UNIQLOve

Mother dearest was wed at the weekend, and unlike her first wedding, my sister and I actually got to witness, no, not just witness, star in the event (please mother we all know who everyone was there to see), and boy was it a good show. Mother shone in a tailor-made, floor-length silver dress and the rest of the bridal party were all clad in white. Songs were sung, vows were made and tears were shed (I was a messss). Anyway let’s backtrack to the important stuff, so its Tuesday before the Saturday wedding and Niamh hasn’t got a bloody dress, and where do I stumble upon a nice little number but UNIQLO! Now, I love UNIQLO (I’ll probably be buried in the flannel UNIQLO shirt), no, my exclamation is just to emphasise my surprise at having found a wedding-appropriate dress here. Obviously my version of wedding-appropriate is probably about 5 inches north of other more decent folks’, but regardless this fit my bill, and its bill more than accommodated my budget (Oh snap! Bill...bill, d’ya get it?! D’ya see what I did there...amazing), at a meagre £25. Mon dieu! Zute alors! Other French exclamations! £25 for a wedding-appropriate dress?! Oui oui mon petit bon bons, this blessing was brought to me courtesy of the Designers by Invitation scheme at UNIQLO, it’s probably been around for bare time but I’ve only just be made aware of it and I quite enjoy it, yes yes. My dress is a simple white number with a fancy god-zip and panel detail thing at the back and it did receive a number of compliments on the big day, but I also quite fell in love with a little strappy playsuit, neither of which are adequately photographed on the UNIQLO website (hmm annoying), but both of which are by designers Shipley & Halmos.

                My Knowledge of this spritely pair was as rich as my knowledge of the existence of this little UNIQLO rolling designer collaboration thing, so I took a look see at a couple of their most recent actual collections, what one can’t buy for the pittance I paid for the UNIQLO dress, and here’s what I found; Their womens wear is nice and simple, if (alas) a little dull and very reminiscent of pretty much the exact high-street luxe tailoring you can find at the likes of Reiss and Cos. The only womenswear item I could covet (if forced) is the satin Peg trouser, although I can’t really see what separates it from similar styles already out there (hmmm). But calm down Shipley, relax Halmos, my review is not all doom and gloom, your menswear shirts have quite tickled my fancy and stir within me and sudden and unexpected urge to rock a geek-meets-dandy look, I mean the urge will never truly evolve past the conceptual phase but as an idea it certainly is entertaining me.

In short, Shipley & Halmos in collections = average, Shipley & Halmos as invited to the UNIQLO party = very nice and cheap and stuff, and, UNIQLO Designers by Invitation = Jolly good idea, may as well have been designed to satisfy my growing need for designer X high-street collaborations. Thank you and Well Done.

Shipley & Halmos A/W '09 (Image - style.com)

 Shirt I like. Shipley & Halmos A/W '09 (Image - style.com)