What to Wear with your World's End Vivienne Westwood: Phillip Treacy

Wondering what to wear with your World's End Vivienne Westwood top?  Phillip Treacy has just the thing!  A little pile of Andy Warhol Brillo pad boxes dancing delightfully on top of your head.

Now why didn't I think of that?!  Isn't that a fantastic image and I really love them together.

Here is a very similar top to the one featured in the photo above and available now at RARE vintage.  FYI, we do not have the hat : ( but we do have the shirt!  We can't do everything - though I would LOVE to have the hat - for me!

Vivienne Westwood World's End Top.  Size 4.  

For more information or to purchase, please email info@rarevintage.com or phone 212.581.7273

A Spectacular Philip Treacy Hat

There was a time when a woman, or a man, would not have dreamt of going out of the house without a hat.  Hats back in the day could be surrealistic (Elsa Schiaparelli's upside down shoe hat which was worn brilliantly by the ever so stylish, the Honorable Mrs. Reginald Fellowes), hats could elicit comments like, "look at the screwy hat on that dame!" (Myrna Loy in a, well, a screwy hat, in The Thin Man) or hats could be sexy masculine (Marlene Dietrich in a top hat).

October 10th would have been the birthday of the French born hatmaker Lily Daché who famously said, "Glamour is what makes a man ask for your phone but it is also what makes a woman ask for the name of your dressmaker."  The glamorous Lily also believed that men loved to buy for their wives, girlfriends or mistresses, "floozy hats".  (and don't we all have a little floozy in us:)

Hats are having a kind of a moment right now.  There were all the girls and ladies at the recent royal wedding looking chic in fascinators (which is such a great word don't you think?!) and there is the current exhibit, Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones, at The Bard Graduate Center. 

I recently met Philip Treacy and we spoke about an extravagant hat that he had made and that I have for RARE vintage.  Philip said that it was an incredibly difficult hat to make.  He used a vintage black brocade fabric and there is a crown of feathers atop the hat that are singed chicken feathers.  The hat was so difficult to make that I believe that there is jut this one.  And isn't that the way it should be?  This hat is a beautiful objet as well as something perfect for the Kentucky Derby or any occasion you would to wear to a hat to and if you don't have an occasion, you will just have to make one!

Philip Treacy Feather Crown Brocade Hat


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Princess Beatrice: You Go Girl!

So there!  Take that all those who made mockery of Princess Beatrice's much maligned bow hat.  Sold for more then $130,000 on Ebay for the charity United Nations Children's Fund.  Just the little bow hat that could...

Weekend Reading 10: When Phillip Met Isabella

"Isabella was an otherwordly creature of mythical proportions." Ebe Oke

We are a day away from the opening of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Met and the windows at Barneys which, besides having Daphne Guiness getting dressed for the Met Gala behind a screen, will also have pieces from the Isabella Blow collection, hats by Philip Treacy and objects by the jeweler Shaun Leane in the windows.  Daphne Guiness swooped in and bought  the entirety of Isabella Blow's collection from the family before it went to auction in 2010.  But there was one piece that got away and its owner was kind enough to share images of it with us.

Isabella Blow's unique way with fashion and the ability to be able to wear absolutely any kind of hat or head gear cleared the way for some of the hats we saw at this weeks Royal Wedding.  I do not believe that we would have seen Princess Beatrice in her much panned Philip Treacy Bow hat (though I thought she looked sweet and young in it - Princess Eugenie?  Well, poor thing, that was not a good look...) or any of the more whimsical hats if not for Isabella Blow.

Princess Eugenie of York and Princess Beatrice of York:

Santa Montefiore and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson:

Miriam Gonzalez:

When Phillip met Isabella.  Weekend reading for you from RARE vintage.  Read on...

Philip Treacy on Isabella Blow:

"Her fearlessness in an industry that runs on fear is legendary; she was a champion of young creative people without a voice.  While she endeavored to work within today's world of corporate fashion cannibalism, her ultimate ethos was a passionate belief that fashion is about the pursuit of beauty, elegance and creativity."

"I was so inspired by the way she wore my hats.  She wore them like she was not wearing them - like they happened to be there."

And of Philip, Isabella said, "He's like a cosmetic surgeon for your face.  Your face has a different personality for each one you're wearing."

The hats she wore did go beyond normal expectations, bringing to life visions of extraordinary and unexpected detail, whether it was a jewel encrusted lobster for Julian Macdonald's fashion show in 1998,

or a Japanese garden complete with temples and tress for Alexander McQueen.  

"Fashion is a vampiric thing.  It's the hoover on your brain.  That's why I wear the hats, to keep everyone away from me." Isabella Blow

The one Daphne Guiness did not get:

She gave this hat to someone while in the Goa hospital after trying to overdose on sleeping pills and walking into the Indian Ocean.

Isabella's hats in her Entrance hall  of her Eaton Square apartment:

 This is a wonderful tribute video to Isabella Blow:

Some text and images from Isabella Blow by Martina Rink.