Jen Kao - Fashionista

Jen Kao

Business

Lily Collins Is the New Face of Lancôme, Jen Kao Shutters Her Label, and Rihanna's Curls Cover Glamour

Lancôme has announced Audrey Hepburn doppelganger Lily Collins as its latest face, joining fellow Brits Emma Watson and Kate Winslet as a brand ambassador for the French cosmetics house. {Telegraph} New York-based designer Jen Kao is closing her six-year-old namesake label due to health issues. Her standout leather pieces, trademark cut-outs, and downtown bad-girl style will truly be missed. {WWD} Jerome Dreyfuss, Isabel Marant's handbag designer husband, told H&M that he wasn't interested in designing the bags for his wife's much obsessed over upcoming collection with the retail mega-giant. Turns out he likes to keep business and pleasure separate--smart man! {Vogue UK}

Style

Trendspotting: Floral and Plaid

With the '90s being the decade of inspiration du jour for designers in spring 2014, one comes to expect some typical '90s staples. Case in point, Birkenstocks, overalls, and the slip dress, but what would the '90s be without florals and plaid? Paired together, they are showing up on the runways and thankfully not always in the typical grungy fashion.

Style

Jen Kao Spring 2014: Slouchy Sex Appeal

If you look over the notes I took during Jen Kao's spring 2014 show, you'll be no doubt bemused: "plaid with nipples hanging," "peek-a-boob," "nip slip!" "that cleavage!"--which, to be sure, wouldn't please Kao in the slightest. "That definitely wasn't the intention!" she said backstage. Intentional or not, this was definitely one of Kao's sexiest shows to date.

Style

The Top 10 Trends From the New York Fashion Week Fall Runways

Fashion week came, and brought a feisty lil' friend named Nemo along for the ride--forcing us to consider forgoing, "Well, doesn't she look chic!" for, "Well, doesn't she look warm?!" The runways begged to differ, offering up endless new ways to bundle-up beautifully for fall 2013. Check out our top ten trend takeaways from the fashion week that weathered the storm in style.

Fashion Week

What We Saw at New York Fashion Week, Day 4

Day four of NYFW was basically heaven on earth. In the past 12 hours, we saw Chloe Sevigny modeling her own collection for Opening Ceremony, Alexander Wang prove that he's got the skills for Wanglenciaga Balenciaga, and went backstage at all the shows including Wang, Prabal Gurung, Louise Goldin, and more. Click through to see everything we saw!

Fashion Week

Jen Kao, Nonoo, and SUNO

It's Saturday, and you're at home wondering what's happening at fashion week. Don't worry - we're out covering all the shows for you! Jen Kao glows in the dark, Nonoo finds inspiration in Habana, and SUNO shows matte metallics.

Style

Jen Kao Spring 2013

The Clothes: Sporty futuristic. Kao re-imagined her signature mini-prints and geometric cuts in origami inspired pieces that were less body con than

Style

Jen Kao Fall 2012: East Meets West For a Nightcap

You never know what you're going to get when you walk into a Jen Kao show, and her line sheets rarely provide a good explanation. This season was no exception. According to her notes, we could expect to see a woman who "moves with a relaxed aristocracy defined by challenging the rigidity of masculinity and the fragility of femininity." Um, what? So we let the clothes do the talking.

Fashion Week

New York Fashion Week Spring 2012 Beauty: Best Nail Art

What we actually want to wear on our nails and what we just like to look at on other people's nails are two very different things sometimes. The nail artistry at this week's New York fashion week actually veered both ways for us this season. While nudes are still a thing, and orangey poppy reds (see Jason Wu) had a strong showing, there were a few surprises, too. Manicurist Jin Soon Choi told us backstage at Alexander Wang to watch for super dark colors (not very spring-like) mixed with brights--for example a mixed mani/pedi. She also said that bright colors with a 70s feeling like purple and turquoise would be big come spring. The established designers went fairly minimal with makeup and nails this season, but we love that indie designers (and Betsey Johnson, of course!) are still taking nail risks.

Style

Jen Kao Spring 2012: Dangerously Beautiful Flora (and She Tells Us Why Leo DiCaprio Inspired the Collection)

In a departure from last year’s outer galaxy runway show, Jen Kao was firmly on planet earth--more specifically, Hawaii--for her spring 2012 collection. It was nice to see the esoteric designer lightening up a little bit, too. Well, sort of. While the visual references to her show were obvious allusions to the sunny flora and fauna of the islands, there was a deeply tragic lost love undercurrent to the collection, too. Set to a backdrop of a hazy sherbet-hued beachfront sunrise, a paper art fascinator-wearing model opened with a sun-ray orb projected onto her chest, which then grew to full-blown daylight in the room. Cue the gasps from the audience.

Style

Andrew Weir Shows Us the Crazy, Amazing World of Casting, Talks Underage Models

For the third season in a row, ACW Worldwide, the casting agency founded by legendary casting director Andrew Weir, invited us to attend their huge day-long spring/summer 2012 casting this Sunday. As I'm about a foot too short to be a model, we were not there hoping to get a spot in one of the four major shows Weir was casting (Thakoon, Rebecca Taylor, Jen Kao and Rachel Zoe) and we will probably never know what it feels like to be one of the hundreds of gorgeous amazons filing through the Hudson Hotel library all day, walking for an audience of Weir and his staff. However, we now know what it's like to be on the other side of the table--we got to sit right next to Weir and shadow him for about an hour of non-stop models. It was really fun. And informative. Click through to get all the dirt on what goes on at a casting table, including why we think it might be a while before underage models are completely filtered out of runway shows, plus tons of photos!

Style

Jen Kao Fall 2011: In a Galaxy Far Far Away

Jen Kao was on another planet when she designed her fall 2011 collection. The runway was lined with glowing lava to signify, according to her line sheet, "a new beginning," and models looked a bit like beautiful aliens--fierce queens (not the Ru Paul Drag Race variety) from a far away galaxy: they wore iridescent armor (structured jackets and breast plates), tight printed jersey dresses in colors that looked like the rainbows you see in an oil slick over shimmering silver leggings, with gold netting and layers of fringe scattered throughout. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before, aside from prints Kao called "aerial planetary views" which looked very inspired by Christopher Kane's galaxy collection. I can't begin to get inside Kao's head for this out-of-this-world collection. Luckily, she broke it down in her line sheet and it's too good not to quote in full:

Business

Last Night's Parties: Kenneth Cole's Digital Getdown and Metallurgy at the Museum of Arts & Design

Lauren's Party Kenneth Cole is many things: activist, designer, marketing whiz. But one would never call him conservative. Or backward thinking. That's why it's no surprise that he's jumped on blogger bandwagon, inviting a slew of us to view his Spring 2011 collection at the company's showroom. (Which happens to be the former Astor stables--a gorgeous building.) The invite to the event was a Bloggie video camera, complete with a clip of Cole inviting us to "join his social network." Pretty clever--and of course hilarious.

Business

A Night at Milk Studios: Jen Kao, Mandy Coon, Kimberly Ovitz and LnA

Jen Kao Sure there was sand on the runway and there were floaty dresses and soleless sandals at Jen Kao's show at Milk yesterday, but there was a dark undercurrent running through her collection. Chris Isaac's "Wicked Games" played for the entire length of the show, and Kao's line sheets said that she was "inspired by the arid sands and shifting light of the powdery dunes where desert princes find their zombie brides." Ok...? The zombie bride thing didn't exactly come across but Kao's color palette--sand, off-white, dusty rose--certainly gave off a desert vibe. Models strolled through the sand in over-sized slouchy knits and loose airy dresses, most of which were crocheted and macramed, and paired with soleless macrame thongs and shin guards. The stand out look? A dusty rose gown with intricate paneling at the bodice.