Archive for October 2011

Campaigns

Check Out the Full Boy by Band of Outsiders Fall Campaign Starring Actress Elena Anaya

Since Scott Sternberg released the polaroids of Harry Potter’s Rupert Grint and Tom Felton that would act as Band of Outsiders’ fall menswear campaign, we’ve been anxiously awaiting the debut of the women’s counterpart, and here it finally is!

This one features gorgeous Spanish actress Elena Anaya, who stars opposite Antonio Banderas in the new Pedro Almodóvar film, The Skin I Live In. Sternberg’s fall collection for Boy had a late ’70s preppy tomboyish charm that comes alive in these polaroids, which he shot about a week ago at a private residence in Beverly Hills. I’m not sure if it’s the hazy L.A. backdrop or Anaya’s jealousy-inducing physical perfection, but they make me want to buy everything in this collection even more than I already did. Click through to see them all!

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News

Jean Paul Gaultier Designed a Bar of Gold

By Hayley Phelan Wednesday, Oct 12, 2011 / 11:00 AM


In these unstable financial times, experts say that investing in gold may be your safest bet. That’s good news for Jean Paul Gaultier, who recently designed a one-off gold bar for French gold investment company CPoR Devises, WWD reports.

The gold bar, which unsurprisingly bares a heart and JPG logo, will go up for sale on the open market this Friday, October 14. Read more »

Entertainment

Karl Lagerfeld Shot Elizabeth Olsen for a Coffee Table Book

Is Karl Lagerfeld doing a coffee table book? While we haven’t heard anything confirming that, the modern day renaissance man, who seems to announce a new project every week, spent some time with Mary-Kate and Ashley’s little sis recently. Elizabeth Olsen is the subject of a new Times profile, in which she reveals that the Kaiser made her over an hour late to her interview because he was photographing her for a coffee table book:

The Chanel designer had been shooting her for a coffee table book, and the photo session had gone long. She modeled an oversize classic Chanel tweed jacket for him. ‘I didn’t get to keep it,’ she said, laughing as she pointed to her own nondescript sweater and T-shirt.

Olsen has been getting plenty of positive attention from the fashion world (a Nylon cover, an Elle Women in Hollywood award, etc.), but as ridiculous as it sounds, working with Karl is like the official stamp of approval.

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Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli Will Have a ‘Conversation’ at the Met’s Next Costume Institute Exhibit

More details have emerged about the Met’s next Costume Institute exhibit “Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: On Fashion.” According to WWD, the exhibit will be presented as an “anachronistic conversation” between Prada and Schiaparelli, which is a concept that was inspired by the “Impossible Interviews” in Vanity Fair from the 1930s.

So why Schiaparelli? The Costume Institute received some Schiaparelli pieces after it acquired the Brooklyn Museum’s extensive Costume Collection in 2009, so that was the starting point. From then, it seemed to organizers that Miuccia would be a logical counterpoint–both strong women designers, both Italian, both with unique points of view, both with art world connections.

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Shopping

Here It Is: Giambattista Valli for Macy’s, the Entire Collection

Macy’s previewed the latest installment in their designer collaboration series last night at a private space in the Meatpacking district. Next up, as you know, is Giambattista Valli, whose fun over-the-top flirty Paris show this season was attended by brand devotees like Inès de La Fressange, Lee Radziwill and Olivia Palermo. Valli’s mod multi-textured color-blocked shifts have a fashionista following for good reason, so we were excited to see what his lower priced collection for Macy’s contemporary division “Impulse” would look like.

Valli is all about cocktail dresses, so there were plenty of those–our favorite was the black shift with leopard blocks and a bold red stripe that recalls his spring 2011 collection. The all-over leopard pieces–a chic day coat and matching tuxedo pants–should fly off the shelves, too. It’s a small-ish collection, just 30 pieces compared with Karl Lagerfeld’s 45 piece collection for the retailer, but there are plenty of perfect party frocks, skirts embellished with petals, and cute sequined tees to outfit you for the holiday season.

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Fashion Week

Street Style Fodder from the Spring 2012 Collections

Every season, we notice a few key designer items that populate street style blogs more consistently than others. They’re those must-have, eye-catching pieces that end up on waiting lists because editors and other girls about town snatch them up first (probably on Moda Operandi, long before they hit stores). And then we see them on street style sites on the backs of people like Anna Dello Russo and Carine Roitfeld and Emmanuelle Alt. Lately, it’s been Isabel Marant jeans, Celine everything, Miu Miu booties. But what will it be next spring?

We’ve taken another look at the spring 2012 collections to predict what we think will be catching the eyes of Scott, Tommy, Phil et al come February. Or, alternately, here is what we think those of you hoping to end up on a street style site, should wear.

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Rants

All Eyes on the Editors: Has Street Style Photography Created a New Unattainable Ideal for Women?

There’s no doubt about it: With the advent of street style blogs like The Sartorialist, Tommy Ton for Style.com, the Street Peeper and Altamira NYC, the landscape of Fashion Week has changed. With fashion editors’ and stylists’ outfits now being meticulously covered, what goes on off the runway has nearly eclipsed the collections.

Anyone who’s recently attended fashion week–or hell, anyone who’s been on the internet in the past year–will notice that the frenzy surrounding street style during fashion week has reached a fever pitch. Swarms of photographers crowd around the latest street style It-girl, angling (and sometimes shoving each other) to get the best picture. Unknowing tourists stop in their tracks, staring agape at the spectacle–some even start taking their own photos, thinking it must be a celebrity. Industry wannabes, dressed in over-the-top fashions, walk by “casually,” desperately hoping to catch the eye of a photographer.

Fashion week used to be a civilized industry event. Now it’s become a media circus, with both established editors, actresses and unknowns going to crazy lengths to get their fifteen minutes.Teen Vogue‘s Mary-Kate Steinmiller, who is street style fodder herself, told us, “I think everyone (yes, myself included) is guilty of what I like to call ‘peacocking’ and ‘baiting the razzi.’” Other editors have admitted to us that they’ve spent weeks prepping for the event, meticulously planning each outfit. One told us that she would change mid-day if she felt her outfit wasn’t up to snuff.

This deliberateness has surely had an effect on the authenticity of street style photography.

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Fashion Week

Maiyet, a Label With a Social Conscience, Debuts at Paris Fashion Week

The fashion industry isn’t generally concerned with social justice or making the world a better place. Just making it prettier. But new label Maiyet aims to do both.

Maiyet, which is named for the Egyptian goddess of truth and harmony, is the brainchild of South African human rights lawyer Paul van Zyl and industry vet Kristy Caylor (she was most recently the president of Band of Outsiders). “Part of this idea was to try to find a way of restoring prosperity to communities which had been through hard times,” van Zyl said. “So the idea was to find artisans who have this very rare skill and to elevate that into something beautiful and to allow them to derive greater value from their craft and to return the prosperity to them.”

What that means is that Maiyet partners with artisans in communities in India, Colombia, Kenya and Indonesia (to name a few countries) and works their craft into design elements of the line. “We take their skill set and do the design work ourselves and harness that skill set into their looks,” Caylor said. Maiyet then works with these artisans to develop their crafts over time and bring value back to the community–no plundering here. To find these artisans, Caylor and van Zyl took 25 international trips over six months. “We scoured the earth from places we both wanted to work with from a social perspective but also from a product perspective,” Caylor said.

And the end product?

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Entertainment

Watch: Coco Rocha Talks Starting Modeling Too Young and Being Too Big for a Job on Anderson Cooper’s Show

By Cheryl Wischhover Tuesday, Oct 11, 2011 / 4:30 PM

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Anderson Cooper had models Coco Rocha and Carré Otis as guests on his daytime show Anderson today, and they talked about two of the hot-button topics in modeling right now: size and age. Read more »

Retail

We Break Down Uniqlo’s New 89,000 Square Foot Fifth Ave. Store by the Numbers, Plus U.S. CEO Shin Odake Talks Expansion Plans and Replacing +J

As you may have heard (or undoubtedly noticed if you’ve ever passed by the main drags of Fifth Avenue or West 34th in the past year), Uniqlo is preparing to open two new stores in Manhattan. An 89,000 square foot global flagship on Fifth Avenue and 53rd St. opens this Friday, followed by a slightly more modest 65,000 square foot flagship on 34th between Fifth and Sixth Aves. next Friday.

I chatted briefly with U.S. CEO Shin Odake, who had flown in from Japan for the launch. With the economy where it is, now may seem like an unlikely time to open the company’s biggest store ever. Odake disagrees. “We don’t focus on the fact that the economy is struggling; we are more focused on the fact that the U.S. is the biggest market in the world so since we came across this real estate, we felt this was great timing.” In addition to the 34th street store, Odake is currently looking to expand into other cities in the U.S. “Our vision is to be the number one retailer in the world and by 2020, we want to do 50 million U.S. dollars worldwide. Eventually, we want to open a store in every city.”

In terms of merchandise, having successfully made a name for themselves with cashmere sweaters and designer collabs, Uniqlo’s current focus is innovative fabrics, like Heattech, which they are promoting for the launch ($12.90 down from $19.90 for a long-sleeve tee). To develop the fabrics, they partner with select manufacturers, like Japan-based Toray Industries, who actually have a team of people working out of Uniqlo’s offices. “We don’t buy fabric just because that’s a trendy fabric for the season or the prices are attractive; we want to create a long-term partnership with fabric brands.” And of course, what’s on everyone’s minds: what, if anything, will replace Jil Sander’s +J collaboration?

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old TV
Entertainment

Get Your DVR Ready: Here’s Our Guide to All the New Fashion TV Shows

Remember waaay back in 2004, when the first-ever designer was auf’d on Project Runway, and there was still a glimmer of hope that ANTM might actually find America’s next top model? We secretly practiced smizing in the mirror and cringed at the prospect of boring Nina. Well, things have gotten a lot more complex since those simple times–for better or worse (but mostly better!). While we still love our old faves, it’s always nice to mix it up a bit and keep the DVR busy–especially when it comes to fashion television.

This fall and beyond offers a slew of exciting (and at times, a little repetitive) new fashionably oriented reality shows: From competitions searching for even more amazing new talents, to docu-series following our already much-loved fash peeps (hello, Brad!), to a behind-the-counter look at one of our go-to shopping spots. These shows are like shoes–you can really never have too many. (Though you might stop wearing shoes all together. You don’t really need them for sitting on the couch, do you?)

So which ones are you watching? Ready, set, “Record Series!”

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Fashion Careers

SWELL needs a Communications Intern!

SWELL is a well-regarded and continually emerging creative agency, focusing on but not limited to luxury fashion/beauty brands. Clients and collaborators include Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Free People, Love Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Craig McDean, etc. The environment is perpetually thrilling — we’re taking on new exciting clients all the time and the creative forces are quite strong with us.

One huge portion of our business is communication. Online and offline, we are working to engage our community and beyond with our client’s message as well as our own brand’s. A SWELL communications intern would be a social media maven, having extensive knowledge of, and in contact with top bloggers; handle community management — this includes assisting the Communications Manager in the maintaining of a strong, consistent message, and it definitely includes having expectation-exceeding verbal, written and proof-reading skills; revising, updating and maintenance of databases; a passion for relating publicly (PR). We are excited to work with outside-in thinkers, who have a clear understanding of integrated marketing and are keen on working with an extremely creative crew.

Requirements:
• Dependable/reliable
• Good-natured; confident
• Detail oriented; organized

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