Jewellery - Alice Waese


Whatever the skies say, there's a silver lining to this season. By accident more than thanks to any grand collective strategy, the beginnings of a new jewellery design sensibility are emerging: one focused on silver and equally lived-in accompaniments like leather. With its tendency towards irregularity and its evocation of antique mementoes and forget- me-nots, it all loosely evokes an unassuming, folky, anti-bling aesthetic.

London-based Canadian jeweller Alice Waese is a prime, self-contained specimen of the type. Waese puts her fine art background to inquisitive ends, basing her designs on organic shapes and unlikely objects like walnuts and discarded silk moth cocoons.

The cocoons are a motif also extended into impressive, epic new scarves as well as rings in her second collection (her first in her own name; her last, which included some elegant leather bags, was released under the short-lived and tongue-tripping name Curiouser and Curiouser).

Her jewellery has caught the eye of men's buyers at her UK home of Hostem, but like many other new names in the field, she regards it as unisex. Australian Toby Jones pursues a related look in brass and tarnished silver, riffing on the symbolic value of old keys and locks and layering on the thrift store trinket mystique. German Klaus Lohmeyer's Werkstatt: München range, lately championed in the UK by Barnsley's Pollyana boutique, is characterized by world- worn, sturdy silver. The more classically styled but equally craft-focused Bunney label, founded in London two years ago by Andrew Bunney, grew out of a single silver stud into a complete range, in both silver and gold, and again designed for both men and women. so rather than agonise over whether to take the plunge, you can buy one for the one you love and pluck up the courage to borrow it later.

Jeans - Diesel

Dictating one-note denim trends has been a fool's game for many years; brands, washes, treatments and technologies around jeans have proliferated so comprehensively that you can't distill a season to one look or label. You can still sometimes divine a mood though, and this summer's characterized by a fresh focus on raw denim on the one hand, and torn and otherwise disheveled jeans on the other. Diesel combines the two in this specimen from their new DNA ("dirty new age") denim range. The label has employed "denim painters" in Italy to splash paint on their 14 oz raw denim, which is then put through a series of processes, including drumming to soften the fabric.

Vivienne Westwood opted for paint splattered denim and overalls. Her Anglomania collaboration with lee involves deep ink denim or paint splattered baggy jeans styled down with denim waistcoats (while lee's own 101 collection retooled '50s looks for dark denim this spring). Belgium's Dries Van Noten nodded to skinheads with jeans and jackets in 'snow- washed' denim, while D&G showed dark cut-off denim shorts with stylishly worn out holes and tears.

Gap, True Religion and Calvin Klein are all offering rough-around-the-edges jeans. Evisu's re-launch sees straight-legged fits in authentically faded washes, while PRPs stick to the beautifully-aged, hardwearing, workwear-inspired pairs they do best. Jeans with an inbuilt appearance of history, whether personal or cultural, are again making strides this summer.

It's not uncommon for The B'rah'vo Benjamin to be mistaken for Charlie from Busted.  Outwardly he shirks off the comparison and furrows his enormous brow.  Secretly he loves it and takes the grooming of his thick dark eyebrows very, very seriously.  Turning up the collar of his Ralph Lauren shirt, he assesses the clientele of The Builder's Arms pub from the doorway.   Holly and Polly clad in Miss Sixty denim wave frantically at him from their perch in the corner.  Ruffling his hair, which now closely resembles straw after his summer surfing and modelling for Quicksilver, Benjamin strides over to them, careful to ensure that everyone can see his Emporio Armani Boxers above his Diesel jeans.  'A pint of Guinness and two Smirnoff Ices please,' he booms taking out an Osprey wallet.