Oasis are one of those high street chains that often gets overlooked in the rush to proclaim the new ‘it’ high street store. Not quite as street-wise as Zara, as sophisti-professional as Reiss or as hip and minimalist as Cos, Oasis is still worth checking out as it always gives more than it takes. And often surprises.
Take the new A/W’13 collection. It still has the trademark stamp of Oasis’ feminine girlishness but this is grown up girlishness and pushing out in a new front, too. Geometric prints and shapes meet the standard Winter florals and street-wear feminine flounces but this has decided more ‘grrr’.
There’s lace in droves but cool, stretch lace fashioned in slinky stretch dresses and all-in-ones as well as more constructed ‘Susie Wong’ style shapes. A sheeny tuxedo suit takes its ‘80s styling to the max with boxy shoulders, crop trousers and tapered lapels while leather bikers and midi-length skirts give a slighter harder edge. Ever popular leopard print rears its spotted head (ever popular in the high street) but think more much more demure and respectable than Eastenders’ Cat Slater – the poster girl of Walford market.
Oasis’s plus-point is that in not trying too hard and keeping to its own brand of pretty it comes up with some great pieces that just have to be re-styled to suit the wearer’s own attitude. And isn’t that the whole point of dipping in and out of the high street?
