, mixing proportions.
It's time to mix up those layers. To be individual.
