Before I even start on the clothes I would like to thank Rag & Bone for providing all of us snow-covered editors and buyers with mulled wine, beer, and warm pretzels. That was awesome. Now, on to the clothes–because they were pretty awesome, too.
In case you were in denial that Fashion’s Night Out was really happening, this full-on, fashion and celeb-packed PSA will convince you otherwise. We already saw that Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift were tapped to pull in the young’uns to the now annual shopping extravaganza, and now Conde has pulled out the big guns (hi, Read more →
Much credit is due to those hard working editors, models, and designers in the industry who juggle motherhood along with their demanding fashion careers. But what about the dads? They may be a slightly rarer occurrence in the industry but we’d like to recognize those hard working (not to mention) hot dads dominating the fashion Read more →
Ben Stiller hosted this weekend’s SNL. The obvious fashion news out of Saturday night’s episode would be that Stiller brought Zoolander back (he’s friends with Stefon, obvi), but our preferred fashion segment was the “V-Necks” digital short, in which Andy Samberg and Ben Stiller battle wearing extreme v-neck tees. First there’s the “double deep v” Read more →
Rag & Bone is always cool, and their spring 2012 collection was no exception. See: a soundtrack created specially for the show by Thom Yorke; a runway that actually rose before the first model walked out to become a ceiling of lightbulbs; an A-list model casting that included Arizona Muse, Karmen Pedaru and Joan Smalls; a front row that included Dwyane Wade (sitting next to Anna Wintour) La La Vasquez with hubby Carmelo Anthony, and Mary J. Blige; and quirky ’70s California surfer inspired clothes from designers David Neville and Marcus Wainwright in cobalt, orange sherbet and lemon yellow, layered to perfection.
Over the past two years, there’s been noticeable expansion at Rag & Bone. Along with more stand-alone stores, an e-commerce site, and an increasingly prominent presence at major department stores, the name itself has gotten bigger. After Fall 2010′s perfect wintry collection, inspired by hunting gear and alpine ski slopes, the design team of David Neville and Marcus Wainwright won the CFDA award for menswear. And just-launched last week, their new advertising campaign features models snapping themselves in Rag & Bone looks. It’s plastered all over New York City.
Which brings us, one wordy paragraph later, to our point: With all this broadening, you’d except the runway collection to maybe become less focused. After all, Rag & Bone is partially-owned by Andrew Rosen, the CEO of Theory and current king of contemporary retail. Neville and Wainwright need to design clothes that not only look good, but also sell well.
I don’t envy Marcus Wainwright and David Neville, the designers of Rag and Bone. What do you do when heritage, your thing, is the trend of the moment? And then isn’t. Last season, their approach was to out-heritage everyone, with masses of chambray and denim, in what felt like the closeted football player on Glee constantly targeting the gay kids for abuse, aka, the lady protesting a little too much. Their solution for next fall is to go British. “English gamekeepers, stalking in Scotland and the Duke of Windsor. Exemplary demonstration of how to dress like an Englishman” read their press materials.
On Saturday, The New Yorker Festival presented Fashion Forward, a panel that included Maria Cornejo, Phillip Lim, Naeem Khan and David Neville and Marcus Wainwright from Rag & Bone. As you may have heard, Maria Cornejo expressed her not so high opinion ofCarla Bruni-Sarkozy at said panel. We were there, and surrounding that brief and hilarious moment, was a very thoughtful and open discussion about the business of fashion.
The New Yorker labeled these designers “The New Guard.” They have all established measurable success and are probably on their way to becoming household names. Cornejo and Khan have designed dresses for the first lady. Phillip, David and Marcus have won CFDA awards. All of them have impressively withstood the shaky economy and none of them were born in the U.S.
After living here for a while, you sometimes forget how many amazing people live and work in New York City. When we walked into City Hall for the Fashion’s Night Out kick-off press conference today, we went through security with Lisa Mayock from Vena Cava.
Then, we saw Anna Wintour walking ahead of us and Alex Wang suddenly appeared behind us. A few minutes later Marc Jacobs, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez walked in. After we were seated inside the press conference room, the following people (in addition to the aforementioned) surrounded the podium: Prabal Gurung, Zac Posen, Phillip Lim, Tracy Reese, Kenneth Cole, Donna Karan, Carolina Herrera, Tommy Hilfiger, Thakoon Panichgul, Marcus Wainwright from Rag & Bone, Francisco Costa, Vera Wang, Tory Burch, Steven Kolb, Linda Fargo, the Mayor…and after a few moments, we noticed tiny Mary-Kate Olsen peeking her head out behind Marc.
Then, unfortunately, we died and are thus unable to report anything else about Fashion’s Night Out.
Just kidding – sort of.
My first assignment post-CFDAs was to visit the studio of winners Marcus Wainwright and David Neville. The occasion? Rag & Bone’s Resort and Holiday collections.
Unsurprisingly, there was plenty to love. The designers carried on with the wooly, layered military theme from Fall 2010, featuring lots of gorgeous knitted sweaters, exaggerated boyfriend blazers in plaid and tweed, a pair of tweed cargo sweatpants that looked too comfortable to resist, and a red silk work shirt that could be dressed up or down, much like the rest of the collection.
Rag & Bone’s AW10 collection was awesome. There were plaids and tweeds and military style fanny packs and killer booties topped with chunky scarves, layered over thin turtlnecks with bits of shearling and loads of buckles. There were navys and forest greens and deep reds, with plenty of black and even some brown. There were Read more →
“It has the obvious connotations…girl in boyfriend’s/husband’s/one-night stand’s shirt the morning after a black-tie ball. It’s very James Bond.” –Marcus Wainwright on the whole tomboy trend. We couldn’t love this sexy image more.
