Dazed and Diffused

Mariam Bashorun and Leah Eynon review the celebrity designed clothing lines invading the highstreet

British designer Giles Deacon brought his ‘Gold’ range to New Look earlier this year. Unfortunately we thought most of it was hideous, most notable the main piece of the collection, the red polka dot puffball dress, which looked a bit bargain basement.

Much was expected from Deacon, but despite his intention to bring his designs to the highstreet and see them worn by women everywhere,’ he actually seemed to have lowered his standards to match the usual tat found in New Look. This collaboration always seemed a little doomed: die-hard Deacon fans would not be caught dead in New Look and New Look regulars would not be able to tell Giles Deacon from Marie Antoinette. Fronting this dubious collection was Drew Barrymore, a fairly irritating choice as it is unlikely that Barrymore would actually wear any of the items. All in all, we were not terribly impressed, but don’t take our word for it – the Gold collection is still available.

A little futher down Queen Street at H&M, Madonna has had another go designing for H&M after the disastrous attempt last year with her range of velour tracksuits. We were a little more optimistic this time around as she had designed clothes that could actually be worn outside the gym. The collection is apparently designed for the edgy working woman; pencil skirts, empire line dresses and tailored jackets with no tracksuits in sight. Unfortunately, the colour scheme was a tad dull as it was largely monochrome with a splash of beige. However, the colour scheme prevented the collection from becoming frumpy by keeping it smooth with clean a-line shapes. Sure, it wasn’t as exciting as Kate Moss’s stuff for Topshop, but it is still definitely worth a look.