Winehouse before fashion

Gods bless Amy Winehouse who has managed to bob like a cork and float like morning toast despite her many foibles, flails and fails including crack, heroin, not quite right body modifications, and a really wrong husband.

The formerly-appropriately named Miss Winehouse, who has appeared on numerous worst dressed lists and now cliams three years drug and booze free, has a new plan for reinvention: Fashion. She’s designed a 17-piece collection which includes accessories for British sportswear firm Fred Perry. The firm says:

It’s Amy all over–sharp, clever, sexy, lots of attitude–but stays true to the Perry aesthetic and unrivaled heritage. And still remain instantly recognisable.

Winehouse boasts that clothes are designed to fit her newly trim figure–a UK size 6/US size 4. Considering she claims she’s inspired by the late 1940s and 50s, and Rizzo in Grease, that seems a little odd–after all those women were curvy, not scrawny.

It’d be nice to see delightful clothes for women sized 8 to 12 and upwards. But actually who really need more clothes on racks and eventually in landfills where they don’t breakdown? Say what you like about the always self-revealing Courtney Love–and I have said plenty at various times–she jumped on “upcycle”–re-purposing of used and vintage items, popularized by Monah Li in the mid to late 90s. Granted those clothes are more labor intensive, but they also are also environmentally friendly while maintaining a unique and chic aesthetic.

Upcycling/recycling is not new. In post-Revolution France, abandoned homes were raided and the clothes of the aristocracy re-purposed by the free thinking youth and thrifty folk, creating a fashions we now would call Goth and Bohemian. One clever fashion was a red ribbon worn around the throat, sometimes with a dangling garnet or ruby to imitate the executioner’s work. And that 1980s Flock of Seagulls hairdo was all the rage then too..it was dubbed “a la guillotine” since it was the shave give to those unlucky enough to meet the sharpened blade; extra hair got in the way of of nice clean slice.