Peter Pilotto for Kipling: A Belgian Bag Affair.

As tweets (often drunken due to the ample volumes of champagne, but most complaining about this season’s less than satisfactory PR-ing) from London Fashion Week flood the Twitterverse, I find I’m desperately trying to console myself with the latest addition to my very scant range of accessories – a Galaxy shopper from the Peter Pilotto x Kipling range unveiled at the Brown Thomas offices this week.

^ ‘Galaxy’ shopper (top) and the trademark Kipling gorilla (bottom)

Although it was a breakfast launch and not planned for evening time (read: complementary coffee instead of champers – darn), it was worth navigating crap Dublin public transport in the middle of rush hour, since the lovely ladies at Kipling and Brown Thomas (thanks Maeve!) were kind enough to gift myself and the v. charming Caroline of Miss Penny Dreadful a piece from the collab. each (!), which I did feel a little jammy for, considering I’d never even come across Kipling before checking out this range.

It turns out the collab. was a bit of a perfect marriage, though, what with Peter Pilotto designers Peter Pilotto and Christopher de Vos being half-Belgian and accessories label Kipling (yes, it’s named after the well-travelled author, Rudyard Kipling) having been established in 1987 in Antwerp. I can’t say I’m head over heels for Kipling’s mainline garb but having worked with several emerging designers before (inc. La Cambre graduate, and fellow Belgian, Cathy Pill), the brand is obviously a proponent of today’s emerging talent. With this collab., Kipling sought to channel Peter Pilotto’s signature avant-garde experimentation with print (see below runway shot of fab zany look), and the results are pretty impressive. Yes, these are just nylon bags (or more specifically – shoppers, backpacks, belt bags, totes, and messengers, and more) with slightly quirky prints, but they’re incredibly functional (with separate hooks for attaching keys, and more compartments than you could shake a stick at), and make a refreshing contrast to a lot of the ‘designer x brand’ tat on the market that might come at affordable price-points but lacks quality, being crafted with naff materials.