Why Hedi Slimane is The Most Important Designer in Fashion Right Now.

Californian-based Parisian designer Hedi Slimane is having a fashion moment right now at Saint Laurent, a post he's helmed creative director since 2012. "He's a genius," said Betty Catroux, a confidante and muse to the late designer Yves Saint Laurent. Indeed, Slimane has, in a span of three years, rebooted the label, dropped its first name, courted controversy (though, unwittingly), and skyrocketed Saint Laurent's sales since it succeeded Stefano Pilati's romanticised embroidery of the label.

Stripped off of the high-fashion that designers before Slimane has struggled to restore into its company, Slimane's "genius" was to bring high street to the ideals of luxury. He has torn up and reassembled its parts again to resemble the wardrobe of a night-life streetwalker. Seasonally, Slimane's clothes were nothing of the glamour one'd wear, say, to Swan Lake, but an amalgamation of skinny jeans, army-surplus jackets and almost-air-tight mini skirts slit to the panties. All beside the girlish accessories he'd imagined for the new Saint Laurent girl- chokers, high-inch black stilettos and ripped stockings, Slimane's girl would rather jam to a Pearl Jam concert.

From commissioning runway music with his Los Angeles peers, to featuring Californian artists on his show invites, advertisers can agree Slimane's wizardry is marketing magic, grounded in collaboration. As for the clothes this season, Slimane riffed on the battered looks of festival goers with a musical reference. (Representative: Courtney Love).

Think Glastonbury and one'd flog to death about those Wellington boots he showed, alongside the slip dresses, which closed the show sans Love's tiara accessory- that the grunge rocker would don. In between, the show was not without the repetitive pieces of an everyday wardrobe, from sparkly dresses to perfecto leather jackets, and the netted tank tops that one can order, pronto, from NastyGal.

Crowning the girl with a tiara was also a deliberate choice. As the show opened under the haunting spell of musician John Dywer's soundtrack, an atmospheric number with repetitive beats that drummed on ad infinitum, models bowled down the catwalk from a black cube- a similar fashion to Larry Bell's featured cubic artwork this season. Their summer-of-love outfits, during which showed a collage of denim, furry shrugs, and immaculately tailored blazers, were accessorized with sparkle less on the feet than bijoux-ed on top of their heads, as if to scream, "f**k me, I'm famous," rung from the same rebellious bells of Courtney Love's kinder whore aesthetic. The prom queen this season is a champ of her own wardrobe, a point Slimane has been prodding when he first showed boots, instead of heels, oversized Nirvana-like plaid shirts, instead of dinner jackets, on his debut. It's no rocket science how easy these looks could be assimilated.

How has all that worked for a luxury business that prizes itself on the conceptual and operatic designs for close to a decade has less befuddled its audience than to scurry them to think alike; to reformulate their own strategies to follow suit. Slimane's influence is based on commerce and pure marketing, churning out easy-to-pair pieces that'd fit like a missing puzzle into his wearer's closet. You didn't know you wanted Wellington boots, and you didn't know they could be styled this or that way, until you watched a Saint Laurent presentation.

And his competitors are gradually etching on, with yet another old-house Courreges revitalising its codes this Paris Fashion week, with no complete looks but as to reintroduce variations of its famous jackets. Buyers would jump for joy, customers would find that easy to digest, and the appeal is right in line to fashion's new standard of purchase: See it, like it, wear it tomorrow.

Good Jeans are Easier to Find than Good Friends.

This is not okay for anybody who isn't a model.

Your jeans are too tight, too loose, too low-hung, and the worst critique of all- too far-flung from the standard issue of 501's (the bell bottom experience should never revive). At some point in our lives, we've suffered panic-room frenzy each time we think about hitting the books for a denim education.

In fact, it's almost hard to discern that ONE pair of jeans that would stick you through thick and thin (pun intended) thanks to fashion's unresting churn of different takes every season. Compared to a workwear staple in the 1900s, denim is a plethora of different shapes and sizes since.

Here, an abridged guide to picking up a trusty pair of jeans in 5 minutes tops.

1) The fit

Unless you enjoy sweating buckets hoping that your tailor doesn't butcher your jeans, the fit should be gotten right off-the-cuff. It is the single element that ties together an entire construct of your jeans, without you spending another buck on tapering.

Often, skinny jeans are silhouette-elongating magic pants that skims at every inch of your legs. However, they are also uncomfortable, difficult to breathe in, and damaging to your ball sacks. Instead of diving straight for the skinny-to-the-hilt look, try a slim fit, which is a wider option compared to the skinny jeans at the thighs and calves. A start would be to stop shopping at the women's section; and then to ensure a flattering fit that would break in well after a few wears under your belt, bend your knees when you first try it on. If you can't move in it, chances are, you won't be able to facilitate ease later too because they usually stretch up to just about an inch.

2) The wash

Results take almost a year to achieve, if not longer.

Next, eyeball your favourite wash. From a faded pre-wash evoking vintage "whiskers" to a keen shade of indigo barely manipulated, opt for a shade that doesn't make you look ruddy.

But unlike pre-washed jeans, there are, for the disciplined, raw indigo if you prefer a one-of-the-kind. Like a pair of cork-based footbeds that Birkenstock's has boasted to mould according to your feet, raw indigo is denim that hasn't been treated, which would eventually accord to your legs, depending on how well you break them in. Apart from the general rule of thumb that is to not wash your jeans 6 months before wearing them in, denimheads have also engaged in the complicity of raw denim care with other high-eternity tips:  Sit in the bathtub in your jeans to ensure optimal water temperature, hang them after wash upside down to prevent shrinkage, or just swim in the sea as myth suggests on how to wash your precious raw denim.

3) The rise

Hips don't lie.

However, sartorial advice should never be taken as God's word. Blogs are prescriptive such that if you're also wide-hipped, you should avoid a low-rise, because they are proportionately more for the torso than to elongate those pipes you want to show off. But that's just biased. Low rise jeans, while discriminate the petite, may actually be what you're looking for. These denim twills have witnessed a comeback with designers who favor its low-slung hip-baring look that has always been synonymous to the famous musical tropes of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and rock 'n' roll iconoclast Kurt Cobain. They are nothing of the waistband that hugs around the hip, only to reveal the midriff that exposes your pelvic floor discreetly, as you ease into a stretch. It's a sexier ambition than the dad jean option fielding our vision on the trendier streets.

With each rise, fit, and colour moulding your silhouette differently, sussing for jeans are essentially pure preference. Taking these tips off the bat, they should help you sieve out what you don't want, at least, before distilling the top crop. Always spare no effort when you buy a pair. Try it on and make sure you pass through the mirror check, twice.

When a stranger smiles at you. Accidental water marks impressed on my Levi's.

Fred Perry X Raf Simons, Summer's Latest Affair Has Gone Native.

Fred Perry, whose athletic street wear has seen the ilk of Britpop fans donning its signature pique polos since the 90s, has teamed up with Raf Simons for a new Spring/Summer 2015 collection doled out in a mosaic of native abstract prints, on slim-fitting silhouettes.

By comparison, the latest collaboration is a consent to a tribal-inspired trend that's storming down the runways for a couple of seasons now. While Simons' impression of the Fred Perry silhouette remains true to form in a slimmer, longer figure, its monochrome palette has too, served as backdrop to splashes of colour, which became vivid caricatures of abstract motifs patterned all over its mainstay pieces. Such with its sturdy jersey t-shirts or sweatshirts- designed in Privet Green with an abstract print across the front.

On hindsight, the classic Fred Perry still innovates. Whether you're keeping abreast in style as you don your summer sweatshirts, three-quarter sleeves, or pique polo tees, Fred Perry X Raf Simons conveys more with a brilliant take on your quintessential summer all get out attire- in shirts with a detachable collar, a fishtail parka cut slimmer for the slender Raf Simons fan, and a pair of city shorts, specifically redesigned in tandem with the sportswear label's 1950s tennis mise-en-scène. This arena of summer classics offered aren't just rehashes of past fashionable sportswear, they're a whole new game of street casual- even if you're planning to take them to court.

What I learned from Uncle Harry, and possibly David Ogilvy.

The other daddy of imitable style.

Last week, Uncle Harry who had just turned fifty five turned in a lot of money for a new tattoo. (I blame it on age for the certain type of men who still eroticizes tribal art.)

Uncle Harry too bought a watch, a laptop, and an entire wardrobe of colourful suits that didn’t look as Italian as they should. As he beamed through his- also new- facelift over brunch, courtesy of beauticians and flash sale promos, he convulsed a cosmetic smile, leaned over, wheezed into my ears, and said, “when you hit my age, you would want to treat yourself better, invest a little.”

Coincidentally, I thought the tattoos looked sinister, the watch a rhinestone, and the suits an ill-fitted purple pin-up that made mauve look like a bruise. (As for the facelift, that’s an opinion reserved for critics who'd probably know better.) But ultimately, I was also missing the plot. Apace with a life renewed after fifty, he looked happier than any of us would with a few good purchases. And that if there were any paradox to age, it didn’t stop after he stopped being a teenager.

However, since this is not a discourse about my uncle’s sexuality (because that too depended on the position he was doing), I paused to suspect if there were really then a need for any material consciousness especially after those intriguing teenage years spent fussing over our styles (or a lack thereof)? In other words, do we really need anymore of this horse shit?

Advertising that sells.

Take if from advertising wizard, David Ogilvy, with his infamous red suspenders, “If you can’t sell yourself first, what hope do you have of advertising anything else?” No matter how justified some covetable items may appear to be, we buy into things because we also buy into an ideal beauty of our best selves. Fundamentally, we're firm believers in creating lasting impressions. Impressions then, like advertising, are a twinge that becomes immediately representative of who we are. And lest we be unkind to ourselves, we are also cocksure that looking good goes as far as communicating who we are in the most dignified, uninitiated way possible- through appearances alone.

Doubtful? Take a pretest the next time you trade truths in a game of “Spin the Bottle” and ask your friends what they remember you most fondly for. Chances are, reminiscent among those good times that have lasted through the days of your college-age activism, they’re not going to recount that time you helped the blind across the street. But rather, they’re going to recall the flip-flops and culottes you were wearing then that just got dangerously better looking with their third cocktails. Ironically, no matter how the fog thickens with vision (depending on the number of shots your friends take with their drinks), what you may have thus overlooked is how the subliminal impressions really are the most potent, least patronizing to reputation, and cruelly set in working memory.

That goes to say, for example, those of us who are too nervous about jewelry can, thus, never be too bold for gold. Slipping on a pair of gold cuff links during a reunion has the same lasting effect as, say, blowing the right instrument. If that’s not your shtick, try learning to play the piano. At 200 kilograms, the colossus has for centuries resonated with politicians, lovers, chamber guests, and every other general person who’s not allergic to a melody.  More importantly, as with creating lasting impressions, always remember to check for the time (preferably on your new dexterous Apple watch) amongst guests. And if they look unfazed, try telling the time with your shadows.

When Uncle Harry turnt the party with a purple suit at fifty five, turn it up a hundred degrees hotter, finally, by showing up in a shade of lurid pink. Should nobody gasps then, safely show up nude and warrant your own arrest- in style.