Interview

"I think today women look to jewelry more and more as an expression of personal identity" says Annoushka Ducas. The rocky relationship between women and their personal style is one that Ducas likes to think about with her designs, "I endeavor to inspire women to explore and discover with the jewelry they wear; that includes new combinations of color, proportion and texture." Ducas, who possesses a natural ease and flair, also reflected on her penchant for the most exotic and stand out pieces—the big, colored stones in the Annoushka one-of-a-kind collection and anything 18-carat gold.

Ducas is the lady of jewelry label Links of London, which she founded when her mother asked her to design a pair of fish cufflinks for her fish business, which Harvey Nichols spotted, and which has since become globally recognized as a signature of British humor and eccentric elegance. At the end of 2009,  Ducas decided to move towards something more niche, something more reflective of her own personal journey. So she launched a new, eponymous line, Annoushka.

It's a philosophy that looks set to take the Annoushka label places—although she's already moved around the world, having studied at the Sorbonne in the 1980s and traveled the world until settling down to study jewellery design in Hong Kong, and a strong Russian family heritage. It's a background she's called upon specifically with her new Fall 2010 collection, which she describes as "a culmination of a lifetime's obsession with the timeless romance and sensual magic of jewels" and of "Russian fables, fairytales and colors." That's a lot to obsess over.

Signature pieces include the "Mythology" amulets, "inspired by the Russian fairytales my mother read to me as a child." The Acorn Bell Amulet is done in homage to the tale of the wooden nymphs, who are said to ring their bells as a warning sign when they are in danger. The bell of the amulet is crafted from 18-carat gold; the shell is 18-carat yellow gold, textured with brown, black and white diamonds. A fairytale of a more recent variety is recalled in the color splashes of the Gobstopper collection, which include amethyst and aquamarine.

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We've come to expect ‘the uncompromised' from young design duo Edward Meadham and Ben Kirchhoff, but even by their own unpredictable standards, Sunday's Fall show left runway attendees in slight bewilderment. A new direction it wasn't so much as a complete U-turn from the dark, macabre draped pleating of last season. This was a visual feast of color, romantic gesture, and embellishment. The packed space at The Flower Cellars space off Russell Square witnessed models in painted biker jackets over maxi Sari style dresses or Old Hollywood style gowns covered by little embroidered caplet like jacquards. There were also embellished head pieces and if the expression on models' faces covered by lacey veils. There wasajoy in this coverage, afiery East meets West will that duely noted Persia via the Death of Sardanapalus, the orgiastic fall of Rome, and the cycles of glory and pillage in India or Old Spain. There it was, all of it thrown together in a glamorous heap.

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"There's something beautiful about capturing the spontaneity of youth. It's something everyone can relate to on some level, even if they can't immediately identify with this mad group of punks," says photographer Niall O'Brien of his first show at Art Work Space in the Hemptel Hotel, London, called "Good Rats." It's an identification that he cultivated slowly while living among a group of young punks called the Kingston Brew Crew (K.B.C) from South West London and tailing them on adventures from Brighton to Berlin. O'Brien describes a difficult balance he worked to achieve in the two years of his immersion: gaining a level of trust with his subjects without "doing anything that would affect what comes naturally." O'Brien also worked to balance the articulation of truth and fiction in his documentary style of portraiture, which manifests in alternately romantic and melancholic styles. Witnessed in groups and by themselves, with their dogs and with a beer, the kids don't look so mad after all.


GOOD RATS IN ON VIEW THROUGH MARCH 11. ART WORK SPACE IS LOCATED AT 31-35 CRAVEN HILL GARDENS, LONDON, W2 3EA

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Not so many of the epiphanies of a young talented designer garner notice from straight-talking fashion journalist Sarah Mower, but that's just the case of London-based, German-born Markus Lupfer. Taking an experimental approach to sequined embroidery, Lupfer's "been very clever in making his sequined sweaters an item with a bit of a cult following that draws followers from a really surprisingly broad customer base," explains Mower. Lupfer himself describes developing the idea as "one of those Eureka! moments," experienced while he was in New York last year.

"It suddenly occurred to me it could be great to develop a knitted T-shirt with some humor, some fun detail. I sent some images to my manufacturer and asked them to use sequins instead of prints." It's an idea which has moved the Lupfer label a long way—a sold out launch in Selfridges earlier this year, Colette in Paris, Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, and, for the first time for Spring/Summer 2010, Intermix in the United States. "Intermix came to see us in the Paris showroom. They loved the collection, especially some of the nautical stripes we have used to toughen up our embellished knit signature for the new season," says Lupfer. It's a prick on the American fashion conscousness that the designer is making great efforts to grow. "America is a very important market to us. They seem to like the Markus Lupfer women—sometimes a little preppy and sometimes a touch renegade." With a strong, multi cultural design background—design director at Spanish fashion house, Armand Basi, consultancy projects with Ruffo, Cacharel and Mulberry and an inevitable devoted celebrity following—America looks set to just be another notch on his belt.

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