Today, Nike unveiled 32 new team uniforms for the 2012 NFL season. We were quite impressed with the Seattle Seahawks’ fashion-forward jerseys: navy and white with touches of neon green–so on trend! Love that color combo. So BCBG pre-fall. Plus, having unintentionally taken in a little March Madness, we noticed that elite eight teams Baylor Read more →
It may have been the softest hit he ever delivered, but on Friday night at Milk Studios, Sean Avery took a shot at Tom Brady.
The topic was menswear, the setting a panel at Milk Studios, organized by Parsons, sponsored by Gillette and featuring hockey player Sean Avery, rapper/actor Common, creative director Timothee Verrecchia, and designer Richard Chai. The hit came as the panel was discussing the loosening of stigma on men caring about fashion and how they dress. Common had offered that celebrities, including famous athletes, publicly declaring in interest in fashion (from Kanye’s fashion line to Sean Avery interning at Vogue), has helped removed the stigma.
At this point, no one needs to spell out for you that prints were a huge trend last spring, mostly of the colorful, floral variety. But where spring was bright and sunny, fall has taken a turn towards the more staid and sombre, or at least as much as a digital print can be considered Read more →
Recently appointed creative director of American heritage brand Filson, Richard Chai presented a down to earth collection featuring somber stripes, neatly belted jackets and some very silly suiting. Maybe the latter was an attempt to liven up the former, kind of like bringing a puppy to a funeral; regardless, the balance felt off.
Fresh of the heels of his recent 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 described to us the contrast from last season: “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 areally 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.
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.
A lot goes into making fashion week happen. And despite the proliferation of fashion reality television shows, there is still a lot that you might not know about. So, we decided to ask some of our friends in the industry what their day to day life is like leading up to, during and following fashion week. From the perspective of a designer, a publicist, a show producer, a pit photographer, a makeup artist and more, keep reading to learn how fashion week gets made.
For our inaugural edition of How Fashion Week Gets Made, Richard Chai, who will show his men’s and women’s collections together on Thursday, and was just named creative director at Filson, tells us about his design process, lack of sleep and reveals the location of his after party.
How do you handle designing both a men’s and women’s collection? Are you working on both simultaneously?
Someone Wrote A Song About Andrej Pejic: “Fashion Boy,” penned by Victoria Aitken is dedicated to the male model, of whom Ms. Aitken is a card-carrying stan: “As a muse to my latest single, Andrej has taken us to territory we haven’t chartered before. I’m absolutely mad about him!” {Vogue UK}
PETA Puts Up Billboard in Garment District: Penelope Cruz casts what we think was meant to be a disapproving eye on the entire garment district, in a black-and-white campaign for the animal rights group. {Racked}
Death by Hair Extensions: While you’ve been worrying about the formaldehyde in your Brazilian blowout, a London woman was rushed to the emergency room after passing out in a nightclub. The cause? Coroners say she possibly suffered an allergic reaction from the wig glue she’d applied to attach her hair extensions. What a tragedy, and a steep price to pay for beauty. {Daily Mail}
The holidays are all about nostalgia and one of the things we’ve been nostalgic about lately is hand turkeys! You know, that childhood arts and crafts thing where you trace your hand and make it look like a turkey? To be honest, we aren’t all that crafty anymore, but our fashion friends, like Erica Domesek from P.S. I Made This for example, are like the craftiest people ever, so we asked them to help us out with this little project and they obliged.
Erica helped us assemble hand turkey-making kits, which we then sent out to some of our favorite designers, editors and other fashion peeps who then created some of the most impressive hand turkeys we’ve ever seen (we are super thankful for all of you!!). Click through to see them and find out what these brilliant artists are thankful for this year, and have a very happy Thanksgiving (or just a nice Thursday).
Halloween weekend is finally upon us! We’ve had Halloween costumes on the brain all week and we’re not the only ones. We decided to ask some of our favorite designers what they were planning on dressing up as because we figured that, as fashion designers, they’d have some pretty creative ideas. And we were right.
From censored porn stars to an Irish version of Patty from Absolutely Fabulous, click through to find out what 12 of our designer friends told us about their costumes, and, if you care, our own costumes as well!
Most of the beauty looks this season were minimal, natural, and quite pretty and wearable (well, except the wet mullets). But those aren’t fun to look at, are they? No, we don’t think so either.
So please click through to see the 10 looks that we never hope to see on someone in the subway at three in the afternoon but that we loved seeing on the runways.
Swiftly becoming known as the young master of layered utilitarian-cool separates, Richard Chai chose to show both his men’s and women’s LOVE lines simultaneously at the tents this season. And though it’s remarkable how seamlessly the two lines meshed on the runway, that’s surely a testament to Chai’s command of boyish dressing for both genders.
The designer focused on neon-bright colors this time around, with an emphasis on sunny yellows and screaming pinks, and the patterns at play were completely resort-ready. If Chai has his way, Hawaiian shirts–yes, those gaudy souvenir button-ups so beloved by geeky dads and loathed by, well, pretty much everyone else–are going to be a hot commodity come spring 2012.
