INHALE MAG » Fashion

Surfboard Exhibition by Haydenshapes and Jason Woodside’s

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 15:28:45 +0000

In conjunction with Semi Permanent 2015, Haydenshapes presents a unique new collaboration developed with Jason Woodside and Craig Anderson – The Haydenshapes Bay 19 Gallery, Presented by Audi.

Curated by world renowned Australian surfboard designer Hayden Cox, the exhibition launch was hosted alongside surfer and Haydenshapes team reder Craig Anderson and New York Artist Jason Woodside. The Gallery event marked the release of a new artist collaboration between Haydenshapes and Woodside whose bright and colorful signature print was added to Haydenshapes latest model release ”Love Buzz” and displayed in the room along with 3 marble prints from Haydenshapes previous Summer Cage Installation project.

The large scale wave installation was created using sustainable Xantia X-Board Cardboard material. More info can be found at xanita.com.

For more information please visit haydenshapes.com

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Louis Vuitton Spring 16 Menswear

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 14:14:45 +0000

A very quick look at a part of the Kim Jones’ Spring 2016 Fashion Show that has just taken place within the stunning glass structure of Parc André Citroën in Paris.

for more please visit style.com

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LOUIS VUITTON’S PRESENTATION AT PALAZZO BOCCONI

admin — Mon, 18 May 2015 16:03:14 +0000

The designers reveal their inspirations and process behind the creations.

Louis Vuitton enriches the Objets Nomades collection of foldable furniture and travel accessories, created in collaboration with several international designers and presented for the first time during Design Miami in 2012. This year the Objets Nomades collection reveals a new collaboration with 3 talented designers: the Raw Edges, Gwenaël Nicolas and Damien Langlois-Meurinne, revealing their inspirations and experiences while working with Louis Vuitton.

Raw Edges discusses their Concertina Collection: “We loved the challenge of working on a collection of collapsible objects, with the focus on how to make them look large, surprising and with real presence when they are expanded”.
Gwenaël Nicolas, taking inspiration by Ernest Hemingway’s African travels, has created the Ernest Bed and the Miller Lamp, which were ”an opportunity to discover a mysterious world” and, about his collaboration with Louis Vuitton, he loved “the idea that the designer could propose the object he wanted to design: it’s a very personal and serious commitment”.

The Valet and the Totem Floral by Damien Langlois-Meurinne, spawned from his idea: “A designer is nothing without the savoir-faire of the artisans who bring his ideas and sketches to life”. The Raw Edges, Gwenaël Nicolas and Damien Langlois-Meurinne have increased the existing collaborations beside some of the most creative designers of our time: Campana Brothers, Patricia Urquiola, Barber & Osgerby, Nendo, Maarten Baas and Atelier Oï. These 9 designers have created 16 Objets Nomades.

more information on louisvuitton.com

images courtesy of architecturaldigest.com

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Moncler Gamme Rouge Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 11:09:27 +0000

The Moncler Gamme Rouge show ended with a parade of models in red riding coats escorted by dancers dressed as Queen’s Guard soldiers. It was the type of campy grand finale that, on the final day of Paris fashion week, could have been a hallucination (Instagram, thankfully, confirms the contrary). But even the main attraction, enhanced by fog-machine vapors curling through a simulated forest floor, positioned the collection as something more than your everyday equestrian outing.

Photo: Marcus Tondo / Indigitalimages.com

Backstage, designer Giambattista Valli explained that the horsey milieu—from traditional British hunting attire to stylized jockey-esque uniforms—provided a more tailored template for Moncler’s elevated range. Traditional tweeds, tartan, and mohair checks were transposed onto tech fabrics or spliced with luxe tinted skins. Despite additional constants—black knee-padded leggings, tightly tied scarves, bowl-shaped helmets—no two looks showed the same mix of layering, shearling patchwork, and skirt volume, as if defiantly countering the brand’s core offering. Heraldic prints, mixed-material camouflage, fox panels like fluffy pony hair, and even a trompe l’oeil gold chain belt with a stable key ticked off any remaining tropes—minus an actual horse.

Photo: Marcus Tondo / Indigitalimages.com

Footwear, interestingly, dictated attitude, so flat barn boots corresponded to a sportier mod style, while a no-nonsense platform boot conjured a pedigreed provocateur. But because rain does not favor one archetype over the other, tinted transparent raincoats (and rain skirts!) bridged the divide and offered a new retail novelty that will perform well. As for the heat-sealed embroidered flowers ornamenting shoulders and dusting gilets, Valli said he sought to simulate petals falling from tree blossoms during a ride through the woods. In the end, a couture touch proved more evocative than a bearskin.

Photo: Marcus Tondo / Indigitalimages.com

Amy Verner, via style.com

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Iris van Herpen Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 13:40:43 +0000

Terraforming was the overarching concept in Iris van Herpen’s collection today. Terra what? For those who have not seen Total Recall (the Paul Verhoeven original; you know, you really should—it explains much about terraforming on Mars), the term means modifying the biosphere of another planet to resemble that of Earth.

In van Herpen’s collections, science fiction often meets science fact, and perhaps here was the most literal expression of the combination. “The whole concept of terraforming started in science fiction, but it has become a reality,” said the designer after her show. “It made me think about what is our space? Should we do it? The collection is mainly my fantasy of what we would do.”

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

With that in mind, she “terraformed” her materials and in the process invented new terrains in terms of fabrications. This was done through a combination of the man-made and the natural, and at times formed new geologies in the fabrics themselves. One incredible material was a combination of stainless steel in the warp and silk in the weft, producing a fine, fluid dress silk. Heat was applied throughout the collection—just as would happen in the case of that prime target for terraforming, Mars (NASA has even held conferences about this). The process provided a punch to meta-woven materials; this is what gave certain looks their distinct coloration and texture—like a boiling oil slick mixed with silk. Three-dimensionality was important again for van Herpen: Her signature 3-D printing was visible, especially in the shoes that resembled rock-crystal formations captured in a net of laser-cut leather. Also important was the notion of infinity, which gave the circle pride of place in patterning, particularly in handwoven textiles made with Aleksandra Gaca and in the architect Philip Beesley’s creations of digitally fabricated dresses, described as a “black garden of fractal-like geometries.”

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

When you consider the distinctly sci-fi look of some of the clothing (most successful was a nod to the “sand suit” from David Lynch’s Dune) and the strange desirability of the 3-D grid and handwoven daywear (a distinct departure for the designer), the overriding impression was of a delicacy and finer tuning in the collection than has ever existed before. The power of the casting and stripped-back styling was also tighter than ever.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

At the same time, the presentation itself had a feeling of pared-back flatness, accentuated by the unyielding, plain square of the Palais de Tokyo venue and in the heavy-going music. And van Herpen needs to convey her ideas through the metaphor of the show as much as anything else, otherwise her incredible research and material processes will be lost in translation. This is where one of the great show producers could help marry it all—van Herpen should indeed make things slicker and yet that does not mean bowing to convention. Fashion doesn’t have to be about theatrics, but in this designer’s case the terrain of the catwalk needs to be terraformed, making things come to life as much in the mind of the audience as in the materiality of the clothing.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

Jo-Ann Furniss, via style.com

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Miu Miu Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 14:02:18 +0000

“Pleasure is our business,” declared Sigue Sigue Sputnik, or rather The Sputnik Corporation, for one of their fake ads on the debut album, Flaunt It (1986). The album was also interspersed with real ads for, among others, i-D magazine (“Once considered the most pretentious magazine in the world, now merely the best”) and St-St-Studio Line by Loréal (“Fixing gel, strong hold, be bold. Create your look”). This is what could be heard interspersed with some of Talking Heads’ greatest songs (“Once in a Lifetime,” “Memories Can’t Wait,” “Burning Down the House”…) as the cacophonous soundtrack for today’s terrific Miu Miu show, and it all added to the cheeky, sensory, consumerist overload of Miuccia Prada’s latest collection.

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

If that soundtrack sounds a little arch and postmodern, well, it was; it was also fantastic and fun, as was the latest Miu Miu offering. It provided clues to that little bit of disconcerting intent in this collection. As is often the case in Pradaland, there is always a drop of poison with the sugar-candy consumer desirability of this clothing—and that is what makes it all the more addictive, of course.

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

Today Prada decided to revel in fabricating the absolute fake—something better than the real thing. This wasn’t just a collection of animal prints and patterns, rich, dense, and delightful in plastic croco skirts and shifts, embossed artificial leopard print—all built in that old-fashioned, layered, ’50s way of fabrication—with thick tweed houndstooth-check coats and perverse backless pinafore dresses with big, white cartoon buttons. No, this collection also featured acres of real python in permutations so artificial in hue they looked plastic: You can have any color you like as long as it isn’t natural.

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

“Instinct? I like that word,” said Miuccia Prada after her show. For indeed, like all great designers, she is led by her instincts, and these were animal ones on display today. “I wanted to put things together in a naive way, not caring, always wrong, with that attitude of instinct. It started with the mutation of ostrich in Prada, the genetic modification, the idea of a new species.”

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

Eras were conflated—’50s-’60s-’70s-’80s-’90s-now—but it was a particular insane view of some sort of ’80s New Wave that came roaring through. Talking Heads’ Tina Weymouth might have been in a kind of crazed conversation with Lady Di in a valance yoked blouse, oversize flower jewelry, and globs of glitter and patent shoes. In anybody else’s hands this could have been a great, big mess, but in Prada’s it was postmodern perfection.

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

While postmodernism now seems rather a nostalgic concept, as Miuccia Prada proves, it is actually more relevant than ever. Except it has mutated and become even more so, even more post, because brands like Prada have embraced this worldview and unashamedly and knowingly run with it, making hyperreality the only reality. Today’s collection reveled in the postmodern, the hyperreal, and became the post-pop. And yet, as always in the fashion industry, in fakery there is honesty. Pleasure is our business, indeed—ultimately it is Miuccia Prada’s.

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

Jo-Ann Furniss, via style.com

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Valentino Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 14:03:47 +0000

A fashion face-off of epic proportions occurred in Paris today. Derek Zoolander and Hansel, aka Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, made cameos at the tail end of the Valentino show, each doing his best “Blue Steel.” Judging by the audience’s reaction, Zoolander 2, which is currently filming in Valentino’s home base of Rome, is going to be a Very. Big. Movie. But even without the crowd-pleasing surprise appearances, this would’ve been a memorable Valentino show, long on Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli’s signature dresses, but rendered in such exquisite new ways you fell in love all over again.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

More often than not, Chiuri and Piccioli go to their Italian origins for inspiration. For Fall they looked at Emilie Flöge and Celia Birtwell, two women who were both artists and muses (Flöge to Gustav Klimt, and Birtwell to her husband, the designer Ossie Clark, as well as the painter David Hockney). The new perspective energized them. Flöge, who was a couturier in her own right and rejected her era’s de rigueur corsets, gave the designers the collection’s gentle A-line silhouettes and the gold leaf effects on fox-fur coats, as well as lit-from-within quilted velvet coats. Birtwell, who is still alive and kicking and collaborated with Chiuri and Piccioli on their Pre-Fall collection, supplied the dragon motif that decorated a black trapeze dress.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

But there was much more at play here, from the casual new vibes of oversize fisherman knit sweaters worn with A-line midi skirts to the sensual efficiency of silk crepe dresses unadorned but for some subtle contrast piping. It’s a testament to Chiuri and Piccioli’s talents and experience that they’re as adept at an understated tie-neck blouse and wide-leg culottes, or an away-from-the-body black dress paneled in tonal strips of leather, as they are at their lovely eveningwear. Inevitably, though, it’s the gowns that get the attention. There were too many knockouts here to mention them all, so we’ll pick our favorite: a long-sleeve black net dress embroidered with gold and patchworked with geometric tufts of mink that could have stepped right out of a Klimt canvas.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Nicole Phalps, via style.com

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Chanel: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 09:30:23 +0000

It wasn’t exactly a love letter—Karl Lagerfeld is much too savvy for sentiment—but the Chanel collection he showed today was, he conceded, “a vision of France from a stranger who thinks France is not that bad.” He’s grown increasingly tired of the drip-drip-drip of cynical negativity, much of it from the French themselves. So you could almost construe Lagerfeld’s last three ready-to-wear collections for Chanel as an uncynical celebration of French banality: the supermarché, the manifestation (does a single day pass without a demonstration?), and now, the brasserie. The Brasserie Gabrielle, to be exact. The Grand Palais, the grandest exhibition space in le tout Paris, was turned into the kind of all-day, leather-banquette-ed winer-and-diner you can find on almost any street corner in Paris. Caveat: The space was simply too vast to communicate the errant charm of a real brasserie, even those as big as La Coupole, Balzar, and Bofinger, all places that Lagerfeld used to frequent when brasseries were crucibles of culture. (That was long before it became impossible for him to eat out, because of a selfie-crazed public that wouldn’t wait till he’d swallowed his food before they invaded his space.) So this was actually one occasion when the usual, fabulously grandiose concept for a Chanel show stumbled.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

But the original idea came from a place of love, so the stumble was easily overlooked. Especially because the collection itself was the strongest RTW showing from Chanel in a while. It had a sturdy base. The whole show was staged on a single style of shoe, a toe-capped, mid-heeled slingback—ringard in local parlance, because it is so bourgeois, but Lagerfeld loved the poise, the confidence, the ease of walking it gave his models. And that degree of comfort with bourgeois dress codes stabilized a collection that spiraled in a dozen directions. There were at least 97 looks—that’s a huge playground—but there was enough tweed to restore Chanel to its core.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

Imagine the press of humanity in a crowded Parisian brasserie, circa the era when Lagerfeld would have been patronizing such joints. There was that kind of diversity here. A look as straightforward as a tweed coat over a houndstooth skirt nailed an everyday fashion need. There were also solid blanket checks, named “the Donald” after the earnest Scotsman who wove them. Such folksy detail doesn’t really seem like a Lagerfeld thing, but that’s because the world doesn’t know everything about him.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

Although one thing it knows is his curiosity about the future…a Gattaca-styled projection, not freakazoid cybernetic but a subtle shift on the now. And that was delivered in this collection with an effect that looked like polyhedron scales. They will be the head-scratcher in this collection. What they actually were was a multitude of bows, a strange testament to Lagerfeld’s pursuit of an idea regardless of whether it is conventionally aesthetically pleasing or not.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

The brasserie scenario subtly leaked into appealing details, like a handbag that looked like piles of ceramic plates, a scarf-hemmed skirt on Jamie Bochert that looked like piles of fine linen napkins…. That’s how Lagerfeld textures his inspirations. And it’s going to be a revelation to see how the French media responds to them.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Saint Laurent Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 10:28:38 +0000

With Hedi Slimane, you’re either a true believer or you’re not. His vision for Saint Laurent, like his dresses, allows for virtually no wiggle room. There are still naysayers. But for every person who walks out complaining that it looks like Forever 21, as we overheard tonight, or that it never changes, there’s another person, usually younger (in reality or spirit), who is itching to be the Saint Laurent girl.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

This collection will doubtlessly prove as divisive as the rest. It started with a ceremonial rising of the catwalk. As the floor lifted, the audience got a view of flashing fluorescent lights and metal scaffolding. It looked like the underbelly of an arena stage, which made the models who strode out on top of it rock stars or rock-star groupies. Their mini crinis, cigarette pants with suspenders, and Siouxsie Sioux eye shadow placed us a few years further on from Slimane’s Sunset Strip-y Spring collection. More likely, the designer was merely picking up where his men’s show in January—the one he described as an homage to the young musicians of Paris—left off.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Slimane’s Saint Laurent woman has always had an edge, but this season she’s unapologetically a bad girl, wearing leather leggings with cutouts all the way up the thighs; a black leather dress slit up to her undies, assuming she’s even bothered to wear any; and ripped and shredded tights above black leather ankle boots. The shoes were killer, but those tights veered dangerously close to cliché. And they distracted from the fine workmanship (one of Slimane’s secret weapons) that defined a lot of what we saw tonight. Numbers like a black and gold polka-dot beaded one-sleeve cocktail dress or a strapless style crisscrossed with zippers, a tulle crumb catcher frilling out from the bust.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Alongside the haute stuff, of which there was more than ever, there were a good number of the kind of animal-print capes, navy peacoats, leather motorcycle jackets, and patchwork furs he’s been showing since his YSL beginnings two-and-a-half years ago, and that have been turning up with increasing frequency all over the crowds at fashion month and beyond. For a designer as disruptive as Slimane is, he sure sells a hell of a lot of merch. If some looks here were too familiar, even for his fans, there was also plenty to inspire lust in bad girls everywhere.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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Lanvin: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2015 17:11:57 +0000

This Sunday, an exhibition dedicated to Jeanne Lanvin opens at Paris’ Palais Galliera, and working on that retrospective made Alber Elbaz introspective. He started thinking about roots, his own birthplace, Casablanca, and everything that Morocco is capable of evoking. “It’s a country of contradictions,” he said. “So it was an interesting place to start a collection.” And even if Elbaz insisted that influences were just a tool, to be erased in the finished product, there was an undertow of the tribal Sahara in his collection: tassels and passementerie, Berber stripes, bracelets, leather harnesses and snakeskin yokes, the shagginess of goat hair, and the gleam of gold. Emotion, intuition…that’s where Elbaz was headed. “Fashion is a human story,” he insisted, “an industry that makes things with its hands. High tech stole the glamour of fashion.” Enter Alber Elbaz, the man to steal it back.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold /Indigitalimages.com

He certainly had the tools. In one of his strongest Lanvin collections so far, Elbaz painted a convincing portrait of a sophisticated adventuress, whose clothes were souvenirs of a life lived to the fullest. In the same way that the face was once a wonderful reflection of experience (before the age-denying blandishments of surgeons and their lackeys seduced the population), the designer wanted wrinkles: worsteds and raw edges and selvage and chiffon dipped in water to give it a little shrivel. The collection was a gorgeous symphony of hems.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold /Indigitalimages.com

Digging in the Lanvin archives, Elbaz found records of intarsia-ed furs made up of 4,000 pieces that took 250 hours to put together. He was gobsmacked by the intensity of that labor. “The essence of luxury,” he called it. And he tried to echo it with the densely embroidered flower pieces that closed the show. They were absolutely beautiful, but they weren’t perfect. That was the point. “Perfection always scares me,” said Elbaz. “When people say, ‘Everything is wonderful,’ I know something is wrong.”

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold /Indigitalimages.com

So imperfection trickled through the show as a supremely Elbaz-ian subtext. But if the show had a genuine common thread, it was the generous notion of wrapping. Again, a Moroccan-born inspiration—the dresses that were made for a bride on the night before her wedding, dresses that would be passed through generations and would therefore have to suit all sizes. Hence, wrapping. “I like the idea of being hugged by fashion,” Elbaz said. Edie Campbell closed the show in an enveloping cape, a single tassel hanging down its back. And if that knocked on the late Yves Saint Laurent’s door (a rat-a-tat-tat that cropped up elsewhere in the show), that was the umbilical connection of two creators born under the North African sun, endlessly reshaping primal memory in their collections.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold /Indigitalimages.com

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Darwinian Voodoo: New Collection

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2015 09:49:43 +0000

Darwinian Voodoo is a new pedigree lifestyle brand.

Darwinian Voodoo presents Apex Predator, its debut alpha collection to be exhibited in London and at the brand’s digital flagship store.
Apex Predator features male and female ceremonial attire customised with human hair, bones and eyes. Collection includes shoes, accessories and perfume laden with thousands of dentures.
Apex Predator – for the discerning client with a taste for power and exclusivity.

darwinianvoodoo.com

via darwinianvoodoo.com

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Balmain: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2015 14:06:54 +0000

Olivier Rousteing, child of the ’90s, was looking back at Paris in the ’70s this season. The era has a tight hold on designers at the moment. It might have something to do with the dueling YSL biopics released last year: The one that starred Gaspard Ulliel as a particularly dissipated Saint Laurent was pretty intoxicating. Rousteing mentioned YSL’s muse, Loulou de la Falaise, backstage, and he plucked prints from the Balmain archives from the period. The way he sees it, it was a particularly exotic time in Paris, full of exuberantly hued clothes. And it got his motor running.

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

On the runway this afternoon, violet, yellow, green, and black were color-blocked on jersey knit separates; orange and fuchsia came together on a wraparound blazer and enormous pleated palazzo pants; and a red and blue beaded fringe skirt was topped by an electric yellow belt. Like we said, exuberant! Rousteing applied the same more-is-more attitude to his silhouettes, which is where he ran into a serious snag. With good old Yves, there was an unmistakable lightness to the clothes. Here, the high-waisted flares, especially the plissé versions topped with extra-wide belts, tended to drown the supermodel bodies beneath them. Throw a duster coat on over the whole shebang and you’d never know there was a Victoria’s Secret Angel lurking underneath all the layers.

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

For the most part, Rousteing has done away with the embroidery that was the house signature when he arrived, but there hasn’t been the corresponding lightening up of the clothes that you’d expect. There were exceptions to that rule: a body-con dress in stretchy lace, a tailored velvet dress with a spill of ruffles below the waist, a minidress in color-blocked beaded fringe. Despite their finery, they had a slip-on-and-go simplicity that will make them popular on the party circuit. It’s no surprise that, at the dinner Rousteing threw at Lapérouse late this evening, Balmain frocks outnumbered Balmain flares 10-to-1.

Photo: Monica Feudi / Feudiguaineri.com

Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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Rick Owens: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 14:08:31 +0000

After a $4.4 million restoration, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House recently reopened to the public just under the Hollywood sign in Barnsdall Art Park. Rick Owens all but blushes to admit he knew nothing about the place while he was growing up in California, but now he’s playing catch-up, and Wright’s Mayan-influenced architecture has prompted him to get in touch with his own Mexican roots. Models walked with gold- and silver-foiled faces in his show today, Mayan masks made flesh.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

That was only one of the special effects that made this presentation so winning. Owens’ men’s show poked the bear with frontal nudity: That’s not the sort of thing you can do twice. Instead, Owens relied on sequins and frills for shock effect this time round. Of course, that is shocking only if your image of the designer is as the master of starkly avant-garde monumentalism. Something of that was still there in the substantial draping that defined the collection, but the sequins and “frills” of fur took Owens’ clothes somewhere new. Or maybe old. His love of old Hollywood has always infused his collections with a subtle—and often overlooked—glamour, like a limpid Steichen photograph of a silent movie star. Here, though, sequined sparkle and crystalline geometry (possibly Mayan-influenced) were inescapable as they combined to leaven the weight of the draping.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Owens has a particular soft spot for dusty biblical epics. Why, the very morning of his show, he was watching Cecil B. DeMille’s Sign of the Cross, a 1932 spectacular that featured the sequence, scandalous at the time, of Claudette Colbert bathing in “ass’ milk” (actually powdered milk that went bad so fast the smell made the actress ill). Know such details, and Owens’ unique aesthetic falls into place. But those floor-sweeping lengths, gathering dust like a prophet’s robes, were converted to aprons here, allowing for a leggy ease. And the lightness and glitter were practically glam rock by his definition. The last looks, paved with gold sequins, trailing gold fringes, were the most uplifting outfits Owens has ever shown. Given that he is the one designer who can legitimately utter the word “transcendence” without sounding like a pretentious prat, it was exhilarating to see his word made cloth.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Guy Laroche: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 14:28:39 +0000

The name Guy Laroche lingers as one of those slightly indefinable French couture houses that is most likely powered by its much more familiar fragrances, Fidji and Drakkar Noir. Which is not to say that Laroche didn’t have a distinct signature in the heyday of the label’s namesake. “He was very much of-the-moment,” said Adam Andrascik, the Central Saint Martins-trained young American who showed his first collection for Laroche today. “It’s my challenge to bring back that relevance.”

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

The route he chose was rock—a hard, deconstructed edge that, for all its tip of the cap to Guy’s signatures, such as open-backed tops and use of the shiny skin known as “paper leather,” went looking for relevance in much shadier places. One of Andrascik’s stated influences was The Pillow Book, Peter Greenaway’s cult movie from 1996 that revolved around the fetishistic power of body art in Japanese culture and the unabashed nudity of Ewan McGregor. For his own collections in London, Andrascik had leather jackets tattooed, an effect that was unfortunately unfeasible for Laroche. Even more unfortunately, the effect was duplicated today in a black-and-white tattoo print, overlaid with gold foil Japanese calligraphy.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

The foil effect worked much better when it was used to define sinuous knit dresses that were Andrascik’s most successful stab at relevance. The mesh overlay he applied to fitted jersey dresses also put a glint in the eye of the Guy Laroche renaissance. Still, the cumulative effect of panel-hemmed warrior skirts, dévoré velvets, and black lacquered lace was inevitably gothic, which probably wasn’t the effect the designer was after. But as an indication of his state of mind going into this formidable assignment, Andrascik did mention that one of the things that appealed to him most about The Pillow Book was the strangeness of two cultures fusing. “I’m a boy from Pittsburgh coming to Paris,” he mused. “I can relate.”

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Giorgio Armani: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 08:38:14 +0000

There is always a mini essay waiting on your seat at a Giorgio Armani show, an explanation of the whats and whys of the latest collection. But today there was nothing. Armani wanted his guests to come to their own conclusions. In 2015, the 40th anniversary of his business, we can probably expect to see more of this, more of the designer pleasing himself. There were a few clues in the wind—brushstrokes, the work of Marc Chagall—and the strongest part of the show was indeed a passage of evening pieces, swirling with “brushstrokes” of embroidery like a Chagall painting. They were beautiful. In fact, when Armani stuck to pants, the evening looks were the best in show, a myriad of sparkling jacket options.

Photo: Alessandro Garofalo / Indigitalimages.com

And there’s your conclusion. With four decades of design in mind, Armani was making a strong, simple statement that was completely in character: jackets and pants. After the show, he said simplicity with strength was often the toughest thing to pull off. But Armani knows this road better than anyone. If he indulged himself with some oddities—the waist-clinching cummerbunds, the free-floating collars, the pants that sprung a sarong wrap—he also played to his strengths with dozens of the fluid, gently curving, slightly cropped jackets that are signature pieces for him. And the rest: the double-breasted; the swingy A-line; the elongated, vaguely North African ones, all of them showing Armani’s mastery of muted, alluring blues, purples, and grays. The strength also came from new textures for him, like the big square paillettes of leather or suede that made up a couple of jackets, or the bouclé, the fringing, and fur.

Photo: Alessandro Garofalo / Indigitalimages.com

Armani starts work on his next collection tomorrow. Asked if he felt he had anything left to prove, he replied, “Do you think I have?” The question was the answer.

Photo: Alessandro Garofalo / Indigitalimages.com

Tim Blanks , via style.com

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Dolce & Gabbana Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Mon, 02 Mar 2015 08:47:03 +0000

If their men’s collection was a celebration of family, it made perfect sense that Dolce & Gabbana’s women’s show would focus on Mamma, the fulcrum of the family. And what a focus! There were 11 mums on stage with their children. That required a full nursery setup backstage. On the runway, three models walked with their own children (the sheer joy of one little girl to be out there doing it made the hardest hearts melt). And Dolce stalwart Bianca Balti catwalked with a huge bun in the oven. Viva La Mamma!

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

“She’s always there, she’s the person you can always call.” It’s just like Stefano Gabbana was saying: “Every man everywhere has a mother.” You could score all kinds of sociopolitical points off such a notion in the present headline-driven climate of male-dominated, life-denying madness, but Gabbana was much keener to make a point about fashion, which is often accused of being detached from the eternal verities: life, love, relationship with self and others. The positive message of the show—and the collection—was that everything we are is an extension of where we came from. One more time: Viva La Mamma. (Il Papà had his moment in the spotlight in January.)

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Tearing oneself away from the onstage baby-watching (it was impossible to ignore the little ones responding to the unholy stimuli of a gigantic fashion production), it was almost equally entertaining to see how Domenico and Stefano responded to the inspiration. There were prints (and embroideries) based on drawings by Domenico’s nieces and nephews that looked exactly like naughty kids had taken some crayons to Mum’s best dress. But those showpieces would likely exert less commercial appeal than a classic black dress or double-breasted skirtsuit with a black fox stole (hot mamma) or a simple rose-strewn shift (sweet mamma). The rose was everything to the collection, not just because it’s the flower you give your mother on Mother’s Day, but because Stefano’s favorite childhood memory of his own mother is the rose scent of her red lipstick. That’s why Dolce & Gabbana’s lipsticks are uniquely fragranced. Memory speaks loudest when it’s closest to home.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

The spectacle of infants paraded for the entertainment of adults is rarely edifying, but there was something so essentially good-hearted about this show—and so utterly persuasive with the patient participation of the actual mothers and their children—that those reservations would today have been the preserve of the churl. There was a crazy wit in play, too. A green, three-quarter-sleeved fur coat—a real lunch-at-Le Cirque piece—came with a matching tote sized for carrying nappies. Some models were wearing crystal-and-fur headphones, the contemporary crown of the modern queen.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Anyway, that’s Mother’s Day sorted for 2016. Come May 8 next year, Italian mums across the land will be forgoing red roses for a shiny black Dolce & Gabbana shopping bag.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Sibling: Autumn-Winter 2015

admin — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 14:09:15 +0000

FUNNILY enough for a label that’s known for its knitwear, that was not the lasting impression from the Sibling show this afternoon. Try latex, mohair, beading, brushed-cotton, sequins and plenty of anarchist attitude. While the looks were tame enough to start, they developed into full-on, look-but-don’t-touch fierce – made for the rebel that works in an office by day, then pours herself into the blackest of black wet-look spandex to get wild by night.

Photo by Indigital

The same sentiment transcended through the brand’s signature knits, with threadbare cardigans (strings flying in the model’s wake), chunky cable knits and tight ribbed pencil dresses with lashings of faux-fur trim. The rules for Sibling next season are: there are no rules.

Photo by Indigital

Scarlett Kilcooley-O’Halloran, via vogue.com

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Prada: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 13:58:34 +0000

Pale green and pale pink drinks, pale green and pale pink canapés, pale green and pale pink walls…you got the memo before the first look hit the catwalk. After a men’s show that was black as black, Prada went pastel for Fall. “Sweet…,” said Miuccia, “but violent. I wanted impact. How can you be strong with pastels?” The answer was to drench them in irony.

Photo: Monica Feudi / FeudiGuaineri.com

She had a couple of working titles for her new collection. “Softer pop” was self-explanatory, a riff on the color palette. But “variation on beauty” touched on a longtime fascination of Miuccia’s: the relationship between the real and the fake. Is beauty created by genetic modification or surgical intervention any less “real” than natural beauty? This show set out to address that issue from both ends of the spectrum. Some of the most appealing items in the collection were cut from ostrich, but equally, a molecular print that harked back to Prada’s good-/bad-taste glory days was actually an image of genetically modified ostrich. Tweeds came woven and printed. Music from Walt Disney’s Fantasia played, as a reminder that images of extreme beauty can spring from absolute artifice. In fact, there was something a bit cartoonish about the pieces cut from a hyper-smooth, spongy sci-fi fabric that most of us took for neoprene. It was actually a double-faced jersey. “I could do things with that fabric I couldn’t do with another fabric,” Miuccia enthused.

Photo: Monica Feudi / FeudiGuaineri.com

One thing she could definitely do was challenge convention in the sly, subversive way that has always been one of the most forceful arguments for Prada’s influence. The influence may have waned a little of late—sales have been off—but this show unfolded with the growing sensation that Miuccia was playing once more to her strengths, especially her ability to evoke, then upend, the familiar. What first made her famous, in other words. Opera gloves and fur stoles, brooches and bows, ponytails and kitten heels, Empire lines and pantsuits painted a picture of a Nixon-era debutante. The fact that the stole was abstracted into an attached strip of fur, or the brooches were cut from Perspex, or the gloves were all colors of leather, or the dresses and suits were molded from that peculiar fabric all added up to Prada’s Factor X, the acid Miuccia added to her pastel punch. We tripped.

Photo: Monica Feudi / FeudiGuaineri.com

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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No. 21: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 08:49:38 +0000

The latest No. 21 collection is impressive! Just check out the materials and the colors! We can’t wait for the next one, to see more of No. 21:

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

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McQ Alexander McQueen: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 09:35:27 +0000

It’s weird: When it came to the McQ by Alexander McQueen menswear collection for Fall ’15, the lack of brand-specific extravagance and histrionics seemed something to relish. Today in the womenswear, however, that absence left more of a meh-shaped hole. There is nothing to fault in the execution of a collection liberally sprinkled with great everyday pieces. Who doesn’t love a sweet biker, a painstakingly washed jean, a (soft) bad-girl snake-print chiffon vest? The McQ design team’s loose theme is collaging, hence the metallic-feels-rubbery patch on that scrummily soft Aran jumper and the collision of leopard print and biker. Ho hum.

Photo: Courtesy of McQ Alexander McQueen

Another angle was layering, which is why some looks had gauzily black chiffon aprons, which only half-encircled the legs, hanging here and there below. We saw the culottes that featured in the men’s collection, but here, without trousers worn under them. Illustrations on sweats and tees included surreal collages similar to those shown in Milan last month, as well as some attractive but thematically ungrounded Egyptian touched line illustrations. One strong point was the silvery-looking material used for minidresses and a coat: This was an extremely thin layer of cork that had been coated, a technique taken from shoemaking. The organic ripples and puckers of the cork beneath the sheen had a subtle but satisfying creepiness to them. This was a fine commercial collection of young womenswear, but it didn’t substitute the removed morbidity of its mother ship’s oddness with anything tangible enough to make you lust for it over the many equivalents on the market.

Photo: Courtesy of McQ Alexander McQueen

Luke Leitch, via style.com

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Gareth Pugh: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 08:40:41 +0000

Nothing of real value comes to us without real sacrifice. That primal notion was buzzing in Gareth Pugh’s head as he prepared the collection that marked his return to London after seven years showing elsewhere. Following his show, Pugh talked about his fascination with “the idea of sacrificing yourself to something bigger than you are.” Given the bleak, dramatic, ritualistic nature of his presentation, the conjecture was irresistible: Was he talking about his relationship with fashion itself? That has, after all, been somewhat conflicted of late. But no, he insisted the collection was optimistic, “part of something meaningful, being part of the game.”

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

In this case, the game meant not just fashion but an actual game, football, the most tribal ritual in British society. Coming home for Pugh induced a surge of nationalistic pride. His show began with a film by longtime collaborator Ruth Hogben, model Aymeline Valade (OK, she’s French, but she served her fierce purpose to a tee) slicing her long blond hair into a warrior crop, daubing her face and body with red in a crude St. George’s Cross. Just like Boudicca, the female warrior archetype, except she used blue woad. Red for Pugh meant love, war—and England. The models walked with faces painted in a red cross like football fans by Alex Box, their hair pulled back into a horse’s tail by Anthony Turner. Pugh gave them clothes that were scaled up for impact, and protection: black capes, face-framing funnel necks, a jacket and skirt that were as voluminous as a wrapped duvet, a Mongolian lamb coat in a silhouette-warping shag, flaring dresses that swept the floor. Their dark, grandiose volumes suggested magnificence for a lost cause: something One of the Other Four Nominees might wear to the Oscars. They were as stiff and unyielding as Pugh’s black leather breastplates.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

But there was also the kitchen-sink drollness (another intrinsically English quality) that has, in the past, seen Pugh turn garbage bags into ball gowns. Here, he used drinking straws to create intimidating, thorny carapaces. Picture fashion’s middle point between Shakespeare and Clive Barker. That was kind of where Pugh started 10 years ago, and this collection was his way of going back there, giving himself, as he said, “a kick in the backside.” And not just himself—when his bare-breasted warrior queen stormed down the catwalk at show’s end brandishing a huge red flag, it was fashion itself that got a bit of a boot, too.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Vivienne Westwood Red Label: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 09:10:38 +0000

Dame Vivienne Westwood puts the drama into costume so reliably that her histrionic styling and agitprop proselytizing—this time for the Green Party—should come as a given. Also to be expected are agenda-led accessories (“Get a life,” it said on the straps of wrist-slung bags) and ironically saccharine touches (aw, a BuzzFeed-cute kitty-cat tote). There will always be a wink of overt come-hither (a shoulder strap unpeeled like a half-started banana) and an angry jangle of punky hardness (cuffed necks and unkempt hair nooses tied by skull-chain earrings).

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

What’s really stimulating about Dame Vivienne, though, is the conservative (don’t worry: small C) stuff, because she understands the interaction of drape and ruche with the feminine body more intimately than any other working designer (although Galliano runs her quite close). Look 39, seemingly quiet-ish after all the fireworks before it, was this Red Label collection’s apotheosis: no fury, just shape and suggestive ripple. The top half of look 5—best to ignore the oversize diapers that cursed a few looks—cast this spell almost as powerfully. Even though Westwood’s husband and creative partner, Andreas Kronthaler, wasn’t around for the bow, another highlight was the riff on his menswear collection of mismatched tailoring, expressed here in partisan tartans and magnified chalk stripes.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold / Indigitalimages.com

Luke Leitch, via style.com

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Marc Jacobs: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 10:25:42 +0000

It’s been over a year now since Marc Jacobs left his post at Louis Vuitton. Good breakup or bad, splitting up is hard, and it sort of showed in his last two collections for his own label. Both last Fall’s offering, over which Jessica Lange intoned unconvincingly that “happy days are here again,” and the all-army green lineup he presented for Spring felt not exactly dour, but definitely melancholic. Tonight’s show was something very different, with a Stefan Beckman-designed backdrop inspired by Jeremiah Goodman’s painting of Diana Vreeland’s sitting room and a bone-rattling loud soundtrack lifted from Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, both of which fairly screamed, “I’m back!”

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

The clothes lived up to the advance billing. From the relatively quiet start of Erin O’Connor’s almost-black checked sheath with four wide bands of bugle beads below the waist, the collection built and built. It touched on metallic brocades and leopard print, chevroned mink, grommeted leather, nailhead studded silk, and embroideries that looked like digitized and pixelated portraits of the eccentric Vreeland. “She was a genius,” Jacobs said of the legendary Vogue editor backstage. “She got the whole fashion thing: being decisive, being so excitable, and then being as passionate and dismissive about the very same thing the next day.” Jacobs read her Memos book while he was working on the Fall collection; the surprise is that he hasn’t made a muse of Vreeland before. “I felt like that’s what fashion is,” he continued, “that complete addiction, obsession, that I’ve-got-to-have-it need until I basically wouldn’t be caught dead in it.”

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Over the years, Jacobs has produced that obsessive feeling in fashion lovers more reliably than most. As the models paraded by in their polished patent leather boots, you could tick off the looks that will get his fans’ blood pumping, from the snake-print coats with jet embroidery to the long, straight column dresses that felt spare despite their swirls of sequins. Will the floor-scraping pleated skirts and the mutton-sleeve jackets that could’ve walked off the set of The Knick make a comeback? Hard to say. They’re definitely not where fashion’s collective unconscious is in early 2015. But who knows? To borrow a quote from the famously quotable Vreeland, Jacobs may just have given us what we never knew we wanted.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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Yves Saint Laurent: Style is Eternal Exhibition

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 08:54:53 +0000

The Bowes Museum and the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent are collaborating to create Yves Saint Laurent: Style is Eternal, the first exhibition in the UK to present a comprehensive display of the French fashion designer’s work and life. The YSL show will highlight the defining elements of his vision, and the significant influence it has had on fashion and the way we understand womenswear.

Photo © Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent / Alexandre Guirkinger

“Fashion fades, style is eternal” Yves Saint Laurent once said. Articulating this idea, the exhibition will present fifty garments including some iconic pieces from the Russian Collection, the Mondrian dresses and the Tuxedo. The show will also open up a dialogue with The Bowes Museum’s collection, creating a unique sense of narrative around the history of fashion. It will inhabit much of the Museum’s first floor, including the award-winning Fashion & Textiles Gallery, which has hosted high profile fashion exhibitions such as Vivienne Westwood Shoes, Stephen Jones Hats, Henry Poole & Co Tailoring, a retrospective of Laura Ashley and most recently ‘Birds of Paradise: Plumes & Feathers in Fashion’.

Photo © Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent / Alexandre Guirkinger

via thebowesmuseum.org.uk

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Proenza Schouler: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:04:37 +0000

It all felt perfect. We were at the Whitney for Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough’s Proenza Schouler show. The museum is empty at the moment— awaiting the Metropolitan’s first show there in 2016 now that the Whitney is relocating to the bottom end of the High Line. Still, how exactly did they swing it? “Friends of friends of friends,” according to Hernandez. He and McCollough said they were looking at the work of the New York School artists for Fall. They name-checked the Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler and the minimalist sculptor Robert Morris. There was an off-the-shoulder top and matching midi skirt made from needle-punched crimson chiffon that looked like it’d been taken to with a black paint roller, and there were thick felt suits and coats with heavy, twisty lapel appendages.

Photo: Monica Feudi / feudiguaineri.com

Alongside Frankenthaler’s drippy canvases and Morris’ voluptuous wall hangings, the other muses of this collection were the fur coat-wearing creatures Hernandez and McCollough saw in photographs of late 1940s-era art openings. They were the inspiration behind otherwise straightforward dresses with mohawks of multicolored fox outlining the shoulders, and the eyeleted chiffon finale dresses with more of that fuzzy fringe that lit up Instagram afterward with captions ranging from “Vegas showgirls” to “Mad Max” to “warrior princesses from outer space.”

Photo: Monica Feudi / feudiguaineri.com

The designers’ work over the last few years has felt very process-oriented, you can see the hand in the clothes, but this was their most technically ambitious collection yet. Knit dresses were slashed at various places on the midriff, and evening dresses that swirled around the body leaving wide swaths of it uncovered were densely embroidered with sequins. The seamstresses who stitched them kept a count: All told, more than 300,000 were used. All of this was set against thick black fishnet stockings and stacked-heel mules adorned with piles of plastic fringe. No doubt about it, Hernandez and McCollough took chances with this collection. Where there’s no risk there’s no reward, but a lot of the time their experimental materials ended up feeling awkward or heavy. The audience tonight, starved of genuine experimentation in New York, will be in raptures about this show, but Hernandez and McCollough should look beyond their acolytes and examine who their customer at retail really is. The best things here were those art gallery dresses. They’ll look great at the Whitney’s grand opening in May.

Photo: Monica Feudi / feudiguaineri.com

Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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Marchesa: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 09:24:45 +0000

It feels very Old World to host a runway show at a hotel, and the opulence of the St. Regis’ connected rooms befitted Marchesa’s voluptuous, heady Fall collection. “It’s decadent and hedonistic,” Georgina Chapman said backstage before the models walked. She and co-designer Keren Craig—who also happened to have been appointed brand ambassadors to the luxury hotel chain last November—were thinking of an opium dream, and poppies were well represented throughout. Flowers made of sheared feathers decorated an A-line gown; red faille silk was draped into a giant bloom on the front of the collection’s most promising red-carpet contender.

Photo: Stefano Massè / Indigitalimages.com

“It’s sexier for us this season,” said Craig. Revealing tabards—a sort of smock—were worn with trousers, and several of the gowns featured nearly scandalous sheer bits, like the strips of open-weave macramé curving down the front of a beaded and pleated black tulle number. The models’ hair was “very Gatsby,” as Craig put it, and that ’20s influence could also be felt in the duo’s use of copious amounts of fringe. The trimming was most successful when it was least expected, as on an embroidered and beaded ivory tee, its silver threads gliding over a pleated organza skirt. A tuxedo-inspired cocktail dress was the better for its tassels, too.

Photo: Stefano Massè / Indigitalimages.com

The 3-D florals—something of a Marchesa signature—also worked best in less obvious ways, like the previously mentioned giant-bloom gown. On the other hand, the opening look—a black fringe column with the shoulders covered in red poppies—felt a little overdone, as did the explosion of flowers on a tank that was paired with a matching red skirt. All in all, though, it was a strong effort, each look cutting through that imagined cloud of opium smoke.

Photo: Stefano Massè / Indigitalimages.com

Lauren Sherman, via style.com

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Oscar de la Renta: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 09:28:00 +0000

Tonight was the night. Peter Copping, Oscar de la Renta’s handpicked successor, made his runway debut. On one side of the catwalk arrayed to the left and right of Oscar’s widow, Annette, were dames like Barbara Walters, Nancy Kissinger, Mica Ertegun, and Anne Bass—honest to goodness buy-a-dress socialites as opposed to the borrow-a-dress socialites fashion manufactures for the front row nowadays. On the other side were BFFs Taylor Swift and Oscar favorite Karlie Kloss wearing coordinated, colorful frocks and attracting the eyes of everyone in the room. The symbolism was potent. The brand’s past and its future gathered together to witness the changing of the guard and to pass judgment.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

De la Renta and Copping were to have worked side by side, but de la Renta’s death, just days after Copping was appointed last October, prevented that. Copping left a type-written note on each seat: “I am immensely proud to have been chosen as the creative director of Oscar de la Renta,” he began. “Unfortunately things did not go according to our plans and I never had the chance to work with Oscar, which is something I deeply regret.” Instead of learning by doing, Copping leaned on people who had worked with the late designer: his longtime sales director Boaz Mazor, former team member Carolyne Roehm. “We shared a lot of common territory,” Copping said at a preview. “The sort of woman we appreciate, and going beyond that, gardens, homes, all of that sort of thing: We speak the same language.” The stylist Alex White, whom Copping worked with during his five years at Nina Ricci, happened to have styled de la Renta’s shows for a handful of seasons. She provided a helpful bit of continuity, as well.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Still, the pressure on Copping is immense. In his early days on the job he witnessed an enormous outpouring of emotion—not to mention media attention—at the passing of de la Renta, who was a larger-than-life personality and an icon well known from Hollywood to Capitol Hill. On top of that, Copping had just three months to put together the collection, significantly less time than he’s used to. Those challenges aside, he did a fine job honoring de la Renta and the house that he has inherited. Nina Ricci, Copping’s previous house, shares the same feminine codes as his new home, and that worked to his advantage. The coatdresses and skirtsuits that he opened with were as elegant as those of his predecessor, and as luxurious.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

But the collection didn’t feel overly reverent. Copping has watched enough revivals in Paris to know that the past can only take you so far. He infused the evening pieces with a certain youthfulness by using unlined lace for bodices, and working on new necklines. Some of the grander ball gowns could’ve used more fine-tuning. But if the fit on those numbers wasn’t quite as finessed as longtime Oscar followers remember, Copping demonstrated his deft sense of color—midnight blue and violet, chartreuse and bordeaux—and a special eye for detail. An ivory column with black embroidered flowers was exquisite, all the more so when it walked by and you got a look at the deep lace inset in back. There was a lot of poise in that gown. All things considered, this was a graceful start.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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Thom Browne: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 09:09:32 +0000

Here is the much-awaited collection from Thom Browne. It is all about the black, once again, with a little touch of white at the end. Check it out:

Photo: Stefano Masse / Indigitalimages.com

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Alexander Wang: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 08:51:02 +0000

Fashion history is scattered with collections devoted to the shade of black. Marc Jacobs’ Louis Vuitton swan song comes to mind; so does a vintage Comme des Garçons show circa Fall 1992. There are many others. Tonight it was Alexander Wang’s turn. Explaining his motivation at his studio yesterday, Wang said, “Our customer wants black, so why not do an all-black collection?”

To hear a designer mention his customers, like Wang did, is rarer than it probably should be. It was certainly refreshing. But there’s at least one good reason not to do all-black clothes. Black can look flat on the runway, and even flatter in runway pictures. Wang knew he’d have to juice it to make it work. Which must have been what got him thinking about the many subcultures for whom black is a way of life. Goths, Japanese Lolitas, heavy-metal hair bands. He gave Marilyn Manson and Kiss specific shout-outs, and you could see them both in the models’ slicked, spiky ‘dos and in their Frankenstein boots. Attitude for days.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Generally speaking, the clothes were less extreme than the styling, though not without an edge. Wang gave the pieces energy by loading them up with hardware. Ball-chain trim decorated the velvet revers of a tuxedo jacket and a silk jacquard robe, and lined the curving seams of willowy sleeveless dresses with cutouts at the shoulders. Three columns of silver snaps marched across boxy jackets, and there was the occasional wallet chain attached to the waistband of cropped trousers. Quilted vests were modeled after bulletproof ones, but they’d shed any menacing undertones. Kendall Jenner’s fitted top and long, fluid skirt trimmed with chain fringe at the hem counted as the most romantic evening look of Wang’s career.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

Partly because there was so much black, fisherman sweaters with the same ball-chain detail and flocked blue jeans really stood out. Ditto a hunter jacket in a grungy red and black plaid. The stars of the show were the MA-1 jacket and fur-trimmed parka made from a silvery 90 percent metal nylon. They’ll connect with shoppers in a way the sheer chain mail dresses worn underneath—as fabulously kinky as they were—never could. All in all, and aside from those Frankenstein boots, this looked like the most retail-friendly collection Wang has done in a while. The customer really is always right.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com

via Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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VFiles Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear

admin — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 09:13:52 +0000

The day before the VFiles show, which is emerging as a solid platform for fresh talent, Italo Zucchelli was in an especially upbeat mood. This is the third season out of four that the design director of Calvin Klein menswear has acted as mentor for the group of hopefuls, first winnowed down by VFiles’ online community. “I can see that it’s very, very exciting for the designers,” he enthused. “They’re having so much fun. I’m having fun, too. I’m even Instagramming.” Would he consider hiring one of the young’uns at Calvin Klein men’s? “If I see that there is an aesthetic link, absolutely, yes!” How’s that for motivation?

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

The night of the show, the various tribes and factions under the VFiles umbrella came together in fine form, perhaps owing to the venue, Lincoln Center, and the sense of calm propriety it emanates. An understated Kesha and entourage quietly took their seats, Lea DeLaria (Orange Is the New Black) provided comic relief in hushed tones for her crew, and Brooklyn-based music producer A-Trak assumed the deejay booth. A preemptive moment of excitement erupted as some impromptu break-dancing broke out in the front row, but it was shushed by fellow onlookers as the lights went up and the show began.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Then a smattering of bright young misfits, dressed in VFiles’ sporty in-house line (available on its website after the show), zipped around the runway on scooters, their initial pouts soon giving way to ruddy-faced grins. They were followed by the four mini-collections. First up was Julia Seemann, who, now based in Zurich, formerly interned with Vivienne Westwood in London. That her models struggled in their high heels only added to the endearing charm of her futuristic hippie chicks, with their full denim skirts and floppy-hats-cum-visors.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Next, Andrea Jiapei Li, a native of Beijing and a recent Parsons graduate, fused loose garments recalling traditional Chinese dress with extreme geometric shapes, and soft cotton jersey with hard vinyl, because, she said, “I wanted to give emotion to fabric.” The only men’s designer, Ximon Lee, another Parsons grad, said he was inspired by the Oscar-nominated Polish documentary Children of the Leningradsky, about a post-Soviet band of orphaned street kids who call Moscow’s railway stations home. His models, however, looked more ennobled than the synopsis would suggest, projecting strength and fortitude in great abstracted, oversize, ombré-dyed pieces and carrying foam mats as accessories.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Finally, it was time for Di$count Univer$e, an Australian label popular among musicians. It lived up to its customized spelling with a cheeky, flashy, spangle-y assortment of slinky sequin dresses and biker jackets worthy of whatever spectacle the wearer might have in mind—even if it’s just trotting around a fluffy white poodle, the kind that drolly closed the collection. Afterward, VFiles’ founder Julie-Anne Quay was as chipper as Italo Zucchelli had been the day before. “The kids are so brave,” she raved. “They’re getting smarter and more confident. They’re really shaking things up. I’m so proud of them.” The kids, it would seem, are more than all right.

Photo: Gianni Pucci / Indigitalimages.com

Lee Carter, via style.com

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Marc Jacobs x Zana Bayne for Valentines Day 2015

admin — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 15:03:33 +0000

Zana Bayne began her namesake brand in NYC with her debut handcrafted leather collection in 2010. She moved to NYC and made it her permanent residence in 2009 where she began developing her leather accessories and harnesses after graduating with a BFA in Conceptual Art from San Francisco Art Institute and having lived in Berlin for some time. What initially began as a project requiring Bayne to single-handedly create leatherworks out of her apartment has quickly grown into a brand which is produced by a team in Manhattan’s “Garment District”. Throughout the company’s growth, Zana Bayne has remained a fiercely independent female designer.

photo Todd Pendu

Zana Bayne’s designs are known for their quality and artisanship as much as for their shapes and how they play on the lines of the body. Her signature and defined hourglass silhouette evokes a sense of refinement accentuating the style of the individual wearer. The Originals Collection was first introduced in 2010 with its unique high-end take on S&M-inspired aesthetics. The brand has since expanded into glamorous seasonal and permanent collections of ornate and embellished leather works including skirts, bustiers, bras, and belts along with a Men’s collection and a complete line of handbags.

photo Todd Pendu

Photo: Courtesy of Zana Bayne

via zanabayne.com

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Gareth Pugh x Melissa Exhibition

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 09:11:51 +0000

British designer Gareth Pugh has joined forces with footwear brand Melissa to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his eponymous label, with a retrospective of his iconic works in the store’s basement gallery. The retrospective marks the first installation in the footwear brand’s gallery space, Galeria Melissa, and will remain there until the end of May 2015.

photo wgsn.com

Based in a dark black room, the monochromatic setting holds 6-8 of Pugh’s best archive looks, including pieces worn by Lady Gaga and Beyonce, all styled with Melissa shoes, in addition to the iconic Melissa x Gareth Pugh Ascension heel. Running alongside the exhibit is exclusive footage of Pugh’s work directed by filmmaker Ruth Hogben. Pugh shows at London Fashion Week this month for the first time in seven years.

photo wgsn.com

photo wallpaper.com

Emily Cater, via wgsn.com

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Last Day to Visit Olfactory Art Exhibition in Madrid

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 14:42:57 +0000

There is not much to see, but definitely a lot to sniff at the olfactory art exhibition ‘The Art of Scent 1889 — 2014’, hosted by the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Spain. Curated by Chandler Burr, former perfume critic at The New York Times, the exhibition is an updated version of a previous exhibition that was presented in the New York Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in 2012. Like its predecessor, it presents perfume makers as artists, placing their olfactory works on the same level as creations of art, literature and music.

The design of the exhibition layout was commissioned to Cano Estudio, a Madrid-based creative agency known for its work with large luxury brands, which created a blank, white space that appears to be completely empty — at least for art-exhibition standards! The idea was of course to give as little visual stimulus as possible, and bring attention to ‘‘the least popular of the senses, olfaction’’. Jesús Cano, the designer responsible for the the display, explains the rationale behind the exhibition design: ‘‘We sought to create a space that intrinsically invited visitors to lower their voices, breathe deep and for a few moments, disconnect from the outside world. The goal was to create a relaxing atmosphere to discover the perfume. Perfume in its purest state. Without decorations. That is, without containers or packaging. Simply, aroma, mind and feeling.’’ Cano Estudio is also responsible for the graphic image of the exhibition, as well as the design of the catalogue that accompanies it.

In addition, this exhibition also reveals the relationship of each perfume with emblematic works of art history: with a QR code, it is possible to discover works of visual art which, just like the perfumes ‘on display’, were icons of their time. The exhibition presents a total of eight artistic trends within the field of olfactory arts:

Romanticism: Jicky by Aimé Guerlain for Guerlain.
Modernism: Chanel No5 by Enest Beaux for Chanel.
Surrealism: Angel by Olivier Cresp for Thierry Mugler.
Neo-Romanticism: Prada Amber by Carlos Benaïm, Max Gavarry and Clément Gavarry for Prada.
Photorealism: Eau de Lierre by Fabrice Pellegrin for Diptyque.
Figurative contemporary: J’adore L’Absolu by François Demachy for Dior.
Neoclassicism: Aqua Universalis by Francis Kurkdjian for Maison Francis Kurkdjian.
20th century retro: Aura by Emilio Valeros for Loewe.

via www.yatzer.com

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Atelier Versace: Spring 2015 Couture

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 14:06:45 +0000

Jessica Chastain, Amy Adams, Jane Fonda, Kate Hudson—no other designer dressed as many boldfacers as Donatella Versace did at the Golden Globes. If tonight’s Atelier Versace show is anything to go on, DV may score even more red carpet time at the Grammys two Sundays from now. The idea this season, as she put it, was “to go back to the shape of a woman’s body, which is curvy.” There wasn’t a straight line to be found, not on the terrific black tailleurs that opened the show, nor on a trio of the youthful emoji-embroidered minidresses worn with matching knee-high boots, and definitely not on the evening dresses with their swirling arabesque insets of nude mesh.

photo Kim WestonArnold

The color palette was a bracing mix of black, white, red, and royal blue. And to start, at least, the clothes were remarkably unadorned by couture standards. There wasn’t a single bead until look 14. That meant cut and fit had to count. Versace’s experiments with a new, more generous volume—seen on dirndl-style skirts and on a dress with a shorter-in-front and longer-in-back hem—didn’t quite gel. She’s much more in her element with a body-hugging silhouette. And hug these clothes certainly did. Think Cher in her Oscar-winning days with an aerodynamic dash of Olympic ice-skater thrown in. The best numbers in this hit-and-miss collection were the most discreet: those black suits with the asymmetrical portrait necklines; one-shoulder jumpsuits with a slit up a flared leg; a gracefully clingy one-sleeve white gown.

photo Kim WestonArnold

Versace made up for the collection’s early absence of beading as the show continued with a jet-embroidered dress so glossy it looked painted on, and a somewhat clunkier rubberized lace halter gown. By the end, Eva Herzigova and Amber Valletta’s numbers were more cutout than they were dress. Apart from Kate Hudson, who sat in the front row with mama Goldie Hawn, Hollywood types may look askance at going nearly nude to a big awards show, or anywhere else. The music crowd is a much more freewheeling bunch: They’re on a wavelength that Donatella is utterly attuned to. We expect to see multiple Atelier Versace gowns on February 8.

photo Kim WestonArnold

Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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Giambattista Valli: Spring 2015 Couture

admin — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 07:10:57 +0000

Impossible Conversations, the Metropolitan Museum’s “dialogue” between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, inspired Giambattista Valli to create an impossible conversation of his own between Coco Chanel and Janis Joplin. The fact that neither woman was particularly happy was less relevant to Valli than the free-spirited independence they expressed in their personal style: Coco with her little jackets influenced by menswear, Janis with her iconoclastic layering of cocktail dresses over pants. From such glimmers was the acid-pastel fantasia of Valli’s collection born.

photo Yannis Vlamos

A thick, floral-patterned carpet was intended to suggest an Italian garden, while overhead, mirrors floated like silvery clouds. The abstract modernity of this environment pointed to the side of Valli’s design personality that favors edgy elegance: a silk faille top and pants, say, or the Infanta-silhouetted caped top, also in faille, with its scattering of floral embroidery and matching pants. An embroidered silk tunic and pants embodied the Janis side of the Impossible Conversation. He swathed them in an ocean of foaming tulle, an effervescent touch that made it easy to imagine the young loyalists who pack his front row gravitating toward such looks.

photo Yannis Vlamos

But Valli also swung to the other extreme: ruffled shoulders, voluminous silk cloqué skirts, and fur capes colored him as a bastion of couture conservatism. That part of Valli’s Impossible Conversation didn’t have the same effervescence.

photo Yannis Vlamos

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Viktor and Rolf: Spring 2015 Couture

admin — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:00:59 +0000

Every look in Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren’s haute couture collection originated from the same three elements: a floral-print baby-doll dress with smocked detailing, a pair of flip-flops, and a straw hat. But the duo did not so much explore this country-gal typology as mutate, amplify, and explode it. So outsize was this feat—a slo-mo Flowerbomb, to borrow from their best-selling fragrance—that before the show even began, three dresses had been purchased by the art collector and patron Han Nefkens, who will donate them to Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. To be sure, they will look better in an exhibition than on the red carpet.

photo by Kim Weston Arnold

The designers worked with Vlisco, a Dutch company dating back to 1846 that specializes in batik-style, wax-dyed, and block-printed textiles widely popular in West and Central Africa. The opening version of the A-line dress, propped up by an exaggerated petticoat of silk organza, appeared like a coloring book—unfilled and outlined in inky blue. With this baseline established, each subsequent surrealist creation materialized into a hallucination of dimension and color: Flower cutouts with knotted stamens lifted from the fabric in voluminous clusters, while other flowers drifted off the dresses entirely, extending upward until they were supported by the headgear. Even the indigo outlines turned 3-D, dangling off the hems as embroidery. All the while, straw sheaves stretched the width of the runway thanks to carbon fiber reinforcements, forcing the models to sidestep past one another in a dance-like acknowledgment of this madcap moment.

photo by Kim Weston Arnold

But rather than whimsy—Chanel’s greenhouse of mechanical flowers and futuristic incrustations ticked that box yesterday—the designers steered the mood toward madness, scoring their somber parade with a remix of that haunting “la la la la” from Rosemary’s Baby. They mentioned being struck by the “raw energy” of van Gogh’s landscapes, citing his quote: “I put my heart and my soul into my work and have lost my mind in the process.” Ah, yes, the struggle of any creative person well aware that memorable output does not result from apathy. But as the collection implied, one does not go from zero to unhinged in a heartbeat: It was the degrees in between that gave this undertaking such depth.

photo by Kim Weston Arnold

Amy Verner, via style.com

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Valentino: Spring 2015 Couture

admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:04:39 +0000

Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli are in the mood for love. Their inspiration board was lined with quotes from Shakespeare, bits and pieces of Dante’s Inferno, and the paintings of Marc Chagall, hopeless romantics all. Chagall, in particular, captivated them. “He had an incredible life, very hard, but he maintained his optimistic vision,” Piccioli said. The painter’s Russian ancestry provided a leitmotif for the embellishments that are so central to the designers’ aesthetic. There were leather flowers appliquéd to rough-hewn linen, naive needlepoint embroideries on long pinafores worn over smocked shirts, and a shearling vest densely decorated with leather paillettes. The Russian pieces were far from humble, but their craftiness pointed to the differences between Chiuri and Piccioli’s version of the brand and that of its founder. In this case, at least, they wanted for a touch of Valentino’s glamour.

photo Yannis Vlamos

“In some ways, you are flying when you are in love,” Chiuri said, apropos of a pair of tulle gowns, one embroidered with rainbows and the other with clouds of silver lamé. It was a beautiful sentiment, and we commend her for expressing herself so earnestly. Sincerity of Chiuri’s kind is a true rarity in this business. Nonetheless, the clothes were best when they weren’t wearing their heart on their sleeve. A velvet dress straight out of fair Verona in a luminous shade of light blue was striking in its simplicity. Its sisters, a caftan shape in quilted red velvet and a strappy black velvet style with a bodice in the shape of wings, were the show’s undisputed highlights—sophisticated, rich-looking, and grown-up. The gown with the molten gold bodice will surely be another favorite. Its skirt is stitched with a line from Dante’s Inferno, which is fitting. A girl would go to hell and back to get her hands on it.

photo Yannis Vlamos

Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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Ulyana Sergeenko: Spring 2015 Couture

admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 14:56:49 +0000

After five seasons on the haute couture runway, Ulyana Sergeenko presented her new collection in a salon at Le Bristol hotel today. The optics of the situation weren’t so hot: Untrained Russian ingenue makes a big, expensive splash complete with an endorsement from model Natalia Vodianova, only to be forced to downsize a couple of years later. That said, the one-on-one appointment is probably how Sergeenko, whose design experience is in inverse proportion to her ambition, should’ve gotten her brand off the ground in the first place. If there’s a bright spot in Russia’s ruble crisis for her, it’s that she’s found a setup that suits not just her fledgling business but also her aesthetic.

photo courtesy of Ulyana Sergeenko

Sergeenko likes to reference specific eras of Russian history. She’s an ambassador not just for her country but also for its traditions, employing upward of 100 people whose handwork is often native to the region. This season, she explained, she chose Russian neighbors Georgia and Armenia as points of departure. True to form, the embellishments were exquisite, and at times mind-numbingly minute. Crisscross stripes on a pale blue dress weren’t printed but embroidered with narrow bands of tulle hand-stitched in place, ironed, and accented at the intersections with tiny crystals. In some cases the fabric of a garment itself was embroidered all over. Why make tiny white stitches by the thousand when selecting a piece of white silk might do? Why not?

photo courtesy of Ulyana Sergeenko

The attention to detail was impressive, but more than that, Sergeenko has eased some of the beginner’s excesses out of her system. The best pieces—a strapless waffle silk dress with an emerald green velvet lining at the scalloped hem, an unstructured midnight blue frock with a draped cutout at the midriff and a pair of high slits—didn’t verge into costume territory but retained a strong sense of place.

photo courtesy of Ulyana Sergeenko

Nicole Phelps, via style.com

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Thom Browne: Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 10:04:39 +0000

Next week, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum in New York shuts down its current exhibition, Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire. After Thom Browne read about the show, he wouldn’t let himself see it. The title was inspiration enough. And he didn’t want anyone from his atelier to go, either—no preconceptions as they all approached the new collection.

For Browne, the concept of mourning conveyed something beautiful, romantic, rich. “I had a notion of how there is respect for people who have passed,” he said after tonight’s theatrical performance. So he came up with a scenario about a character named Michael, a self-contained individual who lives and dies in complete harmony with himself, and is then honored in death by his friends and relatives.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold

Bizarre? Macabre? This was a Thom Browne show. How could we expect anything more or less? We watched patiently as a white-clad Michael (best imagine him played by Anthony Perkins) rose from his bed, went about a minimal routine—suggestive, at least to this mind, of preparation for suicide—changed into a black suit, converted his pristine white surroundings to black, reversing even his pillow and duvet, then got back into bed…and died. Now the mourners arrived: the lawyer, the doctor, the siblings, the ex-lovers, the dowager aunts, the undertakers—who knows how many more? Handel’s Sarabande provided a mournful soundtrack. Fashion’s ADD pulse slowed to a standstill. Did I mention patience?

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold

It’s true that death inspired reactions different to our own in the not-so-distant past. It was that spirit that Browne sought. “I didn’t want it to be sad, or too deep,” he said. That’s why preppy icons—the whale, the turtle—appeared to leaven the funereal proceedings. And, this being a fashion show after all, there were plenty of clothes that had applications above and beyond the morbid tableau unfolding in front of us. A black leather car coat? A fur-trimmed peacoat? An exceptionally glamorous jacket in what looked like glazed python? There was also Browne’s customary, exhaustive catalog of jacket and coat options, in an ingenious combination of masculine and feminine fabrics. The fact that they were all shown in black undoubtedly would have enhanced our appreciation of their cuts if we hadn’t been so distanced from them.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold

There is surely significance in the fact that Rei Kawakubo and Thom Browne opted for such ceremonial presentations in the same season (and Walter Van Beirendonck and Craig Green, come to think of it). If fashion is a mirror, it has, overall, been dark throughout the European menswear shows, reflecting the world in which the shows have been taking place. The fact that Browne all but brought the calendar to a close in Paris with a funeral made the point even stronger. As usual, he contested the suggestion of a bigger picture. Romance, richness—these were his tentpoles. But he closed his show with a rain of black ash.

Photo: Kim Weston Arnold

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Comme des Garcons: Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:18:59 +0000

A Comme des Garçons show can often seem like an arcane ritual, whose meaning is ever so slightly out of reach. For her menswear show today, Rei Kawakubo might have been deliberately courting the notion of secret ceremonies. The scene was set by Frederic Sanchez’s standout soundtrack, which mixed the eerie liturgical drone of Jocelyn Pook’s music for the masked ball sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut with the electronica of Italian musician Alessandro Cortini. The clothes were a similar blend of the disciplined and the unhinged, a florid second skin designed by tattoo artist Joseph Ari Aloi, aka JK5, underpinning conservative suitings that had been sliced and reconstituted on the diagonal to create the vertiginous sense of a world slipping sideways.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos

In a season where word play on clothing has become a major fashion subtext, JK5′s messages seemed particularly pointed, when they were decipherable. “Born to Die” was recurrent, so were statements about beauty, and the exhortation to “Fight Off Your Demons.” To this viewer at least, the ceremonial aspect felt like something to do with the passage of young men to war (an impression that was scarcely lessened by the helmetlike hats some of the models were wearing). The presentation journeyed from somber tailoring through the chaos of JK5′s imagery to a series of jackets articulated almost like armor to a closing passage of pure white pieces literally overlaid with animal print, and bearing on the back some of South African photographer Roger Ballen’s profoundly disturbing images (unfortunately unviewable in the 2-D world of catwalk record). A nod to the beast without? Or an angelic ascension? Layers of meaning are fundamental to ritual: what is seen, what is sought. Kawakubo is almost alone in her ability to apply such layers to fashion.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Yohji Yamamoto: Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 09:26:49 +0000

Blotched by livid bruising and welted by clumsily stitched scars, Yohji Yamamoto’s models seemed to have just walked shakily away from a vicious punch-up. This imprint of violence transmitted via makeup is something Yamamoto has played with before, for Spring 2013. It suited these clothes down to the ground, from ripped shoulder to twisted boot. This was a master class in sartorial butchery. Jackets and pants rippled with extraneous layers and shivered with hems wrought asunder. Some appeared to have been gleefully filleted then rebuilt, mad professor style, with the leftovers from previous victims. All this slicing and splicing exploded against the eye, but once you became desensitized to that violence, a harmony presented itself.

photo Monica Feudi

When not black, the colors of those apparently dissected jackets were a complementary chorus of blues, greens, and mushrooms. Identical twins wore inversely colored—but not identically so—double-layered outfits. Like their wearers, these clothes bore their scars proudly and well. Nothing here was a radical departure for Yamamoto, but then surely staying precisely where he is is radical enough. Menswear teems with designers who toy again and again with the old standards. Someone who rips them up instead of ripping them off—and so beautifully, too—is to be cherished.

photo Monica Feudi

Luke Leitch, via style.com

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Walter Van Beirendonck: Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:02:13 +0000

Beautiful, daring collection from Walter van Beirendonck. Also, if you are interested in what moves the designer, you should read this interview:

Walter-van-beirendonck: Couture Should Push Forward the Boundaries of Fashion

photo Kim Weston Arnold

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Guo Pei Wants a Paris Base

admin — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 08:50:40 +0000

Guo Pei has only produced four haute couture collections in the last nine years, but each garment was so lavishly embellished and exquisitely hand-crafted that it has firmly established the petite designer as one who dares to dream big and creates outfits that are closer to sculptural art works.

Now, Guo Pei has a new dream: a Paris base. Over the coming months, the designer is planning to launch a new eponymous brand, which will be exclusively available in the French fashion capital. She is setting up an atelier-cum-studio in Paris, near Avenue Montaigne, where Christian Dior started his couture house and others have followed.

A creation from Guo Pei’s 2010 “A Thousand and Two Nights” Couture presentation
photo jingdaily.com

“We’re going to start small with a few petite-mains, and build the atelier step by step. I’m planning on having a couple of our top craftsmen from China work there too, so they can learn from each other,” says Guo Pei, “For haute couture, the center of the world remains Paris. This atelier is my way of paying respect to this long tradition of couture in Paris, and also a way to learn more from it. We have a great experience in craftsmanship in China; now we want to work with French craftsmen and learn new techniques from them.” Guo Pei plans to unveil her first couture collection during Haute Couture Week in July. “There will be no boutique for now, just the atelier that will also work as a private showroom where we can present some trunk shows to our customers. And if my Chinese customers want the new label, Guo Pei, they will have to come to Paris,” she quips.

This 2010 creation, inspired by Chinese blue and white porcelain, won the Best National Costume Award at the Miss Universe 2012 pageant.
photo vogue.it

Born in Beijing in 1967 at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Guo Pei studied fashion at Beijing Second Light Industry School at a time when millions of Chinese were still wearing the universal Mao shirt every day. After graduating in 1986, she started designing children’s clothing, before moving on to a privately-owned women’s clothing company, Beijing Tian Ma Garments & Accessories Co. In 1997, she took the plunge and opened Rose Studio with her husband, now the CEO of the company. At the time, she recalls, finding skilled embroiderers was a difficult feat as so much savoir-faire had been lost during the Cultural Revolution, but today her atelier in the outskirts of Beijing has more than 450 employees, working on everything from embroideries and tassels to handmade flowers and other trimmings, as well as creating bespoke shoes and handbags.

A model presents the latest creations by Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei during the FIDe Fashion Week in Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Expo
photo en.people.cn

courtesy of Rose Studio

The designer’s atelier produces everything in-house, from elaborate embroideries to shoes and fantasy jewelries
photo blouinartinfo.com

via blouinartinfo.com

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Prada Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 09:18:45 +0000

Miuccia Prada did something she’d never done before with her show tonight. On every seat there was a printed manifesto for the collection—or, rather, collections. (She was showing both Fall menswear and Pre-Fall womenswear.) “Gender is a context and context is often gendered,” read the notes. There could scarcely be a timelier idea to address, what with vigorous new debates about feminism, the heightened profile of LGBT activism, and the misogyny of religious fundamentalists around the world. And, in outlining her rationale for the show, it was clear that Mrs. P wasn’t prepared to leave it as open to freestyling interpretation as she has in the past.

photo style.com

And yet she couldn’t help but excite conjecture. The invitation—a rectangle of black nylon—was a reminder of Miuccia’s foundation in the family business, and she went back to the well with an opening passage of pieces cut from the material. She claimed that blending collections for men and women was something she’d been waiting to do for a while, because working on menswear always left her wondering how she could apply the same ideas to women. The shared aesthetic today was simple. “Uniform, severe, elegant: This is the fashion I like at this moment.”

photo style.com

It was industrial, too—not just that black nylon, but a stark, metal-floored, metal-ceilinged set; Frédéric Sanchez’s soundtrack of Front 242; and the grim, urgent mien of the models. The boys might have been refugees from Madchester; the bouffanted, eyelinered girls could have been fleeing Le Lipstique, Baltimore’s finest beauty parlor. Either way, as a manifestation of Prada’s ongoing “analysis of the relationship between men and women” (thank you, manifesto), their presence together on the catwalk implied profound alienation, even with shared style tropes such as strictly belted waists and double-breasted closings. Gender as a context, indeed. Maybe it’s always been that way with Miuccia. She presents men as compromised boys, whereas women have been paraded as paragons of strength. Today, she whipped the epaulets off her male models’ shoulders and repositioned them as decorative bows on the dresses of her women.

photo style.com

But even that flourish was deeply ironic. “A bow wraps a present,” Miuccia mused. “Am I presenting woman as object?” It is typical of Prada that, after taking in a collection that wasn’t as stellar as some in the label’s longtime roster of winners, you still walked away with such a thought-provoking, destabilizing notion lodged firmly in your mind.

photo style.com

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Vivienne Westwood Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:37:00 +0000

The reference promised reverence but proved trickier than a straightforward tribute. Dame Vivienne Westwood sang the praises of the Prince of Wales in her show notes with a paean to his spirituality, his organic farming, and his other Westwood-friendly preoccupations. She had, she pronounced, adopted him as the “patron” of the collection.

The first model duly emerged wearing an ensemble broadly appropriate as an homage to one of Savile Row’s most celebrated customers: windowpane-check gray trousers and a borderline tartan peaked jacket. Westwood’s banana skin was the pair of blue suede high heels.

photo style.com

Westwood and her husband, Andreas Kronthaler, have turned such acts of runway radicalism into a well-practiced routine, but even when you expect it, these shows have impact. Look-twice touches this time included British sterling banknote-print clothing (and great sneakers), an interesting spasm of one-shoulder Fred Flintstone stretch knitwear, a look featuring floral-lapelled eveningwear and a balaclava, and a cluster of butch men with clutch bags. And the guy who came out with his pants half-down.

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All this slapstick was a laugh, as ever, but a distraction too: It obscured the richness of a collection that pulsed with poppy tailoring twists, radical casualwear, and fine footwear—even those heels, if that’s your bag. And sure, some of the shtick was a lighter way of enunciating the “relationship between men and women” theme that has been so current on both sides of the fashion-show calendar’s gender divide. The dame emerged wearing the prince on her chest, alongside her king.

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Luke Leitch, via style.com

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Craig Green: Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 08:43:08 +0000

There were no tears at the end of Craig Green’s show today. It would have been a hard trick to pull off twice. Besides, we’ve had six months to process the impact of his first solo catwalk show last June. But that isn’t to say that the collection he presented wasn’t mesmerizing; it was simply more pragmatic than Spring. Green cryptically described that show as “a silent protest.” Now, he said, “The silent protest has got louder.” You could put it another way: Spring was spirit, Fall is flesh.

Photo: Kim Weston-Arnold

The idea of the uniform lies heavy on menswear for Fall 2015, and Green was no exception to the rule of designers who are brooding this season on the meaning of uniforms. In his mind, it has to do with protection. The padding and layering of many of his looks created formidable silhouettes. Balancing them were simple white jersey tops grabbed and twisted into shape on the models’ torsos, then stitched like the seams on Frankenstein’s monster. “The most brutal way of fitting clothes,” Green was a little embarrassed to admit, but that was surely one way to convey the vulnerability he wanted as a counterpoint to the tough, structured outerwear. “Restriction and release” was his formula.

Photo: Kim Weston-Arnold

Similar reasoning meant the models walked shoeless. Never mind that finding the right shoes for these looks would present an expensive challenge, Green insisted that socks were more innocent (for the show at least). The knitwear was also making a statement about susceptibility. It featured a circular hole above the sternum. “The most vulnerable part of the body,” Green explained. “In cartoons, it’s where you see the soul flying away like a ghost.”

Photo: Kim Weston-Arnold

If this is the sort of thing that’s on Green’s mind when he’s designing a sweater, the sky’s the limit for conjecture about the rest of the collection. He described the color palette of red, navy, and green as “classical school colors,” and there were white cotton shirts with squared-off tails to compound the school uniform effect. But the way he structured his show, the red sat at the heart, with the other colors revolving around it, like they were protecting it. “Concealed power,” Green called it. So there was a picture bigger than the look-by-look cavalcade we were seeing on the catwalk. It was a dark picture, too. Listening to Green talk about his clothes, it wasn’t hard to detect a pessimistic streak. Maybe that’s what adds the poignancy to the beauty of his proposals. Maybe that’s what people sensed when they responded with tears last season. However that worked, Green’s sales tripled. So, concealed or not, there’s power in the poignant.

Photo: Kim Weston-Arnold

Tim Blanks, via style.com

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House by Modal Design

admin — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 14:53:29 +0000

Architects: Modal Design
Location: Venice, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Architect In Charge: Daniel Monti
Area: 2727.0 ft2

Beautiful residential home by Modal Design:

photo Benny Chan for Fotoworks

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Burberry Prorsum Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:23:37 +0000

You can usually see the trees and sky through the sides of the huge plastic tent in Kensington Gardens where Burberry mounts its shows, but today nature was closed off behind thick drapes. That set the tone for a men’s collection that Christopher Bailey labeled Classically Bohemian. A little crumpled in his antiqued linens and bookish in his glasses, the Burberry Man had clearly expanded his mind since last season. He wore paisley and floral shirts inspired by quilts from Durham (near to Bailey’s birthplace in East Yorkshire), and draped himself in ponchos or huge luxuriantly fringed shawls. Maybe he’d just got back from a trip to India, because he was also dressed in mirror-embroidered shirts, trousers, and a coat.

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The only thing missing was a cloud of incense. “Decorative and free” was the way Bailey described the mood. There was glamour in leopard-printed shearling, camo to add more visual texture, and high-pile fabrics in dense, dark tones. The designer liked the idea of classics thrown off-kilter by Bohemia, but if that suggests edge, it shouldn’t. Instead, the collection had a subtle, rich flow, ably assisted by Clare Maguire, a singer Bailey came across on SoundCloud. Opening with Marc Bolan’s “Cosmic Dancer” and closing with “House of the Rising Sun” while a glitter storm raged, her performance was considerably more full-blooded than the singer-songwriters who usually soundtrack Burberry’s shows. That extra oomph rubbed off on the collection.

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Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Maison Martin Margiela: Spring 2015 Couture

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:35:52 +0000

There was often poetry in Martin Margiela’s ability to infuse new life into the overlooked, the discarded, the scorned. It was even more distinctive in his label’s Artisanal offshoot, where the provenance of all the vintage bits and pieces that went into the collection made fascinating reading. With the clarity of hindsight in the wake of his own debut for Artisanal today, it seems odd that anyone could ever have doubted that John Galliano wasn’t a dream choice for Margiela. This most arcane of fashion houses called for an alchemist as much as a designer, and with Galliano, that’s exactly what it got.

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There was enough beauty to satisfy the most extravagant aesthete in Galliano’s fan base, but there was also an edge of the grotesque, which was true to Artisanal’s wayward spirit. The masks that Kanye West wore onstage were revisited here in the stunning final outfit, with the model sporting a gilded skull-like face-hugger split in two by a rictus of pearls, and an infanta-like protuberance of glittering detritus swelling from her chest. Other outfits were swagged, ragged, and rehabilitated—stockings with the knees out, asymmetric tails on jackets—like a cross-pollination between the closets of Miss Havisham and a club kid.

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It would be interesting to know what, if anything, Galliano felt he had to prove with this collection. Deconstruction was always one of Margiela’s central precepts, and Galliano proved himself more than a match with his own efforts, especially with a postscript that saw the models parading by in pinned-together toiles, a revelatory way to illuminate the creative processes behind the collection. Minimalism was another Margiela signature, Galliano again proving his mastery with an androgynous black suit and a ravishing series of simple red gowns. The Mao-collared one, in velvet, swooped daringly low in the back. Some fearless starlet could make her name in such a dress during awards season.

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Humor often bubbled under a Margiela collection, with unlikely found elements—the residue of human civilization—brought in to add some wit or dimensionality. Here, Galliano trailed toy cars across the collaged landscape of a tiny suede sheath. He used shells to make three-dimensional Arcimboldo-like faces on the front of dresses. He even referenced the house’s flashy showgirl side, with leopard-print accents and metal fringing on short shorts.

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Such incongruity was a tool for Margiela because it provoked new ways to look at the familiar. To be reminded of that here was further proof that Galliano has indeed found a new home. There was none of the old grandstanding when he took a tentative blink-and-you-missed-it bow in the white coat that is the uniform of the Margiela atelier, but the show itself spoke to no diminution in his talent. He’s back, everyone cried at show’s end, palpable excitement overwhelming the sense of relief.

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Tim Blanks, via style.com

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Christopher Kane: Fall 2015 Menswear

admin — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 15:57:48 +0000

Christopher Kane has found himself a very workable formula for his men’s collections. He launches them in complementary tandem with his women’s pre-collections, the message of one compounding the impact of the other. Here, for instance, there was a rather gorgeous extemporization of the peek-a-boo detail in the women’s Pre-Fall collection. The way in which the fabric was folded back, autopsy-like, in the womenswear was echoed for menswear in a pattern of 3-D cubes that was straight out of an eye-teasing Escher drawing. It began as a mathematically precise pattern on a sweatshirt or blouson, then gradually broke apart, first as a jacquard in a suit, then as a shattered graphic on an oversize tee. (Pair that with track pants, and you had an outfit that serviced Kane’s hip-hop constituency.)

photo courtesy of Christopher Kane

Kane is a quick study. This collection was tightly edited, very clean, very linear, with a strong accessories range attached. His first shop will open in London in a month or so. It will carry his menswear. Smart move —there’s a real breadth evolving here.

photo courtesy of Christopher Kane

Tim Blanks, via Style.com

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Elizabeth and James Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 09:15:01 +0000

The contemporary floor is filled with fashions for those after a trendy look. But few brands are really nailing minimalism at the mid-price point with the same level of success as Elizabeth and James. For Pre-Fall, designers Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen wanted everything to look clean and modern but with a slight bohemian influence. A long black vest, for instance, was uniformly frayed at the edges, and a Baja-blanket knit wrap skirt was worn over black trousers and a turtleneck. A cooler, more relaxed version of a long silk peplum skirt was worn with a fitted ribbed T-shirt, and a black knit silk dress with a navy ruffle at the top was layered over another turtleneck.

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The influence of sport emerged in some racerback silhouettes, as well as lace-up details on a navy dress. It was all styled back to Adidas Stan Smiths, the footwear of choice for women whose closets are a sea of navy, black, and cream—many of whom will certainly scoop up pieces from this collection after it hits the sales floor.

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Lauren Sherman, via style.com

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M.Patmos Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 08:00:48 +0000

Working with master artisans in one country or another has, intentionally or not, become sort of a trend. Marcia Patmos, on the other hand, has been at it for almost a decade, forging long-term relationships with weavers and craftspeople to create clothes that manage to eclipse the typically folksy feel of that sort of fashion. For Pre-Fall, M.Patmos offered plenty of signature knits, including a chunky cashmere fisherman’s sweater, a wool sweatshirt mini with leather pocket details, and a narrow cashmere cardigan dress.

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The latter was printed with a grid-like pattern inspired by a Ghanaian textile, which wove itself through the entire collection. A book about Japanese joinery influenced the geometric patchwork detail on a few long coats. “It’s like a puzzle,” Patmos said. One that, thanks to her expert eye, fits together almost seamlessly.

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Lauren Sherman, via style.com

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Moschino Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 10:23:48 +0000

One sure sign that what Jeremy Scott is doing at Moschino is registering: Style.com’s comments section. Few collections have spawned as many responses (pro and con) as Scott’s most recent Moschino outing. The Pre-Fall collection he showed by appointment in New York today, while significantly dialed back from last September’s bubblegum pink Barbie bonanza, delivered on the irreverence and excess that have gotten people talking about him. See the fitted little black dress with the strategically placed hot iron burns; the gold sequined gown embroidered with the words “I had nothing to wear so I put on this expensive Moschino evening dress”; or a cocktail number with the classic 36-24-36 measurements printed across the bust, waist, and hips.

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In place of Mickey D’s and Mattel’s iconic toy, Scott was riffing here on the tools of the atelier. There was an oversize yellow measuring tape motif, prints based on fabric care symbols, another of a dry cleaning receipt, and still more that re-created the pattern paper used by seamstresses. Nothing subtle about any of it, which will suit the Miley Cyruses and Katy Perrys of the world just fine. But lurking on the racks were more understated pieces, like simple cashmere sweaters with pattern markings and sweatshirts quilted with a Moschino logo that will appeal to gals who don’t live their lives on Instagram. With an L.A. store set to open on January 15 and the ink almost dry on a deal for a New York store, questions of commerce have got to be just as front of mind for Scott as stirring up controversy is. The surefire retail winners here: the fox- and mink-collared parkas.

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Nicole Phelps, style.com

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Thom Browne Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 14:24:12 +0000

As a woman, it’s hard not to look at men’s wardrobes with a sense of envy now and then. How nice it must be, you think, to have a uniform. Not to face down each day with that open-ended question: What should I wear? And yet, more often, women envy one another for the playful variety of their clothing options. This uniform-versus-variety circle was the one Thom Browne was trying to square last season, as he proposed his own Monday-to-Friday looks for gals. Here, he elaborated on the idea, which seems less like a seasonal concept than a solid modus operandi for his brand. Pre-Fall found the designer extrapolating menswear tailoring, as is his wont, into feminine shapes, with the focus on two silhouettes: a loose one based on the classic sack suit, and one sharp-shouldered with a nipped waist. Both achieved their finest form in Browne’s luxe outerwear—a mink-tipped tweed Chesterfield coat, on the one hand, and belted cashmere or jacquard coats on the other, their trim waists flattered by natty belts and a skirt-like flare.

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Elsewhere, Browne’s cardigan-inspired shifts nicely fulfilled the uniform brief—they had a no-brainer sense of ease. Ditto his excellent broadcloth and oxford shirting, a category the designer is keen to emphasize. Suit jackets paired with high-water trousers or A-line skirts of “awkward length,” to quote Browne, had a narrower, more eccentric appeal. The real fun of this collection, though, was its fabrics and, relatedly, its flourishes: That was the variety side of the equation, in effect. The tweeds here were pretty extraordinary, especially the ones woven with threads of paper or rubber, and the tie jacquards had the kind of weight one associates with the royal vestments found in museums. Same goes for the silk braid trim, one of this outing’s key embellishments. Still, the overall tone was restrained, a quality reflected in the collection’s mainly neutral palette. Browne is known—and celebrated—for his flights of fancy, but his strategy of designing a weekly uniform seems to have grounded him in a good way. These clothes didn’t feel basic—the usual outcome of designers approaching uniformity. But they did feel real.

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Maya Singer, style.com

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Chloé Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 10:27:11 +0000

It’s tempting to imagine that Clare Waight Keller came to her inspiration for this season’s Chloé collection by accident: Playing music alphabetically off iTunes, David Bowie’s Best of Bowie serendipitously gave way to Kate Bush’s The Sensual World, and lo and behold, a collection was conceived. That probably isn’t what happened, but however it did, Waight Keller was onto something, drawing a line between Bush’s rural, gypsy romanticism and Bowie’s urbane, androgynous glam.

You could imagine either artist, at a certain point in his or her career, donning one of the designer’s silk poet-sleeve blouses or throwing on a cape-like coat in a madcap combination of shearling and Mongolian fur. There was a nigh-on louche opulence here, witnessed in everything from the touch of Lurex on a pair of fantastic, low-slung boot-cut pants to the Aubrey Beardsley-esque prints and the nub of longhair pony on a bag or miniskirt. Nowhere was that opulence better exemplified than in a diaphanous gown of Lurex-dabbed printed silk: Slit vertiginously, the dress was largely comprised of ribbons of the silk that had been sewn onto a sheer backing, and it conjured nothing so much as butterfly wings. Very sexy butterfly wings, it must be noted—and that sensuality operated throughout the collection as a whole. Chloé is usually associated with a kind of virginal, gamine look, but Waight Keller chucked it this time—some of these clothes were intensely womanly, others rather boyish, and a good deal of them were borderline feral. Lolita was missing this season. But she wasn’t missed.

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Maya Singer, style.com

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Proenza Schouler Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:29:31 +0000

Proenza Schouler is in a growth phase: With new openings, the brand’s freestanding store count will come to eight in 2015. There are even more shop-in-shops. That’s a lot of real estate to fill, and Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough say that it’s changing the way they approach their pre-collections. “With new stores, consistency becomes important,” McCollough pointed out. Pre-Fall offered them a chance to revisit the hits from Spring, dig further into their back catalog, and begin testing out ideas they’ll put on the runway for next Fall in February. The results were good.

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First, the hits: The wait-listed deconstructed argyle sweaters from last season morphed into special, woven plaid tops, with deep diagonal swags of fringe falling past the knees. Proenza Schouler helped set the trend for full mid-calf skirts when they showed their metallic foil versions a year ago. Here, the same shape was whipped up in easier-to-wear jersey knit. They look like they could be this season’s big sellers. Looking forward, Hernandez and McCollough like a “long and liquid” silhouette. The plaid-on-plaid T-shirt and trouser “suit” worn with another plaid knit underneath was a bit too full-on. But the designers made a convincing case for the covered-up proportions with a long cable-knit sweaterdress buttoned up the back over one of those pleated knit skirts, and a long floral print blouse belted over a drapey fil coupe skirt.

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Nicole Phelps, style.com

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M Missoni Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 13:30:54 +0000

M Missoni, the little sister to Italian heritage label Missoni, has gained traction with clothes that put a youthful, saccharine spin on the house’s established signatures. Think splashy colors, fine-gauge knits, dizzying prints, and lots of Lurex. Pre-Fall included all of the above, but these pieces had a retro, more refined twist. “The collection is nostalgic, with irony,” Angela Missoni said. “It’s about a girl who grew in her teenage clothes, clad in capes, but she still has a soft spot for the ‘little explorer.’”

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Those capes were highlights—a strawberry swing style channeled a chic Little Red Riding Hood—and would be perfect for conquering the urban jungle. A few velvet suits were unexpectedly groovy, and mashed-up prints (a Missoni mainstay) were loud but more wearable than in collections past. That could be credited to a less sugary color palette—rich shades of crimson, mustard, and cornflower blue had depth—as well as soft fabrics and forgiving shapes. M Missoni’s woman has the confidence to wear schoolgirl silhouettes and Mondrian-esque optical prints, but she craves ease and simplicity, too.

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Emily Farra, style.com

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Oscar de la Renta Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 16:23:04 +0000

Oscar de la Renta didn’t do shows for his pre-collections. He preferred a presentation format—that way he could chat with attendees not just about the clothes, but about their love lives. So we were reminded today, ahead of a brief, intimate défilé at the Oscar de la Renta atelier. Oscar wasn’t there, of course, but his spirit filled the room. It was also inherent in the clothes: Pre-Fall 2015 was the last collection he had a hand in designing. The house’s new creative director, Peter Copping, advised the studio a bit on how to finish it, after de la Renta’s death in October, but this wasn’t his debut. Copping sat in the front row, taking it all in as a bystander, in essence.

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How does one review a collection like this—one that operates not as a swan song, not as an homage, but as a coda to a great career, now definitively over? On its merits, of course. And though these clothes didn’t serve to turn the fashion dial in any way, they manifested the soigné de la Renta signature in spades. India was more or less the theme, apparent in the collection’s plethora of hot pink—famously, the “navy blue of India”—and its hothouse florals and jaw-dropping thread embroidery. There was a suggestion of a sari in the way that ruffles wrapped around the body, or in the choli-taut fit of a bow-backed sleeveless top of double-stretch wool. The reference was put in the service of the de la Renta look rather than hammered home. It spoke loudest in the collection’s clutch of cocktail frocks and gowns, particularly in a New Look-shaped dress of navy tulle that featured bright pink floral-thread embroidery, and the champagne-toned finale gowns with allover gold or silver embellishment. The maharaja’s wife moves to New York, gets a place on Park Avenue, and needs things to wear to her nigh-nightly galas. Naturally, she turns first to de la Renta.

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Maya Singer, style.com

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Preen by Thornton Bregazzi Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 15:58:44 +0000

What Gwyneth Paltrow did for Preen’s “Power” dress in 2008, Naomi Watts did for their yellow dévoré “Norma” dress this past May. That photo op had Preen retailers recalibrating their orders. So it’s no wonder designers Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi opted to use dévoré again for Pre-Fall, this time around giving it a Seattle grunge spin via bold plaids. If the Kurt and Courtney thing is a bit overplayed, they handled it deftly. This was a cogent collection with great-looking outerwear and no shortage of interesting knits, from an oversize Arran sweater to a cashmere with giant paillettes on the front.

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There was a notable elegance to the eveningwear (a nice change of pace from Fall’s Star Wars motifs). An immaculate red lace dress had Oscar luncheon written all over it, but the highest impact came in a red silk faille top and trouser set with a peplum that defied gravity. That look was definitely more couture than Kurt and Courtney, and odds are it will hit the red carpet in very short order.

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Afsun Qureshi, style.com

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Samuji Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:36:51 +0000

Finnish designer Samu-Jussi Koski spent much of his early career at Marimekko, and when he launched his own label in 2009 he decided to stay far away from the thing he might have known best: prints. Six years in, he has let a few sneak into Samuji, enlisting former Marimekko colleague Erja Hirvi to design each collection’s offering. (The season’s standout was an arty flower.) “I think it’s quite nice, sometimes, to do a print,” said Koski. “It’s also nice that I don’t need them.”

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Indeed, Koski’s greatest talent seems to be his sense of color. Pre-Fall’s palette was drawn from the work of Johannes Vermeer, whose richly colored portraits inspired a lapis cobweb knit sweater and sky blue mohair robe coat. A double-breasted curly-wool coat in sea-foam green also caught the eye, along with a mustard-colored V-neck blouse. Technique-wise, Koski played with pleats, done sharply on the collar of a burgundy cotton dress and more softly on full skirts. “The frill is a little bit everywhere,” he said. In this lovely collection, everywhere was just enough.

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Lauren Sherman, style.com

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Reem Acra: Pre-Fall 2015 Collection

admin — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 07:20:46 +0000

Sometimes, pretty is enough. For Pre-Fall, Reem Acra made what could be construed as a lineup of basics. Or maybe, since this is eveningwear, they should be called standards. There was a black off-the-shoulder, full-skirted cocktail frock polished off with a thin belt, and a crepe de Chine column with bugle beading on the torso. There were also plenty of peekaboo lace dresses, which do well for the designer. A cobalt blue ball gown, a companion dress to the aforementioned black number, was princess-y without looking precious. There were no major innovations in this collection, nor did Acra go off on an inspired whim. She just made good-looking gowns. And the line was better for it.

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Lauren Sherman
style.com

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Versace Pre-Fall 2015 Collection

admin — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:35:56 +0000

Words like graphic, clean, and neat don’t always come to mind when thinking of the Versace aesthetic, nor does the oxymoron “controlled boldness.” Yet that’s the best way to describe the look of the Pre-Fall collection, presented today in the Milanese showroom. Moving away from her signature body-con silhouette, Donatella Versace embraced a masculine inspiration mixed with sporty references this season, injecting her new lineup with the typical Versace sense of luxe, but polishing the edges with a sleek, modern spirit. The results proved convincing.

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A restricted color palette of black, fire red, cobalt blue, and purple was the canvas for houndstooth-check patterns blown up to abstract proportions, or for block intarsia with a dash of a mod look. Patchwork was the thread that ran through the collection—different types of leather were embroidered, stitched, or “carved” into sweatshirts or the back of biker jackets; Mongolian lamb, mink, astrakhan, and suede were mashed up in a glamorous parka; and animal-printed jacquards were paired with bonded silk cady for dresses with full volumes, as well as swinging skirts—a bona fide first for Versace.

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Techno fabrics worked into lean shapes were another testament to the collection’s concise, new direction. To cap things off, the infamous safety pins that launched Elizabeth Hurley into the limelight were given a makeover, redesigned in golden metal or in glittering Swarovski crystals. Piecing together asymmetrical slashes on red-carpet-ready, drapey cocktail dresses, they were a reminder that, after all, Donatella is still a wild child at heart.

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Tiziana Cardini, style.com

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Jason Wu Pre-Fall 2015 Collection

admin — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 14:47:40 +0000

Dan Flavin’s early work—the single color canvases, not the fluorescent lights he’s famous for—lined Jason Wu’s Pre-Fall mood board. They gave him his strong, saturated color palette, and informed the very subtle detailing of what is Wu’s most minimal lineup yet. A year after joining Hugo Boss as artistic director, Wu’s signature collection has been streamlined and overhauled. It’s hard to imagine the woman who’ll wear these clothes fussing about with the glossy eelskin stripes, gold bugle beads, and disco vibes of his Pre-Fall collection from last year. But if a certain no-nonsense sensibility infused the new clothes, if Wu has shrugged off fun, he hasn’t abandoned luxury.

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The standout piece here was a sleeveless sheath in fine plonge leather in an emerald green so deep it was almost black, with a wraparound bodice and a deep front slit. Wu believes in the simplicity and sophistication of that silhouette, and it rematerialized in double-face cashmere embellished with tiny hand-tacked slits like the tracery lines on Flavin’s paintings. He used the same double-face material for a shawl-collared tuxedo with wide-legged trousers that will be as comfy as your favorite sweats. A beaded T-shirt dress didn’t measure up in the elegance department, but the beaded, bias-cut long slipdress had a graceful way about it.

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Nicole Phelps
style.com

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Vera Wang Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 10:58:09 +0000

If you met this season’s Vera Wang girl, would you like her? Girl is the operative word here: Designer price point notwithstanding, you unavoidably pictured an undergrad going out in Wang’s pleat-embellished short shorts or her poppy-print minidress with a bubble hem, worn with a matching sweatshirt. That young woman seemed like a bit of a flake. But if you thought of this collection as a sort of bildungsroman, you could see the Wang girl come of age. There she is, spending Daddy’s money on things like sequined Bermuda shorts; then, advancing in sophistication, you find her dressing with a bit more circumspection, selecting a cocktail dress of evanescent black tulle and a camel cashmere coat with broad lapels. She hits her sweet spot wearing a long, gauzy maxi dress in that poppy print, or better yet, a wide-leg jumpsuit in sheer-ish black silk. Eventually, she enters her going-off-the-rails period—she ventures out in leather maxi skirts and tucks herself away in layers of long goat hair. Reemerging for the denouement, she discovers an affection for knitwear. As we take leave of her, she’s in a slender ribbed knit skirt and striped crewneck sweater. This collection made the clever point that we are many selves over the course of one life. Or one pre-season, as the case may be.

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Maya Singer
style.com

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McQ Alexander McQueen Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 14:41:33 +0000

“Subversion,” when so often clumsily interpreted in the hands of fashion, feels much like some drugstore Halloween costume. But under the eye of Sarah Burton and the studio team at McQ, it comes to life beautifully, in a way that Burton’s storied mentor himself could likely have gotten behind: the urban tempered by the luxe, gorgeous tailoring married with art school gothiness (echoed even in a Bauhaus-esque McQ logo “band tee”), and anchored in rich fabrications.

photo style.com

For all its straightforward shapes, Pre-Fall spanned a dizzying array of artistic inspirations in its materials: a stunning jacquard in a Pollock-y splatter, a patent blue-and-white marble print, a shearling-lined biker jacket with a matte “concrete” finish. Or take the marabou feathers, which came trapped under tulle in a simple dress; a skirt in bonded denim and buttery leather; and the sporty, no-nonsense knits teamed with a pink glitter bandeau. Even distilled into contemporary pieces with lots of sporty edge, they’re the kind of contrasts that are still synonymous with McQueen’s legacy today.

photo style.com

Kristin Anderson for style.com

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Alexander Wang Pre-Fall 2015 Collection

admin — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 08:40:53 +0000

News broke yesterday that Alexander Wang is launching a denim line. As we’ve come to expect from Wang, the jeans combine cool factor (on-trend cuts lifted from vintage men’s styles) with a serious dose of technological experimentation. “I wanted to do denim for a long time, but it’s a hard [category] to revolutionize,” he said. “Most black denim starts fading after three washes, but ours lasts eight before fading.” The jeans go on sale online and in his own stores next week, and it won’t take long for them to infiltrate the closets of cool types.

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His new Pre-Fall collection is similarly customer-focused. Back in June at his Resort presentation, Wang was keen to set an agenda; boxy, utilitarian shapes that called to mind firemen’s gear predominated. Here, his touch was much more nuanced. Wang was looking at menswear, loungewear, and uniforms, but he didn’t hit you over the head with the details. You almost missed the black flight suit lacing down the side seams of an army green silk slipdress, and a leather wrap coat clearly inspired by a bathrobe remained polished and elegant. Another clue that Wang has shrugged off conceptual clothes—at least for the moment—came in the form of a capsule collection of eveningwear, made after multiple requests from his retailers. There was nothing revolutionary about the minimal black and white gowns hanging on a rack, but they looked unarguably chic.

photo style.com

Nicole Phelps

style.com

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MM6 Maison Martin Margiela Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 10:53:45 +0000

MM6′s Pre-Fall battle cry was the great outdoors, but for all that untamed wilderness and cruel beauty there was a flip side of domesticity. Where the brand’s past couple of efforts (including its pre-season debut for Resort) have turned a keen eye to a mash-up of Western Americana and Japanese styling, these were clothes that spoke to big, universal ideas, like shelter and exploration. Survivalism’s newfound vogue came coolly represented in boxy tarpaulin pieces and hefty climbing-rope and grommet details. It was a far cry from, say, Alexander Wang’s more hard-core take on the idea, and there was no spandex on offer here. (There was some savvy branding, though, in tops and dresses emblazoned with the phrase “More than just your favourite MM6.”) Elsewhere there were apron shapes, extraterrestrial landscape prints, and standouts in the way of cozy sweater dressing. The considerable volume of some pieces—an oversize plum tuxedo jacket and structured dresses—nodded to ideas of carving out personal space.

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Margiela’s perennial interest in the interactive, most specifically the destruction of things that are lived-in (recall the house’s über-cool Converse collab—white-paint-dipped Chuck Taylors, which, with wear, cracked to reveal primary hues underneath) was well represented. That aforementioned slogan was missing a few letters here and there, like a marquee left months unattended; a flocked polka-dot-print dress came bearing doodles and some worn-away spots. And there were paint spatters aplenty, on everything from dresses to one beautiful shearling jacket-denim vest hybrid that summed up the collection neatly: utilitarian but never bloodless, elegantly off yet wearable.

photo style.com

Kristin Anderson
style.com

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Burberry Prorsum Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 09:49:55 +0000

Burberry’s Pre-Fall collection retold the tale of Beauty and the Beast, with delicate white lace dresses wrapped in the shaggiest shearlings this side of the Scottish Highlands. Word was the direction for the collection was shorter, more feminine, more structured, but it was those coats that took center stage—and not just the sauvage shearlings. There was also a woolly, bully dégradé calfskin with huge horn buttons and, on a somewhat sleeker tip, a trench in suede with a tribal-beaded, embellished yoke and collar.

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Even when the sheepskin was tamed—sheared, leopard-printed, and bonded to camel cashmere, or shaved into a patchwork of four different lengths—it still made its point loud and clear: Burberry’s Pre-Fall is the season of the statement coat. Christopher Bailey guaranteed the accompaniments didn’t get in the way. The femininity of those pretty white lace dresses was matched by silk georgette pieces in a tiny clover print. Celia Johnson, the U.K.’s celluloid sweetheart of the 1940s, could almost have worn one for her Brief Encounter. But upper lips have clearly unstiffened when such items are now shown wrapped in the shag of a shearling-lined biker jacket, with suede thigh-highs or kinky peep-toed ankle booties.

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Tim Blanks

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Chanel Pre-Fall 2015

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 08:25:47 +0000

Karl Lagerfeld is always so onto-the-next-thing pragmatic about his work that it’s hard to detect when—or if—he is ever really touched by what he does. But his latest Métiers d’Art show in celebration of the thrilling craftsmanship of Chanel’s artisans moved him. After this morning’s performance (there will be another this afternoon and one more this evening), he relaxed on the balcony of the Schloss Leopoldskron—breath frosting in the freezing air, lake behind him a glass mirror on which 20 swans had recently passed in close formation—like a man who was completely at peace with his past, present, and future. Usually there’s a clipped urgency to Lagerfeld, but here he was happy to sit back and acknowledge how close the collection was to his heart. When Hudson Kroenig stepped out in his little-boy lederhosen, it could have been Karl an age ago. He mentioned that he was always partial to the Tyrol, and here it was: the feathered hats and breeches, the embroideries, the trims and braiding, given a sparkling fairy-tale spin.

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Salzburg was already an appropriately fairy-tale backdrop—jewel of Baroque architecture, birthplace of Mozart, setting for The Sound of Music (Liesl and Rolf duetted on “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” in the Schloss’ gazebo)—but Lagerfeld spun his own Mitteleuropa fantasy as his models with their gilded eyelids moved through rococo salons lit by candles. The capelets, frogged jackets, and side-striped trousers echoed a Viennese military academy. It was one of those jackets, transmuted into the uniform of a hotel page in Salzburg’s Mittersill Hotel, that inspired Chanel’s signature little black jacket (though it was more often white, Lagerfeld pointed out). There were plenty of them in the show, too. And where would Mitteleuropa be without loden green?

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In Reincarnation, the film he screened last night, Pharrell Williams and Cara Delevingne brought Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria back to life. “Sissi” she was called, “CC” Pharrell sang. The lace and ribbons and elaborate sleeve details of Winterhalter’s portraits of Sissi became part of the Chanel vocabulary in this collection, but they were balanced by a black leather biker worn with jeans, or tiny suede shorts paired with laced-up suede thigh-highs. (You could sense the Lonely Goatherd’s flock getting nervous.) Sissi and CC, then and now, the kind of juggling act that has become a staple in Lagerfeld’s massive collections for Chanel. (This one had 80-plus looks.) Similarly, there was a striking dialogue between light and shade, the mark, you could say, of the filmmaker that Lagerfeld is proving himself to be. Jamie Bochert, elegantly neurotic in a black evening dress with a matching cape-jacket, might have newly sprung from Freud’s couch (to continue in the mitteleuropaische vein), while Lindsey Wixson was a fairy princess in gorgeously embroidered pale blue chiffon.

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There was another interesting historical confluence involving Chanel herself that underscored the rightness of this whole event for Lagerfeld. Romy Schneider, the quintessence of Austrian elegance, made her name playing Sissi in a 1950s trilogy. In 1961, director Luchino Visconti asked Chanel to dress Schneider for Boccaccio ’70. She would return to the role of Sissi in 1972 for Visconti’s Ludwig. Sissi, CC, Romy…It was pleasantly diverting to imagine just how much Lagerfeld was reincarnating with his show today.

photo style.com

Tim Blanks
style.com

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Liz Collins: Having It All at Heller Gallery

admin — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 15:11:51 +0000

Fashion designer-turned-artist Liz Collins is best known for her immersive knitting performance pieces. And they just keep getting bigger and better. Her upcoming solo show at Heller Gallery highlights these large-scale textile works and her new collaborative series with the industrial designer Harry Allen. Here, Collins offers a preview of the show and a tour of her Brooklyn studio.
Liz Collins: Having It All is open until December 20th at Heller Gallery, 303 10th Avenue, New York, 212.414.4014.

photo wmagazine.com

photo lizcollins.com

photo nyartbeat.com

by Kat Herriman for wmagazine.com

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Wanderers, An Astrobiological Exploration by Neri Oxman

admin — Sat, 29 Nov 2014 13:50:31 +0000

Mushtari (مشتري)

Jupiter’s Wonderer

By Neri Oxman
2014, 3D Print
Euromold, Frankfurt, Germany

Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System with a mass two and a half times greater than the mass of all other planets in the Solar System combined. Named after the king of the gods, its Arabic name reflects is vastness (Mushtari means huge, giant). Designed as a single strand filled with living matter inspired by the form and function of the human gastrointestinal tract, this wearable is designed as a an organ system for consuming and digesting biomass, absorbing nutrients and expelling waste. The peristaltic movement of matter within 3D printed translucent tracts is designed to support the flow of cyanobacteria engineered to convert daylight into consumable sucrose.

photo materialecology.com

Production: Stratasys
3D printed with Stratasys multi-material 3D printing technology
In collaboration with Christoph Bader and Dominik Kolb
Photos: Yoram Reshef
About the Collection
Wanderers, An Astrobiological Exploration

Traveling to destinations beyond planet Earth involves voyages to hostile landscapes and deadly environments. Crushing gravity, amonious air, prolonged darkness, and temperatures that would boil glass or freeze carbon dioxide, all but eliminate the likelihood of human visitation. Wanderers explores the possibility of voyaging to the worlds beyond by visiting the worlds within. 3D printed wearable capillaries designed for interplanetary pilgrims are infused with synthetically engineered microorganisms to make the hostile habitable and the deadly alive. Each design is a codex of the animate and inanimate with an origin and a destination: the origin being engineered organisms, which multiply to create the wearable within a 3D printed skins; and the destination being a unique planet in the solar system. The setting for this exploration is the solar system where, with the exception of planet Earth, no life can exist. The series represents the classical elements understood by the ancients to sustain life (earth, water, air and fire), and offers their biological counterpart in the form of microorganisms engineered to produce life-sustaining elements.

photo materialecology.com

The wearables are designed to interact with a specific environment characteristic of their destination and generate sufficient quantities of biomass, water, air and light necessary for sustaining life: some photosynthesize converting daylight into energy, others bio-mineralize to strengthen and augment human bone, and some fluoresce to light the way in pitch darkness. Each wearable is designed for a specific extreme environment where it transforms elements that are found in the atmosphere to one of the classical elements supporting life: oxygen for breathing, photons for seeing, biomass for eating, biofuels for moving, and calcium for building.

photo materialecology.com

via materialecology.com

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Noritaka Tatehana: Shoes

admin — Sat, 29 Nov 2014 09:10:20 +0000

To coincide with Noritaka Tatehana’s SHOWcabinet exhibition, the shoe designer took up residence in SHOWstudio to create a pair of his vertiginous heel-less shoes during a live broadcast. The completed pair were worn by Daphne Guinness in a fashion film by Nick Knight. We have also released a series of interviews and essays that interrogate the significance of Tatehana’s absent heel.

photo mtv.com

photo showstudio.com

photo www.eternal-optimist.com

photo ultichhatri.blogspot.com

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Disquiet Beauty at Rochester Art Gallery

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 09:11:20 +0000

Disquiet Beauty

scylla

Works by Kate MccGwire, Zara Carpenter, Tessa Farmer & Kerry Howley

24 October 2014 – 3 January 2015

Rochester Art Gallery

This exhibition brings together the work of four artists who all explore notions of beauty and alienation, attraction and repulsion and the otherworldly in their use of materials and form.

The works of acclaimed artist Kate MccGwire use the language of natural materials to attract and repel in equal measure. Her feathered sculptures have a constant sense of ‘otherness’ to them, at once seducing and disturbing the viewer with their strange familiarity. This abject beauty is integral to MccGwire’s practice, where bodily forms reference both the beauty of the natural world and its darker undercurrents. For this exhibition MccGwire will be showing several pieces including ‘Sluice’ a remarkable floor installation made of 4000 feathers.

Sluice, Kate MccGwire

Medway based artist and milliner Zara Carpenter will be showing her first major sculptural work ‘Persephone’ which explores the acceptance of ones own mortality and the ageing process and the desire to leave something beautiful behind. The work uses gathered and found objects including silk flowers, birds wings and insects to investigate themes of metamorphosis.

photo zaracarpenter.com

Kerry Howley is a contemporary jewellery artist fascinated by the power materials have to influence the wearers emotional response and particularly how these can be conflicting. She uses familiar forms yet works with materials that both fascinate, attract and repulse, turning discarded hair into exquisite yet unsettling adornment.

photo kerryhowley.co.uk

Tessa Farmer creates intricate miniature fairy sculptures made from insect carcasses, plant roots and other found natural materials. Microscopic battles between insects and tiny winged skeletal humanoids are both sinister and bewitching and offer a glimpse of an apocalyptic microscopic underworld.

An exquisite selection of artefacts including seldom seen Victorian mourning and hair jewellery has been kindly loaned by the Guildhall Museum from their collections as part of the exhibition.

photo kitesnsights.wordpress.com

Medway based artist Cormac McManigan who’s work is inspired by nature, is showing two stag beetle pieces for the show, carved and cast in bronze and made specially for the exhibition, the pieces are displayed in antique specimen drawers and can also be worn as jewellery.

via medway.gov.uk

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High Museum of Art Will Exhibit Iris van Herpen

admin — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:13:21 +0000

In fall 2015, the High Museum of Art will become the first U.S. museum to present a major exhibition of work by visionary Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, a cutting-edge artist inspired by diverse influences in the arts, sciences, music and philosophy. Marking the High’s first presentation of fashion design, Iris van Herpen will feature one-of-a-kind haute couture – acclaimed for its combination of traditional craftsmanship and futuristic, innovative techniques – and include some of the world’s first examples of 3D-printed fashion. The exhibition is co-organized with the Groninger Museum (Netherlands) and will debut at the High before continuing on a North American tour.

Iris van Herpen
Refinery Smoke dress, 2008 photo blouinartinfo.com

Van Herpen has garnered international acclaim for her couture designs, which interweave traditional handwork with groundbreaking 3D-printing technology, computer modeling, and engraving constructed in collaboration with architects, engineers and digital design specialists. Her visually impressive, sculptural designs – often featuring unusual materials such as magnets, umbrella ribs and synthetic boat rigging – create silhouettes that appear both organic and futuristic. Her work has been worn by style icons such as Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Bjork and has graced the runways of Amsterdam, London and Paris. The exhibition will feature 45 outfits carefully selected from 15 of van Herpen’s collections designed from 2008 through 2015, offering a comprehensive visual survey of her design career.

Iris van Herpen
Crystallization, July 2010
photo blouinartinfo.com

Iris van Herpen
Umbrella tines dress, Chemical Crows, January 2008
photo blouinartinfo.com

Iris van Herpen
Skeleton dress (3D print in polyamide),Capriole, Haute Couture 2011
photo blouinartinfo.com

Iris van Herpen
Radiation Invasion, September 2009
photo blouinartinfo.com

Iris van Herpen
Mummification, January 2009
photo blouinartinfo.com

Iris van Herpen
Escapism, January 2011
photo blouinartinfo.com

via high.org

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Fabrice Le Nezet: Fashion for Concrete

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 13:26:59 +0000

Research around the idea of cloth applied to a monolith of concrete. Fabrice Le Nezet worked at transposing concepts and patterns on those abstract figures led by a sculpture approach. The result is this collection of very fashionable totems half way between sculpture and fashion design.

photo fabricelenezet.com

via fabricelenezet.com

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Designer Walter Van Beirendonck Meets Bart Hess for a Fashion Film

admin — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 11:53:53 +0000

’1914 Now. Four perspectives on fashion curation’ is a film installation and collaboration between fashion curators and filmmakers. Four curators – Walter Van Beirendonck, Amy de la Haye, Judith Clark and Kaat Debo – were invited by London College of Fashion’s Alison Moloney to express a moment in fashion or dress from 1914. The project reveals multiple perspectives on one year of fashion.

photo youtube.com

via showstudio.com

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Kate Moss: The Icon

admin — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 13:46:06 +0000

Kate Moss (*1974 London) is unquestionably an icon of our times. 1988 the 14-year old was discovered at Kennedy airport in New York by the founder of Storm Models, Sarah Doukas. In the same year Moss could sign a contract
with Calvin Klein. In the early ’90s Kate Moss belonged along the other top models Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campell and Linda Evangelista to the small group of super models.
Kate Moss was on the covers of all relevant fashion magazines and has worked with the most important photographers of our times. Despite some scandals which only interrupted her career for short, Kate Moss has become the outstanding icon of today.

The exhibition combines photographs of early shootings with style-stamping shots from Marrakesch and W Magazine.
The list of photographers includes with Michel Haddi, Pamela Hanson, Marc Hispard, Chris Levine, Dana Lixemberg, Roxanne Lowit, Jurgen Ostarhild, David Ross Elliott, Satoshi Saikusa and Albert Watson an interesting overview
of photographic positions.
The exhibition is a cooperation with the Italian gallery ONO arte contemporanea from Bologna.

via hiltawsky.com

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Anna K Kiev Fashion Days

admin — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 14:06:21 +0000

The darling of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Days Kiev continues to be the spritelike designer Anna Kolomoets. Her eponymous Anna K line is a perfect reflection of the 17-year-old designer/model’s playful and fun-loving approach to fashion.

Her positive persona this season focused its energy on transforming roadside warning signs and striped caution tape (some of it even roping off the catwalk) into sugar sweet designs. Traditional signpost becoming charming faux indicators for, say, a girl on a bike or striped cat crossings. All Kolomoets’ endearing signage was then strewn across tops, pants and skirts to create a vibrant polka dot design.

As for the red and white warning tape, well, that wrapped up sweatshirts, was crafted into knee patches or lined up along the pleats of a skirt for a cute candy cane slant to the utilitarian material.

photo nowfashion.com

When the designer stepped away from this concept it was to add other adorable ideas into the mix. She continued with her popular fashion dictionary and iconic film message t-shirt concept on catwalk with definitions of “it-girl” or “fashionista” spelled out across a cotton top. Or, alternatively, the name of a fashion film (Belle du Jour, Pretty in Pink) in block lettering on a black background made to look like film stock. This concept also trickled over onto the Anna K accessories with clutch bags branded with other famous movie titles.

photo nowfashion.com

To finish off this girly collection, the designer introduced two other “awh, how adorable” prints: one made up of different cartoon character eyes expressing a myriad of emotions, the other featuring drawings of doll house furniture.

photo nowfashion.com

For some the show, taken as a whole, might have felt like a cloying collection. But as the designer, who walked in her own show, took her bow it was hard not to get caught up in all of Anna K’s optimistic energy.

photo nowfashion.com

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Women Fashion Power at London’s Design Museum

admin — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 17:33:54 +0000

Women Fashion Power offers an unprecedented look at how princesses, models, CEOs, Dames and designers have used fashion to define and enhance their position in the world.

Collections of Leicestershire County Council/The Symington Collection

Designed by the world-renowned architect, Zaha Hadid, this exhibition brings together exclusive interviews, an immersive multimedia journey and unique historic pieces of clothing to form the most wide-ranging presentation of modern fashion ever to be shown in the UK. Discover how women from Dame Vivienne Westwood to Natalie Massenet and Princess Diana to Anne Hidalgo have used fashion as an important tool of self-expression and empowerment to build reputation, attract attention and assert authority.

Clifford’s trademark style was a long, elegant gown wrapped around her tightly corseted, eighteen-inch waist. W & D Downey/Getty Images

Pictured, Mary Quant having her hair cut by hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, 1964 Ronald Dumont/Getty Images

St Michael News Supplement: Great Expectations, Autumn/Winter 1970 Marks & Spencer Company Archive

Pictured, all-in-one, knitted wool, ‘fashion’ catsuits designed and modeled by Shirley Beljon, left. (1968)

Suit worn by Margaret Thatcher, 1972

Ben Wiseman, Photography: Richard Hubert Smith

Vivienne Westwood
Photography: Richard Hubert Smith

via designmuseum.org

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Jean Louis Sabaji at Fashion Forward Dubai

admin — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 07:23:37 +0000

“We are like a sifter,” said Bong Guerrero, the founder and CEO of Fashion Forward, a Dubai fashion week showcasing regional talent. “Filtering out the best designers and giving them a place to present their work. I see this as a new fashion ecosystem and we all have roles to play,” added the fashion entrepreneur.

Guerrero has come up with a smart strategy for his fledging fashion platform that is only in its fourth season. Over the three day event earlier this month, he broke up half a dozen fashion shows each day with keynote speeches from industry leaders and panel discussions on hot-button topics like “Modest Fashion in Modern Times” and “State of the Industry.” Full disclosure: I was one of the speakers at the event. Guerrero also created a venue for accessories, jewelry and niche designer labels to set up stands to promote their startup brands.

photo jeanlouissabaji.com

Fashion Forward is doing something that other nascent fashion weeks should take note of. Through the blending of shows, speeches and panels, the organization is not diluting its platform by presenting a plethora of designers in a catwalk setting before they have the maturity to take on such a high profile environment. Rather, this mélange of fashion-focused events was concentrated on industry education, facilitating the discovery by international buyers and journalists of local designer diamonds in the rough. While at the same time teaching those same budding talents about the issues and needs of the global market.

photo jeanlouissabaji.com

“When we launched it, we were very careful not to call it a fashion week,” said Ramzi Nakad, a partner and the COO of Fashion Forward. “With the name comes expectations and we wanted to be realistic about the state of the industry and where it is at.”

Currently there is about a 70% turnover each season of new designers showing at Fashion Forward, as so many of the brands are still quite small. But there are key indicators that the grass roots industry is starting to truly burrow in deep and take hold below the sands of Dubai.

photo jeanlouissabaji.com

via nowfashion.com

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