We love Housing Works not only because you can always find the best stuff there, but because of all the good work they do.
Their sixth annual Fashion for Action charity event is coming up and they just announced the details. The event, which raises money for homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS, will be co-chaired by Derek Lam and sponsored by Essence magazine.
The four-day affair kicks off with an opening night benefit at the Rubin Museum of Art and continues with a huge public sample sale at the Housing Works Thrift Shop in Chelsea. Over 150 designers have donated $1 million worth of merchandise to be sold at 50-70 percent off retail prices. Hooray! A bunch of new names have been added to the list this year like Acne, Band of Outsiders, Bottega Veneta, Lanvin, and Karl Lagerfeld.
All the details about how you can take part after the jump!
Remember that episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy and Ethel are desperate for dresses from a specific designer?
They’re heading to a horse race and insist upon these fancy dresses so Ricky and Fred cut head and arm holes in potato sacks and sew the designer label into the burlap and convince the girls the dresses came straight from his atelier. They end up at the racetrack with their heads held high, acting like snooty brats in their major outfits.
They might’ve preferred these. We’ve been lamenting the loss of ’08s tent dresses and welcome the sack with open arms. It does, of course, take a lot of work to make one look like Tomas Maier’s at Bottega Veneta as opposed to a sheet. Laces, like at Celine, help, as does a delicate sleeve (though we’d prefer one on both arm) from Calvin Klein. As for actual burlap at Charles Anastase? At least Fred and Ricky would approve.
I took a fashion road trip this weekend—after three years in New York, I finally made my way to the much lauded Woodbury Commons.
I’m not a shopping in a group kind of girl and I’m not an outlet kind of girl because it’s generally too much effort, but this was like walking through a living archive of legendary runway looks that had me squealing up and down the aisles. Plus at this point in the summer I’ll get out of the city any which way I can.
It started at Prada which currently houses an entire rack of AW09 lace priced around $2000—black dresses, gold skirt, blue tops. Anna’s favorite floral prints are on the clearance rack for about $400, along with the red and blue checked skirt, a single Harlequin Miu Miu mini and a lone black turban.
Balenciaga’s packed with SS08’s structured florals—skirts, dresses, jackets—priced under $1000, but it was the riding hats from AW06 that really made me gasp. Alas, they were low on shoes, though I found these at the Neiman Marcus outlet for $200 (along with the pink fur stole from Chris Benz’s AW08).
A Fashion Veneta: Booth Moore’s in Milan, well actually everyone’s in Milan, for Men’s Fashion Week. She caught the Bottega Veneta show on camera. Will purple ever not be in for men? {LATimes}
Surprise, Surprise: Look who’s on the cover of Teen Vogue. Emma Watson, looking like we do in our wildest dreams and saying, like they all do, “I want to be normal.” {TeenVogue}
Say It’s So: Gap’s bringing back their Heaven and Dream fragrances, the latter of which throws me back to my 8th grade locker, Third Eye Blind, Doc Martens and tiny floral dresses. {BeautyAddict}
A while back I said I want to be the kind of woman who wears Bottega Veneta when she grows up. For now, I wish I was the kind of girl who wears Giles Deacon.
Yes, I know, few people actually wear Giles, but those who do are really fucking lucky - the man is a genius. Which must be why the security was prison-tight. At the door:
“I’m sorry sir. What did you say your surname was?”
And then I heard this:
“I’m his sister! I don’t need an invite!”
“Everyone needs an invitation, ma’am.”
“But I’m Giles’ sister!! Look, here’s our Mum!”
Once in, I stood atop a platform in the darkened, ridiculously small, overly packed, green-tinted venue to try and take better pictures (I’m working on it, I swear) and watched one of the best collections I’ve ever seen walk down a runway.
Fresh, stellar, amazing doesn’t begin to describe it. The clothes - chunky knit ball skirts with corseted tops, violently studded and spiked shift dresses, massively jeweled t-shirts, stiff strapless dresses in gold silk and grey wool - were unreal. The energy was through the roof, and though I’ll admit the furry hot dog outfit kind of threw me for a loop, everything from the Stephen Jones hats atop the models’ heads to the slouchy platform boots on their feet was perfect.
If I could build a “Forever Wardrobe” like Plum Sykes does in this month’s Vogue, it’d be topped off with one of Bottega Veneta’s woven clutches.
I lean toward a clutch anyway - an oversized patent sack-like one for Fashion Week, a vintage velvet pouch for dinner, a woven straw rectangle for the beach - and there’s something perfectly classic, totally feminine about Bottega’s little box.
Whether this plastic-looking Kate Spade imitation makes me so mad because it looks like it’s woven from something slightly more durable than Easter grass or because despite it’s plastic-y sheen it dares to cost over $300, or because its design is so explicitly ripped from Bottega Veneta’s thirty year-old design, I’m not quite sure.
Either way, Kate’s far too smart and far too creative to be ripping off someone else’s classic.
Page 12: “Mulberry HOLIDAY SALE, 50% off Select Merchandise.”
And that was when we knew this whole sale thing’s officially jumped down the rabbit hole.
Now go to it (if you can). Because you know being able to say you bought a Knot bag on discount is like being able to say you did a Hail Mary play in the last minute of your High School state football game, and came out a winner.
“Now, when someone admires my dress, I never say it is by Balenciaga or Bottega Veneta. I tell them it’s an old Phillip Lim. This neatly conveys the message that, just like everybody else, I’ve cut back on shopping and am happy to wear something by a modest label.” —From The Guardian’s story on on-line shopping.
I’ve had a long love affair with Hermès. I love the house’s sense of secret luxury; I love the connections with Grace Kelly and Jane Birkin; and I really love the Hermès tie I stole from my dad years ago because I loved the horses on the label.
What I don’t love however, is Heidi Montag’s recent habit of toting Birkins around LA to prove how much she loves “fash-on”. Nor am I much inclined to smile when I see Pharell’s giant purple crocodile travesty. I mean, don’t we have Gucci for these people?
And yet, I still love Hermès despite myself, specifically the ladylike Constance, and anything with a shot of Jackie O. But every time I see some reality TV actress carrying a perfect beacon of elegance, I die a little inside. I think, “Am I really coveting the same stuff as Audrina?”
So the bigger question is, could you wear something that someone you loathed loves? Could you get over seeing say, Britney, walking around in those Roger Vivier flats you’ve drooled over? Or Megan Fox matching her night gowns with that Bottega Veneta knot clutch you’ve been waiting to buy?
And before you come out with “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” just think of how many names are ruined for you because of that bad college roommate or that mean boy on the playground. Sometimes, it’s about the association.
We’ve been discussing the idea of men wearing short shorts (think above the knee, mid-thigh or shorter in length) all summer now and we’re still at arms.
Britt and Hayley both think hemlines shouldn’t creep too high, but just above the knee is ok. I’m all for them as long as the shorts aren’t too tight, and if the wearer has great legs worthy of being exposed. (Natalie thinks the higher the better, especially if you’re a soccer player, but she’s just gross like that.)
On the Spring ‘08 runways, everyone from Dsquared to Bottega Veneta featured thigh grazing lengths that quickly took to the streets. We’ve seen them paired with everything from tiny tank tops and Converse to button down shirts with boat shoes.
We love a guy that can take a risk and show some serious leg, but not with the possibility of indecent exposure (whatever, Natalie).
So guys, would you wear short shorts? And to the girls - should they?
It’s the first time the brand has partnered with Knight - they use a different photog each season - but Tomas Maier chose him because he’s, “followed his work for years and always admired his sense of adventure.”
The ads feature models, (yay!), a color palette matching the collection and an “intriguing compostion”. No word yet on who gets to wear Maeir’s pretty dresses, but in true Knight fashion, there will be a video posted on Bottega’s website documenting the process.
Fingers crossed there’s a video on Showstudio, too - that one highlighting the models, the clothes, a little bit of Tomas and guaranteed to hold us rapt through at least three viewings.
I stayed up way too late last night reading an article on you in the new Vogue UK. You came across differently than most designers. Softer, more intellectual, maybe even slower thinking - none of which is better or worse - just different. I liked you.
The next time someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up, I’m not going to ramble incessantly about the million and one things I plan to do in the next thirty years; instead, I’ll say, “I want to be the kind of woman who wears Bottega Veneta.” Which will, I think, sum up those million things nicely.
The monochromatic palette is ideal, the shapes are surprising yet appealing, and the simplicity is what makes it all truly perfect. And that tailoring - I can imagine each dress fitting my size 8 body as well as Freja’s size zero. (Very differently! But still well.)
So thanks for giving me an answer to that terrible question. And thanks for giving me something so tangible to look forward to.
Bottega Veneta is not a house that you’d think of as inspiring heated opinions.
Yesterday they showed a lot of beige, and perhaps beige is a good word to describe the collection. Like the color these were clothes that would work on everyone; light, simple, and summery.
Some critics swooned. Sarah Mower wrote, “you’d need a heart of stone not to think, There goes something gorgeous.”
Even the cynical Jezebels were charmed, praising the “feminine and sleek styles meant for real women” and crowning it as editor Anna’s favorite show so far.
Robyn Givhan, however, had fighting words:
“[I]f women wanted their wardrobe to go unnoticed, they would…go to Banana Republic… at Bottega Veneta…a woman…should get…more from her clothes.”
Cathy Horyn took a slightly more tactful approach, choosing to damn with faint praise by saying designer Tomas Maier plays it safe.
The sharp difference in opinions over the collection underscores a major debate that comes around during show season:
Where’s the line between accessible and boring?
Can a collection be great if it doesn’t show us something new?
That rumor we spread about Mark Fast doing a line for Topshop? It's true. And it's in last week's Sunday Telegraph magazine which means it was true before we even said anything and we've had it in our lap since... Read More
Meet Blue Logan, if you haven't already. A couple of years ago a friend dragged the soft-spoken Brit to a show at London Fashion Week, Aquascutum he thinks, and he started to draw the models as they walked down the... Read More
We love Housing Works not only because you can always find the best stuff there, but because of all the good work they do. 
Bottega Veneta is not a house that you’d think of as inspiring heated opinions.
