Fashionista

Thursday March 17th, 2011

Azzedine Alaïa’s Fall 2011 Collection and the Designer’s Thoughts on the “Inhumane” State of Fashion
Fashion Week

Azzedine Alaïa’s Fall 2011 Collection and the Designer’s Thoughts on the “Inhumane” State of Fashion

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Azzedine Alaïa showed his fall 2011 to a select group of editors earlier this week in Paris, nearly a week after Paris fashion week ended (because when you’re a master like Alaïa, you do as you please).

Alaïa prefers to work at his own pace and told WWD he thinks fashion’s increasingly breakneck pace is “inhumane.” The designer added that he thinks the intense pressure put upon designers to churn out collection after collections must have contributed to Galliano’s demise. “It’s sad. He’s a friend…It’s too much: too many collections; too much pressure.” he said.

WWD has released four looks from his fall collection, which are unsurprisingly, gorgeous knit wonders. Take a look.

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Published at 10:00 AM

Wednesday March 16th, 2011

Monday March 14th, 2011

Friday March 11th, 2011

Paris Fall 2011: The Best Beauty Looks
Beauty

Paris Fall 2011: The Best Beauty Looks

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While the gossip in Paris this season was loud and distracting, the beauty looks were soft (for the most part). As befits French sensibility, there was effortless hair, dewy makeup, and lots of very wearable looks.

But that’s not to say it was boring. Color was used judiciously, and the usual suspects gave us challenging looks. And for the record, the braid and blue eye trends continued throughout the Paris shows.

Click through to see our favorite beauty looks from Paris Fall 2011.

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Published at 11:00 AM

Thursday March 10th, 2011

Beauty Trendspotting Fall 2011: Towering Hair In Paris
Beauty

Beauty Trendspotting Fall 2011: Towering Hair In Paris

by Cheryl Wischhover and Alaina Hernandez

The hair in Paris was big. Not 80s big, but sculptural and dramatic. Ann Demeulemeester and Junya Watanabe went tall and spiky. Haider Ackermann and Issey Miyake created haute aliens, while Yohji Yamamoto and Gaultier did beehives in rainbow and shades of grey.

Walk under doorways at your own risk.

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Published at 3:30 PM
Textbook for Fashionista: Emmanuelle Alt!
Textbook

Textbook for Fashionista: Emmanuelle Alt!

by John Jannuzzi

Who doesn’t know Emmanuelle Alt? Even before her somewhat new role as Editor-in-Chief at Vogue Paris, she was making waves in the blogosphere as their Fashion Director. She’s typically spotted in a Kate Lanphear-esque ensemble–jeans or leather pants, a simple shirt and some kind of awesome blazer or coat. Ms. Alt has certainly nailed her street style pose too, but being shot as many times as she is, who wouldn’t develop a trademark stance?

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Published at 12:36 PM

Wednesday March 9th, 2011

Miu Miu Fall 2011: In a League of Her Own
Reviews

Miu Miu Fall 2011: In a League of Her Own

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PARIS–If Miuccia Prada had outfitted Madonna for her role as Mae Mordabito in A League of Their Own, it would look exactly like Miu Miu fall 2011, presented today at the Palais d’léna. Right down to the slightly-turned-to-the-side baseball caps, sporty wide set pointy collars over wool knits, and printed ’40s day dresses. (It was a formative movie for me, ok?)

Models hair was swept up at the sides in tortoise shell combs to match the ’40s style dresses in floral or bird prints set against tans and muted corals. When Prada’s baseball girl goes out swing dancing the ’40s silhouettes stay the same, only the backs of dresses are open, the shoulders and waists are wrapped with mink, and prints are painted on in glitter and sequins. The League of Their Own analogy holds only from the ankles up. Because while Mae wore saddle shoes out dancing and rabble-rousing, the Miu Miu girl for fall wears glittering platform heels that everyone is gonna want.

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Published at 3:26 PM
Louis Vuitton Fall 2011: Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and More Walk Marc Jacobs’ “Fetish” Show
Reviews

Louis Vuitton Fall 2011: Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and More Walk Marc Jacobs’ “Fetish” Show

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Leave it to Marc Jacobs to put on the most lavish and possibly most expensive show of Paris fashion week for Louis Vuitton.

The tent for the show at the Cour Carrée du Louvre was all in black and surrounded by big black balloons–a hint that something playful and naughty was to come. Inside a fleet of women dressed as chambermaids–white collars, black skirts, feather dusters–escorted editors and buyers to their seats and served coffee and champagne (whichever you prefer to start your day off with). The runway was more of a stage–a black glossy square with a set of three ornate old-fashioned cage elevators at the center. You can guess where this is going: models, all 67 of them (including Kate Moss, Raquel Zimmerman, Naomi Campbell and Amber Valletta), entered the runway from the elevators, which were operated, naturally, by uniformed older gentlemen who opened the door every time a model ascended.

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Published at 12:11 PM
Confession: I Really Want Alber to Get the Dior Job
People Are Talking

Confession: I Really Want Alber to Get the Dior Job

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Tweeters at Style.com said that they didn’t want to “add to the Dior rumor mill” yesterday when they revealed that “people in Paris are asking, why has the Lanvin team been in tears all day?”

But of course they did, and now everyone is wondering why Jason Wu was sitting front row at Lanvin. When asked by WWD, the young American designer simply said, “Mrs. Wang asked me.” Mrs. Wang is the owner of the Lanvin fashion house.

Whether or not this means anything is difficult to determine. So I’m going to put my common sense hat on for a moment. Common sense tells me that Riccardo Tisci is definitely, definitely the next Dior designer. Sources inside the house of Dior–sources whom I trust–have told me as much. But it’s all just rumors, right? Even Derek Blasberg‘s “confirmation” is still just a rumor. We won’t have a solid answer until LVMH releases an official statement.

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Published at 11:02 AM

Tuesday March 8th, 2011

Chanel Fall 2011: A Grunge Moment
Reviews

Chanel Fall 2011: A Grunge Moment

by Long Nguyen

Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

PARIS–It was not the transformation of the massive grounds of the Grand Palais, with black sand, volcanic rocks and remnants of smoke smoldering underneath the long wooden platform, running nearly the entire length of the exhibition hall built in 1900 for the Universal Exposition. It was not the wall-sized images of burnt trees etched onto ceiling-height Styrofoam boards, which made the rectangular hall feel like the inside of a deep crater. And surely it was not the amount of looks that came out, nearly 80, with models traversing the length of the wooden platform from both sides of the rooms when the light bridges were lowered.

Instead, the most impressive and outstanding achievement at this morning’s Chanel show occurred when the models came out for the finale stood together with Mr. Karl Lagerfeld in the middle of the platform as the smoke intensified from underneath.

Why? Because that moment illuminated how relevant he has made Chanel to the lives of women now. This was also the essence of the couture show in January, where the classic Chanel skirt suits, cleansed of surface decorations, were paired with stretch jeans, thus breaking the formality of a couture look. In this ready-to-wear show, the designer went further to propose easy and elegant clothes without the fussiness of looking like you were wearing, well, Chanel.

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Published at 6:37 PM
Comme Des Garçons Fall 2011: Hybrid Fashion
Reviews

Comme Des Garçons Fall 2011: Hybrid Fashion

by Long Nguyen

Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

Enclosed in the envelope with the invitation to the Comme des Garçons show last Saturday afternoon, which took place inside a small hall at the Hôtel de la Monnaie, was a small printed card. “Comme des Garçons will have extremely limited seating this season. This is Kawakubo’s design; please kindly understand that your regular seat will not be possible. Thank you.”

And so it was: At the show, there were only two small bleachers and two rows of chairs, which formed a square for the models to traverse perpendicularly to and from one corner.

At any Comme des Garçons show, it is always the fashion that matters, not the hierarchy. It was ironic that a note was sent to the few people invited asking them, in essence, to temporarily suspend their habits. By the time the sound of footsteps on the wooden bleachers ceased and the first model walked out in a long, shiny, black python print trench–without any back but instead tied together at the shoulder–the audience knew they were in for a fashion treat.

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Published at 6:30 PM