How do we make consistent choices?

FW23 niche fashion buying

As a niche boutique, how do we make consistent choices? Actions in accordance with our values, ideas, and lifestyle for modern humans. So, with the thoughts posted here or shared with our community when we chat with you.

The culture we believe in is not about the perfection of an ideal world. Because it is obvious that we cannot be 100% sustainable, no one can keep that promise! But, with our selection, we are doing something radically different. And consistency is crucial for trust. So, we need to pay attention to what we select.

For a more sustainable approach to fashion buying, our key message is being selective.

Step 1: what is the reason for a fashion brand to exist?

Creativity – expressed in good design and through skilled craftsmanship. These are fundamental elements for a fashion brand. But, many “sustainable” brands – other than picking eco-friendly materials to make their garments aren’t delivering any special designs. Therefore, we don’t need them.
On the other hand, contemporary brands must find the perfect balance between design and sustainability. One is not possible without the other anymore.

Step 2: how do we select brands?

• Avoid juggernauts: big brands aren’t making any change. Some can offer a refined design, but they are still involved in the overproduction pattern, exploiting people and the planet. The world cannot sustain this system anymore!
• Forget brands who cannot understand that the reality has changed, so they must shift how they operate the business. Adapting to evolved needs.
• Auto-proclaimed sustainable labels are not for us: first, there’s no control. Second, we don’t need more marketing and less design! Brands without a soul can avoid overcrowding an already saturated market.

Our consistent choices: less but better

We learned to search for smaller companies whose designer’s touch and vision are tangible in their unique and meaningful garments. Indeed, they focus on design, and sustainability comes along. They have something to say. Even though it’s not a matter of popularity for us. Moreover, these brands are not mass-produced. Skilled artisans make their garments or accessories, so productions are limited.

How do we make consistent choices?

We operate a careful, accurate, and thoughtful selection searching for value expressed in good design, quality and limited pieces. That’s how fashion can match sustainable standards.

How do we make consistent choices? Read More »

Meagratia brings new inspiration

A focus on unique contemporary fashion for you

Meagratia brings new inspiration for the Spring/ Summer season.

We have just received the new collection from Japan! And we are so much satisfied with the unique designs the clothes show. And the high quality, too.

Unique fashion and sustainability

The Spring/ Summer 23 collection offers special garments that will make you stand out but, at the same time, are wearable too. The image is modern, the lines are new, and the colours and details are beautifully assembled. Also, the quality fabrics and the accurate tailoring combine tradition and innovation. Most importantly, the brand is not mass-produced. And that is what we need for sustainable fashion.

Enjoy the Meagratia Spring/ Summer 2023 collection from Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo!

Meagratia inspiration: our SS23 selection

A belted wide-leg khaki pants reveal a slanted front button fastening. Also, it features a button along the ankle, which allows wearing the trousers in two different ways, changing the silhouette. Then, a splendid knit vest combining three colours – white, green and light blue – with a tassel trimming along the hemline. And a white cotton maxi shirt, or shirt dress, decorated with tassels along the back and wrist. Plus a beige net poncho to enrich your outfits.

One last note: who said genderless fashion is dead? Indeed, we happened to read this comment during the Milano Fashion Week 23. This statement had a raise-eyebrows effect on us. Sadly, it is not uncommon to see people who work in the fashion field, who even write about fashion, having a limited vision of style. C’mon! It is not Alessandro Michele who invented genderless!

Saying genderless fashion is dead means having no idea of what genderless is. Genderless means freedom! Specifically, it’s the freedom to pick the clothes you like from whichever category they belong to.

So, Meagratia brings new inspiration for the Spring/ Summer season #formodernhumans
But we can’t wait to create some stylish (genderless) outfits for you!

Drop us an email or WhatsApp to know more!

Meagratia brings new inspiration Read More »

Fall/Winter 23 fashion shows: one striking commonality

/ Leave a Comment

Is it still about hundreds of outfits at each fashion show?

Fall/Winter 23 fashion shows moved from New York, London, Milano, and Paris; now waiting for Tokyo.

All the brands showed their new collections in different towns. But there is something that connects each brand, one striking commonality: hundreds of new outfits at every fashion show. Every single season, the fashion narrative repeats itself. Undeterred.

Fall/Winter 23 trends

Hyper-feminine or androgynous style. Well-defined silhouettes, knit dresses, and maxi coats. Black & white, mixed with vibrant colours: red, yellow, green. And touches of gold, too. Also, precious embroideries enriched the garments.

Above all, designers tried to imbue a sense of timelessness in their clothes. Which, from a sustainable perspective, makes sense. And a distinctive quality as if they needed to reposition in their higher market segment, sweeping up the confusion that made everything look the same.

So, quality and timelessness. But is it enough to trace a significant shift? It seems brands keep on celebrating the power of their corporations-owned businesses. Are they satisfied? Or can they see the big picture?

Always from that same sustainable perspective, since all Maisons have people in charge of sustainable practices, why do brands show so many pieces?

Do we still need hundreds of outfits to understand a collection?

Fashion & sustainability

Given the state of our planet, which is full to the brim of garbage, any kind of it, including tons of fashion waste polluting lands and waters, perhaps it was time to make a real change.

Hundreds of new outfits every season would be sustainable as trillions of new electric cars produced to replace the existing ones. A joke! If we follow this reasoning, the logic of green capitalism, we fail.

Other than just making new clothes, modern fashion design should have an evolved purpose: a commitment towards sustainability. Unsurprisingly, there was no trace of it from the Fall/Winter 23 fashion shows.

In fact, there’s no understanding and no real interest in supporting sustainability.

Fall/Winter 23 fashion shows: one striking commonality Read More »

Notes on the Paris Fashion Week 2023

/ Leave a Comment

An air of restoration, not evolution

The Paris Fashion Week 2023 showed precise, constructed tailoring and well-defined silhouettes. Perhaps brands aimed to provide a tangible sense of quality to reclaim their meaning. Or re-establish a higher positioning in an overproduction industry that left people baffled and unable to understand the difference between luxury to low brands.

Of course, if you were not interested in the star parade, avoiding the tedious crawling before, during and after the shows seemed impossible. Now, that is the goal. Unfortunately, no chance to talk about clothes, just clothes, without necessarily talking about the faces.

Paris fashion Week 23: some highlights

All about silhouettes and dark atmosphere at Dior and Saint Laurent: I line at Dior – very vintage. The 80s-inspired triangle shape with big hyper-constructed shoulders at Saint Laurent.
Balmain: sculptural designs with bows and pearls everywhere.
Chloé: less poor nomadic, still bohemian but more refined. Such a great inspiration, the painter Artemisia Gentileschi! The medieval theme has resulted in wearable clothes – more for real life than for Instagram. Here, we want to underline what the designer, Gabriela Hearst, said: “I like it that nothing is gimmicky. They’re not clothes for Instagram: I’m tired of working for Zuckerberg all the time – like, where’s my check?”

Can you see the negative impact of social media on fashion? Now, designers make their clothes for Instagram, not for real life.

Givenchy: tailored black gowns with some touch of colours.
Balenciaga: for a brand that staked everything on marketing rather than clothes, this show seemed like an attempt to clean its image after a catastrophic communication campaign. 
Miyake: weaving rhythm, shape, slowness and movement. Beautiful!
Yohji Yamamoto: always a world apart, with a touch of colour this time!
Valentino: a 90s reminiscence for a black tie elegance with coloured maxi coats.

A lot of basics, that doesn’t mean banal. More wearable clothes, in general.
But do we still need hundreds of outfits to understand a collection? Aren’t 30 or 40 enough? 

However, rather than just referring to what we liked or not, we want to share two general thoughts about Paris Fashion Week 2023, reasoning we can extend to the whole fashion month.

Fashion journalism & fashion weeks

If you turn to fashion journalists expecting honest feedback and review about the collections, forget it. Indeed, fashion journalists do not express their viewpoints. They simply report the designers’ ideas and talk about celebrities, but they do not add any professional perspective. No pondering, which you may agree or disagree with, but still would generate a discussion, sharing some value. What they do looks like a report cut out for Instagram. So, everything seems flat.

In a hyper-consumerist and wasteful field as the fashion industry, the mission now is to do something different. Following the rules of what the fashion industry has done so far, and still commenting on the status quo, will lead to nothing valuable. In the end, the status quo is what designers showed.

Notes on the Paris Fashion Week 2023 Read More »

What happened to plus-size models?

/ Leave a Comment

Inclusion and diversity or just marketing

What happened to plus-size models? We asked each other during the Milano Fashion Week 2023. But New York and London, too! They disappeared from the scene. Almost completely gone! Suggesting the recent novelty smelled so much of marketing.

Plus-size representation in fashion

However, our comment was not because we believe it made sense to represent different body shapes in a fashion show. That is for two reasons:
First, a defilè aims to show the dress, highlighting the details. Not the woman who wears it. Indeed, we believe “anonymous” models accomplish this task much better than supermodels because famous ones catch attention, while the dress becomes of secondary importance. Representation of all sizes has to be in the shops, where people must find different options suitable for their body shape. For instance, in our boutique’s selection, plus sizes never had problems finding beautiful clothes.
Second, it’s one thing to teach self-acceptance, we are unique individuals, so we should cherish our differences. But it’s another thing saying to young girls it’s good to be extremely overweight. Because it is not, but for a matter of health, not to fit in a standard, of course!

Plus-size models

So, apart from Dolce & Gabbana among the tops, no plus-sizes on the catwalks! Therefore, what can we argue? Was it a genuine interest in inclusion and diversity? Or was the fashion industry in a state of impasse and needed to jump on a popular trend?
The smell of marketing seems clear.

Plus-size models were just a gimmick, an advertising stunt to spread the buzz and make people talk about fashion brands. In fact, in most cases, these women were dressed without any sense of style.

Just like we did, many comments about the latest fashion shows wondered what happened to plus-size models! The message of inclusion and diversity, which apparently, provided a sense of liberation from cultural standards, was fake! Just marketing.

One of the most glorious fashion bullshit!

What happened to plus-size models? Read More »