subscribe to style file blog via RSSDelfina Delettrez Fendi Isn’t Afraid Of The Dark
November 20, 2009 4:21 pm
Remember the silver finger ring and nail polish set we reported on earlier this month? Its designer, Delfina Delettrez Fendi, was at Opening Ceremony last night showing it off, along with other creepy-chic creations like bejeweled skulls, frogs, spiders, and eyeballs. It’s not as dark as it sounds: “I don’t take it too seriously. See my skulls, they’re smiling,” the young designer explained. “I rather think that the pieces are ironic.” Opening Ceremony’s Humberto Leon was apt to agree. “She has a sense of humor about things that’s refreshing,” he said. While the presentation was her first stateside, the 22-year-old already has a strong fan base. Amy Greenspon, Mickalene Thomas, and Amy Phelan stopped by to check out her new Anatomik collection; Jen Brill showed up bedecked in her pieces; and afterward, The New York Times‘ Stefano Tonchi hosted a private dinner at his place for the jewelry designer. But with her famous last name—mom is Silvia Venturini Fendi—is she content to stick with jewelry? “Well, for now I’m growing the line, but I would love to do clothing as well,” Delettrez Fendi said. “Oh, but I would do bags first. I think always bags before clothing.” Mama must be proud.
tags: Amy Greenspon, Amy Phelan, Delfina Delettrez Fendi, Jen Brill, Mickalene Thomas, Opening Ceremony
Shipley & Halmos Resort Lands At Barneys
November 20, 2009 12:09 pm
Hard as it may be to believe that the holidays are right around the corner, it’s even harder to believe that Fall ‘09 clothes are already being supplanted at stores by Resort deliveries. (When was fall? Is it over?) Anyway, believe it. Shoppers starting their yearly snoop for presents and party frocks will find a whole new crop of goods arriving in stores this week and next. Today, for example, the first-ever Shipley & Halmos Resort collection arrives on the racks at Barneys New York. The retailer picked up the capsule collection on the basis of sketches—an unusual business practice, these days—and is selling it exclusively. A cross section of categories is represented, e.g., a twill car coat, a couple of georgette blouses, an oversize cotton shirtdress. But given the season, the Shipley & Halmos item shoppers are most likely to flock to Barneys for is the Bronte dress, a silk crepe number in a black, white, and gray floral print that has “New Year’s” written all over it.
tags: Barneys, Shipley & Halmos
The News From Florence
November 19, 2009 5:46 pm
Pitti Immagine CEO Raffaello Napoleone held a lunch today at Adour, the Alain Ducasse restaurant in the St. Regis, to promote his organization’s January trade fair in Florence. One of the schedule’s highlights will be Giles Deacon’s Pitti W pre-fall presentation to be held at Richard Ginori 1735, a Florentine porcelain manufacturer. On the menswear front: Lars Nilsson has been invited to preview his new Mr. Nils men’s collection, and up-and-comer Umit Benan, the winner of the first edition of “Who Is on Next? Uomo,” will showcase his full Fall line. In other news, Stefano Tonchi of The New York Times and Maria Luisa Frisa will celebrate the release of their new book All Power to the Imagination: Walter Albini and His Times during the fair. At 300-plus pages with over 1,000 images, it’s a tribute to one of Italy’s most influential (but often overlooked) designers. And speaking of Italian legends, La Spezia, which makes uniforms for the Italian navy, will debut a collection made from military fabrics dating back to the fifties and sixties. If those aren’t reasons enough to book your trip now, Napoleone reports that getting to Florence is easier than ever; the train ride from Milan is now just 1 hour and 40 minutes long.
tags: Florence, Giles Deacon, La Spezia, Lars Nilsson, Maria Luisa Frisa, Pitti Immagine, Raffaello Napoleone, Stefano Tonchi
Frank Tell, Birthday Boy
November 19, 2009 11:26 am
Frank Tell may have only turned 23 yesterday, but the young designer had wisdom to spare. “I worked all day and I actually can’t stay out that late because I’m working on my pre-fall collection,” the Scorpio designer said at Macao last night. Aside from making the rest of us reassess what exactly we were doing at 23, Tell’s birthday celebration also brought together a close-knit group of 15 or so, including gender-bendy model Martin Cohn and stylist Natasha Royt, for dinner and conversation. Jewelry designer Pamela Love, one of Tell’s studio mates, was mid-move and couldn’t make the party. With her business expanding (and star rising), Love found more spacious digs just two blocks away. Considering the other studios mates are Julia Restoin-Roitfeld and casting director Natalie Joos, we’re betting the space will be snapped up as quickly as Tell’s birthday churros. Macao’s chocolate dipping sauce not included.
tags: Frank Tell
Minnie’s Getting Major
November 19, 2009 10:41 am
If you’ll recall, SoCal-via-U.E.S. socialite Minnie Mortimer Gaghan started her label quite organically by running up a few things that she (and soon her friends) wanted to wear and couldn’t find. Her second full collection for Spring 2010 has preserved that guiding principle, thus explaining a first foray into evening. “I have four weddings next year,” she said last night at a dinner in her honor hosted by Olivia Palermo and half-brother Peter Davis at the as-yet-unopened East Side Social Club. (It’s the new venture from Employees Only and Macao Trading Company restaurateur Billy Gilroy, with Patrick McMullan as a partner.) Still, the gown in question—a bright one-shoulder column—is cut in a jersey that Mortimer Gaghan says can be thrown in the bottom of a suitcase and worn with the ease of one of her printed T-shirt dresses. “I want black-tie that costs less than $500,” she proclaimed. Mortimer Gaghan’s progress from informal provider of clothing to her chic coterie of pals to full-fledged designer appears to be moving steadily forward. In addition to creating her own patterns and original prints, she’s considering showing during New York fashion week in February—emphasis on considering. “I’m designing the collection as if I’m showing, but we’ll see,” she said. Still, we did distinctly hear the words “Bryant Park” tossed around. Amid guests like Carlos de Souza and Ali Wise, Mortimer Gaghan’s fellow young designer Timo Weiland reported that he and partner Allen Eckstein will likely be showing their menswear in Paris this January. And aspiring designer Ally Hilfiger cautiously mentioned her plans for the capsule Fall 2010 debut of her label Alexandria. We couldn’t help flashing back to our obsession with Hilfiger’s addictive reality show Rich Girls, which now (particularly in the presence of Palermo) seems cannily prescient. Would she ever consider another? “No way,” she said, underlining the sentiment with a vigorous shake of the head.
tags: Ally Hilfiger, East Side Social Club, Minnie Mortimer Gaghan, Olivia Palermo, Peter Davis
Lerario And Geller Are A Match Made In Retail Heaven, And Otherwise
November 18, 2009 9:59 am
I’m sure I shot Ana Lerario a quizzical look when she told me that one of her new retailers for the upcoming season is Fred Segal Men’s. Was there something she wasn’t letting on? Not quite. It turns out that the West Coast mega-boutique has decided that its merchandising could benefit from a romantic gesture. (Hey, why not?) Come March, the store will sell the designer’s collection Lerario Beatriz right next to that of her husband (and CFDA/GQ winner) Robert Geller. “We have a very similar sensibility—kind of melancholy,” Lerario explained. “Robby’s darker than I am and I’m more romantic but my girl would definitely have a crush on his boy.” This spring, that sweetly brooding beauty will be wearing Lerario’s first original prints, including a long-sleeved day dress, a lovely T-shirt, and an empire-waist maxi in a painterly floral—the last just begging for a ramble through the English countryside. Elsewhere, she does for metallic jacquard what she did for brocade last season—that is, treat it totally unpretentiously, cutting it into a trenchcoat and T-shirt that are the color of tarnished silver. “I love taking clothes that should be worn at night and making them for day,” she said. “I like sequins before seven o’clock.”
tags: Lerario Beatriz, Robert Geller
Viv Will Survive
November 17, 2009 4:06 pm
“It’s very sad, but English fashion will survive, and be stronger,” Vivienne Westwood said of Luella’s recent closing. “It’s a bit of a cautionary tale for all involved on tightening up the business side of things—but for that conversation, we will need several hours.” Given that we caught the flame-haired designer at her Spring ‘10 Anglomania showing at Selfridges, leisure was hardly an option. All of London, it seems, is debating whether or not “cool” is enough to base a business on, and the jury, for better or worse, is hung. But whatever the verdict, the mood has been grim, making Dame Westwood’s energetic, colorful show a welcome shot in the arm. Dionne Bromfield, Amy Winehouse’s 13-year-old goddaughter, sang a couple of ditties to open, playing to a crowd that included Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Sadie Frost, Lady Victoria Hervey, Dinos Chapman, and Tracey Emin. Westwood herself was front-row, too, watching models like Daisy Lowe take the runway.
“It’s the best of all things British,” Frost said afterward. She also had a few encouraging words for Luella. Few have forgotten that Frost’s company, Frost French, shuttered a while back, too, only to rise again this year and reopen with a much-celebrated London store. “It’s doable. A little bit of pain and learning, and you can come back stronger and better.”
tags: Dionne Bromfield, Luella, Vivienne Westwood
T Minus 72 Hours: A Sneak Peek At The Victoria’s Secret Show
November 16, 2009 4:57 pm
Alessandra Ambrosio has walked Victoria’s Secret’s Fashion Show so many times—eight, maybe nine—she’s lost count. But she won’t forget this Thursday, when she’s scheduled to open the show, an honor she’s never enjoyed before. Her outfit? A neon chartreuse bra-and-undies set and a pair of matching wings made from a single laser-cut piece of plastic by Victoria’s Secret first-timer Alexander Koutny. “I’m really excited, but I’m really nervous,” the model told us. “I consider it the biggest show on earth.”
Koutny, a Central Saint Martins grad who was born in Johannesburg, is a bit more understated than the Brazilian model, but it’s safe to say that the New York-based designer, who was recruited by the show’s stylist Charlotte Stockdale, is every bit as thrilled. He worked with Marjan Pejoski when the London designer put Björk in her infamous swan dress for the Oscars, but despite that experience, he told us, “I’ve never done something so theatrical, so bold. It just came out.” Of his 15 initial “Star Trooper” designs, six or seven will make it into the show. Koutny describes his own luxury ready-to-wear as “organic, but modern,” and a quick perusal of his Web site revealed sculptural yet wearable dresses, coats, and separates in the Maria Cornejo school. So where did the inspiration come from? “My mom was a closet Trekkie,” he said.
We witnessed Miranda Kerr being fit in his rocket cone shoulder rigging over the weekend, and we couldn’t help but notice there was something very Fall 2009 about the outfit. “It’s not the tennis ball shoulder,” Koutny said, referring to the influential Balmain collection. “It’s the rocket shoulder.” Kerr, for her part, reported that it felt empowering to be wearing launch rockets on her shoulders. “You better watch out, I may go flying off into the audience and this time I won’t need wings,” she laughed. “You can quote me on that.”
Finn Jewelry Wants You To Come Over
November 12, 2009 1:51 pm
In a statement-necklace world (both literally and metaphorically), Finn Jewelry’s Soraya Silchenstedt and Candice Pool fly decidedly under the radar. But that hasn’t stopped their collection of delicately wrought fine jewelry from being a top seller at Barneys or the go-to label for the likes of Naomi Watts, Gretchen Mol, and Miranda Kerr when they’re in the market for a little sparkle—though Pool and Silchenstedt tread lightly on their A-list clientele. “I think we have a few celebrities who are real clients,” says Pool. “They’re not people who just take things to borrow.” Watts actually became a fan via husband Liev Schreiber, who was an early adopter of their shark tooth necklace, apparently a must-have for the actor set. (Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt, and Robert Pattinson all sport one. Not bad.)
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Gregory Parkinson Goes So Old-School It’s Almost New
November 11, 2009 5:27 pm
As the Great Retail Recession continues, it’s interesting to see the creative ways in which designers are adapting. In the case of Los Angeles-based designer Gregory Parkinson, as his wholesale accounts shrank, he started tapping directly into his cult-level fan base, both locally and across the country. “That’s what you get if you invest the time in going to stores and becoming friends with your customers,” said Parkinson, in New York this week to show and sell his Spring collection. “We’d start dressing individual customers, but once they knew we had merchandise, they’d be like, ‘Oh, there are some moms at my school who want to come down,’ ” he explained. So as not to ruffle his retailers’ feathers, Parkinson sells privately only what he doesn’t sell to the stores. But that includes unique gems like limited-edition runs of ten or 20 dresses crafted from remnant bolts of beautiful fabrics that he buys at a price.
The designer recently renovated and expanded his downtown L.A. studio to receive clients—like Vogue editor Lawren Howell’s lovely coterie of bridesmaids, whose dresses he did this year. It’s a move that he says is bringing him closer to opening his own boutique again. (He had one when he first started in 1994 on Beverly Boulevard.) Until then, you can make an appointment to visit Parkinson’s studio by going to his Web site, or one of his wholesale accounts. He’s stocked at Linda Dresner in Birmingham, Savannah in L.A., and Relish in Washington, D.C. And Barneys New York is one of his biggest stockists. In fact, if you’re dying for his beautiful Spring 2010 collection (here’s a couple looks pictured above), he just sent a delivery to the department store’s new Scottsdale outpost—seasons be damned. How’s that for an old-school revolution?
tags: Barneys, Gregory Parkinson, Linda Dresner
