MOHSIN's move

"I was drawn to the idea of offering limited edition product that can be pre-ordered directly by consumers every couple of months," explains an excited Mohsin Ali from his Brick Lane based studio. Forever on his toes and ready for combat, this week saw the first of potentially many, limited edition Mohsin releases. Bypassing the whims and fancies of retailers, ten engineered tops from autumn/winter 13 were reimagined in soft neoprene surfaced online and were available for pre-order. Four were snapped up immediately but six still remain. Inspired by the swift, direct movement of the Muay Thai practitioner, I was keen to learn more.

"It enables me to release garments that I might not necessarily send out to retailers. These products are little tasters. They will always be limited and either involve updating existing patterns in special fabrications or something which is new. The engineered tee used to launch this offering is available in navy and grey wool this season but has been made that bit more special in neoprene. It's a shape that I first introduced for autumn/winter 13, developed for the latest season and I'm already working on new fabrications for autumn/winter 14 involving special leathers. It's fast becoming a staple. So far I've sold two extra smalls, both to girls, a couple of mediums and I have an eye on a large for myself.

More than any other has managed before it, the AW13 collection really encapsulates my design standpoint and this has been carried through to SS14 and the early design work for the upcoming season. The collections are beginning to show a real continuity, there's a confidence about them which excites me for the future. I'm fighting hard to push the business forward whilst balancing and building freelance work. Since the label's launch I've been working to find the right approach and I feel like I have now."

It's little surprise that Layers snapped up much of the autumn/winter 13 collection. Exploring sartorial notions of protection with the physical needs and demands of his beloved Muay Thai, Mohsin produced a thirty five piece collection that played with shape, silhouette, fabric and function. The engineered tee encapsulated everything that I love about the label. It is a subtly transformative garment. It is modern day armour.  Now, as the design talent tinkers with his armour further, this spontaneous, straight to customer retail experience at a competitive price of £145, he surely leads the way for others to follow. If you've been struck by this offer then please do drop Mohsin an email here. Your move.

Spring is sprung

For a week or two last summer the usual fanfare that follows a fresh season faded to insignificance. A quiet hush descended upon the the industry as all eager eyes were firmly fixed upon Raf Simons who presented his spring/summer 13 menswear collection for his eponymous label and introduced his vision to Dior in the space in just a few days. Everything changed in an instant. The fog of apprehension that hovered over the Twittersphere was duly replaced with a sunrise of reverence and appreciation. Held breath was released with exclamation. Brushing off the weight of expectation from his well defined shoulders, the poetic, elegant, and free-thinking designer dazzled, delighted and ultimately delivered. Commentators who were all prepared to compare and contrast his work with that of other talents (*cough*Hedi*cough*) were forced to rip up their notes and were left with tired necks from never-ending nods and stinging hands from ceaseless clapping. The culmination of two game changing shows saw Simons float off through the troposphere, past the stratosphere and into the Raf-osphere. He's in a world of his own and what an inviting world it is.

As he marked a momentous new chapter by adding his delicate touch and energy to the codes of a House rich in history, he first returned, renewed and reinvigorated his own roots in another. Soundtracked by Nevermind, Raf Simons’ eponymous spring/summer 13 collection was both masculine yet feminine, familiar yet fresh, dark yet delicate. As Cobain’s cries faded out to silence, the designer’s menswear manifesto loomed large in the memory. It was a moment. A moment that didn’t go unnoticed by MRPORTER.COM’s Senior Buyer Terry Betts who proclaimed, “Raf’s use of colour and Kurt Cobain-inspired grunge florals combined to make his SS13 show one of our favourites.” With the online retailer unveiling exclusive collections with Ami, Beams Plus and Alexander Wang, the addition of Simons to the collaborative cocktail mad it an all too inviting mix for me. Adding to the collection’s original vase of beautiful blooms, this creative coming together welcomes uniquely-painted watercolour florals which have been used to transform staples of formalwear and sportswear. It is my kind of collaboration. Knowing its customer, the online emporium focussed its gaze on one enticing facet and elaborated upon in it beautifully. The thirteen piece capsule collection that blossomed online this week and I couldn't resist adding a couple of pieces to my wardrobe to help force a spring in the step of the new season...

Short sleeved shirt and t-shirt both Raf Simons exclusives for MR.PORTER.COM worn with...

jogging bottoms by Baartmans & Siegel and trainers by Nike.

Simons' frequently and fruitfully taps into a collective consciousness that plays with collective memories of images and sounds. Each season is a sensory shake-up that mixes past, present and future. The delicate water colour florals do just that. They are polaroid promises of bouquets long given, the scent of wild flowers waiting to waft by and blossoming blooms just picked. Take my hand and stroll through the detail shots below...

The exclusive capsule collection is available on MR.PORTER.COM now.
----------

Treasured Items... Tim Sturmheit

From riding the month long conveyor belt that connects all of the major fashion capitals to scouring backstreets beyond the beaten track, oki-ni's Tim Sturmheit's mission is to unearth all manner of future treasures. It is a task he relishes and revels in. Casting an ever inquisitive eye across the menswear spectrum, the buyer has to feed the appetite of an ever growing army of discerning customers. With the likes of McQueen, Raf and Undercover sitting alongside J.W, Kenzo, Shannon, Our Legacy all manner of exclusive product, oki-ni is a veritable feast.

Having just returned from a buying expedition to Tokyo where he was dazzled by Ikat prints in the master-piece showroom, visited the new Thom Browne store and admired the colourful photography work of Paul Smith, we couldn't resist buying him a well deserved a pint and asking him to partake in a quick spot of show and tell. Here, Sturmheit rifles through his master-piece backpack and tells us the tales behind his most cherished items.

----------

Tim Sturmheit and personalised fruits of game changing commerce...

"This Thom Browne cardigan is a relatively recent addition to my wardrobe but is one that I'm sure I'll keep forever. For spring/summer 13 we gave customers the opportunity to pre-order a range of exclusive show pieces, direct from Thom Browne's Paris Fashion Week presentation. The concept was that customers could see the product from the show, we then went to the Thom Browne showroom and styled it all and people could buy it the very next day. Each piece had the customers name added to label to make each piece that bit more special. It was amazing to be involved in a project like that. You're working with really interesting people, it's a great brand that you wouldn't ordinarily have such access to and you're offering one-off pieces. When I went to Tokyo last week and visited the new Thom Browne store there and the PR Manager was there and it was so difficult to even take a few pictures for the blog. Also, he admitted that he had to buy a few pieces through us rather than from Thom Browne directly. 

For me, Thom Browne is an inspiring label. From his amazing runway shows to beautiful made product, both wearable and crazy pieces, it's all about building a brand. It's a big company in terms of monetary value but there are relatively few steps to get to Thom, it enables you to do these types of projects and I'm sure there will be more in the future. One of my favourite aspects of my job is working on special projects like this, coming up with new ideas and developing relationships. It worked really well both commercially and from a press perspective."

----------

....and the Thai travel tees

"I picked these t-shirts up when I went travelling. I did the 'just finished college but wanted to do something before I went to Uni trip' and went on a Cambodia and Vietnam trek with one of my friends and then lived in Thailand for six months teaching in a school. It was great. I spent most of my time playing with little kids who couldn't really understand me anyway so I have no idea how much I was actually teaching them but it was fun. I used to spend two or three hours a day teaching and the rest of my time was spent lying in my hammock or exploring the area. On your travels you see lots of street stalls. At the time I was in to vintage clothes, I had lots of old Adidas tracksuits from the 70s and 80s and I used to hunt things down all over the country and I wanted to collect something whilst travelling. Also, I went through a phase of buying a TinTin t-shirt from every country or significant place that I went to but I've ended up losing everything single one of them. It was quite a challenge because I'd go to places that had no idea what or who I was talking about. I wanted to do something similar on this trip. You can't pick up too many things on the move when you need to travel quote light so I decided on t-shirts. I'd often lost the t-shirts I had brought with me anyway because it was so hot and they could be forgotten at parties. I bought about fifteen all together and came home with around five. I'd never throw them away now, I just have them to kick about in. I can't really fit in to them but they remind me of a great experience. Each has a memory of where I picked them up, if and how I bartered with them for the price, they're fun." Tim Sturmheit

----------

General Eyewear's Inner and Outer Space Collection

"Eyewear has gone from being a specialised niche product to being almost tediously ubiquitous – every brand and every designer has an eyewear collection. And this, along with a few other factors, has led to a general flattening out of what’s on offer," Fraser Laing fervidly expressed on one of my previous visits to his great gem of Stables Market. General Eyewear has concentrated on developing its own distinctive values and ideas without paying too much attention to what anyone else is doing. His wide, passion filled eyes are focussed on providing something more, something better. Now, as we sit inside his emporium of eyewear, he introduces me to the latest development, the Inner and Outer Space Collection. A long considered range that breaks free from the tedium and emerges on the recently unveiled Discover Boutiques.

Chatting over a concerto that echoes throughout the vast retail space, Laing becomes increasingly more animated as, one by one, he proudly places each of the nine frames on to the desk. As ever, his eternal enthusiasm and perpetual passion is as infectious as it is justified. From the 40s inspired but wonderfully contemporary Metz to the uncompromising Tanaka, each frame, which is handmade in England by their master spectacle makers using the very best components and finest vintage Italian acetates, is named after a Science Fiction writer. "We made a long list of science fiction writers and began honing it down to find the perfect fit for each style," Laing explains. Playing with the author's different characteristics, what they represent or conjure up and even just revelling in the name themselves, from phonetics to onomatopoeia. "For example. I know Lem quite well, he's a Russian science fiction writer and I just had this feeling of what a pair of glasses might look like, heavy and ponderous. For another frame, the Ostrander we just felt that they needed a strange name without knowing too much about the author, after a little research we found out that he penned the original Star Wars screenplays. The name just felt right because they appear older, mysterious and austere." Some of the names will be familiar, others might stump even the most arden of SF fans but what is certain, their latest incarnations are taking eyewear to new heights. Now, making use of the beautiful product photography that Discover Boutiques uses to present the stock from its partner stores, let me introduce the collection to you...

From the Lem to the Saberhagen to my personal favourite the Metz.

"The starting point was that they are built around classic shapes but evolved to become borderline unusual. We've been raiding our archives. From as far as I know, no one, in London at the very least, has anything quite like it. It is really coming in to its own now as we developing styles from it. None of these styles will be in people's minds, they are all slightly unusual doing slightly different things. It was about matching up the shapes we wanted to make with the right plastics. For the time being, we are sticking with one plastic per shape. The idea is that each frame becomes a brand in its own right because they are such distinct styles. Of course some might fade away but the hope is that these are a starting point and variations will follow, always looking to improve."

The considered collection has evolved from and takes advantage of the attributes that really set General Eyewear apart from anything else out there. The frames have evolved from an alchemy of form and function from favourites from the archive to the components, from the alluring acetate to the finest hinges possible, and craftsmanship that come together to make them. Laing's museum level stock consists of tens of thousands of unique pieces from the nineteenth century right to now. Inspiration is at every turn, inside every drawer and waiting to be found in an unmarked box.

 "We started offering custom made frames very early on but we were very limited by the lack of acetate available in the UK. I embarked on a mission to buy surplus stocks of acetate from the more historic factories that I knew about in France and Italy. The fact that I was able to find so much of it means that the selection of different materials we’re able to offer in the shop is unique. Today, there's only really one factory that produces plastic for everyone because it is highly, highly specialised but the history of it is so much more varied. Italy has always been associated with the development of plastics, it is of course a comparatively recent invention, reaching its peak in the 50s. This one factory that began in the early twentieth century were building everything up, providing all of thee amazing plastics for all sorts of uses, and then in the beginning of the 90s and it must've come as a shock to them, the world just stopped wearing plastic glasses. Armani, Ralph Lauren... every brand that you can think off was making little metal frames. Today, the current catalogue just doesn't have the same choice, the same variety. However hard you look, there's nothing in the direct line of those fantastic marbled ball point pens of the forties and fifties and it's such a shame."

Thankfully, Laing managed to accumulate close to four tonnes of the acetate that continues to excites today and give it a new home at General Eyewear. Some of it might be fifty years old but it is far more interesting than anything on the market now. Up until now Laing's vast collection of acetate has only been used for commissions but they wanted to do something more with it and the Inner and Outer World collection is one of the finest ways to breathe new life in to it.

"The reaction, even before we put them on the website has been great, we have put one of two out on the shop floor and they instantly attracted attention." The frames are limited. They begin with a limited run of just five and a number of the frames have sold out but with in a week or two more can be made and be on the shop floor (both in Camden and the virtual one thanks to Discover Boutiques).  "The aim is to continue to have this flagship collection made in the UK and we can be very ambitious with short runs, spinning everything around the acetate. The logistics have been tough. Very few people make anything in Europe because it is not easy," Laing reflects as a wide grin spreads across his face and a glint or two flashes in his eyes. The results, at least in this instance show that it is all worth it.