It’s difficult to build a luxury brand from scratch. Especially in this decade, when conglomerates rely on century-old names to plump their bottom lines, and out-of-the-box talents like Nicolas Ghesquiere and Christian Lacroix are seen as challenge to retailers rather than a blessing.
But after two years and six seasons, socially conscious luxury label Maiyet is carving out a commendable niche for itself in the crazy world of fashion and retail.
Who run the world? Karl. And Chanel, of course.
For Chanel’s fall 2013 collection, designer Karl Lagerfeld had a massive rotating globe installed in the center of the Grand Palais. Tiny double ‘C’ flags dotted the globe indicating Chanel stores all over the world. There are a lot of ‘em.
That was the message today: Chanel is a worldwide brand for a globetrotting gal.
One thing needs to be said, it’s not easy to be Bill Gaytten right now. After Galliano’s “Hasidic” incident in the tabloids, Gaytten is somewhat treated like the son of a dictator.
Gaytten is, in many ways, the polar opposite of Galliano.
After all the backlash leading up to and following Hedi Slimane’s debut show for Saint Laurent–the rebranding of the name and ensuing confusion, the exclusion of various top editors from the show, the Twitter tirade directed at Cathy Horyn–what to expect from his second collection?
Grunge apparently. And barely a trace of the old Yves Saint Laurent.
Transgendered British singer Antony Hegarty’s deep voice helped lift Givenchy’s fall 2013 show to new emotional heights.
When Junya Watanabe is focused on one particular subject, he is totally focused on that subject without any distractions whatsoever. At his Saturday morning show at the Garage Turenne, Mr. Watanabe returned to one of his favorite garments–the classic black leather biker jacket–and developed an entire collection around the endless permutations of this revered icon.
With every show that Carol Lim and Humberto Leon put on for Kenzo, they set the bar a little higher. Will the retail geniuses behind Opening Ceremony be able to top that time they sent models down escalators and sent shoppers scrambling for logo sweatshirts and baseball caps? Season after season, they do.
Phoebe Philo doesn’t need to the turn on the charm while safely nestled in the good graces of the fashion establishment. Her weird furry slippers (furkenstocks) were the ultimate must-have seconds after hitting the spring runway.
But despite the British designer’s ability to “do no wrong,” charm us she did for Fall 2013.
‘The infinity of tailoring’ was how Rei Kawakubo summed up her stellar, ambitious, and at times emotional fall 2013 collection for Comme des Garçons.
The classic men’s suit, the kind you’d find on Saville Row, was the foundation and from that basic building block came endless variations:
The coats. It was all about the coats.
For Fall 2013, Chloé’s Clare Waight Keller channeled a school girl in the most rebellious sense. In her show notes, the list of inspirations read “night buses, independent spirit, bare legs, dorm rooms…tough girls,” and so on. The references were fairly literal: Duffle coats, a red and black pinafore and plenty of white-collar shirts.
This girl was most certainly taking utility dressing into her own hands—a good thing, obviously. But the coats… the coats were on another level.
We’ve come to expect pretty out-there and gimmicky stuff from Viktor & Rolf. Remember when the designers painted all their models’ faces red? Or when every model came out on a conveyor belt? Well, there was none of that on the runway yesterday when Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren presented their fall 2013 collection. Sure, Read more →
Each season, Acne designer Jonny Johansson builds on the idea of utilitarian daywear, yet taking it one more step further away from those simple shapes.
Each season, Acne designer Jonny Johansson builds on the idea of utilitarian daywear, taking it one step further away from those simple shapes.
But Acne is a retailer above all, and even when Johansson is creating garments with the artist Katerina Jebb—who used the archives of Paris’ fashion museum, Musée Galliera, to build prints created from scanned historical documents—the clothes have to sell. “For this collection we sought to make the invisible visible and the unwearable wearable,” he said.
