Slash fashion: Forget flim-flam and cheap frills, in Paris the intellectuals have taken over the catwalk as Japanese designers reign supreme

Two labels, Junya Watanabe and Rei Kawakubo, of Comme des Garçons, stand head and shoulders above most other designers in Paris. In fact, in the world. Their clothes are often dismissed as "intellectual" – frequently a pejorative term in fashion, when flim-flam and cheap thrills (or frills) are often preferable to clothes that question and provoke. That is intellectual, of course, but first and foremost they make fantastic fashion that propels us to something new. It is no coincidence that many of the ideas hurrahed in the collections of other designers can be traced back to the catwalks of these two Japanese giants.

Christian Lacroix once referred to the Italian inter-war couturier Elsa Schiaparelli's collections as "a laboratory of ideas". Comme des Garçons and Watanabe are fertile Petri dishes for future fashions.

They are also a breath of fresh air in an industry that, increasingly, is focusing on the bottom line. The bottom line, understandably, is best fed by simple clothes, tried-and-tested styles. Strangely enough, for an industry obsessed with relentless renewal, the new is feared in fashion when it comes to sales. Retailers, by and large, don't want exciting and fresh clothes. They want ideas they know consumers have bought, and will buy again. It builds a strong retail base but it doesn't make for exciting fashion.

We cheer, then, for a strong showing from both Comme des Garçons and Watanabe. It seems wrong to group them together purely because of personality but Kawakubo was Watanabe's mentor when he was at Comme des Garçons. Hence their thought processes are very much the same, even if the aesthetic outcome differs wildly.

Watanabe presented his collection in Paris's Grande Galerie de l'Évolution. The audience clambered under the skeleton of a dinosaur to enter his show. Inside, he showed a collection of slashed, fringed and braided jersey, matched by intricately plaited hair. The final few were adorned with 6ft-long feather plumes from Yokohama hens.

This was an exceptional fashion show. The slashing and braiding was the simplest of ideas. Watanabe pushed them both to the point of abstraction, shredding trenchcoats and ponchos, lashed layers criss-crossing until they resembled exoskeletons. Maybe that's the dinosaur talking. In any event, it felt like an exciting evolution.

Exciting was the word for Comme des Garçons. And confusing – bamboozling even. The models exited with hair tonsured high off their heads, reminiscent of tribal headpieces and the intricate coiffures of Sixties couture hairdresser Alexandre de Paris. There was something couture about the clothes, too, packed with ruffles exploding through fabric surfaces or boxed in with cage crinolines, channels padded like jumbo trapunto stitching. Some swelled to the size of tyres.

Several of the Comme des Garçons models seemed trapped inside their clothes, literally in the case of swollen black gowns encasing arms in layers of frills, or an ivory cage structured around an otherwise frou-frou organza party dress in shocking cerise (the collection's only colours were white, pink and black). One dress dripped golden chains, another appeared branded with the Chanel double-C logo, again trapping the model.

"Where money rules, the appreciation of the value of true creation is low," said Kawakubo earlier this year in a rare interview. One wonders if she was thinking about the trappings of today's voracious luxury goods market – in the truest sense of the word "trap".

Several other creatives have become victims of that desire for more, more, more. Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren were once top of the class in Paris fashion. Now they sport twin dunce's caps. That's a witless school-based pun but so was their collection. Composed of nothing more than simple-minded reinterpretations of schoolgirl attire, chopped-up blazers, white shirts and the like, it was banal but, thankfully, relatively benign. After exiting the show, it was easily removed from your brain without further injury.

Vivienne Westwood has a history that garners her respect, and relevance. Her back-catalogue is constantly pillaged – even that Viktor & Rolf show referenced her punk, her shrunken school blazers, her twisting of uniforms out of uniformity. Yesterday's collection was messy, and felt packed with product rather than ideas. The knitwear was good, the rest quickly unravelled.

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Ed Miliband's conference speech

Ed and Justine Miliband at the Labour party conference in Brighton.

In the end it was Justine who channelled the Reagans, not Ed. The power earrings, 1980s levels of hairspray and liberal application of eyeshadow were all reminiscent of Nancy. It seemed a peculiar style icon for the leader's wife to choose, not least because the full-fat hair and make-up was so out of kilter with her outfit. Her chrysanthemum print dress and sensible black pumps was recognisably New Labour woman: a tailored but not too hourglass shape; short sleeves and a knee-length hem, colours in the red-to-purple-to-black spectrum that Labour women have made their own. (See Yvette Cooper's similar look.) The disconnect between the makeup and the clothes suggested a woman not entirely comfortable with her appearance at this speech being under the microscope.

Justine's choice of label is a tellingly predictable one, which reflects the fact that the first lady issue is a problem which crosses party lines. The dress is from LK Bennett, a label that has won favour among female Tories and other British women in the public eye, such as Kate Middleton, for understated, safe-pair-of-hands, well-made-but-not-extravagant clothes. (This dress, the Bassey jacquard floral print, sells for £245.) Wearing LK Bennett suggests a desire to dress to pass muster, while keeping fashion at arm's length.

Unwilling to play up to wifely stereotypes by declaring her wifely satisfaction with Action Hero Ed to the cameras, Justine Miliband did not take to the stage as had been predicted. Instead – presumably in an attempt to appease those who were wondering where she had got to — she was given an early round of applause simply for sitting in the front row, which was no doubt intended to be touching but came off as patronising instead.

When the speech was over, Ed led his wife around the hall by hand, looking as if he were introducing a shy new contestant on Westminster's Next Top Model. If eschewing the Here's-My-Wonderful-Husband podium introduction was supposed to be a win for gender equality, it came off more like an own goal: the mute, mascara-laden Justine paired with the newly puffy-chested, macho Ed. None of this is either of the Milibands' fault. Global popular culture is increasingly in thrall to the first lady phenomenon – note the growing fame Peng Liyuan of China, now installed on Vanity Fair's best dressed list – but British political culture still finds the phenomenon embarrassing.

Miliband had a good stab at diffusing less-than-glowing critiques of his personal glamour by making a joke of it in his speech. His opening anecdote recalled how damsel in distress Ella Phillips had said of Miliband, who helped her after a bike accident, that "he was casually dressed, but he had style."

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Azzedine Alaïa: reasons to love fashion's favourite maverick

Azzedine Alaïa's designs have been worn and revered by fashion insiders for more than four decades. Nicknamed the "king of cling", his signature micro-knit Lycra dresses are cut to flatter the female shape. Victoria Beckham says he's her favourite designer. Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni have worn his dresses to state functions. He created the editor-in-chief of Love magazine, Katie Grand's wedding dress. On the eve of a major retrospective in Paris at the Palais Galliera, here are our top reasons to love fashion's favourite maverick.

Azzedine Alaïa's micro-knit dresses are cut to fit like a second skin.

His backstory is as fantastical as his clothes

Born to wheat farmers in Tunisia, he was raised by his grandparents in Tunis. He enrolled at the local école des beaux arts at 15. He worked at a dressmaker's to fund his studies and, through clients he met there, landed a job at Dior and moved to Paris at 18 in the late 1950s. He was sacked after five days. He became housekeeper and tailor for the Comtesse de Blégiers and her society friends became his first clients.

He doesn't play by fashion's rules

Alaïa has not shown during fashion week since 1992. He creates clothes when he feels like it and his Marais shop in Paris stocks garments from every decade of his business. "Unless I have a length of fabric in my hand and a girl in front of me, I really can't come up with a lot of ideas," he explains. He turned down the job of creative director at Dior after John Galliano was sacked and – the ultimate in no-nos – criticised Anna Wintour. "Who will remember her in the history of fashion?" he said in 2011. "No one."

He made the Eighties

Alaïa will always be associated with the first wave of bodycon. His first collection was commissioned and then rejected by Charles Jourdan in 1979, but the French Elle editor, Nicole Crassat, saw the clothes and started wearing them. She was snapped by the New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham in 1980 and Alaïa's fame spread. His dresses adorned some of the most definitive people of the decade. Tina Turner on the Private Dancer cover; the band in Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love video, Grace Jones in A View To a Kill and countless supermodels.

Domesticity is at the heart of his world

His studio in Paris contains a large kitchen where staff, friends – ranging from Naomi Campbell to Marc Newson and photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino – and Alaïa's dogs (one of which, Anouar, was a gift from Campbell) all tuck into delicious lunches of chicken and couscous. Alaïa himself resides over proceedings wearing his trademark silk pyjamas. Campbell met the designer when she was a teenager and lived with him for a time. She still calls him "papa".

Movement is all

His dresses fit like a second skin but compress rather than restrict a woman's natural shape and movement. He learnt this skill from an unlikely source: making costumes for erotic dancers at Crazy Horse cabaret in the late 70s. He says this is where he learned the aesthetic importance of the body and particularly la fesse (bottom). He might have picked a few moves up there too. The designer can apparently do the whole routine to Beyoncé's Single Ladies.

Christopher Kane revels in the 'sexual undertones of flowers' for fashion week

The spotlight suits Christopher Kane. Eight months after signing a major deal with luxury mothership Kering, which fast-tracked his tiny company onto the path to major label status, on Monday he staged one of his best London fashion week shows to date.

Kane is flourishing by embracing the advantages of life in the fast lane while keeping a foothold in reality. Just three hours before the show, Alexander de Brettes, the label's recently appointed CEO, announced that Kering will bankroll a major Christopher Kane boutique, to open in Mayfair next year. The flagship, on Mount Street, will put the Kane label alongside Balenciaga, Christian Louboutin, and Lanvin. By contrast, the catwalk show was staged in the Farmiloe building, a near-derelict warehouse near Smithfield meat market that has been unoccupied since 1999.

The funds now at Kane's disposal were evident in some aspects – a no-expense-spared cast of 54 models walked in the show – but backstage the designer still had pins tacked to his T-shirt, the better to effect last-minute adjustments before the runway. And when asked whether the high-tech fabrics on the catwalk were evidence of more money to spend on fabric production, he looked aghast. "I ironed and bonded those garments myself," he said. "I mean, maybe we could afford to get someone else to do it – but if I don't do it myself, it won't be right."

This collection was about flowers. "But when I say flowers – I'm not going to do, you know, roses, done to death, blah blah blah." Instead, it was "the sexual undertones of flowers", of anatomy and deflowering, which formed the starting point for the clothes. A visit to his Scottish high school brought back memories of art classes spent dissecting, examining and drawing buttercups and carnations. "I started thinking about how much we take flowers for granted, and how incredible they are, and how the female sexual organs have so much in common with the internal structure of a flower. When I was growing up, my mum always used 'flower' as her word for vagina – it's a Scottish thing. I prefer sex to be an undertone in my clothes, rather than too obvious, so I was interested in how flowers are graphic but concealed and suggestive at the same time."

Jean Cocteau said that style "is a simple way of saying complicated things." Viewed as sartorial self-expression of the point at which Kane now finds himself, the flower symbolism seemed double-edged. Sweatshirts emblazoned with the words 'FLOWER' and 'PETAL', and dresses embroidered with snippets of botanical diagrams of life cycles, seemed to celebrate the notion of a humble seed growing into something glorious. On the other hand, the theme of deflowering is hard to divide from loss of innocence. And the evening dresses in slippery satin, ruched and clasped with crystal reimaginings of the metal clips used in school dissection seemed vaguely sinister in origin – although, in true contradictory Kane signature style, these dresses were among the most elegant and desirable on the catwalk.

The shift in identity toward becoming a grown-up luxury brand was most evident in the catwalk in a very simple way, in the longer hemlines, which fell to the most part on or just below the knee. The Kane label is no longer aimed just at twentysomething "It" girls, but at a more womanly international clientele, who is less inclined to wear a micro-mini.

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What's The Difference Between 'Classic' and 'Boring' In Fashion?

As Leandra Medine once said, "Got to commend Ralph Lauren for always being himself!"

Okay, actually Medine (aka the Manrepeller) actually posted that on Instagram on Thursday morning right after the Ralph Lauren Spring 2014 runway show. But her back-handed compliment perfectly mirrors my reaction to the collection Ralph Lauren sent down the runway.

I imagine people will be talking a lot about this show, especially given Ralph Lauren's last few shows. Last spring, he presented a bizarre and busy "Spanish-themed" look, and for this fall, the collection was dark and sumptuous with lots of rich colors and velvet. I can already hear people congratulating him on the clean aesthetic, the brilliant simplicity, the bright colors etc.

But here's the thing: It was boring. Most Ralph Lauren shows are boring. Even last year's Spanish-themed collection was dominated by bright and solid dresses and suits. The models just wore funny hats and there was an occasional puff of ruffles. Thursday morning's show was the same thing but with minimal accessorizing.

Sure, the Ralph Lauren brand is known for being a favorite among wealthy preps and people with who enjoy "classic style." And I certainly appreciate classic fashion for its wearability and timelessness. But while a constant need to seem classic may not hurt the sales of Ralph Lauren clothing, it certainly hinders my ability to take him seriously as a designer.

As any true worshiper at the altar of style will tell you, fashion isn't just about looking good. It's about pushing the boundaries of what can be considered beautiful. Whether it comes in the form of asymmetrical Helmut Lang silhouettes, or merely in the form of a funky manicure you wouldn't have thought of yourself, the most interesting fashion tries to be new. At it's best, fashion can perfectly reflect the mood of an era and the philosophy of a generation.

I'm not saying Ralph Lauren didn't make some pretty dresses: a simple red dress looked good last year, and will still do so next year. But unlike unusually-wired swimsuits of Zimmerman or nature-inspired dresses of Anna Sui, Ralph Lauren fails to inspire.

Vegan Nail Polish: I Love OPI!

I have been really into painting my nails lately, and with the seasons starting to change, I’ve been shopping for new vegan nail polish to add to my color pallet. “What the heck?” you may be asking, “How can nail polish not be vegan?” Veganism is not just a diet – it’s a lifestyle based on compassion, and that means no animal testing.

Of course, you want your nail polish to be as healthy for you as it is for the planet and for animals, so choosing not only vegan nail polish, but nontoxic polish is super important. For me, that meant standing in front of the nail polish display doing some smart phone googling. Here is the great news that I found about OPI polishes:

They are vegan. OPI doesn’t test on animals, and they’ve got the certification to prove it.

They’re nontoxic. OPI polish scores a 2 on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Database. That means that their polishes are “low hazard.”

I picked up a bottle of OPI polish in You Don’t Know Jacques, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite polish. It goes on smoothly, which is a relief. I thought that I sucked at painting my nails, but it turns out that I was just using cheap, gloppy nail polish. How exciting to find a vegan nail polish that aligns with my values and is a joy to use!

It also doesn’t seem to chip as easily, which I think is due to the thinner coats I’m able to do with this polish. With cheaper polishes, I was doing one thick, uneven coat because it just wouldn’t go on thinly. This polish takes an extra coat to give you full coverage, but using more thin coats is kind of painting 101, and nail painting is really just painting on a tiny, tiny scale, right?

I’m in love with this color, and I can’t wait to add more OPI vegan nail polish to my collection! Do you have a favorite brand of nontoxic, vegan nail polish? I’d love to explore this area more!

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Fancy a body piercing? Read this first

Body piercing is a trend which is popular amongst teens and youngsters these days. In addition to the norm of getting your ear or nose pierced, many opt for navel, tongue or eyebrow piercing as well. We talk to Dr Kiran Lohia about the possible harm and precautions one must take once they decide to get a body piercing done.

What should one keep in mind before they opt for a body piercing?

Apart from the pain factor, one must keep in mind the place they opt to go to get the piercing done. Make sure it is hygienic where disposable equipments are used to prevent the transmission of blood-borne diseases like HIV AIDS or hepatitis. Also, the body part should not have any skin irritation or allergy.

If you are allergic to fake jewellery, then opt for piercings that are nickel-free. Look for the highest quality gold or silver rings and stay away from artificial jewellery.

What kind of aftercare is needed?

Make sure you keep the pierced area clean and dry as the risk of infection is higher. There is usually not much harm except for some swelling, bleeding or scarring at times. (Also read: How your old cosmetics can harm your skin)

Are there any areas which are more prone to infections?

Though body piercing is generally safe, areas like the tongue or genitals run a higher risk of bacterial infection. The pain is also more than a navel or nose pierce. A piercing in your private parts can also predispose you to sexually transmitted diseases and make urination and sexual activity difficult and painful.

Tongue piercing can cause speech problems and chipped teeth at times and in rare cases, one can even run the risk of a blocked airway.

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind:

If you get your tongue pierced, opt for an alcohol-free, mild mouthwash instead of a strong one.

Clean the pierced area with a mild anti-bacterial wash.

Do not touch the area too often as the germs on your hands can cause an infection.

If there is build-up around the area, dab a cotton ball dipped in warm water on it.

To relieve the pain and itchy feeling on the irritated skin, apply a few drops of tea tree oil or a paste of turmeric (haldi) and warm ghee.

If the bleeding continues or if the area is sore for a long time, get it checked by a skin doctor.

There is no harm in looking trendy by sporting a ring or stud on your body but remember to take good aftercare of the pierced area. Or if your skin is prone to infections, you can always opt for an imitation which does not require you to pierce your body.

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