Follow In Fashion’s Footsteps
Ever wonder where Sofia Coppola goes to relax, who cuts Natalie Portman’s hair, or where Lady Gaga gets her vintage treasures? How about Isabel Marant’s favorite spot for scrambled eggs? French Vogue contributor Carole Sabas divulges all this and more in two new books: Fashion Insiders’ Guide to Paris and Fashion Insiders’ Guide to New York, both of which hit stores on May 7. A Parisian living in New York, Sabas has previously published tomes detailing hotspots in Miami, Paris, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, but the 2013 editions offer updated, personal picks from the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Viktor & Rolf, Gaia Repossi, Alexander Wang, and Yaz Bukey. Needless to say, fashion’s best-kept secrets—like under-the-radar eateries, flea markets, and late-night spots—are no more. Sabas’ useful, privileged info is accompanied by the illustrations of Caroline Andrieu (above, left) and Bernadette Pascua (above, right). However, in her Paris intro, the author warns that the books are not meant to be authoritative. “Sometimes the crowd in a restaurant will look more appealing than your food. And you may wonder why the tastemakers still come here season after season. Ask them and they’ll shrug: ‘The owner is crazy.’” But, she adds, when you follow the fashion set, “expect to be surprised, bewitched, puzzled, maybe disappointed at times, but always dazzled.”
Carole Sabas’ Fashion Insiders guides are available for pre-order now at Abramsbooks.com.
Tony Talk
Chances are, Cyndi Lauper’s gonna have fun at the 2013 Tony Awards. Today, it was announced that the pop star’s musical, Kinky Boots, racked up a whopping thirteen nominations, Best Original Score and Best Musical among them. Matilda the Musical, however, is a close competitor, with twelve nominations, as is Pippin, which received ten nods.
On the costume front, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Nance, Golden Boy, and period drama The Heiress (which starred Jessica Chastain), were all nominated in the play category. Meanwhile, the best-dressed musicals include Kinky Boots, Matilda, Pippin, and Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella—the enchanted wares for which William Ivey Long designed. Style.com sat down with Long to discuss his fairy-tale looks back in January. Read our Q&A to learn the secrets behind Cinderella’s wardrobe, and tune in to CBS on June 9 to see who takes home top honors.
LVMH Saves the Rainy Day
LVMH is helping to bring a hint of vintage French flare to the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on May 15. WWD reports today that the luxury conglomerate is helping to fund the digital restoration of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a 1964 Jacques Demy-directed musical film that starred Catherine Deneuve. The film will screen in the festival’s Cannes Classics component—and we expect to see more than a few Vuitton and Givenchy frocks in the arrivals snaps.
Steampunks on Parade
By now, everyone is well versed in the intricacies of punk style—from Mohawks and safety pins to trash-bag dresses and Dr. Martens (and if you’re not, you might want to educate yourself via our Punk Quiz). But this past weekend in North Yorkshire, it was the sci-fi, nineteenth-century-inspired steampunks, rather than the streetwise seventies rebels, who reigned. A curious subculture that fuses Victorian garb with high-tech steam-powered accessories (think everything from handheld lasers to airships), steampunks gathered for a nineteen-year-old biannual festival in Whitby to show off their elaborate duds. We doubt we’ll be seeing any goggles or mechanical limbs at next week’s Met Ball, but those full-fingered rings (above) would make a punchy addition to any punk ensemble—steam or otherwise.
Rick Owens Has It All, Except a Rock-Crystal Toilet
In the latest issue of WSJ. magazine, Style.com/Print star Rick Owens gives Lynn Yaeger a tour of his unorthodox home on Paris’ Place du Palais Bourbon. Having lain empty for twenty years before Owens and wife, Michèle Lamy, moved in, in 2004, the building, which doubles as an atelier, is the former French Socialist Party headquarters. An embodiment of the rough-hewn looks he sends down the runway, Owens’ abode is quintessentially Rick, complete with raw concrete floors, a wall fresco by his step-daughter Scarlett Rouge, a few pieces from his own furniture line, and a black boom box, which was a gift from Cher. When asked about his interior-design philosophy, Owens replied, “How do we make all things around us beautiful? Every switch plate, every sneaker, I want all the everyday stuff to be great. I would like a rock-crystal toilet!”