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subscribe to style file blog via RSSWhen In Rome…
October 12, 2010
Scratch that. When not in Rome—when in Tokyo—you can still do like the Romans do, at least at Bulgari’s Salone Condotti. The private, VIP-only salon is a new addition to the jeweler’s Ginza store but has been designed to replicate Bulgari’s original Via dei Condotti shop in Rome, founded by the Bulgari brothers in 1884. From the entrance hall—nearly identical to that of the Galleria del Giade—to the marble floors, jewelry showcases, and carved columns, the details have been minutely re-created. The only difference we can see? They’ll take yen—not euros.
tags: Bulgari
Barneys Co-Op Turns 25
October 12, 2010
When Barneys New York founded its Co-Op levels and stores in 1985, they were, as Style.com editor in chief Dirk Standen put it to the store’s Julie Gilhart, “in the vanguard of the mix-and-match approach.” “We never thought of Co-Op as a place where you find secondary collections,” Gilhart demurred. “It’s a place where you find something different.” Different as in not seen before (but almost always seen after) in other stores—and different, according to many designers whose careers Co-Op has nurtured, as in making all the difference to the fledgling businesses. “We are so happy the Co-Op exists to expose small brands,” Vena Cava’s Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai said recently. They’re not so small anymore. Phillip Lim agrees. Co-Op, he enthuses, “is like the A&R people of the fashion industry: They are the first to discover and support young talent.” That young talent is giving back for its 25th anniversary, offering exclusive products in stores and online. They include (left to right) a soft cowl-neck dress from Wayne, a cloud-print shirt dress from Vena Cava, and a fur-hood anorak from Theory that’s perfect for the cold weather soon to come.
tags: Barneys Co-Op, Julie Gilhart, Phillip Lim, Theory, Vena Cava, Wayne
Fringe Benefits
October 12, 2010
Noticed at the shows: the return of fringe. Apropos of a seventies-inflected season, designers—especially those showing in Paris—covered dresses, accessories, and jewelry with dangling wisps, often in evening-friendly black. At Chanel (top left and center), Karl Lagerfeld hung feathers off hair clips and showed collarbone-skimming fringed earrings with tufted dresses. At Louis Vuitton (top right), Marc Jacobs kept his earrings ultra-long, too. At Balenciaga (bottom right), Nicolas Ghesquière covered tough sandals to the ankle with hairlike strands, and for Sacai (bottom center), Chitose Abe ornamented Louboutins with feathered straps. At Rick Owens (bottom left), the trend went in a different direction—literally. Instead of hanging down, his fringe tufted up, at the tips of floral accents on spring wedges.
tags: Balenciaga, Chanel, Chitose Abe, Karl Lagerfeld, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Nicolas Ghesquiere, Rick Owens, Sacai
Wong Wong Gets Goal-Oriented
October 12, 2010
Graphic color-blocking has emerged as one of the key trends of Spring ‘11, and the runways at Jil Sander, Marc Jacobs, and Louis Vuitton were a riot of mashed-together hues. So are the latest shirts from Wong Wong’s Stephen Wong—though the spectator sport they take their cues from is soccer, not fashion. Long inspired by football—he’s coming off a World Cup collaboration with Happy Socks—Wong looked to the clubs of Europe to create his new graphics. He chose the top three teams of England’s EPL (Arsenal, Chelsea FC, and Man U) and of Spain’s La Liga (FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Valencia CF); their team colors gave him his shades, and aerial views of their stadiums, his shapes. (England’s on the left, above, and Spain on the right.) Not that you need to know any of this to appreciate them. They’ll look just as good off the pitch—even, say, tucked into one of Raf Simons’ giant skirts.
$35, available at www.wongwong.com.
tags: Jil Sander, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Stephen Wong, Wong Wong
To The Lanvin Library, What’s Old Is New Again, W Gets KK, And More…
October 12, 2010
Today in fashion field trips, part 1: Todd Selby visits Jeanne Lanvin’s personal library in Paris, comes away with shots like the one above. [The Selby]
Today in fashion field trips, part 2: Patrik Ervell heads to Detroit to take in a new Matthew Barney performance piece. Sadly, no snaps are allowed in the performance, but Patrik did share a few of his best shots of Motor City with the crew at Opening Ceremony. [OC New News]
New Gap logo, we hardly knew ye. The much-debated redesign is officially out, replaced by the retailer’s classic navy box. The short-lived new one can now go join the pantheon of New Coke and other revamp missteps. [Fashionista]
And Kim Kardashian made the cover of the new issue of W. Her clothes, for better or worse, did not. [PopSugar]
tags: Gap, Jeanne Lanvin, Kim Kardashian, Lanvin, Matthew Barney, Patrik Ervell, The Selby, W
Dawn Of A New Decades
October 12, 2010
EBay shoppers have been raiding Decades Two’s consignment closets for years, but despite a healthy business there—and two staffers dedicated only to online auctioneering—the L.A. based designer consignment shop, sister to the 20th century vintage dealer Decades, is shifting its focus to its own e-commerce store. (There’ll still be some eBaying, too.) Decades Two’s Christos Garkinos was in New York this morning (in a consigned Tom Ford suit, naturally) to debut the site, which brings a wide array of his finds to the Web. Wares are organized by designer (Alexander McQueen to Zac Posen), category, or, for retail voyeurs, by anonymous consignor. A selection of items from the current “featured closet” of consigner No. 2842, identified only as the wife of an influential Hollywood producer, includes selections from Chanel, Lanvin, Dior, Gucci, and Prada. For No. 2842, clearly, money is no object, but if it is yours, no need to close the window—there’s a dedicated section for items under $300, from a last-season Altuzarra coat for $190 to a pair of studded Givenchy sandals (pictured) for the better-than-clearance price of $220.
tags: Christos Garkinos, Decades Two, Givenchy
Fresh From The Feed
October 11, 2010
Paris fashion week drew to a close last week. You can check out all of the shows here, but for the occasion, we’re taking the pulse of the Internet—via the Fashion Feed, of course—to see who presented the buzziest shows of the season.
1. Alexander McQueen (+14 since last week; pictured, above left)
Gone but never forgotten. The namesake of the house of McQueen is no more, but his protégée and successor, Sarah Burton, proved she was more than able to take the reins of the label he founded. “Burton is precisely the kind of quiet powerhouse who has what it takes to grab hold of his legacy and drag it where it needs to go to survive and prosper,” Tim Blanks wrote.
2. Marc Jacobs (+3 since last week; pictured, above center)
At the end of a long week—month, really—Marc Jacobs woke up the tired masses at Louis Vuitton with his campiest outing to date. Endless spangles, giraffe-heeled shoes, zebra-stripe body paint, and a panda-print top? “Jacobs these days does nothing by halves,” Nicole Phelps wrote. “If it was brazen in its decadence, this show was also a hell of a lot of fun.”
3. Karl Lagerfeld (+11 since last week; pictured, above right)
The E word was thrown around about this season’s Chanel show. That’s “epic.” Long, dreamy, and utterly gorgeous, Karl Lagerfeld’s latest outing for the house that Coco built (inspired by Last Year at Marienbad, a film that Coco herself costumed) was a triumphant success. There was an “enthralling urgency” and a “fierce young spirit” in the collection, Tim Blanks wrote—not to mention a nod to old friends: The show marked the return to the catwalk of eighties muse Inès de la Fressange, with whom Lagerfeld has evidently buried the hatchet.
4. Victoria Beckham (+20 since last week)
Mrs. Becks doesn’t even need to show in Paris to keep a top spot on the list: The paps and Internet gossips love her every week of the year, and Paris fashion week is no exception.
5. Stella McCartney (+14 since last week)
When life gives you lemons, make…lemon-printed shifts? Your guess is as good as ours for the explanation behind McCartney’s citrus fixation this season, but suffice it to say, it worked. With Papa McCartney, Liv Tyler, Salma Hayek, and Beth Ditto all front row, McCartney presented a collection that, Nicole Phelps wrote, “played to her strengths” and was “very sexy in her signature breezy way.”
tags: Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Sarah Burton, Stella McCartney, Victoria Beckham
Horse Sense
October 11, 2010
The beasts went marching two by two for Spring ‘11. All throughout Europe, animals were on display: monkeys at Prada, swans at Miu Miu, pandas and zebras and giraffes at Louis Vuitton, and a stable’s worth of equestriennes for Jean Paul Gaultier’s last show for Hermès.
The Australian jeweler Jordan Askill has been feeling the menagerie vibe, too. Now in his second season, Askill is building on the animal-inspired pieces of his first collection with There’s No Place Like Home, which he calls the “second chapter to my story of personal mythology.” Drawing on objets d’art and fourteenth-century armor, Askill’s pieces are inspired, he explains, by “the idea that animals can protect.” The Horse Wave sculpture he debuted in his first collection reappears here as a jewelry box (and does double duty as the star of an animated film that accompanied his London presentation, created by his brother Daniel and scored by These New Puritans’ George Barnett, a sometime runway model). But we like it best as a galloping cuff in silver, above.
tags: Daniel Askill, Geroge Barnett, Jordan Askill, These New Puritans
A Perfect TEN
October 11, 2010
Sunday night is not the usual time for a panty party, but Daphne Javitch just couldn’t resist launching her new line of underwear, called TEN, on 10/10/10. The date seemed auspicious—and judging by the crowd assembled at Opening Ceremony last night, it was. The cotton-spandex undies, like much else we’ve been seeing lately, are inspired by seventies-era under-things; they come (for now) in one style and three colors. “Two basic,” Javitch explained, referring to the white and navy pairs, “and one whoa“—meaning traffic-cone orange. Tennis-ball yellow is coming soon; eventually, there’ll be a bra, and perhaps men’s briefs, too. “I’m not in any rush to add styles,” the designer noted. “The whole idea is just, this the perfect, easy pair of underwear you can wear all the time. But,” she added, “if you wind up meeting someone, you’re still going to feel good about what you’ve got on.” Sunday night knickers, in other words, that work on Saturdays, too.
tags: Daphne Javitch, Opening Ceremony
A Jean Queen, In Words And Pictures
October 11, 2010
Gloria Vanderbilt has worn many hats in her day, from society bride at 17 to erotic novelist at 85. In between, she’s been a fabric designer, a decorator, a fixture on the Best Dressed lists, and—most pertinent to us—a bestselling fashion designer. Anyone who’s ever scoured eBay for a pair knows the allure of her Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. They were introduced in the late seventies—one of the first designer denim debuts—and cut to flatter, Fiorucci-style. (That’s the clear message of this promo shot from 1979, starring Vanderbilt and a host of GV-clad models; she recalls being “horrified” at the photographer’s request that the girls bend over to better illustrate the jeans’ shape.) They’re still a good buy if you can find an old pair—our own beauty editor wore hers to the office last week, to a raft of compliments. (Not sure we can say the say about Vanderbilt’s “playwear,” a precursor of sorts to the designer sweat suit, though this TV ad for the line from 1980 is worth a watch.)
Her whole trajectory is mapped in Wendy Goodman’s new tome, The World of Gloria Vanderbilt ($40, out November 1), which is filled with photos of the woman throughout the years, in a series of palatial, fabric-lined apartments, and an empress’ collection of her own dresses. “My mom comes from a time and place that no longer exist,” her son, Anderson Cooper, writes in his foreword to the book. “I used to think of her as an emissary from some distant solar system; a visitor to our shores.” It’s a visit Goodman lovingly chronicles. And as for Anderson, the silver-maned CNN anchor appears frequently throughout, too—most memorably as a burbling infant snapped by no less than Diane Arbus.
tags: Anderson Cooper, Fiorucci, Gloria Vanderbilt, Wendy Goodman
