Inside Style - London Fashion Week

Inside Style  by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner - September 9th

London Fashion Week.  Only one week until the plastic is peeled back off the Somerset House catwalks. Excited, moi? But of course. I’ve got my hotel and flight booked, press badge sorted and tickets requests filed. Now, all I have to do is summon up the courage to open that prodigious stack of envelopes and see just where I’m sitting...or standing.

You see, there are two letters that represent social suicide during Fashion Week. Behold 'ST' written on any show invitation and you'll soon know your place in the style set. No, it's not short for 'stylish'. What was once a loaded term used for buying feminine hygiene products has become fashion speak for 'standing'. And no fashionista likes to stand; much less in heels. But the sting of being seatless doesn't smart half as much as the Darwinistic dig which the abbreviation represents. It may as well read 'Sorry, who are you?'

2010 has already proven a rocky one for my own sartorial standing. Although, the registration desk at the AW 10 presentations did try to sign me in as Erin O'Connor (a mistake I was prepared to let slip), I've got some serious networking (or sucking up) to do to ingratiate myself into the world of goody bags and camera flashes. Maybe it's because I missed the previous season, or that the shows have relocated to the bijou Somerset House venue but an unenviable number of my tickets last February bore the dreaded 'ST' mark. How rude. Don't they know who I am? I guess not.

This kind of carry on wouldn’t happen to Tavi (www.thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com). Then again my blogging brethren is nearly twenty-five years my junior (sting!) and therefore of wunderkind status; as is Racked.com’s five-year old guest fashion correspondent Katie – both of whom have graced fashion week’s front rows. Grr....

Still, there’s no point whinging. I’m nothing but resourceful and have been plotting my own set of tactics to re-brand myself as a ‘F-rower’. If impersonating Erin, stealing seating plans from PR girls or kidnapping Hilary Alexander doesn’t work, I might just bring along my bespectacled five year old niece. Youth seems to be the only bargaining chip worth its weight when dealing with the fash pack. On second thoughts, maybe I’ll just leave her at home. That cutie pie would just steal my thunder.

Inside Style - Fur Coat; No Knickers

Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner magazine - September 2nd

“All fur coat; no knickers,” that’s what my mother would christen the fancy yet impractical. Never once I’m sure did she think it would extend to her own offspring. Not that I have anything against pants, but I do love a snugly fur...or three. Look closely inside my wardrobe and you’ll see a cross-section of fashion’s fripperies from beaded vintage dresses and Moroccan gilded robes to Japanese silk kimonos and vertiginous glam rock boots with the odd sequin bra for luck. Granted, not a capsule wardrobe as such but, golly, it’s fun to get dressed!

That was until the other morning. After my 7 a.m. cup of coffee, I opened the doors to my double-breasted closet only to divest its forty-five minutes later into a prodigious pile that resembled a drag queen mash-up. “Jesus, I really don’t have anything to wear!” I declared, aware of the ironic dilemma this poses as a stylist.
The real issue however wasn’t so much the garb itself (I spent good money on that tat!) but the harsh glare it fixed on my shopping habits. Nested in all that glitter was some errant DNA; an evolutionary bent towards the shiny and showy. Much like a magpie, my brain seems to be wired towards amassing ostentatious objects. Was this an emotionally-rooted predilection, I wondered?  “If you feel dread and indecision each time you get dressed, then yes,” advised a psychiatrist friend of mine.

Seemingly, such wardrobe choices were a direct reflection of my own feelings; an attempt, if you will, to dickey up my inner drabness. I wanted a second opinion.  My inner child is nothing but fierce!
“Well, why then do you have such an allergy to basics?” enquired my non-charging shrink.  Silence. “You baffle me,” she retorted and with that I was left to question my own motives. I’m assuming she would have elaborated a bit more had I slipped eighty quid that hour instead of a glass of wine, but hey.

It was time to get real. The excuse that I would be leaving an arabesque legacy for my future children was a pile of codswallop. Nippers scare me. Neither could I claim that my Liza Minnelli homage an ‘investment’. See: ‘no returns after twenty-eight days’.  Instead, a serious wing-clipping was in order; just not before I buy those gold Dries Van Noten shoes. They’re lifers! 

Inside Style - Mood Boards

Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner magazine - August 26th

Mood boards. There’s something so seductive about a scatter of stylish images. Peppered between sketches of diaphanous models and feverishly scratched buzzwords are textures and shapes that represent a moment in time: the doe-eyed gaze of Edie Sedgwick peering amongst mini-skirts and Yeti furs; those louche collegiate limbs clad in Hilfiger cable knits; and pantones with names that would make a paint chart blush.

If my ideal life were to be mounted on an A3 piece of cardboard, it would feature walk-in wardrobes bursting with Rick Owens and Comme des Garçons, a front row seat at Paris Fashion Week, and George Clooney writing a cheque to Mr. Harry Winston. Sweet. Alas, my real life seems to be just a tad removed from such sartorial aspirations.

Take this week. I developed a sore throat, lost my voice, found a dead cat in my garden, cleaned the kitchen floor tiles on my hands and knees, got an old filling removed from my back molar, filed my monthly expenses and oh...organised a photo shoot. Hmm. Surely someone who works in fashion should be tipping the scales slightly in favour of the fabulous?

Had I lost my voice from partying with Kate Moss or had that molar refilled with gold; that would be one thing. Still, it was time to give my own mood board a new perspective - ideally one that didn’t involve weekend accounts work...or scooping up a stiff moggy (R.I.P.).

It was only after a long lunch at Coppinger Row with an L.A. stylist friend that my epiphany came. “Since
 ‘The Secret’ everyone in L.A. seems to be making ‘vision boards’,” she tells me. “They look like fashion mood boards; only they’re designed to reinforce your conscious intention of achieving greatness.”  I was intrigued. “Tell me more,” I urged. “It’s a bit like saying ‘what you focus on grows.’” Hmm...she was beginning to make sense.  After all, if Newton’s universal law of gravitation and Pythagoras’ Law of Power in Numbers hold water, then maybe this secret is actually common knowledge?

(Later that evening)Pritt Stick and Vogue magazine in hand, I got creating the ultimate in stylish scenarios which included acquiring Gisele’s pins and superimposing my face on the September issue.  Now, surely all I have to do is sit back and wait. ‘How long for?’ is another question. Maybe that’s ‘The Secret’. Groan.

Inside Style - Trolley Dolly

Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner magazine - August 19th

“Where are you going?” “Are you just back from holidays?” “Mommy why is that tall lady carrying a suitcase?” These are just some of the questions that beset me on my weekly styling runs. Being a practical soul, I always carry my trusty trolley dolly while pulling clothes; if only to stem the rumours that I am shopping my way out of the recession. Unwittingly this tactic has raised its own set of scruples. 

Only recently I stopped for coffee in Starbucks when the barista, bemused by my excess baggage, asked me point blank what the deal was.  “I’m a stylist,” I replied, pointing to my M&S rollercase. Silence. Snigger. It didn’t wash.  Each time I now pop in for my skinny latte, she demands further explanation.  I think she’s convinced I’m harbouring refugees or that I’m some sort of prodigious kleptomaniac. “Maybe she thinks you’re fabulously homeless?” offered a friend.

I scoffed at the flippant quip only to have it corroborated by a total stranger in a nameless bar. “You’re that girl with the suitcase!” (Insert mortification here.)  It appears I’ve achieved infamy of sorts – albeit the mundane kind. I would have been happy with a ‘that girl from the telly’ – but hey, when life throws lemons, why not order a gin and tonic? This, by the way, is what I did; several in fact.

Ever since I’ve been fostering Howard Hughes-like paranoia, convinced the greater Grafton Street catchment area has me pegged as an oddity. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t exactly catch Rachel Zoe schlepping bags down Melrose. There again, she does charge $6,000 a gig and until Armani starts Fed Exing couture to casa Kimmage, it looks like I’ll have to put up or shut up (at least until this rant is over).

Meanwhile, I can comfort myself with the memory of getting Zoe and her reality TV crew backstage access to Giambattista Valli at Paris Fashion Week. It was a serendipitous victory (considering I was standing for the entire show), but one that resulted in a ‘Thanks sweetie,’ from the Queen of the Zoebots herself. With this I’m convinced there’s a fashion Buddha doling out karmic bonus points for good behaviour. Maybe next time, he could pitch in a free taxi, a foot massage or a front row seat. Just a suggestion...

Inside Style - Dublin

Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner magazine - August 12th

“Why would you ever want to live in Dublin?” As a New York transplant, this question follows me like a stalker around this city. Only last week, I was beseeched in a similar manner by two taxi drivers and a vintage stall holder at the Ranelagh Farmer’s Market.  Luckily, my ‘how I got here’ speech is hermetically-sealed Bord Failte fare- family, Irish roots, yada yada.

If the whole fashion gig comes a cropper, at least I could be a speech writer for the Rose of Tralee. Nevertheless, even my best pitch for the old sod is invariably followed by the clanger, “But why don’t you move back?” This is where I start to come unstuck. The honest answer is that ‘Dublin is my home.’ What more can you say to that?

A lot, as I’ve come to discover. The thought that I wouldn’t jack in a great love for the bright lights of a bigger city – namely one of the capitals of fashion – seems to beggar belief.  Most people, incensed by the fact that I own two passports (the blue one stashed somewhere in the vast domain of my underwear drawer), invariably end the conversation with a quick uppercut “But you don’t even need a visa!” followed by the playful sucker punch - “you cow”.

There you have it. I’m a geographically-misplaced heifer. Ah, waddayagonnado? I may not be taking Anna Wintour’s second assistant’s call to do lunch at Balthazar but there are smaller pleasures in life; the following of which shall make the roll call in my future retorts to the city’s querents.  Why there’s the Bald Barista’s Tazer gun approach to coffee, the barmy vintage finds from Lucy’s Lounge (and a strange smell of calzone....hmm), those sangria-soaked car boot sales at the Bernard Shaw, the Viking Splash Tour (proud to say I’ve sailed it three times) and boutiques that indulge a gal’s quirky predilection for Belgian and Japanese avant-garde.

Sure, the Luas may not connect, the weather is ‘changeable’ and the jet set seem to have missed us on their GPS but I do like a nice walk, haven’t grown spores and crowds just mess with my Reiki buzz. If that doesn’t please the hoi polloi, I’m going to tell them that I’m stalking Daithi O’Se. That ought to please them. If they don’t believe that, I may as well move.

Inside Style - Dressage

Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner magazine - August 5th

Dressage.  There’s nothing like a parade of show ponies to make a woman don a hat larger than the Hubble satellite. Be it aspirations to royalty or sartorial narcissism; bigger is better. In the pursuit of fashion’s furlong however, us gals can, and have been known, to lose our way. Our national obsession with feathers has been known to make many equestrian enclosures resemble an ornithological Jihad. As for making an entrance, Chantal Biya could easily have been doling out tips at the styles.

Still, when there’s a jammy prize for Best Dressed Lady in the offing, effort cannot be eschewed. Call me old-fashioned but mistakes made in the pursuit of cash are well-intended at best.  Granted I’ve never had the opportunity to partake in this type of race; namely due to my rather prodigious crown (a 23-inch circumference to be exact). Any aspirations of sporting a Jackie O pillbox or vintage cloche have been rendered pointless...until now.

My friend, milliner Edel Ramberg, recently gifted me with a bespoke headpiece – a labour of love which took eighty-two hours (told you my head is big). This Swarovski-encrusted lace confection makes me feel like Roisin Murphy on anabolic steroids. I want to take on the world! And I’m going to start with the RDS Dublin Horse Show!

That’s right. Having never entered a best dressed competition, I’m taking my two-foot long hat to the Blossom Hill Ladies Day to see what judge Synan O’Mahony thinks.  I’ve got my black catsuit steamed; not to mention my RSI-inducing Alexander McQueen ring and Joanne Hynes clutch at the ready.  The verdict is still out on whether to wear those ponyskin leopard print heels. Something tells me it won’t go down well with the gigis.

The benefit of such an outré accessory is that much like the Hubble, I hope to visible from space. It saves having to hover with intent near the judging table. If in receipt of Sy’s approval; I can thus affect an insouciant air of surprise. Clever that.  I just need to remind myself not to turn around too quickly lest I gouge out the man’s eye. This is assuming my head (and hat) will actually into the RDS.  It could well resemble the Halloween I tried boarding the school bus as a fairy; rendering myself wingless. Hmm..maybe a site reccy and some measuring tape is in order. 

Inside Style - The Dreaded Ned

Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner magazine - July 31st

Ned is back.  The pot that briefly separated from my belly has taken up residence again. Granted, I sort of led him on. That holiday in Frigiliana was like five-day foreplay: patatas bravas, chorizo, cheese platters, churros and oodles of San Miguel. No wonder why he decided to stay. I'm hoping the little interloper will realise there's no unlimited tapas bar at casa Kimmage. Despite ill-fated attempts at scaring him away with my Slendertone (note: not so effective whilst watching East Enders and drinking wine); the realisation occurred that a renewal of my gym membership was required.

Gyms - not exactly my provenance. The thought of sweat, baggy track pants and machines that don’t spit out coffee when you press ‘Start’ fills me with dread. Last I darkened the door of a Ben Dunne establishment was when ‘The Viper’ got popped in the car park. I had Martin Foley to thank for the ‘too dangerous to work out’ excuse; but with Ned demanding squatter’s rights, it was time to risk it or biscuit.

I chose to risk it (although the biscuits did look tempting).  With that came the equally dicey task of wardrobe choices. Despite what Isabel Marant SS10 will lead you to believe, grey marl does not constitute ‘sport luxe’.  (The bitch!) Those louche harem pants may look catwalk-ready but ironically are not made for sporting enclosures.  Paired with trainers and a moving incline, you’re looking at patches of damp vaster than a Louisiana oil slick. This I discovered to  my detriment, when aside from looking as if I sported man bits, I suddenly look as if I had wet myself. Nice.

It was back to the drawing board. My sophomore outing was sartorially sounder. Packed in my goatskin bag was a black ‘Wintour, Shulman & Menkes’ tee with matching crop leggings and patent (now slimline!) MBTs.  Result?  Front row at the treadmills, kids. Although much to my own chagrin, I soon discovered that reading Vogue on the Stairmaster elicits its own brand of humiliation. But that’s another story.

The upshot of this raw deal is that Ned has just about packed up and left. Maybe I’ll buy a crop top to show off my resident-free abs? Then again that Barcelona wine-tasting tour is only days away. Maybe I should just give Ned the spare key.