Huge flourishes, gestures, broad strokes and silhouettes expressed in rich and gorgeous fabrics from double faced cashmeres, meltons and tweeds to faille, moirés, iridescent and flocked taffetas, radzimir, velvet and wrap print satins.
From sharp hats and even sharper haircuts to flamboyant shoes, the in-between include huge scarves, stoles, extravagant neck, waist and hip flourishes, studded clutches, suede buckets and iridescent quilted nylon sport bags.
Our ‘see-quins glam glitter’ eye shadow is impulsively swept across lids in the deepest, darkest glimmering jeweled tones. Lacquered nails in our high-shine ‘enamored’ nail polish matches eye shadows.
Face framing geometric haircuts by Guido Palau complement the meticulously colored hair in this collection’s tones by Josh Wood.
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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2018-19, MARC JACOBS, MARC JACOBS FW 2018-19
Tue, February 20 2018 » Fashion Blog
From Milan to Manhattan. This season, Bottega Veneta presents its Fall / Winter 2018 women’s and men’s collections for one season only in New York City to celebrate the opening of the new Maison flagship store at 740 Madison Avenue.
With its longtime motto “When your own initials are enough,” Bottega Veneta has always celebrated fierce individualism. The idea takes flight in homage to the spirit of New York women and men who are free to fearlessly express themselves in a city that’s seen everything. “New Yorkers have a real bravery and boldness,” says Tomas Maier. “Nothing stops them. Nothing seems impossible.” For women, that means a wardrobe filled with unexpected textures and a vast palette of unique colors. The look is finished off with statement-making boots on a pavement-friendly low heel and a bag that’s both an artisanal masterpiece and pragmatic essential like the Palio Fringe Tote. For men, it means the sophisticated eccentricity of animal print shirting, harlequin checked tailoring and brashly patterned socks worn with “corduroy” suede loafers in jewel hues.
The collection explores the various facets of life in New York, including the necessary escape from the city’s intense whirl of activity, whether to the wilderness of the country or the serenity of one’s home. “I was thinking about the way of life in the city, which goes from one extreme to another” says Maier. “It’s hyper-motion and then it falls into almost total seclusion.” The Fall/Winter collection includes clothes that are designed to exist in the comfort of a beautifully appointed apartment—floral pajama silks for both men and women, and ethereally soft evening dresses, for women, that can both lounge and live it up.
The runway set is also defined by contrast and curating a world of one’s own. In this case, it’s the merger of New York and Italy, seen in a stark Brutalist backdrop filled with sensual Italian design—both iconic vintage pieces and Bottega Veneta’s Furniture collection. That eclectic mix echoes the Maison, our new permanent home in New York which is designed to be as comfortable as your own. “The Maison is inspired by the city in which it’s located, but it’s filled with Italian-made products and even Italian art,” explains Maier. “The idea of provenance is so important in the world of Bottega Veneta. The brand comes from a specific place that tells you a story. I wanted to bring that idea of a sense of place to our new store.”
The overarching vision of the season is rooted in architecture—a long-time passion of Tomas Maier and a defining ideal of the brand—drawing inspiration from the iconic and modern structures that are unmistakably New York. From there, Maier extracts the detail of the cube as a motif that weaves its way through the women’s and men’s collections. “It’s like a brick,” says Maier. “We use it to build the foundation.”
The perfect simplicity of the geometric form is utilized to create graphic patterns with surreal shifting perspectives. For women, it’s evident in richly hued intarsia silk dresses, lush shearling coats and on iconic bags including The Lauren 1980 and The Knot Clutch. Used in this season’s women’s jewelry, the cube turns earrings, rings and cuffs into artful sculpture in miniature. For men, there are joyously colorful intarsia patterns on felted grey cashmere crewnecks and jackets pieced together with precise, knife-sharp cubic forms.
The cube is an evolution of The Intrecciato Checker square introduced last spring. The checker continues for Fall/ Winter. The new women’s bag this season, a drum-shaped zippered tote called The Tambura comes in a variety of checker workmanships including Intrecciato Abstract and Paisley Checker. The men’s Intrecciato Checker Totes of spring are recast for fall in bolder colors. The most compelling new men’s bag for fall, however, comes in solid nappa. The MI-NY is a shoulder duffle designed with thoughtful and instinctive functionality to be the ultimate travel bag.
The cube’s architectural boldness is balanced with subtlety as Maier translates the sparkle of the skyline with a delicate silver chain embroidery that has a clever trompe l’oeil effect. It appears at first to be a top-stitch or windowpane pattern on tailored jackets, while bestowing a blink-and-miss twinkle on dense plaid coats. “It’s a very Bottega Veneta detail,” says Maier. “You have to get up close to the product to discover and appreciate it.”
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Tags: BOTTEGA VENETA, BOTTEGA VENETA FW 2018-19, FALL WINTER MEN 2018-19, FALL WINTER WOMEN 2018-19
Tue, February 20 2018 » Fashion Blog
‘Youth In Motion’
Christiane F. – Uli Edel’s visceral 1981 film (based on Christiane Felscherinow, Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck’s book Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo) has long occupied a pivotal place in Raf Simons’ imagination. Simons, like many Europeans of his generation, was exposed to the harrowing world of Christiane F. in high school, where the film and the book were discussed as a part of the curriculum. Set in late 1970s, cold war-era Berlin – the Berlin of David Bowie’s Low, Heroes and Lodger – Christiane F. ultimately remains a cautionary tale, one that unashamedly and unapologetically depicts the realities of drug use and addiction. Images of Detlev and Christiane F., the film’s anti-heroes – as played by first-time actors Thomas Haustein and Natja Brunckhorst – populate ‘Youth In Motion’ as emotional markers for the persistent relevance – socially and psychologically – of Christiane F.’s story and Edel’s film.
Elsewhere Simons counters the often brutal nature of Christiane F.’s adolescence with sardonic texts drawn from Cookie Mueller (1949-1989) and Glenn O’Brien’s (1947-2017) ‘lost’ mid-1980s tragic-comic play Drugs, another kind of cautionary tale that chronicles the “chemical entanglements” of its straight-out-of-central-casting protagonists. The utilitarian design of the 2016 edition of Drugs (The Kingsboro Press/For The Common Good) – published with yellow and orange covers – is a recurring visual motif throughout ‘Youth In Motion’, as are Simons’ subsequent adaptations of its ‘basic’ design to create a series of applied, color-coded patches that index, in a deadpan manner akin to the Periodic Table, the abbreviated names of narcotic substances: ‘LSD’, ‘XTC’, ‘GHB’ and ’2C-B’, each with their own specific generational and (sub)cultural associations.
‘Youth In Motion’ implies movement – across space and time, and between inner and external realities – and draws freely from the lexicons of art, cinema, literature, music, the counter culture and the ‘attitude’ of couture. ‘Youth In Motion’ is presented in a mise-en-scene that echoes the salons of mid-century couture houses: the discrete number of models employed, the numbering system that identifies specific looks, and the opulent tableaux (food, drink, and flowers), itself reminiscent of a Flemish still-life. ‘Youth In Motion’ contrasts the volume and extravagant materiality of couture (evident in Simons’ use of satin duchesse) with the more utilitarian manners of pocketed ‘space’ pants and hooded tabards with their indexical narcotic references.
Ultimately, ‘Youth In Motion’ seeks to neither glorify nor condone the culture(s) of drugs; rather Simons seeks instead to consider the persistent, almost ubiquitous presence of narcotics (prescribed or otherwise) within our society and acknowledge our often conflicted relationships with them; in turn opening up a more nuanced dialog around the implications for a society where addiction and the causes of addiction remain largely taboo subjects, with – as both Christiane F. and the current opioid crisis demonstrate – often untold human consequences.
Part of the proceeds from sales of the ‘Youth In Motion’ collection will be donated to organizations that support those in recovery from addiction. Food from the presentation of ‘Youth In Motion’ will be donated to City Harvest: “Rescuing Food For New York’s Hungry”. To learn more, visit www.cityharvest.org.
Raf Simons would like to acknowledge everyone involved with the book and film adaptation of Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo for their commitment to and enthusiasm for this collaboration. He would also like to acknowledge the representatives of Cookie Mueller and Glenn O’Brien as well as The Kingsboro Press / For The Common Good for their permission to incorporate elements of Mueller and O’Brien’s play Drugs in ‘Youth In Motion.’
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2018-19, RAF SIMONS, RAF SIMONS FW 2018-19
Tue, February 20 2018 » Fashion Blog
Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild 75008 Paris January 17th, 2018
Romanticism: a subtle subversion of interiority laid bare. Giving shape to the freedom of being oneself, without labels and without belongings. Grace as a way of being and as a mean of expression.
Aristopunk: the delicate rebellion that sprouts from awareness. Breaking the schemes, bringing what is known to unknown territories to making it conventional. The extraordinary that becomes ordinary.
Free associations give meaning to new uniforms. Sleight adjustments are individual quivers on dry and vertical figures. The coat as a cover, the tracksuit as the new suit, the blouse as a base.
The short bomber, the down jackets, created in collaboration with Moncler, the nylon messenger bag and the white sneakers as elements of a revised urban repertoire. Animal intarsia from the Valentino archive and constructive artistry leads the savoir faire Couture in the everyday routine, making it normal.
A binding sequence of blue, black and grey. Unexpected and interior, harmonies of off tones of turquoise, dark green, mint green and purple. Romanticism as an authentic urgency to show oneself for what one is, not a garrulous ostentation of how one would like to appear.
Authentic rebellion has a grace. It does not scream, it is a state of mind.
#ValentinoMenFW1819
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2018-19, VALENTINO, VALENTINO FW 2018-19
Tue, February 20 2018 » Fashion Blog
Open air, warmth, generous volumes. Playful natural fabrics and technical materials. Eveningwear with mineral nuances, large and small polka dots.
Colours
Grey, navy, greyish green, chrome green, quartz, black. Bright overtones: royal blue, hazelnut, oxidized green, raspberry, cobalt, mahogany, chartreuse, bubble gum pink.
Lines
Wraparound coats, double-breasted coats, three-button coats. Parkas, trench coats with removable collars in sheepskin, blousons with ribbing, straight blousons, hooded blousons, sweat-shirts, blousons with knitted shawl collars, blousons with a bomber spirit. Straight or double-breasted suits, three-button jackets, double-breasted jackets, padded jackets with drawstring back and staggered topstitching.
Pullovers with round collars, oversize pullovers, raglan pullovers with buttoned collars, high neck pullovers. Shirts with straight collars, shirts with supple collars, shirts with high neck contrasted collars, shirts with ridged ribbing, shirts with playful pleats. Very narrow trousers, wide trousers with elastic waist and leather bottom cuff, pleated trousers.
Fabrics
Combed mohair, compact double wool, 180 compact wool, technical wool felt. Two-tone quilted Toilbright, Toilovent, technical stripes and herringbone pattern. Reversible Toilovent and rubberised lambskin, rubberised lambskin with topstitching, endless road design rubberised lambskin with sabré technique, grained calfskin with brazilian horses silkscreen lining, patinated calfskin, babylamb with contrasted topstitching, sheepskin.
Cotton and wool with herringbone pattern and leather detail, supple cashmere flannel, technical wool, reversible cotton jacquard with polka dots, silk tie jacquard with polka dots, wool braiding with checks. Extra-fine cashmere with saddler topstitching, cashmere and silk with contrasted stripes, cashmere with playful ribbing, pop tv wool, endless road cashmere, wool and cashmere with two-toned arrows, tweed and stripes.
Cotton poplin, cotton and cashmere twill, cotton jacquard with polka dots, cotton with liquid tartan scarf print, silk. Supple cashmere flannel, wool broadcloth and cashmere, wool flannel, wool and mohair canvas, technical wool, stretch gabardine, cotton and wool with herringbone pattern, technical wool cover, cotton or silk jacquard with polka dots.
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Tags: FALL WINYTER MEN 2018-19, hermès, HERMÈS FW 2018-19
Sat, February 17 2018 » Fashion Blog
“I wanted to make a collection about pure creativity, so we started by asking some kids to draw their idea of clothes. The naive shapes were enlightening when brought to life. It was a jumping off point for a fresh way of thinking about fashion.”
– Jonny Johansson, Creative Director
A collection of experiment and wearability in menswear, with a new eye on wardrobe staples. Throughout, vivid colours such as blues and reds sit alongside muted tones of camel and grey. Striped, loose knitted tops have extended sleeves and a large patch pocket at the hem. 2D square bodied sweaters are made from just two panels, following a child’s imagined idea of a knit.
Single breasted tailoring is pressed with new body, with creases placed away from the usual. Pants are cropped and slightly flared, the cut-out pockets with bonded hems. Wools are woven with synthetics to create textures like terrain. The fabrics are used on snap-fastening duffels, either full body, or as a panel across the shoulders of a camel duffel.
Knitwear is key to the collection, and a focus for experiments. A snap-fastened cardigan combines natural and synthetic yarns with an elastic hem. Sweaters with wavy stripes mix richness of yarns, adding pop to homespun stitches. Checked technical cotton is bonded onto shearling for a zip-up jacket, the zip pleasingly chunky. Shetland wool single breasted coats are fastened with rubberised black metallic circles.
An oversized yarn twill is used for a boxy take on the denim jacket. Shetland wool is used for a V-neck, while camel wool cloth is cut to make a crewneck sweater. Fine crewneck sweaters have been embroidered in fluffy yarn with childlike motifs: a star, a rocket, planets.
Leather lace-ups have oversized eyelets that continue around the ankle, while hold all-bags use the terrain pattern of the collection. Necklaces have been knitted from metallic yarn.
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Tags: ACNE STUDIOS, ACNES STUDIOS FW 2018-19, FALL WINTER MEN 2018-19
Wed, February 14 2018 » Fashion Blog
“I focused on the most classic, almost passé item, drawn directly from the legacy and origin of the Lanvin man: the suit. What is a suit? Two pieces, a jacket and trousers, cut from the same fabric. I wanted to deconstruct this idea, using layering. For me, these combinations make a modern suit. I wanted to create a smokescreen. “
For Lucas Ossendrijver, Lanvin Menswear Creative Director, the season is all about where modernity and sartorial tradition meet. From the most classic English fabrics is born a brand new, hybrid and urban look. The shape of a suit is precise with no shoulder pads, a narrow waist, a broader back and ironed-in pleats. Here however everything has a different take: a finely striped coat has military jacket detailing.
The suit trousers worn with it, cut in the same fabric, are like combat pants: cotton inlay, gusseted pockets, velcro. A part-technical, part-suit parka jacket sports an asymmetric zip around the collar to reveal the detail of a shirt and jacket. Elements mix up in a new play on fabrics. Stripes and checks match and clash on the edge of abstraction. The shapes meld, only distinguishable thanks to a few contrasts. Urban details are many in this wardrobe that has been as meticulously produced as ever.
For Lucas Ossendrijver, a suit is also a form of camouflage. He toys with prints: animal outlines, plant, tree and flower patterns mix together, from the most natural colours to the most nocturnal, almost toxic. Inspired by outdoor wear, fleece jackets and coats are designed like big covers. Asymmetric knits are draped and worn with wide sleeve-shaped scarves.
Combat pants are combined with a soft, quilted leather bomber jacket. An entirely hand-painted shearling sweatshirt is worn over a suit. On a reflective leather parka jacket, the shearling-lined collar turns into a hood. Stripes, threads and studs, traditional and technical fabrics, military and urban details: everything is layered together without ever clashing…as if it was always meant to be.
The same research was carried out for the accessories. The soles of the shoes were developed in 3D whilst the sneakers have heat-sealed relief inlay. ID badges, worn across the chest, are in transparent lizard skin whilst the bags evoke map cases and lunch boxes. Jewellery is layered like lucky charms, in raffia or burnt straw.
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2018-19, Lanvin, LANVIN FW 2018-19
Tue, February 13 2018 » Fashion Blog
Synergy happens when several codes are unified in one new language. In his first menswear collection at Maison Margiela, creative director John Galliano joins together classic symbols of the men’s wardrobe by applying past and present house ideas into one forward proposal for a new glamour. An overcoat is hacked up into a jacket, a trench coat is spliced with a formal coat, while others are reduced to their core using the décortiqué technique.
The concept of dressing in haste, established in the Artisanal line, is at the core of the Fall Winter 2018 collection informing cuts. Humble menswear staples such as the greatcoat, the nylon sports jacket and the cable knit are re- positioned and collaged with sartorial heritage tailoring. Appropriating the inappropriate, an Aran knit cardigan appears in all-rubber. A navy bomber is flocked with shadow effects that imitate wear.
Introducing Artisanal pieces to the Maison’s menswear, a relaxed suit is cut on the bias, an innovative first for sartorial dressing. The show is presented on the backdrop of a synergistic glyph, a new symbol imbued with a positive message for the house and echoed in the décortiqué back of a Mackintosh coat. Known as the SMS, the Security Margiela Sneaker makes its debut alongside heeled men’s Tabi boots and menswear interpretations of the recently launched Glam Slam bag.
‘New comprehensions of glamour are the modern-day synergy of dressing; desires that bind us together across identities and wardrobes.’ – Maison Margiela
Materials
Fabrics native to the men’s wardrobe such as Harris Tweed, herringbone, flannel and a wealth of wools are contrasted by the artificial nature of rubber and poly-urethane. Polyester gabardine and nylon nod at sportswear while leathers and knitwear draw on menswear classics.
Technique
Tailoring takes centre stage, from sartorial 1940s silhouettes and military cutting to rare and mercurial bias-cutting using properties from the Artisanal line. Transforming traditional tailoring, staples from the men’s wardrobe are spliced or hacked up for new expressions. Maison Margiela’s term for cutting up a garment to its frame, the technique of décortiqué is applied to coats and knits. Rubber is moulded to imitate knitwear. Flocking simulates shadow play, while pigment print adds painted-over effects.
Palette
Drawing on the traditional men’s and military wardrobes, black, navy, charcoal and melange grey set the tone for the collection. The muted colours are interrupted by Klein blue, red, bright yellow and orange, hinting at the palette of sportswear. The presence of white cements the Maison Margiela signature.
Accessories
Rooted in heirloom jewellery, rhinestone chokers and military buttons worn as brooches correspond with the memory of medals, cast from rubber moulds. Bracelets and belts are graphically coloured in leather, foiled leather and transparent PVC. Chains appear as belt and necklaces, while one necklace carries a cravat as medal. The collection introduces the SMS, the Security Margiela Sneaker: a steel- toe-capped trainer with a vibram sole, in white, black, red, yellow and blue. The puffa slipper is constructed in waterproof cordura nylon with a crêpe gum sole, while décortiqué cowboy boots and the Tabi – flat or with a six-centimetre heel – underline house codes.
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2018-19, MAISON MARGELA FW 2018-19, MAISON MARGIELA
Tue, February 13 2018 » Fashion Blog
Wed, February 7 2018 » Fashion Blog
Overt/Covert
Clothes help bind us to our gender. They define us. But confine us? For Fall Winter and Pre-Fall 2018, Moschino teases, tests and twists the conventional boundaries of masculine and feminine in search of re-evaluation, liberation, and stimulation. Jeremy Scott says: “For this collection I wanted to play around with the idea of mixing masculine and feminine in an assertively subversive way. So as well some overt dress codes of gender – maybe pent-up pinstripe suiting for her, florals, lace and frou-frou for him.”
For Pre-Fall Moschino’s womenswear collection, Scott’s story features the firm smack of fetishised discipline; tailored jackets and pants, a dress, a white men’s shirt, and a parka all worn under PVC body-stockings and gimp masks. Some of these pieces are decorated with safety-pin attached patches on which words in tabloid font shout suggestively; “STUD”, “FETISH”, “X-rated”, “SPANK”, “PLEASURE”, “PAIN”, to name a few. Other pieces – like a Hepburn-perfect green tweed coat – come apparently unadorned until you investigate the attached corset on the back. Spaghetti-strapped, lace-edged black slip dresses are teamed with a tabloid-patch high-cut bomber jacket or tricep-high PVC gloves that gleamingly highlight the articulation of the limb.
A nuanced feminine overture sees Scott set on the appropriation and reprogramming of some of masculine clothing’s most fixed formal algorithms. The cummerbund is retooled as the center of gravity for a fitted black dress, teamed with a high-fronted tail-coat whose tails morph into button-holedold-school men’s suspenders. Suspenders – clipped and elasticated this time – are similarly deployed as unexpected masculine accents to hold up the bodice of a PVC booted bad-girl-show-girl look. Pinstripe or plain black tuxedos, reduxed and recut, are smokingly subversive; cut-away panels, inverted double armholes and midriff-hinting high waistcoats undercut the externalised language of formal masculinity with feminised depth. A pinstripe jacket is slashed apart across the sternum and held aloft – along with the bodice beneath it – by more suspenders.
One overtly decorative element is a series of pretty-silhouette dresses in often pleated printed silk crepe. The twist? Those prints, often abstracted by the in and out folds of the fabric, reproduce the sensually illicit Polaroids of Italian furniture designer Carlo Mollino. As well as a fiercely independent designer, Mollino had a secret passion for photographing always-anonymous one-time-only models in poses of apparent wantonness – here Scott takes these male-gaze made erotic images and reappropriates them for the female wearer.
The almost – but-not-quite – crescendo for Pre sees a series of archetypally feminine gowns in maroon velvet or black silk played against a black strapless gown that features a bias cut train cut in the shape of an enormous black satin glove.
Just as Scott articulates his much in his female looks via a language conventionally deemed masculine, so he inverts the process in Moschino’ s Autumn Winter 2018 menswear collection.
Here the story features with less slap, more tickle. Mirroring Pre, we see those tabloid-font patched parkas and tailored pieces reissued, all worn below equestrian helmet-caps that whisper of the riding crop. Tailcoats are cut away at the shoulder and then held up by suspender. The bad-girl-show-girl look is mirrored in an ensemble of tailcoat (whose tail is feminised with soft gather and fold) cummberbund, and black PVC underpants. An artificially unfinished pinstripe double breasted jacket is delivered with just one breast, to be worn jauntily off-the-shoulder. Tailcoats and tailored pants come in ditzy floral, while in outerwear more conventionally masculine fabrics – gray tweed, russet wool – are lent a jolt of gender-fluidity via the insertion of panels and trains in floral or jewelled boucle at the back.
Moschino woman and Moschino man come together – conjoined by a tandem tuxedo jacket built for for two and linked at the tail. Apart yet together. Mutual objects of opposition and attraction. Women and Men.
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2018-19, MOSCHINO, MOSCHINO FW 2018-19
Wed, February 7 2018 » Fashion Blog
