Day six of New York Fashion Week started for us with a very fancy presentation by The Row uptown, complete with a flickering fireplace and luxe fabrications, and ended at Betsey Johnson’s runway show featuring models using champagne bottles as free weights and Carmen Electra in the front row. So, you know, we’ve seen a lot today.
Pre-Fall 2013 has wrapped!…or has it?…Nobody can quite say for sure, but with the Fall 2013 shows quickly approaching in mid-February, we figured now was as good a time as any to take inventory of our favorites from “the season between seasons.”
This week, Greg Chait of The Elder Statesman took home the top prize at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards, earning a $300,000 investment, mentorship, and the official endorsement of Vogue.
The fact that The Elder Statesman’s cashmere sweaters and The Row’s perfectly-constructed t-shirts have beat out the more fanciful and intricate designs of their contemporaries is a telling indication of what direction the luxury market may be headed in–namely, back to basics. After years of increasingly over-the-top runway looks and a lightening fast trend cycle, discerning consumers seem to be searching for items with more permanence–and they’re willing to pay a premium price for it.
It’s an unwritten rule of the fashion week grid the past couple seasons that Monday is officially unofficially Marc Jacobs Day. So. When it comes to identifying today’s critically best-received show, there’s that, even without Eric Wilson declaring Jacobs’ focus on barely bare midriffs a bonafide Bumsters moment. However, the CFDA womenswear winners Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s long, lightly layered silhouette and Olivier Theyskens’ subversion of great-fitting work pants seemed also to be theories of design the critics could support.
Compared to, say, the 1950s, very little clothing (or anything for that matter) is manufactured in the United States. There are a few heritage brands holding on in the Northwest and the south; and brands that focus on weather-resistance and technologically advanced fabrics are often based here, where the technology originates. Additionally, many eco-friendly and Read more →
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen may have won the prestigious CFDA award for womenswear designers of the year, but PETA isn’t impressed. The Olsens’ line, The Row, has released a new fur patchwork bag, retailing for $16,900 (and touted by Rachel Zoe as a bag to have for pre-fall), and PETA is pissed–and not because of Read more →
The Resort 2013 collections are trickling in from all of the fashion capitals and while we have no idea what our holiday vacation plans are, we already have a pretty good idea of what we want to be wearing. So far, we’ve been particularly pleased with what our favorite New York designers have to offer Read more →
Ten years ago, if someone told you that the Olsen twins–they of the matchy-matchy outfits and cheesy made-for-TV-movies–would win the most prestigious fashion design award in America, beating out the likes of Marc Jacobs, you’d laugh. But that’s precisely what happened last night, when Mary-Kate and Ashley took home the CFDA Award for womenswear designer(s) of the year.
Celebrity-designed lines are not exactly rare–but what is rare, is for them to be taken seriously by the industry. So how did the Olsens, who began their careers sharing the role of the adorable Michelle Tanner on Full House, manage to avoid the stigma of the ‘celebrity designer’ and become legitimate creatives and businesswomen embraced by industry? What were they doing differently? What were they doing right?
The fashion Oscars CFDA awards have wrapped: The Olsens took home the big prize for womenswear for the Row (they very adorably thanked each other); Seth Meyers wore Marc Jacobs’ Met ball outfit (and dared to make a Galliano joke); Garance Dore had folks tearing up when she accepted her award by telling the audience to “take your fun very seriously…[and] maybe one day you will start a revolution”; and John Waters proved the perfect person to pick up awards for both Comme des Garçons‘ Rei Kawakubo (“I wear Comme des Garcons to be fashionable in private…We know how great her clothes look but others just think we’re poor”) and Johnny Depp (“He has fashion balls…he was a pirate Pepe Le Pew way before I met him”). And the industry recognized its finest talents this year.
Without further ado, the 2012 CFDA award winners:
This week’s best dressed roundup is full of summer style inspiration. From Shirley Manson (remember Garbage?) in Louis Vuitton to Lady Mary Michelle Dockery in Erdem, to Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen in their own designs, bare legs and ladylike silhouettes were de rigeur this week. Click through to see all 10!
It’s the buzziest, most fashion-y red carpet of the year and it’s finally here! Welcome to the 2012 Met Ball red carpet! Finally, finally, Beyonce made it to the red carpet in the sheerest of Givenchy and the red carpet’s a wrap. So far we’re loving: Anna Wintour’s Prada-designed homage to Schiaparelli’s lobster dress; Prom Read more →
