Imagine Fashion Blog

Fashion's New Blood

2011-02-10T18:58:11-05:00

It was luxury’s quiet but deadly culling of the ranks. With the whittling down-size of companies, houses and brands went the quiet ejection of a phalanx of executives, designers, and influence makers.

Without anyone commenting much, a small army of talent – decision making and desire creating – was summarily evicted and a fresh tribe of playmakers installed.

Call it a Macbeth moment. It took a while to unfold but the firing season, a tide of demotions and abrupt sackings, reached its highest pitch this past fall as brands as big as Hermes, Thierry Mugler and Ungaro, and major league magazines like Vogue – both Russian and French – and the boss of New York’s once almighty fashion bible W Magazine, saw their long time managing directors, creative heads, and editors all brushed aside.

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still,” said Shakespeare’s Macbeth as blood gushes in his classic tragedy.

Yet this is the world of luxury – where an elegant adieu is essential. So, everyone officially “resigned.” Even as the following brutal editing occurred.

The industry’s most notable turnover was Jean Paul Gaultier, l’enfant terrible of Paris fashion. An acclaimed couturier and a unique media-generating phenomena, he brought down the curtains on a seven year career as RTW designer of Hermes women’s in October. Yet it was not so much his departure – a poised final bow serenaded by a dozen horses and three score of models – but the choice of replacement that shocked. Gaultier, the designer who famously dressed Madonna in iconic conical bra, lost his job to Christophe Lemaire: a respected designer perhaps, but one whose previous position was designing tennis label Lacoste.

“Like all the best love affairs, it was wonderful but had to come to an end,” Gaultier, 58, told me backstage. At least he left with a smile; most major designers don’t. For those who don’t know their history: Gianfranco Ferrè famously burst into tears when he quit his job as Christian Dior’s couturier, Tom Ford sobbed on his last catwalk bow at Gucci, and Alber Elbaz and the audience collectively wept at his final swan song runway collection from Yves Saint Laurent.

Lemaire, 45, will make his Hermes debut in March during Paris’ upcoming prêt-a-porter season. He was succeeded at Lacoste by 35-year-old Felipe Oliveira Baptista. Ya’ll getting the age message?

The other big Paris lynching was at Ungaro where duo designer Estrella Archs and celebrity “creative consultant” Lindsay Lohan were evicted by the house’s Indian-born, San Francisco-based software entrepreneur Asim Abdullah and replaced by London hipster Giles Deacon. In Abdullah’s case he was effectively forced to act after the debut joint collection of Archs and Lohan for Ungaro received universally scathing reviews. Deacon’s Ungaro debut in a tropical glasshouse which featured celebrities in dresses made of plants, coincidently didn’t exactly win ecstatic reviews either.

Milan also saw its share of turnovers, starting at Versace where Donatella eliminated her men’s designer Russian Alexander Plohkov and replaced by Martyn Bal, a Dutchman a decade his junior who had done stints at Dior Homme and Burberry. Still, Bal brought back the King’s Road to the Medusa house this January and the collection was a hit.

“I like what Martyn does with our menswear. His ideas remind me of Gianni’s,” Donatella told me after Bal’s show in Milan in mid February.

Artistically speaking the meaning was obvious: let youth take over, but make sure the youngsters, who have plenty of commercial experience, know how to respect the bottom line.

In other instances, nobody was actually fired. Like at Alexander McQueen, where the designer’s death led to the appointment of long-time right hand Sarah Burton. Or at Mugler, a house that hadn’t staged a runway show in eons. When its owners, French beauty group Clarins, noticed that perfume sales were weakening, they hired UK-based (though Italian-Japanese by birth) stylist Nicola Formichetti to ramp up the volume on the runway. And that he certainly did, enlisting Lady Gaga – whose dress style he’s accredited with inventing – to create the soundtrack for Mugler’s January comeback show, featuring Gothic models with heads completely covered with tattoos.

And the turnover wasn’t just restricted to creative types. Giorgio Armani, for instance, effectively hired a new CEO, Livio Proli, though rather discreetly. The press release announcing his arrival gave his title as General Manager but carefully read that he was “responsible for operational and commercial management,” making clear Proli holds the reins of power.

Youth also took over this month at Berluti when Bernard Arnault, chairman and key shareholder of luxury giant LVMH (owner of the famed boot-maker), appointed his 33-year-old son Antoine as managing director. Young Arnault was previously an energetic marketing and communications boss at Louis Vuitton. Now, instead of investing daddy’s money on LV’s core values ad campaigns (having featured Bono, Diego Maradona and Keith Richards), Antoine will have to re-energize the tiny shoe label. In a way he succeeds Olga Berluti, a septuagenarian, famed for founding The International Swann Club – named in homage to Proust – for men who meet regularly for shoe-appreciation evenings and the bizarre ritual of polishing their shoes with Dom Pérignon.

Bono also saw action in the LVMH stable, selling half his socially conscious label Edun in 2009. He then watched the luxury group fire his old buddy and design director Rogan Gregory and replaced him with fellow Irish national Sharon Wauchob. The result? A far better collection and much more positive media response. Looks like sometimes the suits know what they’re doing.

Fashion media was not spared a clean out either. The biggest cull, though not of greatest surprise, was the demise of Carine Roitfeld, the chic editor of French Vogue. Apparently her freelance career as a consultant went way too far for Vogue’s owner, New York magazine empire Conde Nast.

Last March, Roitfeld and the entire staff of French Vogue were banned from attending the runway show of Balenciaga, the most acclaimed fashion forward label in the Gucci Group, the Paris-based luxury conglomerate. Balenciaga’s designer Nicolas Ghesquière was apparently enraged when a coat he lent French Vogue for a shoot was returned to his office from a Turkish manufacturing plant used by Max Mara, the classic Italian label which Roitfeld advised as a consultant. Roitfeld’s successor, Emmanuelle Alt, is alleged to have signed a contract specifically forbidding her from outside consulting projects.

Following the Balenciaga banishment, Conde Nast International CEO Jonathan Newhouse was forced to have a face-to-face meeting to placate François-Henri Pinault, Gucci Croup CEO and scion of the family that controls the conglomerate, second largest in the luxury industry.

Arnault also took a hand in the denouement. Several LVMH sources insisted he called Newhouse too, enraged by French Vogue featuring Dior’s high-end jewelry photographed on young children and a crinkly old couple.

Meanwhile over in Moscow, the posh-spoken Yelena Doletskaya was unceremoniously shunted to the side for former assistant Viktoria Davydova. Alt, 43, and Davydova, 42, are both more than a decade younger than their former bosses.

Sometimes, the chops were plain and simple, due to happen because of the recession. In New York, major league powerhouse Patrick McCarthy, boss of both industry bible Women’s Wear Daily and up-market title W, was evicted after 30-years at the company and replaced by Italian-born dandy, and designer favorite, Stefano Tonchi. McCarthy’s crime was evident: W’s advertising had fallen by 50 per cent.

In the same week, Roitfeld was ditched and Newhouse fired Catherine Ostler as editor of society title British Tatler, replacing her with new editrix Kate Reardon.

But lest one thinks that heads are rolling monthly in media, let’s remember this: Reardon, a slim 42-year-old blonde, is only the 17th editor of Tatler since the magazine’s revival in 1901.

Good Evening, America

2011-02-08T18:16:08-05:00

For anyone who knows culture or style, Chloë Sevigny needs little introduction. Her big break in Larry Clark’s Kids (1995) came while she still worked at the downtown boutique Liquid Sky, her true New York cool preferred to an actress’s imitation of it. With a personal style that drew early attention from Sassy Magazine and The New Yorker, it’s no wonder she now presents her own designs. From her Oscar-nominated turn in Boys Don’t Cry (1999) through Zodiac (2007), American Psycho (2000) and beyond, she infuses interesting projects with intelligence, authenticity, and a sly sexuality. Sevigny has recently completed the final season of HBO series Big Love (now airing) and just launched her Spring collection for Opening Ceremony. Shot on a Kodak i8

Shot by Zbigniew Bzymek

Edited by Adam Dugas

Finishing by Subvoyant

Haute Couture, Beam Me Up

2011-02-03T11:20:42-05:00

It was a small step for man, but a gigantic leap for Armani when fashion’s most self-disciplined of designers went through a stylistic time warp back to the Sixties, in a collection that recalled Pierre Cardin with “liquid metal” fabrics and a retro futurist colour palette of molten reds and cobalt blues.

Things got delicately futurist at Chanel too, where Karl Lagerfeld went for a dreamily evocative moment in a collection showing the house’s atelier and petites mains in all their brilliance. But in a magnificent counter blast to modernism, John Galliano produced mega retro on the catwalk of Christian Dior, bringing back to life (in three dimensions) the beautiful drawings of Rene Gruau, whose illustrations helped make famous Monsieur Dior’s famed 1947 New Look collection.

But if there was one overriding memory of this couture season, it was of fine dining with half a dozen sumptuous meals, including an epic souper thrown by Gucci in the Italian embassy and a thoroughly chic repas to celebrate the opening of Giambattista Valli’s debut boutique. But let’s get begin chronologically on Monday, at Dior- and Dior’s newest new look, and all the glorious colours of Gruau on great display.

“Gruau’s crayons, pencil marks and paint strokes have always inspired me. The only question is why I didn’t attempt this before, given his huge influence at Dior,” commented Galliano, whose atelier imitated Gruau’s pencil lines with jagged lines of sequins and mimicked his paint strokes by dashes of stiff chiffon.

Our vote for the best look – Polish beauty Magdalena Frackowiak in a petrol blue and feathered combo. Talk about drop dead gorgeous!

Next up to bat was Armani, where flying saucer Philip Treacy haute couture hats announced Giorgio’s Star Trek moment. But rather than “Beam me up, Scotty”, make that “Beam me up, Pierre” – after Cardin that is, seeing how futuristically fun this show was.

“I stumbled across a striking bracelet in an obscure Milan boutique and went from there,” said Armani, whose backdrop was huge images of beveled crimson and blue violet jewels, colors and shapes reproduced in jeweled accessories.

The Italian couturier’s audience, including Sophia Loren, Asia Argento, pop princess Amber le Bon and Pierre Sarkozy, son of French President Nicolas, clearly loved the show. Though where were the signature Red Carpet looks, one wondered?

“I’ve got plenty of looks up my sleeve for Los Angeles,” confided Armani, before he table-hopped his own dinner in Mathi’s, the fashion insider’s intimate supper club. Its location? Right around the corner from Cardin’s Paris townhouse.

The following morning, in a timelessly marvelous collection at Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld positioned two score of models on a mirrored staircase, an exact reproduction of the one Coco used to watch her own shows.

“The collection is not meant to reference any historical trend, more suggest levity and lightness in a new way,” Lagerfeld told me in a preview the evening before.

Inspired by Marie Laurencin, a Cubist artist who painted Coco Chanel as a languid grand dame with one of her pet dogs, the collection didn’t really suggest any specific era. Instead, using crystals, pearls and beads sewn magically together into complete garments, Chanel’s remarkable atelier conjured up gauzy crystalline redingotes that shimmered down the runway aside rose tinted, glimmering crystal leggings. Each look juxtaposed before the dark surrounding setting – a series of Coromandel screens, the Chinese lacquered paneling Coco used to decorate her own Paris apartment back when she posed for Laurencin.

And would Coco would have loved this collection, alongside Chanel’s shockingly impressive front-row. It boasted house ambassadors Anna Mouglalis and Vanessa Paradis; actresses Elodie Bouchez, Lou Doillon, Kirsten Dunst, Ana Girardot, Sandrine Kiberlain, Diane Kruger and Joana Preiss; singers Janelle Monáe and Karen Elson; and fashionistas Alexa Chung, Ines de la Fressange, Poppy Delevigne, Caroline Sieber and Jerry Hall. Gulp.

Tuesday evening found us at Givenchy, for the week’s oddest source of inspiration. Couturier Riccardo Tisci went hyper Japanese, mixing the melancholic mood of late Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno – who was still dancing at the age of 100 in 2006 – with the pop imagery cult cartoon series, The Transformers.

The results were strikingly beautiful – the robotic toys’ transforming heads suggested with incredibly dexterous strips and curls of rolled leather, the Butoh dancer’s movements by exotic mixes of ostrich feathers, tulle and padded silk — everything suggesting birds in flight.

On Wednesday, Jean Paul Gaultier reminded us just how obsessed this Parisian is with Britain! His men’s show a week before was entitled “James Blonde” which starred spivs and spies in lingerie and holsters attached to bare legs. His couture was posh punk, models with Mohawk hairdos, babes in kinky, bondage cocktails, and a soundtrack booming out “Anarchy in the UK.”

And our favorite look was again Magdalena Frackowiak – surely, model of the week – who emoted a femme fatale in a “rising sun” black silk bodice, fishnet tights, and ripped satin train. Eat your heart out Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe…

The week’s last big show was Valentino; a polished performance where transparency and deep gorge cuts exposed acres of flesh in a collection that was nonetheless ladylike.

“Elegance is meant to be a little subversive. Modern beauty should be dangerous,” argued Pier Paolo Piccioli after he and design partner Maria Grazia Chiuri sent out their romantic yet sexually charged collection.

But our happiest moment was well away from the catwalk- when Gucci celebrated its new Rue Royale boutique with dinner in the mega opulent Italian embassy, co-hosted by designer Frida Giannini and departing French Vogue Editor-in-Chief, Carine Roitfeld.

“Wish me luck in my next adventure,” shrugged Roitfeld, who took the unprecedented step of writing a letter to couture houses asking NOT to be invited to any shows in order to not confuse things for her successor and former fashion director Emmanuelle Alt.

Over a supper of Puligny Montrachet and lobster, Kate Moss – sat beside with little conversing, movie star Jessica Alba attired in a one-of-a-kind va va voom silver, off the shoulder Gucci cocktail – smoked incessant quantities of cigarettes. Everywhere you looked there were beautiful actresses – Diane Kruger in a ladylike black Gucci organza, Bond girl Gemma Arterton in a revealing beige dress held together with string and a large G logo belt, and Tron star Olivia Wilde in an emerald blouse and silk jodhpur pants.

However, the evening’s star turned out to be UK singer Anna Calvi, with a four-song performance in the embassy’s remarkable ballroom, painted with Arcadian frescoes and finished in stucco trees and branches.

“Why can’t I stay here when I am in Paris?” laughed Yasmin Le Bon, in town with her daughter Amber and fellow London It Girl, Poppy Delevigne.

One night later we ran into Kruger, her eyes somewhat tighter, at the opening of Giambattista Valli’s debut boutique in a Place de la Madeleine passage.

“I should have gone home after Gucci, but I’ve just finished shooting a new film here in France – Special Forces – and wanted to meet the crew for, let’s say, wrap up drink. It was great fun, though tonight I’m paying a small price,” smiled Kruger, who sat down with Valli, Dasha Zhukova and Charlotte Casiraghi over a dinner of crab salad, caviar and, bien sur vodka.

But for sheer energy, the week’s winner was French lingerie label Etam, which threw a mega fashion meets rock show in the Grand Palais.

With live performances by Beth Ditto, Boy George, Karen Elson, The Kills, Janelle Monáe and Joey Starr, the show was a smash hit. And one had to like the selection of underwear from Karolina Kurkova in a wee garter belt to a couple of skimpily clad babes carrying – I kid you not – baby lambs.

It's Good to Say Yes, Sam Sparro

2011-02-01T12:59:41-05:00

Shot on a Kodak Z981

Most people have their first encounter with the rich and achingly soulful voice of Sam Sparro upon hearing his platinum single “Black and Gold.” The Los Angeles based singer, songwriter and producer has spent the last few years touring the world in support of his self-titled debut album and writing collaboratively with artists like Mark Ronson, Cathy Dennis, and Adam Lambert. A video for his ‘handbag house revival’ song “Pink Cloud” premiered last month and he is currently putting the finishing touches on his second album, Return to Paradise, which releases this summer.

What do you do?

I write and produce my own records and I perform and tour as a recording artist. When I write for myself I am 100% of the time writing about my own life and experiences.

What about when you write for someone else?

Fantasy. It depends. I feel like writing pop songs has changed a lot since the 1990s, 80s, or 70s because everything is so literal now. I feel like there’s not that much metaphor in pop song writing and there’s not that much elaborate storytelling.

What’s an example?

“Bye Bye Miss American Pie” or any Dolly Parton song [sings] “I stumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition …”

Well, that’s coming out of a country tradition, which is always story related.

But the Mamas & the Papas, folk music, but also soul music – and that’s really my background and diet, growing up the music was soul based.

What were your favorite things?

Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan … I grew up singing in church. My dad was a musical minister

In Sydney?

In Sydney, Australia and then in the states. We moved here when I was a kid. I went to high school in L.A. then dropped out when I was 16 and moved to back to Australia for a while. I was thinking about this today, actually, I can’t believe my parents let me move out when I was 16. I don’t feel like I gave them a lot of choice, but I think that was it – that’s young.

What did you do when you dropped out?

I went back to Australia to live with my grandparents and got a job working for a music P.R. company. When I saved up enough money, I moved to London where I sort of envisioned my music career taking off and lived there for a few years. I worked in the mailroom at Universal and Sony, at a Toshiba factory, and a restaurant. I went to a lot of parties and clubs and gigs and got really worn out and then moved back to live with my parents for a while.

You started, like all classic soul singers, singing in church.

Strangely enough, when I moved to the states my family joined a church in the valley that was a very musical and the McCrary family, who ran the church, did all the music – cousins, aunties and uncles, brothers and sisters – and they sang with Chaka Khan and on Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. They were a big gospel family band in the 1970s and they have this huge lineage of being in and amongst all these great soul singers, working with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson – they even sang at Michael Jackson’s funeral – and now they’re singing on my next record, which is kind of nuts. Essentially all these women taught me about controlling my voice and how to sing, how to sing with a choir, and how to blend and arrange harmonies. It was really cool to bring them back in and have them singing my songs.

How old were you when you started singing?

I’ve been singing since I was really young, five or six. I think the first time I got paid for it was when I was 12, singing on a soap opera with Ricky Martin: General Hospital. Oh no, maybe I had gotten paid once before – I had sung on some demos. But I was 12 and I sang Christmas carols on “It’s a General Hospital Christmas” with Ricky Martin who was then a soap actor post-Menudo and pre- “She Bangs”.

When did your solo career really start?

I started using the name Sam Sparro at around 19 and living in London recording bedroom demos- very different stuff from what I am doing now. I would give my demo CD to people at record companies where I’m sure it just got tossed in a pile. Once I moved back to L.A. I started collaborating with my friend Jesse Rogg who produced about half of my last record and is co-producing a lot of the next with me. We made an EP and put it up on MySpace, which at the time was the thing to do and it was starting people’s careers- and it kind of started my career. From MySpace all these Radio1 DJs found my music and started playing it on Radio1 before I even had a record deal and within a very short period of time, about three weeks, I went from having this demo played on Radio1 to having every single major label in the UK fly out here to L.A. to wine and dine me and I got swept up.

Who played it?

Annie Mac and Pete Tong.

What song was it?

“Black and Gold” – it was the same production, but a demo mix.

What’s that song about?

The universe … It’s not a love song – a lot of people think it is.

Because of the line, “If you aren’t …”

“If you’re not really here, then I don’t want to be either.” It’s actually addressed to God. I remember thinking at the time if there is no rhyme or reason to all this madness then it’s just bullshit.

Why “Black and Gold”?

Because I looked at the sky and it was black and gold.

How does the new album differ, or does it?

I think it’s more about melody and structure. Oftentimes I do the music first, I used to come up with lyrics and melody at the same time. I often even used to start with a bass line. Now I start with chords and then the bass line. I grew up listening to a lot of jazz. My grandfather was a jazz trumpet player, a really accomplished one. Everyone in my family, my father, grandfather, great-grandfather – they were all musicians and really geeky about chords and structure and ninths and diminished flats and heady music theory. That’s what I’m inspired by on this record: musicality and people playing music.

Is it all real?

Most of it, yes. There’s a lot of piano, bass – there are some 80s synth sounds, but they are real synths, not soft synths, they aren’t coming out of a computer. It’s different because I’ve had complete control and it really is a passion project.

Did you not have complete control before? I had a lot of control, but I got caught up in a major rush. I’m happy with my first record, I look back and it’s like a scrapbook of a period of time. It was three years ago. You know when you read your old journals or diaries and you chuckle to yourself over what you were thinking and where you were at the time and you think, “Aw, that’s cute.” I think that about the record. But this new one is an evolution of me as an artist and as a person. It’s very personal and it’s about how I have been living for the last two years- ups and downs, joy and pain. It will be weird to listen back to this one in two years and be somewhere completely different.

Sam Sparro official site

Sam Sparro MySpace

Paris, Anglo-Fashion

2011-01-27T13:05:22-05:00

When the going gets tough, the smart get elegant or they did this past weekend in Paris at the menswear collections, which ushered in a new era of youthful sophistication, albeit one with a pronounced Anglo-Saxon slant.

Designers thumbed through fashion history to offer the most poetic season in memory, cutting a more forgiving silhouette in bonded and technically finished fabrics, imbuing many outfits with a certain sheen or lambency. Right across the City of Light, there was an UK influence, from Jean Paul Gaultier, whose spy-in-tuxedo collection was entitled James Blond (starring model spies in afghan pants and Veronica Lake blond wigs, I kid you not), to Kenzo, where the inspiration was Oscar Wilde, to Japanese avant garde label Miharayasuhiro, whose whole collection was based on cricket blazers.

Though the new nonchalance did do battle with a perverse surrealist moment, exemplified by Viktor&Rolf, Bernhard Willem and John Galliano, whose roguish Russian émigré collection, inspired by Rudolf Nureyev, was Paris hottest show.

But when that quintessential Parisian house, Yves Saint Laurent, opens its show with Edwardian collar shirts under Rockabilly drape jackets with velvet collars you know there’s something going on.

“Yves Saint Laurent silhouette, Pierre Berge French taste and colour scheme,” explained creative director Stefan Pilati, referring to the late Saint Laurent’s business partner, who had his suits made for in Saville Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard.

In case you did not get the idea, the soundtrack featured PJ Harvey’s singing, “God damn Europeans, take me back to beautiful England,” in her plaintiff ‘The Last Living Rose.’ But Pilati is elegance with a 21st century sheen, best seen in the double flannel suits, elongated well below the hip, yet held together by just two buttons.

Paris was also an extended funeral for the past decade’s key leg shape – skinny jeans and drain-pipe trousers were banished from all catwalks, ejected by a looser, flat front pant. And if, dear reader, you buy yourself any footwear this autumn, make sure they are pony skin Chelsea boots, seen in YSL and at Belgium-born and based Dries Van Noten, whose choice of inspiration was our very own David Bowie.

But Dries prefers a military Bowie to a poetic one, sending out voluminous out and hefty double breasted jackets, finished with detachable rabbit skin mufflers and collars. The Belgium designer went on military maneuvers in his show’s second half, finishing blousons, mess jackets and even belts with black bullion or gold braid – sort of Gordon of Khartoum goes clubbing.

Note to the fashionably obsessed: the key accessory news was unlikely belts, Van Noten’s broad leather straps covered in bullion, or slim boarding school ties at the waistline, of at Lanvin, where men’s wear director Lucas Ossendrijver took his bow in one of mountaineer’s ropes connected by a climber’s clasp.

Lanvin’s hyper sophisticated, yet generally a little frayed, collection was a meeting of haute chic and technical finish, evident in trench-coats in bonded wool finished to look like neoprene, or cashmere jackets held together by hidden magnets.

“Elegance is never used to describe a young guy, always older men or women. Young men are meant to be ‘cool’ or ‘awesome,’ never elegant. So we thought it would be an interesting exercise to take elegance into younger fashion, and with an active element,” underlined Alber Elbaz, creative director of Lanvin.

Proudly representing modernist style were both Hermes and Dior Homme, the latter showing sleek cashmere coats in cleverly contrasting mixes of black and the house’s signature dove gray, in a massive set modeled on a posh Haussmanian apartment. Hermes may be fighting off a takeover bid by French luxury billionaire – and owner of Dior – Bernard Arnault, but its show was quirky nonchalance personified – guys in Avenger style leather jump suits, carrying a man’s version of the classic Kelly Bag.

The British influenced even hailed from north of Hadrian’s Wall, as Rick Owens had a Battle of Culloden moment when regiments of kilts. That item of apparel also starred in a morning show by Japanese hipster Julius whose post apocalyptic aesthetic starred rockers in biker jacket, kilts and the lots of Romanesque black togas. Ironically, the one designer who hardly referenced Old England at all was Sir Paul Smith, in a Frank Zappa influenced show, whose defining memory were husky dudes in Space Age silver down parkas, sort of the rocker on tour in a Montana winter.

In other schools of thought, surrealism and UK iconography blended, like at Kenzo, whose designer Antonio Marras dressed modern day Oscar Wildes in plaid three-piece suits, albeit missing a waistcoat and including a pleated skirt. And at the weekend of cricket world championship, Miharayasuhiro twisted the sports blazer, extending some collars into giant scarves.

That perverse undercurrent continued at Viktor & Rolf, where the duo radically rethought the suit, splitting it continually. The combination came out either with pants in ribbed jerseys and jackets in a thicker version of that material, trousers and jackets and boots each in corduroy, each in a slimmer thread version of material.

“A suit is two pieces of clothing in the same fabric and, I suppose, the masculine uniform. So we thought let’s take a look at that and break a few rules. The results were a little surreal, which our collections often are, which we like,” designer Rolf Snoeren told me, after posing for photos with Bao Bao Wan, the Hong Kong-based jewelry designer, socialite. The granddaughter of Wan Li, a Communist Party vice premier in Eighties mainland China, Bao Bao was the most photographic gal in Paris during the menswear season.

And fashionable dreams got a Gothic finish in the season’s biggest re-launch, Mugler – a mega perfume brand, a tiny apparel business – returned to the catwalk under the joint artistic direction of designer Romain Kremer and London hipster Nicola Formichetti, stylist of Lady Gaga, who created the soundtrack of this show. Hundreds of fans thronged around the entrance to this show in a Marais garage, but Gaga was a no show.

Backed up by graphic video by photographer Mariano Vivanco, starring an angry model whose whole face was covered in skeletal tattoos, the show was largely a S&M reworking of many of founder Thierry Mugler signature power-shoulder looks, with some down-coat looks thrown in for good measure. Leading one wag to re-christen the brand, Thierry Moncler.

Listen To The Girls, Cody Critcheloe

2011-01-25T17:22:44-05:00

Shot on a Kodak Z981

A chromakey wizard with a fantastic ear for hooks, artist-musician Cody Critcheloe blasted out of a hyper-creative Kansas City, Missouri scene of artists, performers and designers. His band SSION is a funky-punky dance pop outfit that sounds like a blending of Scissor Sisters, Prince and the Germs. Critcheloe also creates immersive hand-drawn visual worlds for the stage shows, music videos and art exhibitions. Boy, the long-form music video film he directed based around material from the SSION album Fool’s Gold, played in galleries like New York’s The Hole and Gramercy Arts Club as well as Peres Projects in Los Angeles and Berlin. Critcheloe applies his visionary flair to other artists as well, directing music videos for Peaches, The Gossip, Tilly and the Wall, and Liars. The new SSION album, Bent, arrives this spring just before the debut of a new performance at P.S.1/MoMA in May, 2011.

When did you start making music?

When I was a teenager, 15 or so. I started SSION. It was more noisy punk rock that we did on a four track. A lot of spoken work stuff and feedback. We were really into No Wave. That’s how it started. And then on the side I would do my own thing that was more heartfelt and serious. Me trying to be like PJ Harvey.

Did you ever release any of that stuff?

No. Actually the noisier, crazy stuff is cooler. We released some of it on cassette. We’ve never actually released anything. I mean, in a real way.

The last record was a real release.

Yeah, but it was so short lived. It was a friend of ours that put it out. I think there were only 200 copies.

Really?! It’s everywhere online and I remember seeing it everywhere.

That’s good, but I would like to do more of a physical thing. I guess people aren’t into that anymore. It’s such a shame.

When’s the last time you bought a physical CD or record?

I bought that Kanye record a month ago, maybe.

Yeah, How is it?

I like it. I bought the CD because I don’t have a record player now, it’s in storage. The packaging is nice. I like the artwork. That’s what kinda sold me.

Which they don’t even have on iTunes. They blur out the George Condo painting.

It’s a cool painting.

Yeah I like George Condo. How is YOUR record?

It’s coming along. We worked on it last night. There’s this one song I really like called “My Love Grows in The Dark.” I did a real pop version of it and then Albert and Ashley enhanced it and made a house version. I just don’t know if I am ready to make house music, you know. I don’t want to get too glossy.

You have such a great pop sensibility. You need to hang on to that. I love your new song “Earthquake.” And you are working on some stuff with Azari and III. I love them too. When are you planning to release this next one?

We are debuting the new show at P.S. 1 in NYC on May 14, 2011. The entire show is going to be lit with digitally mapped video. The stage and all the surfaces will be painted white. The set will be a giant animation. It will be similar to the video for the song “Clown” off the last album.

How was “Boy” conceived?

I submitted a proposal in 2005 to Grand Arts, a not-for-profit arts space in Kansas City. We got the green light to start the movie after we finished the album in 2007. I had already written a basic script for what I wanted to do. But the next film I make, I will not drag it out over a two-year period. I should have shot everything in one month. It was difficult to stop and start. There is something nice about saying, “Ok we are going to block out this month and do this really huge project. And we are just going to live it for this period of time and we are going to lose our fucking minds. We are going to go crazy and become that.” That’s how I would prefer to do it next time, just one big chunk of time in production.

What were the things that were driving you during that period and what’s driving you now?

It was an awesome time. A bunch of different people came together in Kansas City and we had a similar aesthetic and a similar mindset about how to so something, about how to make something happen. I was also doing a lot of speed at the time which made me a little bit delusional which I think was good for the work

What kind of things are you looking at now that inspire you?

I loved the last M.I.A. album because it was so fucking nasty but her live show sucked. Have you heard the mixed tape she recently put it out? It’s really good. She makes good music. I like what she does. It’s just the live show is shitty.

Who did you work with on your record?

I did some stuff with Azari and III. I did some stuff with this dude in London who is in this band called Te3th. And then I did some stuff with this dude Nick in the band Teen Girl Fantasy. I have been talking to MNDR about doing stuff. She is so amazing.

What’s the sound of your new record?

I think I have become a better songwriter. On the last record I didn’t have any way to record the music I was writing. I would just play the chords on a guitar and have the melody and the lyrics and go to Ashley and he would do most of the programming. This time having Garage Band has allowed me to put down any sort of ideas I have had in my head and be able to work with different people on it. I think the songs are better. They are sweeter. Everything is slower too. It’s not straight ahead dance music.

Who’s Ashley?

Ashley Miller is the musician I did “Fool’s Gold” with. We’ve worked together for a really long time. A lot the SSION music I have started with other people for this album and he is helping me finish. Because I want this album to be sort of like a mixtape. I want every song to follow into the other.

What’s going to be the single?

The song I am most excited to make a video for is called “Listen To The Girls.” There was an interview with Will.i.am and he’s in the back of a limo getting ready to DJ at a club and the promoter is in there with his girlfriend. He asks the club promoter what he should play. The promoter says ‘”Dude, just play whatever you want,” and the girlfriend says, “NO! Electro. You’ve got to play ELECTRO.” And then there’s this really dramatic moment where Will.i.am turns to the journalist and says “You gotta listen to the girls, man. Just listen to the them, they always know what’s up.” It’s like a song to myself. It is one of the first songs I wrote for the record to get me inspired, to pick out some muses. It’s a song about fashion.

SSION Official

SSION YouTube Channel

SSION MySpace

Americana Hits Milan

2011-01-20T17:08:10-05:00

Italy, a country of less than 60 million people, has just completed a remarkable decade in fashion. If one had to define the 30 most important brands in the world in terms of influencing style and the art of dressing in the past 10 years, then at least 10 of them will have come from this quirkily beautiful peninsula.

When one looks at the score of labels that have marked the past decade, a reasonable commentator would have to include Giorgio Armani, Valentino, Gucci, Prada, Bottega Veneta, Versace, Ferre, Fendi, Marni and Dolce & Gabbana. That’s a pretty remarkable performance by our Italian friends, especially in an era of massive globalization and the shirt list does not include such men’s fashion luminaries as Zegna, Ferragamo, amongst many others.

Milan has only one great rival, Paris. Which, once again, a reasonable commentator would have to say remains the greatest fashion capital of them all. When one adds together the UK, Belgium, Japanese, US and French brands who stage their shows in the French capital, Paris remains the great Mecca of modern fashion, a title which is unlikely to ever change in the life of anyone reading this article.

However, when it comes to the defining, refining and interpreting the great power and opinion maker of the past decade and indeed last century, the United States, then Milan and Paris remain diametrically opposed. For fundamentally, the Italians embrace American culture and the French compete with it. This divergence has never been more apparent than in the latest menswear show of D&G whose signature tune was a loving acceptance of modern preppy dressing, rarefied through the Internet.

Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana sent out Acid coloured sneakers, check pants, Ivy League scarves and WASP-style sweaters. You think you were on a New England college campus or the set of the Social Network.

However, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana ripped up the preppy rules by combining them with a pack of All American images, from Mickey Mouse of Fantasia on puffer jackets to an “Enjoy Coca Cola” sign enlarged massively on a pink felt jacket.

“Social Network chic, yes” Gabbana winked backstage, referring to the hit movie on the birth of Facebook.

And in the big discovery show of the season Umit Benan, a Turk who has made Milan his home presented a great homage to wealth named “Investment Bankers.” Staged in the plush bar of the Carlton Baglioni Hotel it featured a score of models downing Scotch, attired in hounds tooth suits with double breasted vests, American Psycho power ties and his signature drop crotch pants, though done in Wall Street chalk stripe.

“I wanted to create a banking group where everyone feels comfortable putting their money. A place where some bankers have beards, others are midgets,” smiled Benan, very much the designer to watch of Milan these past two years. Expect him to land a major job as creative director in a top luxury label soon, after this chic subversion of USA finance.

Though the overriding colour of the season was gray, Milan was not without its parties. Unquestionably the finest was the latest cool bash by Fendi which started Canadian electro dance band Les Dragonettes, and attracted posh Fendi fans from all over Italy, who partied until 3AM.

Fendi took the opportunity to show a series of great new tuxedos, worn by a group of 10 male models and paired with tuxes, crisp jeans and patent leather pumps, this was the most chic evening look of the whole Italian season.

Adding to the more rugged mood, where many Italian brands have been hooking up with football players, Moschino has partnered with Aironi Rugby, the country’s best rugby team and designed the official team suits. This collaboration inspired Moschino’s latest collection, a clever juxtaposition of sporty and classic. Dressed like a dandy, half the models appeared in blue wool coats with metal studding, double-breasted and blazers in technical jersey, with lots of fleece wear and jogging pants.

The rugby elements appeared in double stripes on shirts, trousers and patent leather sneakers or a wide-striped Rugby shirt reinvented as a reversible down jacket.

A Mittel-European moment was also evident at some shows, especially Etro, where designer Kean Etro’s big idea was cow couture, i.e. anything from cattle worked on this runway. From Friesian skin shaggy boots to rawhide trenches.

Entitled “My Friend the Cow,” it featured Tyrolean jackets, leather made to look it came from a dinosaur and Himalayan folklore on paisley jackets.

Giorgio Armani looked east to China, especially in his Neo-realist Emporio collection whose defining moment was dashing model Paolo Roldan – a Canadian of Philippine origin – in a beige leather swing coat.

But it was back to the US at Jil Sander, where designer Raf Simons created lean suits in thick Scottish wool, cut with trim pants and ever so slightly crossed over jackets – a big Milan trend.

Adding to the freshness, the entire backdrop and runway were made of brand new, fresh pine plywood and the strong smell of fresh wood added to the novelty of the setting.

Simons’ great colour palette reminded me of the colours one finds in the ecclesiastical High Church robes. But when asked Raf, he smiled and replied: “Religious, yes a little, but Amish actually. The collection was not really inspired by any specific idea or thing. But the colours were a little Amish.”

Like we said it was all about accepting America this season in Milan.

I Am A Painter, Michael Bevilacqua

2011-01-18T18:03:22-05:00

Take a serious mind, a double punch of punk and a blender’s worth of pop culture and you have the beginnings of a Michael Bevilacqua painting. Born and raised in California, he takes the DIY aesthetics of the native punk culture – photocopies, spray paint, silk screen – and works them into fine art canvases exploding with cultural markers from Popeye and Snow White to death metal, ska and punk. His studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, is awash in creativity – music blaring and artists visiting to collaborate- this is a man who lives his mantra that making art should be fun. Bevilacqua’s show “Catastrophe Ballet” opens at The Flat – Massimo Carasi in Milan, Italy on March 10, 2011. Shot on a Kodak i8

Bevilacqua at The Flat – Massimo Carasi

Bevilacqua at Gering & Lopez Gallery, NY

Shot by: Zbigniew Bzymek

Edited by: Zbigniew Bzymek and Adam Dugas

Video finishing by: Subvoyant

Rio, Demure & Confident

2011-01-13T14:22:59-05:00

So, who was it that said the Brazilians couldn’t be demure, and even prudish? It’s a measure of how much things have changed in the mentality of this newly hyper self-confident nation that the first half of Fashion Rio did not contain one swimwear show by any of the Brazilian designers and that the most popular skirt length was right down to the ankles.

Rio’s current season also comes barely two weeks after Brazil became the fourth major democracy – after India, Britain and Germany- to elect a woman head of government. Dilma, as she is universally known down here, who prefers just below the knee skirts and fully-buttoned jackets. She has been wearing looks by Brazil’s most noted designer Alexandre Herchcovitch and has let it be known she intends to start sampling upcoming local talent.

There was a time, just a handful of seasons ago, when Rio was all about bikinis, beach side throws and poolside looks. Not anymore. With both the World Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016) due to take place in this tropical multi-amphitheatre the locals are clearly determined to be thought of as sophisticates and not slatterns.

Though perhaps their very earnestness and desire to be thought the equal of Western European designers led to some very odd oddities – wool leggings for men, knee socks for gals, the sort of thing nobody in their right mind would wear in the tropics.

Due to its timing, Rio is effectively the first season showing fall clothes for the current year, even if the clothes will hit shelves in the relatively warm months of June and July down here in the Southern Hemisphere. Did any Rio show suggest a trend for a global audience? Well, Filhas de Gaia sort of did, with its gloomy yet smart Agatha Christie inspired theme – dark grays, charcoals and browns, masculine tailoring carefully mixed with semi-transparency. It was neither a brilliant show, nor collection, but as a metaphor of our straightened, debt burdened times, it seemed spot on.

A shadowy palette also ruled at Patachou, where a fifties high society hostess mood ruled, albeit with a quirky combination of ribbed satin dresses, mesh silk and chiffon touches and socks worn with multi strand boots.

Nearly all shows take place in Pier Maua, the key port district being renovated for the global sporting events, and it’s an indication of how seriously Brazil takes clothing and textiles that Fashion Rio has led the advance into these dockside warehouses, spearheading the revamp of the city.

Under the director Paulo Borges Fashion Rio has turned into a slick machine where schedules run more precisely than, say, London, and sponsors appear abundant.

The season opened with models featuring bee–stung lips and spiky hair accoutrements, recalling Dolores Del Rio’s spiky pineapple hairdos at Alessa. Here the story was the faintly absurdist tropical prints, where impressionism, broken Paisley, sarong style abstraction and glitter all met in an over-the-top mix. Pretty well every look reached the bizarre platform, wrapped in faux fur.

And absurdism is always a little present in Rio, especially at Melk Z-Da, a pretty pastiche of ideas seen before in Giambattista Valli and Christopher Kane, and with not enough spin to make them seem new.

The most avant garde collection in the Cidade Marvilhosa, or the Marvelous City, as Cariocas like to call their burbs’, was Aquastudio, which highlighted why Brazil is really the most important country outside of the Big Four of France, Italy, UK and USA, when it comes to fashion – great fabrics. Mixing elements of lamination, oilcloth, angular weaves and back stitching, designer Esther Bauman whipped up some great futurist lady looks, which would not have looked out place on a Milan catwalk.

That said, sex is never a million miles away in Brazil, albeit subtly as at Maria Bonita Extra, where the combination of girly lace and tulle underwear with sporty knee pads and athletic tops looked very charming. Staged on a raw wooden catwalk with basketball court stripes, the show did evoke Alexander Wang, but with enough spin and femininity to make it admirable and new.

And, even if Brazilian designers are imitative, like Coven, which sent out several Coco Chanel four-pocket jackets, they have sufficient vim and gall to make any look their own. Plus Coven also highlighted the fact that Brazil is upping the ante when it comes to accessories – the brand’s woven strap boots all looked great.

Our favorite guy’s moment was very much British Colony, where designer Maxime Perelmuter had the guts to take plenty of risks, harnessing Navaho blanket prints, fisherman’s lures, and major bright reds and yellows in a gutsy display of colour. We only wish more Brazilian men would wear his more breezy ideas. Though some of them indeed did at Maxime’s rockin’ party in Londra, the rich kids club in the heart of Fasano, at the Philippe Starck designed boutique hotel in Ipanema that is Rio’s chicest inn.

Chatting to club goers revealed that few of them had voted for left-of-center Dilma, but the ease with which this country has welcomed her inauguration and the smooth machinery of Fashion Rio suggests that Brazil’s dream of becoming a true global power is no longer a pipe dream – just a matter of time.

Ephemeral Permanence, Michael Stipe

2011-01-11T12:02:49-05:00

Shot on Kodak Z981

Sonic landscapes, the cockroach of sculptures, and stepping into the 21st century.

The polymathic Michael Stipe is a singer-songwriter, film producer (Being John Malkovich, Velvet Goldmine) and a visual artist. On March 8, his band R.E.M. releases its fifteenth studio album, Collapse into Now, with guest stars including Patti Smith and Peaches.

When you are working on music how is image part of the writing process, because I feel that it is something that is not recognized in your work. Because you are defined so clearly as a musician, the visual component is never looked at with equal criticism. Does that visual component happen before you write the music, while you write, after?

My main contribution, outside of my voice, which just comes out of my mouth, is the lyric, and when I listen to music, and particularly R.E.M. music in its genesis state, I see landscapes and I see images and my job is to try to capture that in a lyric that will translate for someone who is not me.

So you get instrumentals and you see images?

The lyric comes from somewhere very visual, so the visual aspect of everything for me is almost paramount to the music. Before music I took photographs, I’ve always been very visually oriented. Music is just an unbelievably profound medium through which to express different emotions, and the pop song is such a beautifully intact, limited form that is really fun to fuck with.

Do you ever feel like the image works against the lyric or the sound?

Yes. And sometimes that is great and often it just kind of steals the listener’s dream or replaces what they might envision – it is replacing their sonic landscape, their visual sonic landscape, with mine.

When did you start making objects?

I’ve done it for a long time. If you look on the third R.E.M. album cover (Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985) I had this idea for this thing that is like a pendulum —So I created this thing and photographed it and that became the record cover. Then I opened a book and set it on fire and that became the other side of the record cover. So I’ve been doing this kind of thing off and on for some time. I realized early on, probably when I was about twenty, that I was a terrible painter. I don’t like my handwriting. I don’t trust my own line, so I am a really bad drawer, I am a terrible painter. I’m really an art school fuck-up. I didn’t graduate – I went to art school because it was where all the hot guys and hot girls hung out and you could get espresso and quote Kerouac and talk about the Gang of Four and it provided me with this community within which I felt very comfortable and very safe. I started seriously making things about four years ago and it kind of landed on me very unexpectedly. The bronze cameras are the ones that people seem to know or recognize the most, but I’m doing this other series of books and my favorite edition ever of the New York Times.

And the fruit and vegetable stand, is it an exact replica?

Yes, it is an exact replica with one exception of a vegetable stand in Chinatown, New York. So there are these exact replicas that I’m doing of these objects that have either immense meaning to me or that I feel have been incredibly overlooked as these beautiful structural components to our everyday and they deserve recognition.

What did you start making four years ago?

The bronze cameras. If anyone is even lightly familiar with R.E.M. and the stuff I sing about, I’m constantly wrestling with sentimentality and nostalgia, memory. Reality versus some dream reality, and that’s something that I think plays into these objects, particularly with the cameras, which become fetishized themselves. They aren’t actually anything except the thing that provides us with memory or with something through which to be nostalgic or sentimental, which is the photograph.

Why bronze?

I like the idea of an object that we fetishize and have this desire to keep, because it is something that provided us with joy or memory, with memories. But it is very impermanent, and bronze to me feels very permanent. Bronze to me — if the city of New York was destroyed by whatever futuristic force, bronze might be left. So these objects are my cockroach of sculpture. I wanted something ephemeral that felt very permanent.

I like that the things you choose are obsolete or about to become obsolete – mini-cassettes, Polaroid cameras. Permanence and obsolescence.

A lot of that is about our fetishizing these objects. We are completely freaked out that they are gone. Right now everyone’s like, “Hang on a second! I like the Kindle, but I don’t want books and magazines and newspapers to go away.” We have attachments to these things and we are progressing so profoundly into this century already. The idea that you can’t instantly see an image on the back of a device when you take a picture to a five year old is ridiculous already. So what’s it going to be like in fifteen years time? Change is the one thing we have absolutely no control over and yet we are absolutely terrified of it. Everyone is. And we spend most of our lives trying to be okay with change and it is human nature that we are kicking against it and it is utterly necessary of course.

What are the sculptures you’ve done?

Right now I’ve been working on birch plywood panels. Around the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jean Genet I was exploring queer identity, historic queer identity, and what that has come to mean in the year 2010.

It’s interesting that you use the word “queer.” I mean, that’s a choice. Why do you choose that word?

For me the word queer is just all-embracing and more of a universal term and one that doesn’t try to subdivide or work within this binary idea of sexuality. Instead it just says, “Look we are all on some level this and let’s embrace that.” Let’s embrace our queerness – not an outsider status, let’s embrace what makes us different and make it something to be envied.

And it sounds fresh.

It feels very now.

You’ve always had such an idiosyncratic sense of taste, where, how, when did that start? You would buy socks from the Potter’s House [a thrift store in Athens, GA] and turn them inside out. You would collect vintage TV carts. You kind of get on this thing about objects that are mundane and you fetishize them and celebrate them.

And elevate them. It is elevating the mundane. I’m discovering in myself that a lot of the work that I do in these other mediums that I am exploring be it wood, paper, appropriation or replicas of everyday objects – I find that a lot of the places that I go to with this stuff is what I call “ether work” which is that it’s not expressly unique to Michael Stipe, it is stuff that is in the ether and it drops down on a lot of people at one time. Going back, my comment about books and magazines and newspapers and where they are going – where they are really going versus our idea of where they are going is something very profound and it is something that is very right now.

Name ten artists you find exciting right now.

There’s a show up at KW in Berlin by an artist named Absalon that I think is brilliant, he’s now dead. What he does with space, whether it is a film or video piece or an actual space is so beyond much of anything that I have seen before. Dean Sameshima. Tauba Auerbach. Wade Guyton. Wolfgang Tillmans. Ninja – Die Antwoord, unbelievable and super amazing live. They are all over it. Rob Pruitt is taking things to whole other levels. James Franco is taking things to whole other levels. Douglas Coupland, who I think is one of the great-unsung plastic artists of our time.

What about these? (Points to shoes on shelf.) This is important.

That’s very important. The story is a little bit too sad to tell right now, but it is the shoe from the last Alexander McQueen collection before his death and when I saw them I really felt like single-handedly fashion and art and culture had stepped into the 21st century in a way that was undeniable. It was a ground zero kind of moment seeing a model walk in these shoes for the first time.

Michael Stipe

Michael Stipe’s Tumblr

REM Official Site

Chameleon Cool, Lara Pedrita Gerin

2011-01-07T16:21:54-05:00

She’s the hottest most happening stylist in Brazil, a local ambassador for Kiehl’s in Latin America as well as a former star Brazilian model and is the chic presence at all things cool and Latin.

Meet Lara Gerin, an It Girl for one or two decades, ever since she moved to Tokyo as a teenager in the early days of the Nineties, igniting an interest in fashion and making her drive to be a creator of images, either in fashion shows or events.

“I realized I wanted to be a stylist when I began working with Issey Miyake,” she recalls.

She produces shoots for everyone from Brazil Elle to the local Vogue, and styles catwalk shows for Osklen, Brazil’s most important fashion label.

She debuted as a stylist with Osklen for the winter 2005 show in Sao Paolo entitled “Austral,” an elegant tale of ice skating ballerina babes and dashing surfers meeting in the Andes, which featured tutu style dresses and Osklen’s signature pants. Often combining elements of jodhpurs, architectural arches and motorbike elements, Osklen creates the most inventive modern trousers for men.

“I was inspired by that young ice skating champion, Sasha Cohen, and her sense of ice ballet drama,” Lara explains.

Since then Lara has gone on to style three more Osklen shows, one in Rio, a tropical chic collection that mimicked the twisting fauna of the Carioca coast.

“We created crazy accessories using surfboard fins as amulets, or morphing fish skeletons into necklaces and bracelets. Lots of flowers for girls and fruits for men,” smiles Lara, recalling that the next season followed the designer’s trip to the Himalayas, where the mood was mountainous and icy.

She further honed her skills with sportswear labels like Slam and developing the looks for a series of major Brazilian stars including Xuxa, Brazil’s top TV star, reinventing her as a freaky fashion plate with stripes, flowers and zigzags. Xuxa, born in modest family, and the ex-girlfriend of Pele and Ayrton Senna, was not exactly a fashion plate but Lara managed to give her a unique look.

“As I child I used to dress myself like Xuxa and her backup singers Paquitas at Carnival with white boots, mini shorts, glitz and jackets with brassy epaulettes, kind of like Balmain today!” she laughs.

A strikingly pretty woman, in her time Lara has strutted her stuff on catwalks for the likes of Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana and Chloe, during Karl Lagerfeld’s era as creative director.

“Fashion is all about looking for the right beat,” she tells me over a lazy breakfast on a terrace overlooking the pristine lighthouse of Jose Ignacio. It’s an old fisherman’s village on a sandy point, the innest of in-towns at Punta del Este, South America’s most civilized and chic resort.

Lara Pedrita Gerin, to give her full name, is sometimes better known as Pebbles, being so tall she could play volleyball during which she’d tie her chestnut mane up into a pebbly knot on the crown of her head.

Like all true Brazilian babe fashionistas, Lara has gone through many hair color changes- since she was a successful model, inspired by Linda Evangelista.

“That’s why they called me chameleon,” she laughs, looking leggy and languid in a sheer deep grey chiffon dress over a singlet, all finished with a giving the fingers heavy metal necklace in quartz.

“Red, blue, green and even bald. I had short hair so changing color and moods was easy. I loved all the changes,” she smiles.

Seeing she is such a cool gal, it’s no surprise Lara is the brand ambassador for Kiehl’s as well as likes of red-hot UK brand Accessorize and Apple.

“Every time they open a new store, Apple ask me to DJ at the event,” adds Lara, who also waxed the stacks at Chanel’s mega boutique opening in Sao Paolo last month.

Her most recent big project was styling Bebel Gilberto, Brazil’s best new Bossa Nova star, going on the road with her to far part places as Los Angeles and London.

“For me, Lara is Brazil’s best stylist. But her real talent is dressing people. Introducing fashion to people who do not understand anything and making it work for them,” explains her pal, Brazil Vogue columnist Carolina Overmeer.

Elegant, but agreeably modest, Lara if anything tends to play down her talents. One thing that further sets her apart from much of our industry.

“Luckily for me, I have clients with amazing wardrobes. Brazil women can spent a lot of money on clothes, so there is plenty to work with,” concedes the ever self-effacing Lara.

Open The Door, Viva Ruiz

2011-01-04T15:17:06-05:00

Satanic nuns, gothic Latin house music, and voguing animal spirits are but some of the images pouring into the world from the fecund brain of filmmaker and performer Viva Ruiz. Born and raised in Jamaica, Queens, Ruiz’s up-from-the underground aesthetic is quintessential New York. Her indie novela shorts “Rosa Negra” and “Monja Satanicas” have screened in galleries and film festivals around the country. She is also a Dazzle Dancer, an actress with The Big Art Group, and one half of music group Escandalo with Desi Monster. A featured performer in Gavin Russom’s project The Crystal Ark, Ruiz directed the video for their single “The City Never Sleeps,” which premiered in December and was immediately listed as one of the year’s best efforts.

Viva Ruiz

Shot by: Zbigniew Bzymek

Edited by: Zbigniew Bzymek and Adam Dugas

Music by: “La Bruja (Minty Fresh Beats Remix)” by Escandalo, remixed by Max Tannone; “The City Never Sleeps” by Crystal Ark.

Music videos: “The City Never Sleeps” directed by Viva Ruiz; “La Bruja” directed by Bec Stupak.

10 Best Fashion Moments of 2010

2010-12-30T13:14:12-05:00

Fashion led me to over a dozen cities last year, covering twice that many seasons in the never-ending pursuit of memorable moments. Here’s my pick of the 10 best experiences from my lengthy caravanserai.

Best runway collection- Lanvin Spring / Summer 2011

This catwalk display had pretty much everything a fashion moment should contain – fabulous clothes, divine casting, elegant execution, great music and a chic Parisian sense of magical surprise. So much so, the audience of 1,500 greeted Lanvin’s designer Alber Elbaz smiling bow with a huge roar, the sound more akin to a Las Vegas prize fight than a fashion show.

From an opening trio of red carpet screen goddess with Fortuny-style halter neck gowns featuring chunky amulets or centurion’s wives dresses, dissected vertically to some sexy ruched chess piece looks – a lime top with a black mini, caused a collective gasp – this collection hit all the right notes. And Alber’s finale, a quintet of beautiful black models appeared in volcanic and floral prints jumpsuits, was the defining image of chic in 2010.

Best runway show- Chanel in Grand Royal October 2010

“A virtual Versailles in the center of Paris,” was Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld’s judgment on the most brilliant set for any runway show this past year, or make that the decade.

The house built a uniquely remarkable “garden” the size of two football fields inside the Grand Palais, modeled on the 17th century symmetry of Versailles was invented by the legendary landscape artist André Le Notre. Breathtakingly beautiful, the radiating box hedgerows, wrought iron detailing, parterres and gravel walks were not in earth and verdant green but black and white Styrofoam. Backed up by a 60-piece orchestra, the collection was strikingly splendid too; a faux moth-eaten moment, clothes ripped full of holes like lean gray jeans over tunic tops dexterously finished with curlicue embellishments and jagged tulle necklines. It also featured the season’s biggest beauty news – coal eyed models. So get thee to a makeup counter girl.

Best exotic show- Lenny in Rio

The best runway show on the planet outside the fashion Grand Slam of the big four cities is staged once a year in Rio. It’s author? Lenny Niemeyer, arguably the world’s best swimwear designer – the Manolo Blahnik of the pool; the Christian Louboutin of the strand. Her latest show, staged in Rio last June, had a desert theme – which began when a galleon-sized sand-dune-hued tarpaulin was suddenly hoisted from the floor to create a gigantic, looming, Sahara sky. Backed up by a mesmerizing soundtrack (um muito cool remix of Massive Attack’s Paradise Circus) and starred wonderfully dusky bikinis and leotards with architectural shapes, under tops, tunics and wraps in muddy abstract prints- this was a screamingly hot show. It helps that Lenny sends out the best of the new generation of Brazilian models, but then again why not. Lenny, after all, is the reigning queen of Rio.

Best young designer show- Christopher Kane

Gangsters and royalty met this September in London at the latest runway show of Christopher Kane, Europe’s most important young designer, the single biggest reason one goes to the shows in the UK.

The prudish and the perverse co-mingled in this spring / summer 2011 collection where perforated leathers, dragon prints, acidic colors and the ultimate preppy combo – the twin set –coolly connected in our favorite London occasion. “I was thinking of Princess Margaret and Norman Hartnell designs, with Yakuza gangster tattoos thrown in,” Kane told me with a wicked grin backstage in an obscure east London warehouse. And if you want the right look for next March, then nab one of Kane’s openers – perforated paisley flared skirts and revamped Argyle style diamond twin sets over shiny platforms with rope laces, worn with Park Avenue princess hairdos. The season’s best look for a first date with a smart dude at a great gallery opening.

Best show in the USA- Alexander Wang’s white collection

My favorite fashion moment in New York in 2010 was the all-white Alexander Wang ceremony on the Hudson River. Its rebellious attitude, clever light layering, assured cutting, adroit folding, and brilliant blobs of abstract color made this the freshest collection on any US catwalk. He may begin with American sportswear, but Wang takes these ideas somewhere very new and beautiful. Judo jackets, parachute leggings, terry cloth polo shirts or mesh bras get cut, folded, rouched and stretched with such novelty they look thoroughly new. Climaxing with some graffiti print looks in faded hues of white, and ecru the usually aggressive feel on graffiti became impressionistic. “Optimism, believe in the future, trying something new, nothing in black!” giggled Alexander backstage, as his models filtered out of Pier 54.

Peter Dundas in La Societe- Best designer supper

My most relaxed fashion dinner last year was with Pucci’s Norwegian designer Peter Dundas, and our mutual pal, exotic jeweler Betony Vernon. A late, very late – Peter is a hard worker – meal of champagne and fresh crab had just the right ebullience to celebrate a great year for Peter. In just a few seasons in Florence, he’s turned Pucci into a red carpet must have, essentially by having the courage to reinvent Pucci on his own terms. A slew of talents had done stints at Pucci – Matthew Williamson and Christian Lacroix, among others – but only Dundas has avoided slavishly referencing the house’s archives and made the brand, well, in his own Peter Dundas image.

A gentlemanly blond who has done stints previously at Jean Paul Gaultier, Roberto Cavalli and Emanuel Ungaro, is the Viking Prince of Pucci and is finally having the moment his talent merits. No wonder the bubbly and crab served at a corner table at St Germain’s hippest restaurant, La Societe, tasted so good.

Best show music – Les Menettes in Buenos Aires

One of the great pleasures of being a fully-fledged HoBoBo – or HautBoBoh depending of how you spell the concept – peripatetic fashionista is the chance to hear great live music, during, after and after-after shows. And my vote for the most distinguished live music of any runway show this past year has to go to a smart young Argentine label Wanama. Their decision to hire Les Mentettes for their August show in Buenos Aires was inspired. A subtle and very cool band, Les Menettes sang moody rock ballads (in English, not Spanish) supported by an inventive mini Tango orchestra consisting of trombones, clarinets and even a sitar. So as Wanama’s great hussar waistcoats with frogging, Photoshop spring flower dresses and sexy skimpy semi-sheer silk negligees slinked down the catwalk, Les Menettes’ craft tunes soared through the huge show space, for one memorable ensemble which made the long flight down to Argentina seem like a smart wee jaunt.

Best fashion dinner- Moncler at Caviar Kaspia

BBC, or rather brains, beauty and cooking, are what make a great dinner, which is why my happiest culinary chic moment of 2010 was the Moncler Rouge dinner in Caviar Kaspia in March. Besides being a great place to eat Caviar and suitably brittle vodka our hosts Remo Ruffini, CEO and creative director of Moncler, and Giambattista Valli, Moncler Gamme Rouge designer, invited a great gang. From natty uber stylist Charlotte Stockdale, to mega babes Natalia Vodianova and Karolina Kurkova and super chic Ellettra Rossellini Wiedemann, to the ultimate in French cool, Lou Doillon, to a bona fide anchorwoman, France’s Claire Chazal, my granite blonde head did begin to spin. Nothing to do with the vodka, of course.

Best Fashion Parties – Fendi O’

To my mind, nothing makes for a great party more than a great concert, and for this reason, the Fendi O’ series, which ignited brilliantly with Amy Winehouse at the opening of their Avenue Montaigne flagship, is a sure fire winner.

Fendi O’ is very much the dictatorship of the beautiful, and all the better for it. The fashion flock fancy up in their finest, the drink flows, the bands rock, and folks like Karl Lagerfeld, Kate Moss, Ron Wood and the world’s best models groove on the dance floor. This past year Fendi had two great concerts in Paris, Beth Ditto in March, and Duran Duran, in October. The latter was my fave; then again, I did get lucky with an incredibly pretty date. So good things do happen to good guys after all. And you know what, Fendi have another O’ soiree planned for Milan men’s week in January, a live performance by Canadian dance pop group Dragonette. God bless them!

Best Global Hop – Armani in Dubai in April

“I wanted something that will be remembered, a starting point of a new adventure,” Giorgio Armani explained last April, as he inaugurated his mold-breaking luxury hotel in Burj Khalifa, the Dubai skyscraper that is the tallest building in the world.

Armani Dubai represents a very different approach to five-star luxury: the hotel has over 600 staff, but only 160 rooms meaning more than two staff for each guest. A score of “lifestyle managers,” or specialist concierges float around the hotel linking guests to Dubai’s attractions via a flotilla of stretch chauffeured Audis. While Armani Dubai also offers six full-fledged restaurants, like substantial Indian and Japanese eateries, the first restaurant by Peck, the famed Milanese delicatessen, and Ristorante, where guests can dine on a haute Italian cuisine, select from a wine list featuring $10,000 bottles of Chateau Petrus and enjoy the view of the Burj Fountain, a $280 million behemoth that shooting water 450 feet into the dry Middle Eastern air.

“I wanted the hotel to be the star,” explained Giorgio of his inn, where the average bed for costs $1,200 in the curvy floors of this colossal, $1.5 billion triangular, tubular tower complex. Next up a hotel above his largest flagship boutique in Milan, and resting places in New York, London, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo. Can’t wait for the opening.

Portraits in Dynamics

2010-12-28T16:53:57-05:00

Shot on a Kodak Z981

Power, presentation and twin illuminations.

Self-portraiture, feminism, and high-concept hi-jinx are hallmarks of the intelligent, literate and always stylish work from artist K8 Hardy. Her photos, videos, and performances often feature the chameleonic artist in various guises addressing political themes and poking at gender presentation, many times employing the smoke and mirrors of fashion photography. This work has been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout the world, including the Tate Modern and the 2010 Greater New York exhibit at P.S.1. At “New Paintings,” her December solo show at Reena Spaulings Fine Art (New York), she presented herself painted in a trompe l’oeil style, as if dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans. Standing on a canvas, flanked by security guards, viewers were invited to pose with the artist in a play on status, the body, and the concept of painting.

How did you get started?

I started making experimental video art. I was part of the Riot Grrrl movement, listening to bands like Bikini Kill. I had a very clear sense of a sub-culture and of people expressing themselves, and then I started learning about contemporary art. I had no idea it was out there. And once I did I was like “Oh my God, that’s it!”

What did you study in school?

I have my MFA with a focus on film and video. I have a degree in Women’s Studies. My focus has always been feminist theory and history. I love politics and I love deconstructing and thinking about our roles and power and how things happen. I think formatively for me being a feminist is having a twin brother. Growing up in a sexist society and watching what happens to your equal, your exact equal. Your twin brother. By the time I was eight or nine, I was really aware of the differences in treatment. I was like, “Well, that’s not fair! We are kinda the same person.” I think that was VERY formative.

You are so punk, I am surprised you didn’t go into music.

I did play a little bit. I was just terrible at music. I was tone deaf or something. As soon as I made my first experimental video and people responded really well to it I was like, “That’s it!” I sold my guitar, I sold my bass, I was like, ”I am done with this! Get this out of here! I’m getting a video camera!”

How old were you?

Nineteen. I also made zines in high school and mailed them around. I was getting mail when I was fifteen or sixteen every day. I have an amazing, huge box of teenage Riot Grrrl letters. I would rush home to get the mail. And everyone was making the crazy envelopes and…

When was this?

1992-96. So, I didn’t know how to articulate it, but I knew it was important to express myself. I loved poetry, but it was an epiphany when I made my first video art. It’s this hyper-stylized me in costumes. Me in a suit and tie, me as a girl, and knives and drama and memory and using Super 8.

How did people see this video?

I made it into a zine. I made a paper cover for it and then I sold it and mailed it out like a zine.

How did you advertise it? How did people find it?

I sold it at punk shows, at places like DUMA. Sometimes I would give it to bands that were traveling. (Showing video) Isn’t that so cute? VHS tape! (Reads cover of tape.)

“This tape has the first three video movies that I have ever made on it. I call it a Cinezine cuz it’s like a zine in how it will get to people and how it’s low budget and super independent style. I made them all within about 8 months from 97 to 98 and they are placed in chronological order so you can see the evolution of my work. I am currently working on Super 8 film and plan to continue making movies, SO WATCH OUT!”

I didn’t know about galleries and that much about museums even. So I was never looking for that as a platform. I was like, “Um, your band is playing, should we screen my films before your band? Please?” I was so excited. For my first performance art piece I booked myself a tour down the West Coast.

Where did you tour?

I did clubs and art venues. I went from Olympia all down the West Coast.

I thought that was a bong or a homemade women’s urine funnel. (Casey points out an object in K8’s studio.)

It’s from a protest in Santiago, Chile. I meet with a lot of different activists there. It was for International Day Against Violence Against Women, which sounds better in Spanish. I met a radical queer group that made these headbands that I thought were super fashionable that say “For A Feminism without Women.” It was the talk of the town. They were purposefully being provocative. It means they are against biological essentialism.

What does that mean?

Feminism is against biological destiny – like if you are a woman, you are meant to be a wife and a mother. A lot of how those ideas have moved forward is being against biological essentialism and your place in society based on…

Based on your gender?

…Or your sex. Because gender is not about sex, necessarily – just to get technical. So they had a feminist conference at the University of Chile and this is a radical queer group called Disidencia Sexual. They are upset with the Biological Essentialists and the feminists that are Biological Essentialists.

Saying that you have to be a woman to be a feminist?

Or that women have to be inherently protected. There is a kind of conservative side of feminism where people use the rhetoric to keep women in this limited, protected bubble. I mean, it is more complicated than that; it is very interesting.

Wait, I want to know more about gender and sex.

Gender is not sex. Gender is an expression of….

Your sexuality?

No.

Because your sex is physical?

Your sex is physical. Your sex is your genitals.

Your gender is theoretical?

Well your gender is like…you could be really fey and girly or you could be butch. That’s your gender, you see.

It’s not male or female?

It could be simplistically that, yes. The idea of gender is more social than biological. A lot of people find this stuff intimidating, but for me it’s really philosophical because it is about language. And it’s not that it is necessarily strict, it is asking for pulling a little bit more out of the way we talk about sex and men and women. I like that. A lot of people get hung up on words and identities and labels and stuff. I don’t care. It’s just language.

K8 Hardy at Reena Spaulings

LTTR Journal

W.A.G.E.

Pop Luxe Chic, Corto Moltedo

2010-12-23T12:11:34-05:00

There’s no place quite like home, though in the case of designer Gabrielecorto Moltedo there is no place like three homes.

A true polyglot equally at home in Italy, France or the USA, Corto is deepening his roots in Italy with a Milan store in the pipeline for this coming spring.

Coming off the back of this fall’s launch of a new scarf and jewelry collection, his almost eponymously named brand Corto Moltedo looks poised to make a dashing start to 2011.

Founded in 2004 by Gabrielecorto Moltedo, the artily colorful bag and accessories label has won a cool following for its insouciant esprit and quirky take on luxury. Hipsters and beauties like, Sophie Marceau, Kate Hudson, Madonna and Priscilla Presley carry the upbeat Italian label’s bags. Corto even named an “It" Bag after the last named, The Priscilla.

“I call the style pop luxe chic,” says Corto of his stylishly quirky take on luxury, whose keys are bold electric colors, eye catching hardware, innovatively placed zippering and curvaceous proportions.

His ideas are finely displayed in his charming boutique opened in 2008 in Paris’ most beautiful square, the Jardins du Palais Royal.

Art meets fashion in the 65-metre-square store, where a display of several score of clutches looks like futurist art, stationed next to two genuine art installations by Columbian artist Federico Uribe.

“The space is mine own of luxe mix, using recycled materials that are relevant to today. You can make a raw material noble in the right context, like combining wood with mirrors to create a warmer feeling,” the 33-year-old argues.

Born in New York, from Italian parents Laura and Vittorio, the founders of Bottega Veneta, Corto was brought up on Upper East Side, attending at high school St Ignatius Loyola.

“Hard core Jesuits,” he recalls, “‘justice under god,’ and only Irish kids in my class, and one Italian me, so I got used to being called the WOP.”

Corto allied his unique apprenticeship in Italian craftsmanship with his love of art, deepened by a degree in art history at New York University, which included a year’s study abroad in Paris.

“When I first moved to Paris as I student, I lived nearby on rue Jean Jacque Rousseau right by Christian Louboutin’s store, and every day I would walk through the Palais Royal. It was just so very, very chic and fell in love with it,” he recalls.

Right now he’s very excited about a new bag called the Ninetta, named after the grandmother who passed away this past summer. “It’s a very elegant homage to her. A mid-sized day bag, plain at the front, though with lots of zippered detail, a little rock in personality but also demure, just like her,” he explains.

He has also branched out into silk scarves, which he treats as canvases for his designs, as well as jewelry with a selection of pieces, like playful necklaces, charms and bracelets with lots of curvy volume. Corto has even hooked up with some Irish specifically creating a Sunday Best clutch with Cork-born jeweler Tom Binns, who described it afterwards as “my gilded Irish guilt.”

“The Corto girl is from my grandmother, to my mum to my girl. She is very independent and knows how to dress up. She has lived and knows quality but wants something to differentiate herself,” insists Corto, who should know, seeing that he staged trunk shows this year as far apart as San Antonio and Mexico City and from Beirut and New Delhi.

His next move is opening a store in Milan in March, during the women’s prêt-a-porter catwalk season.

Though known for his charm, Corto certainly puts in the hours. When we last spoke he was in conference in his plant in Florence at 8pm, two nights before Christmas.

Though he still finds time for a little quality dining, his three current favorite restaurants are Chateaubriand in Paris, Indochine in New York and in Florence, Sostanza Il Troia, which roughly translates as Dirty Substance or Slutty Thing.

As the son of Bottega Veneta’s former owners, Gabi did not have an impoverished youth, splitting his time between Manhattan, Padua and Florence. Not surprisingly his accent is a tad sui generis, a very specific blend of mid Atlantic posh. A little like his creations, as it happens.

Whatever You’re Looking At

2010-12-21T09:51:16-05:00

A Shalimar perfume bottle, vibrant drippings of molten glass, tricked out rooms from World of Interiors – these are some of the visuals that Mary Katrantzou has incorporated into her stunning trompe l’oeil designs. It’s a trick that could quickly turn gimmicky, but her eye for elegance and keen integration of textiles and garments have made her two-year old label a must-see. We spoke with Mary on the day she was awarded the 2010 Swiss Textile Award, a 100,000 euro prize that will help launch the next phase of her young but promising career. Casey Spooner wears a jacket with custom textile designed by Katrantzou (suit by Timothy Everest) based on an Asprey diamond catalog. Shot on a Kodak i8

http://www.marykatrantzou.com/

Shot by Zbigniew Bzymek

Edited by Zbigniew Bzymek

Magnificent Bulgari

2010-12-16T16:43:43-05:00

They came, they saw, they conquered. Italy’s most famous jeweler, Bulgari, marched over the Alps this month taking Paris by storm with quite probably the most significant exhibition of jewelry by one brand ever seen.

Bulgari took over Paris’ massively beautiful Grand Palais exhibition space, celebrating its 125th anniversary with all the opulence that one expects from a brand that counted princesses, noblemen and movie stars such as Gary Cooper, Peter Sellers, Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren among its loyal customers.

Ranging across the brand’s vast archives, the show’s highlights include exceptional bracelet watches in platinum and diamonds from the Twenties, ravishing Art Deco necklaces in mixes of pearls, emeralds and onyx, or a thoroughly chic gold cigarette case from 1960 that was a gift from Luchino Visconti to Alain Delon, following the French actor’s performance in Rocco and his Brothers by the legendary Italian director.

The brand’s founder, Sotiris Boulgaris, arrived in Rome from his native region of Epirus, Greece in 1881, later Italianizing his name to Bulgari. Jewelry was in his veins: his father, Georgis Boulgaris, owed an atelier in Paramythia, Greece. However, conflicts between Greeks, Turks and Albanians led to the destruction of the atelier of his grandfather Costantino.

Since then, Bulgari has always had a lavish, Hellenistic influence in its designs. And that opulence is apparent in a striking set of five platinum bracelets encrusted with fine diamonds, bought by Italian star Anna Magnani. As well as a hefty knuckle-duster of a ring, also the property of Magnani, which boasts of a central round diamond of 25.28 carats, no less.

“I’d say an exhibition was the smartest way for Bulgari to really present our exceptional quality and rich history,” Bulgari CEO Francesco Trapani told me, just three hours before the five-week show opened.

The carefully lit exhibition contains some 600 masterpieces including watches, clocks, decorative arts, and one hundred exclusive pieces that will be on public display for the first time. In a word, for a show of fine jewelry, it is pretty awe-inspiring.

“Seeing as many pieces will never be for sale, it is hard to put a money figure of the value of all the objects. But it must be in excess of 100 million euros,” added Trapani, a Roman whose mother is a Bulgari.

Back when Sotirio arrived in Rome, the city was beginning to profit from the rising mass of haute bourgeois tourists on their grand tour, many keen to acquire the finer luxuries for which the Eternal City was famous. By the time Sotirio started his business the city boasted over 1,500 gold artisans and hundreds of specialists in mosaics, marble and marquetry; with the unification of Italy and the ensuing economic development Rome provided fertile ground for an ambitious jeweler.

By 1884, Sotirio had opened his first boutique on via Sistina near to via Condotti, the storied street of luxury that culminates at Trinita dei Monti and the famed Spanish Steps.

The exhibition recalls those early days with a rich array of exceptional silver plate. One can also enjoy the archeological style of the jewelry influenced by experts discoveries, leading to rich brooches and bracelets where the opulence of the gold mounting contrasts with the imperfections of ancient coins. This Paris show also retraces the key scenes of Bulgari’s history and features lots of newsreels, movie clips and photos documenting stars’ obsessions with the brand. Amongst the most memorable – Elizabeth Taylor holding a green parrot, shot by Helmut Newton in a Los Angeles pool, her neck bedecked with a splendid diamond and emeralds necklace and earrings. Or, Vogue editor-in-chief Diane Vreeland photographed in the Pierre Hotel with a gold and enamel serpent necklace with two sapphires for eyes. The exhibition divides chronologically, beginning with designs using silver and diamonds from the first half of the 20th century, moving to the Sixties with precious stones in exuberant color mixes and onto today; where the likes of design guru Anish Kapoor creates contemporary rings.

It’s a wide-ranging display, understandable given the brand’s exotic roots. An advertising poster dating from 1910 describes the Roman house as offering: Argenterie, artistic jewelry, antique objects d’art and curiosities.

The exhibition, entitled “125 Years of Italian Magnificence Bulgari au Grand Palais,” will last five weeks. And, next spring, Bulgari will transfer the exhibition to China for two six-week stints in major show spaces in Beijing and then Shanghai.

The brand can surely afford the high, though undisclosed cost of this event. Bulgari is predicting sales of 1.07 billion euros, or $1.39 billion this year. Not bad going for a gentleman jeweler who escaped a nation in conflict, Greece, for a brand new state, Italy, one and a quarter centuries ago.

Requiem for a Rhinestone

2010-12-14T11:22:29-05:00

Shot on a Kodak Z981

The male of a species is typically more flamboyant, but rare is the man who dares to dress as deliriously as Wladziu Valentino Liberace. Even for a showman, he remains in a class by himself. Dave Hickey’s essay “A Rhinestone as big as the Ritz” posits Liberace as the godfather of glam rock, and why not? His bizarre populist, showbiz antics bedazzled the world; he performed for presidents, queens, and fainting bobby-soxers, with film roles, a weekly television series, and sold-out shows at Radio City. His legacy is strange and complicated, but the glittering detritus he left in his wake is still worth a look.

The Liberace Museum opened in 1979 on East Tropicana Avenue in Las Vegas. The morning I visited, September 10, was quiet. Ducking in from the dry desert heat, I was greeted by one of the small army of older ladies who volunteer for the Liberace Foundation to run the museum. As I eyeballed the acres of plumage and rhinestones, one of them began giving me an impromptu tour filled with facts.

During his act Liberace had many costume changes and he needed to do them in about ninety seconds, so he had tailors use a dress form two sizes bigger leaving him room to jump in and out of them. His extravagance knew few bounds, each outfit more elaborate than the next. There is the undersea themed suit in shades of aqua and peach with an enormous scalloped shell cape collar to frame his smirking face, the suit and cape studded with gems and literally dripping with pearls (the inside cape lining given just as much detail). There is the czar outfit, the glittering ruby red Christmas outfit trimmed in white ermine (a look he nearly died in at Radio City Music Hall during his last appearance in 1986), feathered concoctions that would bring a drag queen to tears, and of course, the patriotic outfit of sequined stars-and-stripes complete with hot pants, an outfit he often wore with roller skates as he flew in cackling over the stage. Liberace is nothing if not quintessentially American, transcending his humble Polish-Italian roots to become a one-name legend with a decade-spanning career.

Two of the outfits sit in glass cases. One of them, a black tuxedo, is unassuming (for Liberace) but upon closer inspection is riddled with intricate black-on-black beading in swirling paisley-like patterns. My guide told me it took a year and a half to fabricate. The costumiers could only work for twenty minutes at a time because of the intense lighting required to work with the tiny black crystals on the lush black cloth. Unassuming but expensive, the outfit cost a whopping $750,000 in 1975, a cost that would easily range in the millions today.

Originally, rhinestones were actual rock crystals gathered from the Rhine river of Germany, but those ran out hundreds of years ago. If they hadn’t, Liberace would have done his best to finish the job. He covered everything in them: pianos, microphones, and, famously, his rare 1962 Rolls Royce (a generic auto toolbox that sits nearby is also detailed with flash).

Apparently, Swarovski was in danger of going under when Liberace discovered the company and told them not to give up. He promised to give them a giant order and to promote their name around the world. Years later, to thank him for his patronage, the company gifted him The Largest Rhinestone in the World, a behemoth 50.6 pounds of pure lead glass with 115,000 carats. “It’s very nice, but I can’t wear it,” he apparently quipped upon receipt. Instead, he would tow it out on stage in a little red wagon on stage and parade it around.

Out in front of Liberace Plaza I caught the complimentary bus that whisked visitors back to the Strip. Later that day, news shot around the country that the museum was closing due to low attendance and the harsh economy. People I spoke to in New York, California and Massachusetts had all heard. Perhaps that was why my guide offered her tour, she knew it was the end and was eager to share while she could. The museum closed its doors on October 17 – temporarily, they say, with a national tour of the exhibition in the works. Meanwhile, Steven Soderbergh is preparing a Liberace biopic starring Michael Douglas. Whatever one thinks of his artistic legacy, and in his lifetime he was called everything from “the master of musical mediocrity” to a “preposterous clown,” his story was sensational and the looks divine.

www.liberace.org

Byzantine Fragments

2010-12-09T15:30:20-05:00

The last major runway show of the year was Chanel’s Métier d’Art Collection, staged this past Tuesday night in Paris, it may well turn out to be the most influential. That being the case, get thee ready for a chicly regal Byzantine moment next fall.

It was specifically something that recalled the Empress Theodora, who was Karl Lagerfeld’s heroine for this sumptuous collection. Staged in an Ottoman boudoir–meets-decayed chapel setting in Chanel’s headquarters, the collection was presented before a gilt-edged front row that included Marianne Faithfull, Vanessa Paradis, Ines de la Fressange, as well as Harry Potter star Clémence Poésy and Diane Kruger.

“Theodora was a circus girl who rose to be an empress and later a saint. Coco Chanel was a not very good showgirl, but rose to be a great fashion empress, so there are some similarities!” quipped Lagerfeld, the evening before during fittings in his studio two floors above.

The ignition for the collection was the recent opening of a 4,000-square-foot Chanel flagship boutique in Istanbul, in the city once known as Byzantium. But instead of Turkey, Lagerfeld took off to Ravenna Italy where he spent a Saturday afternoon photographing the legendary gold hued mosaics in the church of San Vitale.

“They are the best example of Byzantine art that exists in my opinion,” sniffed Karl, who created his latest book, Byzantine Fragments, in gold paper naturally, featuring his images of the remarkable art.

Yet, the collection was never remotely literal, as Karl took Byzance, to use the French term, and injected the sense of regal splendor into remarkably heroic tunics finished with strands of gold, amber and burnished red chains familiar in Byzantine iconography.

“Inspiration is not a copy but a starting point, taking us somewhere new,“ said Lagerfeld, with a firm Teutonic nod of his silver-haired head.

Guests sat on banquettes scattered with custom-made pillows that mimicked the marble mosaic church floors in Ravenna. Before them were tiny tea tables, but everyone sipped the gold champagne flutes. Hardly, surprisingly as Theodora is portrayed drinking wine in the most famous mosaic, in which she appears with husband Justinian.

The Byzantine signature influence wafted through a series of exceptional tweeds interwoven with gold, satin, velvet, chiffon, lace and tulle – a look certain to be imitated next year. Buttons were mostly jeweled stones and appliqués were all trimmed with gold.

“The idea was the clothes would shimmer, just like the mosaics,” noted Karl’s sounding board, super chic Lady Amanda Harlech, as uber model Baptiste Giabiconi sauntered by in a stunning sweater.

Métier d’Art is Chanel’s annual highlight of the craftsmanship in the unique specialist ateliers that create its hyper quality products. For example, Maison Desrues, the famed costume jeweler, produced the intricate square glass bead amulets, filigree gilt metal bracelets, ideal for tempting modern version of Theodora. The Empress has been such a legendary figure in France that actress Sarah Bernhardt even interpreted Theodora back in the 1880s.

Lagerfeld even conjured up a Byzantine pocket, a deep patch pocket with a slanted opening, used in some floating silhouettes cabans and tunics.

Cut in rounded shapes that almost flowed and composed with asymmetrical drapings and the loose panels at the front and back, the silhouette managed to be saintly yet snazzy.

Back in the Twenties, Mademoiselle Chanel took Byzantine art as the inspiration for her first line of costume jewelry, and that sense of faintly worn glory was clearly throughout this striking show and collection.

Two months ago, the house of Chanel took over the Grand Palais for its remarkable Versailles baroque show before an audience of nearly 3,000. This week’s shows were seen by barely 200, and the message was abundantly clear. Welcome to the new intimacy in fashion.

My Personal Visual Landscape

2010-12-07T18:54:13-05:00

Tucked between the galleries and boutiques of SoHo in New York City is the Performing Garage, an historic temple of the performing arts that is the home of ensemble theater company The Wooster Group. The visually striking and formally innovative work of The Wooster Group has been seminal, influencing generations of artists since their 1975 debut. We spoke to the Group’s visionary director Elizabeth LeCompte about her process during final rehearsals for the U.S. premiere of their new piece VIEUX CARRE, based on the play by Tennessee Williams. Featuring company members Ari Fliakos, Scott Shepherd, and Kate Valk, VIEUX CARRE plays REDCAT in Los Angeles December 1-12 2010 and opens at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York in February 2011. Shot on a Kodak i8

www.thewoostergroup.org

Shot by Zbigniew Bzymek

Edited by Zbigniew Bzymek and Adam Dugas

Lane Crawford, Heritage for the Future

2010-12-02T13:43:34-05:00

If any fashion destination deserves a pat on the back it is surely Lane Crawford, the venerable though decidedly up-to-date fashion luxury retail chain, which earlier today celebrated its 160 anniversary with a grand soiree in Hong Kong.

This year they have hosted a whole slew of events varying from an auction of Burberry trench-coats reinvented by celebrities, to raising funds for Haitian reconstruction, to the revival of the iconic Ming chair by a list of boldface designers, to creating a series of unique Reebok “Insta Pump Fury” in colours echoing Hong Kong’s palette, as well as a trio of fashion labels – Agent Provocateur, Preen and Thakoon – revamping the signature Asian garment, the Cheongsam, in sensual new shapes.

Named “Heritage 160,” the project extended to include the 160 tote bag, referencing 1960s designs priced at HKD $160 with all proceeds going to UNICEF. The bag is available in Lane Crawford’s key locations of ifc mall, Pacific Place, Pacific Place home store, Canton Road and Times Square in the financial capital of Asia.

This all has to do with the two smart ladies behind the chain: Fashion Director Sarah Rutson and CEO Jennifer Woo, daughter of financier Peter Woo who controls Wheelock & Co, the holding company of Lane Crawford.

Woo has led the modernization of the store by insisting it stocks a large array of international brands and become far more customer-centric.

Though born a billionaire’s daughter, Woo is no socialite but a hard working executive whose various positions in the company have included stints in operations, merchandising, marketing and finance.

“It is my responsibility to maximize the resources that I have been given to help others and give back to the community I live in,” explained Woo, who recently addressed The International Herald Tribune’s conference in London on, funnily enough, heritages’ birthday.

One of Lane Crawfords’ wittier innovations was inviting over a score of fashionistas to re-imagine a collection of customized one-of-a-kind trench coats each presenting a different take on heritage, fashion and style. The trench coat project summed up the clever blend of heritage and iconoclasm that characterizes Lane Crawford’s thinking. The results included contributions from the likes of Jonathan Adler, Hamish Bowles, Maggie Cheung, George Cortina, Anna Dello Russo, Simon Doonan, Garance Dorè, Sarah Rutson, Scott Schuman, Stefano Tonchi, Taylor Tomasi Hill and yours truly. Mine was a mix of images of Haitian heroes and history heat pressed on to the raincoat.

Though commonly referred to as a department store, Lane Crawford’s Rutson poohs poohs the very mention of the term.

“Lane Crawford is a specialty store not a department store and with that the mentality is always to have a unique approach and edit for the brands we carry. We do a great deal of special collaborations be it with fashion designers, artists or musicians, at all times we are thinking about the persons’ senses that need to be touched and nourished in some way. We see every customer as unique an therefore think constantly outside the box,” insists Rutson.

Founded in 1850 by Thomas Ash Lane and Ninian Crawford, Lane Crawford still bares some iconic nautical references in its store designs, polite references to its founders profession – they were ship chandlers. Most impressively, though this former city state might lack the bohemian downtown neighborhoods that provide much of the creative energy of big burbs’ like London, New York or Paris, I was struck when visiting Lane Crawford how far more edgier its selection of fashion brands is than the choice one finds in pretty much any of its Western counterparts.

“An Asian consumer – specifically Chinese – compared to a western consumer is far more open and fashion forward – always ahead of the curve and wanting and needing to feel and know they are getting some new experience, designer or trend,” insists Rutson, mentioning Haider Ackermann, Toga, Kolor, The Row, Sharon Wauchob, Joseph Altuzarra, Nicholas Kirkwood and Tabitha Simmons as the sort of emerging brands they retail successfully.

Not surprisingly, the chain has also backed lots of Asian- American talent such as Thakoon, Alexander Wang and Phillip Lim 3.1, tapping into that huge New York phenomenon.

Rutson argues that the Lane Crawford can grow these businesses precisely because its customers have a “forward-looking openness.”

The label has also launched a new multi-media platform, driving traffic, interest and funds to benefit UNICEF’s “Driving Dreams,” a special project bringing education to more than 30,000 children in over 150 villages across western China.

The retailer also revived the antique Chinese Ming chair — traditionally reserved for the powerful and distinguished in China — as folks like Tom Dixon, Fornasetti, and Ilse Crawford transformed each of them into one-off contemporary works of art.

“We are lucky that Jennifer Woo trust her merchants and gives us a lot of freedom with direction and autonomy to be Zeitgeists,” enthuses Rutson.

While major league shoemakers- like Christian Louboutin, Church’s, Giuseppe Zanotti, Jimmy Choo, Nicholas Kirkwood, Pierre Hardy, Robert Clergerie, Sergio Rossi and Walter Steiger- created limited editions, each pair were packaged in a customized lacquer shoebox.

Little wonder that Lane Crawford won ‘The National Retail Federation’s International Retailer of the Year Award’ in 2008. And what about 2010?

Gale Force Song, Angela DiCarlo

2010-11-30T10:00:36-05:00

Shot on a Kodak Z981

Dirty dives, upscale boîtes and singing to the answering machine.

Broadway is all about big budgets, name brands and corporate entertainment, but any night of the week in New York City, in dirty dives and upscale boîtes you can catch unique performers and performances that are quintessentially “New York” – stylish, smart and often a bit startling. Angela DiCarlo has been serving this kind of entertainment for years with a steady stream of songs that stick like Krazy Glue. An antic glamour gal with a punk streak, DiCarlo is like a refugee from TCM that went to the John Waters finishing school. When she barnstorms the stage you are definitely in for a scream, whether of horror or drink-spitting laughter depends on your sensibility.

August saw the release of “Just to be Polite,” a raucous collection of her cracked compositions including “Why Do You Have to be Gay” – a straight girl’s ballad to all the homo boys she loved before – and the Zeppelin-esque “Big Black Dawg.” If you are lucky enough to catch her live show, there are plenty more delirious melodies like, “Don’t Touch the Fat on the Back of My Arm” and “Senior Driver.” The dichotomy of seeing a beautiful lady decked out like a Mad Men cocktail queen belting out a cracked show tune with the strength of a gale force hurricane is always worth the price of admission.

Who are your inspirations?

Strong women, lots of strong women!! Nina Simone is a great influence, she didn’t write a ton of stuff, but what she wrote (“To Be Young, Gifted and Black”) was brilliant. She was a great arranger; I especially love the pop songs from the Sixties and Seventies she made her own. Her version of Hall & Oates' “Rich Girl” is one of my favorites. Of course, her shooting at kids playing by the garbage cans by her house in France is pretty good too, I mean come on! She had a real vulnerability in her voice that I love in songs like “Wild is the Wind,” scary, yet tender when she could be, I love that dichotomy. The same could be said of Joan Crawford, who’s another huge influence of mine, especially the meticulousness of her appearance. Not the clean house thing, though, most people know I am a shoddy housekeeper at best.

You have such a distinctive look, what era are you inspired by?

Right now I’m obsessed with the early Sixties. When I was in my twenties I was a little more into the Forties and Fifties. Anything but the present, that is for sure. Sometimes it’s painful for me that I was born so late. I blame it all on my mother of course. I’ve always had my own style, which I don’t know quite how to describe. I would say I dress feminine, I usually don’t wear trousers because my butt is too big. I heard Helen Mirren say that about herself in an interview, so I can relate, although I don’t think she has a big butt. My wardrobe is a mixture of vintage and modern clothes that look vintage. I always have my makeup done that is for sure and at night I always have a false pair of lashes on and some lipstick. I once read that Isabella Blow said to someone, ‘If you are not wearing lipstick, I can’t even LOOK at you,’ so I can relate to that.

This summer also marked the debut of “The Mad World of Miss Hathaway,” DiCarlo’s original stage musical serial based on Mad Men. Starring herself as the red-headed nosy queen of the Spencer-Colfax secretarial pool, it is a spot-on skewering of the television show with twisted show tunes like “The Stigma of the Unwed Mother” and a heavy of dose of 1960s glamour.

The different thing about a Miss Hathaway show is that I write songs for other people to sing, which is something I’d never done before – then they end up being my favorite songs and I don’t get to sing them! Also with that show I throw in some cover songs from the period, mostly Bacharach. My favorite one is “Wives and Lovers” because it’s so sexist and it was sung by Jack Jones who also sang the theme song from “The Love Boat,” which was one of my all time favorite shows as a kid.

How do you write your songs?

I usually will get a tune in my head while I’m walking around the city, I’ll hum it over and over and then stop in a little corner and try to discreetly sing it into the recorder on my phone so I don’t forget. Before I could record on my phone I would call my answering machine at home and sing it on the answering machine. That was a little distracting for my husband because he worked at home. Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a song and the whole thing just comes together. Once I have the basic melody and the breakdown of chorus-verse-bridge I’ll flush out the lyrics. I think the hardest thing for me is finishing a song. Sometimes I keep tweaking and I need to just let it go, but because it’s yours you can keep going.

I don’t want to explore my inner emotions or get self-indulgent with sad ballads, which is not me AT ALL. I like to get in there, do some strike force entertaining, maybe embarrass a few of the guys in the band, you know, make them laugh and hopefully they will be singing the songs on the way out. I just want you to sit there and be so entertained that your mind never wanders and when it’s done I just want you to think – ‘That was fun. I’d pay fifteen bucks to see that crazy bitch again!’

Angela DiCarlo “Just to be Polite” is available on iTunes.

The Art of Flea & Fashion

2010-11-25T11:50:29-05:00

Concept stores are very much a Paris, well, concept. Few boutiques are more invitingly conceptual than that of Michel Klein, whose latest emporium opened on the Left Bank this fall, to both considerable acclaim and commercial success.

Named Chez Michel Klein, the store is as cunningly eclectic as its owner, a fashion designer who insists his first store in over a decade “has nothing much to do with fashion.”

A canny mélange of beautiful flea market discoveries, Black Forest honey, chic crash helmets and subtle scents, and the designer’s own brand of olive oil, vintage watches and kids' versions of his signature looks, like his famed Mao jacket. The store is a rare jewel in the heart of Saint Germain, still this city’s most charming neighborhood.

Opened towards the end of Paris’ most recent prêt-a-porter season, the boutique is wonderfully atmospheric from its smart industrial stands to an elegant Venetian mirror a gift from old pal Philippe Starck, to a superb black and white image of a largely naked Kristy McMenamin by Jean Baptiste Mondino that makes up one wall.

From a smart selection of Taschen art books to some beautiful jewelry in gold, Murano glass by a duo of English gals called Leg & Brain, the store is crammed with clever surprises.

All sorts of unlikely products sit beside each other, like crash helmets in burnished gold. This makes sense as Michel has a license with a Taiwanese manufacturer, whom he met end of August while in Taipei to stage a runway show.

They jostle for space with smart new bags by Number Nine and some rather divine hats by one of their staff. Next to these, one finds bath oil, a selection of Klein perfumes, candles by his true friend Sarah Lavoine, and then, bien sur, German honey.

In terms of his own signature collection, Michel laments that he has, “twice as much work as before,” due to having to design two main collections annually, along with collections for department stores, or what he calls “fake basics, and that means we have to change all the time!”

It’s a very “capsule” moment in fashion, he insists, where success is making the same T-Shirt for winter as spring, but in two different weights.

Klein also keeps busy designing furniture, doing research and dashing off to flea markets like Saint Ouen and Montreuil on the outskirts of Paris, to keep his new store properly stocked. “We have to find new things, as they never stay long!”

His design studio is on the second floor, right above the shop, and he boasts of a 1,000 square-foot atelier across the street. The charming space, formerly an antique store had been empty for over a year.

“And we didn’t even have to pay key money,” laughs Klein, using the French term for buying out a long-standing property lease.

“This area is great, I know that it because I was born here,” smiles Klein, who grew up on the Rue du Cherche-Midi, a five-minute walk south in the St. Germain quarter.

Things were a lot trickier even a year ago for Klein, who during the credit squeeze forced him and his partner Eric to give up their apartment and move into a chambre de bonne, or maid’s room, above the apartment of their good friends Sarah and hubby Mark Lavoine, the French rock singer.

“That was a tough time. The dog, Eric and I, in 15 square meter room. Very pretty but it was quite tough. We got an apartment in the 9th, which is great, on rue Victor Masset,” he smiles, showing off a recent French Elle, which featured the chic pad, in a story entitled “Mix and Match Mode.”

“It does have the same feeling as here. Though it’s also different because maybe we have a black room or a garden. But that really was the idea, to make this place here like our apartment,” he explains.

Klein has had a checkered career, though highlighted with patches of brilliance. And, wandering around the store it’s great to witness the designer’s signature DNA – black tables, quirky and artful lamps from the 50s & 60s, and bold works of art.

“We love out new store. And, at the very least, it’s a proof that one can always jump up again. Because we were totally lost, and thank God we had the energy to fight back!”

Chez Michel Klein 9 Rue Jacob 75006 Paris Phone +33 (0)1 42 81 31 10 Tuesday to Saturday, from 11 am to 7 pm

Haute Butchery

2010-11-23T10:21:19-05:00

Many a crown that sits upon the head of pop’s recent superstars has come from the hands of Franc Fernandez. Beyoncé, the Scissor Sisters, Sam Sparro, and Lady Gaga have all been adorned by the Los Angeles-based artist, designer and creative director. The instantly iconic meat dress Fernandez created for Lady Gaga overshadowed every performance on this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, mesmerising even the likes of Cher, who hasn’t stopped talking about it. How exactly does one sew meat, and how does one choose a cut? This exclusive behind-the-scenes interview of the garment’s creator takes us beyond viands and into the studio of the Argentinian with the beef. Shot on a Kodak Zi8
_{DP and Editor: Zbigniew Bzymek}
_{Music: Omar Zubair}
_{Finishing: Jason Cacioppo – Subvoyant}

The Masterminds of Luxury Heritage

2010-11-18T13:52:00-05:00

Heritage, a word derived from the old French term heriter meaning ‘to inherit,’ suggests something of value belonging to someone by virtue of birth, was the theme of the latest luxury conference staged by the International Herald Tribune. The American owned daily, which by virtue of both its location in Paris and quality of its editors, is arguably regarded as the daily newspaper of fine foreign living.

No surprise then that of the 30 or so speakers at the two-day event roughly one-third were heirs, one-third designers and one-third thrusting executives. In effect, the conference staged in the InterContinental London Park Lane is the nearest thing luxury has to, well, Davos for economics or the Annual Assembly of the UN for politics, a key stopping point for the globally ambitious.

Heritage, however, can vary enormously in luxury from the venerable, like Pringle whose peppery CEO Mary-Adair Macaire described the Scottish label as “195 years young,” to the almost instantaneous, like Victoria Beckham who launched her company just five seasons ago.

“One of the rare celebrities who has managed to go from walking red carpet to dressing the red carpet,” was Beckham’s introduction by Suzy Menkes, the fashion editor of the IHT, that is now branded as the global edition of The New York Times. Indeed, it was hard to underestimate the engagingly witty host’s role in the event, especially as at least half a dozen attendees referred to it as ‘Suzy’s conference.’

The buzzwords and phrases used throughout were ‘lineage,’ ‘being true to one’s origins,’ ‘keeping classic modern’ and ‘maintaining the soul of the brand.’ Yet, what was most striking was how the designers present were all about inventing heritage rather than reviving it.

Take Karl Lagerfeld, whom Menkes quizzed about his relationship with Coco Chanel, whom he eventually succeeded 12 years after her death.

“I am completely free and do what I want in the best conditions in fashion. This marriage with Coco? She survived them all and she could pretend things. She was not just a designer but also a woman of her time. Everyone said don’t touch Chanel it is dead. But I thought, ‘If you want to revive someone don’t do it with respect. That will finally kill it!’ A fashion house is exciting if it is alive and a funeral parlor when it is just respect for the dead. Huh?” Lagerfeld sniffed with his trademark machine gun stream of consciousness rhetorical style.

For others, heritage was about turning a “beautiful, beautiful diamond that had been slowly trodden into the ground and just become dusty” was Burberry’s Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey’s description of the UK label when he came on board. For CEO Angela Ahrendts it was more a question of turning that heritage into “incredible commercial opportunities.“ In a telling remark about the house’s longevity, Bailey noted that mountaineers had come across Burberry gabardine tents on Mount Everest left from previous expeditions, a material invented by the house’s founder that had survived many winters on the world’s highest peak.

Ironically, almost contradictorily, Bailey also defined the 54-year-old Burberry as “disheveled elegance.” Which sounded faintly dusty to us.

The event attracted a diverse gang of speakers including Tommy Hilfiger, Gucci CEO Patrizio di Marco, Paul Smith, seasoned executive Ralph Toledano and Alber Elbaz of Lanvin.

“When, we, the designers take over houses with tradition, there are a few ways to do it; either you break everything in the past, or you see what has been done right and why the company is still alive. That’s what I do. I am more into evolution than revolution. I take from Jeanne Lanvin the desire, fragility ad lightness, but I am a free man,” smiled Elbaz.

In a high-tech moment, David Lauren, scion of Ralph Lauren, revealed his plans for keeping a classic brand modern with a 4D display that was later replicated on grander scale on the exterior of the labels nearby London flagship.

This conference was the IHT’s 10th in a series that has featured such industry icons as Bernard Arnault, François-Henri Pinault, Giorgio Armani, Tom Ford, Donatella Versace and Ralph Lauren, creating a networking moment par excellence.

North of the border, Pringle’s CEO said she had to recognize early on that Pringle was a brand synonymous with Grace Kelly and her twin set, and with the English golfer Nick Faldo’s brand. Others mistook it for the junk food of the same name, so her definition of the brand was as a journey, stating, “you need to become who you are, meaning are you still relevant.”

Since Pringle had “small challenging budgets for communications” it made no sense to compete “mano-a-mano with big brands,” Macaire opined, somewhat incredulously. Under her watch, Pringle has mounted a whole slew of trendy Scottish linkups including actress Tilda Swinton, New York hipster photographer Ryan McGinley and Glasgow rock band Franz Ferdinand, a collective effort that cannot have been cheap.

Liberty’s now departed CEO, Geoffroy de la Bourdonnaye, argued that the “love and rebellion” to the London label, which he noted had “started silk scarves before Hermes.”

His strategy for Liberty’s turnaround, was a mixture of ‘high and low collaborations’ and included everything via Target, which rolled out a collaborative sell-out pop up store in New York’s Bryant Park, to convincing Manolo Blahnik to retail outside his own store in London for the first time.

Above all, stressed de la Bourdonnaye, it’s about “the power of flowers.” Sales are up 40% this year, and the company is profitable for first time in decades.

And, in a non-fashion turn Jorg Richtsfeld the CEO of Bavarian porcelain specialist Nymphenburg, devoted his charmingly low-key talk to partnerships, with names that ‘are not corporate,’ like Gareth Pugh, Gustavo Lins or Ted Muehling.

“Great things always need time!” he argued, adding that perhaps his greatest measure of success was the fact that so many modern museums now acquired Nymphenburg products, calling it “the greatest honour for us if our contemporary objects are bought by these institutions right after release.”

One founding clan that very much kept things in the family are the Missonis; whose three generations of Rosita, Angela and Margherita were collectively interviewed by Menkes. Explaining the decision to hand over the reins to her daughter Angela, Rosita conceded, “fashion had become a duty, a task and not a passion and it was really hard. I went home with magazines and I did not recognize what they were.”

Angela joked, “they told me I could design jewelry and that Missoni was a big company and I would NOT have to work with my mum. But I gave my mother a second life.”

Recalling the opening of their factory, Rosita refreshingly explained that they decided to build in the place where they would like to spend their weekends.

In one of her sharper moments, Menkes recalled that she had critically lambasted the most recent Missoni show, in which Margherita had an input. But minutes later, Margherita opined: “I don’t think anyone could be a better designer for Missoni than me, that might not sound modest, but it is what I think!”

Later that Tuesday, when Beckham was asked about her design thinking, the Posh one responded, “I’ve been a celebrity and I learned that something has to look good from all angles. How I work is how I put them on myself. How else do you know how that feels?”

“For me it’s about taking baby steps and I would like to be here in 20 years,” she continued. But when asked what was hubby David’s role, she snapped, “to look good and I am the funny one. Though I am not really that interested in menswear.” When I discussed this, Suzy said, “don’t men look better with their clothes off?”

But the day’s biggest star was very much Lagerfeld, who kept everyone amused by his take on Coco.

“Coco only liked girls who liked like her, or how she thought she looked when she was young. Women were not her favorite things. People say she was a dike, she was not a dike. She was only for men,” cracked Karl, who noted that after 45 years as a designer, “I am ready for the Guinness Book.”

Like his frame, Lagerfeld insisted the key to design was to keep a lean, tight team.

“Other houses have too many salaries. People whose only idea is to slow things down. I never meet marketing people for meetings, though maybe there are people hidden in the corridor,” sniffed Lagerfeld, adding that he cared little that his own brand was far less known than Chanel.

Inheritance can be a fragile affair, especially as most heirs are not up to the mark. Tellingly, of the score of brands represented on the podium, over more than half were no longer owned by the founding family.

A New, Solo Foot Forward

2010-11-16T12:19:16-05:00

Shot on a Kodak Z981

Japanese coffee, diamond jackets and living in the moment.

Best known as the creative force and frontman of the art-pop group Fischerspooner, Casey Spooner released his first solo project this fall, the album ‘Adult Contemporary.’ Produced by Jeff Saltzman and covering wide range of character, the emotional, rock-based songs are a departure from the conceptual electronic music Spooner has made with Warren Fischer. The album also features cameos from performance art queen Marina Abramovic and Scissor Sisters singer Jake Shears, with whom Spooner just returned from touring the United States.

Why did you call the album Adult Contemporary?

It was not easy to name this album. I typically like names that are kinda broad and vague. It is hard to find something that is descriptive and unique that doesn’t sound too gimmicky. I like that the word “adult” insinuates a bit of perversion, I like that “contemporary” makes me think of art, and I like that the two words together are a lame radio format for mellow, out-of-date music. I turned 40 this year, so I really wanted to embrace it and celebrate it. I think the title does that well.

How did you end up going on tour with the Scissor Sisters?

I was in Tokyo as the same time as the Scissors and they started discussing having me open for them. At first I said “NO WAY.” I had three weeks before the tour, no label, no money, I wasn’t even home to start the work, and had a calendar full of stuff I was committed to. Then I drank this unbelievable cup of coffee at a truck stop somewhere in Japan during a five-hour van ride, and I had one of those “AH-HA!” moments. I always knew that I wanted to use the early 1970s Marlene Dietrich concert as the basis for the look and feeling of my solo show. Very sophisticated and minimal. And I realised I could pull off this idea if I worked very quickly.

What has been your favorite part of working on this new project?

The pace! I made this album very quickly and everything about the production has been all about making fast decisions and moving quickly. I had to do all the packaging very fast, I had to sequence the album very quickly, I had 4 days to make the show. I am enjoying whipping everything together and not deliberating or wasting time.

What was it like being on tour with Scissor Sisters?

Initially it was really difficult. I had no time to prepare so I was learning how to perform the material on the road. As the opening act I didn’t get time to rehearse in soundcheck or anything. I was learning in front of an audience every night and making changes. John Garden, the Scissor Sisters musical director, was incredible. After my first, rather messy show, he stepped in and helped me to reprogram and mix the show. He saved my ass. The Sisters were really generous; it is fun to tour with your friends! But it was the first time I was ever an opening act. It was so different from the touring I do with Fischerspooner. Usually I am surrounded by tons of drama and energy and excitement and responsibility. Typically it takes 3 hours to get ready for an FS show. This solo performance was so stripped down and minimal, all I had to do was throw on a suit, drink some tea with whiskey, do a 5 minute vocal warm-up, and I was good to go. It was a big departure. And I was so ALONE. I was alone in my dressing room, alone on stage and alone afterwards. A totally different experience. I missed my Fischerspooner family.

Your look for this show is very stripped down compared to Fischerspooner, what is that all about?

I wanted to do something super elegant and chic. My image in FS is always extreme and avant-garde, but this material isn’t about that and I wanted to make a clear distinction between the two projects. I wore a bespoke Timothy Everest silver suit on the US tour that was really beautiful.

Timothy Everest and Mary Katrantzou also collaborated on the suit for me. She made the print and Timothy cut the suit. It is an amazing purple diamond print. I love evening clothes, and this show is perfect for them.

What are you doing next with the project? Music videos? Concert tour?

Luke Guilford directed a music video for the song “Spanish Teenager” that will premiere soon. I just did a live show at The Top Of The Standard, NYC. And I am considering how and if I will do more shows. I am most excited about staging performances for camera. It’s not really a music video, but more of a document of the show I did on the tour.

What were your inspirations while working on the album and the show?

I didn’t plan or think much before making any of this material. It was very in the moment. It really was about where I was at each day and what was happening in my life at that moment. Very spontaneous. Again everything about this material has been about the instantaneous, the immediate, the present, the right now, no deliberating, no wasting time, get it done. GO.

Adult Contemporary is available exclusively at caseyspooner.com.

Limoland, the Bright Idea

2010-11-11T15:53:18-05:00

It is, by any standards, an unlikely luxury concept, but one that by its very quirkiness might work well. Call it street chic for rich guys who like to dine well, or casual wear for the copious eater, or whatever; but LimoLand could well be the surprise new hit brand, whose founders’ over-the-top personas are very much part of the package.

Its name is Limoland, a brand launched by Jean Pigozzi, the large and well-built heir to the now defunct Simca car fortune, celebrated collector – particularly of African art – and occasional dipper into fashions’ inner circle fêtes, and Andrew Heffernan, also something of an heir to one of Ireland’s most celebrated commercial success, Dunnes Stores, sort of equivalent to Walmart and Bloomingdales, all-in-one back in the Emerald Isle.

They launched Limoland in the US this past summer, with a flagship boutique in the hip world’s Holiest of Holies, New York’s Meatpacking district. Located at 829 Washington Street, in the evening shadows of The Standard Hotel, the store smartly captures the brand’s concept, cleverly encapsulating its brightly coloured pot pourri of well-to-do casual clothing. Garments for guys who don’t mind a little attention, yet want their fashion to be mega comfortable.

We caught up with Andrew – who most people call Heff – for a tour of the brand’s mini emporium, a combination of wood or “grass” floors, wrecked walls with daubs of abstract paint, African music on the speakers and roomy fashion in hyper bright colours, a store where even the sofas come in turquoise.

“We’re all about a much more affordable luxury,” says Heffernan pointing to 90-dollar soft collar polo shirts, that is rather formal yet chic, thanks to being made in shades of burnt orange and pastel pink.

“All our polos are 100 percent Prima cotton, made in Peru,” he adds, before turning to show off lightly padded baseball jackets and sweatpants with waistbands and back pockets in contrasting colours. The latter come for 90 dollars, and though twice to three times the price of, say, brands like Old Navy or The Gap, their faint wackiness and smooth comfort makes them look like a good deal.

LimoLand’s best ideas are its merino wool and cashmere mix sweaters in Roman Imperial purple or YSL-like crimson that all look pretty fab. Cut with crew or V-necks, boasting a great “hand” and excellently made they are LimoLand luxury at its most pertinent.

With its window starring a beautiful wooden African throne featuring tiger faces, ancient spirits and elephants in electric blue, the store is hard to miss.

“Our name is very tongue-in-cheek, which represents what we’re trying to do, which is a little bit ironic,” explains Heffernan as grabs a well finished tote bag.

It features their smart take on the logo, partly a double L in a tutti frutti series of candy colours, a repetition that wittily references, somewhat, high powered French brands like Goyard or Louis Vuitton. Plus, all LimoLand fashion also carries the head of a mascot, an angry blue spirit with huge ears, a set of upper teeth and scary black eyes created originally by African artist George Lilanga. The line also retails in chic shops like Colette, Land of Tomorrow and 10 Corso Como.

Both Heffernan and Pigozzi like to live well. I last bumped into Andrew in the world’s hippest rooftop bar, Boom Boom, on the top floor of The Standard Hotel, and first met Pigozzi – whom most people call Gianni, seeing his mum was Italian – at a private soiree of Valentino’s partner Giancarlo Giammetti, probably the most elegant apartment I have visited in Paris.

LimoLand has inked several co-branding deals, notably with Yoshida Porter, the Japanese bag company, “which means we are one of the few brands with which they do collaborations. They picked us,” stresses Heffernan.

Another collaboration is with a “Kway”, an Italian company that specializes in light rain gear, who created for LimoLand some swish weatherproof jerkins.

And if you want to go off the wall stylistically, try one of LimoLand’s djellabas, the Moroccan to-the-floor one piece that Pigozzi favors himself.

“Gianni has been wearing this all summer, its sort of his resort wear, for him and his friends. You see one of our internal tag lines, which we sort of added recently, is ‘street wear for rich old men.’”

Could not have put it better myself.

Dueling harps

2010-11-09T03:05:55-05:00

Performer Adam Dugas discusses his recent show Dueling Harps, a darkly elegant evening of gorgeous melodies with a surreal and theatrical flourish. Created with singer/actress Ann Magnuson and the harpists Mia Theodoratus and Alexander Rannie, this was the New York premiere of the show, a twisted match of musical one-upsmanship, which previously ran at REDCAT/Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles. Shot on a Kodak Zi8
_{DP and Editor: Zbigniew Bzymek}
_{Finishing: Jason Cacioppo – Subvoyant}

Fashion's Latest Frontier: Tbilisi, Georgia

2010-11-04T13:18:15-04:00

Welcome to fashion’s latest final frontier, Georgia Fashion Week, which staged three days of shows during late October in its storied capital, Tbilisi, an event very much backed up by the powers that be.

Staged principally in a grandiose neo-classical theatre on Tbilisi’s main street, Rustaveli Avenue, the four-day, 23-show season is supported by the highest authority. Maka Metreveli, the founder of Georgia Fashion Week, is the wife of David Bakradze, the Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia.

“The international image of Georgia is one of war and conflict. This week shows us in a different light of art, culture and new ideas. That’s why we invited 40 foreign editors and writers here for the weekend. So they can see Georgia in what we think is the right light,” explained Metreveli.

Our bet for the local designer most likely to make an international impact would probably go to Aka Nanitashvili, whose soft cyber punk gals in beige body suits with horizontal leather bands and curvy bubble minis in calfskin were edgily chic. Though Aka’s finest hour was very much her fantastic ostrich leather booties and shoes finished with fabulous heels made of local hunting horns. McQueen like but very much from her own imagination, they said loud and clear that Nanitashvili is a designer with real promise.

The action had opened on Friday evening with a showcase event and runway moment by Avtandil, perhaps Georgia’s most famous designer who has already staged shows on Moscow catwalks. His local clubbing gear and smart cocktail dresses with breastplates and grandiose military star chokers, all looked very strong.

Georgia’s best staged show was very much by Datuna Sulikashvili, who presented his gothic screen goddess show in a great Constructivist style theater, where models appeared out of the floors on hydraulic platforms and staged precariously at a 45 degree angle as an Oscar winning style star emoted in a diaphanous white dress in a surreal shower made of pages from a novel. Sulikashvili’s strict black pants suits with jade finishes and layered chiffon dresses in burnt orange were also the weekend’s best-cut ideas.

Not every talent has restricted their catwalk shows to Georgia. Lako Bukia, for one, made her debut a month previously in London at the Vauxhall Fashion Scout event. Her inspiration was Soviet Architecture and hefty block buildings that still dot most major cities in former states, like in Lako’s hometown of Tbilisi. Her multi pleat slate gray cocktails and above all her Caucasian wonder woman looks with absurdist spike shoulders, will not easily be forgotten.

Too often, however, local designers tried a little too hard – some placed facemasks, without mouths on the heads of their cast, others plastered looks with far too much embellishments. Moreover, there was little sense people had developed their own prints, often sourcing collections from fabric houses in Istanbul, Turkey, its neighboring country.

For more grand dames styles one admired Keti Chkhikvadze, a local designer now based in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan’s capital. Her black chiffon shifts finished with embroidered beetles or her hyper floral cocktails, worn on models sporting patent leather visors and boots, had a certain charming appeal.

For poise, one looked to the final show by Lilia Poustovit, an established Ukrainian designer whose use of ruffles as graphic detailing, garden maze prints and salmon-hued jumpsuits all looked suitably polished.

Georgia’s war with its northern neighbor in 2008 led to the occupation by Russian troops of one whole region and the international reputation as a conflict zone. But Tbilisi seemed remarkably calm, and a great city to visit. Tbilisi is actually far more ancient that Moscow or Kiev, by almost 1,000 years, evident from a series of dramatic monasteries and basilicas – bizarrely blending Byzantine, Romanesque and Georgian architectural styles – perched on bluffs and hills above the Mtkvari river, a slow flowing ribbon running through the capital.

In terms of dress code, local gals favor short bloomer skirts and mini leather jackets, generally trimmed with epaulettes and finished with studded shoulders. It’s a faintly posh punk and they looked all the better for it at a late night after-party in Guru – a techno disco were the DJ performed under a screen featuring montage of their runway shows. Like in Kiev, which we visited just before Tbilisi, one in 20 twenty somethings dyed their hair fiery Celtic red.

The local guys might be a tough looking bunch, but are all very friendly, and enjoy a glass. Carbon dating shows the oldest evidence of wine consumption on our globe is in Georgia, with clay casks proving to be 7,000 years old. And local growers like Bagratoni bubbly or a Teliani cabs are highly respectable. Tbilisi ladies have a dark eyed Mediterranean-like beauty, even if their country is located on the shores of the Black Sea. And few people are more hospitable: Georgians dance as much as Brazilians, drink fine wines like the French, laugh as loud as Italians and talk almost as much as the Irish. No wonder I felt at home there.

Robert Knoke, Art of the Black Line

2010-11-02T23:22:20-04:00

Shot on a Kodak Z981

Robert Knoke is an artist known for his inky, stylized portraits of chic men and women like Bernhard Willhelm, Rick Owens, Patti Smith and Walter van Beirendonck. His recently released book, 01 Black Material, published by Collective V and Project 00, was celebrated with a launch at the New Museum in New York. The 240-page book is a collection of drawings and details from his Portrait Series, which is a roster of some of the most unique people working in culture today. We spoke to Robert about his inspirations, process and family influences.

“I started drawing from a very early age. My father was an artist too and his studio was in the apartment. He was a figurative painter. I had old parents, both survived the war [WWII], and you could see that trauma in his work. Struggling, naked humans… My father was always struggling with his work. Never satisfied, very self-destructive. He was always at home, and I had a little corner in the studio. So, like every little child, I was drawing. I was just drawing a lot and it became more and more distinct, compared to other children’s drawings. I used to copy the naked bodies of my father’s paintings when I was six. So that’s when it all started.”

“First I was doing line drawings. Very graphical. I used markers and I  just stayed with it. That’s maybe the reason why I still do my portraits now with markers and ballpoint pens. I just love anti-artist materials like these cheap tools. I also love glossy paints and sometimes glitter. It gives the drawings a different depth. I use my fingers a lot. When I use grease pencil I can do these smudges best with my fingers. That’s why my drawings show so many fingerprints. Some just happen, and some I put on consciously.”

“I perform a little when I draw. I kind of have to ‘let go’. Before I start, I feel like I am going to a boxing match. I have to get myself into the right mood and sometimes I put music on, but when I start with the face I mostly don’t listen to anything. I try not to think. Thinking can be very counter-productive. It’s like sex. When you think too much, it doesn’t work. When I do bigger drawings with some background and I have the face ready, then I start listening to music again. I’m really dancing in front of the paper. It helps me to put the right lines on the surface."

“The new book is about the abstractions in my work. The focus is more on the details. It goes deeper into the drawing and away from the subjects. A journey into lines, black shapes and reflections. I found out that I don’t have favorite subjects. Everybody I meet can be great to draw, but sometimes I do more portraits of one person, like Casey.” Robert has done a series portraits of Casey over the last three years, including a limited edition Fischerspooner t-shirt.

More than other painters or visual artists, Knoke is inspired by music and stage performances. “I was blown away as a teenager when I saw ‘One Man Show’ by Grace Jones. I remember making a Grace Jones puppet and recreating the show as a Marionette play. I copied the whole show and played it for my parents. When music videos started, I think that had a big influence on my work and the way I visualize things. I think that kind of shows in my work now.”

“My mother studied fashion illustration and make-up, but she stopped doing all of this when she met my father because she thought he was the better artist. Typical! She always did these funny drawings of Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. These 1940’s style faces. She even did her make-up that way and trained her facial expression to look like these women. Her trademark was a red lipstick. When she died I threw her last lipstick into her grave. That was actually very funny, because the lipstick made a big noise when it hit the urn!”

Blank 5 Space is currently presenting an exhibition of Knoke’s work at  Gallery Face in Seoul, Korea. In March 2011, he will be presented in New York by Envoy Enterprises.

For more information:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/ROBERT-KNOKE/36766656405

01 Blackmaterial can be purchased at The New Museum:

http://www.newmuseumstore.org/browse.cfm/00-volume-01:-black-material/4,5128.html

Religion of Fashion in Kiev

2010-10-27T01:12:39-04:00

The local Orthodox Church threatened to close down this past weekend’s fashion season in Kiev, but the shows went ahead despite an inspection by local police responding to irate calls from holy men in Ukraine’s most famous monastery.

The 10-show New Look of Kiev season was staged in the capital’s former Arsenal, a huge red brick structure located right across the street from Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves), a remarkable Byzantine style monastery founded in 1051 on the hill above the Dnipro River, whose slopes are honeycombed with subterranean churches and scores of mummified monks, exposed coffins in underground niches.

“A certain Otets Pavel, or Father Paul in English, called from the Lavra demanding we close down the event. He said that fashion was immoral and that we had turned the Arsenal into a bordello,” explained Kazbek Bektursunov, founder of the season.

Responding to complaints from the Lavra churchmen Kiev police chief Alexi Krikun dispatched a team of cops to inspect the Arsenal, though ultimately allowed the event to precede.

“This Father Paul said we should be ashamed of ourselves for holding runway shows on the opposite side of the street from their monastery. I replied that fashion is about celebrating beauty so what was the problem!” said Bektursunov, the senior cultural and media advisor to Kiev’s city hall, and husband to Ukraine’s most famous fashion journalist Daria Shapovalova. She hosts Fashion Week with Daria Shapovalova – which broadcasts to over 20 million people – and is a well-known contributor to Russian Vogue.

To what, one wondered, could Father Paul reasonably object? Well, there was a rather self confident male model with an thick beard who appeared on the runway of Valery Kovalska attired in a charming blue marble print dress and high school girl’s knee socks. Or maybe the churchman would have been upset by the saucy lass in a great mini cocktail of woven nylon, whose strands were so loose, the female model’s nipples peaked right through? As the monk did not carry out his threat to stage a march on the alleged den of inequity that is any fashion week, we will not know.

Anyway, Kovalska’s snappy modernism was well to our liking especially his great pants for girl’s with inverted pleats that swirled around the midriff like petals or his sexy swing cardigans – which would look cool on women at a New York opening or a Paris Left Bank terrace.

Our favorite local show was by Sasha Kanevski, whose conceptual street style take on hipster club gear worked extremely well. Hyper plaid hooded jackets with sweep around collars over bias cut leggings for gals and clever jogger meets trouser pants seen with artists in residence parkas for guys all looked great. Matter of fact, pants turned out to best thing for men on the catwalks here.

Kanevski’s clothes retail in Pure, a cool basement music, fashion and accessories store located in the basement in central Kiev, that is very much the downtown version of Colette here. The city already boasts the highly impressive Atelier 1, an arty emporium for upper end avant-garde fashion, located too in a basement. Call it the Slavic Dover Street.

The season also featured several non-Ukrainian designers like Marc Philippe Coudeyre, a Brussels-based talent, who showed craftily cut frocks and cocktail wear with some smart embellishments and embroidery in a poised take on modern fashion. Kanevski’s show also featured a great soundtrack by Lamberto Petri, who besides being a very fine DJ is the talented designer of la Maison du Couturier, a second non-local collection stage in Kiev. One had to admire Petri’s clever sense of edgy understatement. His mono-color collection in beige and black swaddled his models artfully, and never took over their personalities.

Both Coudeyre and Petri now retail in Dolce & Gabbana’s new Milan concept store Spiga 2 featuring a score of emerging talents, and judging from their shows here one can fully understand why.

Other shows to impress were LP, the second line of Lilia Poustovit, this country’s most famous designer, whose wares have retailed in Dover Street Market in London.

Poustovit is a self-assured creator, whose two-hued trench coats, thoroughly well cut soft cotton jersey frocks and party dresses with baroque print motifs all looked plausible and cool.

For a rocker take on Slavic style, one should check out Vitaliy Pavlishyn, who mixed sassy graphic leggings under over-sized boyfriend jackets, sexy tube dresses and glamour clubber tops in a gutsy show backed up by a live local rock band.

But the mega star of the season was Alla Kostromicheva, the beautiful new boldly featured brunette model in the latest Bottega Veneta ad campaign. “It’s fun to be back home and be able to walk in one of our own designers shows for a change,” smiled Alla, who opened and closed Kanevski’s show.

The shows, presentations and a series of lectures by visiting media – including a talk on runway finales by this story’s author – were all staged in the beautiful red-brick 19th century Arsenal, a suitably massive structure for Kiev, a capital of dotted with monumental buildings – Orthodox, Medieval and Soviet. And, thankfully, the space featured a weekend of shows that went ahead despite clerical pressure.

The Bare Bones, Delfina Delettrez

2010-10-19T23:49:13-04:00

Skulls, frogs, snails and nanny’s braiding might not be the first things that come to mind when one thinks of fine jewelry. Yet they are precisely the springboards used by Delfina Delettrez, a delicate Roman beauty, whose finely wrought collections have made her very much a design star.

Born into the wealthy Fendi family of Rome, it would be easy to dismiss Delfina as a fortunate child of privilege. But it would be far truer to see her as an energetic mind that by dint of her own elegantly off-kilter imagination has made her collection one of the most important new jewelry labels launched in the last half decade.

This season, Delfina’s big idea is rather manly – a series of dramatic necklaces inspired by men’s shirt collars – so much she named the collection, “We-Men.”

Its essence is clever- guys stuff, classical collars for tuxedos or military, the right side of quirky bow ties, or striking cuffs – all made in fine silver, some with pearl centerpieces or amethyst additions. And you know what? Every single piece looked cool.

“It all about these collars, the ones men wear like the smoking jacket collar, or even this one with fluorites, which can even be worn detachable,” explains Delfina, as she lifts a collar; its so large it’s more like a mini breastplate.

Delettrez presented the collection on 22 stockmen with dresses, each carrying applications on the dress, this month in Paris. We-Man is Delfina’s sixth collection, all of them shown in Paris.

“This is hand knitted, made by women in Italy. It’s amazing work really. No one believes it!” she smiles, handling the amazing collar that retails for 2,000 Euros. Almost, inevitably, the knitted neckpiece is finished in, of course, mini skulls.

Her prices may not be cheap but, given the quality and inventiveness of her jewelry, all seem like very good value for money.

“Suzy (Menkes) called me the French maid,” she laughs, modeling a beautiful, pearl-trimmed, embroidered collar on herself, which turns out, rather remarkably, to be made hyper-fine crocheted silver thread.

Looking super chic and Parisian in a figure hugging little black dress, which she designed too, by the way, she adds: “It’s an old dress, that was my mother’s nanny dress, kind of this but in different materials and with white crochet collar. From that dress I started to do the metallic crochet,” she shrugs with her signature hesitant smile.

Her piece de résistance for next spring is a subtle collar covered in white diamonds and pink sapphire, which costs € 52,000 Euros. The work is so subtle, when you bend out the collar, you actually see through the mesh. Or there’s another ladylike lapel, inspired by the antique lace of a vintage shirt – where edge and elegance happily meet.

I’ve been running into Delfina for a fair few years at fashion events, though by the standards of her own social ilk, she is far more industrious designer than party animal. In person, Delfina is very pretty, with that delicate jawed and big-eyed mix that one only really sees in frescoes, or on café terraces, in Rome.

And, she’s successful. Delfina sells Colette in Paris, Dover Street in London and has trunk show planned for next week on October 29 in Saks, New York.

“Jewelry was, well, very natural. I’m like fixed with fashion, so I wanted to try something new, so I just started with the jewels. Because my dad is a jeweler, I was being surrounded by stones and materials and craftsmanship.” Delfina’s mum is Silvia , making her a fourth generation member of the clan, while her dad is the venerable French jeweler Bernard Delettrez.

Delettrez studied neither fashion nor jewelry, but came straight from high school in Rome to an internship at Chanel. “I, like, started taking Polaroids, bringing the coffee and then I just started my own thing, never studying gemology.” She has had lots of themes, giving each season names like “The Garden of Delight” or “Arachnophobia.”

“That’s about my phobia for insects. The first collection was “The Skull” and then snakes, and from that I went to frogs, maybe because I was pregnant, so I was kind of a sweet,” recalls Delettrez, who has a three-year-old daughter Emma, the same name as Delfina’s great grandmother.

Her St Germain apartment is finely appointed with Paris and Roman flea market treasures finds. Though Delettrez live mostly in Rome, in the centro storico, though keeps her office in Ostiense, the ancient Roman port, in a red brick factory, commuting there in her Smart car.

“Well, I’m 23, I like to have fun, but I don’t go out that much. I go where I have to go. I like to stay with my daughter, I do the mom, I bring her to school,” she insists, before lighting a Marlboro light with an espresso.

She produces in various places, like Arezzo, the Tuscan town, though mostly lots near Piazza Navonna on via del Governo Vecchio, the artisan’s street around the corner from this author’s old pad in the center of Rome.

To let off stress, Delfina, used to swim a lot, but now prefers kickboxing, aiming most of her angst at, “my personal trainer for now.”

Her summers are spent in the romantic island of Ponza, where poets have been bringing beautiful women since ancient times. “I like to go there one month, close the cell phone, close everything. Then, when I want to do some trekking in the mountains, I go to the Gran Sasso in Abruzzo. Yes, like three days, six hours walking.”

The fall out is she also designs clothes, to help display the jewels and they looked so good, people began ordering them.

“Everyone suddenly wanted this dress,” she enthuses, and seeing her lithe and understated in the fading fall of Paris one can fully understand why.

Paris, Looking Over the Shoulder of History

2010-10-13T09:58:48-04:00

Welcome to the new, always-a-little-over-the-top refinement. Designers in Paris this past week went all feminine, cutting their silhouettes forgivingly, ramping up finishing and detailing in a beautiful Baroque moment in the spring 2011 collections, sent out on over 150 catwalks across the City of Light.

The biggest, most brilliantly ornate moments in Paris were the mammoth virtual “Versailles Garden” at Chanel, a hyper sophisticated Lanvin Roman centurion’s wives show and a Latin lover meets Zorro final show at Hermes for Jean Paul Gaultier. Though it was also a season that trumpeted a triumph of modernist tailoring – especially at Yves Saint Laurent and Haider Ackermann.

The season’s most talked about show was very much Chanel. The entire surface of the double football field sized Grand Palais was remade as a giant Renaissance garden, modeled on 17th century symmetry of Versailles Gardens. It was literally breathtakingly beautiful – the framed radiating box hedgerows, wrought iron detailing, parterres and gravel walks replaced by Styrofoam lawns and stones, the green replaced by hyper chic black and white.

The collection was exceptional too – raggedy, deliberately unfinished throughout, with a marvelously at ease slight of hand, like the moth eaten, clothes full of holes, lean gray jeans over tunic tops. The latter dexterously finished with exotic curlicue embellishments and at the neck with jagged shards of tulle.

Coal eyed models – a huge European trend, though nowhere done better than at Chanel – marched throughout the enormous space, and though they looked tiny in the setting the collection was so beautiful, they owned the place.

At Lanvin, action opened with trio of red carpet screen goddess Fortuny-style halter neck gowns with chunky amulets to a series of utilitarian Roman sheath dresses, dissected vertically – jersey on one side flowing satin on the other – and horizontally with huge belts. Last minute editing, led Elbaz to jettison a score of high heels, so many models walk in revamped Roman sandals. An important trend, since Giambatista Valli showed Roman sandals with ‘60s gold touches.

His pop art fashion meets Baroque was beautifully judged. “I visited Versailles, and wanted its unique beauty into this collection, in a very modern way,” said Valli, whose show had a massive electronic wall where abstract images of Baroque twirls and curls were projected. Valli wants to see ladies next spring in mini shirt cocktails composed of mixes of metallic wool, with badges and strips of silver. So should you.

Many designers referenced Yves Saint Laurent, since this spring’s YSL retrospective in Paris’ Petit Palais was arguably the best ever staged for any designer, anywhere. From Marc Jacobs in New York to Gucci in Milan and Dries Van Noten in Paris, everyone riffed on Yves. So, the big question everyone asked as they walked into the latest Yves Saint Laurent runway in Paris; was whether the house’s current creative director Stefano Pilati would make YSL himself? The answer was a very fine show, which won him tumultuous applause, arguably Pilati’s finest collection for this legendary brand.

Take his devilishly well-cut white trench coat whose huge lapels and splendid cut gave it an elegant swagger, or the enchanting tuxedo meets screen goddess columns that were the chicest single look of the season so far. Rifling through the house’s cannon, Pilati sent out refined though tough cocktails where a vertical mini column of stiff fabric and sturdy neck collar were all very posh fetishistic.

“Sexiness and exoticism,” smiled Pilati whilst backstage, in between posing for photos with Claudia Schiffer and Salma Hayek, wife of Francois Henri Pinault, whose Gucci Group owns YSL.

Paris also witnessed one masterly collection from Haider Ackermann, the brilliant Columbian-born but Belgium trained talent. His brainy use of deconstruction – a man’s tuxedo cut to be a halter neck mini top, or remodeled trench coats that flared like huge petals –the latest affirmation that there is no more innovative tailor and cutter in contemporary women’s fashion.

For sheer diabolical decadence, one should attend the show of Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, where this season Justin Timberlake and Courtney Love sat front row and a mega volume remix of King Night’s diabolical “Salem,” blared form speakers. Models marched by in black leather jackets in erratic padding, ribbed corsets with lots of see-through panels or deep gorge leopard print shirts in chiffon. The mood was hyper elegant, yet threatening – high-powered temptresses – slinky and seductive.

And for downright sauciness, one should check out Christian Dior, where John Galliano’s must was Bettie Page, the Playmate of the ‘50s, whose trademark bangs was the show’s hairstyle.

On an “On the Waterfront” style industrial catwalk, flirty pinup babes in fauna and leaf print dresses, cut slatternly low. Most wore bobby socks, sweetheart lei flower chains around their necks and sailor’s caps, saluting with saucy winks the huge pack of 300 catwalk photographers, who yelled throughout the show. And returned the ultimate compliment – chanting out “John! John! John!” at the finale.

Hermes bid farewell to Gaultier with ten dressage horses performing in a paddock under glittering chandeliers – an equestrian farewell, done with polite elegance.

For commercial cunning will be Celine, where designer Phoebe Philo ordered a runway of beige leather – a witty commentary on the fact this designer has single handedly set a gigantic global trend for this colour in the past two seasons.

The big news here were the long, slouchy, deep pocketed trousers – athletic meets tuxedo – very much the pants that this designer wears herself, since she took her bow in them, and sneakers – something unheard of for a lady designer. Finished with broad contrasting seams and slim, tied fabric belts, they looked sure to be commercial hits and highly significant in terms of next spring’s fashions.

The season’s most keenly anticipated show was the debut of Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. The former right-hand of deceased designer, Burton won hearty applause, as well she should for a finely judged series of riffs on McQueen’s classics – chessmen shapes, feather looks, phantasmagorical shoes. And if the setting was restrained – long planks that imparted a wonderful woody smell to the small show space – and the music not the perhaps wisest – the show ended with Michael Jackson’s “I’ll be There” – the collection clearly showed that this lady has the design chops to make great collections. Her take on McQueen was also a dash more feminine and, contrary to Lee who loved technology, more ecological sort – one amazing high-end picnic dress featured sheathes of wheat. That said, the true test for this designer will inevitably be the next collection – when sentiment will play less of a role. And it will be keenly awaited after such a professional first time at bat.

We got a dose of high-tech baroque at Balenciaga, where designer, Nicolas Ghesquiere, sent out plasticized silk woven dresses under sunset red leather motorbike jackets or black punky, short trousers and gentlemanly dress shirts with front tails – all de rigueur purchases.

Quirkiness was apparent in the culottes made of plastic, or the short skirts that were semi sheer almost to the crotch. But the mood never strayed into the farcical. There was not one weak look in this collection, backed with suitable gravitas by music from Handel. His neon red and electric blue metallic leather cut at the side boots were the defining footwear for the coming baroque spring.

High tech colours were also all the rage at Costume National, where designer produced beautifully streamlined chic daywear but in the sort of colours one associates with high-performance cars, of downhill skiers gear – burnt orange, deep turquoise.

Roland Mouret, who cuts by far the best silhouettes of any London-based designer, was hardly baroque. Yet, his injection of sportswear and use of a whole series of imaginatively draped capes did somehow recall the twisting shapes of ornate design. It was a fresh approach for Mouret, and a smart one.

Another fine performance was Chloe, a graceful catwalk display of graceful clothes by Hannah MacGibbon. Her twisted top jumpsuits, patrician use of semi-sheer, delightful contrast of tight torso shape and flared skirt – you just had to love the haughty chic of model Anabela Belikova’s coffee and cream combo – all looked great. MacGibbon’s obvious predicament is that the woman she ultimately succeeded at Chloe, Phoebe Philo, has gone on to have such critically acclaimed success at Celine. However, in our view this past week in Paris, Hannah’s had far more of the sort of looks we’d like to see on future dates next spring.

At Rochas, Marco Zanini made Sweden meet Paris with silk shirts featuring French lettering, and phrases like “Les Merveilles Nuages,” or marvelous clouds.

This was a big season for roomy, peasant dresses and Rochas had the best choice – sculpted at the torso, and gathered below the waist with a certain sophistication.

Widow dresses cut below the knee and worn with black knee socks, flat fronted hemp jackets or suits in naïve architectural prints suggested a pretty farmer’s daughter enjoying spending the fortune of the rich chateau owner she had landed in marriage. Raised in Milan, Zanini has an Italian father and Swedish mother.

At the last show of them all, Miu Miu, Miuccia Prada pointedly commented on the celebrity system – most of her viscose clubbing and bowling clothes had huge stars.

“It’s about the vulgarity and trash of the celebrity culture and people’s obsession with it,” snipped Prada, as she down some French champagne.

Minimalist, Maximalist, Milan

2010-10-06T04:31:45-04:00

They are calling it the birth of quirky minimalism where silhouettes were stripped down, but colours and prints where bold and brash; the Hollywood wattage of George Clooney and Orlando Bloom was intense, and where the two top-rated shows – Jil Sander and Prada – were blazing kaleidoscopes.

It was also the week of Franca Sozzani, the Italian Vogue Editor-in-Chief, with the style of delicate diva and the energy of Hercules. She staged a joint dinner with Donatella Versace, a joint dance party with Diane von Furstenberg, where they recreated Studio 54 in Lapo Elkann’s Milan headquarters and the week’s most elegant dinner.

That supper began with the opening exhibition of the latest cover for Italian Vogue, a series of 3D naked femininity images shot by Steven Meisel of Miranda Kerr. Parapazzi went into a feeding frenzy when the Australian supermodel and hubby Bloom showed up at the opening of the exhibition, sponsored by P&G Prestige, perfume partner of Gucci, Pucci, Rochas and Hugo Boss, for whom Bloom is model ambassador.

So Franca and scent president Patrick Louvet hosted Gucci’s Frida Giannini, Pucci’s Peter Dundas, Rochas’ Marco Zanini and a bearded Bloom for dinner, enjoying risotto and tagliata di manzo in Da Giacomo Bistrot, Milan’s newest restaurant.

“My tummy is beginning to be a little… noticeable,” shrugged Kerr. It barely was. “As Orlando lives in LA and I work in New York, we’re not sure where we will spend most of the time; but we know life will be completely different.”

Louvet added: “We’ve always been inspired by Milan fashion week, our partners here and the symbiotic relationship between fashion and beauty.”

One night before Giannini, her ‘family and friends’ rocked hard at the VIP room of Plastic, the legendary off-beat Milan dance bar, where the Gucci gal danced on a diamond plate barrel, go-go girl style.

Like so many collections, Gucci was a blaze of colour, in the biggest critical hit of Gianinni’s reign – where she went from boudoir to Berber – Atlas mountain bitter orange and Moroccan purples in YSL-influenced opening of hyper sharp draping.

Colour rocked to a Latin beat at Prada, with eye-twisting baroque prints, showing curly stucco twists, cherubs, monkeys, profiles of Brazilian bombshell actress Carmen Miranda with a pineapple famously perched her head, and even bananas, the raw material for American jazz singer Josephine Baker’s famous short skirt.

“Latin ladies on an unconventional vacation,” smiled Miuccia Prada, who wore a pair of plastic miniature banana earrings.

For steamy minimalism, but maximalist sizzle, Kylie Minogue went to Dolce & Gabbana, sat beside pal Naomi Campbell, who was in town for the book launch in Dolce’s flagship of her 25th anniversary; funds from which went to the super’s ‘Fashion For Relief’ charity. The duo’s collection was almost entirely white, mesmerizingly pretty and anything but virtuousness. Think sensual Sicilian fantasy bride.

At Versace, Donatella liked white too – crisp suits and cocktails, though edged with transparent strips, giving a cool geometric attitude. Though she also injected mounds of colour, semi-erratic vertical stripe print in cartoon shades of canary yellow, peppery red and faded blue.

“I’m an operatic Italian woman, who needs emotion in my collections and my shows,” said a trim Donatella, who threw a ramping party – where Hercules & Love Affair did a pumped up set in the courtyard of her Palazzo Versace.

At Fendi, creative director Lagerfeld ordered the “bright colours seen at sunset,” in the city’s largest silhouette, though in light fabrics so the form folded and flopped intriguingly.

“I did not want mark down Saint Laurent. There’s far too much of that around,” sniffed Lagerfeld, dismissing the dozens of shows in New York, London and Milan that evoked YSL’s colours and cuts, in the wake of his monumental retrospective this year at Paris’ Petit Palais.

Bottega Veneta offered a live stream of its spring runway show, a virtual front-row seat so top-end customers could reserve Spring 2011 merchandise immediately via a BV personal shopper. Creative Director Tomas Maier called it the “excitement and beauty of the live runway show… within the privacy and calm of the Bottega Veneta environment.”

And just when you thought you’d die from an overdose or peasant dresses when along came of Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi at Ferre with thigh to thigh and hip, pure power shoulder Grecian goddess cocktails and coat dresses where lace underwear peeked through or high-end bondage babes.

Aquilano and Rimondi took the whole minimalist maximalist mix to extremes in their signature show, with Mantegna and Raphael prints and hyper dense Alpine floral materials in a streamlined collection.

Over at Jil Sander, hot neon and hyper acidic colours managed to be subtle and feminine when made in clean organic shapes – high skirts flipped over like petals at the waist, or evening dresses were cut like ripe bulbs. Electric roses, super-shiny oranges and hard violets dazzled through the collection, which my buyer pals at net-a-otrre.com confessed they loved.

Roberto Cavalli celebrated his 40th anniversary as a designer with a racy, high-tempo meeting of the Wild West and cool Goth rocker, kicked off by Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova in a barely-there ragged skirt and spider web bustier top of black string over silver. Among the 1,200 at his show were Heidi Klum, Leona Lewis and “Project Runway” Executive Producer Desiree Gruber. Though his real fête turned out to be in Paris, where Kylie did a semi acoustic set for Roberto in a Beaux Arts college mega bash.

It was left to Giorgio Armani to tone down the colour with a Blue Period collection – going south to Africa, not west to California, for inspiration in the season’s finale.

Armani looked to the Tuaregs, a Berber people of the Sahara nicknamed “Blue People” for the indigo pigment in their robes and turbans that stains their skin. The elegant daywear was one the best Armani in many seasons – emphasizing flared chiffon jodhpurs under exquisitely cut mini jackets, with narrow sleeves and peplum hems. But some of the best firepower, was backstage were women literally swooned over George Clooney, attending his first Giorgio show in nine years.

“Giorgio Armani is a great friend and I love his work, it’s really great to be here,” Clooney beamed for a half dozen camera crews, before sliding away and cracking. “Do you see that? I managed to them all without saying anything.”

“Giorgio always brings me luck. The last time I came to a show I left on a motorcycle trip with some buddies and ended up buying my place at Lake Como. So, I remember his shows fondly,” added the actor, referring to his magnificent lakeside mansion, Villa Oleandra, north of Milan. He refers it as “my shack on the shore.” Like we said it’s been Minimalist Maximalist Milan.

London, The New Driving Power

2010-09-29T00:28:38-04:00

London revved back to life this season with a printing explosion, glamorous roll of parties, five-day, non-stop run of shows and a vroom-vroom moment at the week’s biggest show, where the defining look was a new hybrid garment – the biker trench.

Though, the defining moment of the season was the farewell to Alexander McQueen, where Bjork sang ‘Gloomy Sunday,’ Billie Holiday’s tragic song, when mourners gathered to commemorate the late designer at St Paul’s Cathedral on Monday.

It was dignified, though sad memorial – the locals kept a stiff upper lip, but their eyes welled with tears throughout. So, it was a tad hard to remember the clothes in a season that might well be defined as where the internet began to herald the very end of the concept.

‘It makes less and less sense to talk of a strict season. Burberry caters to a global audience, so I wanted to create ‘season-less’ fashion this time,” Bailey told me after the Burberry Prorsum show, revving things up with his motorbike chic look. From padded leather biker sleeves attached to snazzy deep-pocketed raincoats, to brass band officer meets funky faux snakeskin rock star trenches in silver – they all looked great, and are sure fired hits.

And, as Tory cabinet ministers vied for attention with the likes of Sara Jessica Parker & Mario Testino in the front row, a global audience spread across 25 Burberry stores worldwide witnessed the show on huge screens, began placing orders directly on their iPads, the latest step in the brand’s “Runway to Reality” project. Delivery time is just seven weeks, in another smart move against counterfeiters.

Elsewhere, the most copied designer of all, the late Yves Saint Laurent, who influenced catwalks across the British capital. No surprise since YSL’s exhibition this year is held at Paris’ Grand Palais and is probably the smoothest retrospective of a designer ever mounted.

New York was already awash in 70s styles – the highpoint of YSL’s career; London took that further into a kaleidoscope of colour, notably at Giles Deacon whose opening featured the first video game – born in the Seventies, too – Pacman, sewn into teenage sweaters, worn with mum’s polka-dot cocktails.

Earlier in the week Katie Grand, Love Magazines editor-in-chief and uber stylist of Topshop Unique, mentioned Me Decade icons like Stevie Nicks and Jerry Hall (in Roxy Music videos) as influences in the Topshop Unique show of skinny bell-bottoms, floral kaftans and crystal studded mini dresses. Get thee to the disco on time!

London Fashion Week, like the memorial for Lee McQueen that was its most defining event, was a telling mixture of the irreverent and the sublime, the posh and the perverse, rather like Lee himself.

Take the week’s two best parties: On Sunday, Charlotte Dellal’s dinner, for her shoe collection, Charlotte Olympia, where Monaco princess Charlotte Casiraghi downed passion fruit capirinhas in the baroque chandeliered Brook Street Club and uber hip stylist Caroline Sieber wore a layered a layered putty Valentino dress.

A night later, Giles Deacon rocked in Bistrotheque a Bethnal Green English grub, gallery and bar, where a score of models – a casting that included Abby Clancy and Erin O'Connor – arrived on an old red double-decker bus, while Jade Parfitt and a duo of transvestites (who both appeared in the show) danced on a carpet in the same print shoes in Giles collection.

House of Holland, now a hit in Debenhams, no less, referenced Joan Collins – born before Henry, a child of 1983 – in a gold chain mail and ivy brocade show; Peter Pilotto riffed a medley of Missoni vintage references; and the mood board for Richard Nicoll – a colourist who unexpectedly went most black and white – was Angie and David Bowie in “The Thin White Duke period.” He called his collection “a Seventies/Forties look.”

Despite the deep and gloom making public sector cuts, London also felt strangely exuberant, with designers determinedly injecting sassy colours into a new mix and match aesthetics. In what many thought was the season’s most innovative show, Christopher Kane contrasted perforated Paisley flared skirts with revamped Argyle style diamond twin sets – Highland chic to the max.

“It was Princess Margaret style and Norman Hartnell designs, with Yakuza gangster tattoos thrown in,” Kane told me with a wicked grin backstage.

The two other most applauded shows – Mary Katrantzou and Erdem – also went for dashing disparities. Katrantzou wowed again with her exceptional print mix of architectural imagery, Arcadian scenes and garden graphics. Staged in former Eurostar terminal of Waterloo Station, where the sound of departing trains was replaced by the pop of Topshop sponsored champagne bottle opening, the collection was the latest affirmation of this exceptional designer’s too-much-is-never-enough point of view.

We’d award the week’s prize for best invitation to Sass & Bide, whose Pacific straw mop became a keepsake and collectors’ item for all true fashionistas. Accessories wise, London marked the death of heels and the conquest of Geisha gal style brothel creepers or lofty wedges, ideally with gros grain or silk ruffled straps.

London’s raciest moment, right after the McQueen memorial in St Paul’s, was in Somerset House, the nerve center for LFW. There, Mark Fast sent out a great collection of slinky, cobweb, body-hugging tops and skirts reminding us that sex still indeed sells.

Then again, they have loved always loved a dash of the illicit, a whiff of the saucy in Blighty, particularly at Burberry, whose finale was of layered chiffon cocktail dresses under streamlined ribbed reptile jackets or colourful leopard cocktails. Here models sizzled down the catwalk in a custom-made tent in Chelsea, 10 minutes walk from Westminster. Two visiting ministers from the foreign trade industry – according to the latest Oxford university study, fashion is now a 21 billion pound industry– kept pulling at their collars during the show. They may have been dampening down government spending in the UK, but its designers sure steamed up the season.

New York, Joining The Dots

2010-09-22T11:42:56-04:00

The Seventies might have been the driving force of the New York collections last week, but for our money, none of the three best shows- those containing the most memorable or beautiful clothes- had anything to do with the Me Decade.

Our trio of faves, none of them remotely related were the South-Western Ranch gal chic of Ralph Lauren, the gaudy classicism of Proenza Schouler and the return of Belgium wunderkind Olivier Theyskens.

Elsewhere, it’s true the runways were riddled with disco revival clothes. The only thing missing from this latest New York season was a member of the Bee Gees taking his seat front row, as the Seventies flashed before out eyes in all its glorious glamour at Marc Jacobs, with huge pants, big zigzag prints and hats like Jodie Foster first made famous in “Taxi Driver.”

“The seventies were when I fell in love with fashion; and the idea was a girl getting ready, looking hot going out to a great party, where she dances and gets all sweaty,” Jacobs told post show, dragging on a cigarette.

 We also enjoyed a duel at a distance between rock chicks. Victoria Beckham with her latest series of pencil thin power women looks; and Mick Jagger’s girlfriend L’Wren Scott, who hosted a lunch for 60 of tuna salad and Chablis on two long tables, as the audience – including Mick and Jade – caught her Serengeti sourced collection of fiery sunsets and golden dawns.

Best merchandise moment of the week was at Phillip Lim, who earned raves from mega fashion director “big pencils,” like Joe Boitano of Saks and Sarah Rutson of Lane Crawford, for his quirky sophisticate jacquard pants suits with handkerchiefs in the breast pocket worn with shaggy suede boots, or gently kicky semi-sheer organza trench coats.

A far more refined mood rifled through Calvin Klein where designer Francisco Costa played with vertical micro pleated Grecian goddess ideas, complimented with minimalist volume gowns – sort of cool reverend mother meets shy super heroine.

Two other collections that we very much enjoyed were those Reed Krakoff, creative director of mega brand Coach, and Theyskens’ Theory, the latter the debut of the brilliant young Belgium designer Olivier Theyskens with savvy hip US high street brand Theory.

Krakoff’s collection was his second signature show, and his take on snappy street chic and arty cocktail hour style was highly effective. He also tapped into a major New York that continue in London – oversized fabric belts of miniature cloth aprons used as accessories.

What worked best were his plays of gold, embroidered chain mail dresses that had punch but, oddly, a savvy sensitivity, semi sheer mesh tops, smartly draped cobalt blue dresses and one great posh graffiti trench coat.

“Contemporary American sportswear but with a dose of punk,” suggested Reed, a quiet spoken and gentlemanly creator.

A day later we caught up with Theyskens’ Theory, which had to be one of the most successful partnership launches featuring a hipster designer and a mega brand, so well did the collection capture the European designer’s oeuvre, yet with an approachable price point and easy-to-understand sense of style. Theyskens fashion forward ideas for Nina Ricci, where his shows made him a mega Paris runway star, did not come cheap.

Theyskens’ Theory also ensures that a new generation of consumers can tap into Olivier’s signature scallop hemmed jackets with notches at the back of the neck, slouchy elephantine pants, multi-gathered picnic in the city cotton dresses and big pocketed but tight calf jeans. They all looked great; and priced at well below $1,000, with jeans $240, seemed destined to be hits worldwide.

Theory CEO Andrew Rosen plans to market this collection globally, and he should. It looks like a winner.

And, pure beauty was very much the star at Ralph Lauren. America’s biggest design brand went southwest to a New Mexican mood, where dazzling georgette silk skirts came embroidered with Rocky Mountain motifs and platinum lame jackets had cow gal fringes.

“Natural beauty is the best? It’s often the gal running across the road, it’s a woman being herself looking fresh. It shouldn’t be too posed,” twinkled Ralph, himself attired in fringed antique leather rancher pants and antique watch with beaten silver strap. Talk about Santa Fe dandy…

In a very real sense, Lauren did not break that much new ground with his multi-fringe Big Country femme fatale collection, but the key thing here was that the women on the runway looked sensational. None of these gals looked like they ever mucked out a stable or got their beaded leather platforms dirty. But that mattered little when this vision of ethereal Western beauty wafted by – gals in silvery fringed skirts and evocative Edwardian granny blouses, chokers emblazoned with turquoise stones, totes covered in double DL stitching. Get me to the ranch on time!

New York, City of Quirkiness

2010-09-15T10:12:51-04:00

Get thee ready for the new quirky lady fashion aesthetic. From pale impressionist graffiti artists at Alexander Wang and whimsical theatrical lasses at hot newcomer Gary Graham, to latter day Isadora Duncans in graphic clouds to the very modernist Africa at the rebirth of Edun, the opening days of New York fashion week were all about an edgy new femininity.

In a sharp reaction to our ever connected Internet era, with its permanent chatter and distracting lifestyle, the spring 2011 collections called for a more elegiac and eccentrically demure sense of dressing. In a word, the fashion sent out on the Manhattan catwalks seemed far less likely to end up in a downtown nightclub, more directed at a witty, rambling dinner party, or romantic terrace.

Take the opening weekend’s outstanding show by Wang, who deleted all the after hours black, which traditionally dominated his collections, in favor of a show that was four-fifths white. And when there was colour – like some Sao Paulo style urban scrawl graffiti – it came in the palest washed out finishes.

Wang’s signature will always be athletic sportswear meets funky conceptualism, but his latest take – chopping up, folding, rouching and stretching judo jackets, fatigue pants and track and field bras caught the new independent lady moment perfectly.

“Optimism, belief in the future, nothing in black!” laughed Wang receiving compliments after the show, which attracted Lenny Kravitz, UK singer MIA and Maggie Gyllenhaal to the front-row.

A more understated spin on the new femininity was apparent at Edun, Bono and Ali Hewson’s founded fashion label, where new designer – fellow Irish-born Sharon Wauchob – staged an impressive debut.

The show – staged in a rented out parking lot located beneath the revamped Highline on Manhattan’s west side – was the first since the investment of new partner LVMH, the giant French luxury goods conglomerate.

Edun, whose central business philosophy is to create sustainable employment in developing countries, already employs some 1,000 farmers in Uganda alone, growing organic cottons according to Antonio Belloni, the senior LVMH exec attending the show. So, Wauchob’s light-handed use of animal geometric prints and easy to understand beading seemed right on the mark.

Her best looks were the simplest – washed linen mix pintuck pants paired with cropped jackets, or rusty hued halter neck tops. Using ruffled silk habotai or slate linen wood beading evoked Africa without ever falling into the standard clichés, in a show that smartly repositioned this brand.

“I wanted to be African, but not in some predictable manner, creating product that people there can clearly make. I think that will work with the beading,” Sharon told me backstage.

At Diane Von Furstenberg, we witnessed a sleek return to form thanks to new boy design director Yvan Mispelaere – a veteran of Chole and Gucci. The Diane/Yvan combination of chunky cloud or streaky graphic prints, employed in jersey dresses, cool rompers and snazzy T-shirt dresses all looked great.

DVF has always appealed to the haute bohemian sentiments, so the inspiration, avant-garde dancer Isadora Duncan seemed apt for the slightly more off kilter fashion sense of this past weekend.

As did a striking new collection from fledgling designer Gary Graham, who based his show on a fictitious artist named Augustine Riley, but referenced the looks on vintage samples that evoked the Ziegfeld Follies. Broken floral print jackets with light erratic beading, abstract photo lingerie looks, patchwork bustiers and great dimpled silk skirts marked out Graham as very much a designer to watch.

Another emerging house to follow is Suno, where the charming duo of Max Osterweis and Erin Beatty tapped into motifs from Kenya, where Max’s mum has made her home, to create a witty, upbeat yet multi-print collection. Blasting colour with every look made for a great, fresh statement using flashy pinks, bold imperial purples and earthy greens all combined in head-turning looks that the models clearly got a kick out of wearing – always a good sign.

Another figure who smartly tweaked the artsy gal look was Isabella Tonchi, an Italian designer based in Milan who showed in Milk Studios. Her Egon Schiele inspired ideas were presented with gentle grace in Milk Studios, a key hubcap of the New York scene, where an impressive 37 collections will be staged in the current season.

Tonchi’s refined dresses in contrasting fabrics like silver jacquard lamé and rough denim, or supple shirt dresses and borrowed-from-the-gent waistcoats all looked great, especially for those who want to show taste not trumpet excess.

Elegant eccentricity was also a theme at the runway debut of Z Spoke, the diffusion line of Zac Posen. Face print tops, flirty denim dresses, daisy print cocktails and saucy voile blouses looked like the very best sort of commercial merchandise for Posen – in many ways a New York couturier – to reach the mass audience his ideas merit.

Not everyone went batty. Brazil’s Carlos Miele had a fine show with a more reined in approach – especially for the cocktail hour, where his paneled mini dresses in white silk and twisted crepe all looked suitably sultry. Not wacky in the least, more haute and sassy.

And, in gym-obsessed era it was great to see a rather brilliant collection from Y-3, the street chic partnership of Yohji Yamamoto and German active gear giant Adidas.

Backed up by an excellent UK rock band, The Duke Spirit, the collection broke new ground with a more frankly sexy silhouette and cut. Pairing racy bras and skimpy waistcoats over twisted skirts and multi-pleat pants made for hot looks on the gals, their shaggy hair adding to the keen-to-get-to-the-bedroom mood. Yohji, famous for his protective volumes and dark colours for women- even embroidered crystals all over several looks, something unthinkable a few years back.

Plus, the show contained some great new triple striped, rugged toe web sneakers and fab new wedges, very much the footwear for next spring, and come to think of it, edgily ladylike, just like the mood today on US runways.

In a curious return to the world of women’s fashion, Tom Ford presented his latest ideas at an uber select mini showing in his Madison Avenue store, but on condition that no one was allowed to reproduce any photos of the actual clothes.

For a gent who used to show his Gucci shows before several hundred photographers it seemed a gun-shy way to stage a re-launch. Dear Tom did garner lots of Internet chatter, but with only one photographer present – his hired lens man Terry Richardson – one was left to the opinion of the flattered guests to decide if the show any good at all.

Silky gowns, his signature tuxes and lots of leopard ran through the show, which starred “models” like Beyoncé, Julianne Moore, Natalia, Daria, Amber, Karen Elson and Lauren Hutton. It did help the sales technique for a show where Ford acted like his own narrator.

Coach goes Pop in Paris

2010-09-08T09:44:40-04:00

The latest American in Paris is, well, Coach, the ridiculously successful New York brand, which senior execs marched into the City of Light last week to open their very first store in Europe.

But where Danny Kaye used to practically pan handle a few old francs for his paintings in Pigalle, Coach unveiled a 160 square meter retail space in prime estate just inside Printemps, the mega Parisian department store on the Right Bank, and with products priced commensurately.

To celebrate the opening, Coach took over three windows in the Printemps flagship, featuring its products and a massive Pop graffiti homage to New York. The brand’s French opening coincided with the store’s special sales drive entitled, “Printemps Loves New York,” which featured a New York Pop Up boutique offering even foods, including Paul Newman sauces and Dean & Deluca pasta. The main window highlighted four Coach bags priced from €405 euros to €265 euros, or $520 to $340.

“We think of it as our beachhead in Europe,” explained Coach’s senior executive Ian Bickley at the opening of the US label’s shiny space, located across the aisles from Prada, no less.

The opening marks a major step for the New York based firm, which has set itself ambitious targets – 500 million euros in turnover within five years in Western Europe. The move marks a remarkable ascent for Coach, which a decade ago was a stodgy label favored by provincial New England housewives, very much pre Wisteria Lane…

Oddly enough, the gent given much of the credit for creating this high-end colossus, executive creative director Reed Krakoff, was not present.

A former staffer at Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, Parsons-graduate Krakoff morphed Coach into a seriously fashionable brand, hiring bold face name photographers like Mario Testino and Peter Lindbergh for ad campaigns and injecting a far higher design and logo quotient into the product range. This might sound like a back handed compliment, but the moment I truly got how big a brand Coach had become was while in China as a jury member of the Beijing fashion week and I visited a giant mall infamous as a source of copies, and noticed far more copied Coach product than Louis Vuitton or Prada.

But it’s a testament to how solid a brand it is that, despite the blatant counterfeiting, Coach’s turnover in the past decade has soared some eight fold to 3.5 billion a year in sales corporation.

Coach’s debut European store looks pretty swish too, smack in Printemps’ flagship in central Paris, on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement.

“We are the market leader in United States in premium quality bags and accessories market, and we believe we can win five percent of that market in Europe within the next five years,” predicted Bickley, Coach’s President International. He stressed that the brand will retail in a mix of fully-owned boutiques, shop-in-shops and department store distribution throughout Europe, the same strategy it has used so successfully in the US and Asia.

“We like our consumer to be able to find us easily. And we like to create an inviting space with friendly staff,” added Bickley, as he sipped on a glass of French champagne.

Remarkably for such a large brand, the company has been virtually invisible in Western Europe. One small local retailer in Paris, a mini multi-brand boutique called Kam’s, retailed Coach, in effect protecting the brand’s name from being registered by any rival entrepreneur, not an infrequent problem for luxury brands who have not entered France.

What the store does not offer is fashion, one reason maybe that Krakoff has been so busy with his own signature fashion label, which he launched to generally very positive reviews in New York this past February. His take on mixing industrial design, Joseph Beuys references and active wear artistry jelled with some élan.

Here in Europe, Coach now plans to open some 14 boutiques in Printemps’ chain across France in the next three years, according to Christophe Chaix, a Frenchman who is Coach’s Vice President International Sales.

“We are also planning two free standing stores in London, and a series of in-store boutiques with El Corte Ingles,” added Chaix, referring to Spain’s leading department store chain.

Asked why Coach had decided to partner with Printemps rather than it’s rival Galeries Lafayette, whose flagship is located right next door, Chaix replied: “One key attraction is that while Paris is a remarkable international shopping destination for tourists; Printemps at the same time is a far more French store in terms of traffic by French people. That felt like a good way to let France know who Coach is and that we have arrived.”

Which makes sense too. Especially the results of the original American in Paris: the romantic tale of Danny Kaye’s character, artist Jerry Mulligan, falling madly in love with Lise, a petite Parisian played by Leslie Caron, who ended up winning six Oscars.

Italy, A Scent for Fashion's Future

2010-09-01T11:22:38-04:00

Italian fashion is often criticized for not moving with the times, and discovering new emerging talent, but when it comes to technology, new and not so new, luxury brands on the peninsula have jump started this fall.

Leading the pack is Italian Vogue, which this month unveiled its very first “third dimension” cover. The September issue features Australian top model, Miranda Kerr, shot by Steven Meisel in 3D, making Italian Vogue the first fashion magazine to publish a cover and fashion story in this format.

The issue appears just days before the unveiling of Gucci’s radical new, iPad friendly luxury digital flagship, Gucci.com, which very smartly mimics it’s the layout and architectural style of its concrete and mortar stores.

But what’s best about Gucci’s new site is that every shopping page also allows users to traffic easily onto examples of the proposed product seen on catwalk and advertising.

“Through the use of new technologies, I believe we have created a Digital Flagship destination, where our customers can truly experience the beauty, quality and craftsmanship of Gucci’s collections in a truly luxurious way,” insists Gucci’s creative director Frida Giannini.

And, unlike Italian Vogue, you don’t need 3D glasses to fully appreciate the new site, which has probably gone further than any other high-end fashion and luxury digital destination in terms of linking its brand to avant-garde social media.

By integrating media such as a live Twitterfeed, or interfacing with the Gucci official Facebook fan page, visitors connect powerfully with the brand’s multi-front of activities.

Under Giannini, Gucci has been extremely busy philanthropically and also in restoring masterpieces of Italian and international cinema, as is detailed elegantly in its site’s World of Gucci section.

“Our strategy online is clear: all paths lead to our Digital Flagship, whether you are seeking out Gucci through a search engine, or are one of our near one million Facebook fans, or are one of the over 600,000 people who have downloaded our Gucci App or are one of our 18,000 Twitter followers,” explained Gucci CEO Patrizio di Marco.

The Gucci exec added that the Florentine luxury brand has set itself the goal of turning the gucci.com Digital Flagship store into “our highest volume store in the world."

Gucci’s site carries visitors through to all sorts of neat videos, such as its remarkable new Bladerunner meets Metropolis ad for its latest fragrance Gucci Guilty starring cool Indie stars Rachel Wood Evans and Chris Evans.

Like Gucci’s site, Italian Vogue’s new cover is all about breaking down boundaries.

The Meisel shoot stars Kerr, the Australian supermodel, who is actor Orlando Bloom’s better half by the way, and she has rarely looked better than seen through the pair of 3D glasses tucked inside this latest issue.

A backstage video of the photo shoot will shortly soon appear on the magazine website, www.vogue.it.

Kerr also appears spectacularly in a 22-page fashion feature, also in 3-D, called The Scent of the Future, shot by Tim Walker, a series of images designed to visually suggest recent experimentations with perfumes and essences, and the influence the world of flowers exerts on them.

Backing up this 3D project in the real world, Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani will open “The Scent of the Future,” a revolutionary 3D exhibition, and a multi-sensory experience organized by beauty giant P&G Prestige at Palazzo Citterio, in via Brera 14, Milan during the upcoming Milan runway season, where guest will be able to admire the three-dimensional pictures by Meisel and Walker.

“I believe this photo shoot, visually and technically innovative, is the demonstration that there still are ways to make printed paper more and more interesting,” argued Sozzani.

“Italian Vogue, by presenting the first 3D photo shoot, has once again established itself as the most authoritative magazine as regards research and creativity" added Sozzani, whose magazine recently announced a 15% year-on-year increase in readership to 776,000, with 370,000 of them between advertising friendly age group of 18 and 40 years old.

Vogue Italia’s brotherly publication GQ Italia, was also revamped in July, into a hyper user-friendly site whose multiple sections make their rivals in the UK and the USA look, well, relatively tame.

But determined to keep ahead of the competition, GQ Italia’s brainy editor Michele Lupi is already planning a complete styling overhaul before the end of the current year.

Trash & D'Urbervilles

2010-08-25T05:10:07-04:00

She’s the reigning It Girl of Buenos Aires, the designer everyone wants at their parties and an accessories nut whose blend of wacky insouciance and classical glitz makes her a talent to watch.

Her name is not the easiest – Concepcion Cochrane Blaquier, to be exact – a mix of Anglo Irish, Spanish and French, with a reference to the Virgin Birth (Concepcion in Spanish) for good measure – and her style is equally eclectic.

I first noticed Concepcion in L’Abeille, a charming basement Art Deco dance-bar in Recoleta – BA’s toniest neighborhood – that looked as if Tom Ford had given it a makeover. Her style stood out among the squads of rich kids nibbling Uruguayan caviar and models voguing giddily; it helped she was wearing a bowler hat, as she stepped through the crowd in her own remarkable shaggy suede platforms.

Concepcion always cuts a dash, as do her shoes, a collection she’s been making for a couple of seasons for Prüne, in a line that retails as Prüne by Concepcion.

“It’s freak and chic,” she told me, looking suitably dramatic in a swinging little black dress with gold accoutrements.

Her footwear collection is certainly freaky; mixing elements like pom-poms, futurist metal strips or industrial cord with racy hues like bitter lemon, blood orange and inky blues.

“The idea for Prüne was to make a collection that was an audacious and original way to view fashion, which I think it does,” explained Concepcion, one of those designers fortunate not to be a tortured soul.

Freaky yet also highly wearable, little wonder that the collection retails in Buenos Aires best retail establishments, like Patio Bullrich for instance, which is that rare thing – a genuinely cool mall. Located in a former livestock auction house, built in the early 1900’s by the descendants of Don Adolfo J. Bullrich, a one-time mayor of Buenos Aires, the mall’s glass-domed roof, huge clock and strategically placed sculptures of animal heads are rather in Miss Blaquier’s image – absurdist yet natty.

“I’ve spent a lot of my time in fashion capitals like Paris, Sao Paolo and Barcelona, and I suppose my style reflects that,” notes this leggy raven haired Porteño – that’s the local term for a Buenos Aires native.

Concepcion also creates her own off beat fashion collection, though she did not show at the recent BA fashion week. Then again, many top local design talents prefer to present their collections in a separate, local “Haute Couture” week.

“I’d say my style is based on creating something that no other woman has in her wardrobe,” opines Concepcion, who is named after the family estate, or estancia, of La Concepcion, at Lobos near Buenos Aires, where she was conceived.

Her debut fashion collection was unveiled this April in the grandiose Alvear Palace Hotel, where she combined diabolical blackened-face models, femme fatale frocks, piratical headgear, Sgt Pepper’s military looks and agreeably trashy hooker bustiers. For good measure, Concepcion put green apples on the top of several, well, top hats, and quite right too for this surrealist Latina, whose life is a peripatetic procession.

“My clothes are available on an appointment basis only, so my next goal is to create prêt-a-porter,” she stressed.

Though still only 27, she’s already designed footwear collections for several other companies before Prüne and is in talks with a multinational sneaker label about a co-branding project.

Like most Porteño’s her fave place to relax is in Uruguay’s famed hipster resort, Punta del Este, where she has been a fixture since a little gal.

“I stay at friends or family houses, it varies a lot. The whole place is special – it’s very nearby and the best beach near Buenos Aires. Punta is small and beautiful and you know lots of people. But maybe it has become a bit crowded and lost a little of its secret,” she sighs.

The second night after I saw her; she suddenly appeared in Tequila, BA’s top late night nightclub, announcing that she was off early the next day to Bariloche, the Patagonian region that is South America’s best ski resort; a weekend later she was packing for Burning Man – from ice to scorching sun, in other words.

“Concepcion is the kind of a girl who plays, the one who doesn’t really care about what people think, but since she’s fun and smart and gorgeous, people like her anyway,” says Vogue Brazil columnist and pal Carolina Overmeer.

“She’s the girl of the moment in Buenos Aires, where she lives. She’s not really famous yet, her creations have no big label, but wherever she goes she’s noticed for her very own fashion style – high heels, black leggings, vintage blouse, big belt, lots of accessories, beautiful hair tied on top of her nice face and lots of attitude,” adds Overmeer, who should know. Overmeer has been the best-dressed Brazilian in Paris this decade.

In effect, her style is rather privately educated rocker; so don’t be surprised then to run into Concepcion in New York this September. Her life reads like a long, extended tour.

Argentina's Flawed Genius

2010-08-18T09:58:49-04:00

“Errors are valid,” insisted Vero Ivaldi at his runway show in Buenos Aires on Friday evening, summing up what was good and not so good about last week’s three-day runway season in this grandiose, yet rather grungy city.

One of the 15 designers to stage runway shows in BA, Ivaldi evoked everything from aviation and Amelia Earhart to asymmetry and choppy cutting in an erratic though ultimately charming show.

The season climaxed Friday night with Ona Saez, which featured a dramatic rock band and even a brief video appearance by the most famous Argentine of them all, Diego Maradona.

All shows were staged in La Rural, a giant fairground for the country’s legendary livestock industry, which, despite its rugged agrarian roots, turned out to be an elegant Belle Époque stadium and exhibition hall. Unfortunately, this meant that the architectural tour, which characterizes most fashion weeks in non-Western cities like Beijing, Moscow or Rio, did not happen.

The first three rows were packed with fashion editors, critics and bloggers from throughout South American, the remaining ten rows were for the general public who could buy tickets into La Rural for each day’s set of shows for 25 Argentine pesos, or roughly $6.

In terms of staging, we doff our hat to HE, a snappy casual street wear brand, which cunningly set up a slide projector on its faux fashion shoot runway, on which was projected the look book of the collection seen on the runway.

The week begun with two student collections on Wednesday evening; followed by a bravura display of fabrics from Juana De Arco, a talent who despite hailing from the provincial city of Tenerife, revamped traditional Argentina textiles in a striking display of colour. Using naïve impressionistic hues De Arco created charming flaunty picnic dresses and great tops and singlets all paired with platform mules made in the same fabrics.

Others to impress were Desiderata, who developed what they called a “simple chic” aesthetic. A suitable term for her natty take on clever jodhpur pants, smart looking floral blouses and some hyper practical mini jackets that would flatter most any gal.

With just the right injection of glam, Desiderata has built a solid following in Latin American and now retails in some 60 boutiques, reaching retail shelves as far apart as Bolivia and Australia.

Smartly cast and styled, with enough long shaggy hair to make Farrah Fawcett Major wink from her grave. Desiderata was a fine fashion show and moment, featuring a collection of great first date clobber.

One of the pleasures of shows is the high quality of the music, especially at a wonderfully presented show by Wanama, which was backed up by Les Mentettes. A subtle and very cool local band that sang moody rock ballads in English and was supported by an inventive mini orchestra consisting of trombones, clarinets and even sitar.

Wanama showed great hussar waistcoats with frogging, Photoshop spring flower dresses and delightfully skimpy semi-sheer silk negligees that made for a cool and memorable fashion display.

For an edgier take on Latin fashion, check out Kostume, where the design duo of Emiliano Blanco and Camilia Milessi, provided plenty of modern panache. Their modernist, completely black and white statement included some sensational black leggings and pants; all cut with clever zips to create an avant-garde sense of lean volume that was terrific. Menswear designers in Europe have been creating jogging pants for clubbing for several seasons, but Kostume’s versions were as cool as anything we have seen on the Continent. Yep, they are that good. On Friday, urban groover label Cook presented a competent display of summer clothes with askew summer picnic looks and great jersey shorts for men – think Abercrombie & Fitch hits the Pampas.

However, ultimately, the key weakness of the whole runway season is that too many of the collections are what British folk call “high street” brands, i.e. mid-range, mid-price collections for the mass market rather than true designer brands.

Cook left a fine pair of jeans on each front row seat; and presents – like perfumes, makeup and shirts – were common at many shows. This is not to brag about how well we fashion critics are spoiled, but presents at shows are a telling indicator of a fashion industry’s health. And in that sense, Argentina is not doing half badly. Though it’s currency, the peso, remains weak, the country’s gross national product grew from some 130 billion dollars in 1980 to some 600 billion dollars last year.

However, it was telling that arguably the country’s most important designer Martin Churba – a brilliantly inventive fabric maker who owns a revelatory five-story crafts and fashion emporium in BA’s ritziest neighborhood, Recoleta- did not show during the season.

The Ona Saez show that was part memorial to the Eleonora Margiotta, a brilliant local photographer who died last year of cancer. An image of Margiotta as a child was printed on a beautiful scarf and left as a gift. Since her death, Ona Saez has actively supported aid for breast cancer prevention.

The collection itself was print free but its mix of great graphic shirts for men and red-hot bustier dresses for women was suitably steamy. Plus, the event included a video featuring Maradona.

“Thank you for coming to this country. And thanks to Ona Saez for doing this important work,” smiled Maradona before the kick off the last show.

La Nouvelle Belle, Elisa Sednaoui

2010-08-11T09:56:46-04:00

Elisa Sednaoui is this summer’s It Girl in the fashion world’s It Gal capital, Paris.

She’s the gal Karl Lagerfeld kept on his arm at the house’s mega resort collection in St Tropez in May, the “goddaughter” of Christian Louboutin, the star of France’s spring cult movie and a beautiful face that sends the paparazzi into overdrive on red carpets. Not bad for a 22 year old.

Though she’s been studying acting for several years, and modeling for even longer, Sednaoui has more or less exploded onto the scene – with the critical acclaim of her debut film, ‘Bus Palladium.’

However, Sednaoui made her first “fashion film” this spring when she starred in “Remember Now,” a Lagerfeld directed short that premiered in St Tropez. The film stars veteran French actor, Pascal Gregory, as an elderly dandy returning to St Tropez after a three-decade absence and being offended at the new generation’s lack of knowledge of its past. Cruising around St Tropez in Karl’s Bentley convertible, Gregory points out the house of Colette, France’s most famous female novelist, to his date – Sednaoui – who responds: “Is she a famous singer?”

The willowy Egyptian-Italian Sednaoui looks stunning in the film, but when asked about the scene she bursts out laughing: “Karl wanted me to drive, but I don’t have a driving license!”

Lagerfeld adds: “The title of the movie is ‘Remember Now’, which means don’t think about the past. The playboy thinks St Tropez should still be about Colette, Brigitte Bardot and ‘God Created Women’ and all that. But it’s not really that any more. It’s just a beautiful and particular place, where people can feel, and, be very free. And I think Elisa looks particularly beautiful in the film.”

Sednaoui, who speaks French, Italian, Arabic and English; the latter with a charmingly Continental accent, grew up in Italy after her parents separated when she was a child. Twenty years later, they are still not divorced, and she frequently visits her father, an architect who designed Louboutin’s famous mud-walled home in the bluffs near Luxor, Egypt.

“Christian, the shoemaker. I have known him since I was nine. He introduces me as his “goddaughter,” but it’s more a mentor/spiritual thing,” she explains over a salad in a Bastille bistro, before showing me images of her father’s remarkable house on her iTouch.

“I use the iTouch because I love the pictures. But I hate the iPhone. I’m more a Blackberry person, it’s faster – tatatatatata!” she squeals imitating a machine gun, a habit she indulges in three times over lunch.

“Bus Palladium” has made her a mega star in France. In the movie, she plays Laura, who manages to have affairs with two different members of the same group – leading one to threaten to commit suicide by jumping off a roof. But she’s such a talented actress, she manages to make a character who could come across as a sexual predator into a smart, cool girl, trying to find herself and experience life in her own independent way.

“I love that actresses can inspire so much emotion in people; the way a film can force you to react, and feel and think differently. And I wanted my character in ‘Bus Palladium’ not to be a nasty bitch, but someone who was just very honest,” she explains.

Sednaoui had actually made her first starring role in ‘Indigène d'Eurasie,’ by Lithuania’s Sharunas Bartas, though the film only came out until this year.

Since, their releases, she has become an instant attraction for celebrity magazines in France. When she showed up at the opening of Ralph Lauren’s opulently massive flagship in a 16th century limestone mansion in St Germain in April, the paparazzi went into a piranha-like feeding frenzy. On the flash bulb meter, she easily beat any of Lauren’s other VIP guests Anouk Aimee, Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds), Gerard Depardieu, Michelle Yeoh, Marisa Berenson, Isabelle Huppert and Kevin Spacey.

She clearly loves the newfound attention, as was evident when she reminisced about being invited to a festival of French Cinema in Tokyo this spring.

“It was incredible. I was there when ‘Sex and the City’ was doing their premiere, and it was so incredible, all the secrecy in the hotel! And you know how fanatic Japanese fans can be. They wait all day at the hotel, and they come and take a picture. Then they go and print it and come back and want you to sign it. And the best things is, they bring you presents – candy, books, love letters. One poor boy, came to my agency and dropped off a four page letter in English,” she smiles.

Putting on a mock serious young Japanese boy voice, she continues: “Really forgive me for my letter in English, but I really want to say that I saw you and I was so moved by your acting – between parenthesis, ‘of course there is always room for improvement’ – I loved that! I kept it. It was amazing. ‘Room for improvement!‘” she laughs so loud heads turn in the bistro.

Besides acting, Elisa is keeping extremely busy on the modeling front. In September, V magazine will carry a story photographed by Diane Von Furstenberg, for whom she has been a runway model.

“Diane and I became friends, good friends, I see her when I go to New York all the time. She’s another inspiration I have to say. Terry Richardson shot me for her campaign, which is going to come out for the winter collection, and she shot me for V,” she laughs.

Modeling has certainly helped hone the sense of style and taste of Elisa, who confesses that her favorite designer is Haider Ackermann.

“We know each other personally, I love Haider as a person, his clothes are not really made for my kind of body, it’s a question of length. But anyway, I wore him in Berlin, I love him, I like his work as an artist, and I love to go to his shows. But I also love Chanel, because you can mix it with other things and it helps balance,” adds Sednaoui, mentioning Chloe, Alexander Wang and Burberry as other favorites.

This fall, Sednaoui has two major campaigns coming out, though she will only reveal one. H&M will feature her in a campaign timed, wait for it, to coincide with the opening of their next huge store.

It’s on the Champs Elysees.

Green Team: LeAF Generation

2010-08-04T09:28:36-04:00

Hate to sound like some sort of salesman, but if you want to be cool, comfortable and ecologically conscious then get thee some clothes from LeAF; an environmentally clued-in and socially aware brand that makes clothes in which one feels and looks, really rather good.

Spelled in its logo as LeAF – that’s for Love the Earth Fashion – the brand is the brainchild of two pretty mothers Marie Hélène Gautier, a French former runway model and Elle editor, and Debra Kellner, a Canadian ethnographic photographer and filmmaker with a particular obsession with India.

“We met taking our children to school in St-Germain-des-Prés, on the Left Bank. The chic surroundings are the origins of all the best stories,” jokes Gautier, recalling the encounter three years back.

The result is LeAF, which genuinely sources its apparel from raw materials produced by small farmers throughout Asia – like India, Nepal and Mongolia – yet one that retails off mega trendy shelves – think Barneys in New York and L.A., Isetan in Tokyo and Merci, the chic drawing room meets library boutique in Paris’ Bastille.

“Our idea is, ‘what’s more fashionable than being ecological?’” explains Marie Helene, perched in LeAF’s loft headquarters in Montreuil, an east Parisian industrial suburb being gently gentrified.

Gautier had been passionate about the environment for many years. Seven years ago, she created a site for UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) expressing the need, she recalls, “for a new ecological aesthetic – imagining a style that was beautiful yet organic and sustainable.”

Style wise, their collection is cool and uber comfortable; LeAF claims its organic cottons feel very different and they do; the fabric is silky, breathable, light yet sturdy and feels agreeably soft.

“Test driving” one of LeAF’s V-Neck T-shirts by cycling, shopping, dining, dancing and sleeping in Paris, it’s clear their opening product really works thoroughly well. And there’s not too much entry level pain at the cash registers: a LeAF V-Necks sells for €40 euros in Paris’ poshest department store, Bon Marché, which for a superior quality product seems like a deal.

That mood translates through the range, whether it’s indigo blue cotton cardigan wraps; blood orange picnic dresses or some fantastic new cashmere scarves, a recent development. Hand woven and spun in Tibet, their two- meters square Laguna turquoise scarf with jagged white stripe is simply beautiful; the kind of accessory that would flatter, well, anyone.

And LeAF’s fair trade and cool ecology claims are real. The duo have traveled to Orissa, where sensible traditional methods like using natural cow dung and, wait for it, chill spice natural fertilizers makes for better cotton and a far better treatment of our planet’s soil and water.

“Cotton has bad reputation of drinking lots of water, but if you make good earth with natural fertilizers then the soil retains the water and the cotton is natural and healthier,” insists Gautier, together with Kellner, they have lived with farmers in Nepal and Mongolia, sampling and buying cashmere and cottons.

Creating natural cotton may not have such a direct effect as organic food, but it’s long term benefits are abundantly clear. Cotton production is a huge consumer of pesticides, especially in the intensive production that has characterized agri-business in the past 50 years.

In a sense, pesticides are similar to anti-biotics, in that one needs to consume increasing amounts to achieve the same result. So, pesticides end up injuring earth, water, people working the land and, eventually, one’s skin through the fibers.

LeAF is also an adamant believer in fair trade, buying cotton at a strictly set local price; a fixed level, protected from violent price changes on the global market.

“As you know America puts a subsidy of around 100% to really back up the cotton business in the US. We maintain set prices so farmer’s incomes are guaranteed. We pay around 300 rupees (or $6.45) per bail, instead of 230 rupees ($4.95.) Our price is higher but our cotton is far better,” insists Marie Helen, on the terrace of LeAF’s headquarters, which overlooks another charmingly revamped loft building. Featuring Himalayan style doors, it turns out to be the home of Kellner, who was in Nepal on cashmere research this past week.

LeAF’s genesis was “a concern that far too many Green products were so under-designed and un-pretty and un- beautiful. There was no reason for this. So, for me, it is interesting to combine my fashion and style skills and put them together,” beams Gautier.

And, slowly but surely, the brand’s reputation is growing. The afternoon I visited, Nicole Kidman’s staff were in contact requesting T-Shirts for her next movie; and earlier this year the beautiful Queen Rania of Jordan discovered LeAF on the web and made, what Marie Helene calls, “a consequent order.”

Both partners see themselves as part of a major movement rapidly gaining traction and growing increasingly luxurious.

“Hermès is also a sustainable brand, who have a respect for products and nature. Who went up the Amazon and starting using the rubber made by local tribes? Hermès. Well, we want to be affordable luxe with LeAF,” she beams, calling her label, “La mode qui aime la planete.”

Go leaf through LeAF’s website, it’s cool and environmentally connected. You should be too.

Eternamé: Make Me Eternal

2010-07-28T10:01:19-04:00

Sarah Besnainou, a sensible yet sensitive sort, likes to think the delicate jewelry she designs could be a second-skin or even dentelle, using the French word for lace to capture the delicate mood of much of what she creates.

Something of a late comer to jewelry – Besnainou began her professional career working in Christian Dior’s advertising departments in Paris and New York, where she first began studying gems, almost as an after thought. But it was a diversification that became an obsession and five years after getting her gemology diploma, Sarah launched her fledgling brand Eternamé in January 2007.

In keeping with her designs sensual aura, Besnainou staged her latest presentation in a showroom apartment she christened, Boudoir, this past July in Paris. That’s where we caught up with her and – in between café and macaroons – she unveiled her latest ideas for a collection that has already been worn by as diverse a cast as thesps Sharon Stone and Diane Kruger, models Natalia Vodianova and Astrid Munoz, and singer Kylie Minogue, who favored multi-ring diamond Eternamé earrings.

“A piece of jewelry is a part of yourself, and it reflects a part of who you are and how you want to be perceived. Eternamé is a very intimate and sensual way to wear jewelry,” explained Besnainou, when asked to define her brand’s concept.

Staging the collection in this particular setting helped Sarah, “stay very close to the customer, to get to know them… You know, being in a boudoir is giving me the opportunity of knowing them much better and providing them with the best piece for themselves.”

Named after a love affair that flourished brightly, Eternamé – meaning make me eternal – is richly embellished, yet never over the top, in a style that acts like a seductive addition to a chic woman’s wardrobe.

“Jewelry becomes a part of yourself, when you love a certain piece. That’s when you know you love it really,” smiles Sarah, a French Tunisian and a graduate of the American University of Paris.

Besnainou’s inspiration is polished yet eclectic. That’s clear from the Louis XVI style furniture she picked up in flea markets on which is displayed her collection. Each piece has been lovingly revamped – like the re-upholstered chaise finished in Prussian gray jacquard but cleverly trimmed in mat gold.

What’s most striking about Eternamé is the sturdy delicacy of its ideas, such as the onyx web bracelet worn that day by Besnainou, which she terms “a second skin.”

“It’s really me. I would call it, how do you say, près de la peau. Yes, exactly, a second skin, and you’re never going to feel it on,” she says, showing off the slinky look.

Or take a natty multi-strand collier that works almost like a pendant and plausible enough to be worn either with jeans and a white shirt, or an evening dress. Made in onyx with an elegantly intricate diamond choker, the necklace is priced at €19,000 euros.

Things are definitely on the move for Eternamé, which launched in the US with M+E Group, a newly established business founded by Maria Levin & Ellen Fine (formerly VP of Sales for Dior and Donna Karan respectively) in New York in July.

Part of this designer’s goal is to create jewelry that works both in the day and at night. “I don’t like it when you have to go home and change! I like it when you can get dressed in the morning and stay dressed until, like, dinner. So I like pieces I can keep with me,” she insists.

“One thing that is making our clients faithful is that the quality is really high,” she stresses. That said; her entry price point is more approachable. Take a pair of sportily ladylike turquoise topaz peridot earrings that go for €1,900 euros.

“What I love is working with different materials and stones, whether its onyx or green agate or malachite. That’s a degradé of different stones – topaz or aquamarine or amazonite,” she enthuses, pointing in a display box at a series of earrings.

Her ideas ranges to include moonstone rings with a curlicue brushed gold setting or reddy-brown tiger’s eye earrings, in a collection that while it works wonderfully for daytime, evokes as its final destination the lure of a candle lit boudoir.

Boom Bloom Berlin

2010-07-21T09:26:56-04:00

Few important new trends emerged when Germany’s capital staged its latest fashion in early July, nor were there any really exceptional shows and hardly any supermodels of note to hit the catwalks, yet there can be no doubt about one thing – Berlin Fashion Week is booming.

The four-day, 30-show season was crammed full of parties, presentations and mega bashes – from smart displays in cool art galleries to Soho House rooftop sunset cocktails and after-hours parties, to massive 1,200 guest dinners and delightfully decadent late night dance parties in dingy wee bars. Eat your heart out Sally Bowles and Andy Warhol.

It’s a testament to Berlin’s success in building a fashion week that as mighty as a brand as Calvin Klein would stage a mega Mittel-European moment in the city. Klein’s synchronized soiree included a multi-collection presentation, fashion installation and the unveiling of its new women’s underwear model – Avatar star Zoe Saldana – on the evening of Wednesday, July 7, the opening day of Berlin Fashion.

“Germany is the largest economy in Europe. So the Berlin season seemed the ideal time and place to stage one of our large global events,” Tom Murry, CEO of Calvin Klein, explained.

This “World of Calvin Klein” bash boasted everything from jeans to perfumes – presented on stockmans and real models, crisply staged in the former mint of the defunct state of East Germany.

The following evening, Germany’s biggest fashion label, Hugo Boss, staged a mammoth runway show, building a runway and a restaurant for 60 score of groovers in two massive circus marquees.

“Boss creates clothes that flatter a lady. This collection certainly does,” opined Jessica Alba, the American actress who winged into Berlin to join Ewan McGregor, Formula One driver David Coulthard, Clemens Schick, a villain in the latest James Bond movie, and New York socialite Olivia Palermo in the Boss Black front-row.

And on Friday evening, there was a monster show by the city’s leading fashion showman, Michael Michalsky, who showed Conservationist chic menswear and women’s looks on a circular runway in Tempodrom, a massive, tepee-shaped concrete concert hall near Potsdamer Platz.

Gals wore glove leather biker jackets paired with wrap pants and poised flowing djellaba-style overalls with gold cuffs. Guys appeared in street-style “hoodies” and clubbing tops in fantastic puffin prints.

“Berlin is on the move in fashion terms, which makes us happy. The city was once a great fashion capital and we want it to be again,” argued Berlin’s openly gay Mayor, Klaus Wowereit.

Though arguably my favorite fashion moment in Berlin this season was not a runway show but the cool presentation of Odeeh, a smart new concept of chic created by two highly experienced industry professionals, Otto Drogsler and Jorg Ehrlich, both 10-year veterans of Rene Lezard.

Odeeh’s savvy notion? Making a collection almost entirely of jersey, whether cotton, silk or cashmere. Craftily constructed business jackets, sleek above-the-knee skirts, dirndl dresses and Grecian cocktails – all in cashmere – looked fresh and highly fashionable. Presented in an airy gallery with models perched on stacks of wooden crates, the presentation was as smooth as this happening new collection.

“By making such a tight concept you restrict the possible market, but you also gain clients, as they like the unique focus,” explained Otto, adding that in just a couple of seasons, Odeeh had already won accounts in 55 stores. A highly impressive result in fashion terms, testifying that is very much a brand to watch.

After a couple of season’s of teething problems, Berlin Fashion Week’s owner, IMG, seems to have hit on the right mix of classic brands and newcomers, in schedule of shows. Most of these are staged in Bebelplatz, a tented center smack on Unter den Linden, the Fifth Avenue of Berlin.

IMG certainly does not lack sponsors – evident in the flotilla of limousines and people carriers provided by Mercedes Benz, the season’s leading financial supporter.

Though lots of other “non-official” sponsors actively compete to get in on the act. Like Wiesmann – a snappy new convertible – that provided VIP transport to and from the Mongrels in Common runway show in Resort, a wacky “holiday” destination on a rundown canal that featured an Ibiza style club and St Tropez café.

The runway fare was hardly revolutionary, but the Mongrel duo of Christine Pluess and Livia Ximenez-Carrillo sure know how to create sassy casual chic – pocketed sleeveless dresses, coat dresses with Obi waistbands and streamlined jodhpurs all looked great – commercially plausible and faintly posh punk. Plus, I loved my chauffer-driven burn back across Berlin in the Wiesmann roadster, whose head-turning exhaust roared like a MIG fighter.

Another to impress on the main catwalk was Rena Lange, the classiest show in town, where the clever flowing dresses, smart centurion sandals and stylish belted dresses all worked smoothly.

Back at Bebelplatz, much of the fare was conventional, yet convincing – like Custo Barcelona, a brand usually derided by fashion insiders’ as passé. Truth to tell, the mood had a faintly seen-already-before quality, but the abstract camouflage prints, Sci-Fi shirt designs, absurdist plaids and Acid–driven patchworks would all look handsome on, well, an Ibiza club or St Tropez café. Turns out there is still life in Custo.

All roads in Berlin seemed to lead to the latest edition of Soho House, a great new locale, situated in an early 20th century department store, later expropriated by the Third Reich, subsequently controlled by an East German Communist youth movement, and now reborn as a yuppie’s wet dream.

From a great after hours party by one of our favorite Berlin designers – Kostas Murkudis – to a cocktail presentation by London-based, but German born Markus Lupfer, we had a swell time there all week.

Lupfer’s latest ideas were all damn good – whether its T-shirts with massive Photoshop eagle images worn under cardigans with grosgrain trim or crew neck cashmere jerseys with sequined motorbikes.

But the cleverest and artiest moment of the week was a savvy presentation by Italian brand Stefanel of its Cashmere Collection. It’s all cashmere show was artfully staged in Der Bunker, a remarkable World War II listed air-raid shelter, one-time club and now home and private gallery of German art collector Christian Boros.

“Our theme is 365 day a year cashmere. And, thanks to fineness of the thread and lightness of the material, these clothes work 12 months a year,” beamed Stefanel CEO as he strolled with me around Der Bunker.

Rarely has fabric and location been so disparate. The super fine woolens were shown in a building with two-meter walls.

Haute Couture Roars Back

2010-07-14T10:43:51-04:00

Haute couture roared back into life in Paris this past week, with nearly two score of shows, a Lion King spectacular at Chanel, a Gossip Gal invasion, a surreal floral moment and a rich ragtag of discoveries and new talent.

The season’s epic moment was definitely Chanel, where models strutted beneath a 40-foot, lion – a witty insider joke by Karl Lagerfeld, referring to founder Coco’s birth as a Leo, and small statue of the jungle king, still remains in her private apartment. Some 30 sculptors took three months to build in aluminum the massive beast, whose paw perched on a massive pearl. Out of the pearl, swaggered the models in angular wool bouclé suits, double-breasted jackets cut with tails. Their every wrist adorned with an explosion of bracelets, bangles, wristbands and chains – mainly in faded gold, like the lion.

For evening, Lagerfeld wowed with a brilliant floral section – tiny alpine flowers made of bugle beads on strict skirts, remarkable faded jacquards used in opulent cocktails or carnations floating across sumptuous tapestry-style tops in micro sequins.

Karl filled Paris’s Grand Palais with a who’s who of fashion models and It Gals – from Melbourne’s Abbey Lee Kershaw, to actresses Jessica Alba, Rinko Kikuchi, Lou Doillon, Clemence Poesy, Milla Jovovich, Anna Mouglalis and the Gossip Girl duo – Blake Lively and Leighton Meester.

Lively won hands down it terms of seating; she sat front-row beside Anna Wintour, right underneath the head of the eight ton, 45-foot-high gold lion.

A day earlier, on Monday at Christian Dior, Blake – again beside Anna – showed up in a ribbed white dress with a somewhat wacky and unfortunate micro hat, and was out of kilter with the collection on the runway.

Christian Dior couturier John Galliano sent out hyper floral fabrics in bulb-like shapes in this fall 2010 collection, referencing Mr. Dior’s family seaside garden in Granville, Normandy. Today it is a company owned museum.

“The structures were floral and organic. But people forget that I’m more of a country boy than I seem,” smiled Galliano, who owns a farmhouse in the remote and rocky Auvergne, in central France.

Galliano took Dior‘s roots, but sprouted far more psychedelic responses, phantasmagorical flowers, like the opening passages – a violet mohair coat with lapels in fabric petals, and full flounce skirts in puckered chiffon flowers. His colour scheme of iris blue, camellia pinks and chrysanthemum yellows contrasting before the verdant garden of the Rodin Museum, which could be seen through the show space’s transparent walls.

“Galliano sure knows how to blast fantasy back in fashion,” said actress Jessica Alba, backstage wearing a pink Dior floral print décolleté dress, her shoulders splattered with gold dust

Flowers were all the rage at Valentino, where the little black dress was reinvented, by either being topped “in a cage of roses,” as designer Piero Paolo Piccioli put it, or twirled with huge white petals at the front.

“We wanted the dark side of beauty. Romantic, but weird romantic,” added design partner Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Armani took a slightly more nautical route, with a fabulous finale of gilded columns, one made of faux cockles and mussels, another in sequins worked to look like shards of golden seaweed. Though, ever true to his oeuvre, the colour palette was beige, caramel, cream and cooper.

“Elegance, but with an amber tint,” smiled Armani.

At Givenchy, the message was surreal – columns of hyper fine porcelain lace and tulle, hung over ribbed body stockings in knitted silk, with bizarre “bone” belts in homage to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. But our favourite outfit was a matador’s mini tails, a stunning concoction of metallic sequins and crystals and a fitting homage to Kahlo’s symbolic ecstasy.

More classic fashion came from a surprising quarter – Jean-Paul Gaultier, where one gal slinked by in a white satin trench as a Parisian wedding dress. That said, the defining moment was a cameo role by cabaret performer Dita Von Teese, who stripped down on the catwalk to reveal an Eiffel Tower patterned hose and acres of flesh.

Flaunt it while you got it!

People say, couture is on its last legs. But we sensed plenty of renewal. Like at Alexandre Vauthier, who presented his fourth couture collection in basement of the Institut du Monde Arabe.

A high-tech, cool warrior look, with lots of fur – rampaging in giant boleros, and massive collars – an big gold bangles, belts and breastplates. Gutsy, glitzy and cool, as well as coherent with the designer’s own oeuvre.

He has just created a signature scent, reportedly requesting perfumer Francis Kurkdjian, for “something metallic that smelled of fur.”

Also during couture, Bruno Frisoni for Roger Vivier displayed a limited edition line up of shoes and bags, with production limited to just 20 examples.

Frisoni riffed on iconic Vivier pieces – like the original Miss Viv bag, designed by Carla Bruni, a year ago – and used only organic materials, natural wood, cotton or straw. But don’t expect bargain basement prices, bags are priced between € 5,000 and € 8,000 euros.

“Women want something more young, more wearable, but still exclusive,” Bruno explained of this ever regal label. Princess Victoria of Sweden wore Roger Vivier shoes at her recent wedding, made in the same fabric as her wedding dress. Fifty years ago, Queen Elizabeth II wore Roger Vivier shoes to her Coronation.

Conceptual couture also had a happy moment at Gustavo Lins, the Brazilian talent who based his collection on the famed anthropomorphic “Ant Chair” by Arne Jacobsen. The result was an intriguing series of faintly Futurist Japanese looks, and a series of super coats with the eight-shaped Ant forms superimposed onto coats in fur and canvas, which the models posed on five examples of the chair, in the packed Marais gallery in which this offbeat but brainy show was held.

L'Homme Paris, rise of La Femme

2010-07-07T00:43:41-04:00

Call it cool cross dressing or getting in touch with your inner woman, but the biggest direction at the latest menswear runway shows in Paris, was the invasion of women’s fashion ideas into a modern gent’s wardrobe.

Givenchy put Victorian clergymen in skirts, Yves Saint Laurent showed a new male corset – a combination of a jock strap and a cummerbund – and there were enough harem pants on the French catwalks to fully attire the Sultan of Baghdad’s seraglio.

At Vuitton, shorts were so baggy they had a skirt silhouette; not so surprising seeing the house’s creative director Marc Jacobs took his bow in a “skort,” his signature look – a meeting of shorts and skirt, with pockets. At Rick Owens the key item was a T-Shirt so long it could function as a mini cocktail dress, while Damir Doma – the new Croatia-born darling of critics – focused on elongated shirts finished by buttoning around the thigh, sort of workerist dresses.

Jean Paul Gaultier, for his part, composed an all leather combo; Aladdin pants paired with a lace-up safari jacket that recalled the famed YSL look made legendary by German supermodel Veruschka back in the Sixties.

“Half the shows in Paris had men’s skirts; so we thought a little jewelry would not go amiss,” joked Lanvin’s creative director Alber Elbaz, after his sensitive bohemian collection which featured massive chokers, leather pendants with grommets and shells on neck chains.

Elbaz, possibly the finest draper currently designing women’s clothes, also sensually curled jerseys around the upper torso, and whipped up remarkable crinkly suits in a favorite material from a woman’s wardrobe – bubbly crêpe de chene – in imperial purple and faded gold, not typically manly colours.

At John Galliano, the designer riffed on a major women’s trend – wearing innerwear outside. A show entitled, “I Love Charlie,” with guys sporting mini Chaplinesque moustache, had white-beater tops over shirts and jackets, and one uber androgynous blond dude in knickers and girlie cotton tank-top. Other silent movie types appeared in Galliano underwear over leggings and Ena Sharples hairnets.

One item us guys can forget about next spring is the tie: they banished not just from avant-garde shows but also from such venerable runways as those of Christian Dior and Hermes. And rather than just cross dressing, designers insisted they wanted to make multi-functional clothes, garments that could work in many different social and professional environments.

Yohji Yamamoto showed a combo of waistcoat, shirt and jacket in white cotton pique that had great drama. Kenzo featured Jodhpur pants, that thanks to multi-pockets looked ideal for the high-tech, digital camera and iPad totting man about town, in a show featuring five local female beauties amongst the cast, though in men’s clothes.

While at Hermes, menswear designer Veronique Nichanian went for elegant cotton shirts, where the use of zippers and great technical finishes meant these worked either as gentlemanly shirts or as modernist jackets on a steamy sunny day.

“Lightness and polyvalence. Clothes one can work in many contexts,” smiled Nichanian, after welcoming back the Hermes Pegasus, the ancient Greek winged horse, which reared across silk shirts, paired with flowing second-skin suede boudoir pants.

Over at Yves Saint Laurent, designer Stefano Pilati reinvented an old gentleman’s staple, the plastron – turning a bib that traditionally covered or was integrated into shirts, into formal scarves with small studs to add structure, and flatter the silhouette in a light-handed way.

But his most revolutionary idea was the jockstrap-cummerbund. Thanks to the jockstrap’s elastic strips and a band back cummerbund, it sat snugly across the stomach. So what sounds like a crazy idea would in fact be highly flattering for most gym-avoiding men.

“I wanted tailoring that was rigorous but light,” explained Pilati, after sending out pleated pant ensembles in gauzy layers to prove his point.

Dior Homme’s runway was packed with lots of chic, trim super fine wool jackets, with unfinished, frayed lapels, but the big story as the floaty silhouette where coats billowed behind. And the final look from Dior’s menswear designer Kris Van Assche was a half unfinished jacket – one side with completed lapels, pockets and buttons, the other just a huge scarf in the same fabric draped on the shoulder – a masculine/feminine mix in one garment.

Vuitton’s men’s designer Paul Helbers said his target audience was “digital bohemia,” where sassily cut buffalo hide blazers, parachute silk jackets or cool silk jogger leggings looked elegant enough for a think-outside-the-box business meeting and comfy on a long-haul flight. Plus, Helbers reinvented the Vuitton totes and weekend bags by making them in faded green Japanese denim, and ramped up the classic Damier check in snappy lime greens and electric blues for backpacks and shoulder bags. Definitely the bags all the fashionistas will be sporting next season.

Counter-current, Victorian wave rippled through Paris, at Yamamoto, where be-wigged models sported striped shirt jackets with high clergyman’s collars and at Givenchy where the buttoned-up, 19th mood was subverted by the accessories – bizarre Venetian masks and wacky pointy shoes finished with 19th century spirals and filigree.

Givenchy’s designer Riccardo Tisci has always had a dark vision – so a series of refined white shirts managed to be a cross between an altar boy’s smock and an English lady’s lace picnic dress. They were ideal shirts for a chic dinner party or a dingy after hours club.

“I was thinking about both religion and sexuality, but with a big Victorian moment, though still a little perverse” Tisci said post show, accompanied by the music from the decadent masked ball scene of Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut,” based on the Romanian Orthodox Divine Liturgy, recoded backwards.

Even in shows starring manly rockers, there was a sensitive touch: like at Paul Smith, where the Russell Brand-style models sported silk shirts with floppy bows, silk harem pants, often in abstract expressionist colours, worn with gilded brogues.

Designers showing in Paris have been sending out leggings and harem pants for several seasons, without succeeding in selling many of these looks at retail. That may well change next spring, as they have honed downed the proportions and nipped them at the ankle, ideal for cycling, a huge fad here thanks to the mass introduction of cheap, rental Vélib’ bicycles. When brands as diverse as Hermes, Paul Smith and Acne – who staged a boozy presentation in Le Chateaubriand, the legendary north Paris bistro, where Norwegian rocker Nils Bech stood on the bar to perform a rambling version of “Private Dancer” – are showing the new chic, you know some of you will be wearing these next spring. Like Bech, they are faintly absurd, yet charming.

Donc, the lesson is clear, rumple through your girlfriend’s closet and get thee a city bike.

10 Trends, Milan Mens

2010-06-30T01:32:33-04:00

Prada

Miuccia Prada went rather utilitarian this season, with the sharpest cut suits in Milan; though they were a minority element in a show which starred jolts of bold colors – a mood that began with the Amazonian green translucent plastic invite.

Ski goggles appeared as necklaces and shorts and jackets came in active sport colors, though Signora Prada surprised many when she said the inspiration was fast food chain uniforms – from MacDonald’s to Miuccia.

The designer had a somewhat unfathomable obsession with baggy shorts, the sort one associates with German youth at Bavarian public pools, but then she wowed with a quintet of twirling top sweaters, finishing this clever show.

Arguably men’s fashion most influential brand for shoes, this collection also starred the brogue of next summer, seen with super thick soles encased in lengths of rope.

Calvin Klein

Milan was full of fashion heritage, colonial, patrician chic, except for Calvin Klein, the one hard edged show on the calendar. Forget linen suits and jute blazers, Calvin Klein’s menswear designer Italo Zucchelli sent out taut, frequently cropped clothes with hard high-tech finishes.

“Graphically New York!” beamed Zucchelli after the show, which featured sweatshirts cropped half way up the chest, the better to see the models' six-pack abdomen. Part sweatshirt, part micro cape, this definitely requires a great pair of abs, but if you have them, your lover, or lovers, will swoon.

High-tech shiny materials had a Sci-Fi warrior sensibility, while cool, perforated leathers suggested a dashing boffin on an inter-galactic save-the-planet mission.

Burberry

There was a real sense in this show that Burberry’s designer Christopher Bailey has been enjoying life of late, since half the looks were ideal for midnight Indie band concert in a funky neighborhood located miles away form any of this brand’s flagships.

Burberry Prorsum opened with Bailey’s latest takes on the trench, but finished with multi-stud leather bomber jackets, all ideal for his floppy haired, youthful front-row.

The UK brand is very much the market leader in men’s wear when it comes to utilizing digital technology. It recently launched its latest site – Burberry Acoustic – and the first brand on the web sat front to run at Sunday’s show. Plus, Burberry’s Runway to Reality menswear project, meant – for the first time in men’s fashion – many looks were available to buy immediately after their show.

Marni

At Marni, we loved the gutsy individuality of creative director Consuelo Castiglioni. She is famed for her layered look for women, so we witnessed miniature cloaks, ideal for a nerdy new crime solving Sherlock Holmes. In a word, wacky but rather wonderful.

Gianfranco Ferre

Milan’s most gentlemanly show was at Ferre, where the emphasis was on a fluid elegance. Here the faintly lived-in finish of the clothes only added to their sense of distinction. In a season which made clear that the key jacket next summer will be a deconstructed double-breasted jacket that looks like its been in your wardrobe for a decade, these were the stand-outs, the best place to make a purchase.

Dolce & Gabbana

Italians love an anniversary, and enjoyed two this season: the first at Dolce & Gabbana, who celebrated 20 years of men’s fashion with a gala show at which Annie Lennox played live, accompanying herself on a grand piano. Plus Milan’s city hall threw open its doors for a retrospective of the duo’s menswear. The Sicilian boys went elegantly colonial for spring 2011 collection, opening with dandies in tropical white suits, ideal for a partying plantation owner, as Lennox belted out “This Must be an Angel.”

Z Zegna

Storied brand Ermenegildo Zegna went one better celebrating its 100th anniversary with an elegant double-header fashion show and rival retrospective across town.

For its centenary, Zegna staged two consecutive shows in La Triennale, the setting of their exhibition, “Ermenegildo Zegna 100 Years of Excellence.”

The brand’s main line was all about the fabric of this Milan season – seersucker, but not in the timeworn contrast of blue or red with white. Instead lots of black and gray, or of navy and sky-blue. But the highlight was the Z Zegna collection, whose creative director, Alessandro Sartori, is very probably Italy’s best new tailor. Using rugged linens and mixes of silk, cotton and even jute, Sartori cut blazers and Eisenhower jackets with exposed seams and tapped into a major new look here, semi-transparent tailoring.

Featuring a palette of blood orange, cement, faded gray and rust, Sartori dreamed up some great new looks – making him the peninsula’s most distinctive voice in menswear.

Versace

With a revamped menswear studio, Donatella Versace dropped the Miami hunks that have populated her catwalk in recent seasons and moved to Carnaby Street. Though a take on Swinging London, the show had oodles of Rockabilly references from the skinny pants, motorbike jackets with chains and metal frills and rock band tuxedos with contrasting piping on the lapels.

Yet being Versace, there was a regal finale befitting a house whose family owners have always lived with great opulence. Out stepped tousle-haired Lotharios in graphic black-and-white zigzag print silk boxers, pajamas and patrician dressing gowns.

Giorgio Armani

If ever a designer’s junior and senior lines were a contrast in styles it was Armani this season. His signature collection was all about the silhouette. Impressively for a man of 75, he created a new jacket this season, a double-breasted mélange, taut at the shoulders but bias cut and chopped away at the front.

“I wanted traces of non-conformity,” explained the designer, who ended his show and effectively the four-day Milan season with a series of seersucker jackets, mainly paired with gingham pants, in what he called “an ironic take on the traditional dandy.”

There was nothing remotely traditional, however, about the ending of his Emporio show, which climaxed with a projection of Lady Gaga’s of “Alejandro,” and with ten models marching out in all leather, military outfits he dreamed up for the pop icon’s video. From seersucker to SS man in one day…

Gucci

If any brand has remained truly faithful to its DNA it is surely Gucci, whose dual character – part Italian playboy glamour part impeccable craftsmanship – was raffishly on display this season.

Gucci designer Frida Giannini was inspired by the “distinctly individual attitude” of Paul Getty III, grandson of the oil billionaire and a much media-followed dandy who spent his formative years in Rome – Giannini’s native city. So it was a Gettyesque gentlemanly attitude that hit the catwalk – silver-plated mesh bracelets from Morocco, in homage of his modern Casanova success among the “beautiful people,” and pendants in haute hippie coral.

Haute de gammé bohemia with burnished ostrich slippers in lovely shades of suede, all finished with a horse bit, or great cowhide totes and shoulder bags, finished with woven trim or straps, complimented the look.

And for young Paul’s seductive nights in Rome snazzy ‘60s micro tuxes, one with horsey motifs in a jacquard hour dinner jacket of this truly informal Italian men’s season.

When it Rains it Pours, Pitti Uomo

2010-06-23T09:54:33-04:00

Can designers predict the weather? Sounds like an absurd idea, but a week in Florence drenched from start to finish with storms and the odd raging hailstone attack, and it turned out the most popular fabrics were water-proof cottons and technical, super woven nylons.

The most in demand stand at Pitti – the giant, twice yearly Florentine men’s wear trade show – was probably that of Brunello Cucinelli, the cashmere specialist from Umbria, and recent subject of a long feature story in The New Yorker. Remarkably, where the American weekly normally unmercifully teases fashionistas – try to check out its 20-page demolition of Pierre Berge in a back issue – Cucinelli received a rather sweet hagiography. Then again, the guy is a mega hit, boasting 20 stores in Saks US alone.

And what where our favorite looks on Brunello’s stand – a series of trim, nylon blazers in waterproof cotton.

“It’s all about legerezza,” explained Brunello, using the Italian term for lightness, as he pointed out a paper-thin leather blouson in a grey putty, the mono-color of the season.

And it said a lot about the governing mood in fashion when as venerable a shoe brand as Church’s – whose stand was catty corner to that of Cucinelli – featured in the “shop windows,” of its stand, six pairs of shoes all in various stages of distress. In effect, a trend towards noble fabrics that gain grace precisely because they are lived in and battered – a theme begun and still led by Los Angeles designer Rick Owens – had reached as far as a classic label like Church’s.

In between Church’s and Cucinelli, Pitti had kindly installed a flat screen TV, which everyday at 4PM became the scene of a certain pandemonium, as rival nationalities met to cheer on their teams in the World Cup.

“Vamos Argentina,” yelled a couple of retailers from Buenos Aires, as their country won 4-1 against South Korea in a crowd of some 200 fans.

Oddly, not that much football mania was apparent at Pitti, thought the acid bright colors of many football jerseys ran through many collections, and sport was very much on designers minds.

Pitti also welcomed back Roberto Menichetti, the motorbike obsessed creator and former Burberry designer who presented fresh takes on engineered jeans and biker jackets that look like finding a large audience. His link up with Italian manufacturer Brema, looks like connecting this inventive talent with many active dressers thanks to the less-pain-at-the-cash register price point.

Another huge theme was pre-wash apparel and fabrics, most notably as Daks, a distinguished UK brand that’s been given a new lease of life with a “delavé” materials and deconstructed tailoring. Same thing holds true at Piombo, where the very fact that so many of their gently cut double-breasted jackets are pre-washed grants the collection a distinguished gentlemanly air.

And that worn look extended to Pitti’s important talent competition, Who is on Next? One standout, among the eight finalists was Yuji Miura, a Japanese designer living in Milan, who showed a very cool collection of less is more, curvy boots and shoes with lots of side slits and open toes, all of them with a happily aged quality.

The no frills theme also rippled through the collection of Fabio Quaranta of Rome, whose winning FQR line looked like a gent might have slept in most of clothes and on top of the great bashed ecru leather bags.

Each year, Pitti consecrates two designers with handsomely funded runway show, and this year was no exception.

On Wednesday, Haider Ackermann presented Japanese pirate couture, a collection of unique, customized men’s clothes. Think Johnny Depp happily meeting Keith Richards in a remake of The Seven Samurai.

Haider’s choice of patchwork fabrics from India, pajama pants, silky shirts and bizarre seat belts, that looked pinched from a business class flight, were a tricky wear to the office, but we expect these bravura clothes to filter into many guy’s wardrobes, and come out in glory on a Friday night.

On Thursday, we enjoyed a convention of mega bright, high-tech colours for spring 2011, at Jil Sander’s gala show and dinner soiree.

Using colours that one would normally find inside FAO Schwartz – electric violet, shiny orange, Aegean turquoise – Sander’s creative designer Raf Simons went all Pop Art, though with some great sartorial twists, like duct taped trim and piping that added zest and structure.

Staged in the strikingly beautiful gardens of Villa Gamberaia, a late 18th century neo classic villa east of Florence, the show featured 45 models wandering around the bushes and intricate pathways.

Simons colour coordinated outfits where worn with shoes whose soles were in fiery red or indigo blue, and he worked with advanced fabrics –like high-tech waterproof cottons and nylon taffeta.

Raf’s lovely white shirts with outrageously large single floral prints, amalgams of several flowers, like roses or orchids photoshopped together and brilliantly, caught the whole posh hippie moment.

Pitti is also all about attending the right swish party in a remarkable Renaissance setting. In a suitably tiny affair, US Esquire had strong-lunged soprano soar in a stunning rock-star meets software billionaire’s uber pad – an apartment in Palazzo Tornabuoni, the latest luxury apartment space meets haute de gamme gentleman’s club, smack in the middle of Florence.

A great place for a cocktail, and a telling metaphor for Pitti, the quirky gent’s most fashionable get together.

Light Years Away in Sao Paulo

2010-06-15T23:32:39-04:00

One happening town that seems light years away from the West’s ongoing recession is Sao Paulo, which celebrated a coolly sophisticated fashion season this past weekend, in the midst of a remarkable Brazilian boom.

Some 12,000 visitors per day thronged into the Bienal, the modernist curvy showspace by architect great Oscar Niemeyer, where most collections are unveiled. And, while textile and apparel factories have been shedding workers for decades in Europe and the United States, there is a hiring boom in Brazil.

In the first three months of 2010, local manufacturers hired a whopping 36,000 workers, according to Fernando Pimentel, director of ABIT, Brazil Textile Industry Federation.

“When the economy booms, consumers widen their horizons and try out more and more local designers,” Pimentel explained.

The six-day season featured some 35 collections in this spring-summer 2011 season, probably the most urban we’ve seen so far in Sao Paulo. This was the 27th runway season in Latin America’s richest city.

In these hothouse conditions, the week’s best-staged show was the very much adored, Osklen, where designer Oskar Metsavaht sent out a collection entitled Oceans. The latest work by the ecologically inspired designer, Oceans featured all sorts of cool variations of organic cotton, whose cultivation does not require chemical fertilizers. Too often, eco-fashion tends to be well meaning but hackneyed and rather square. Not Osklen, where the mix of medieval shapes and subtle gradations in colour made for a charmingly chic collection. Plus, Metsavhat is a born showman, the manner in which the collection delicately rolled out deep-sea blue, sky, faded sand and cement hues was impeccable.

Oskar’s second line, New Order, presented a week earlier in Rio, was a brilliant display of psychedelic power pop fantasy accessories, the kind of beachfront It Gal clobber that would work worldwide.

So, even if this Osklen collection was not perhaps our all time favorite – lacking enough of the architectural invention we look for in this collection – the label, and its designer, seem to be sailing on one great winning tack right now.

Another impressive display was by Alexandre Herchcovitch, who is known for his tropical gothic roots, but this season went for a more abstract take, nearly all of which worked very well indeed.

Herchcovitch’s take on faintly cloudy volume was extremely well judged. Inspired by abstract expressionist American artists Marc Rothko and Barnett Newman, and employing lots of elegant non-figurative blotches and patchy hued silks was very smart. It led to some wonderful looks, and made for a memorable stylistic moment.

Probably the week’s most elegant collection was by Reinaldo Lourenco, a cocktail hour extravaganza that he called “sport couture.”

Using craftily shaped volumes, clever dashes of transparency, hints of masculine detailing and some masterfully sewn chiffon tropical petals and flowers, Lourenco conjured up a fine aesthetic statement. One that insisted on being exotically Brazilian yet always looked modern enough to work at a Chelsea art gallery opening, or Paris film premiere.

The other big success story was Melissa, a shoe manufacturer making great, edgy casual footwear in plastics and silicon. Under Japanese Brazilian creative director Edson Matsuo, Melissa has developed a clever mix of futurism, seaside and natural shapes, which is both distinctive and hip. Expect to hear more from this brand on the global stage.

Underlining the country’s overall progress, the Brazilian gross national product grew by 9% in the first quarter.

“Our designers are in a self confident mood, just like Brazil itself,” explained Paulo Borges, CEO of Luminosidade, the company that controls the seasons in both Rio and Sao Paulo.

Others to impress were Cori, whose ruffled and rouched swirling dresses and curly jackets had lots of pizzazz; and a Rosa Cha swimwear collection by Herchcovitch, where the Amazonian abstract flower designs were great.

That said too many shows here were not what we in the West would call designer collections, but more high street brands or mid-market labels which retail in several hundred stores in this country of some 190 million people. Commercially savvy and competently staged alright but saying little, if anything, at all in terms of style trends, never mind a sociological commentary.

We’re talking about brands like Ellus, Agua de Coco, Reserva or Triton. Though the latter did have a socially hot show, thanks to the presence of Paris Hilton, who sashayed around the Bienal and earned herself a standing ovation, and a reported check for one million bucks for her three turns on the catwalk.

Our favorite tropical collection had to be Iodice; a savvy and snazzy play of lightweight leather and suede riffed with macramé cutouts done by lasers. This could have easily been a clichéd show, but thanks to the self-assured cutting and sexy, yet plausible, silhouettes, it turned out to be an impressive triumph for designer Valdemar Iodice.

What worked best were sleek vampish dresses with hip and shoulder clasps and the slightly flared cocktails with criss cross shoulder straps, like a charming black number on model Barbara Berger, the runway blonde of the week. They were all ideal for a beach party dinner, neatly tweaked classics that would work anywhere from Trancoso to Portofino.

Iodice was one of the few shows staged outside of the Bienal; in Itguatemi Shopping, the giant luxury mall owned by the wealthy Jereissati family, the subject of one of my recent Imaginefashion columns.

Their chain of luxury malls are booming these days, just like this country; where the people’s optimism is finally earning the successful economy the locals deserve.

The Queen of Brazilian Beachwear

2010-06-09T10:04:43-04:00

Her name may never have been bandied about in Sex and the City, but when it comes cutting a dash when swimming, Lenny Niemeyer is surely the Manolo Blahnik or Christian Louboutin of the exotic strand or infinity pool.

Her annual beachwear runway show in Rio is the greatest annual catwalk display outside the global brand mega events of Milan, New York and Paris.

Lenny, is what everyone calls her in Rio, is the most accomplished designer in Latin America; she is a path-breaking career woman and silkily elegant host, who also happens to throw the best parties in the city. No mean achievement, given the city’s joie de joie legendary reputation for carnival and great all-night bashes.

Take her latest show, on Friday, May 28th in Pier Maua, the restored dockland warehouses where most shows are staged in Fashion Rio, was the defining moment of the season.

Her setting was simple, enormous and cunning; a giant tarpaulin hoisted on a score of ropes from the runway to the ceiling to create a looming sky above the models and audience of 1,200.

Using the theme of the desert, Lenny sent out wonderfully dusky bikini and leotards with architectural shapes, and a series of great throws, tunics and wraps in muddy abstract prints. Her casting of the best new generation of Brazilian catwalk models and the wonderful soundtrack featuring a very cool remix of Massive Attack’s “Paradise Circus” all added up to a defining fashion moment. Aptly awarding her a standing ovation at the show’s finale.

No wonder the first story in Wallpaper*’s “Born in Brazil” special issue was about Lenny; entitling her “The Queen of Brazilian Beachwear.”

Born in the beachside town of Santos, Maria Helena Ortizo, enjoyed the lifestyle of the wealthy haute bourgeois as a youth, dividing her time between tennis, painting and parties.

“I was supposed to be professional player but my traditional family said absolutely not,” she shrugs with tincture of regret.

But after her family moved up to Sao Paulo, Lenny’s life gradually became a metaphor for the long advance to professional independence of Brazilian women in a habitually macho culture.

“Life was very closed in Sao Paulo, always the same clubs, there was none of the freedom of today,” she laments.

Using her drawing skills she worked seven years in an architect’s office before marriage led her to move to Rio with her neurosurgeon husband, Paulo Niemeyer, nephew of Oscar Niemeyer, arguably the 20th century’s greatest architect. And hence her name Lenny Niemeyer, though again, everyone just calls her Lenny.

Within two weeks, she realized she needed to find something to do, and noticing that there was lots of designer product flooding into Brazil, but no designer beachwear, set herself up in the business. Though she is not entirely autodidact is our Lenny.

“My mother always said a woman has to be able to do everything – cooking, sewing and even embroidery, as you never know what can happen tomorrow. You might have to cook and take care of husband. So I did have some useful skills,” she tells me over a drink in her charming home on Lagoa, the tiny heart-shaped lagoon underneath the city’s iconic statue, the giant open-armed Christo Redentor.

“I cut my first pareo on myself, then sent ten of them to my pals back in Sao Paulo, who loved them and immediately called demanding more,” she recalls.

Working in a garage underneath her Lagoa home, Lenny gradually built up business as a gun-for-hire to a series of major local and foreign brands. “I once made a green and pink citrus bikini and sent it to Fiorucci thinking they might like it. And they ordered 500!” she exclaims, before the first of a long succession of visitors began to wander in and out of our “interview.” By the time we had finished, seven had appeared, and within an hour we were sitting down to feijoada dinner for 15, which is how things works at the uber hospitable Lenny’s home.

Then again, Lenny is something of a restaurant junkie. Among her favorites in Rio are Gero and Mr. Lam; in Paris, Bartolo; in London, Mr. Chow; in New York, Bar Pitti.

But Lenny’s big aesthetic brainwave was deciding that the future lay in creating beachwear in the same spirit as more formal fashion for evening.

“Swimwear had all these clichéd themes, little fish, water colors, shells. Ugh! So I decided lets try more elegant colors, and use silk on the beach, not just Lyrca, and why not make my own prints. I lost a lot doing that at first, due to high minimum orders, but eventually it worked,” she smiles.

Two decades ago, Lenny took another bold step, opening her first boutique in Ipanema, Rio’s charming beachside neighborhood. She still has a store in the same complex, but on the ground floor, not on the second, where she used to hide discreetly listening to early customers – gathering honest feedback about her clothes. She also bought in the whole Ipanema look, girls cycling to the beach in their boyfriend’s oversized shirts, cutting their jeans short.

“The Ipanema girls all looked great, unlike the Paulista tourists. You could tell them a mile away. They wore high heels to the beach!” she cracks.

Today, she is a recognized international brand, selling everywhere from Bergdorf Goodman in New York to Selfridges in London.

“Beachwear is an easy option as a gift. A silk mousseline pareo or scarf to keep you warm when the sun goes down are easy to understand,” she stresses.

For evening, though, Lenny favors more classical fashion for herself, lots of YSL trouser-suits, Gucci pants and shoes, Dries Van Noten for color, McQueen for fantasy and her pal Giambattista Valli for panache.

Lenny’s legend really grew with first runway show in the Palazzo da Cidade in Botafogo, an old Rio beachfront area, where she had a dozen girls in a line swing open their towels to reveal bikinis beneath.

“Right from the start with shows I realized you had to have a concept, a beginning, middle and end; the right music and make- up and girls. Lots of people watch the shows, and I want them to leave thinking this woman has worked really hard,” she snaps.

Every show is followed by one of her famed parties. The first one I attended amazed me. Literally scores of beautiful women stood outside begging to get in, unsuccessfully as only guests issued with specially edition electronic cards gained entry, through a turnstile and metal detector. This season, the crowd rocked until 5AM at Lenny’s fete in Londra, the impossible to get into dance bar of Fasano, the Philippe Starck-designed wood, white linen and perfect Ipanema sunset rooftop pool pleasure palace. Truly it was the dictatorship of the beautiful.

“The key to a good party is to be eclectic. Have a mix of models, stars, producers and writers. Everyone should be welcome to an open house. Last year, I had 800 people here and so this year it had to be small. A lot of weddings start, and some romances die at my parties. Some business is done, some gets finished. It’s essential to mix different people, receive with no pretension and supply great music and drinks that, well, never finished.”

Ever the iconoclast, Lenny is not afraid to go against trends. While the key message of this past week in Rio was a whole multi-colored Electric Ladyland moment of tropical high prints; Lenny’s theme was the dusky desert. Plus she lays down trends: her structural one-piece on model Barbara Berger will be copied worldwide.

And last year when Fashion Rocks took over Rio, which designer did they chose for the gala runway show? Lenny of course, strutting her wares before an audience of 6,000.

In a word, here in the world’s sexiest city, Lenny is the coolest design lady, the ultimate social arbiter of what’s hip and the reigning queen of fashion in this boom country.

Not bad going for a gal who just wanted a chance to play pro tennis.

High Rolling in Rio

2010-06-01T22:21:17-04:00

If ever a city felt on a roll it is Rio de Janeiro, which is already busy knocking itself into shape for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, and these past six days has staged with some panache Fashion Rio.

It would be hard to claim that the season laid down a lot of trends that will sweep the planet in the next six months, but the 36-show season did boast of at least a half dozen fine collections and one truly great one.

That honor goes to the latest collection of Lenny, a brilliant swimwear line created by Lenny Niemeyer, who stages shows with the flare and sophistication, one normally associated with mega runway events in Milan or Paris.

Her setting was simple, enormous and ingenious; a giant tarpaulin hoisted on a score of ropes from the runway to the ceiling to create a looming sky above the models and audience of 1,200 at Pier Maua; the restored dockland warehouses where most shows are staged.

Using the theme of the desert, Lenny sent out wonderfully dusky bikinis and leotards with architectural shapes, plus a series of great tops, tunics and wraps in muddy abstract prints. Her casting of the best new generation of Brazilian catwalk models and the wonderful soundtrack featuring a very cool remix of Massive Attack’s “Paradise Circus,” all added up to create a defining fashion moment. No wonder she won a standing ovation at the show’s finale.

Without doubt the best men’s collection was from British Colony; which made a return to the catwalk after a four-year hiatus. A series of delightfully abstract fauna prints used in pants, split fabric jackets and great sleek shorts in techy mixes of cotton and calico would look great on guys from Miami to Mykonos, and Ipanema too.

Some of the more adventurous women’s ideas, like asymmetrical men’s dress shirts for gals, were a tad too fussy, but overall this was a great comeback show notable for its pep and polish. Plus, we loved the stovepipe straw hats on the guys – our men’s accessory of the season.

Opinions vary about the reason for the sabbatical of British Colony’s designer Maxime Perelmutter – some say research, others a great deal of surfing – but the net effect has been to revive this line in an admirable way.

Our favorite youth-orientated collection was by Juliana Jabour, who sought inspiration from Mexico and sent out floral hibiscus maxi pattern tops and ruffled trim skirts, or lots of cute tunics, skirt-shorts and stripy party dresses that had the sunny sexiness of Acapulco, but with a fresh contemporary approach.

“I wanted the energy of Mexico, but in a new, fun way,” Jabour told Imaginefashion.

The models clearly enjoyed the clothes in this show. The best styling of the season was by one Daniel Ueda, who used brilliantly sewn up straw trilbies and perforated suede wedges in this show, which also boasted a splendid techno Brazilian soundtrack by local talent Click Box.

Another indication of the city’s self confidence is the season’s budget of 13 million Reais, or $8 million; not so surprising as 90,000 visitors are expected at Fashion Rio and the adjoining trade show, Rio-a-Porter.

“We are a city that stands out among others in the world and are always under the spotlight. And it is symbolic to set up our runways in a neighborhood that is being revitalized,” explained Paulo Borges, CEO of Luminosidade, the company that controls the seasons in both Rio and Sao Paulo.

Another collection that should surely find buyers in Europe and North America is TNG, where ruffled swimsuits and gold faux chain mail jackets and dresses looked great.

Lenny was not the only impressive swimwear collection on display; also making a dramatic impact was Blue Man, the only show staged outside Pier Maua in the charming Theatre Glauco Gil in Copacabana. The collection was the first for Blue Man since the death its founder David Azulay, and it showed that the brand still has plenty of vibrancy under his successor Marta Reis.

Opening with a score of Flamenco dancers from Andalusia pounding out a magnificent beat, the collection featured lots of cleverly shaped bikinis with low waist lines, smart crossover straps and lingerie like cutouts, frills and bows. Inspired by Spain, the floral prints in a color palette of caramel, Bordeaux, Lorca red and soft yellow were suitably Iberian. The men’s look, however, were a bit too formulaic.

Pier Maua also featured Joais Brasil, a neatly presented exhibition of some dozen local design jewelry collections.

However, the most interesting collection seen this week was probably Miriam Kimelblat, a three-generation jeweler based in the posh Leblon area, just past Ipanema.

Miriam, who succeeded her father Nathan, a renowned talent who left his native Poland in the aftermath of WW2, creates custom-made pieces in her 10th floor atelier and studio. Frequently inspired by nature, in particular the orchids that sat prettily throughout her office, Miriam uses the gold petals to create elegant tropical style brooches and wristbands, dotted with a variety of diamonds – black, brown and super clear.

But her finest pieces were earrings, mini rainfalls of rubies and diamonds or black pearls with sleek chains, the latter an idea that once won her first prize for “Tahitian Pearl Trophy.”

Back on the runways, there was also a retro futurist mood to the season, best seen in the collection of Melk Z-Da who showed one white beaded warrior tunic dress, surely ideal for Grace Jones if she were asked to play the role of an Amazon from outer space.

One of the quirkiest shows was wacky Oestudio where, in keeping with Rio’s ecological obsessions, the models wore hats made of sods of earth and twigs and big green leaves.

Cavendish’s khaki and military-green mini dresses with color overtones of neon pink and yellow in silk and tulle were boldly cut with tight silhouettes, and all the better for it, given the shapely form of most gals in Rio.

Not every collection was successful or original, such as Carlos Tufvesson, a hackneyed pastiche of sexy party dresses, which placed doubt on the city’s very public claims that it intends to clean up prostitution ahead of the coming sporting events. Bizarrely enough, the governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral Filho, sat front row.

Go figure.

The Castelbajac Colourful Invasion

2010-05-25T23:49:03-04:00

If any designer is having a busy spring it evidently is Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, who inaugurated a major exhibition in London, and created a dramatic public art environment in Paris around the famed statue of Henry IV.

On April 30, the design nobleman de Castelbajac was unveiling his “An Encounter of the 5th Kind” expo in Selfridges, with five massive window displays in the giant Oxford Street store. Two weeks later, Jean Charles was celebrating the 400th anniversary of Henry IV, for which he encased the plinth and equestrian statue of the monarch in a crafty blend of neon and fire.

Henry IV is the king famed for his remark, “Paris was worth a mass,” made when he renounced his Protestant faith to convert, for the second time, to Catholicism and become the first Bourbon King of France. Polls show he’s still probably the most popular king in French history; yet another reason the city’s openly gay Socialist Mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, was so keen to remember his reign.

So on May 14, several thousand Parisians and about the same number of passing tourists gathered around the famed statue at Pont Neuf in a park known as Square du Vert Galant. The king won this nickname because of his seductive powers with the ladies. Those of you who might care to know more about Henry should get the DVD of that great modern classic of French cinema, “La Reine Margot,” which recounts the dark deeds, subterfuge and blood-letting of Catherine de Medici and the slaughter of St Bartholomew’s Day, which Henry narrowly escaped.

“How can the future generation, and one of today’s adolescents, capture the last knighted king, one which has grown up with already three decades of cosmic movies? I tried to create the synergy between these two energies, I also wanted to make images with light, so I thought of this location, and then proposed my idea of giving a cosmic dimension to this statue,” explained de Castelbajac in the high falutin’ prose much loved by all French intellectuals.

The designer called his mise-en-scéne, “Dominated Astronomy” and his vision one of a “cosmic lord, this great unifying king, a favorite of the French, who suddenly takes the dimension of a space warrior, or cosmic captain.”

“There is also this idea of captivating attention in a city where there is so much beauty, but maybe where we no longer notice this beauty. This place is very important. It’s the place where Jacques de Molay was burned, with his notorious curse. It really is a beacon, a lighthouse or headlight in Paris. We can see this installation from many directions, and that has a strong significance,” noted the designer, referring to the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, who was burned at the stake here in 1314, and his curse of both the then pope and the French king.

Jean Charles also placed a neon sword in the statue’s hand, and organized huge columns of fire for the son et lumiere opening for Henry IV, who was eventually assassinated by Catholic fanatic, François Ravaillac, in 1610.

“What made me really enthusiastic was that suddenly Henry IV is again the great federator. With Frederique Mitterrand, minister of culture, we assembled all the city councils, and all the mayors of Paris’ arrondissements, so there are three dimensions of drums and noise, because I wanted a strong dramaturgy. I wanted it to tell the story of his assassination, his wars, with firecrackers exploding… I didn’t want it to be just another commemoration,” he snorted.

A fortnight before in London, UK fashionistas got a large taste of de Castelbajac at the opening of his show in Selfridges, which he billed as “an alien invasion of the city”.

His ‘Encounter of the Fifth Kind,’ was suitably over-the-top and surreal from a designer whose bold color designs and prints have earned him the nickname, “king of the cartoon.”

De Castelbajac’s Pop Art take on fashion and design included in this London exhibition everything from black stockman models in sequined mini cocktails bearing the phrase “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and US President Obama’s face on dresses, to Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allen Poe on porcelain plates or men’s underwear in vacuum-packed plastic containers.

His UK windows also starred the yellow and black, Obama dress he created for singer/songwriter Katy Perry, which she wore to the European MTV Awards on the night Barack was elected.

However, it hasn’t all been rosy of late for the designer. He lost his best buddy, Malcolm McLaren, with whom he was active in the Situationist art movement in the Sixties.

“It’s been a tough month. Malcolm was a great friend, besides being a really brilliant visionary,” de Castelbajac told me on May 7, as we stood outside church, following the funeral service of another friend, Jean Louis Dumas, the driving force behind Hermes these past three decades.

But McLaren, the Sex Pistols manager let’s not forget, would surely have been proud of his old pal’s current client list: costumes for Lady Gaga, stage outfits for the likes of Lily Allen, Rihanna, M.I.A and even Madonna.

Like we said, May has been Jean Charles' month.

Chanel World's in St Tropez

2010-05-19T10:18:36-04:00

Leave it to Karl Lagerfeld to reinvent St Tropez on his own terms and aesthetics. With Karl playing the role of designer, film director, party thrower and prize giver at history’s chicest game of boules, the Chanel creative director took over the Mediterranean’s most famous seaside port last week to stage the house’s latest cruise collection, in an inspiring meeting of panache and beauty.

Lagerfeld kicked off the action Monday night with the premiere of Remember Now, unveiling his latest Chanel mini-movie to some 200 guests in a faded beauty a cinema in St Tropez’s main market square, Place des Lices.

Remember Now stars veteran French actor, Pascal Gregory, as an elderly dandy returning to St Tropez after a three decade absence and being offended at the new generation’s lack of knowledge of its past. When he points out the house of Colette, France’s most famous female novelist, the girl responds: “Is she a famous singer?”

“St Tropez is not just Brigitte Bardot, as some people think. That’s why I made this movie. The title of the movie is Remember Now, which means don’t think about the past. The playboy who comes back to St Tropez after 30 years thinks that St Tropez has changed. He thinks St Tropez should still be about Colette and Brigitte Bardot and ‘God Created Women’ and all that. But it’s not really that any more. It’s just a beautiful and particular place, where people can feel and be very free,” Lagerfeld told me as the audience moved out into the square for a game of pétanque.

Guests spilt up into teams of three for Chanel’s mini championship of pétanque, the Provencal term for boules.

Diane Kruger, attired in a black singlet, flared mini and porkpie straw sun hat, tossed her boule into the packed dirt, as Vanessa Paradis and Karl competed on an adjacent court.

Capping off the tournament; the designer’s praetorian guard of dashing dandies, aide de camp Sebastian Jondeau and handsome model Baptiste Giabiconi, won first prize – hoisting their pearl encrusted cup high into the air, as they posed with Lagerfeld before a tempest of flashes. And what did the chain-covered cup have as an emblem? A Chanel double C logo, bien sûr.

The following evening, St Tropez went into security lockdown, as Chanel took over the luxury-yacht infested port for its dockside runway cruise show.

Several dozen top international catwalk models appeared on the dock landing from a small fleet of Aquarama Rivas, the chocolate brown Italian speedboats that are considered the Ferraris of the seas. Under a painterly evening sky of looming cumulus clouds, the bare-foot models traipsed between the red lacquered tables and chairs of the famed Senequier Café before an audience that included Anna Mouglalis, Franca Sozzani, Juliette Greco and Elisa Sednaoui, currently France’s hottest actress.

“This is my idea of St Tropez’s joie de vivre and excess. It’s such a beautiful place,” explained Lagerfeld, who has been coming to this seaside play land for four decades.

Thousands of locals craned out of windows to see and film the show; a return home for Chanel after cruise shows as far apart as Shanghai and Miami. No brand on the planet, and no designer anywhere, better understands the power and impact of cruise collections than Chanel, which has staged annual spectaculars in everything from Los Angeles airport to a Seine River liner.

For next winter’s vacations, Lagerfeld sees Chanel gals in semi-sheer pastel chiffon haute hippie dresses or seductive micro-minis in suede paired with Chanel’s classic metal belts and carnation buckles. When in party mood they frolic in sequined pleated blouses and sexy fringed chiffon cocktails with split sides.

Lagerfeld also wowed with the accessories, like funky gold gladiator sandals, ideal for battle in the wee hours of a nightclub, and a series of new, curvier handbags in the signature quilted leather Chanel look.

Karl sent out oodles of denim and pleated cotton party dresses like one worn by Georgia May Jagger, Mick’s daughter, who hopped on the back of a matte black Harley Davidson ridden by the designer’s aide de camp, Sebastian Jondeau, for the finale.

It has been a busy spring for Georgia May; posing in an in-house Chanel mood book with Giabiconi, in a Lagerfeld photo shoot featuring the designer’s brand new Rolls Royce convertible; being grounded by her parents in April to study harder for school exams, and now making the catwalk in St Trop, as Parisians like to call it.

“I chose Georgia May Jagger because she is the modern girl. She is the girl of today. There is total identification between her and the clothes. They could be her clothes. She is totally at home in Chanel. And that fits in the pattern of what St Tropez can represent; what it is not really and yet what it can inspire,” explained Karl, who still vacations here, renting an elegant house in La Réserve in Ramatuelle, near the port.

Indulging myself in St Tropez, the global recession seemed light years away, especially at Chanel, which expects to score double-digit growth in 2010, according to Chanel’s fashion division president Bruno Pavlovsky.

“From July 2008 everyone had a tough twelve months. But business is much better right now,” explained Pavlovsky, a former consultant to Chanel who was hired by the company two decades ago. When he arrived, Chanel had 40 boutiques worldwide; today the house boasts of 173, Pavlovsky noted.

“The Chanel brand is a very special name, with a lot of value. It’s all about femininity, modernity and surprise. Modernity, because even though Chanel was founded a long time ago it seems that Chanel is a part of modernity. It’s also a lot about creativity; Chanel is one of the only companies to strongly believe in creativity. It is our way to differentiate ourselves,” stressed Pavlovsky, to explain Chanel’s no-expense-spared attitude to events like this cruise spectacular.

Throughout the show models appeared in looks that echoed their outfits in the movie. Chanel’s ad campaign girl, Freja Beha, walked out in an all white, Bianca Jagger style pants suit, the same as she wore in the movie, while pouting Polish beauty Magdalena Frackowiak, skipped by in a Brigitte Bardot style checked swimsuit. In Remember Now, Frackowiak plays Bardot, dancing around the port erotically in a re-creation of BB’s famous dance scene in Roger Vadim’s And God Created Women, of 1956.

Just like in the original film, where Bardot’s character was sexual dynamite, steamy Frackowiak sent pulse racing through St Tropez with her saucy, vampish display. And, as the sun dropped into the Med, the lesson of Karl’s movie that living in the past is a waste of time, seemed eminently correct as Magdalena floated past, the new BB of today.

Brazil's Luxury Power Player

2010-05-12T12:01:30-04:00

Carlos Jereissati must the biggest under-the-radar high power player in fashion. Few people recognize him in the famously chic Paris fashion meeting point, the Ritz Bar, or when he strolls around Place Vendome, the world’s greatest jewelry square. But expect that to change soon.

The quietly spoken, Jereissati is the man who rules over Latin America’s largest luxury retail empire. His family owned firm, Iguatemi, is a prestige-product behemoth with a dozen luxury shopping malls, and another half dozen in construction.

Iguatemi’s reputation is such that top league luxury labels like Gucci, Tiffany, Christian Louboutin and Diane Von Furstenberg have teamed up with Jereissati when opening their first boutiques in Latin America.

Moreover, in an age when global growth is increasingly being driven by a quartet of countries that economists refer to as BRIC – Brazil, India, Russia and China – Jereissati’s chain – with annual sales of around 2.8 billion dollars – is quite possibly the biggest luxury BRIC business.

I caught up with the quiet-spoken and courteous Jereissati in Paris last week where he unveiled his latest mega plan, JK Iguatemi, a luxury shopping palace that he will opened next year. Named after Brazil’s most famous progressive president and founder of Brasilia, Juscelino Kubitschek, JK will house a more fashion forward mix of Western and local Brazilian design labels.

“We need to bring a little more edge to our luxury mix,” concedes Jereissati, mentioning avant-garde brands like Marni or Yohji Yamamoto as examples of the sort he’d like to attract.

This past month Jereissati completed a blitzkrieg tour of European luxe labels, hooking them up with JK. His first appointment after our lunch was with Sidney Toledano, CEO of Christian Dior.

Like many successful business families in Brazil the Jereissatis are of Lebanese origin, and originally built their fortune in real estate. They bought the original Iguatemi shopping center in 1966, and initially ramped up the action with top Brazilian brands. But as Brazil’s economy took over in the Nineties, they began bringing in top-notch labels like Armani.

“It eventually developed into a luxury mall; not a giant mall like in the US, more like the size of the large department store. It’s more like a Harrods, where you have to have it all. More and more people want to go to our places because of the lifestyle. It’s like they are saying: ‘Where’s my bookstore, where’s my cinema, where’s my electronic shop, where’s my fashion that is related to that, where is my stationary, where’s my kids place you know, where’s my hairstylist?’ That’s the strength that we have,” he propounds over a lunch of foie gras and salad.

Though major players in retailing, the Jereissatis have diversified interests including the controlling stake in Oi, the largest telecommunications business in Brazil.

Under Carlos' management, Iguatemi is aggressively expanding its chain, and he’s most excited about a great new luxury mall in the Brasilia, the nation’s capital. It opened on March 8th with some 200 stores spread over 40,000 square feet.

“There are so many opportunities in South America. So it’s a lot more simple for us to continue to invest in Brazil or in places like Buenos Aires or Chile. Brazil is growing a lot you know,” he stresses in damned near fluent English, fruit of two student stints at Philips Academy, in New Hampshire.

Jereissati has also embraced that American retailing concept of shopping as theater, injecting a mix of events into his malls; like the Iguatemi Photo Series. Last season’s elaborate exhibition featured nearly 200 works, many unpublished, by the legendary French photographer, Guy Bourdin. Cultural events can vary from an exhibition of billionaire wife Betty Lagardere’s famed haute couture dress collection to a retrospective of Dior perfumes.

“I’ve been five days in Europe and everyone is very willing to work with us. Except for China, where everybody is doing 20 stores, executives here say that the next really big market that is growing, is Brazil. Just ask Vuitton, they grew last year by 50% in Brazil alone. And, this year they can do the same numbers,” Carlos insists.

When not working, like all successful Paulistas, Jereissati escapes to the countryside to his farm, or helicopters to the Atlantic, where the family enjoys boating around resorts like Angra dos Reis and Parachi.

Iguatemi also sponsors SP Arte Fair, Latin America’s equivalent of Miami Basel, featuring 80 galleries from all over the planet. Buoyed by all the activity, Iguatemi’s Sao Paulo flagship currently attracts a whopping 1.6 million visitors per month to shop in boutiques like Bulgari, Louis Vuitton and Ermenegildo Zegna. And unlike here in the west, Brazil’s economy is still growing strongly; guaranteeing Jereissati an even more important player. And a far less under the radar player.

So don’t forget his name, even though he’s never going to shout it.

Armani Dubai, The Start of a New Empire

2010-05-05T00:17:07-04:00

Black Armani sharpeners for black Armani pencils; Armani olives, chocolates, shampoo, body lotion and slippers, all of them in black too. Armani restaurants, actually six of them, of varying cuisines and cultures. One gets all this – and lots, lots more – in the very first hotel by Giorgio Armani, which opened last Tuesday in the tallest building on the planet, Dubai’s spectacularly soaring Burj Khalifa.

Named, Armani Dubai, the hotel is his ambitious first step to build a chain of uber luxury inns, and the Italian designer is already actively looking at sites for similar resting places in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and Berlin.

“It’s been five years of hard work, but we’ve finally made it. It’s a reality,” Armani beamed at me when he arrived around midnight on Monday, April 26th to celebrate the opening. And, in typical Armani fashion, what did the 75-year-old designer do as soon as he walked through the entrance of his 160-room hotel? He went on a one-hour inspection tour with a posse of some 25 – staffers, hotel managers, family and friends. His eagle eye alert, his tongue issuing edicts – tone down that lighting, move these couches a couple of vital inches, tell that bell hop he needs to stand over there…

And then, tiny imperfections ironed out, Giorgio enjoyed a midnight meal in Ristorante, the grandest restaurant in Armani Dubai, where chef Alessandro Salvatico serves first rate Italian fare, like a lobster spaghetti, about which Lucullus would have penned a poem; or delightfully flaky fillet of sea bass that is pretty divine.

Typifying the six-star sense of the place, there is a remarkable sandstone oval-shaped tasting room in Ristorante, where the pricey wine cellar is displayed for private tipplers, everything from classic Italian Barolo, to $10,000 bottles of Chateau Petrus.

Pretty much all the restaurants – and these include Amal, a cosmopolitan Indian, and Hashi, a Japanese where one can gorge on noodles, tempura and sushi culled from fish flown in daily to Dubai – have striking views of the Burj Fountain. The world’s biggest, its a $280 million behemoth that shoots water 450 feet into the dry Middle Eastern air, making the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas look, well, small.

Yet, the Burj Khalifa – whose triple-lobed footprint and curvilinear shapes was inspired by the Hymenocallis flower, according to design architect Adrian Smith – is dramatically different from the linear shapes of Armani’s, angular aesthetic. Nonetheless, the Armani oeuvre fits brilliantly into the structure. His hotel occupies the first two floors with reception, lounges, Armani Fiori, Dolci and Galleria – i.e. flowers, sweets and luxury accessories boutiques – a hyper holistic spa, outdoor pool and restaurants; from floors 5 to 8 are classic rooms and floors 38 and 39 have top range suites, with great views over the whole mini state.

The rooms – averaging $1,200 per night – boast a mix of non-color, even concrete hued walls, Asiatic motif furniture, fine Italian linens, zebra wood paneling and opulent bathrooms in Eramosa stone, that is really rather classy. Everything is pretty hidden when one enters but, with the help of a pair of remote controls, my junior suite gradually reveals its stunning vistas over the Arabian Gulf, sea front skyscrapers and surrounding desert.

“I wanted guests to feel they were entering my own home, living the way I live, with my sense of taste and luxury,” Armani explained proudly.

Floors between 9 and 16 are what’s called Armani Residences – swanky apartments, whose owners can avail the full concierge services of the hotel, which is impressively lavish. Armani insisted on creating lifestyle managers, a personal concierge meets butler, who take care of all your whims and demands. My lifestyle manager, Maria Johansson, booked me a great tee time at the first rate Montgomerie Dubai championship course, organized a lesson at Emaar’s charming equestrian center, a massage in the Spa, trips to the Burj Khalifa’s At The Top viewing platform and a visit to a remarkable nearby aquarium, with a seamless politesse that was utterly charming. The lobby doesn’t really have a front desk, more a small floating retinue of Armani clad staff that between them speak 25 languages and sort out any request pretty instantly. It was only on the way to the departure lounge of Dubai airport that I realized I had never really checked in or out of Armani Dubai. If luxury is ease, then this hotel has graciousness in spades.

It was design architect, Adrian Smith, who said the flower Hymenocallis inspired the triple-lobed footprint of the building – but it’s a flower with 160 floors that soars with great beauty to 828 meters or 2717 feet. Boasting, among many its records, the highest mosque and swimming pool in any building on earth.

“When I was first approached about this project five years ago, everyone wrote off Dubai as an Arabian Vegas; and I wondered what has Armani got to do with that?” Armani later admitted to a press conference staged with Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar, his building partner in this latest design diversification. “Building things is actually quite easy. But creating a space, which has spirit, life and elegance that you can be proud of as long as you live, is difficult. In my view, Mr. Armani has moved the standard of luxury hotels up another level globally,” argued Alabbar, whose office is the tower’s top floor.

Armani actually only visited the space twice before the opening, but his staff were in daily contact electronically designing and editing the hotel from Milan. His next move will be Armani Milano, a seven-story hotel with roof top pool being completed over his largest flagship boutique, and then Armani Residences Marassi, a famous resort in Egypt.

The designer celebrated the opening on Tuesday night with an haute couture runway show before 500 guests. Many women attended in full-length black Abaya robes and veils, dozens of local men wore long white Kundura cloaks. Then everyone strolled over to a post-show dinner and after party, in Armani Privé, the latest nightclub by the designer; notable for its gigantic LED screen, also the largest in-door version on the planet. One can smoke indoors in Dubai, but force of habit led many of us outside, where you could only stand in awe of the tower, which soars dramatically towards the stars.

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, whose most famous previous structure was the World Trade Center in New York, designed the $1.5 billion Burj Khalifa. So, this new development seems like a metaphor for Dubai, a positive symbol of the Middle East engaging the West, just as the WTC’s destruction symbolized the refusal of fundamentalists from a country next door to do precisely that.

De Fursac’s Quiet Renaissance

2010-04-28T04:47:23-04:00

One fashion brand enjoying a quiet renaissance is De Fursac, a cleverly tailored Paris-based chain that’s carefully been injecting a larger dose of fashion into its makeup over the past three seasons.

The new direction is very much thanks to the arrival of a new design director at De Fursac, Guillaume Lemiel; a gentlemanly figure hailing from the south west of France.

What once was a venerable resource for clean cut, high-quality conservative men’s wear, is now an interesting destination for contemporary tailoring. It’s quiet French chic with a smart soupcon of modernism.

De Fursac is never going to start a fashion revolution, but by streamlining silhouettes, upping interior detailing and getting exclusive fabrics from some of Italy’s best mills; the brand is now generating cool state of the art gent’s fashion.

“My style has always been in details, things not so easily seen at first glance. I always work from the base; a jacket is a jacket with sleeves, torso and lapels. They should not have three sleeves, but should always be wearable, ”Lemiel tells me over coffee in De Fursac’s boutique on central rue Richelieu, one of some 20 free-standing stores it boasts.

While somewhat provincial by birth, Lemiel hails from a small town, near the redbrick city of Toulouse; he is hyper cosmopolitan by fashion preparation.

“I grew up among cows,” jokes the agreeably easy going Lemiel, who’s training and first job were considerably more sophisticated. At 19, he won a place studying fashion in Paris’ well-ranked Duperré art school.

“I got to study proper design – how to develop an idea and how to actually make a garment. It’s a very good school, and its public, so costs nothing,” he smiles in recollection of the 3rd arrondissement college.

His first job out of college was as an intern at Kenzo, “but as all I did was make photocopies, I said, ‘bye, bye,’ and left after one month,” he laughs.

Lemiel had far better luck with his next move. In 2002, he was hired as assistant to Barnabé Hardy, the Frenchman who oversaw the design of Balenciaga Homme. “That was so important as it was the first time I saw how to do a collection from start to finish working with un chef de produits, all the way through to presenting a collection in a showroom. I really learned my trade,” he stresses.

Only 24, he then launched his own signature label and successfully developed a client base of some 30 boutiques, notably in Japan where Lemiel sold to hipster retailers like Loveless and American Rag.

But three years ago after being approached by De Fursac’s owner and CEO Edmond Cohen, Lemiel shelved his eponymous label and joined the Paris label full time in September 2008.

Cohen emphasizes De Fursac’s commitment to quality, noting agreements with top-notch Italian fabric resources like Fratelli Cerruti, Loro Piana and Boggio Casero.

“It’s all only Biella,” insists Cohen, referring to the famed luxury fabric fair Biella Como in northern Italy, and showing off a red label inside a gray finely spun wool suit which notes that that particular material is made exclusivity by Cerruti just for De Fursac.

Cohen has carefully grown De Fursac, which was founded in 1973, into brand stores. It now retails in some 60 multi-brand locations, and is close to signing deal to open a first flagship in Moscow.

“Each season I try to inject more of my own style. I don’t want to change everything, as so many good things existed. But I also don’t want that men just go to De Fursac for a black suit and a white shirt,” explains the 30-year-old designer.

Lemiel has radically, yet never absurdly changed the silhouette, cutting three centimeters from neckline to end of jacket, so now the distance of 73 centimeters. Sleeves are one centimeter narrower, though he insists, “one must not feel one is in a straight jacket!” Gent readers might check their own jackets to see how theirs compare.

The designer has also tightened thigh shapes between hip and knee by 1 ½ centimeters, and avoided too much experimentation with finishes.

“Fabric should always look very new, never washed! I like pure materials,” he snorts.

Other elements to admire include shirts with matching white piping at neck and cuff, shirts in Egyptian cotton of double twist threads, shawl collar tuxedos and lined sleeves with ribbon interior trim.

“A jacket should be beautiful inside and out,” affirms Lemiel, whose spare time is spent hunting for classic modernist furniture in Paris flea markets; like works by Le Corbusier or Charles and Ray Eames.

“If I think of the ideal guy to wear my fashion, I think of old stars, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, real guys, who still had an aesthetic and a taste for clothes and haircuts. They were elegant and dandies, à l’anglaise. Or Hugh Grant, he wears just pants and an open shirt, yet he always has class. That’s elegance for me,” he concludes.

Rule Lauren in Paris

2010-04-21T00:00:55-04:00

Think of him as the last big fashion moment right before the Eyjafjallajokull volcano scrambled world travel. We’re talking about Ralph Lauren, who wowed everyone with his Tuesday, April 13 opening in Paris of his spectacularly lavish new flagship store, easily the grandest on the Left Bank, where the five-floor boutique is located smack in St Germain.

In a remarkable week even by Lauren’s standards, Ralph hosted a movie star dinner for 140 the next day in the cobbled courtyard restaurant of his flagship, located in a 17th century, cut stone mansion, across the street from Café Flore, Paris’ most celebrated literary locale.

And, in a brilliant triple whammy for Lauren, French President Nicolas Sarkozy awarded the 70-year-old designer the Legion of Honor on Thursday in the Elysees Palace.

Sarkozy praised Lauren as “a great designer and a great friend of France,” whose careful restoration of the protected St Germain mansion underlined his “longstanding attachment to France and, today, our country is expressing its gratitude to you.”

Lauding Lauren as exemplar of all that’s best in the American Dream, the French president added: “Your designs are so close to the image we have of America that you seem to have reproduced the founding components of American culture, when in fact, they are your own personal inventions.”

“Your style is a personal vision of America’s roots: you blend New England chic, Santa Fe Indian culture, Hollywood glamour and West Coast informality,” Sarkozy told Lauren, who wore a black pinstripe double breasted wool suit to the Elysees.

“Remarkable style; such elegance, such taste,” enthused in the boutique before dinner Elisa Sednaoui, the beautiful Italian/Egyptian actress, currently France’s hottest face, who plays the femme fatale in the hit Rock n Romance French movie Bus Palladium.

“Très, très beau,” added French actor Gerard Depardieu, as he strolled through the sumptuous mansion, so painstakingly restored over three years by Lauren.

“This is a properly historic building, so it deserves a lot of respect. It’s so old we keep finding things here. We actually dug down six feet into the foundations, and started finding relics. Relics! Can you imagine that?” Ralph told me, in between posing for photos at the black tie event with guests such as Michelle Yeoh, Marisa Berenson, Isabelle Huppert and Kevin Spacey, who came by late and wore a blue suit.

Ralph, a serious cineaste, who has a custom-made movie theatre to show Westerns in his Colorado ranch, had Anouk Aimee and Mélanie Laurent of Inglourious Basterds fame at his table.

Thanks to the stunning crystal chandeliers, wrought-iron balconies, “Versailles” style parquet flooring and rococo paneling, the designer’s remarkable 13,000 square-foot flagship is likely be as much an architectural destination as a shopping Mecca.

“This building is where I can tell Paris my whole story. It shows the whole breathe of what we have created,” said Lauren, who wore a classic double-breasted tuxedo to his soiree. Beaming beside him was his wife of 40 years, Ricky, looking resplendent in masculine tails and white tie. When complimented on her extremely natty look, she cracked: “I really must introduce you to my tailor sometime!”

Ralph’s store includes his signature runway Collection, sophisticated Black Label and more bohemian Blue Label. Guys get to shop the classy tailoring of Purple Label, the newer high-tech Black Label, preppy Polo essentials and the rugged RRL denim line, in a charmingly funky attic. And, the store offers vintage accessories, fine jewelry and a watch salon.

Plus its courtyard boasts the silver haired septuagenarian’s designer’s first European restaurant, Ralph’s.

“I wanted authentic America food in one of Europe’s most beautiful neighborhoods,” smiled Lauren, whose new eatery’s menu offers beef from his Colorado ranch, $24 hamburgers and an impressive Californian wine list, including deliciously hearty Rubicon red from the Francis Ford Coppola estate.

The restaurant is a cunning mix of Provencal garden and baronial castle, with rose climbers, olive trees, a huge interior chimney and a paneled gentleman’s bar that looked like it had been flown in from Chicago.

I got to sit beside Australian super model and star of Lauren’s campaigns, Abbey Lee, who happily prepped a cigarette of Bali Shag in the garden.

“Ralph is so great, always so friendly, and who else could open a store like this? Plus, you can smoke at his dinners,” laughed Lee.

She tucked into Santa Barbara salad and salmon. Me, I dined on Ralph’s seared steak and several glasses of Rubicon Estate 1995, a suitable mix of glamour, earthiness and tannin, from winemaker Coppola.

But even a fashion emperor has his limitations; even Ralph could not avoid the Icelandic volcano’s ash cloud’s fall out, despite a private jet, and was still in Paris a week later, and dining in, well, Ralph’s.

Men's, The Top 10 For Fall

2010-04-13T23:46:57-04:00

Raf Simons

Our vote for the most dashing, relevant and important men’s collection to wear next fall goes to Raf Simons. His Indie Patrician collection was a new paradigm in men’s tailoring. By pairing drainpipe pants, with a narrow lapel but broad shouldered double-breasted jacket and finishing them with white buttons that looked almost sprayed on, Raf came up with the most novel suit in several seasons.

His wrapped jackets; where the buttons are hidden and the jacket crossed over the center of the torso, created a great new multi dimensional look, and his color blocking and use of collages – clearly inspired by Simons’ early training in furniture design – marked a new élan in men’s fashion. In a word, if you want a sartorial prize for hipness this autumn, then get thee to a Simons’ boutique.

Z Zegna

The defining collection of the Milan men’s season, which traditionally is staged just before that of Paris, was Z Zegna. For its Creative Director, Alessandro Sartori, this Fall 2010 Z Zegna collection confirmed him as a major design leader in menswear.

Sartori’s surgically precise concept of tailoring does demand a trim figure, but the result, if you’re a fit dude, is a super authoritative silhouette. Alessandro’s hounds’ tooth in black and white combination suit was, quite simply, the nattiest suit of the season. Using frayed hems, semi exposed seams, high armpits and great use of darts made for a master class in finish and construction. No surprise then to know Sartori means Tailors in Italian.

Lanvin

Arguably the most influential collection in men’s fashion these days is Lanvin, whose sensitive male look has pooped up in high street windows all over the planet these past few years. It’s a huge backhanded compliment, the most copied collection in the world when it comes to men’s clothing. It will be again this autumn.

Quirkily contemporary is what Lanvin is all about – so expect to see lots of its frayed seamed jackets, roomy off the shoulder cool wool dusters, or cool Global Traveler chiffon pants and oversized druids coats – chocolate hued at the front and flat Prussian gray on the back. And those in the market for new shoes this Fall need to acquire Lanvin’s new combo look of bowling shoe feet and felt wool uppers, or Captain Kirk hiking boots, shiny leather below the ankle, technical nylon above.

Calvin Klein

New York’s most acclaimed collection was undoubtedly Calvin Klein, whose men’s Designer; Italo Zucchelli is the best inventor of men fabrics. His new age bonding, no not bondage, materials made for a collection that was breath taxingly novel. Merino wool also met plongé leather in remarkable tubular-style bomber jackets in another highlight of a show that was the best possible example of combination cool.

When was the last time we witnessed pants made of Mylar on a runway? Exactly… “They do tend to crack a little, so I try not to sit down,” Zucchelli joked with me, after this bravura statement of clever futurism.

Gucci

Haute gamme equestrian was the theme at Gucci for Fall, as the house’s Creative Director, Frida Giannini, jumped clear of the rock dandy mood that has dominated her men’s runway for a couple of seasons. The evidence of Gucci’s roots in show jumping ran thru the whole show – from the signature Gucci red-green saddle bands used as trim on weekend bags or pants finished with ankle buttons like strict jodhpurs.

Not that Giannini was ever too literal; if anything she was charmingly iconoclastic when it came to hunting looks; so a mini safari jacket of great pizzazz and gentlemanly poise came not in canvas but striking asphalt-hued black crocodile, or a stylish shirt jacket marched out in muddy brown ostrich. Other gutsy innovations included glazing kangaroo or giving crocodile a powdery finish.

Though, possibly the best look, was more traditional. So, winning our vote as the coat of the Milan season goes to Giannini’s camel hair coat, classy enough for billion-dollar deal meeting; cool enough for an after-hours in Boom Boom Room.

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen took what would be his last bow on Jan. 18 in Milan after unveiling his final men’s collection, a hyper masculine display of clothing inspired by whalers and seafarers.

The invitation was a photo of rocker Sting, wearing a speckled gray tweed suit; the same look that appeared on McQueen’s Milan catwalk in a show full of rugged, cable sweaters, ideal for a voyage to either the North or South Pole.

With hindsight – McQueen was found dead from suicide four weeks later in London – one cannot help but recalling the floor of the show space, a graphic mélange of skull and bones. Lee’s final suits were so exactly cut they looked almost engineered – they came in volcanic camouflage or as rain-smeared walls. Even the biker boots were in the colors of bone, making them almost extensions of the leg.

Dolce & Gabbana

“Real” men with unforgiving values rule at Dolce & Gabbana for Fall. Their show was staged before a giant screen showing excerpts of Baaria, the new Italian epic about three generations of a Sicilian family. In a word this was ballsy Sicilian chic – including local peasants from Domenico and Stefano’s native island in cable woolen cardigans facing off the aristocrats in strict black velvet suits.

Typifying the longing for earthiness at a moment of global crisis, the designers showed tuxedos with ribbed sweat pants or collarless grandfather shirts, mimicking the hit Italian film. This was tough but also remarkably casual, in a collection crammed with lots of long johns, Henleys and band-collar shirts.

Burberry

Memphis Belle tangled with cool rock stars at Burberry, in a collection inspired by Alcock and Brown, the first Pre pilots to fly across the Atlantic, wearing, but of course, Burberry sheepskin jackets.

“I wanted something heroic,” Burberry’s Creative Director, Christopher Bailey told me, after sending out hyper collar Spitfire shearling jackets or “Quadraphenia” Mod parkas, both ideal for late night clubbing. The other big message for Fall, was tweaking the traditional – like evoking officers epaulettes by placing scores of golden buttons on the shoulders of jackets and sweaters.

Bailey’s latest subtle revamping of, Cool Britannia iconography, also included return from the front trench coats and teddy bear finish wools for peacoats, ideal for toughing out the Semi-Permanent Recession.

Prada

We got Prada Guys and Dolls in the latest show by this great brand, where boys and girls walked on the runway and in the same materials, silhouettes and colors. Throughout, Designer Miuccia Prada experimented with Sixties prints, or revamped professional middle classic detailing with humor. Her car coats with thick, ribbed wool collars, referenced gents in commuter traffic even as they subverted them.

“I wanted a meeting of expensive materials and trashy touches. It offers something new. Never grown old with your customer, I say,” quipped Miuccia after a show that also featured Prada classically proportioned coats and pants in khakis and anthracite, languidly cut suits in Sergeant Pepper’s colors, or lurex-like skinny knits in rose and violet. Though the defining image was Pop Art camouflage print trench coats, trashy gent rockers par excellence. And, for the shoe of the season buy Prada’s brogue with an extended burnished outer tongue, as long as any golfers.

Y-3

The ideal collection to wear on weekends this autumn has to be the latest collection of Y-3, the joint venture between Japanese design Yohji Yamamoto and German active sports giant adidas.

Black watch tartan at-ease suits worn over gleaming “metallic” high-topped sneakers or combinations of “liquid metal” nylon jogging pants, athletic sweaters and bulky cable scarves thrown around the neck were just the perfect blend of arty and sporty for a Saturday stroll or Sunday brunch. The kind of looks that say fashion, yet never “trying too hard.”

In a word, this was a perfect statement of chic athleticism and the best at-ease clobber we’ve seen in many seasons.

The Big 10 For This Season

2010-04-07T08:16:58-04:00

Here’s our take on the 10 Best Runway Shows in the International season that started in New York in February and ended last month in Paris.

Chanel

Chanel imported 300 tons of ice from Scandinavia for their latest show, so models could walk through icebergs in a canny commentary on global warming, and the most PETA friendly collection on any catwalk.

Every model wore fake fur in this show staged on an icy blue and white ice arch set inside Paris’ Grand Palais in an exceptional piece of staging. Chanel’s Siberian polar explorers looked stunningly beautiful in a leather bomber jackets with huge white faux fox trim, head-to-toe patchwork polar bear cat-suits, fox trim on wool boucle suits.

Classic Chanel bags in wolf with interlocking CC logos, sable fur hot pants, ice-blue and white mohair mini cocktails and ice crystal rings and brooches all captured the eco mood. “Global warming is the issue of our times. The ice caps are melting. Fashion has to address this,” Chanel Designer, Karl Lagerfeld, intoned his jean bottoms soaked after taking his bow on a melted “sea” around the iceberg.

Dries Van Noten

Dries latest artistic maneuver was very military. His show in the City Hall of Paris was a nigh perfect distillation of Van Noten’s greatest skills – forgiving cutting, ethnic fantasy, avant-garde joie de vivre and lots of arty khaki.
“1950s and ‘60s cuts, and then a dose of rebellion,” were Van Noten’s description of a collection that deconstructed couture fashion codes of a half-century ago. Forgiving skirts that flared at a 30-degree angle below the waist or rouched dresses gently expanding at the hips in the most adroit of draping, with our favorites a sensationally beautiful silver metal bead sheath or a splendid black denim flight jacket with hussar’s sleeves.

Ohne Titel

In an uncertain age, protection and maybe some modern armor might be just right, which is what the Victorian lady meets combat officer collection from Ohne Titel was all about. In a season of gentile reserve in New York, the Ohne Titel duo of Flora Gill and Alexa Adams showed leather jackets inset with eco knit panels, return from battle short shearlings, slim warrior gal pants and harem-ready jodhpurs. Even the Victorians had a little fun – think Oscar Wilde.

Made in subtle mono-colors – from café crème to metal – this was the best exposition of tough chic anywhere on the planet.

Marni

There was not one weak look at Marni this season, which combined active sports like skiing with haute gamme ornamentation.

“My opening idea was antique jewelry. Then I got obsessed with Chinese interiors,” explains Marni’s Creative Director, Consuelo Castiglioni.

A meeting of grandmother’s costume haute bohemian cool and experimentation with Asian fabrics, this collection may have been a tricky wear, but it’s influence will be felt in the fashion section of shopping malls worldwide.

Roberto Cavalli

If you want to know how the contemporary Jet Set will dress this fall, or dreams their wives will do, it will be in Roberto Cavalli, whose Russian Empress meets rock star babe collection was the raciest thing seen on any runway this season. Swaddled in furs – from shaggy rued fox boleros to steel-hued astrakhan vests – and worn with semi-transparent chiffon dresses, trousers and harem pants all in abstract prints, this was all about va va vroom arm candy chic.

Cavalli referenced central Asia Tatar beauty with beautiful sheepskins, embroidered with Russian Imperial motifs or Cossack patterns in bullion, and dressed the years coolest after party with combos of biker furs and Afghan pants. In other words, gutsy glamour for naughty gals.

Missoni

If any designer emerged triumphant from the Milan season it was Angela Missoni, who staged a sensational, Highland Indie Gal romp, a great exposition of edgily comfortable chic. And expect Angela’s audacious combinations to be copied worldwide camel hair mélange, jacquard knits, embroidered sequins and zigzag lace. Plus, finishing looks with distinctive fur trim, like marmot or beaver – was breathtaking and so of the moment. Pinned up kilts and sweeping capes had unlikely partners like patchwork and Art Deco graphics, but the execution was so slick, everything worked. And, Missoni’s stainless steel obsession – steel necklaces bracelets and stirrups, all designed by her daughter Margherita – added the requisite dash of tough panache. Our fave look? A red and black combo of pinned up kilt and mini cardigan and cape, over a powder hued bustier worn by Russian top model Sasha Pivovarova.

Alexander Wang

Wang crossed Edwardian men’s tailoring, high end S&M and deconstructed in his latest collection; so lady fans of his will street chic demolished tails and frock coats this autumn. Outrageous “seaweed” macramé velvet tops, faded glitz mohair sweater dresses looked great as did burnished leather platforms, worn under ribbed leggings that ended wrapping the feet – probably the hottest single item in any New York show. It all represented a clever new tack for Wang, injecting inventive tailoring into his cool, off-duty street oeuvre.

“It’s the Berlin boy meets ‘Belle du Jour,’” Wang told me backstage, adding he envisaged Wall Street bankers connecting with cool clubbing girls.

Givenchy

Our vote for the seasons most contemporary and innovative collection goes to Givenchy, where designer Riccardo Tisci unveiled an arresting new visual vernacular of edgy class. His poetic tough chic ranged from futurist après-ski sweaters that gradually morphed into racy tops when mixed with lace, or colonel’s coats, cut as a dress and worn over black tights or neoprene pants, with high waists and an open front zip, adding zest to a collection that the designer said was “inspired by skiing and scuba diving.”

Underling the stylish severity was the glistening red lipstick, the same sparkling color used in red gloves or clutch bags made of clusters of beads and crystals. Strict Paris chic at its best.

Lanvin

It was Africa at nighttime at Lanvin this season, in fashion’s best take on dark opulent chic. Massive amulets, rough hewn fabrics, muddy hues and tribal feathers all captured the African inspiration behind this collection from Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz, even though the designer has never been to the Dark Continent. For Fall 2010, Lanvin women are bundled up in the somber colors, beautiful unlined coats and cocktail dresses in rough felt wool, cut six inches above the knee and tied at the waist with ribbons.

Where before Elbaz rouched ad infinitum, this season he cut down on his draping and concentrated more on darts, nips and tucks, sending out a series of quite brilliant coats and coat dresses where the clothes suggested a modern, understated opulence. Completing outfits with clunky pendants or felt scarves boasting explosions of beading and crystals, all added to the sense of élan in this brilliant statement of modern opulence.

Miu Miu

In a sober moment in history, it was great that the season ended with a little humor at Miu Miu. Pop culture met princess poise in this show, which Miuccia Prada again unveiled in a grand hôtel particulier on Avenue Foch, Paris’ grandest address for giant mansions.

Curvy Mary Quant like dresses and jackets, mainly in shiny wool, were embellished with courtly metallic and fabric flowers, so the clothes were simultaneously futurist, yet strangely retro.

There was no jewelry, but every outfit looked like a jewel thanks to heavy encrustations of metallic petals and puckered chiffon flowers. Cut well above the knee, the mod was saucy, even trashy, yet the overall feel was tough haute bourgeois.
“The Sixties, is still to many people the future, as it was the first time fashion tapped into science. I wanted to mix that with the 18th century, because that mélange felt different,” Prada told me post show.

Squared-toe shoes were solid yet mega opulent, and would have worked Louis IV’s Versailles or to a Gagosian Gallery opening in Chelsea. In a word, a collection of contrasting imagery whose retro futurism set a smart new Pop Royal agenda.

The Red Light Couturie, Jan Taminiau

2010-03-31T02:03:24-04:00

If there is any young European designer that have managed to ruminate visually on the eternal dynamic between fashion and art it is surely Jan Taminiau, a Dutchman, whose exotic oeuvre makes any of his shows cool, one-of-a-kind events.

Taminiau first came to my attention three years ago with a show staged rather dramatically in a splendid old glasshouse on a Paris day of vicious rain and squalls. Yet that seemed to sum up the contradictory impulses in this designer, whose fashion is all about unexpected and contradictory beauty.

Entitled “Follies”, the collection featured Taminiau’s obsession with volumes and his other key signature, adaptability. Several looks appeared twice on the runway, as what appeared to be two-piece outfits were really dresses whose uppers were first dragged up to the neck, next flipped down to created voluptuous curvy cocktails. Throughout the show, which also featured glossy, femme fatales in aged gold negligee dresses and models with wild, disheveled hair, lightning crackled outside.

“There’s always elements of romanticism and nostalgia in my shows,” Taminiau tells me over lunch near his Paris showroom.

Those two elements are also apparent in another bizarre Jantaminiau concept – he tends to write his name as one word –“Postbag” couture, where the designer managed to created couture quality clothes out of used postman delivery bags.

Taminiau first steps in fashion were fairly traditional – after a few post high school years in Bohemia, he entered The Academy of Art and Design in Arnheim, followed by a master’s program at the same Dutch city’s Fashion Institute. Upon graduation, he did working stints with Olivier Theyskens, corset maker Hubert Barrere and famed lace specialist Hurel.

However, when Jan finally launched his own house, instead of designing ready-to-wear he created an haute couture house, a rarity in Holland, and unique in the neighborhood in which he finally opened his headquarters – Amsterdam’s Red Light District.

Taminiau resolutely refuses to name any of his clients, but last June the Dutch media trumpeted the fact that Maxima, the Princess of the Netherlands, wore one of his postbag trouser suits, replete with the national flag’s red, white and blue colors, to the opening of the Arnhem Fashion Biennale.

Jan credits his grandmother, an antique dealer, with inspiring his first creative impulses.

“I was used to seeing beauty daily in my grandmother’s antique store, though children were not allowed to play there among the chandeliers and furniture. But you could muck around up in the attic with broken things, and that was the playground where I fantasized. There was stuff in boxes with tissue paper you play with, which was also a bit scary. That triggered me, fantasy wise. I was fascinated by the idea that something that had lived for so long, when broken no longer existed,” he beams in recollection of his childhood.

Taminiau, now 34, initially wanted “to create on my own,” and quit one art college to wander Europe, eventually ending up in Paris, where he met the Conde Nast Editor, Susan Train, a famed fashion fixture in the City of Light.

“I remember she told me simply, that her mother once explained that even if you marry a rich man you have to know how to set a table otherwise, your servants will just do it their way, and you won’t be mistress of your own house, or own life. So I went to school to Arnhem and started to study,” he recalls.

By 2003, Taminiau was able to publicly present his first fashion ideas in Dutch Touch. The brainchild of noted fashion dynamo Angelique Westerhof, Dutch Touch is a project uniting different design disciplines from Holland with events in New York and Paris, like “guerrilla” moments, such as mini presentations in Parisian squares, seen by hundreds exiting larger runway shows.

“I did 2D/3D, or from two to three dimensions in installations. I put woven dresses on easels and then a mannequin inside to make it 3D,” notes Jan, who once even showed in a metro station. He finally hit the French runways with his glasshouse show in July 2007 during the haute couture season, staged deliberately near a Chanel show in Parc St Germain, to attract fashionista’s returning to central Paris.

“That collection was about transformation, with many clothes hand woven. After I had made them, I cut holes to put in the arms and heads. I wanted flexibility so the dress is not just a dress, but also a top. I wanted the playfulness of a child,” stresses Jan, who has now staged four Paris shows.

Recognition came gradually, but assuredly, especially in Paris – a window display at Colette in Paris, an exhibition at the Foundation Cartier.

Taminiau sells his clothes only through his atelier by appointment, first talking with each client and fitting a toile, like a classic couturier.

“I have about 30 new clients a year. I cannot say whom. They can talk about it, if they are wearing me,” he sniffs, even if websites feature Taminiau worn by Princess Maxima, among others.

His next step will be a prêt-a-porter collection, for he concedes, “it takes five fittings to get an outfit right for a client, so we need to do clothes on the rack.”

“I dress a women who dares to be different. If you make jackets out of old postbags, your client has to be aware of what you are doing. When she is at a social event and her pals are wearing Chanel she needs to understand what’s particular about what she’s wearing. It helps her confidence,” insists Jan, who predicts that his prêt collection will debut in March next year.

Taminiau always stages his shows in both Paris and then Amsterdam, where he’s something of a rock star, working out of an atelier in a four-story former brothel with high ceilings dating from 1610.

His early shows attracted just scores in Paris, but 800 people attended his latest in Amsterdam, where a circle of cameras showed the models live on the Internet.

“It was all about people being hunted down by media or cameras everywhere, even just by people’s cell phones. And I liked the fact the models were a little nervous in front of all the cameras. That’s why I called it “’The Final Judgment in Fashion’,” he cackles, summing up his Dutch fashion crossroads of the bizarre and the beautiful.

Hands of The Land, Brunello Cucinelli

2010-03-24T02:30:17-04:00

Brunello Cucinelli doesn’t like to boast, but he can justly claim to be the instigator of a new aesthetic in fashion, a clever mix of sporty chic that combines two major Italian impulses – honest toil and a love of art and everything connected to it – with a distinct love of Americana, especially its views on marketing.

Yet to hear Brunello, a man whose label has so far skipped runways yet is nonetheless set to hit a quarter of a billion dollars in sales this year, his best preparation for life was that other Italian tradition – far niente, or doing nothing.

Though he received no training in fashion, his eponymous label has boomed into a highly influential look – a subtly toned, cashmere sporty casualness that US retailers regard as gold dust and which consumers have embraced avidly.

Over lunch last month in Milan, Brunello proudly tells me of his modest origins, which implanted in him a deep determination to create products of beauty and build a company that treated its staff with a certain sort of dignity.

“My university was in Perugia, I actually studied engineering, but only passed one exam in three years, as I didn’t do a tap of work. But my real school was called Gigino Café, one of those Italian institutions, a bar where everyone shows up, lawyers, intellectual, playboys, talkers and even hookers,” Brunello recalls nostalgically, noting that the base rate for a quickie was 3,000 lira (or two bucks at the time).

“But what I learnt there was life,” he adds, quoting Lorenzo The Magnificent, “If you want to be happy, start today.” Which is another thing that sets Cucinelli apart; he likes to quote philosophers.

His family arrived in Perugia, the Umbrian city that is the site of Italy’s greatest annual jazz festival, when he was 15, his father, a farm laborer, moved the family from the countryside. “My father was a peasant, but I had a very nice childhood, enjoying the scents and beauty of our countryside. We were not rich, but we ate well and were amused,” he tells me, enjoying a plate of pasta in bianca, i.e. rigatoni with just olive oil and cheese, in his charming Art Nouveau Milan headquarters. For Italians, the Sixties marked the decade when millions migrated into urban factories, and Brunello’s father got a job in a reinforced concrete factory. “It very tough work. One night, he came home and they had insulted him, and asked what did he do to deserve that, I saw my father had tears in his eyes. It was not a question of money, just one of treatment. That marked me as a boy,” he confides wistfully.

“That’s when I decided that whatever I do I want work to be a little more dignified,” he explains, revealing that this led him, aged 23, to read the works of Theodore Levitt, the Editor of the Harvard Business Review and inventor the term “globalization.” In Cucinelli’s view, Levitt “got annoyed with the big US brands, like IBM, who put profit before people. Levitt said the client comes first. So, I realized whatever you do, do well, and make something special. And treat people well.” A classic self-made entrepreneur, Brunello turned his sights on a great Umbrian tradition – cashmere knitwear – and started small, real small.

“I bought three rocche (spools) of cashmere, a kilo each, and I asked some ladies in Perugia to make three long T-shirts, Tunic style. Then I went to the tintoria (dyers) and had them make orange, sky blue and yellow tops. They said I was crazy, ‘you don’t do that with cashmere,’ and I said just do it,” he beams in recollection.

His next problem? Selling the T-shirts, which led him to the Alpine city of Bolzano, where he found his first customer, Albert Markus, a severe German speaker, who ordered 53 pullovers.
“I told him it was my grandfather’s business with 72 staff. If I had said it was just I, he would have said forget it. Albert is still my client 30 years later,” chuckles the 56-year-old, who, to convince people he really had a large staff, would adopt different voices on the phone, depending on whom he was pretending to be – production manager, sales chief or distribution chief.
That’s not a problem any longer for Brunello, who today boasts a staff of 500 worldwide, and major global reach. His network of some 40-flagship boutiques extends from Ibiza to Kiev, East Hampton to Hong Kong.

“When a customer would ask for deliveries, I’d put a hanky on the phone, wait a few seconds and then adopted another voice! I did it all myself, placed the merchandise in boxes, sent off the invoices. I hardly earned a shilling, but I lived at home, and my wife cooked, which a great advantage, Solitude is a terrible thing for most people,” he cautions.

Cucinelli married in his mid twenties to Frederica, a fellow Umbrian, with whom he has had daughters, Camilla and Carolina, 27 and 19 respectively.

These days he goes to China and Mongolia regularly, placing large orders of raw cashmere, which he takes to be spun in Italy.

For 20 years he only sold cashmere pullovers, but urged on by enthusiastic US retailers, in Saks and Bergdorf Goodman, who wanted “a total look,” he decided to create a “full brand, and one always in the upper end.”

Almost immediately his company began growing by over 30% annually, even in 2009, when most fashion houses suffered sales falls of around 10%.

This year, Brunello Cucinelli is targeting sales of 180 million Euros, or $245 million, not bad for a guy who began with three T-shirts and even more telephone voices. Instead of a one-man company, he controls a series of plants centered on his wife’s hometown of Solomeo, a small 13th century village with a population of just 500. That makes him the biggest employer in his district, with whole families working for his label.

“It’s the dream of all entrepreneurs to have your own headquarters, which is when I realized that the centro storico of Solomeo was empty, and I thought, with a little money I could buy a space, and work in a beautiful place,” he explains. His first acquisition was a medieval tower, about to fall down, in the largely deserted village center, since the lack of heating, light and water had led the inhabitants to move outside the ancient walls.

“As the business grew, we bought more bits and pieces from the old residents. Once I paid 240 million Lira (or $150,000) for a building and I did not sleep for days. I only had 20 million Lira in my account!”

Today after nearly three decades of additions, Cucinelli has turned the village into a marvelously restored space replete with theater and amphitheater for live performances. Today, this designer is President of 16 theaters in Umbria, never looks at TV and rarely reads newspapers.

“I prefer reading Dostoyevsky Schopenhauer or Adam Smith. Plus, I’m a huge lover of architecture and when I realized that I could beautifully restore this lovely place Solomeo it became a life’s vocation.

Cucinelli is very much a man who lives and breathes his brand, defining it as sporty chic de luxe. “It signorile sporty,” he says, using the Italian term for gentlemanly. Famed for its use of soft colors like taupe, beige, caramel, concrete and cream, Brunello Cucinelli’s evocative ads and imagery captures the sort of lifestyle busy people worldwide dream of obtaining – a terrace farmhouse in the Italian hills, reading novels on a veranda in the shade of Mediterranean pine before a family and friends sunset dinner.

To run his business, Brunello rises every day at 6 AM, does a score of laps in his swimming pool and a series of stretching exercises inspired by Tibetan monks. He plays soccer some evenings, and finances his own hometown team of Castel Rigone, in Serie D, the Italian fourth division, playing “stopper,” or tackling midfielder, in amateur games.

Work begins at 8AM and he insists every member of staff leaves at 6PM. Though in a good Italian tradition he takes a 15-minute siesta daily after lunch.

Like we said, a little dose of far niente never hurts.

Paris, Combatant Chic Versus Corporate Power

2010-03-17T00:13:07-04:00

If there’s a great debate in Paris fashion at the moment it’s between two directly opposing camps, executive suite chic versus warrior women cool.

Drawing up the battle lines, we numbered in the managing director’s corner Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino, as well as a fledgling house like Anne Valerie Hash.

Leading the opposition with more wicked fare were Haider Ackermann, Karl Lagerfeld, Gareth Pugh, Sharon Wauchob, Rick Owens and Limi Feu.

At Vuitton, models paraded around in the dresses and skirts cut demurely below the knee. They may have worn corsets, the better to make their boobs pup up; but apart from the saucy touch this was a reined in Fall 2010 collection by Vuitton’s Creative Director, Marc Jacobs.

His finale was a quintet of grand gowns, for Chrissakes, and Elle MacPherson, the veteran supermodel who manages her own lingerie empire, wore the last look.

Any doubts about the new move into the boardroom were already being banished at Lanvin. There, Designer Alber Elbaz sent out massive amulets, rough hewn fabrics, muddy hues and tribal feathers in an Africa at Night themed show. But the actual clothes themselves were all about modern understated opulence, as Elbaz cut back on his draping and rouching and concentrated on nips and tucks in unlined coats that suggested a powerful decision maker en route to an AGM.

And, at YSL, Designer Stefano Pilati presented a largely all black collection where models even sported satchels and document cases. “Busy women running to jump into a limousine to make a private plane, for a continental business trip,” was Pilati’s description of his target clientele.

Chez Valentino, we witnessed the latest groovy romanticism from designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli in a bravura piece of staging featuring the movies of LA avant gardist Kenneth Anger. Yet, though the collection contained lots of ruffled femininity, curvy hemlines and puckered chiffon flower materials, this was a paired down effort from this duo, where, tellingly, the twisting jackets were made not in silk but in mercerized cotton, the sort you’d normally find on sturdy raincoats.

Rugged romanticism was also apparent at Anne Valerie Hash, this wonderfully sensitive French designer who has developed a cult following. However, though casual deconstruction ruled, with some thoroughly chic semi-transparent nylon tops, there was new authoritative air about these clothes. Career girl after hour chic, if you like, best exemplified by some really great looks finished with hussar frogging.

Going into battle against boardroom mores early on was Pugh, who remains the master of Gothic tough style, especially with this season’s protective clubbing gear, where collars were cut more like breastplates. His swaggering, girl on a secret comic book mission look won’t easily be forgotten.

For a finely tailored and coolly sexy looks for fall, get thee to Sharon Wauchob, the brilliant Irish designer who in January was appointed Creative Director of Edun, the Ali and Bono Hewson founded collection, into which the giant French luxury conglomerate LVMH entered as a partner last year. Her little bomber jackets with studs and bumps and a fantastic slinky chain mail dress – so hip the model wearing it glimmered with pride – were the best exposition of what we will call Combatant Chic.

Sinuous warrior panache is the terrain of hipster Haider Ackermann, whose sculpted leather and suede vests and jackets were cut with collars that wrapped around the neck artily. These looks had great presence and, in a telling sign, clearly pleased the models wearing them; you almost felt they wanted to run to the next show in Ackermann’s outfits.

Few collections were more elegantly heroic than that of Karl Lagerfeld, whose courtly futurism seemed very right for, well, now. Models with grand bouffant hairdos and black head bands marched down Karl’s catwalks in high-tech patent leather pants and leggings worn over fiendishly clever jackets with all sorts of angular cut backs, none more chic than the strict, general-at-ease look worn by Magdalena Frackowiak, the Polish beauty who gets our vote for model of the season.

At Rick Owens, the designer defined his collection as being created for a “sexy sect of nuns,” though these were sisters who looked like they could man a Sci Fi barricade in zigzag-patterned leggings and warrior wrap coats.

One of our favorite shows was Limi Feu, the fledgling label by the daughter of Zen master Yohji Yamamoto. Now, this may sound “out to lunch”, but this Limi Feu collection was very black Spaghetti Western to me. So much so, I almost expected the models to pull out pistols. Or, maybe call it grunge deconstruction – 30-inch lapels ended at the crotch, shirttails finished in a circle outside of trousers.

Perhaps the headiest fashion moment was the bizarre show by Quentin Veron, staged in a storage room for the bits and pieces that fall off major monuments in Paris, a dark cave located underneath Pont Alexandre III. Almost entirely made of fur, and presented in a mock burlesque theater, this naughty Notre Dame moment featured lots of shaggy fox boleros, astrakhan swing jackets and a model wearing a T-Shirt that proclaimed “I’d Rather Wear Fur Than Go Naked.” Definitely not PETA PC.

Street style was also referenced throughout the Paris season with several designers using hoodies, though to theatrical effect, like Roland Mouret who had hoods and cowls punctuating his latest polished display.

“Hoodies have a threatening connotation; on top of a sweat shirt they invoke the image of a street tough. I wanted to use the hood as a stylistic touch, as something chic,” Mouret told me after his fine show.

Not that everything was tough and heroic; sometimes the point of the exercise was very much about having fun. Take Miu Miu, where a majestic pop chic ruled. Curvy pop culture dresses and jackets were brightened by metallic and fabric flowers added a witty futurist feel to the clothes. Dresses in brocade and puckered chiffon flowers were cut well above the knee, most of them sleeveless, some with shoulder straps, all with a Sixties insouciance.

And the silhouette summed up the biggest Paris trend in terms of shape – taught around the torso, curvy below the hips. Almost like chess pieces, except this season none of these role models were anyone’s pawns.

They either ruled or rocked. You have your choice.

Radical Insurrection or Lordly Duel in Paris

2010-03-10T12:03:20-05:00

Madonna famously sang that, “music turned the bourgeois into rebels.” This season in Paris, however, designers are demanding a choice – you’re either bourgeois or rebel.

In the establishment corner representing restrained, and often severe, chic one notes, Yves Saint Laurent, Celine, Stella McCartney, Dries Van Noten, Chloe and most spectacularly Giambattista Valli.

Leading the rebellion, we can count on Balmain, Givenchy, Chanel and Balenciaga in the Fall 2010 collections that end this weekend.

In at least one case, the same designer manages to be in both camps. Take John Galliano, who sent out equestrian chic at Christian Dior and then went crazily nomadic at his own signature collection.

John’s invading hoards collection was one of several that tapped into a slew of ethnic cultures to develop a new exotic global traveler look, as did Jean Paul Gaultier, who took us on a world tour in his show.

And if Paris told us one other big story it was the triumph of fur, most spectacularly at Viktor & Rolf, where the opening look was veteran, and still skinny, model Kristen McMenamy in 10 layers of clothing, topped by a humungous silver gray fur coat, fit for a medieval monarch.

In a wonderful in-joke, the designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren played the role of dressers on the catwalk with the models, gradually removed each layer from McMenamy, to give a garment to each new model that appeared.

Positioned on slowly turning disc in the middle of their catwalk, composed of an industrial print zeppelins, pylons and factory chimneys, the duo handed out slinky leather parkas or trench coats in large pattern plaids to the younger gals, before reversing the process and putting nine layers back onto McMenamy, allowing her to exit like a Sci Fi Elizabeth Regina.

The other stand out show in terms of staging was Chanel, where the famed house hired 30 workers to truck down the 30 tons of ice from Sweden, to build a iceberg catwalk, complete with arches and icy blue sea – on which the models walked.

It represented a dramatic change from last season, when the setting was reproduction of a Normandy farm, and a collection, which Lagerfeld defined as “Coco Ecolo,” in a pun on the first word for an ecologist.

Chanel’s Fall 2010 featured fur on every look, though every inch of it was fake. It opened with two dashing couples, which looked like extras in “Nanook of the North.” Except the girls were impossibly beautiful, Freja Beha in a leather bomber jacket with huge white faux fox trim and Australian beauty Abbey Lee in a head-to-toe patchwork mix, though mainly of fake polar bear.

“Global warming is the issue of our age, so you have to respond to it,” Karl pronounced, his own jeans wet at the bottom from walking around the set, where the water represented the melting ice caps.

One remarkable development in Paris was the manner in which three young English women, known in their earlier days for their edgy style and London street attitude, went all restrained. I’m referring to Phoebe Philo at Celine, Stella McCartney and Hannah MacGibbon for Chloe.

Philo, now at Celine, sent out a collection of severe, haut bourgeois clothes, brilliant sheepskin coats with long patent leather strips, white shirts with Edwardian collars, flared at the waist skirts and a beautiful white lace dress. What the clothes lacked in panache, they more than made up for with poise and elegance, and one could sense every editor eying and making a mental note of which looks they would soon buy.

A day later, Stella McCartney, Philo’s former boss but now very much her junior in an international ranking of important designers, also sent out a striped back collection, which like Celine was essentially print free. Indeed, several editors, noting this and other similarities, renamed the Beatles progeny as Stella McCeline.

Twenty-four hours later after Stella, MacGibbon presented a very authoritative collection, largely in beige and brown, and cut fluidly with plenty of attitude. Reminiscent of Ralph Lauren at his best, but with plenty of Parisian chic, the collection was Hannah’s best to date for Chloe.

However, our vote for the chicest collection goes to Giambattista Valli, whose juxtaposing of fabrics that rarely meet – all-white intarsia fur coats in diagonals of goat and mink or nattily cut cocktail dresses with tops of puckered chiffon glower and bottoms in crunchy faille – was simply very beautiful.

Plus, if any designer can boast of a cool “It Girl” front row, it has to be Valli, who presented this defiantly elegant collection to an audience that included Brooke Shields, Latin American socialite Tatiana Santo Domingo, Italo-French beauty Bianca Brandolini, ex catwalk star Astrid Munoz and Josephine De La Baume, girlfriend of fashion’s favorite DJ, Mark Ronson.

But let’s not forget the bourgeois can be tough, like at Dries, where his posh military collection included sensationally beautiful silver metal bead sheaths, splendid black denim flight jackets with hussar’s sleeves and a cocktail with black fantasy garden embroidery and corporal’s shirt sleeves.

Leading the rebellious elements in Paris was Balmain with gold leather columns, slashed practically up to the crotch and Napoleonic frock coats in wild jacquards.

And, in an insurrectionist mood was Galliano, who went on a tour of Central Asia, with wild Uzbek babes and his own outfit when he took his bow – a modern Genghis Khan.

At Balenciaga, designer Nicolas Ghesquiere used graphic product names and even health warnings in blouses, tops and the interior lining of jumpsuits in his show in the Hotel Crillon in central Paris, attended by French Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterrand.

“I wanted to ennoble domestic elements,” Ghesquiere told me post show.

In our view, the most innovative collection was Givenchy, where designer Riccardo Tisci sent out futurist après-ski sweaters that gradually morphed into racy tops mixed with lace. Mixing these with neoprene pants, with high waists and open front zip, added real punch to zest to a collection that the designer said was inspired by skiing and scuba diving.

“It’s from the deep sea to the highest Alps,” smiled Tisci, summing up the fashion uprising that shook in Paris.

The Super Heroines Of Milan

2010-03-03T13:38:47-05:00

Though no one could accuse the past long weekend in Milan of having been a stellar season, it was an eminently worthy one if your vision of a cool modern woman is that she should be a super heroine.

The final presentation of Sunday night, Versus, captured that rather well. Two score of emerging teenage models paraded round looking like Wonder Women entering a night club; while the season’s most innovative collection – Jil Sander – was inspired, believe it or not for house based in minimalism – by Lara Croft.

Even this city’s greatest avant-gardist, Miuccia Prada, sent out Sixties referenced clothes on models whose bouffant hairdos recalled the spouses of astronauts in, “The Right Stuff.” And you know something is going on when Italy’s most famous knitwear house, Missoni, sends of Celtic punk princesses, dolled up as if for an after party if – and let’s re-write history here – the Highland Clans had defeated the English at the Battle of Culloden.

Call it Jacobite Chic, a leit motif for these fall 2010 women’s ready-to-wear collections. Though these are heroines that don’t just do battle but hold down careers, globe trot and do lots of shopping.

Take Sander, where the house’s Creative Director Raf Simons summoned forth a Celtic regiment of bonnie Power Lassies in rugged Highland colors – abstract plaids in heather and inky black hues. His cleverest looks were semi-articulated dresses, where interior strips of Velcro gave the cocktails a faintly reptilian movement, as the clothes moved ever so slightly as the models walked. The only thing they lacked was a holster, and gun, of course.

After sculpting this new driven female silhouette, Simons told me his inspiration twofold – Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft and “The September Issue,” indicating that his champions actually hold down real jobs.

At Missoni, even if one could quibble that there was more than a little Rodarte in the collection, there was also some sensational fashion.

It was a military moment too, from the drum rolls that kicked off the runway maneuvers, as models marched down broad steps in Milan’s main university in outrageous material mixes – camel hair, Art Deco jacquards, funky sequins, lace trim and lots of punky furs like marmot or beaver.

Designer Angela Missoni has been taking plenty of risks with this label in the past few seasons and she did not hold back this time. Her nattiest ideas were a series of mini corsets, seen suggestively under bold knit boleros or revealing cardigans, like in the best single passage – a red and black combo of Posh Punk kilt, cardigan and cape worn by Russian beauty, Sasha Pivovarova, the model many insider’s consider to have the coolest “walk” on major catwalks.

What we did not see on the catwalks were media woman, now seen as a global role model, the TV interviewer of business networks like Bloomberg, channels which Jon Stewart has wickedly defined as “Cute girls talking to fat bald guys.”

Chez Prada, we got an artistic “attack on banality,” from Designer Miuccia, who referenced Fifties and Sixties silhouettes with lots of 3O degree ankles, a fact she indicated by chopping her hand out at her hip, when discussing the show.

But Miuccia’s arty heroine is also a nerd. Witness her socks – a knitted knee-high version with a ribbon in grosgrain or chiffon sewn down the shin.

“Naked legs are so passé,” sniffed Prada, as she downed a large whiskey sour post show.

Many shows, referenced the angled hip, including a great collection from Consuelo Castiglioni at Marni, which had a whole curvaceous midriff, somewhat like a Fifties auto bumper.

Though Castiglioni’s sweetest move was a series of beautiful tops inspired by Young British Artist Gary Hume’s dramatically simplified human collages.

We even got a rock n’ roll heroine show at N°21, the debut fashion show from newly Indie Alessandro Dell' Acqua. His posh concert fan had loads of poise, with her open back cocktails and faux cheetah coat dresses with cut out necks.

But if you want a truly grand champion then get thee to the house of Gianfranco Ferre, where the design duo of Roberto Rimondi and Tommaso Aquilano tapped into the house’s DNA with sculpted architectural chic.

“We’d been looking at Bauhaus and wanted some of that precision in the show,” explained Aquilano.

But if you are after a little more sexual drama, then the right destination is Pucci, where Designer Peter Dundas served up haute Bohemia chic, lots of long hippie dresses albeit in some dazzling prints, and the season’s best nightclub door opening look, a great a lace cat-suit and blazer combo on Australian beauty Abbey Lee.

Elsewhere, we had the return of the Jet Set, or its restoration at Dolce & Gabbana, whose show notes trumpeted their sensual Sicilian origins. So, the opening looks were a series of brilliant smoking jackets worn over, well, very little, except sexy black lacy underwear.

And at Roberto Cavalli and Gucci the focus was on glamorous modern travelers. Cavalli offered a new Imperial Russian meets rock star girlfriend looks, starring fox boleros or beautiful sheepskins, finished with Russian Imperial motifs. At Gucci – a step or two more up market – Designer Frida Gianinni sent out a series of sleek cocktails with tights and shoes in the same sanded beige, in a great color coordinated statement.

Giorgio Armani looked to China, where he will have 150 signature flagships or shop-in-shops in luxury malls in China by the end of the year. His most memorable moment was duo beauties in pink cocktail dresses with Chinese abstract paisley embroidered motifs, as East met West with pizzazz.

Call them Chinese cocktail champions.

New York's Restoration of the Lady

2010-02-24T11:17:31-05:00

They celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in Prague this winter; they heralded a Velvet Restoration in Manhattan last week.

Velvet, which in politics suggests a supple hand and not a clenched fist, in fashion it means something more suggestive – denoting opulence, propriety and a certain sensual richness.

The word originates from the Latin villus or shaggy haired; and that sense of comforting fashion, ideal for our never ending Great Recession, where women need the entire succor they can get, was evident all season. It also underlines the return to a certain Edwardian gentility, for never before this century have we seen so much demur fashion on New York catwalks.

Forget “flaunt it while you got it”; it’s more about go gently, and chicly, into the night.

Velvet popped up all over the New York catwalks, most elegantly at Ralph Lauren, in sapphire blue dresses with black silk sleeves and miniature transparent, fingerless gloves, or wonderfully ladylike hacking jackets, all very modern day Jane Austen.

Yet our favorite looks in the lush fabric were an antique velvet jackets in amethyst and charming jodhpurs in a mossy green or faded brown, finished at the ankle with studs.

Though patrician – the runway was a cut stone Italian palazzo style, illuminated by three huge black glass chandeliers – Lauren injected a workerist note, one of the few designers to reference our tougher times. A splendidly soft brown cashmere coat, worn by Polish beauty, Magdalena Frackowiak came over trousers that the program notes described as “newsboy pants.”

And it spoke volumes about the new decorum to witness the Edwardian high collared velvet jackets finished with lace stocks in L’Wren Scott, who, let’s recall, is the girlfriend of Rock God, Mick Jagger. It was a look, well, about a million miles from groupie style; far more My Fair Lady than Almost Famous.

Velvet’s one great weakness is that it can be frumpy, which is how it appeared in milk chocolate convent dresses by London It Gal and TV presenter Alexa Chung for Madewell. But even here it did telegraph a somewhat asexual current that ran through the season.

Not everyone, you see, used it diffidently – Zac Posen sent out models in flaming red velvet jackets paired with flirty silk ruffled minis.

Nor did all designers go mega maiden. Two great collections – Rodarte and Proenza Schouler – were much more examples of heroine hipness.

Rodarte, a Los Angeles-based duo of two resolutely iconoclastic sisters, Kate and Laura Mulleavy, produced a supreme statement of what could be called Sample Chic. For Fall 2010 they sent out a mish-mash of fabrics, in every single outfit – scraps of lace, cashmere scarves, tweed patches, lace strips, chiffon snatches, fishnet trim, Victorian curtains and Native American pattern rugs.

“Driving across Texas that we got the idea of creating a collection inspired by border towns. We wanted something that felt transient,” explained Kate post-show.

At Proenza Schouler, we got arguably the most 2010 collection in New York, a defiantly quirky attack, and re-invention of, classic American sportswear for the 21st century. Baseball jackets, duffle coats, preppy sweaters, gym skirts, school blazers and Catholic school tights went through the minds of Proenza Schouler duo – Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez- and came put spanking new.

Their art school technique of developing fabrics by shaking plaid swatches while being photocopied, and then using the result was inspirational. The resulting Abstract Expressionist squiggle prints were magnificent on elongated trousers and best-selling authoress jacquard frocks

And, other talented creators opted for defiant modernism, like at Max Azria, where the husband and wife team of Max and Lubov Azria whipped up some ingeniously draped and inter-twined dresses and tops. If minimalism still is relevant in our more baroque age, then the modern masters of it are these LA-based pair.

If any single look summed up the continuing appeal of technical flourish with lean understatement, it was surely that beige ensemble of leather pants and top finished by a scallop lapel swing jacket, worn by Australian supe Abbey Lee..

Even a fundamentally sporting label like Y-3 felt quite covered up, featuring all sorts of mega dark plaid ideas, whether jerkins with the Y-3 logo, or brilliantly layered combos, like a mini motorcycle jacket and ruched dress worn by quirky, skinny Danish model, Freja Beha.

“It was all about returning to the original roots of Y-3. I mean by that elegant sports style,” Yamamoto told me post show, he togged as if for a military campaign in a anthracite wool Eisenhower jacket and sergeant’s pants, just like those on his catwalk. Covering up extended to the feet at Y-3, where the best sneakers had splayed soles, like pieces of modernist sculpture, and sure to be copied worldwide.

And, two blocks away and two days later, the ladylike triumph was complete at the runway show of Oscar de la Renta. Mixing up 1930s Art Deco references, such as a gold printed silk faille coat with a stain glass window pattern, with 1980s glamor, like heroic platinum lame columns, showed what a smart gent Oscar is, and how relevant he remains.

And, right in sink with the revival of sophisticated femininity that this New York season was all about. Talk about a ladylike restoration.

Well Turned Ankle in New York

2010-02-17T08:17:52-05:00

“She’s a very well turned ankle,” used to be my gentlemanly uncle John’s discreet compliment of a lady’s figure, though this past weekend in New York has been all about hiding this attribute of female anatomy in a season that indicates a certain return to covered-up chic a new mysterious formality.

It was also a season overshadowed by the death of Alexander McQueen, news of his parting began circulating just as the first looks hit the runway the 10 a.m. show of BCBG Max Azria on Thursday. His memory haunted the whole weekend.

The return to reserve was subtly more apparent in the work of that ever-impressive duo of Flora Gill and Alexa Adams at Ohne Titel, where most looks were anchored by ribbed knits that reached to the ground covering up multi strap leather spike heels. Paired with strikingly well cut jackets whose back trim always wrapped over the behind, this was a ladylike twist in the triumphant downtown warrior gal look Ohne Titel has always been about. “We wanted something Victorian,” explained Flora, summing up the new sense of restraint we’ve seen in Manhattan.

Covering up was also the key to Marc Jacobs Yellow Brick Road collection, where the opening monologue of The Wizard of Oz boomed out the speakers. Half the opening was A-line coats or capes, and all the skirts reached well below the knee. Though, in an occasionally beautiful poetic display Jacobs did produce some striking images, especially the iridescent velvet cocktails that wowed at the finale. Even the Downtown It Gal of the moment Charlotte Ronson went covered up – her selection prairie dresses in French-style plisse fabrics, cocoon jackets with faux fur collars, belted Canadians with elastic trim and of Cossack pants were the opposite of Body conscious. This was cool protective posing for hipster gals who do not need to flaunt their stuff, they just know their cool. Christian Siriano, the former winner of Project Runway winner, went all the back to Sixties Paris for inspiration. But this was more dressed up bourgeois than revolutionary Brigitte Bardot, from flared at the hips leather jackets or above-the-knee pencil skirts to great cowl neck sleeveless metallic wool dresses. Even, rocker model and Texan beauty Erin Wasson went all arty dignified – underlined by ribbed leggings, chunky Scottish hiker socks, graphic print dusters, tie-dye tops and Mongolian fur vests that looked ideal for the matriarch of a hippie colony in Denmark.

Wasson also covered up the leg with the new trouser length – Mexican studded pants that swept over any shoe. In what’s been the outstanding show so far, Alexander Wang, played subtly with the new sobriety – crossing Edwardian men’s tailoring with haute bourgeois S&M, in a collection of deconstructed tails and frock coats and street chic men’s detailing. Though there was suggestive thread that ran through this whole show, whether saucy seaweed macramé velvet tops or faded glitz mohair sweater dresses, even if the latter was not best shown to advantage on model Agyness Dyen, one gal who should never have let her be dyed black. On trend, Wang also show slick ribbed leggings that ended by wrapping burnished leather platforms. Though again this was a bitter sweet stop, seeing that it was in the same pier where McQueen staged his one and only New York show.

Not that everyone went all buttoned up, certainly not Gwen Stefani whose fall collection of her fashion label L.A.M.B. had lots of sass and sauce. Stefani’s groupies hustled out in deconstructed pants and off-the-shoulder knits. Also marching around Milk Studios, where the show was staged were a regiment of G.I. Joes, or Josephines rather, in fatigue pants, sergeant’s belts and camouflage tops.

Even the rather naughty collection by what was billed as The Next Big Thing – Joseph Altuzarra – felt reined in by flamenco pants that covered the ankle. That said, while we accept that Altuzarra is clearly an accomplished cutter, this collection was far too derivative: the opening felt too close to Alaia’s Eighties sculptured moment and the finale, featuring a red velvet tuxedo, shouted Gwyneth Paltrow in Tom Ford’s Gucci. Though, we will admit that the Asian model in the saucy black multi-strap trench cocktail was a heterosexual guy’s fantasy of the sort of girl he wants meet backstage after seeing The White Stripes.

But the mood was ultimately somber, especially in Milk Studios, which was the scheduled location of the presentation of its Lee McQueen’s junior line, McQ,

cancelled the wake of the designer’s departure.

But still the lady like wave flowed on, especially at the charming morning presentation that was Victoria Beckham’s latest at bat in New York.

Posh Spice, to give her popular name, chose Dick Tracy as her inspiration and the mini show in an elegant cut stone Upper East Side townhouse starred a quintet of Tess Trueheart femme fatales.

Beckham delivered an informed commentary throughout the whole “show,” sometimes with the right amount of sardonic wit.

“I loved the over sized feel of this. It’s very seductive,” she intoned about a open necked trench dress. “It makes you wonder what she’s wearing underneath, or if she’s wearing anything underneath.”

Couture Humanoids and Eco-Warriors

2010-02-10T06:33:17-05:00

Welcome to the age of the eco warrior damsel. Maybe we should put it down to Avatar, and a deep-seated longing, in the midst of the global downturn, for a more Arcadian vies of the future.

If that means strings of models are going to look like leggy humanoids, then so be it, was the concerted opinion of quite a few couturiers in the collections stage in Paris this January.

Jean Paul Gaultier stated the mood quite openly. Yes, he’d seen James Cameron’s movie, loved it and the whole collection flowed from there. And at Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld dreamed up a floral trimmed futurist mood, backed by the sort of soundtrack. And you know what Giorgio Armani’s favorite material in his Spring Haute Couture 2010 collection, “liquid metal” silk, an ideal fabric for re-constituting a natty Na'vi lady.

And at Valentino, one felt transported up, or down, to Pandora by virtual trees projected in the walls of the medieval convent hospital where the show was staged.
Futurist landscapes and ecological prints all echoed the hit film mirrored. So, too did the makeup – one final look in Gaultier had a Na'vi golden nose bridge and the pale signature blue of Avatar.

“I saw Avatar' and I began thinking of nature and ecology, and the Latin American tropics,” Jean Paul Gaultier told me, seconds after posing for photos with Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko. Incan femme fatales in warrior woman armor and Aztec sacrificial virgins all appeared before we got a lusty Latino “Touch of Evil” finale with tough gal jumpsuits.
Chez Chanel, Lagerfeld served up space age romanticism, with a silver baroness finish. Hair was twisted to look like large blossoms, with a silver bow at front. Everything from the banquette seats and baroque boots, metal belts and fingerless mittens were in platinum. Chiffon and silk pastel dresses boasted metallic paisley embellishments, like creepers twisting around Neytiri. Over at Armani Prive, the Italian designer’s couture collection, Giorgio’s favourite effect was a fabric called “aurora borealis”, where the polar lights seemed to shine out of silk jacquard suits and cocktail dresses. It certainly wowed Armani’s audience who lustily applauded from a front row featuring Anne Hathaway, Claudia Cardinale, Kurylenko and Tina Turner. Valentino’s staging summed up the eco-techno mood: huge digital trees by Los Angeles installation artist, Jennifer Steinkamp, rotated on the walls; and what did couturiers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli named the collection? “Hidden Eden,” said Pier Paolo.

One sometimes wonders who actually buys couture, though plenty of beautiful women certainly wear it. They certainly do at Valentino, whose fans number young beauties like Bianca Brandolini, Fendi heir Delfina Delettrez, Latin American socialite Tatiana Santo Domingo and Dasha Zhukova, the girlfriend of a Russian billionaire and Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.

Not everyone was Avatared; some were off to the races. Like John Galliano at Christian Dior, who referenced the late 19th century Ladies Who Hunt that inspired Charles James, the American designer whose extravagant shapes Christian Dior echoed in the development of the 1947 New Look show, still the most influential collection ever made. This new haute horsy moment included strictly cut riding jackets, with black velvet collars and flared waists, and long pleated skirts, ideal for dressage on a sidesaddle. “I think women always look pretty sexy in riding gear. But what John did today was take it to another, more extravagant and beautiful level,” Kylie Minogue, looking splendid in a black and white check Dior dress, told me seconds after Galliano took his bow as a master huntsman in boots, jodhpurs, redingote and top hat and whip.

Hard-edged sensuality dominated at Givenchy, whose couturier Riccardo Tisci’s jazzed up tuxedos with waistlines of ostrich, vulture and nandou feathers.
“Beauty, early ‘70s Paris, erotica and Serge Lutens,” explained Tisci, referring to the French perfumer, who did makeup and hair for shoots by photographers as esteemed as Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.

Anne Valérie Hash, a fledgling couturier, dreamed up an intellectual concept; she wrote to a selection of her heroes, requesting they send a personal object, which Hash then melded into individual garments. The result? Pajamas from Alber Elbaz’s became a trompe l'oeil jumpsuit; Pete Doherty’s hussar jacket’s morphed into lapel linings and Tilda Swinton’s T-shirt, became central panels in jackets. Recycled Couture ruled.

Wednesday was an evening of competing parties. A throng of fashionistas, and some quite respectable people, begged for entrance to Kate Moss’ launch party for her for Longchamp bag collection. There, French lovers of a good fete – Audrey Marnay, Clotilde Courau and Loulou de la Falaise, grooved to the funky mix of per London duo Queens of Noize.

Across Place Vendome, Lauren Santo Domingo, Vahina Giocante and our vote for the prettiest girl of the whole season – the soulful and not too pouting Monaco Princess, Charlotte Casiraghi – enjoyed a Lauren’s brother, DJ Julio, was spinning a techno mix as the bubbly flowed late.

But the season’s hippest moment was Russian super model Natalia Vodianova unveiling of her lingerie line for Etam on a runway above The Ritz hotel’s pool. Hilary Swank, Eva Herzigova, French movie stars Melanie Laurent and Romain Duris, London “It Gal” Alice Dellal, and a slew of Russian catwalkers including Marina Linchuk, all dined on lobster, risotto and champagne at Vodianova’s cool dinner party.

Besides the Natalia’s undies, the Etam crowd was lured by the chance to enjoy a mini performance by Charlotte Gainsbourg, the chanteuse of the moment. Cuts from her latest hot album, IRM, made up the sound track of Gucci’s highly acclaimed men’s wear show last week in Milan.

Staged on a custom made catwalk above the swimming pool of The Ritz hotel, the show was packed to the gills. Literally hundreds of fans were crammed onto the ornate wrought iron stairways.

“Adorable, sexy and fun,” was Swank’s comment on the show, as she sipped bubbly at a VIP post show dinner in the Hotel d’Evreux, a grand mansion located next door to the swanky hotel.

The mood on the catwalk before hand swung from Fifties glamour to modern techno to racy after midnight, especially Brazilian star Isabelli Fontana in black lace and pearls hit the runway in the show. It was not quite Victoria’s Secret’s; though one suspects that Etam could mount a major global push with this collection, when it fine-tunes its offer. The French brand has certainly the know-how and financial muscle.

Post show and concert, ace fashion party DJ Mark Ronson waxed the stacks, dressed, somewhat bizarrely, but rather elegantly in a steel gray tweed suit.

Me? Well, I had to dance with my two very pretty assistants – Anna Federova and Janina Constantin – and, of course, the best dressed gal of couture week – Bianca Brandolini. You are right. It is a tough station, but someone has to do it.

Paris Homme, Battle of the Great Coat

2010-02-03T01:54:44-05:00

Talk about dressing for battle. If there was a defining garment on the Paris runways during the recently completed Men’s Fall 2010 season, it was the “Great Coat.”

It was as if everyone was girding for conflict, not an actual fight, but handling the Great Recession with a little bit of style and aplomb; so we got a mega return of the Great Coat, though in the classiest of materials, with graphic lines and collage-style finishes and a silhouette that was high-tech, yet also rather Edwardian. The Great Coat, by the way, is a deep pocketed, hefty coat of military origins that was one of the first garments mass-produced in the Industrial Revolution. This season in Paris it marched refined, bonded, striped and frequently in contrasting colors, of torso and arm.

Take Louis Vuitton, which looked east to Vienna, in a show inspired by Egon Schiele and, wait for it, Franz Kafka. But far from paranoia, we got the most authoritative of collections, where the clothes were more engineered than cut. The house’s men’s Designer, Paul Helbers, managed to set the agenda for the season with some very natty bonded calf leather coats, a great cross between high tech creative on a global mission meets, Gattaca cool kid.

Helbers is no slouch at accessories either. His nattiest idea was a riding boot dissected at the ankle with horizontal zips and trimmed in gold just above the heel. Shown in contrasting colors of teak and anthracite, these were instant collector items.

The Great Coat, with tragic over tones was also the key to the last men’s show of the season, by Josephus Thimister, albeit in his debut haute couture collection. Inspired by the Russian Revolution and named “Bloodshed & Opulence,” it featured class struggle victims and bloodied Cossack troops, modelled by dashing male models, mixed in with females in couture pieces. Men and women wore similar fabrics and colors – from khaki green wool to blood red satin – and this show won our vote for the coats of the season – from the Imperial officer great coat with red fur lining to the Constructivist artist in an ankle reaching ecru idea.

It was very much a season of contrasts, like at Lanvin, where dramatic trench coats had suede torsos but arms in woven wool. And if things got too hot, zips at the armpits allowed you to unburden yourself of the sleeves.

Even the boots – like practically every men’s shows in Paris there were no sneakers at Lanvin – were a contrast: either bowling shoe feet and felt wool uppers; or Captain Kirk-goes-hiking boots, shiny leather below the ankle, technical nylon above. Dries Van Noten was all about dissimilarity too. His opening look was a military navy blue coats and a bowling jacket in serge wool with beige trench coat arms.

And the sense of protection was also apparent at Dior Homme, whose designer, Kris Van Assche, introduced the modern plenipotentiary’s coat, a minimalist A-line coat that floats away from the body. We got a similar story at the men’s debut of Roland Mouret, whose hipster plenipotentiary coat, came with shoulder loops, and looked ideal for a major league curator to swan around a foreign museum’s opening.

Wrapping up men was a strong theme, underlined by a technique of displacing a jacket’s buttons to the wearer’s left. Yves Saint Laurent featured multi pleat pants under the splendid wraparound trenches with the central buttons shifted three inches.

Another example of the new volumes was the latest fashion brand extension, where Acne presented a series of Surrealist furniture; each piece blown up after the Swedish high-street label’s Creative Director, Jonny Johansson elongated the designs on a computer. Made of various hues of denim, and displayed in Karl Lagerfeld’s giant former pad on the rue de l’Université, the Acne furniture had a dreamlike De Chirico perspective.

At Hermes, a label justly famous for its marriage of innovation and tradition, the cleverest looks were in seersucker, but not the usual threads in cotton or linen, instead more unusually in wool. Hermes Designer, Veronique Nichanian, is a master of the understated patrician and one look – a combo of cashmere cardigan, tucked in scarf and midnight blue double breasted velvet jacket was possibly the single most elegant passage of the whole Continental season.

But we also got a blast of funky earthiness, like at Paul Smith, who called his collection “European Rocker,” in an homage to his clients, who range from Franz Ferdinand to Mick Jagger. Sir Paul’s best idea was tweaking a tuxedo with a knit wool lapel, ideal for an after party in the Standard’s roof top bar, or reinventing the dress shirt by combining a ruffled white bib with a ribbed gray cotton jersey.

Or at Jean Paul Gaultier, where the models and the designer had faces covered in fake bruises and blood, in his boxing-themed show. Backstage the battered-looking Gaultier posed with rapper Chris Brown – who toured the Milan and Paris men’s shows publicly looking for a fashion link-up. All rather ironic at Gaultier, seeing as 11 months ago this same rap singer assaulted his then girlfriend Rihanna, and left her truly bloodied and bruised.

There was also room for quirky eccentricity – like at John Galliano, where jets of fire burst out of the metal catwalk and the backdrop was a huge spyglass, which made sense as the timely, inspiration was Sherlock Holmes. “It was more Holmes shooting up cocaine like in the books, than just smoking opium like in the movies,” laughed Galliano backstage, after showing the Victorian detective morphing into a Thai kick boxer, going from Edwardian top coats to purple fleece jackets and yellow silk boxing pants.

And Paris has always loved a wacky accessory for guys, and this season it turned out to be the bib; shown at Givenchy in ruffled white cotton and at hot Japanese label, Wooyoungmi, with gray felt bib and bowtie in one unit. In a season of rather exaggerated shapes, Wooyoungmi’s inspiration – silent movie stars who emphasized character with larger than life silhouettes – seemed rather apt.

Call it going into battle, but silently.

Manly Milan, An Alpha moment

2010-01-27T02:53:13-05:00

Think of it as an example of class struggle on the runway. Milan divided into two camps, patrician and posh with lots of emphasis on Italian craftsmanship or workerist and funky, where the buzzword was “authentic.”

Sometimes the two currents appeared in the same event. Take Dolce & Gabbana, who staged their show before a giant screen showing excerpts of Baaria, the new Italian epic of three generations of a Sicilian family, beginning a century ago. Every single model wore boots in this 20th Anniversary show from this duo, pitting Sicilian peasant of their native island in cable woolen cardigans against the dandified aristocrats in strict black velvet suits. The sense of revolt was clear in the finale, when 100 models walked dramatically off the catwalk.

“We would have shown you the whole movie we loved it so much, but at three hours it’s too long for a runway show,” cracked Domenico Dolce.

Typifying the longing for earthy values, designers here showed tuxedos with any but ruffled dress shirts – at Dolce, they paired tuxes with ribbed sweat pants or collarless grandfather shirts; at Gucci over skinny knits; at Burberry over fur stoles. Even the gentlemanly Florentine label Salvatore Ferragamo paired its jacquard smoking jackets with polo necks.

That’s not to say, designers here have lost faith with the future. At Jil Sander the new organizational man appeared in thin suits, sprouting curly panels that acted as belts, clasps and overlaps. Shown on models with waxy hair in plaits, it felt like a new class of Sci-Fi executive had descended from a spaceship to sort out the Sub Prime mortgage crisis. Think “Up In The Air” with designer suits.

Responding to the vicious cold snap that struck Europe, Sander’s Creative Director, Raf Simons displayed taught puffer jacket – the must-have outerwear for Fall 2010. At Emporio Armani, Giorgio sent out a neon green puffer, worn by a snow boarder, more plausible in a club rather than on a piste, and in his signature collection shown three days later, puffers with Chinese toggles, one of the few designers to reference the one booming market for Italian fashion – China.

En route to a Sunday showroom appointment, we bumped into Armani standing outside his historic via Borgonuovo home, attired in a midnight blue velvet coat with Asian clasps, the ultimate self-made-man designer billionaire with the decorum of a Beijing potentate. “China? It’s been keeping lots of Italians in business, and providing plenty of us with inspiration” commented Armani, as lapidary as his designs.

Armani also introduced a natty new suit in sleek, gray chalk stripes. Cut with a long lapel and one-button, the jacket was short and paired with a newly tapered pant, or, more frequently, with ribbed sweatpants, reflecting the current earthy moment. Moncler, the French Alpine puffer jacket specialist owned by Italian entrepreneur Remo Ruffini, devoted its whole show to the item. The designer of its upscale Gamme Bleu collection, Thom Browne staged the whole show in a mock military dorm, where a grumpy sergeant woke up 40 models asleep on pup beds before they were allowed their catwalk moment.

Militarism was an ongoing theme, as designers reflected obliquely or explicitly on the ongoing global conflicts. In an accomplished show, Burberry’s Creative Director, Christopher Bailey got inspiration from aviators Alcock and Brown, who were knighted for making the first Atlantic crossing – during which they stayed warm wearing Burberry shearling flight jackets. Burberry’s new Dam Buster dandies will wear cathedral high collar sheepskin jackets with lots of toggles but on maneuvers to Boujis nightclub, not Bomber Command. At Italy’s fashion growing luxury label, Bottega Veneta showed off duty soldiers in corporals’ parkas and marching boots, though with greased back Rockabilly hair.

But the most authentic moment was Gucci’s return to its equestrian roots, with horse-bit loafers, jodhpur pants with ankle buttons, and weekend bags trimmed with the house’s signature red and green web belt, itself originally inspired by a horse’s saddle girth strap.

“It’s about connecting Italian know-how with innovation. That’s our Gucci heritage,” Gucci’s Designer, Friday Giannini told me post show.

Plus Gucci opened its show with that signature men’s classic, the camel hair coat, as did Prada. Designer and brand owner Miuccia Prada’s other favorites for Fall? Suits in Sergeant Pepper’s Pop Art colors, lurex-like skinny knits in rose and violet or short chauffeur’s jackets with massive cartoon-like buttons.

One of the more fascinating new collections was the second season by Uman, which re-invented a jacket originally designed for Telemark, the traditional form of skiing where the boot is only secured to the ski at the toe. Though it sounds like a odd idea for a jacket, the final result was a remarkably chic look that nipped in at the waist, hugged the neck during the winter winds and, best of all, would look great on the slope or on the street. “Free heel skiing” for free wheeling patricians.

Their big new accessory on the catwalk was a medal: with so many people made redundant in fashion these past six months, it felt like designers were awarding us a prize just for making it to Milan this weekend. Medals were stuck on cummerbunds in Bottega Veneta; while at Roberto Cavalli they shone on rocker jacket lapels and even on chain bumster belts.

And, the curiosity item to refresh your wardrobe this autumn will be a pair of gators; either in purple plaid from Etro, padded in Emporio or in gray felt on eight dandies in black velvet suits in Armani’s signature show.

Despite a turbulent 2010, there were several new launches; John Galliano unveiling his junior rock disco Galliano line with a rock disco party; more low key was the debut of Mr. Nils, by the experienced Swedish Designer Lars Nilsson, whose Italian cashmere and Scandinavian curly wool trim scarf was the best of the season.

If a season’s color palette can predict the global economy, then we warned the dominant hues were ash gray, anthracite, forest green and lots of burgundy. The gray most apparent in a highly accomplished collection by John Varvatos – where all slate gray ensembles featured suits in combat boots, all under faded battleship gray suede coats.

Heritage was also the buzzword at Ermenegildo Zegna, which celebrates its 100th Anniversary this year. Images of the Rationalist style swimming pool and elegant gym the founder built in the Thirties for workers in his Piedmont manufacturing plant were exposed on the brand’s show backdrop, while the models appeared in padded laser cut leather peacoats worn over marching boots with felt uppers. But if the workers were on the screen, executives dominated the catwalk.

If it’s a suit your after, then the bravura finale of some 50 models in a classic super wool single or double breasted, three piece suits or one, two or three button jackets in super fine wool, had the nattiest selection.

Italian fashion went through a tough 2010, but plenty of brands are seeing the tough retail market as a way to extract more favorable long-term leases from landlords. Like Zegna, whose CEO, Gildo Zegna, plans to open 20 new stores this year.
The season ended with a triumphant show from Z Zegna, the techno tailoring collection from the critically acclaimed Designer, Alessandro Sartori. Frayed hems, semi-see-through seams and lean suits cut with surgical precision made for a brilliant display in the art of tailoring, which is not entirely surprising. Sartori means “Tailors” in Italian.

Like we suggested, it’s an Alpha Male fashion moment, in Z Zegna’s case for razor sharp, lean and mean guys.

Oskar, Latin America's Tom Ford

2010-01-20T10:22:06-05:00

If this past week was a good one for any designer it was Oskar Metsavaht, the coolest designer in Brazilian and hippest guy in Rio di Janeiro, the city which just staged its first fashion season since being awarded the honor of tagging the 2016 Olympic Games.

La Cidade Maravilhosa, or Marvelous City as it likes to call itself is on something of a wonderful roll, as is Oskar who staged the debut runway collection of his junior accessories label New Order in Rio, before following that, three days later with a show of his main label Osklen in rival city Sao Paulo. Few creative minds in fashion better represent their own city than Oskar, whose whole aesthetic and oeuvre is linked to Rio, its surfing culture, beach beauty, curvilinear architecture and close contact to nature.

He’s the local equivalent of Western mega successes like Richard Branson, one of those dashing figures that effortlessly attract attention and good company. Sometimes called the “Tom Ford of Latin America”, who like the Texan has achieved success in several métiers, not just fashion.

He originally gained a national reputation when he became the first Brazilian to reach the summit of Mont Blanc. Which is how he took his first steps in fashion – Oskar designed the jacket he wore on that climb, an ascent that began turning into a cult hero here.

Like Ford, Oskar has also shot his own ad campaigns. He photographed his latest on his own inspirational Nirvana, Ipanema Beach, on his ocean front boulevard he lives in a dream like apartment with a beautiful wife and handsome three kids. You see them with Oskar a lot. Matter of fact, his leggy teenage daughter even stepped onto the runway of New Order but only to pick up a dropped French bulldog doll, whose bared teeth were the key logo in this collection’s runway unveiling. New Order already boasts some 37 boutiques, which retail its witty and snazzy perforated leather boots and shoes. “I wanted an easy sense of femininity and an espirito ludico,” explained New Order’s red-haired designer Marianna Arnizaut backstage, using the Portuguese term for playfulness.

Arnizaut’s best trick was a mini dress T-shirt featuring a giant blow up of the eye of, well, a French bulldog. New Order’s show was packed with some 1,500 fans, crammed into a warehouse in the smartly renovated redbrick old complex of Pier Maua, where all the Rio shows were staged. A large portrait of Oskar, with his signature three-day old stubble and action man glint in his eye, hung in a photo show of great Rio characters. Another photography exhibit, hung to look out on the Atlantic Ocean, featured his Fall 2010 campaign for Osklen, including a black and white ad, 16 mm film of Ipanema, with dawn surfers, languid local bodies, visiting favela kids, the giant basalt boulder backdrops or just simple pairs of flip flops. One key Osklen icon are black and white pointy flip flops that reference the sand of Ipanema, its tar macadam boulevard and twisting mosaic walkway by the great Brazilian urbanist and mega landscape gardener Robert Burley Marx.

“Ipanema has always been much more than a beach for me. You can get great beaches in Hawaii. What makes Ipanema unique is its super close meeting of city and beach, of concrete and sand,” Oskar told me at a post-show party for pals and local hipsters.

Staged in a little nightclub, built mysteriously underneath Copacabana Beach, the after hours fete attracted Rio’s best photographer, Vava Ribeiro, known for his colorful images and pin-up boy looks, handsome surfer buddies and this city’s most beautiful resident models. Three days later in Sao Paulo, Oskar unveiled Osklen fall 2010 in Sao Paulo’s Biennale, designed by this country’s greatest visionary, legendary architect Oskar Niemeyer.

Something of Niemeyer designs, whose curvy reinforced architecture reflect the twisting tropical fauna of this lush country, are always apparent in Osklen’s voluminous fashion. I should know, I own three pairs of Osklen’s pants, from buttoned-at-the-ankle jodhpurs to linen trousers than look like a long plant stem, and hang as smoothly.
Plus, Oskar uses wood from reforestation projects and bio-leather tanning, in a credible expression of e-fabrics. A man of science who specialized in sports medicine, Metsavaht is a key figure in creating the e-brigade, a movement whose ideas were apparent in the very fine show he staged Wednesday night in Sao Paulo. Osklen now boasts some boutiques here, New York, Milan, Rome and Saint Tropez, with a Japan store in the pipeline. But for his next trick, Oskar is already onto a new thing. He’s developing a new energy drink based on Guaranara, the local berry that contains twice as much caffeine than coffee. Oskar wants to develop his own healthy drink, free of additives, a Latino answer to Redbull.

“Guys like you and me are going to live to between 90 and 100,” Oskar, a charmer you’ll agree, tells me. “And we’ll need the right liquids to help us get there. I’d like to design that.”

So, get thee ready for Oskar Energy, and octogenarian surfing.

Rio Fashion, Heels First and Striding

2010-01-13T00:53:47-05:00

These past few days in Rio de Janeiro, fashion was a metaphor of Brazil’s emergence a new global leader.

Beside giant visiting French battleships, with Brazil’s Minister of Culture playing the opening concert and with the city hyped up by just winning the right to stage the 2016 Olympics, Rio kicked off its 2010 runway season last week. It was a self-assured display of fashion that told us to expect Gothic, curvilinear shapes, semi-lingerie and frilly, very definitely sexy fashion, often with a conceptual twist, on women six months from now when it next turns autumnal and chilly.

By a curious accident of the international fashion calendar, Rio is the city that first actually presents – on runways – the first looks for Fall 2011. That’s true even if Rio, being in the southern hemisphere, inverts the season, so their next winter or “Inverno 2010” actually starts in June this year.

According to the Brazilian designers we’ve seen in the first four days, women are going to be wearing Chess figure shapes, pawns or more often lady knight silhouettes, with peaked shoulders, nipped waists and curvy hips. We’ve already seen that silhouette last year, and plenty, in Europe, but it did say something about feminine authority, and seemed visually a re-affirmation of independent women proudly showing off their healthy and fit shapes, and not enveloping them in burkhas or body-hiding attire. Judging from the score of shows we’ve seen so far at Fashion Rio, a 27-show, six-day season, there will be lots of Gothic images, fashion as a sort of packaging, with bows on many garments, and a sense that fabrics will be blend of high technology and shaggy earthy finishes – whether wools, cottons or wood-based materials.

If we eventually decide in mid March, after the “Big Four Seasons” – New York, London, Milan and Paris – that there has been little echo any of those ideas, then Rio will be seen as a side show, with little connection to the global zeitgeist.

Yet, it does seem relevant to visit Brazil given, for one thing, recent events at the Copenhagen climate summit, where this country’s leftist President Lula Da Silva allied Brazil with the other members of BRIC, Russia, India, and China. To many in the West this was seen as effectively blocking any meaningful targets for reducing air pollution emissions, ending up with a toothless compromise.

Rio did have loads of ecological petal prints; though they seemed somewhat ironic seeing that Lula threw in his hand with China, so Brazil, the lungs of our planet and a thriving democracy, now is seen standing alongside China, a one-party state with little interest in reining in global emissions. That said, Lula must be the most popular current leader of any democracy; his savvy and common touch clearly works here. Re-entering my hotel room in Ipanema, a recent Cinema Verité-style reportage on local TV seemed to show him apparently intoxicated, while still rendering him more human. I know we are only talking about clothes, but fashion, especially in our visual culture, does say something about our times. Especially as, after the Big Four, Brazil has by far and away the best fashion shows and native designers of any BRIC country. The other three BRICs do have several fashion weeks, Moscow has three seasons, China has Shanghai and Beijing; and India boasts Mumbai and Delhi. Yet, in any top ten ranking, Sao Paolo is surely number five, with Rio arguably tied for sixth with Sydney. Brazil also boasts the two most serious, and independent newspapers in BRIC, La Folha de Sao Paulo and O Globo. Both of them devoted several pages daily to Fashion Rio, whether it be reviews, dish or business coverage. Both these dailies have extensive foreign coverage, so it was fitting that the opening show was Auslander, the German word for foreigner. The collection, ideal for the next Killers video – had clever clubbing looks, but too few ideas, except maybe for the white text on the black shirt worn in the last look by the strikingly handsome local actor Rodrigo Santoro. It read, in English, – “There Isn’t Life Without Blackberry.” This country has large Levantine-origin community, especially in fashion from Lebanon, but if any culture stands diametrically opposed to covering up women, it is Brazil, where the bikinis are so small on Ipanema beach they are called dental floss.
In our view, the best collections so far in Rio have been Melk Z-Da, Luca Nascimento and Coven. Melk Z-Da showed, futurist mini dresses with huge petal collars and crocodile studded jackets ideal for a Brazilian ecological space station of the future. The clothes were a tricky wear, but the overall images were great. Giulia Borges suggested, as many expect, that escapism will be reached this fall, in one of several shows where the models looked like saucy maids at a great after-hours party. Her clothes hugged the figure but bubbled out below the hips in a provocative way, on the same day that local papers reported the French Government would push through legislation this month banning the burkha. The French trainee naval ship Jeanne d’Arc was moored alongside Pier Maua, where all the shows are staged, and a score of French cadets stood to attention when the fashionistas arrived for the opening night party.

Both Victor Dzenk and Printing showed elaborate high-tech floral prints, though none of them struck us as inspired. Except, perhaps, the great jumbled Antique World architecture mélange on Dzenk’s, which did not quite save his show. The audience, and the size of the show, was smaller than in recent seasons. There were less local soap opera stars, but plenty of grand dames; including Betty Lagardere, the clever and stylish Paris-based big-time pal of Karl Lagerfeld.
“I love coming to parties here. And I always prefer that a group contains more men than women,” Betty, an apartment owner here, told O Globo.

Walter Rodrigues had a fine show; Sino-Pacific looks with towering headgear, where the key ensemble were leggings under shorts, a Left Bank in Rio moment. A returning talent, Lucas Nascimento, who has worked with Gilles Deacon in the UK, presented the best chess pieces, tubular cuts of ribbed wools and high-tech threads that had great punch. His taught, mohair degradé to Lurex cocktails were the best looks in Rio.

Filhas de Gaia underlined one major weakness of designers here, mediocre lifting of Northern Hemisphere idea. It’s curvy, floral cutout looks, led one visiting wag to sniff, “Balenciaga remade for JC Penny.” Well put.

However, a sense of regurgitating global trends with a Latin twist made for a strong collection at Coven. Golden hued tartan leggings, abstract expressionist cargo pants and saucy groupie off-the-shoulder cocktails made for a hot moment. Plus, Coven was easily the best staged show, with fantastic Tilda Swinton in the Amazon mad widow hair and a great backdrop – videos projected as if on a huge photo album.

Yet, tellingly, Rio now also seems that bit more arrogant. I know journalists are not meant to be the story, but at half the shows the front-row goody-bags were only exclusively for the local media and celebrities, while the foreign press section got nothing. It was a telling slight.

Brazil also highlighted a global trend of finance, investment funds buying into fashion. In a complicated deal overseen by Nissan Guanes, Brazil’s most brilliant advertising executive, the key three Brazilian seasons – Sao Paulo, and Rio’s two seasons, Fashion Rio and Rio Summer – united under the financial control of fashion fund Luminosidade but managed by the founder of the Sao Paulo season, entrepreneur Paulo Borges.

“We want to highlight the spirit of Brazilian culture, our natural sense of glamour and our creativity,” explained the hyper energetic Borges. Unlike parts of the United States and much of the periphery of Western Europe, which have suffered double-digit declines in gross national product, Brazil weathered the global downturn relatively well. Its GNP did contract in 2009, but by less than two percent, and the country seems to be coming down with sponsors desperate to connect to consumers through fashion. However, this has been a somewhat lackluster season in Rio. Still, fashion is clearly a priority for this government. The Minister of Culture and famed samba star Gilberto Gil played a great set before an elite crowd of Carioca nomenklatura Thursday to open the season. As guests knocked down caprinhas, partygoers took snaps of the huge, yet somehow majestic French trainee battleship, Jeanne d’Arc, moored along the giant restored brick warehouse at Pier Maua, where the shows are all staged. Adding to the sense of global interlocking, French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, was reported in all Brazilian newspapers this week to have called for Brazil to be admitted to the United Nations Security Council. It did not seem like a coincidence. Fashion as metaphor, in this case political, again.

Noughties But Nice

2010-01-06T02:19:12-05:00

Three decades ago when I first got interested in fashion as a posh punk living in the Lower East Side, I read an article in the Village Voice predicting that the most important musician of the future would be the record player. I thought it faintly absurd yet, of course, it is exactly what eventually happened, from Rap and Hip Hop re-inventing sounds by re-assembling its parts in music, to designers dissembling past trends, the better to make them cool and new. So one defining icon of fashion in the Noughties is the DJ, whose mélange of sounds, and key technique of sampling, is a leitmotif for much of what happened in the world of style in the decade just ended.

That much was apparent every time one attended the biggest fashion moment in New York in the past ten years – Marc Jacobs’ mega catwalk events, staged in the Downtown Armory before an audience of 2,000, perched on multiple rows of bleachers, peering down at the scores of celebrities in the front row. To be fair to Jacobs, whatever influence he rifled through, from thrift shop finds to latterly, thanks to his sojourn in Paris with Louis Vuitton, revamping Rei Kawakubo, Pierre Cardin or Yves Saint Laurent, he always managed to make his shows his own. Though, ironically, his soundtracks were rarely a mélange of samples, almost the exact opposite, single rock hits or single classical works put on an extended 15-minute loop.

Like many hipsters, Jacobs began the decade with ironic fashion making clothes for men who wanted to look nerdy and women who thought the path to hipness ran through eccentricity. And, he has not changed that much judging from his most recent show for Louis Vuitton – his last staged in the Noughties – a “Teenage Wasteland” moment for teenagers on Euro-rail train passes or one-way tickets to a Bali rave party.

Sampling is also the key to arguably the decade’s most influential designer – Miuccia Prada. She referenced Jet Set Seventies in her Spring 2000 collection, and deciphered Last Year in Marienbad, that disorientating 1961 surrealist film of haute gamme chateau living, costumed by Coco Chanel, by the way – in her collection for Spring 2010.

Though she’d probably wrinkle at the use of the term for her fashion, Prada’s latest work are right in synch with the biggest trend of the last five years – haute bohemia.

“It’s high-end luxury meets very trashy,” Miuccia told me after her latest show, which featured frayed hems, unstitched fabrics and models with frizzy, pulled back hair and fiery red lipstick, wearing Perspex high heels featuring miniature chandeliers and string vests of crystals. Miuccia’s haute has always been very high end.

Bourgeois bohemia has been the key to one of Milan’s other key shows – Marni. There’s an old acid test of designer cool – how many people wear their clothes to their shows. Well, every woman – editor, stylist, critic, PR gal and buyer – shows up at Marni for a Marni show. And, whether she’s finding inspiration from her grandmother’s jewelry, referencing Mark Rothko or re-looking Chinese wallpaper Marni’s Creative Director, Consuelo Castiglioni always samples too.

Now, while politics and fashion rarely mix well, designers are not extraneous to the political zeitgeist, which was evident in the biggest fabric trend of the mid-Noughties, ecological chic. Fashion did not tell us anything we didn’t already know about global warming but it did sum up the feeling that we are slowly raping the very planet on which we live. From the UK’s mass incineration of Mad Cow Disease cattle to disappearing glaciers in the Alps, we Europeans did not have to look far. But what fashion captured was the sense of foreboding; in fabrics sourced from nature yet alarmingly decayed, with petals almost radioactively destroyed. The stand out vision of this trend was surely Dries Van Noten’s Spring 2008 collection, where the telling element was the remarkable washed out, blurred, smeared or hyper magnified flowery patterns that characterized his brilliantly apprehensive materials.

These last three named designers, however, are exceptions to another recent phenomena, as they still own their own businesses. That makes them anomalies in an era where the average designer is a hired gun, in the employ of a mega a luxury conglomerate. Who is the most famous designer in the world? Arguably Karl Lagerfeld, Europe’s greatest talker since Oscar Wilde and the man who just staged the standout show of the last Paris season with Chanel. Well, in all three of his main workplaces, at Chanel, Fendi and his own signature label – Karl doesn’t own a single share in the business. Not that working for someone else implies weaker fashion. Far from it; take Gucci, the great success story of the Nineties under the guidance of Tom Ford, became, if anything, a more successful brand, in the Noughties in the hands of Creative Director, Frida Giannini. Her ability to mesh Italian heritage with sexy innovation has become a lesson to the whole industry, and a sign of things to come in this decade. Or take the UK, where the most acclaimed designers where generally half-bankrupt Indies. But today, on the contrary, it is Christopher Bailey of mega label Burberry.

One dangerous trend, we are happy to report, peaking and fading away was the surfacing of the celebrity designer. Ten years ago performers like Puff Daddy, J Lo and Gwen Stefani threatened to take over the industry – leveraging their name recognition into style firepower. Today none of the above even stage shows; and we all remember what happened to the latest entrant, Lindsay Lohan at Ungaro, she got the most critical lambasting in eons. Looking ahead, I’d expect other key recent obsessions to continue – the emergence of China and Russia, though more as consumers than creators, and the end of Minimalism – who wants to look understated when the economy is so depressing. The growing influence of Asian-American designers will also surely continue, especially that of Alexander Wang and Doo Ri; but if I had to pick a region of coming inspiration, I’d suggest Levantine designers – talent from Turkey, Lebanon and Israel will find its day in the sun. And expect the recent obsession of very distant mid-sized cities opening their very own Fashion Weeks to grow. This past year I got invites everywhere from Yerevan to Belo Horizonte. Hands up how many of you know in which country both these ‘burbs are located? Thought so.

And, do expect more and more escapist fashion. Historically, glum economies produced gay fashion, and that will be the case this decade.

Unfortunately, I still see fast fashion, and high street brands ripping off real designers, continuing – I just walked by a Zara flagship and the main window had a leather and faux bullion hussar jacket that was a shameless lift from Balmain. But, maybe not for ever. Sooner or later, ecological concerns will lead governments to start taxing travel, in many ways the biggest source of pollution. Absurdly, despite the damage planes do to the atmosphere, no country in the world taxes jet fuel. And as that happens, a new era of slow travel and slow fashion will emerge, when trunks, and not wheelies, will rule, and we’ll all take extended holidays once a year to places we’ll get to by cruising or sailing. And the time when the hipster highlight of the year – the final party weekend in Ibiza, reached on a cheap Easyjet ticket – will seem a distant memory.