NEW TALENT: LEUTTON POSTLE

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Sam Leutton and Jenny Postle at FEAL HQ

This post has been a long time coming. Ever since the autumn, Sam Leutton and Jenny Postle have been regular visitors to FEAL HQ,  coming to show us how they were progressing with their AW12 collection and getting advice from the FashEd who always loves to see what new designers are up to.  We've seen the evolution of their ideas from experiments with their quite astounding textiles techniques, into the formation of the collection which was shown at Vauxhall Fashion Scout on the very last evening of London Fashion Week.

A FEAL favourite- the reverse appliqué jacket

The Leutton Postle studio where knitters are constantly hard at work

I'm only in my second season working in fashion, so it's been great to see young designers at every stage from initial thoughts and experiments to showcasing the finished collection in the VFS showroom in Paris. They also helped me out with a talk I recently did about knitting, and how young designers like themselves are pushing the thinking about what can be done with what is sometimes seen as a 'traditional' technique. In fact, that's what Sam and Jenny are all about- they use crafts and look at making them new and right for now. They are sort of the antithesis to the girls who hand knit vintage 1950s patterns of cutesie little jumpers and cardigans.  

Up close: the reverse appliqué technique which runs through Sam and Jenny's work. 

Another of the techniques used by Leutton Postle: E wrapping

For AW12, a face motif became the anchor of the collection. There were 3D knits, with chunky plaits popping out and cascading towards the floor, as well as more abstract reverse appliqué dresses and trousers. On close inspection, you see the faces peeping out at you, and it's a little bit haunting and very clever. For the show, some of the models even wore face masks, just to hammer home the strong theme.  On a visit to their studio a month before the show, Sam and Jenny showed me the mood boards they were working with. There were images of tribal crafts and patterns, face painting as well as colour palettes and scraps of hand knitting experiments. Among their 'inspirational women' were Princess Diana and Camilla Batmanghelidijh. Camilla would look amazing in a piece of Leutton Postle. 

Mood boards in the Leutton Postle studio

Shoes by Chris Delapena for AW12

The face masks used in the show, which was styled by Ellie Brown (image from www.retoxmagazine.com)

Leutton Postle AW12 (image from www.retoxmagazine.com)

Leutton Postle AW12 (image from www.retoxmagazine.com)

The absolute best thing about what Leutton Postle is the creative potential of their pieces, which makes them perfect for visually stunning editorials. If we were doing shoots, we'd be calling in Leutton Postle knits, trousers and dresses all the time. As the images below show, the tufts of wool, beautiful fabric combinations and off beat decoration (we loved that they combined gold tinsel and pom pom yarn in their AW12 knits) photograph fabulously. We're pretty sure that all the coolest, most creative women in London will be wearing Leutton Postle before too long.

This image and above from Idol magazine SS12

Leutton Postle in Phoenix, March 2012

Leutton Postle in Bstore magazine

 Browns obviously think the duo are onto something too because they've bought pieces from Leutton Postle ever since Jenny's graduation collection from the Central Saint Martin's MA course a year ago. If you're not sure about going all sugar sweet, girly pastel for SS12 then Sam and Jenny's super bright, hand crafted pieces could be a just the cool alternative you've been looking for...

Hand crafted applique trousers £415 at Browns

Knitted top £355 at Browns

Knit dress £1,245 at Browns

SHOW & TELL: HANGING OUT WITH OSMAN

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

Osman Yousefzada is such a sweetie. I popped over to his central London shop-fronted studio last week to catch up with him in his startling progress from young dressmaker to London catwalk designer with an enviable roster of the kind of strong, elegant professional women all designers dream of dressing when they start out. These include Lady Gaga, Caroline Issa of Tank magazine, Tallulah Harlech, the architect Pernilla Ohrstedt and the influential art collector Valeria Napoleone.

Osman's AW 2012 collection, using beautiful hand-loomed Spanish brocade shown at London Fashion Week (photo: catwalking.com)

Osman is from Birmingham and was secretly making dresses for his sister's Barbie at the age of five using offcuts of fabrics from his mother's bridal dressmaking workshop. His sister would pretend she had done the Barbie clothes, and he would pretend he had been playing football. "We are workers in my family. When I was ten I could plaster a wall, and cut a dress. Creativity is a middle class luxury after all, to me creativity is getting stuck in, getting work done."

Despite his openess Osman still squirms uncomfortably when talking about his personal life, which is hugely endearing. In fact, there is still something of that five year old lurking around the aura of Osman. Fashion is like his secret passion, and sometimes he finds it hard to articulate in words exactly what he is trying to say with his clothes. However, give him the opportunity to dress you up, drape some fabric, share some embroideries being completed in his basement atelier and before you know it a coat has been flourished in your direction, a trousers has been proffered (his tailored coats and trousers are his strongest seasonal offerings in my opinion) and you become his muse.

Osman's AW 2012 collection, shown at London Fashion Week (photo: catwalking.com)

Cobalt dress from Osman's Spring collection at Matchesfashion.com

When I press him to explain his passion for dressing women up in his now signature linear, modern cuts and opulent brocades, he eventually expresses the following: "I grew up watching women coming and going from my mothers workroom...I think that is why I love dressing women, and no two are the same," he says. "I know the transformative power of well cut clothes, and I guess what I do is work with my experience of women to create the right clothes for them. My method is, well...basically I will bend over backwards to help someone find the right thing. If a client comes to me " - 15% of his business is bespoke, and he has 80 global retail clients - "and needs something in two days, I will do it. I'm a worker. My motto is "I learn by client" which is something I have also heard Azzedine Alaia say, he needs to work on his women in order to keep learning. He is an inspiration to me."    

Osman (photo courtesy of the designer)

So who does Osman see as his typical customer? He laughs. "I call them 'second wife clothes': not young first wife, not mistress. She is independent, intelligent, comfortable in her skin," he says. At this stage we are upstairs in his glossy showroom, but I want to see the studio downstairs the hub of activity in any designers' domain. "Oh, you don't want to go down there," his assistant warns. "You haven't seen his desk!"

Osman beckons me downstairs and the crammed space is a cacophany of visual stimuli; indeed his desk is not just a mess, it is an avalanche waiting to happen - possibly even an archeological dig of paper, ribbon and tear sheets. Osman's work is largely inspired by the colours, fabrics and dress of ethnic cultures dovetailed with the purity of line of, say Cristobal Balenciaga whose mother was also a dressmaker. Below are images of his studio.

If you love Osman's work and want to get something from one his past collections, the designer is taking part on the British Designer Collective at Bicester Village, which launches tomorrow. I will be there from 10am with a certain Alexa Chung looking for a dress for my BIG birthday which is a week today, but being celebrated with friends this weekend. Aaaaargh! I'll be trying on an Osman that is for sure.

Images from Osman's studio walls

BICESTER VILLAGE 

BRITISH DESIGNER COLLECTIVE  - DETAILS