All Saints A/W 12 Clothing Collection: Thoughts?

[_Ben_]

I'm curious to hear what other peoples thoughts are about All Saints' A/W12 preview?

AllSaints Clothing: Autumn/Winter 2012 Collection | FashionBeans

Personally I think it looks incredibly dull, with a distinct lack of anything quirky, or typical of All Saints, to make it a trend setter instead of a trend follower.

The footwear appears uninspiring, they've reintroduced old clothing (the camouflage shirt) and once again we can expect to see a heavily edited, minimalistic lookbook. Two years ago they used to have over 100 lookbook shots, now they have about 20-30 at most, the majority of which looks utter rubbish IMHO.

I actually think this brand is seriously going downhill. They're just arrogant in the fact they can still shift a lot of their ramskull clothing to people living in Essex.

I imagine there will be a few nice features, but overall I think this looks pretty poor. All Saints used to be one of my favourite brands, but recently I really think they've fallen off.

Am I alone in appearing so negative?

[Nath6644]

My thing with this line is this: I would happily buy all of these pieces if Allsaints weren't so ridiculously overpriced.

Yes, I said it. I love the brand, and own a few pieces but its nearly all secondhand as I just don't think the clothes justify such a large price tag. They've got cheeky because they know, like you said, that people are buying into the brand and the image, and our prepared to pay stupid amounts just to have a ramskull on their denim shirt when they go out on a friday night.

For example, I'm sure they'll be some lovely knits I would happily pay 40 pounds for, but not 80-90. And their tailoring, although it has a good design, is not great quality.

[_Ben_]

Yeah I completely agree. I just wait for the sales now (which also used to be a lot better).
The thing is the quality and fit of their clothing is going downhill. Their leather jackets used to fit you like a glove: now they're just produced in a standard fit which could come from anywhere.

Having said that, I think their knitwear is improving in the fit. But they're just not producing anything for me which makes them anything special. A few of their shirts were awesome this season, but they're nearly always sold out by the time of the sales (obviously not their fault). Indeed, they don't seem to be producing as many clothes as they used to. My list of items I liked from AW10 was ridiculously long, and I'm still picking up some of those items if I see them on eBay.
I still use the AW10 lookbook as inspiration for some of my winter outfits! There was so much there to love.

[Pin Money]

Loving some of that actually, I do like the direction they're going; a bit more mature and subtle but still with that signature edge. It's hard to know if the edge would translate into real life though, or if it would end up looking a bit ordinary; it probably depends on whether the wearer is a quirky looking yet ruggedly handsome model. I do agree that this collection perhaps has less uniqueness than previous years. But they're allowed to evolve.

RE: the ramskull, they appear to be devaluing that and I wouldn't be surprised if it disappeared in a few years. The ramskull branded clothing used to be ridiculously expensive; now it seems to be the cheapest items that are branded with it, presumably to appeal to the mass market with that side of it and have a higher end focus to their unbranded stuff. I know I won't be buying much more ramskull branded clothing; a few of my mates are into it now and last time we were out, a group of three were all wearing it. Given that the clothing is generally in muted colours and similar cuts, we almost looked as though we were in uniform. Par! Only the ramskull polos are really worth rocking now.

[_Ben_]

Yeah I agree about the Ramskull polos. I used to think it was such a quirky logo, but as you say it's almost been worn to death.

Some of the individual pieces are nice, but I'm struggling to see much of an evolution. It is certainly smarter, but to me all they've done is - for instance - reintroduce the NFL short-kicks in iggy and cigarette fits. I love these jeans, but to me that doesn't take a lot of brains to do that. I wouldn't have minded them refining the short kick styles by removing the drop-crotch. I actually really liked the way the back of the leg was seamed.

I think it goes to show how much a lookbook can sell clothes: at least for me. And this one doesn't really grab me at all. I actually think it looks a bit ordinary.
I remember saying this about SS12 though, and in store some of the knitwear pieces looked a lot better than on the website.

I still think All Saints need to go back and reassess how they operated a few years ago, because they used to roll out the lookbooks with tons of new ones added every week. Rather like Reiss nowadays with their fashion features.

[Jay]

It looks exactly like every other Allsaints collection. it's one thing to have an identifiable style (which to their credit they do), but quite another to trot out the same old same old very season (which they also do).

[_Ben_]

See I disagree Jay. Previous All Saints collections have shown flairs for setting trends: short kick/cropped jeans, their leather items, urban tailoring, well fitted, awesomely designed shirts: none of which appear prolific here to any degree. I've never thought an AS collection looked dull for the wrong reasons, and certainly not lazy.

Even the nature of the shoot is poor: no urban backgrounds, or anything to set the mood of the orientation they are trying to take.

[njg]

All Saint are best when they fuse normal clothing items with a trend setting twist but I've found the last couple of seasons to be dull or too artisan. I remember when brands were using All Saints designs to influence their own and now it's like All Saints are more interested in going quirky than new versions of their great pieces.

I just hope it hasn't gone so far that we won't get those new twists on classic All Saints designs rather than the majority of what their putting out now which just isn't worth the money compared to a couple of years back.

[_Ben_]

I completely agree. They're too safe in the knowledge that people are still buying a lot from them.

They've stopped doing fashion features as well. Really their online shop just exists as an extension of their main shops which is wrong: it should do a lot more than just sell their products.

[njg]

Bought the Hitch funnel and Trawler cardi in the further reductions in the sale, just hope they fit since. It's such a myth about All Saints clothes being small since they always seem to be much roomier, kind of like American sizing!