Author
Dhani Mau
Posts by Dhani Mau
It’s no secret that we are big Honor fans here at Fashionista. Just about every collections Giovanna Randall has shown thus far in her relatively young career as a designer has been so beautiful and elegant that it takes our breath away. Her fall outing, inspired by “this preppy boy on his semester abroad in college and meeting an exotic woman from South or Central America and how their styles mix together” was no exception. Not that it was more of the same. The prints–a big rose print and a geometric art deco print–were new and as Randall explained, she “took it a little bid bolder” this season.
That boldness could be seen in strong reds and purples and gorgeous big box-shaped bags. Still, she mainly stuck to wearable, classic silhouettes, as she tends to do. We were actually surprised by the lack of red carpet-worthy gowns, considering her burgeoning popularity with Hollywood starlets like Kirsten Dunst and Shailene Woodley, who was in the front row looking like the low-key, five-finger shoe wearing, former American Apparel employee she truly is.
We were also a bit surprised by, but really into, these cool jumpsuits with wide, pleated legs–which was what a 5 1/2 months pregnant Randall was wearing. She looked amazing and told us that while she doesn’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, she is “definitely going to be making clothes” for him or her. She said she doesn’t know if she’ll start a line, but could you imagine how adorable tiny Honor dresses would be? I couldn’t handle. Click through for the full collection!
Reviews
Richard Chai and Richard Chai Love Fall 2012: Function Meets Fashion From Filson’s New Creative Director
By Dhani MauFresh off the heels of his appointment as Creative Director of Filson, Richard Chai showed a strong collection of functional, utilitarian, minimalist (for him) clothes with a ’90s grunge feel that was very true to his aesthetic.
Backstage, in between air-kisses with Poppy Delevigne and telling models about the after party, the designer told us: “Last season was really eclectic and colorful and a real mashup and this season I really wanted to strip everything away and get back to the idea of really accessible, approachable clothes, [but] in a really aspirational way. I didn’t want to create looks just for the sake of it being a show. I really wanted to take clothes and make it things that people want to wear and look cool wearing.” I think he succeeded because I did want to wear a lot of those clothes–especially the striped dresses and plaid coats. What I really loved was that it felt like a true fall collection of clothes that, head-to-toe, are actually practical to wear in fall and winter. Read more »
Fashion Week
Nicola Formichetti on Azealia Banks: How Twitter Brought Them Together and What Banks’ New Video Will Look Like
By Dhani Mau
We’re still waiting for our favorite up-and-coming rapper/fashion muse Azealia Banks to make her fashion week debut, but yesterday morning we got one step closer to her via her new fashion pal Nicola Formichetti, with whom she shares a birthday.
Formichetti is perhaps best known for his roles as Mugler‘s creative director and Lady Gaga’s stylist, but over the past few weeks, he seems to have also taken the “212″ singer under his wing. As we’ve ascertained through Twitter, he styled her for a V shoot and her forthcoming video for “Liquorice.” Banks also provided the soundtrack for his menswear show in Paris.
We chatted with Formichetti backstage at his friend Richard Chai’s show yesterday. Here’s what he had to say about how he and Azealia ended up working together, why it was meant to be, what to expect from the ‘Liquorice’ video and whether or not their collaboration will be ongoing. He seemed to really enjoy talking about her.
How did you and Azealia end up working together?
It’s super simple. I was just listening to ’212′ and I was just tweeting about how I loved the song and she tweeted me back saying, ‘I love you too’ and [I said] ‘I love you more’ and we just met up and I shot her for V magazine and we started collaborating and she asked me to do her new video, so I directed her ‘Liquorice’ video last week in London and we are editing it at the moment.
What’s it like working with her?
It’s completely different to the way I work with Gaga, I mean it’s similar in the way that they’re very into to what they’re doing, both of them are just lovely people, so I only want to work with nice people. Yeah she’s cool; she’s 19 straight from Harlem to London and Paris and she’s good. You just can’t take your eyes off her and when she’s rapping… I’m learning all this new terminology from her like, you know, what’s ‘bambi’ mean? And ‘liquorice’ and all these things.
What do they mean?
[Laughs] I don’t know…I can’t say…
Can you tell me what the video will look like? What is she wearing?
We’ve done some matador looks, kind of Harlem chic.. ['Baby Spice,' Nicola's friend added]. It was more like sports wear, but [we] pushed it with like the platform on the [Nike] Air Max and customized jumpsuits and things like that. It’s really beautiful. It’s cool and it’s not try hard. It’s very something that she would wear. In fact, she kept everything and went out [wearing the clothes]. I like when that happens.
Will the collaboration be ongoing?
Sure. We have no agenda. I love her. We have the same birthday, the 31st of May, so we were like, ‘okaaay,’ that’s amazing.
So it was meant to be?
Yeah, totally.
Fashion Week Parties
Puppies in Bondage Take the Runway at a Former Strip Club for Vice
By Dhani Mau
Dear PETA, Last night, to kick off fashion week in the best way we could have possibly imagined, Vice, whom we love for their unconventional fashion coverage, threw a party/fashion show at strip club-turned fashion hotspot Westway to celebrate the launch of their fashion issue. But not just any party/fashion show. A leather-clad man walked actual puppies dressed in actual S&M outfits down a stripper stage in the middle of the dark, packed, smoky nightclub. We can’t make this stuff up.
Read more »
Lauren Moffatt‘s fall collection was right up our alley–almost literally, as it took place across the street from our former office (and only 3 blocks from our current one) on Mott St. at The Old School. We couldn’t imagine a more relaxed, unpretentious, and adorable start to to fashion week. From the perfect venue to the staging of the presentation to the clothes themselves, everything was an example of Moffatt’s unrelenting attention to detail. Moffatt, who is as lovely as her clothes, told us she has always loved the simultaneously buttoned up and undone look of school girls and the venue lent itself really well to the concept.
The school reminded me and probably everyone of elementary school, even if the 6 foot tall models weren’t the most believable as children. In one room, models clad in romantic dresses painted on canvases like an art class. The other room was set up like a traditional classroom with books on every desk and had a chemistry area with actual dry ice in beekers.
We love it when designers seem to really love what they do and have fun doing it. As for the clothes, there wasn’t a single thing I didn’t want. Click through for the full collection.
Photos: Courtesy/Dhani Mau
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
- photo: Lauren Moffatt
Just about every time Topshop CEO Sir Philip Green is in the same room as a famous person, he or she is suddenly rumored to be getting a Topshop line. In just the past year, it’s happened with John Galliano, Gwyneth Paltrow, Florence Welch–none of whom actually went on to design anything. So we’re naturally a bit skeptical about this latest report that rapper-turned-designer Kanye West, who has been preparing for his next Paris Fashion Week outing in London, is in talks with Green to create a Topshop range of his own.
According to the UK’s Daily Mirror, West and Green were spotted having lunch together (which is true), where they were “brainstorming” ideas. A “mole” told the paper, “Kanye has wanted to work with Sir Philip Green for some time. They were in the restaurant for several hours tossing ideas back and forth.” Hmm.
Sir Phillip Green, who is often quick to extinguish rumors of this nature and is probably, understandably, fed up with them, told the Mirror they just had lunch because they were hungry and he was doing a favor for his 19-year-old son who is apparently friends with West. “I had lunch with him and, sorry, do I have to report who I have lunch with in the Daily Mirror? He was very hungry. So was I. That’s what happens at lunchtime. There was no conversation going on. He’s a friend of my son.”
We’re not going to hold our breath waiting for a Kanye X Topshop collab to happen, but we wouldn’t be surprised if West was interested in one, or at least working with Green in some capacity. Or perhaps West was just picking his brain for business advice.
It’s that time again. New York fashion week is upon us and we’re preparing for whirlwind eight days of shows, presentations, parties, reviews and more that we can’t wait to share with you guys. While there are always those amazing established designers that we look forward to seeing every season, we are also always on the lookout for those up-and-comers that we know we’re going to be seeing big things from. Click through for five you should know about now, before they become the next Prabal or Alex Wang.
Domino, which folded in 2009, once topped a list of most missed magazines (Sassy would’ve topped our list but we get it, people like their home decor). Occasionally magazines do get resurrected, so those of you who hoped that would be the case for this recession victim will be pleased to hear you could be reading Domino again as soon as April. Read more »
News
Amy Odell Tells Us About Leaving The Cut, And What to Expect From her New Project at BuzzFeed
By Hayley Phelan & Dhani MauWe’ve been reading The Cut for years and can’t really imagine it without her, though Odell assures us the site will “still be great. There are so many great people working there.”
Odell has such a distinct voice, which we’ll look forward to continuing to read over at BuzzFeed, though in what capacity we’re not entirely sure. “It’s going to be a women’s interest site [and] fashion is going to figure in but it’s not going to be the only thing,” Odell told us. “It’s going to be something that’s in my voice and my taste–not even my taste in terms of fashion but in terms of things we cover.”
“We haven’t ironed out all the details,” BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief Ben Smith told us over the phone. “[But] Amy is going to have a big role in defining it. It’s really going to be built around her voice.”
If this seems like some pretty big news to drop in the midst of Fashion Week, it is. Odell is waiting until New York Fashion Week is over before she makes the move, and will remain at The Cut for two more weeks. She also tweeted this morning: “Thanks everyone for the congrats! Super excited for @BuzzFeed vertical to launch. But first, the beast that is Fashion Week…” However, her departure will take place right around the beginning of Milan.
Also, if this seems like a random move on BuzzFeed’s part, well, you need to get to know the “new” BuzzFeed. Odell is the latest in a string of new hires the site has been making as part of its plans for expansion. Since December, they’ve hired EIC Smith, Doree Shafrir as executive editor and Gizmodo veteran Mat Buchanan as head of the site’s new tech vertical, in an attempt to, according to the New York Times, “[grow] some serious news muscles under a silly, frilly skin.” So far it’s working.
“I think what [Buzzfeed] is doing with online journalism is really interesting,” Odell told us. “They’re taking a new approach and focusing more on social media, instead of SEO, which is what most [sites] seem to be fixated on right now.”
“[We're] working off the reality that increasingly traffic is shifting from search tools to social media,” Smith told us. “So as opposed to people searching for something and clicking on it, people [are increasingly] clicking on things that their friends share on Facebook and on Twitter.”
“There’s no real trick to it, except for making content that people want to share,” he added. “Whereas with SEO, there can be tricks.”
Odell will also be in charge of hiring a team to work under her at the new vertical and that means the Buzzfeed team will be expanding even more soon. “I definitely want great writers, people who want to create something that’s fun and smart and funny, people who are very creative,” she told us. “People who have strong voices, people who read everything all the time, watch a lot of TV. A really well-rounded, smart, ambitious writer.”
As for their growing reputation as poachers, Smith says, “We’re really proud that people from great places [like New York Magazine and Gawker] want to come work for us.”
There have been rumors, and Kanye all but confirmed it on Twitter, but now we know with certainty that we can look forward to (or dread) a second Kanye West collection and runway show. Karla Otto, Kanye West’s PR agency, confirmed to WWD that West will show at 9.30 p.m. on March 6. The venue has yet to be confirmed.
All we’ve been able to gather about the line since last season is that it’s called Kanye West (not DW), he moved to London to work on it (and we hear he’s getting help from some pretty legit designers there), he wants everyone to give him a chance to grow and critics will probably be pretty hesitant to do that. Also, based on this tweet, the second since his infamous two-hour tirade, we can expect some crepe chiffon.
As far as we know, the widely panned spring 2012 collection hasn’t been picked up by any retailers or really gotten off the ground in any way. So, it will obviously be interesting to see what happens this time. He’s clearly passionate and wants to succeed and was not blind to the criticism, so this collection will have to be an improvement, right?
Hope he performs well under pressure!































































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