subscribe to style file blog via RSSFrom Brooklyn To Hollywood, An Update On The Costume Institute’s American Women Show
November 23, 2009 3:55 pm
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
The Pratt Gallery’s Shades of Green
November 20, 2009 4:49 pm
Sustainable design? “It’s nearly impossible,” says Bodkin designer Eviana Hartman. “But I definitely make an effort to try. I really consider fabrics, and not just your usual 100 percent organic cottons.” Looking at a pair of Hartman’s navy shorts in a gorgeous, filmy re-purposed polyester at Pratt’s Ethics + Aesthetics = Sustainable Fashion exhibit, we were impressed by how far the movement has come. Central Saint Martins Ph.D. candidate Francesca Granata and textile conservator Sarah Scaturro co-curated the installation to highlight eco-minded U.S. designers and artists who, they say, tend to get short shrift. “I think the U.S. designers that have been thinking sustainable haven’t been recognized,” Granata explained. “In London, it’s a big part of fashion right now. That’s why we wanted to do this exhibit. It’s not just about using organic material. There are different ways to be sustainable.”
Of course, there are as many ways of designing as there are of being green (or trying to be). On one hand, there’s Mary Ping of Slow and Steady Wins the Race, who creates her collection from existing fabrics such as old school uniforms. On another, Max Osterweis of Suno. After starting his line with vintage Kenyan prints collected over the course of ten years, the designer is now dealing with supplying his rapidly expanding business. (Having Michelle Obama as a fan can’t hurt.) “I’ve had to start doing my own patterns, but everything is still inspired by and created in Kenya,” Osterweis explains. “I’m not so much thinking about how to be ‘green’ as being conscious of what I’m doing. And hopefully along the way I’m offering a valuable design, too.”
Ethics + Aesthetics = Sustainable Fashion runs through February 20 at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 W. 14th St., 2nd floor, NYC, www.pratt.edu.
tags: Bodkin, Eviana Hartman, Michelle Obama
Prada Enters The Book Business
November 6, 2009 3:30 pm
Just don’t call it a retrospective. That was the message at the Prada store in Soho today, as a new book documenting the world of Prada was unveiled to members of the press. Formally launched at an event earlier this week at the Prada store in Milan, PRADA was conceived and edited by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli in collaboration with designers Michael Rock and Sung Joong Kim of New York City design firm 2×4. Rock, who was on hand for the event this morning, explained that the book’s 708 pages can be broken up into two separate investigations, Inside and Outside. The Inside sections of the book trace Prada’s history, document the design and production process, and catalog the product Prada has introduced in the years since Miuccia Prada took over the company’s helm. (There are 3,885 thumbnail photos of the “looks” at Prada runway shows since 1987; bring your own magnifying glass.) The Outside section of PRADA, meanwhile, covers Prada’s various engagements with the worlds of commerce and culture, including stills from videos such as Trembled Blossoms, documentation of projects such as the Prada Transformer in South Korea and Double Club in London, photos of Prada on the red carpet and on the street, and even descriptions by eBay sellers of the Prada objets they are putting up for auction. The book also gives much love, naturally, to Rem Koolhaas, revealing the ruminations on the meaning of “luxury” that led to the launch of the Prada “epicenter” stores. Mediating the Inside and Outside sections is a chronology of Prada campaigns—images from every womenswear and menswear campaign from 1987 to the present. Prada COO Sebastian Suhl, offering remarks on the book this morning, said that the book’s focus on Prada’s accomplishments over the past 30 years does not make the book a retrospective, or a summing up; rather, he said, when you look at all that’s been done, “you see how much can be done.” “This book,” Suhl underscored, “is about the future.” At present, PRADA is available at Prada stores worldwide and via www.prada.com.
tags: Miuccia Prada, Patrizio Bertelli, Prada
Red, White, And Beautiful
November 4, 2009 12:49 pm
Come tomorrow, the Museum at FIT will become a construction site of sorts when American Beauty—an exhibition that focuses on technical innovation and composition as benchmarks of sartorial greatness—opens. “Our best designers have been and continue to be those who utilize construction as a vehicle to achieve their aesthetic vision,” says Patricia Mears, deputy director of the Museum at FIT and curator. She’s out to show that modern American fashion is far more sophisticated than blue jeans and sportswear, and mixed among the work of hall of famers like Claire McCardell (above right), Halston, and Pauline Trigère will be that of some new recruits to the art of dressmaking, like Rodarte’s Kate and Laura Mulleavy (above left) and Jean Yu. “Anyone, and I mean anyone, can call himself or herself a designer,” Mears remarks. “I wanted to challenge that term and make a point that the best and most innovative fashion comes from those who have a strong technical knowledge of clothing construction.”
tags: Claire McCardell, Kate Mulleavy, Laura Mulleavy, Rodarte
This Twin Is One of a Kind
November 2, 2009 4:42 pm
Even in this era of media shutterings, there’s a magazine—to update the old saying—born every minute. But Twin, which launches in London this week, hopes to stand out from the crowd. “With the instant communication of blogs and the Web,” says features editor Aimée Farrell, Twin “feels a little more simple, considered, and less throwaway. It’s an object to keep and covet.” Top three reasons to get your hands on the hardcover biannual’s premiere issue:
• Editorial pedigree: Farrell works by day at British Vogue (and by night as a founding member of the Voguettes, the title’s roving DJ squad); editor in chief Becky Smith was the founder and former creative director of the cult mag Lula; and art editor Francesca Gavin does double duty at Dazed & Confused and Elle U.K.
• Boldface contribs: The debut issue features articles by Miranda July, Garance Doré, and poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and fashion spreads by Dazed alumnae Mari Sarai and Carlotta Manaigo.
• Kim Noorda: The Dutch model has never looked lovelier than she does in this shoot by Ben Weller and stylist Naomi Miller. Lounging in bed reading Hemingway and spinning Neil Young records, she’s a laid-back apostle of Americana. www.twinfactory.co.uk.
tags: Becky Smith, Carlotta Manaigo, Francesca Gavin, Mari Sarai, Miranda July, Neil Young
Sweden Lowdown
October 28, 2009 9:41 am
Sweden is having a subtle but strong (in other words, very Swedish) moment right now: There’s Let the Right One In at the box office, Stieg Larsson on the bestseller lists, Fever Ray on the indie charts, and Acne advancing on all fronts. And Stockholm was where it was at over the weekend, when Swedish fragrance line Byredo launched its first free-standing store and the Hotel Skeppsholmen opened its doors. The weather wasn’t cooperative, but rain or shine, the city is a beaut, with what are surely the best-looking urbanites in the world (perhaps one reason why Sweden just got tagged the best country for women to live in). There were 70 local lookers shooting schnapps at the dinner Byredo founder Ben Gorham hosted in the royal family’s harborside ice-skating pavilion on Friday night. (A London contingent led by Anouck Lepère and PR maven Gillian McVey kept up the English side.) Gorham is typical of the new Sweden: culturally diverse background (Canadian dad, Indian mum), outward-looking, updating traditional Swedish design values (let’s say pure rather than minimal, like the stark but soothing Skeppsholmen) with a dash of dry wit and modern sensuality. IKEA-style homogeneity isn’t really the style of this new breed, who are helping to turn Stockholm into a style magnet all over again. You could wait till midsummer’s night, when the weather is reportedly perfect, to sample the city, but then you’d miss Francesco Vezzoli’s brilliant revisionist take on Salvador Dalí, which closes at the Moderna Museet on January 17.
tags: Acne, Anouck Lepere, Salvador Dali, Stieg Larsson
Von Unwerth, Unearthed
October 23, 2009 11:45 am
Ellen von Unwerth doesn’t pick and choose. She loves all women. “There are many who are my favorites, from Claudia Schiffer to Eva Herzigova to Elizabeth Hurley to Lindsay Lohan,” said von Unwerth last night at Sloane Square’s Michael Hoppen Gallery during a private viewing of Fraulein, a collection of her rarely seen or published photographs. Von Unwerth continued, “They are all fun and they give a lot.”
That was evident in the sexy, girly photographs of von Unwerth’s array of beautiful subjects, all in various stages of undress with lots of lingerie, toys, and even the odd vegetable thrown in. There was Claudia with big hair in her underwear—an image eventually used for a Guess campaign; Kate Moss making horn-rimmed glasses sexy; and Monica Bellucci in nipple tassels. In “What recession?” news, several prints of Heidi, Kitzbuhel, the photographer’s racy take on the Alpine Miss in red stockings and garters, as well as Nadja Auermann in a mask, have all but sold out. (More images after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry >
tags: Claudia Schiffer, Elizabeth Hurley, Ellen von Unwerth, Ingrid Sischy, Kate Moss, Taschen
At DVF: From Wall Street To Walken
October 22, 2009 3:57 pm
Visitors to the New York Stock Exchange probably wouldn’t assume that, among the horde of red-faced traders on the floor, there was an aspiring painter or two. Well, consider John W. Codling, and think again. Codling didn’t work on the trading floor itself, but as the head of his own institutional brokerage, he had front-row seats to the last year’s financial meltdown. “When you work on Wall Street, you’re used to a certain level of intensity,” Codling says. “But after the crash, I mean, that was a whole other level. And it wasn’t like you could go home and zone out watching TV, because everyone on television was talking about the economy.” As a means of therapy, Codling turned to art—a pastime he had last indulged back in grade school.
For reasons that are a little obscure, even to him, he began painting images of Christopher Walken, and tonight, he opens Sundays With Chris, a show of that work, at Diane von Furstenberg’s gallery on West 14th Street. “He’s just an amazing character,” Codling said, when pressed on his choice of subject. “Christopher Walken could read a brownie recipe and it would be entertaining. If I’d been painting trees, I wouldn’t have gotten as much out of it.” All told, Codling has painted 57 Walken images—which averages out to about a canvas a week since the fall of Lehman Brothers. Sales of the paintings will benefit Team Continuum, a nonprofit organization assisting cancer patients and their families. In other words, painting is not yet Codling’s full-time job. “Nah, I’m still working on Wall Street,” he says. “I’ve got no big plans to become a starving artist.” The show opens to the public tomorrow.
John W. Codling: Sundays With Chris at DVF Gallery, 440 West 14th St., NYC, October 23 to November 1
tags: Christopher Walken, DvF, John W. Codling
Three Minutes And 38 Seconds With Madeleine Albright
October 20, 2009 5:25 pm
Madeleine Albright signed copies of her new book Read My Pins: Stories From a Diplomat’s Jewel Box at St. John’s Fifth Avenue flagship this afternoon, and there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Everywhere you looked there were coordinating knit jackets and skirts, and plenty of brooches, too. In a brief interview before her speech, the former Secretary of State said, “What’s happening now is I’m getting what we’re calling pity pins. People are feeling sorry for me because all of my pins are in the exhibit [at New York’s Museum of Arts & Design]. So I’ve stopped saying, ‘I really like your pin,’ because they take it off and give it to me.” Read the rest of this entry >
tags: Hillary Clinton, Leah Rabin, Madeleine Albright, St. John
Vionnet: First Lady Of Fashion
October 20, 2009 1:25 pm
With so few pants on the runway and so much leg on view, a tribute to Madeleine Vionnet—the designer who ensured that sexiness need not mean frostbite—is a welcome change from today’s usual eye candy. Madeleine Vionnet, Rizzoli’s latest coffee-table topper, is chockfull of designs replete with sensual draping and subtly suggestive nips and tucks; anything sheer is definitely a trompe l’oeil, but the effect feels supremely fresh. (See more images after the jump.) Famous for introducing the bias cut, Vionnet dressed women like chic goddesses. Fellow designer fans are legion: Karl Lagerfeld, one for whom admiration does not come easily, once declared, “Everybody, whether he likes it or not, is under the influence of Vionnet.” Perhaps even more enamored was Cristobal Balenciaga, who once gushed, “Madame Vionnet is my master.” Read the rest of this entry >
tags: Madeleine Vionnet, Pamela Golbin, Rizzoli
