Archive for March 2011

Hollywood’s Most Powerful Stylists: The Complete List

We’ve become huge fans of the Hollywood Reporter over the last few months, mostly due to Janice Min’s excellent makeover of the trade publication. Staffer Merle Ginsberg navigates the LA fashion scene with an entertaining mix of gossip, insider news, and general knowledge that is not only rare for the West Coast, but rare for fashion writing in general.

So we were thrilled to see Ginsberg’s list of the 25 most powerful stylists in Hollywood covering this week’s issue. Rachel Zoe obviously ranks number one, with names like Nicole Chavez, Annabel Tollman, Brad Goreski, Leslie Fremar, and Kate Young rounding it out. See the full list below, and read the Zoe cover story here.

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Fashion News Roundup

Fashion News Roundup: Claudia Schiffer Swears Off the Runway, Cathy Horyn’s Bitch Session and Dahl Gets Lyracal

Resurrection Has Been Erected Online: The fabulous vintage boutique, owned by designer Katy Rodriguez, now boasts an e-commerce store. {Racked NY}

Admit It, You’re Obsessed With Vampire Diaries: Now you can win a trip to the set of the guilty pleasure television series. {Teen Vogue}

Sophie Dahl’s Second Baby is Named Lyra: That’s a weird name but still cute, so we approve. {Daily Mail}

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Fashion Is Fun

Watch: James Franco and Aggy Deyn in a Strange, Seemingly Pointless Series of Engrossing Videos

James Franco is the hottest, strangest, weirdo in the world. Agyness Deyn is a gorgeous, rebel supermodel. Watch as they oddly flirt in this series of home videos, filmed by Mr. Franco himself.

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Reviews

Louis Vuitton Fall 2011: Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and More Walk Marc Jacobs’ “Fetish” Show

Leave it to Marc Jacobs to put on the most lavish and possibly most expensive show of Paris fashion week for Louis Vuitton.

The tent for the show at the Cour Carrée du Louvre was all in black and surrounded by big black balloons–a hint that something playful and naughty was to come. Inside a fleet of women dressed as chambermaids–white collars, black skirts, feather dusters–escorted editors and buyers to their seats and served coffee and champagne (whichever you prefer to start your day off with). The runway was more of a stage–a black glossy square with a set of three ornate old-fashioned cage elevators at the center. You can guess where this is going: models, all 67 of them (including Kate Moss, Raquel Zimmerman, Naomi Campbell and Amber Valletta), entered the runway from the elevators, which were operated, naturally, by uniformed older gentlemen who opened the door every time a model ascended.

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Streetwalker

Street Style: Charlotte’s Style is Timeless

Name: Charlotte

Age: 20

Occupation: Communications director of Birdcage magazine

How would you describe your style? Classic with a mix of trends. I like simple and timeless pieces.

What is currently on your iPod? Black Eyes, and “Dog Days are Over” by Florence and The Machine.

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People Are Talking

Confession: I Really Want Alber to Get the Dior Job

Tweeters at Style.com said that they didn’t want to “add to the Dior rumor mill” yesterday when they revealed that “people in Paris are asking, why has the Lanvin team been in tears all day?”

But of course they did, and now everyone is wondering why Jason Wu was sitting front row at Lanvin. When asked by WWD, the young American designer simply said, “Mrs. Wang asked me.” Mrs. Wang is the owner of the Lanvin fashion house.

Whether or not this means anything is difficult to determine. So I’m going to put my common sense hat on for a moment. Common sense tells me that Riccardo Tisci is definitely, definitely the next Dior designer. Sources inside the house of Dior–sources whom I trust–have told me as much. But it’s all just rumors, right? Even Derek Blasberg‘s “confirmation” is still just a rumor. We won’t have a solid answer until LVMH releases an official statement.

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Beauty

How To Get Pink Hair (We Tried It!)

I just dyed my hair pink. It’s the perfect moment in fashion to do such a silly thing–we noticed the pink hair trend a few weeks ago and the Telegraph just did a piece on Charlotte Free, the pink-haired model who’s walked everywhere this season. So I decided to take the Pepto-Bismol plunge.

When people look at me quizzically, I’ve been telling them, “Oh, I did it for a story.” Just like Holly Millea, who is my beauty editor idol. (She’s the one who writes about her “Beauty Adventures” for Elle–she’s been practically maimed in the pursuit of beauty. I love her.) I’m lucky to have a job where such experimentation is allowed, nay, encouraged. But the truth is, I’ve always wanted to try pink hair. When Gwen Stefani had that pink 70s feathered ‘do, I was smitten. Now I finally had an excuse.

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American Apparel’s Dov Charney Accused of Using Teenage Employee As Sex Slave

American Apparel founder Dov Charney is being accused of keeping a teenage employee captive and forcing her to perform sex acts on him in a new suit filed last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court, the NY Daily News is reporting.

The plaintiff, Irene Morales, now 20, began working for American Apparel when she was 17 as a salesperson at the brand’s Chelsea outpost. According to the suit, in April of 2008 when Morales was 18, Charney invited her over to his Manhattan apartment, greeted her in nothing but briefs, and “forced her to go down on her knees just inside the front door and perform fellatio upon him.” Then Charney reportedly forced Morales to perform the same act on the bed, “nearly suffocating her in the process.”

The horrifying accusations go on from there.

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People Are Talking

A Gazillion Fashion Insiders ‘Confirm’ That Riccardo Tisci is in at Dior…Via Twitter

Despite the fact that we’re really not sure if John Galliano has been legally released from his contract at Dior, a bunch of fashion people are swearing on their grandma’s graves that Riccardo Tisci is confirmed as his successor at the storied French fashion house. (Actually, other than Derek Blasberg, they’re just casually hinting, but same difference.)

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Reviews

Chanel Fall 2011: A Grunge Moment

Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

PARIS–It was not the transformation of the massive grounds of the Grand Palais, with black sand, volcanic rocks and remnants of smoke smoldering underneath the long wooden platform, running nearly the entire length of the exhibition hall built in 1900 for the Universal Exposition. It was not the wall-sized images of burnt trees etched onto ceiling-height Styrofoam boards, which made the rectangular hall feel like the inside of a deep crater. And surely it was not the amount of looks that came out, nearly 80, with models traversing the length of the wooden platform from both sides of the rooms when the light bridges were lowered.

Instead, the most impressive and outstanding achievement at this morning’s Chanel show occurred when the models came out for the finale stood together with Mr. Karl Lagerfeld in the middle of the platform as the smoke intensified from underneath.

Why? Because that moment illuminated how relevant he has made Chanel to the lives of women now. This was also the essence of the couture show in January, where the classic Chanel skirt suits, cleansed of surface decorations, were paired with stretch jeans, thus breaking the formality of a couture look. In this ready-to-wear show, the designer went further to propose easy and elegant clothes without the fussiness of looking like you were wearing, well, Chanel.

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  • Long Nguyen
  • Tuesday, Mar 8, 2011 / 6:37 PM
  • 6 Comments
Reviews

Comme Des Garçons Fall 2011: Hybrid Fashion

Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

Enclosed in the envelope with the invitation to the Comme des Garçons show last Saturday afternoon, which took place inside a small hall at the Hôtel de la Monnaie, was a small printed card. “Comme des Garçons will have extremely limited seating this season. This is Kawakubo’s design; please kindly understand that your regular seat will not be possible. Thank you.”

And so it was: At the show, there were only two small bleachers and two rows of chairs, which formed a square for the models to traverse perpendicularly to and from one corner.

At any Comme des Garçons show, it is always the fashion that matters, not the hierarchy. It was ironic that a note was sent to the few people invited asking them, in essence, to temporarily suspend their habits. By the time the sound of footsteps on the wooden bleachers ceased and the first model walked out in a long, shiny, black python print trench–without any back but instead tied together at the shoulder–the audience knew they were in for a fashion treat.

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  • Long Nguyen
  • Tuesday, Mar 8, 2011 / 6:30 PM
  • 4 Comments
Reviews

Ungaro Fall 2011: Sexy, Sexual, Sex, Sex, Sex

PARIS–“Haven’t we met before?” was the first thing Giles Deacon said to me as we chatted backstage after the show. I told him that yes, we had indeed met, but in far less glamorous circumstances, when I bartended in East London as a student, and pulled him a pint or two. “You must have made me lots of drinks then!” he said with a laugh. That sums up Giles Deacon in a sentence: unafraid to have a good time, whether in a crumby pub or at the Italian Embassy, where his second Ungaro show was held.

The collection was definitely better suited to a cocktail at the embassy than a beer in a dive bar: Giles presented a fearlessly sexual woman–a playboy bunny at times, a dominatrix at others. Referring to Ungaro’s famous comment that he “dresses mistresses rather than wives,” Deacon borrowed and condensed all codes of sexuality and taboo onto one catwalk.

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