I try not to keep my head up in the clouds too much by talking about designers that are quite blatantly inaccessible but nonetheless aspirational/inspirational so posting about Des Moines makes a bit of a change.  This is probably old news to some and of course if you’re a Brick Lane addict, you’ll probably be no stranger to the shop The Lazy Ones on 102 Sclater  Street, stocking a selection of vintage for guys and gals, illustrated tees, shoes and bags and womenswear label Des Moines, designed by Nat Colom.  They can claim Kate Moss, Alexa Chung, Camille Bidault-Waddington, Jarvis Cocker, Gemma Ward, Matthew Williamson, Eugenia Volodina and many others as past visitors... (eclectic array non?).   An even stronger presence for Des Moines which some of you will know about is of course them being stocked in the Bazaar section (lower floor) of Topshop Oxford Circus.  Can I be honest and say I haven’t walked into Topshop for over three months and so my Bazaar knowledge has gone down the drain... to think I used to spend my uni days there scouring for non-Topshop pieces that would look a little not of the norm...

Des Moines is a perfect example of the ‘low street’ I talked about, labels that aren’t household names, independent and aren’t out of reach price-wise.  £30-£80 is all it takes to get some of Des Moines sweet sweet dresses.... with an eye for fabric choices, colour combos and being able to design unthreatening yet interesting dresses, Nat has tapped into an appealing and accessible niche.  Actually, it was Nat modelling her own designs on the Lazy Ones blog that really made the designs more alluring for me as she seems to heighten the dresses and make them look more multi-dimensional.  i.e., you can wear them in a pretty-pretty way or you can mess it up a little.  Also, it’s clear Diego Tellez and Nat Colom (joint owners of The Lazy Ones) are having a whale of a time running their shop and the label and that translates to the dresses which exactly what they are: affordable fun that don’t  have any haughty aspirations.  Hopefully their online store is on its way soon so that Des Moines will be even more accessible.