It’s been a hell of a season in the wonderful world of fashion and here at The Stellar Boutique we couldn’t help but take a moment to appreciate the absolute inundation of vintage fashion inspiration on the Spring Summer and Autumn Winter catwalks alike. In a fad of revival, all things vintage seem to be fundamental in both catwalk and street style alike. We’ve been utterly bombarded with nostalgia this season with the revival of Mod culture, monochrome and op art from the sixties a la Moschino, candy stripes at the likes of Dolce & Gabbana (the raffia bag is to die for,) and checks at Chanel and Louis Vuitton, alongside Paco Rabane’s swinging sixties on the Autumn Winter 2013 catwalk.

We are absolutely loving the reincarnation of nineties, with the phenomenon of androgyny, dishevelment and the most portent – grunge. An anti-fashion and a trend that lived and died on the streets, the more unkempt the better, think Nirvana, a catalyst for this trend alongside the likes of Marc Jacobs acting as a key facilitator for this fashion movement. This season we’ve seen designers revisit their own archives to portray their own pre-eminence ready for both Spring Summer and this coming Autumn Winter 2013, with the likes of Nicole Farhi, Rihard Nicoll and Chloe taking inspiration from the asexual grunge spectacle of the nineties, combining the sensibilities of the x and y wardrobe this season. Apprehensive? We were too until we paid attention to our favourite fashionistas Mary-Kate Olsen and Cara Delevingne, carrying off nineties grunge like it’s nobody’s business.

Contrary to this we have some serious style envy from the orientalism on the catwalks of Stella McCartney and Marni with inspiration taken from the genius that was Paul Poiret, seen as the solo individual who pointed the way to the modern era.  Ranked among the most exceptional contributors in fashion history, he was not only an avant-garde couturier, but a visionary, a man who was prepared to take many risks, producing garments of orient-inspired costume in which the trend reached an apex during the early twentieth century, using kimono sleeves made expressively due to the avant-garde art movement, inspired by the Far Eastern costumes of the ballet Russes.

Lucky for us here at The Stellar Boutique, melancholy is here to stay, with Autumn Winter shaping up to be a perdition of a vintage celebration. We see designers look through their own previous collections for inspiration – think Christian Dior’s ‘New Look,’ seventies dogtooth and Hitchcock femme fatales at Gucci and Temperley. And finally, we’ve saved the best until last, we see the merriment of British heritage with Alexander McQueen’s Elizabethan collection and anarchistic punk at Topshop Unique and Versace for the Vunk label. Think heavy duty with leather and studded embellishment spikes, dominatrix patent and bondage slashes to reveal flashes of flesh, leaving it all to the imagination. Unassuming is no longer standard with traditional tartans, oversized furs and dishevelled leopard prints. An inconspicuous fall? Chances are “pretty vacant!”