subscribe to style file blog via RSSBy Invitation Only: VonRosen
November 24, 2009
An interesting invite came across my desk recently. Inside the leather-bound envelope was a card with a Web site address, www.vonrosen.com, and a private access code. Logging on, I was asked to provide a password and some personal data, after which I could shop what site founder David von Rosen calls its classic, high-quality basics: a loose-fit silk dress, a kimono blouse, a stretch cotton poplin button-down. But not everyone’s so lucky. VonRosen does members-only shopping sites like Gilt Groupe and Rue La La one better; it’s an invitation-only shopping site. Anyone can apply, but a heartfelt letter of appreciation for its subtle logo, a small metal oval on the right hip engraved with your own initials, isn’t necessarily going to get you in. Of course, the agony of rejection is exactly what VonRosen is banking on. In Berlin, where the brand is based, the company invited successful people from all sorts of backgrounds, from acting to business to medicine to architecture. And in return they’ve received requests for access that have included actual curriculum vitaes. “All customers have the right to choose a brand,” von Rosen told me. “We wanted to turn the perspective around and choose our customers. We don’t want money as the only hurdle to exclusivity. Yes, we’ve turned down people who’ve applied, like a good club would.” Turn down business in times like these? Von Rosen acknowledged that it’s a long-term approach, but still, he said, “we believe in the idea of it.” His innovations have proven successful in the past. Before launching VonRosen, he founded CareerConcept AG, which provides higher-education financing that allows student to pay back their debt as a percentage of their future income. It’s not as sexy as cashmere, but the business did get him elected Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum Davos. Invites to VonRosen are going out to U.S. VIPs within the next week or so. Did you make the cut?
tags: VonRosen
Siobhan Fahey’s Back And Better Than Ever
November 24, 2009
Her son Django and his girlfriend, Georgia May Jagger, were in the audience, but Siobhan Fahey needed no rock scion gloss to guarantee that her Hoxton gig was the hottest spot in London last Friday night, even after all her years off pop’s piste. Fahey still insists on the group entity Shakespears Sister as her professional moniker, but the songs are all hers (drawn from several decades of stuff that has clearly inspired a worshipful cult, if the crowd was any index) and the look is most definitely her own idiosyncratic hybrid of silent-screen glamour and glam rock front. She sported an Art Deco headdress, a halter-necked silver lamé jumpsuit, and maquillage so vamp-ish it would’ve made Theda Bara quake with envy and Fritz Lang quiver with lust. If there’s any justice in Popworld, Fahey will be a major fashion influence before 2010 is out. Plus, she has the songs and the show to seduce a whole new generation. Take it from Django—he’d never seen his mother live and he looked appropriately gobsmacked—or maybe that’s just young love! Anyway, watch for Shakespears Sister’s “Songs From the Red Room” on iTunes soon, and marvel at music that effortlessly—and sexily—straddles every time and place you ever wish you’d been a part of.
tags: Georgia May Jagger, Siobhan Fahey
Yea, Nay, or Eh? Leonor Scherrer’s Head Games
November 24, 2009
Ce n’est pas juste: Not only do French women not get fat—so we hear, at least—but the lucky ladies also seem to be able to pull off outfits no Upper East Side social could even dream of. Take Leonor Scherrer. The daughter of couturier Jean-Louis Scherrer and object of Riccardo Tisci’s affection (”I’m completely in love with her,” Givenchy’s creative director has said. “For me, she represents France in all senses: the elegance, the aristocracy, the darkness”) wore the designer’s long, lean column dress to a charity dinner in Paris last night. It’s the head wrap that really sets Scherrer’s look apart, though. Who else but a French fille, we ask, could make a pashmina look like a prop from an Ingres painting? Do you like the look?
tags: Givenchy, Jean-Louis Scherrer, Leonor Scherrer, Riccardo Tisci
Blasblog: Baby Love
November 24, 2009
Suri. Shiloh. Violet. Apple. Don’t be embarrassed—I love ‘em, too. I may not be ready for a kid of my own, but today’s baby craze—crazy as it is—has me totally enthralled. We see pictures of these kids all the time on blogs and in magazines; I get press releases about the designers they’re wearing; heck, even in the recession, the billion-dollar baby industry is reported to be thriving. So it was only a matter of time before the little bambinos got their own Sartorialist-esque site, Planet Awesome Kid, devoted to the chicest of the chic.
Wait a sec. Do kids really need their own Sartorialist? Well, maybe not. But when the site’s founders, casting director Julia Samersova Adler and Women Model Management booker Christiana Tran, saw the hip threads the prepubescent set rocks these days, they decided to pay their tribute. “The idea for the site came to me one afternoon while chilling in the park with my baby daughter. I noticed all the fierce, cool, awesome kids all around,” Samersova Adler explains. She and Tran take most of the pictures themselves, but they do accept submissions as well. Their only rule: “We do not discriminate. Every child is a star—if they’re in the right outfit!” (To wit, many photos are accompanied by fashion credits.) And before the frivolity brigade charges in, let’s note that PAK helps to raise awareness for a very good cause: Global Action for Children. Its U.S. chairwoman? Shiloh’s mom.
tags: Planet Awesome Kid
The Girls Of Crillon, Nonstop Natalia, And More…
November 24, 2009
This Saturday, 25 well-heeled newcomers will join high society at the Crillon Bal. Debutantes include Clint Eastwood’s daughter, Princess Diana’s niece, and Sea of Shoes’ Jane Aldridge (see: some girls, luck, all). [WWD]
Natalia Vodian-overload: The Russian beauty stars in no less than three major Spring fashion campaigns, in addition to fragrance and lingerie bookings. If we have to see someone’s face all the time, we’re glad it’s hers. [WWD]
Tonight’s White House state dinner—the administration’s first—is throwing Washington into a veritable tizzy. Besides being invited to tonight’s event, the biggest coup for a D.C. social would be having the Obamas over for dinner. Click for the list of the six Washington women most likely to make the cut. [WWD]
Despite claiming that she’s “not an actress at all,” Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has agreed to star in Woody Allen’s next film, assuming he still wants her. Nothing official has been announced, but the French first lady is decidedly game. [Telegraph]
Top ten fashion catchphrases—from “smize” to “hot tranny mess”—that are working their way into our lexicon. Did they miss any? [Refinery 29]
tags: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Clint Eastwood, Jane Aldridge, Princess Diana, Woody Allen
You’ll Not See Nothing Like The Mighty Boosh
November 24, 2009
The killjoy local council almost put the kibosh on Stella McCartney’s Christmas lights, claiming they would make her shop stand out too much on Bruton Street (where her neighbors include Matthew Williamson and Kenzo). It’s true, of course—I’m sure you can see the store from space—but, for Stella’s sake, it’s a good thing the spirit of the season prevailed. “I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t have my lights,” she said, as she greeted guests at last night’s switch-on. “Is Kate inside?” the paps wailed. Unfortunately, there was no Moss, but London lovelies like Tiphaine Chapman, Rosemary Ferguson, and Trish Simonon added some glamorous sparkle with their beads and sequins. The crush inside the store also induced another kind of shimmer (the kind that comes from beads of perspiration), so it was a relief to get back outside to watch the lights go on and experience the live wonder of the British comedy troupe the Mighty Boosh, who did a very creditable take on a cross-dressing hard rock band. Noel Fielding looked especially fetching in a little vintage dress (even better out of it, Stella claimed). Then it was back inside for more Champagne and mini mince pies.
tags: Stella McCartney
Blasblog: A TEST In Online Magazines
November 24, 2009
Something in the water over at British Vogue? While features editor Aimee Farrell’s been hard at work launching the new biannual Twin, the mag’s art director, Jaime Perlman, has been putting together TEST, a side project of her own. “It’s an online portfolio that showcases the combined talents of a myriad of creatives, rather than just one photographer or makeup artist,” Perlman explains. “It’s a more holistic approach.” In practice, it’s an online journal combining traditional fashion editorials—shot by the likes of KT Auleta, Catherine Servel, and Wendy Bevan—with a strong video element. Fittingly, the project’s debut was the video installation Perlman collaborated on with Richard Nicoll for his Spring show in London, of Nicoll-clad nymphs (including, sadly, the late Daul Kim, pictured) frolicking in the forest. Projects are in the works with Poppy de Villeneuve, Mark Jacobson, and Willem Jaspert, but even with TEST growing, Perlman’s keeping her day job, too. “I have the best of both worlds,” she says. “The projects I’m working on are proving very complementary to each other.”
tags: Aimee Farrell, TEST, Twin
Yea, Nay, Or Eh: Jennifer Lopez Hugs The Curves
November 23, 2009
It only takes a quick stroll through any fashion-forward boutique to realize that designers and retailers are still in the throes of body-con mania. What did we wear out at night before thigh-grazing hems and Lycra blends became de rigueur? You won’t find the answer on the red carpet, as starlets the world over are still flaunting the figure-hugging dresses en masse. Witness Jennifer Lopez in Spring 2010 Gucci at last night’s 2009 American Music Awards. We have to hand it to her—the singer looks great in a difficult dress—but is the look perhaps too challenging? The overly slashed frock paired with matchy-matchy platform heels is a bit much, even given the, ahem, creative dress code at music industry awards shows. What do you think? Is J. Lo’s latest offering a chart-topper or a flop?
tags: Jennifer Lopez
From Brooklyn To Hollywood, An Update On The Costume Institute’s American Women Show
November 23, 2009
Art lovers may be counting the days until Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens on April 27, but fashion types have already inked May 5—the opening of American Women: Fashioning a National Identity—into their Erdem-designed 2010 Smythson agendas. (A lucky few will join Anna Wintour, Oprah Winfrey, and Gap’s Patrick Robinson for the Party of the Year on May 3.) What to expect? “I decided to take a more interpretive and conceptual approach to American Women,” curator Andrew Bolton said at the Director’s Press Luncheon today. The show, which is drawn from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Met, considers Yankee style not through specific arbiters of style, but through broader archetypes such as the heiress, the flapper, and the suffragette that emerged between 1890 and 1940. The show closes with an examination of the screen siren because, according to Bolton, she is the apex of American style and glamour. “Women all over the world base their ideal of beauty after her.”
tags: Anna Wintour, Gap, Oprah Winfrey, Patrick Robinson
Presents Company
November 23, 2009
This holiday season it’s not only “about a dog” for Candy Pratts Price, it’s also about lions and tigers and bears, all of whom help to make Style.com’s 2009 gift guide an “Oh my!” experience. Pratts teamed up with Creature photographer Andrew Zuckerman (whose newly released Bird wouldn’t make a bad gift, come to think of it) to create a magical and enchanting seasonal portfolio. “It’s about feeling close to nature as you go shopping,” Pratts Price says, “and, of course, the beauty of the animals.” Cheers to that.
tags: Andrew Zuckerman, Holiday Guide
