subscribe to style file blog via RSSOlivier Zahm
September 6, 2008
Fashion Week news from the co-founder and editor of Purple
tags: Avatar, Olivier Zahm
what the well-dressed shepherd is wearing this season
September 6, 2008
“My first trip to Italy was a hundred years ago!” Michael Roberts laughed at last night’s party to celebrate his new photo story collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana, The Good Shepherd, at the duo’s Madison Avenue store. Still smiling mischievously, Roberts then confessed that he was exaggerating just a bit—it was 1987, on a lark, but he fell in love enough to return to Sicily at least four times annually ever since. “I was in Italy this Easter, and Domenico Dolce asked me to do something with the clothes,” Roberts explained. “Something” turned into a book of elegantly rendered black-and-white photography shot over two days with accompanying English and Italian text, the story of a year in the life of a kind, hardworking, and admittedly hunky sheepherder. Not surprisingly, the titular character, a young man alternately scantily clad and donning leather and fur (sometimes both), dresses quite well for a country boy—all looks are from Dolce & Gabbana’s Fall 08 Collection.
tags: Michael Roberts
blasblog: wet locks? make like the euros
September 6, 2008
While the rest of the fashion world was–to put it lightly–irritated by today’s less-than-pleasant weather conditions, we found one girl who was using the downpours to her advantage. Daisy Lowe, BrIt girl and current squeeze of superstar producer and part-time DJ Mark Ronson, appeared at the Alexander Wang show with messy, wet hair. “You have to work with what you got,” she said, shaking out the raven mane she had worked on the Charlotte Ronson runway just a few hours earlier. “I didn’t have an umbrella.” She wasn’t the only girl who arrived with damp, tattered locks: Both Wang’s pal Alice Dellal and Julia Restoin-Roitfeld showed up looking weathered, literally. “And we even had umbrellas,” Roitfeld said. “They didn’t help much.” Ah, the Euros know the importance of nonchalance.
tags: Alexander Wang, Daisy Lowe
Cushnie et ochs get their freak on
September 6, 2008
First, to assuage the curious: The song soundtracking Cushnie et Ochs debut show at the Chelsea Arts Tower yesterday was “I Need a Freak” by Sexual Harassment, and it was released in 1982, and if the synths seemed familiar, that’s because the Black Eyed Peas copped a feel off that hook for their rather lesser tune “My Humps.” “I Need a Freak” was a hot topic of conversation after Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs took their bows, but it wouldn’t have made so much of impression on the crowd had the song not been so eerily suited to the clothes. Body-hugging sheaths with winking cutouts and sheer tops with opaque inserts like censor’s strips conjured a woman with some perverse sexual authority, and gave credit to Cushnie and Ochs’ stated American Psycho inspiration. The designers deserve their next-big-thing reputation. But a question lingered in the mind, as the models sashayed down the runway: Can girls actually wear this stuff? “We wear it,” said Ochs, and indeed, both of the (enviably slender and long-limbed) designers were kitted out in pieces from the collection. “It’s not like we design with ourselves in mind,” elaborated Cushnie. “But we know what we want to reveal, and what we want to keep secret.” “The fun,” added Ochs, “is playing with that.” For the record, the girls are in no way freakish, except perhaps freakishly in tune with each other. Both of the recent Parsons grads attested to the fact that, despite never working on a student project together, they always sensed they’d make a natural marriage as designers. “We share a pretty specific sensibility,” explained Ochs. Or to put it another way: Freaks or not, these two need each other.
tags: Cushnie et Ochs
Jefferson Hack’s Obedience Lesson
September 6, 2008
Fashion Week news from the editorial director and publisher of Dazed & Confused
tags: Avatar, Jay, Jefferson Hack, Raincoat, Red Hook, South Park
Natalie Massenet at Alexander Wang
September 6, 2008
Fashion Week notes from the Net-a-Porter.com founder
tags: Alexander Wang, Avatar, Colored Mini Dresses, Natalie Massenet, Overzealous Bouncers, Rock 'n' Roll, Wellington Boots
A Tennis Ace
September 6, 2008
Anna Wintour had some competition at Arthur Ashe Stadium today; competition of the sartorial sort, that is. During Roger Federer’s winning match against Novak Djokovic, we spotted a woman in the stands joking with Jimmy Connors and wearing this look from Dries Van Noten’s Spring collection.
tags: Dries Van Noten, Roger Federer
mischen’s evening alternative
September 6, 2008
After seeing a couple of shows yesterday, I was very pleased to find at Mischen a relaxed yet sophisticated alternative for an evening look. Designer Carla Knapp’s off-white, lightweight silk maxi dress was printed with what looked like big fuchsia lipstick kisses here and there. So far, so good. But if that’s too straightforward for you, the look was topped with a double-breasted vest. A nice mix of boy and girl, simple and lovely.
tags: Mischen
blasblog: vocabulary lesson (courtesy of ALT): front-of-book look
September 6, 2008
Spotting André Leon Talley at the Yigal Azrouël show on Friday afternoon, we went over to chat. “I like Yigal,” Talley said. “And I like his clothes.” But as we quickly learned, when André comes to a show—even for a friend—it’s not just the runway that he’s taking in. “Look at her pose! Give them your angles,” he teased Miss J of America’s Next Top Model, who was sitting in the front row with fellow judge Nigel Barker. “You truly think you’re Tyra Banks, don’t you?” And if that wasn’t enough intellectual fodder for you—really, what is the difference between Tyra and Miss J? It’s a question I’ve asked myself more than once—Vogue’s editor-at-large offered a new fashion vocabulary bon mot when it came to a certain less-than-inspiring group of audience members who were filing out of Azrouël’s show. “All of these girls are dressing so Front of Book,” he said, referring to the more subdued fashions that are often found in the first half of a fashion glossy. “Where are the Anna Piaggis and the Isabella Blows of this world? Where is the creativity? They’re all so, so predictable. All I see right now is Front-of-Book looks.”
tags: Andre Leon Talley
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