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Leah Chernikoff

Posts by Leah Chernikoff

Celebrity

Parker Posey Can’t Keep Up with Fashion, Says She ‘Needs to Make More of an Effort’

By Leah Chernikoff Thursday, Feb 9, 2012 / 4:40 PM

Photo: Getty

Rachel Comey is not usually one of those shows that has a celeb packed front row. Or any celebs in the front row for that matter. Devoted editors, buyers and Brooklyn cool girls a plenty but celebs? Not so much. So imagine our delight when one of our favorite celebs, the Party Girl herself, Parker Posey, plunked herself down a few seats over from us at last night’s show (see our review and runway pix here).

While waiting to interview Comey backstage after her show, Posey joined the line of fashion editors. “So, is this where we line up?” Posey asked me. I resisted my urge to yell “Air Raid!” and seized on the opportunity to turn my recorder on the incredibly down-to-earth actress first. “OK,” she shrugged, jokingly. Only, somehow she ended up interviewing me instead.

Fashionista: You don’t usually come to fashion shows [except for pal Cynthia Rowley's shows].
Parker Posey: No, I don’t. But I really love Rachel and I love her clothes and I love her shoes and I love her bags.

Fashionista: How long have you been a Comey girl?
Parker Posey: Five or six years.

Parker Posey: What about you, how long have you been in this biz?
Fashionista: Around five years.

Parker Posey: So you saw Rachel come up from a seed?
Fashionista: Yeah, and now I’m just starting to be able to afford her shoes [ahem, at her sample sales].

Fashionista: What did you think of the collection?
Parker Posey: It kind of had a 2001 Stanley Kubrick vibe but with an elegance and femininity.

Fashionista: So is this the end of your fashion week adventures?
Parker Posey: You know, I don’t do a lot, I’m boring. Interview [Rachel Comey].

Fashionista: What designers do you like?
Parker Posey: I can’t keep up. You know who I like is Gary Graham. I know, I need to be more on it. I don’t have a stylist. I need to make more of an effort.

We think you’re doing just fine, Parker. And if you ever want to hang out and eat dumplings and shop for Rachel Comey shoes, we’re totally down…

Reviews

Rachel Comey Fall 2012: Streamlined ’60s Plus a New Sock Collaboration with Hansel from Basel

By Leah Chernikoff Thursday, Feb 9, 2012 / 4:02 PM

“I was just trying to make it feel lucid and bright and optimistic and vivid without relying on color,” Rachel Comey said of her fall 2012 collection. “I was really focusing on mood–I don’t have a specific narrative or a decade.” And it’s true she didn’t rely on color. Save for some bright bursts of poppy on a to-die-for funnel neck coat and a neon pink printed dress, the collection featured a lot of black, grey and white looks instead of Comey’s usual prints–she relied on texture to create variation. Some of the jackets and dresses seemed made in an almost trash bag-like material–not that the dresses looked trashy, of course, while others were in brocade or laser-cut leather.
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Fashion Week

Our Outsider’s Guide to an Insider’s New York Fashion Week

By EMILY SINGER Thursday, Feb 9, 2012 / 12:44 PM

Photo: Getty

New York Fashion Week is already underway and we can’t wait to see what designers have in store this season. Thanks to the fashion industry’s growing embrace of technology, you no longer have to wait for tomorrow’s WWD, or even until daily highlights of runway pictures and reviews are posted online tonight–all you have to do is tune into live video feeds, Twitter, Tumblr, etc., to get in on the action for yourself.

Live video feeds of fashion shows began popping up several years ago, but it wasn’t until the Fall 2011 shows that fashion houses really began to take advantage of live streaming capabilities. Spring 2012 brought even more live video feeds to fashion aficionados at home with the development of runway-specific live stream hosting sites.

Organizations such as Made (the newly rebranded MAC & Milk Studios), First Comes Fashion and YouTube’s “Live From the Runway” channel will all be streaming videos of fashion shows as they happen, down to the very last strut, giving viewers at home a front row seat (from their computers, of course). PR powerhouse KCD has launched a digital fashion show platform and will be streaming Prabal Gurung’s inaugural lCB collection for Onward Kashiyama to members of the press and store buyers, retaining a certain level of exclusivity.

In addition to live runway footage, designers have been experimenting with ways to increase the hype surrounding their shows. Last season, mere hours before their menswear show at London Fashion Week, Burberry announced that they would be doing a “Tweetwalk,” in which pictures of runway looks were posted to the Burberry Twitter account moments before the models hit the runway. Coupled with a live video feed, it was as if Burberry had given the best seat in the house to devotees at home.

This season, Diane von Furstenberg will be treating fans to backstage video clips of beauty previews and interviews with the DVF creative team, as well as the designer herself, all of which will be posted to the brand’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. As to how other designers will be playing with social media, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The fashion industry’s slow growing digital presence bodes well for those stuck at home, school or the office during the coming month. Click through for tips and tricks to give you an insider’s experience at NYFW – if we didn’t know any better, we’d think we were sitting front row!

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News

Last Night’s Party: Dree Hemingway Fetes Her New Collection for Sandro

By Fawnia Soo Hoo Wednesday, Feb 8, 2012 / 6:15 PM

It seemed as though Fashion Week started two days early as the sartorially (and genealogically) blessed crowd dropped by the Sandro flagship in the West Village last night to celebrate Dree Hemingway’s capsule collection for the Parisian brand. For those who didn’t recognize the model/street-style star/designer’s famed last name, she’s the granddaughter of author and bull fighting-obsessive Ernest, and, oh yes, the fresh faced beauty is blessed with the same famed cheekbones of her mother, model/actress Mariel.

Hemingway’s ten-piece collection, inspired by her childhood days in Idaho, is quite bohemian/Southwest Americana for the French label (like a pink and tangerine tribal-print palazzo pant jumpsuit) and it was pretty refreshing to see that she chose the two most low-key pieces from the line to wear to her party.

“I was saying I’m the most dressed down person here,” she told us. “I’d rather be more dressed down to something than more dressed over–or overdressed–compared to everyone else. Comfort is better.”

We concur!

Click through to see Dree’s collection for the French label we’re kinda obsessed with.

Photos: Via Fashionologie

Models

Models Have Rights Too: Learn Why Coco Rocha, Crystal Renn and More are Lending Their Support to the Model Alliance

By Leah Chernikoff Tuesday, Feb 7, 2012 / 6:23 PM

Last night loads of leggy models–A-listers like Shalom Harlow, Doutzen Kroes, Coco Rocha and Crystal Renn among them–gathered at the Standard in the Meatpacking to sip free vodka drinks over loud music. At first glance, a typical fashion party.

Only it wasn’t. These models were gathered to celebrate the launch of the Model Alliance, a non-profit organization founded by Sara Ziff dedicated to “helping models in the American fashion industry organize for safe, fair, and healthy standards in their workplace.”

29-year-old Ziff knows something about how models are treated. She’s spent more than half of her life working as a model and in that time says, “It just became more and more evident to me that this was a wonderful industry filled with strong, powerful, creative women but which lacked any regulation–and so was putting very young girls, often children, in compromising situations.” She learned a lot more about the compromising situations models find themselves in–facing sexual harassment, in severe debt to their agencies due to lack of financial transparency, alone and vulnerable and often without a chaperone–while documenting the plight of other models for her documentary, Picture Me, which debuted in 2010. Fordham Law professor Susan Scafidi, who heads up Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute, saw a screening and wanted to help. So did Jezebel’s fashion writer (and former model herself), Jenna Sauers. And so the wheels for the Model Alliance were set in motion.

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Collection

EXCLUSIVE: Miu Miu Invades New York Fashion Week With a Special One-Off Bag Collection and Valentine’s Day Fete

By Leah Chernikoff Tuesday, Feb 7, 2012 / 2:30 PM

New York Fashion Week is usually deprived of anything Miu Miu (the brand shows in Paris). But not this week. We had a hint Miu Miu was up to something in our fair city when we heard about a party they were throwing on Valentine’s Day cryptically called “The Woman Dress.” We hear that the party has something to do with a premiere for the next installment of “Miu Miu Women’s Tales Saga,” the brand’s film series that explores “the feminine love affair with Miu Miu.” But Miu Miu hearts NY in more ways than one this week.
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Models

EXCLUSIVE: Watch the Victoria’s Secret Angels Talk About Their Awkward, Gum-in-Hair, First Kisses

By Leah Chernikoff Tuesday, Feb 7, 2012 / 12:15 PM

They may be flawless supermodels now but even the Victoria’s Secret Angels were once inexperienced teenagers going through the typical awkward milestones–first kisses and all.

To get you in the Valentine’s Day spirit (which we tend to forget during Fashion Week madness), watch Doutzen Kroes, Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel, Erin Heatherton, Lily Aldridge and Lais Ribeiro–all scantily clad in VS undies–talk about the first time they ever smooched a guy. Turns out that being incredibly hot does not automatically make you a good kisser: Doutzen says her first kiss was “not so good,” while Lily cops to feeling embarrassed and running away afterwards. Erin’s first kiss, on the other hand, lead to a very, very sticky situation literally).

We won’t give the whole thing away but we have to say, hearing about their first kiss snafus, is making us feel a whole lot better about our teenage awkwardness.
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Magazines

Emmanuelle Alt Performs Wham! ‘Wake Me Up’ To the Celebrate Relaunch of Vogue.fr

By Leah Chernikoff Monday, Feb 6, 2012 / 11:40 AM

This should make your Monday a little better. To celebrate the relaunch of Vogue.fr, Vogue Paris’ website (it looks a lot cleaner and more like a Tumblr site now), EIC Emmanuelle Alt, French TV personality Mademoiselle Agnès, and models Anja Rubik, Karmen Pedaru, Jasmine Tookes and Kendra Spears got together to perform Wham! “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” a song Alt has previously revealed to be one of her favorites. Click through to watch the video.
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Entertainment

See All of Madonna’s Givenchy Super Bowl Halftime Looks

By Leah Chernikoff Sunday, Feb 5, 2012 / 9:07 PM

You have to hand it to Madonna. She killed it tonight at the Super Bowl halftime show. She did cartwheels. And walkovers. In stiletto over-the-knee boots. And she’s 53. The theme for the show was a somewhat historically confusing mix of Roman gladiator meets ancient Egyptian. Madonna’s dress was Givenchy couture, the custom headpiece was Philip Treacy (Nicki Minaj’s headdress was Erickson Beamon), and the jewelry was Bulgari. UPDATE: Those amazing over-the-knee boots were custom stretch leather Miu Miu with a special ‘M’ on the heel for Madonna and Miu Miu. Click through to see the one and only Material Girl in action. World Peace.
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News

Best Dressed: Rooney Mara in Givenchy, Rachel McAdams in Peter Som and More

By Alaina Hernandez Sunday, Feb 5, 2012 / 3:45 PM


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Collection

Gap Launches GapPure, A New Line of Slouchy Luxe Jersey Basics

By Leah Chernikoff Sunday, Feb 5, 2012 / 2:37 PM

Gap still hasn’t named a creative director to replace Patrick Robinson, who was fired in May of last year. But the brand has quietly been building on its strengths–their 1969 denim line keeps getting better (have you tried their printed skinny jeans yet? Do it now) and now they’re expanding GapBody into a new line called GapPure, which is online now and launches in store on Monday.

GapBody–Gap’s underwear line–has a devoted following. At a dinner at ABC Kitchen Thursday night to celebrate the launch of the line, more than a few editors confessed their love for Gap bras (especially their strapless ones). To capitalize on that brand devotion, GapBody has expanded with GapPure, a line of slouchy super soft jersey basics–tees, knits (with hints of cashmere), and tanks–that are comfy enough to lounge around in but cute enough to go to brunch in, too. Think T by Alexander Wang but at prices that range from $24 to $68.

Click through to check out the collection.

Collaboration

EXCLUSIVE: Behind the Scenes of the Marni for H&M Commercial with Sofia Coppola (Plus a Look at the Commercial)

By Leah Chernikoff Friday, Feb 3, 2012 / 9:06 AM

One of the reasons we’ve been so excited about this Marni for H&M collection, besides the fact that it’s Marni and we love Marni’s prints and quirky intellectual aesthetic, is that Sofia Coppola was involved and, well, we’ve always sort of had a girl crush on her. She was tapped to direct the commercial for H&M’s latest collab, out March 8, and we’ve got a first look at a behind-the-scenes reel from the shoot, plus the final product. Read more »