Style Come-Up: Dej Loaf

Lauren Mitchell is a feminist, mega Drake stan, and my long time bb. When she’s not rippin’ up comedy clubs in the 6ix, or dropping knowledge on her Drake podcast, she finds time to write a regular column for The Pack on fashion and rap music. You can check out her hilarious Tweets and read the rest of her writing for The Pack here.

The Fader

My personal styled has always veered towards the masculine side of things. I love super feminine looks on other women, but I’ve never felt comfortable in anything that isn’t at least a little androgynous. I like dressing in menswear or menswear-inspired apparel with little, feminine touches: dainty jewellery, nails did, a little cleavage, you know the drill.

left: Elle magazine shootOn Jimmy Fallon

This should illuminate why I was so stoked the first time I saw the video for “Try Me”, Dej Loaf’s breakout (and really, truly undeniable) hit song. Dej is, hands down, one of the sexiest women I have ever seen or heard. The way she is dressed in the ‘Try Me’ video is legit what I wish I could wear every day. Yeah. I know. Stop looking at me like that. I know I could never pull off the “suck it” jersey or the bucket hat, I’m not going to try.

left: Dej in Public School. right: in her signature Timbs.Elle magazine shoot

But I am inspired and influenced by Dej’s commitment to monochrome, specifically black and white: “love wearin all black you should see my closet / rock that all white, when I’m feelin godly”. And even though she tends to wear a lot of one colour looks, she also does colour and pattern in the best way (this is where I interrupt to say I will kiss on the mouth and slip tongue to whoever gets me that Coogi sweater).

left: on 106 & Park. right: promotional shoot

I would be remiss to overlook my fav of her accessories, the sunglasses. As someone who wears glasses and knows the true joy of finding the perfect frames, I love how she switches hers up. It is exactly what I would do if I could afford multiple pairs of prescription glasses. Ok. Well, now I have to go see if I can pull off wearing Timbs and a leather jacket as a shirt, pray 4 my housemates.

Images via Dej’s Instagram, The Fader, Elle magazine, and Tumblr

Dress Warm | Look Hot

Fashion industry people must be pleased turtlenecks layered under everything is so trendy right now. Save for the perfectly-styled nut in the first shot, almost every person in these street style photos is sporting a turtleneck. Even with drivers and cabs at their disposal, the weather for the past month has been no joke. Perhaps in London, it’s the same 10 degree weather they have all year round. That would probably explain the open-fur-and-crop-top combo on our bold first showgoer. But in NYC, it was frozen-snot levels of frigid all of last week.

If I’m being totally honest, I’d have to admit that a part of me feels immense satisfaction in seeing some of the most powerful, not to mention wealthy, women of fashion bow down to old man winter. If part of street style’s function is to inspire a love of clothes in its everyday readers who probably take public transit and walk outside like normal people, I can’t say it’d be very realistic to see bare legs and no scarf in the middle of February. Plus, no one wants to be reminded that they don’t have a personal driver, OK?

As nice as it is to think of fashion as fantasy, most of the time we need clothes that actually work. We have jobs and social lives and side hustles—do we gotta worry about being comfortable and warm in our clothes too? I’m gonna go ahead and say “nah” and present to you some of my favourite street style looks—featuring some stellar outerwear—from New York Fashion Week, and a few from London too. Out of respect for our readers, these shots were selected based on both style and functionality. Bonus points for the most brightly coloured because matching your clothes to the weather is a little depressing. So sorry, Olivia Palermo. Your bare legs with the nude pumps didn’t make the cut. Better luck next year!

NYFW AW15: Best Of

New York fashion week is over. As the fashion set jets off to London‘s more experimental pastures, we here at The Pack wanted to assess everything we saw in the past week. With all the hype surrounding Kanye West’s collection for Adidas Originals, the accessories frenzy over at HBA, and all the fuss about Tom Ford moving his (underwhelming)collection to Los Angeles, it’s easy to forget the actual clothes, especially ones as practical and literally ready to wear as the ones presented during NYFW. There weren’t a whole lot of surprises. Lots of beautifully executed 70s details from the usually safe players—Ralph Lauren, Rebecca Minkoff, Calvin Klein—and even from the usually not-so-safe players like Altuzarra and Zimmermann. Lots of earthy browns seen everywhere from Victoria Beckham to Calvin Klein to Derek Lam. Never thought I’d be drooling over brown, of all colours. And of course, plenty of fur collars and fur in general, at Altuzarra, Jason Wu, Michael Kors, and 3.1 Phillip Lim.

For obvious reasons, the collections that stood out the most were ones that strayed from the recurring themes of this fashion month, or ones who articulated their influences in a subtle way. Inspired by a new collection of photographs by Spike Jonze, Opening Ceremony‘s collection featured whispers of the 70s shape (in the way of flute hems and high turtlenecks) with plenty of other motifs thrown into the mix. There were prints and jacquards produced from Jonze’s photographs (not as gauche as it sounds actually), vintage Kodak printed shirts, and assymetrical knits that felt more 90s than disco. At The Row and Ryan Roche, garments were hardcore relaxed and executed with precise hands, but we all know both labels have been on this tip for a minute now. The all over pleats at HBA were unlike anything I’ve seen before. And the grunge meets sporty utilitarian looks at Public School seemed simultaneously nostalgic and unfamiliar.

I was excited to see one of the more diverse New York Fashion Weeks in a while. No idea if this signals something industry-wide or if it’s just in New York, which is usually the most racially diverse out of the four fashion weeks anyway. I’m crossing my fingers for London, but probably not holding my breath for Paris and Milan.

Click after the jump for more pictures of The Pack’s favourite collections from New York Fashion Week.

Ruby Jean for Dion Lee

Line II is the diffusion line of beloved Aussie brand, Dion Lee. With garments that are designed for a younger and more casual woman, Line II tapped model Ruby Jean to shoot its Resort lookbook among a few strategically placed milk crates. To be honest, milk crates aren’t objects I immediately think of when I envision fashion campaigns. But stacked in a multitude of shades like how they are here, the colourful props provide a delightfully ramshackle backdrop to the sleek minimalist clothes. I especially love how photographer Jayne Min, of Stop It Right Now, was able to capture the crates’ shadowy reflection on the wall behind them. The overall effect is dreamy, with just the right amount of awkwardness to really charm me.

Images via Jayne Min for Dion Lee

The Doctor is In

Wearing blue duster jacket by asos.com, bodysuit from Nasty Gal, and earrings and boots from Zara

Sometimes you just want to Keep It Simple Stupid. OK so maybe that applies to me most of the time. I’m not my best self in the morning, and the thought of coordinating an outfit with 4-5 pieces fills me with anxiety. I like the ease of throwing on a duster jacket and wearing it as a dress. It’s a little scandalous, what with only two buttons and such a low V-neck. But with the right wool tights and a perfectly strappy bodysuit, the effect can be quite fetching. I also look like I could be taking your temperature, but I really don’t see the downside of looking like a smart med-school-grad who just walked out of a lab.

Images by The Pack

Alexander Wang AW15

Four days into New York Fashion Week, and I was a little underwhelmed by what I had seen so far. It’s not totally surprising. Out of the four major fashion weeks, I must say New York hosts by far the most commercially marketable and conceptually safe brands. With a few notable exceptions, American design brings up the suburban chic of Michael Kors and Coach, the classic preppiness of Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, and the red carpet friendly designs of Zac Posen and Vera Wang. Although their influence on international fashion can’t be underestimated (hello, Isabel Marant), contemporary American design rarely surprises like its British and French counterparts.

Leave it to Alexander Wang to rock my fishnets off, and with an (almost) all-black collection at that. I was relieved to see him step away from the sportiness of his past collections. Honestly I haven’t felt excited about anything he’s designed, for Balenciaga and for his own line, in a while for that very reason. It was ballsy of him to work with all black, as they don’t photograph well and can look flat on the runway. He was smart about it, though, using a variety of fabrics (matte and shiny) and embellishing them with hardware. Wang has always had a great sense for styling, and the stacked boots with the wet hair and slightly undead-looking makeup worked perfectly with the goth-inspired clothes. Standouts included the quilted long coat and mini skirt, the long velvet dress with fringe, the leather culottes worn with a leather-bibbed top, and of course, the naughty chain mail dresses towards the end. Look for those in a million editorials come fall.

Images via style.com

RiRi in Julia Seemann

My girl RiRi sure works fast. Not even a full week since the VFiles Made Fashion AW15 show and Rihanna is already wearing a full look from one of the designers’ runway collections. Julia Seemann, one of my favourites from the four finalists, presented a strong collection of assorted textures and bold colours, including this ensemble’s unconventional mix of blue teddy bear fur and dark contrast-stitched denim. Rihanna has a track record for scoping out up-and-coming designers and breaking them into the mainstream by wearing them pretty much before anyone. Whether she’s doing this by keeping her ears to the ground or by relying on a super connected stylist is irrelevant. Her influence is unquestionable. and the free PR she’s giving to fresh-out-of-school designers is invaluable.

You can see Julia Seemann’s entire collection here and read our coverage of the entire VFiles Made Fashion show here.

Images via Getty

Logan Jackson for Editorial Mag

Kanye West presented his debut collection for Adidas Originals yesterday on day 1 of New York Fashion Week. The collection was full of aggressively bare body stockings, military outerwear, and post-apocalyptic lounge suits. Inspired by the London riots, the garments were super stripped down, favouring functionality and uniformity over flashiness and embellishments.

‘Ye described it as the world’s first “solution-based” clothing line. No doubt these are clothes designed to make survival in a problematic contemporary world a little easier, but they’re hardly the world’s first. If anything, Kanye is simply tapping into a shift that’s been quietly brewing in fashion for some time. Designers like Eckhaus Latta and Moses Gauntlett Cheng (seen in the above editorial) have been making cozy, dystopian chic garments for a few seasons now. While Eckhaus Latta achieves the post-apocalyptic feel of their clothes by using unconventional synthetic materials (perhaps salvaged from abandoned hospitals and hardware stores in this fantasy world I’m imagining), Moses Gauntlett Cheng’s clothes look thoroughly organic, as if pieced together in a dystopian/utopian future after civilization is brought back to its natural, more tribal roots.

OK, so maybe I’ve watched 2001 one too many times. I think I just like the clothes. I love their undone quality, and how photographer Logan Jackson shot the models wearing them. These are clothes made for chillaxing, so why not capture pretty people doing exactly that in them?

Images via Editorial magazine

Hyo-In

I love.

All photos by Hyo-In Bae

Subconscious Obsession: Wide-Leg Jeans

If you’ve spent the past decade struggling with poor circulation, thigh-rubbin’, and bizarrely patterned seam imprints on your legs, fear no more. It would appear that the tide is turning and fashionable women are no longer clinging on to their skinny jeans with a fervour so manic, you’d think they actually enjoyed wearing them or something. Since the rise in popularity of off-kilter womenswear labels like Marques’Almeida, Eckhaus Latta, and Faustine Steinmetz, as well as the proliferation of slouchy shapes in recent collections from The Row, Christopher Lemaire, Céline, and Stella McCartney, fashion industry insiders (and Rihanna) are getting photographed with increasing regularity outside of fashion shows in comfy wide leg jeans frayed to perfection.

I must admit we hopped on the bandwagon early on as well.

What is immediately appealing about this JNCO-revival is the comfort factor. While fashionably-inclined women are accustomed to a certain level of discomfort for style’s sake, I am of the school of thought that I should still feel good when I’m in my clothes or else I probably won’t wear them. Of course, skinny jean manufacturers helped by producing them in stretchy spandex blends. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to wear jeans so loose there’s a draft when I’m walking. Also of interest to me: how long a well-cut pair of wide leg jeans can make your legs look.

Images via Eckhaus Latta, Rachey Comey, Marques’Almeida, Sunnei, Fuyuri’s Diary, Faustine Steinmetz, and Fake Tokyo