There’s been a lot of talk about punk’s influence on fashion right now due to the Costume Institute’s upcoming Punk: Chaos to Couture exhibit (it opens on May 7). And there’s been a lot of talk about Vivienne Westwood–rightfully so–as she was so central to creating the look of punk in her native London. The Read more →
Anna Wintour, just like us? Eh, probably not.
With the upcoming Costume Institue exhibit and Met ball set to celebrate punk style, I wanted to look a little closer at the delicate piercing craze New York Adorned’s J. Colby Smith has spawned within the fashion community. Piercing is a hallmark of punk style–in the safety pin through an ear kind of way. And Colby himself is an admitted punk.
Over the last few years we’ve seen countless luxury brands stage fashion shows in China–in Beijing, Shanghai, on the Great Wall–in addition to staging their shows in Paris, London, New York or Milan. With Chinese surpassing Americans as the biggest consumers of luxury goods, designers are focusing more than ever on China.
Of course, for smaller labels that aren’t part of luxury conglomerates, China is a market that’s harder to tap into. Enter the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund’s latest initiative, “Americans in China,” which will bring Proenza Schouler, Rag & Bone, and Marchesa (three former CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists) to China to present their fall-winter 2013 collections at the Ming Dynasty City Wall Relics Park, at the Great Wall of China, in Beijing.
When you think of Ferragamo one of the first things that comes to mind is the Vara. Even if you don’t know its name you know what it looks like–it’s that mid-heeled sensible looking shoe with a stiff grosgrain bow at the top. Everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Margaret Thatcher has worn them. Your grandmother might have worn them, too, and if you were lucky, you stole them from her.
They’re the ultimate in granny chic (hell, I think they’re just plain chic–even though I hate that word) and they turn 35 this year. To celebrate, Ferragamo has launched an innovative new online project called L’Icona. The most compelling part of this project is that for the first time ever, Ferragamo is letting shoppers customize their own Varas.
So yesterday the New York Post ran this story, “Red Carpet Lending Nightmares,” detailing the distressed condition designer gowns are returned in after they’ve been worn by a celebrity on the red carpet.
The most salacious story? An anonymous PR told the tab that Lady Gaga returned a Mugler gown with what looked like a semen stain on it. “It was so disgusting,” she said. “I couldn’t even tell you.”
After polling various PRs who lend out designer dresses to celebrities on the regular, we’re not at all surprised by this story.
For the New York City Ballet’s spring gala on May 8, Joseph Altuzarra has designed costumes for principals Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild for a new pas de deux choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. What you see above are Altuzarra’s original sketches for Peck from his Smythson sketchbook.
Click through for more of his drawings for the New York City Ballet.
Balenciaga’s fall/winter 2013/2014 campaign broke today on the brand’s website, and with it, we get a first look at new creative director Alexander Wang’s vision for the house.
For the first time ever, fashion enthusiasts with deep pockets will be able to shop the designs worn on the red carpet at the Met Gala.
What that means is if you see, on one of the four websites live streaming the Met Gala arrivals at 7 p.m. on the night of May 6 (ModaOperandi.com, Vogue.com, Samsung.com or MetMuseum.org), say, Lena Dunham wearing a Wes Gordon number that strikes your fancy, you’ll be to buy it the next day on Moda Operandi.
For one night each year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the worlds of politics, Hollywood, and fashion collide. It’s always weird and awesome. Like when Hayden Panettiere met Rahm Emanuel, what did they say to each other?
Last night’s dinner was perhaps the most fashion-filled to date.
I’ve been looking for jeans in a lighter wash denim for a while. I’m not talking acid wash or baby blue but that just-the-right-amount of faded–the kind of jeans you hope to see magically lying in a pile at a thrift store or steal from a skinny ex-boyfriend but never will. Instead I found these.
The garment industry of my motherland, Bangladesh, is burning, collapsing and struggling to stay afloat in the world economy.
The worst part?
All goods belong to the lowest bidder. No safety regulations, no living wage and no respect for the health, bodies and wellbeing of workers. As the Bangladeshi government scrambles in the face of another “accident,” thousands are protesting against abhorrent conditions in Bangladesh’s Savar Industrial Zone.
The names of the retailers’ tags discovered in the rubble: Mango, Joe Fresh and United Colors of Benetton. I can’t help but lament the irony of these names—evocative of the tropical, the colorful and alive, much like the verdant landscape of Bangladesh. The same sickening feeling I had on November 24, 2012, when a factory fire killed 112 Bangladeshi workers. Post-Thanksgiving meal, I jumped to sweep up Black Friday deals. More ironic names: Faded Glory. Gap.
Buried among these lost garments are the bodies of folks, mostly women, who knew that something was terribly wrong with the building when they clocked into work.
Now, where do we fit it in?
