Thursday, July 12, 2012

OLYMPIC FASHION: GOING FOR GOLD, SILVER & BRONZE

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

I feel grateful that my days of trying to make a fashion story fit with a cultural event, when it quite plainly doesn't or shouldn't, are on the back burner for a while. There are only so many "Festival Fashion", "Tennis Inspiration" "Jubilee Style" "Hip-Hop" or "Lady Gaga" stories a sane woman can reasonably oversee. But still, we fashion press do love, nay need, to take a theme and run with it in order to merchandise a page, and you can guess where I am going with this one. Yep, the Olympics are fast transforming from being "that big event hovering on the horizon" to becoming a reality. In three days from now the road lanes freshly painted with five white jaunty Olympic circles near my London home will stop seeming an adorable novelty when we can no longer use them.

With Olympic imminence comes the inevitability, for me anyway, of an email in-box filling up with press releases with the subject line "Olympic Accessories" "Sporty Essentials" "Are You team GB?" etc. Looking at all the red white and blue sporty garb or accessories in the colours of the Olympic rings that sharpen into focus with each attachment opened, it occurred to me that the high fashion world has been on the Olympic tip all summer in the best possible, but also rather non-obvious way, mainly thanks to its current obsession with metallics.

Gold, silver and bronze have been the colours du jour all spring and into this excuse of a summer we are having in the UK. (This morning the sun was actually out, but by noon it was still only 16 degrees). Silver shoes, gold bags, bronze cuffs, the tricolour that represent the apotheosis of sporting achievement are actually the fashion currency of now - really!!

I'm also grateful to the creative team at Miu Miu, who have recognised this, and created the below collection of gold, silver and bronze special edition available in London only bags, shoes and tech-accessories which go on sale on the day the Olympiad begins on July 27. All fashionistas will know that the best gold and silver shoes (Vuitton, heck even TopShop's) sold out at the beginning of the season. So thank you again Miu Miu. You get my fashion gold medal for this precious cache.