Kipling come up trumps for SS11

Yesterday I was kindly invited to Surgery PR’s HQ to preview the new SS11 collection by Kipling. Revered for their eclectic range of sport-luxe bags in a variety of eye-popping prints and block colours, Kipling are perhaps now better known for the iconic and cute Kipling monkey which gets a classy revamp each season.

Designed with the girl-about-town and festival goers in mind, the SS11 collection plays to its biggest strengths; featuring bags with lots of cunning attention to detail, including padded pockets to store valuables such as digital cameras, and cool pockets to keep your drink of choice on ice. Having seemingly thought of everything a woman could possibly want, lots of goodies on display caught my eye, in particular the mesmerising Scuba print (pictured below), which is available in a plethora of across the body bags, totes and holdalls.

Taking inspiration for the colour palette from earthy tones and fresh watercolours, the soft leather wet-look bags are perfect for adding bright splashes of colour to an otherwise drab outfit. As we all know the newly vintage 90’s are making a come-back so what better way to reflect that than by creating the Magali utility bum bag – an acquired taste on paper, a rather practical solution in reality.

Taking their lead from the amazing success of their collaboration for AW10, Kipling have once again collaborated on a capsule collection with the BFC/Elle Emerging Talent Award winners Peter Pilotto and Christopher de Vos. Embracing a youthful and retro vibe, the SS11 collection sees a Milky Way print perfectly marrying the aesthetics of both visionary brands, re-working styles from Kiping’s basic collection and re-introducing the mighty duffle bag.

"The desire for unique shapes and colour combinations pushed this collaborative project further for SS11. Our thoughts of the intergalactic traveller, or otherworldly nomad, exploring and discovering continued as inspiration for the collection. With this nomad in mind we looked further into prints that also captured a key element frequently present in our inspiration, the reflection of light. The result, some of our favourite galaxy prints interpreting beams of light made from Nebulas. Mixing these prints with interesting shapes and colour combinations unique to the collaboration was a key objective." Peter Pilotto