Twenty8Twelve (Q9399)
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Twenty8Twelve is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Twenty8Twelve |
Twenty8Twelve is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
This season, Twenty8Twelve designer Elsa Elphick put a 1940s spin on her brand's eclectic aesthetic. The WWII theme wasn't expounded with overwhelming force; rather, Elphick referenced the era's key silhouettes through a few suggestive gestures, such as garment paneling that mimicked the nipped waists of those old film noir vixens' suits and dresses, and tied belts that owed a little something to Rosie the Riveter's workwear. There was also a touch of military detailing, and zoot suit–inspired oversize blazers, and the occasional and inevitable raised shoulder. The clothes didn't come off vintage-y; Elphick worked hard to update. And she didn't seem to worry much about consistency—there was nothing particularly forties-esque about the collection's skinny denim or leather leggings, or a color-blocked motorcycle jacket, or the slouchy blue sweater in a waffle knit. At any rate, the mix of looks here was nicely judged, and there were plenty of pieces that will appeal to the youthful Twenty8Twelve customer.
18 February 2013
What is Twenty8Twelve? That was the question raised by the departure, earlier this year, of founding Twenty8Twelve creative directors Sienna and Savannah Miller. Frankly, the brand identity of Twenty8Twelve was always a little mushy, aside from what it shared with the Miller sisters' own girly, ambiently bohoesprit. So the challenge facing new creative director Elsa Elphick this season was twofold: One, she had to figure out how to move Twenty8Tweve into the future, and two, she had to sort out what it was in the first place.Elphick, a member of the original Twenty8Twelve design team, kept the brand's essential eclectic cutesiness intact. But she came at it from a new, conceptual perspective, riffing on the work of German surrealist Hans Bellmer and his disfigured dolls. Pieces that referenced Bellmer directly didn't quite work—to wit, a fitted pale blue shirtdress was a bit too frothy a look to incorporate a Bellmer-inspired articulated bosom. But other surrealist tricks were more convincing, such as the twisted, asymmetric blazer.But the real answer to the question "What is Twenty8Twelve?" may be: a denim brand. This summer, the owners of Twenty8Twelve made a sizable investment in its denim, and the results are starting to show. The new denim included several pairs printed in super-fine, laser-etched patterns; the subtlety of the technique was demonstrated by denim that had been ever so tenderly mottled.
18 September 2012
Last month Sienna and Savannah Miller parted ways with the label they started with Pepe Jeans in 2007. Coincidentally, that was a year that saw the launch of several celebrity lines: Sarah Jessica Parker's now defunct budget line, Bitten; Kate Moss for Topshop; DVB, the denim and sunglasses label that preceded Victoria Beckham's très chic dresses; and un-celebrity label The Row.The Miller sisters never won serious fashion adulation like Moss, the Olsens, or, later, Beckham, save the sparky prospect of seeing Jude Law at a show, but their label did survive. Still, even as Sienna's role waned in recent seasons, and Savannah turned the brand into a contemporary business with solid footing, it would seem that the Millers themselves remained the hook.Of course, that doesn't mean that Twenty8Twelve can't survive and thrive without them. It might just do both. At today's presentation Pepe Jeans managing director Nish Soneji was on hand to assure people that it would. He reported increased sales, and plans to add stores in New York, Paris, and a few cities in China.New creative director Elsa Elphick, who had worked with the Millers since the launch, was similarly optimistic. She had reason to be. There was something a bit meatier to these clothes, inspired by the sixties-era mockumentaryPrimitive Londonand Pop artist Allen Jones, among other things. A pink micro-bouclé shift had a peplum that zipped all the way off, and a pair of cool seamed skinny trousers in the same material wore like neoprene leggings. Collarless V-neck jackets were well tailored and not so basic, and a knit waffle-weave skater dress with a gold zip up the back seemed like the kind of thing you might find at Carven. In all, it was direction with promise. One suggestion: Lose the baby dolls. Sienna has left the building.
18 February 2012
"I just want to wear that." It was easy to lose count of how many times Savannah Miller (no Sienna in sight) uttered those words as she talked through Twenty8Twelve's Spring collection. On that list: a slouchy chambray playsuit, a soufflé-airy embroidered cotton voile blouse, and nearly anything in one of the abstracted floral and animal motifs she called "non-print prints."Miller had vague inspirations: YSL's safari chic, Brigitte Bardot as a brunette, and August in Ibiza. They were, by her own admission, less than literal. The first provided utility chic. The Bardot peg, on the other hand, lent a marked cheesecake-y feel, as in a white piqué bustier playsuit and a body-hugging L.B.D. in a stretch cotton seersucker that Miller explained gives you the gain of a corset with no pain. And depending on how you approach the beach, wherever it is: a strapless silk maxi printed with big blooms or a heather jersey tank dress to the ankle with a flaring skirt.This is the second time that the designer has opted to show by private appointment, and the practicality of it and smart business sense seem to suit her. Well, almost. She looked wistfully at a picture of Jourdan Dunn from the label's first show hanging in her showroom. "I miss the thrill of it," she said. "I remember those shows when I was at McQueen, but the collection would have to become a different thing."
19 September 2011
Savannah and Sienna Miller tightened up their line considerably last season, putting the focus squarely on "what girls want to wear." That's how Savannah put it, as she showed off Twenty8Twelve's latest collection, which was rich in urbane yet easy pieces. The inspiration, loosely translated, was the Studio 54-era seventies, a theme mostly glimpsed in items like a slinky halter-neck jumpsuit, a drape-front bodysuit, and a day-to-night jacket in a cool, Lurex-threaded fabric. The Millers certainly didn't dwell on the theme—and their practical approach to design revealed itself in the standout knitwear. "It's not necessarily very 'holiday,' " Savannah acknowledged, fingering a cabled crewneck in mottled tomato red. "But not every girl goes away for the holidays." True. But pretty much every girl will be happy to slide herself into Twenty8Twelve's bootleg trousers or slip on one of those cozy cardigans. Not much to report here, then, but plenty to wear.
27 June 2011
Last season, before Twenty8Twelve's Spring show, a scrum of photographers pretty much turned into a pack of flash-wielding hyenas as Jude Law took his seat in the front row. Today that scene seemed a galaxy away, as Savannah Miller guided editors through a rack of her and sister Sienna's new collection in a day of private appointments. "We wanted to focus on intimacy and building relationships," she said. "It's hard with a show and it can get quite theme-y. It's fun, but it ended up looking like a bit of a circus. Like, 'Crikey, who's going to wear that?!'"The one-on-one approach allowed her to show off the new level of quality that she's achieved by finding not-exorbitant manufacturing in the U.K. Is domestic production sexier than Jude Law? Well, it could be, when you're shopping for a perfect tuxedo blazer or a heavy gray wool flannel coat—both of which Miller's managed to make quite impressively at a very nice price.Other than a Parisian flair with a touch of beatnik chic, there wasn't much of a theme. Instead, Miller described the collection best as a "perfect capsule winter wardrobe." Along with strong basics, like a long gray cardie or smart unlined tweed coat, were more individual pieces like a lacquered lace and pleated chiffon party frock and a Fair Isle trompe l'oeil sweater dress and cardigan, all in one piece.It's a smart direction, as long as Twenty8Twelve can maintain a distinct viewpoint—part of which obviously comes from the famous half of this sister act, who was missing in action today. On that note, both Millers are planning a series of PAs in the U.S. in late spring.
18 February 2011
Sienna and Savannah Miller called their Spring collection Jericho, inspired by Joni Mitchell's albumDon Juan's Reckless Daughter. Their road-tripping muse is a Kerouac-reading dreamer with an itinerary —fifties-era Mexico, Thailand, the Nevada desert, perhaps her native Texas. She's also got a hawk eye in vintage shops and ethnic markets. (Sound like anyone you know?)There was a certain sunbaked nostalgia to the bibbed denim shirts, flounced cheesecake skirts, a fringed suede dress, and a canary yellow lace shift. Whether art imitated life or vice versa, Savannah actually sourced the paisley print that was cut into a poolside-bound halter dress at a vintage store in Colorado. In the end, though, the backstory was mostly a neat way for the Miller sisters to weave a little of everything they've long loved into their runway show. "I think we really crossed borders," said a chipper Sienna backstage. "There's something for the working girl, the casual girl, the festival girl, the London girl."She's right, and there were clothes here you'd be thrilled to find on a retail rack. There are more and more of those these days as the sisters' reach grows—they open their third London boutique next month. Still, the question hangs in the air: Does a solidly contemporary line like Twenty8Twelve merit the runway spotlight? It's a debate that reached a peak in New York last week, where at one end of the spectrum you had the purposefully overexposed Zac Posen, with his Z Spoke "fashion-tainment" show, and at the other end, the deliberately withholding Tom Ford. Still, Savannah and Sienna might argue that the right you have is the right you take. They now seem utterly confident of their place, and sometimes that's all that's required.
17 September 2010
"We never intended to set ourselves up against Christopher Bailey," Sienna Miller sighed, with more than a touch of battle weariness, when asked why she and her fashion designer sister, Savannah, opted for a presentation instead of a show this season for their joint label, Twenty8Twelve. "That would be ridiculous. I don't claim to be a designer, and I think people were misinterpreting our intentions."Coming just days after New York fashion week, in which the illustrious likes of Kim Kardashian, Gwen Stefani, and Nicole Richie were all putting themselves forward as serious fashion designers, Miller's defensiveness might seem oddly quaint, not least because Victoria Beckham and the Olsen sisters have proven that being a celebrity need be no bar to garnering design plaudits.Nonetheless, the Miller sisters have come in for a bit of stick ever since their first catwalk show last year. Partly, this is a cultural thing—the British press can be pretty scathing about people "getting ideas above their station," to use the national lingo. But it's also because Twenty8Twelve is a rather different proposition from the Olsens' The Row and Beckham's dress collection. For a start, it's not high-end, and the clothes, while doubtless fun for a certain kind of British girl to wear, don't display the kind of skill that have won those labels critical acclaim.The upside to that is it means Twenty8Twelve has a much lower price point: Acid-wash jeans cost about $185; a leather jacket with shearling sleeves is less than $775. But the fact that it's on the official schedule means it's held up to a higher standard than perhaps the sisters even want. In this collection, there were some neat pieces, such as the trippy-ly colored giant cardigan, lovely black tops with fringed shoulders, and a fatigue-style green minidress. But it was hard not to think they would all look a lot better on a girl on the street than they do under the scrutiny of fashion week.
20 February 2010
Twenty8Twelve was the second collection of the night (after Paul Smith) to reference photographs of stylish Africans. It also claimed inspiration from the civil rights movement in the U.S. and black workers in the Deep South. There were apparently echoes of Sissy Spacek inBadlandsand the explosive spontaneity of the abstract expressionist movement, too. This last bit wasn't so far off the mark—there were indeed prints that looked like a Willem de Kooning paint orgasm. Otherwise, whew! If you didn't already know it, you might be able to deduce that at least one of the Miller sisters has a theatrical bent. For Sienna, the play is presumably the thing—or at least the game you play when you're building a narrative for your collection. The clothes themselves—faded denims, short shorts, bandeau tops, micro minis, and tiny waistcoats—seemed more suited to Daisy Duke than Sissy Spacek, never mind a civil rights activist. Which isn't to say that Savannah Miller hadn't added a little jazz to her Southern blues. Match the black leather biker jacket with stud-and-bead-encrusted sleeves and the draped lamé minidress, and you'd be ready for a wild night at the roadhouse.
20 September 2009
Sienna and Savannah Miller were talking up a storm about the runway debut of their collection, Twenty8Twelve, which now has two stores in London and sells to many others around the world. Not that they were adamant about declaring any runway theme. "It started off as a grunge collection in one direction, then as a glam collection in the other," said Sienna, "and then it all met somewhere in the middle." Or, as Savannah put it, "Pirates of the road meets Grace Jones," adding that from the business point of view, "we're in a good place to show. It's selling well, and I think it's relevant to be able to show a commercial, contemporary collection in London. It's normal in New York. There should be things girls can really afford." Her sister—a style leader every British tabloid reader has followed since she reinvented boho—agreed: "We just want to do what girls want to wear, really," she said.Even though the Millers' brand has a big corporate backer in the form of the Spanish jeanswear manufacturer that is behind Pepe, the show was very much a first-steps affair. All young designers—even relatively well-off ones—need time to develop, and between the spray-on stretch jeans, the padded-shoulder T-shirts, the slouchy beanies, and the downbeat washed-out color, there wasn't much that isn't already standard young fast-fashion. There's strength, though, in Twenty8Twelve's leather jackets, a staple they can work on as a signature. Savannah noted that none of them retail at more than £500, which is reason enough for young customers to start watching the line. As Topshop has learned, pushing design ever further only increases salability as well as silencing critics who say that such labels have no right to show during a fashion collections week. Now that Twenty8Twelve has an official time slot awarded it by the British Fashion Council, too, the onus is on these two girls to step up to the competition next time.
21 February 2009