Fever Pitch

Slowly but surely we're getting ready for our first London stockist. See you very soon in Hub in N16!

WEAR: ME

They say we are what we wear.

We say 'This is me'. 'This is so you'. 'This is not really me, it's more you'.

It's complicated.

Take Cindy Sherman. Here's a girl who surely likes to dress up.

All above: Cindy Sherman 'Untitled Film Still'

She puts on wigs, uses elaborate make-up and wears costumes to show how we use clothes to reveal or hide ourselves accordingly. Props such as a hat, a cigarette, a briefcase or a book provide additional clues to each character being staged in Cindy's famous stills.

Or Pina Bausch, whose simple, everyday costumes, put on, very un-dance like, belie the complicated flood of needs and desires, joys and sorrows, yearnings and longings her elaborate choreographies then stage.

Her characters, not always professional dancers, in ordinary dresses, suits, high heels and everyday shoes, are often caught in a sea of kitchen chairs, flowers or soil; clearly at odds with what they want, but what then say. 'I am free, but not available.' 'I want you, but leave me alone.' 'Love me, leave me, love me.' 'It's not me, but it's not you.'

All above: Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal

At the time of the dirndl things were much simpler.

Wear it with a bow tied to the right to say "I am married"; to the left "I am still looking"; at the back "I have loved, but lost, so I am free again".

Life is complicated enough.

This spring/summer don't send out mixed messages.

Wear a dirndl.

Unseasonal Greetings!

As the weather in London is showing itself at its very worst (it is wet and warm! in December!) we dream of far away places, with proper snow and bright sunshine: the Alps, home of the dirndl, but also feel free of the usual constraints of having to be 'seasonal' as we are on the look-out new inspirations for what's next for our first love at DQ: fabric and prints.

So here goes, a total mash-up of spring, snow and last summer season's silk dresses, Australia and Austria, old school documentary photography and fresh out of college fashion.

In very particular oder then: a quick scrapbook of alpine photos of a favourite photographer, Martin Parr, a family snapshot of a (v young) Dirndlqueen on holiday in the Alps en famille (ca 1976), to an inspiredly unseasonal alpine dress from Carven (SS12) and the wonderful collection of an Australian designer, Anna Langdon, taken from her 2012 titled 'Kindheit und Kitschfolk' collection: here's a girl from the land of the sun in love with Austrian alpine folklore and a great dirndl skirt. We love!

All Martin Parr: Alps 

Young Dirndlqueen en famille in Tyrol Alps, ca 1976

Carven SS 12 

Carven SS12

Carven SS12 

Anna Langdon SS12

Anna Langdon SS12

The mirror of history

Browsing through the online pages of a favourite magazine Dirndl Magazine I found these astonishing images of historic dirndls. I hope you like them too:

Christmas has come early ...

Can't wait for the x-mas break, the reading list is growing, a hot toddy is waiting, only three more sleeps. Here's what's been waiting for me on my dressing table

This needs no introduction: the eagerly awaited autobiography of the one and only

; a German book about the modern dirndl:

; and last, but not least, the wonderful Uman 5: Franz Ferdinand, a book about 'Tracht', German traditional costume, which is where the tradition of the dirndl stems from, but this is a book about 'Tracht' from a man's perspective. It's gorgeous too.