New York fashion week is officially upon us, and that means lots and lots of inspirational street style. Check out our top 5 favorite girls from day 1. And check back here every afternoon to see more shots of the girls (and boys!) who pose for our camera. Today we snapped Becka Diamond, Hanneli Mustaparta, Read more →
Despite the crisp holiday chill finally landing in New York, it was all about the warm weather days at the Ash flagship in Soho last night. The Italian contemporary shoe brand presented their spring 2012 line at a bash hosted by Kelly Framel of the Glamourai and with festive tunes provided by a smokey-eyed Becka Diamond. For those not quite ready to view shoes they can’t buy yet (the Fall 2011 styles are on sale, if you’re wondering), make-up applications, manis and braid and bang styling were also on tap for partiers. Plus in the spirit of the season, guests were encouraged to bring a toy to donate to Jessica Seinfeld’s Baby Buggy charity.
Even though we’re finally ready to settle into our winter booties, we headed upstairs to the loft area check out Ash’s spring styles.
The opening of the edgy chic Surface to Air flagship store in Soho kicked off the unofficial start to Fashion Week Wednesday night. A massive crowd of fashion-y types made their first appearance of the evening at the unveiling of the Parisian brand’s first stateside boutique Mercer Street. Amongst the growing mob of usual downtown scenester types, we, to be perfectly honest, were witness to some of the oddest people we’ve seen since, well, last Fashion Week. We’re talking: A guy sporting a full facial tattoo a la Zombie Boy (but incongruously dressed like he was going to a sports bar), a socialite wearing a completely see through diamanté-d dress (but thankfully matching undies), a Benedictine monk wannabe with under-eye liner, and a perspiring man donning a tight translucent cellophane-like wrap. Nice to see you again, the craziness that is Fashion Week.
As for the guests that we did recognize: Starchitect Karim Rashid, Bird’s Jen Mankins, DJ Becka Diamond, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and a Fendi-clad Genevieve Jones, who incidentally told us she just finished tweeting about the aforementioned facial tattoo guy. Reportedly, REM’s Michael Stipe dropped by (and we were keeping an eagle eye on the photogs to signal a famous person’s entrance), but maybe amidst all the out-there scenesters, the usually low-key Stipe just strolled in under the radar.
For Resort 2012, Imitation designer Tara Subkoff went back to her cinematic roots, directing a short silent film starring a glittering bevy of it-girls, from Becka Diamond to Nicole Trunfio, Lissy Trullie, Karima Adebibe, and Cecile Winckler.
Many of these same ladies–as well as requisite sexy actors Marc Ruffalo and Liev Schrieber–mixed and mingled at the Jane Hotel’s bar last night, where Subkoff showed the short in a continual loop. (Charlotte Ronson, Chrissie Miller, Shanea Grimes, Sky Ferreira, Karen Elson, and Jen Brill were there, too.)
Several were wearing the Imitation resort/holiday line, a collection of flouncy dresses and high-waisted trousers, all with a vintage feel.
We’re nuts about Meredith Kahn‘s accessories line Made Her Think, and when we learned Kahn was working with Resin’s Chantel Valentene on several summer denim essentials, our jewelry-hungry ears perked up.
Last night, Soho vintage emporium What Goes Around Comes Around hosted a laid-back, intimate launch to celebrate the collaboration pieces. With Teen Vogue‘s Andrew Bevan playing deejay (nobody spins ’90s hits better), guests including Becka Diamond sipped Kanon Vodka cocktails and flipped through racks of amazing vintage tees.
It wasn’t long after Resin denim creative director Chantel Valentene met Made Her Think‘s Meredith Kahn that they were making jeans together. Kahn, a former denim designer herself, was eager to bring her cool-girl accoutrements to Valentene’s paired down denim.
The hundredth anniversary of Palm Beach? The fifth anniversary for antique jewelry boutique, House of Lavande? And one private beach front property? For House of Lavande’s owner, Tracy Smith, all this equaled a spectacular reason to celebrate. The lauded vintage jewelery connoisseur opened her home in Palm Beach’s North End to a chic crowd of New Yorkers. Among the hand selected group of sixty guests were medialites Amanda Hearst, Becka Diamond, Andrew Bevan, Luigi Tadini and Mickey Boardman, as well as designer Chris Benz and stylist Mary Alice Stevenson.
We wish you could have been there too, but we took the liberty of attending on your behalf. While we struggled to interpret the dress code, which called for “modern vintage,” others didn’t. Guests were draped in everything from Michael Kors corduroy suits to vintage Vivienne Westwood. See ow they complemented their wardrobe with Smith’s expertly chosen House of Lavande pieces.
**All photos courtesy of the Billy Farrell Agency.
Cobbler extraordinaire George Esquivel was on hand at Maria Cornejo‘s Bleecker St. store last night to celebrate the launch of his fall/winter shoe collaboration with Cornejo.
Esquivel, who handcrafts exquisite leather shoes in his Orange County workshop (he employs only 8-12 craftsmen), only produces a few shoes a year so he’s game to collaborate. He says it allows him to explore other design concepts. But only if the shoe fits (I couldn’t resist).
“The collaborations that I do have to be seamless and grow organically,” Esquivel told us. “Maria read about me at the Vogue Fashion Fund last year, called me up and we hit it off.”
It’s the first year Esquivel and Cornejo have teamed up, and this is Esquivel’s first fall/winter line for Cornejo.
“[Cornejo's] collection is structured and architectural so we tried to create lines in the shoes and give them some texture and shapes that are just a little different,” Esquivel said. “They’re just a little off-center.”
I was introduced to What Goes Around Comes Around by my best friend who moved to the city a year before I did. She said, “We need to go in there, it’s like vintage heaven.” And that it was. A place where everything vintage comes to die, or rather, live on.
Enchanted by all the amazing vintage pieces, WGACA soon came to be a regular stop in my weekend “want-to-buy-everything” trips to Soho. But I always wondered, “where does all of this vintage even come from? And how does this even work?” After hearing about Jane Aldridge’s trip to the WGACA warehouse, I knew where to find my answers.
So, yesterday, I made a trip out to their giant 10,000 square-foot warehouse located about ten minutes outside of Manhattan in Jersey City. (Which is technically in New Jersey, but not really.) Becka Diamond came too, since she’s hosting at event at the store this Thursday. “I’ve been surrounded by vintage all my life. I, like, remember eating lollipops at auctions with my mom when I was young,” said Becka as we headed over. “Is this your first time here?” she asked me. “You’re going to die. The first time I came here I was like in shock. There’s just so much amazing stuff.”
Monday’s naag.com launch party at Mary Queen of Scots felt less like a “fashion party” and more like a bunch of cool kids hanging out at a hip LES bar–in a good way.
If you’re wondering what naag.com is, I think it is best described on the site’s Who We Are page: “Naag is Fiona and Aggy and our friends. Talking about things we live and do and see and feel. We live in New York and like to hang out.”
That also pretty much sums up the party. And if its attendees were any indication, their friends are people like Karen Elson, Coco Rocha, Seth Meyers, Christian Siriano, Becka Diamond, Rebecca Minkoff, Eddie Borgo, and, according to the tip sheet, an incognito Marion Cotillard. To compliment the venue’s British theme, AllSaints sponsored and Agyness was dressed head-to-toe in the UK-based brand.
“On my way to Vogue for a fitting,” reads a slightly misleading tweet from Becka Diamond. The party-goer/DJ/occasional NYLON TV person is a regular on street style blogs like Altamira and had a blip in Vanity Fair.
Vogue.com even named her an It Girl a while back, but we never expected to see her in the pages of the actual magazine. (She’s just a little too downtown for Anna, don’t ya think?) And, we won’t. It turns out Becka was just being fitted in a Craig Lawrence dress that she will wear tonight to a Vogue event honoring London designers. We’re maybe even more jealous about that than a Vogue feature–Craig Lawrence is amazing.
Shoe designer Jean-Michel Cazabat undoubtedly has a certain “look.” It’s one of toughness, but with a certain sparkly glamor that only a Frenchman could pull off. For his inaugural New York Fashion Week presentation, the cobbler enlisted Rick Owens aficionado Becka Diamond as a spokesmodel of sorts. The scenester posed with Cazabat in a pair of sharp booties, further reinforcing the fashion crowd’s love of his aesthetic.
We caught up with Cazabat post-show:
