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subscribe to style file blog via RSSHeard In London: Galliano To Decorate Claridge’s Xmas Tree
November 4, 2009 10:06 am
John Galliano has a thing for costumes, and it appears his latest role model could be Santa Claus. Word from London is that Claridge’s, the city’s most storied hotel, has asked the Christian Dior designer to decorate the Christmas tree that greets the guests in its Art Deco lobby. (Trimming duties were previously handled by an in-house team.) Galliano may be based in Paris, but he is, after all, a Commander of the British Empire.
The tree is set to be unveiled to the public when it’s illuminated on December 1. An official announcement is expected in the next few days.
tags: John Galliano
Firm Believers
October 30, 2009 5:23 pm
“What do we love about jeans?” is the question Stockholmers and Tiger of Sweden alums Richard Hutchinson and Axel Nyhage asked themselves when launching The Local Firm in 2007. They found their answer in their teenage memories of acid washes, Levi’s posters tacked up to the wall, and “Sean Penn and Madonna,” as Nyhage put it in between appointments with New York retailers. The Local Firm’s mix of eighties grit and Bauhaus cool proves a winning formula. The Italian-made denim, cut slim in the Swedish style, has a distinctive edge not always seen in the overcrowded denim market—a pair with quilting at the knee especially caught our attention. So did the sharp sunglasses reminiscent of the work of eighties artist Patrick Nagel. (Trivia for those too young to remember the decade: He designed Duran Duran’s iconic Rio album cover.) Come Fall 2010, Hutchinson and Nyhage will put their best foot forward with their first shoe collection. Clearly The Local Firm is running on the express track.
tags: Axel Nyhage, Madonna, Richard Hutchinson, Sean Penn
Alexander Wang’s Got “It” In The Bag
October 30, 2009 11:11 am
Alexander Wang hit Barneys’ Madison Avenue flagship yesterday for a trunk show to debut his Spring 2010 line. No surprise, the girls (and grandmas!) were waiting. Below, Wang’s report, exclusively for Style.com.
When I got to Barneys, I was welcomed with the news that our Rocco bag had a waiting list of 400-plus. By day’s end, their entire Spring 2010 handbag order sold out with pre-buys—and that’s before it will even hit the floor. Yikes! Good news, but now we’re going to have to figure out how to produce more bags so our section won’t be empty come January.
Having the chance to meet and personally walk through the collection with customers is a truly fulfilling experience. It’s amazing to hear firsthand how much they enjoy wearing the collection and to see the range of buyers. Girls come in with their mothers and even grandmothers, and I love that they all can find something within the collection.
Next stop is Chicago for another Barneys trunk show, and then to Zurich for the Swiss Textile Awards, which I’m totally psyched for. I’ve got a ton of stuff to keep me busy, but at least I’ll have Halloween to party before the next round!
tags: Alexander Wang, Barneys
Lanvin’s Tokyo TKO
October 30, 2009 11:09 am
The best way to celebrate the new? At Lanvin, it’s with an eye to the past. France’s oldest couture house marked its 120th anniversary on Wednesday night at the Ryogoku Kokugikan, Tokyo’s main sumo stadium. Amid red paper lanterns, glittering chandeliers, and bright lights, Alber Elbaz, Lanvin menswear designer Lucas Ossendrijver, and exec Thierry Andretta showed the label’s Spring/Summer 2010 collections to a crowd of 1,200, including Kanye West (going incognito in hood and mask), local celebrities like soccer star Hidetoshi Nakata, and former sumo champ Musashimaru (who confessed, “I feel nervous being here because it is not work!”). Backstage, Elbaz explained his venue choice: “It’s a place of devotion here,” he said of the tradition-steeped arena, “where athletes have to work and devote their life like dancers, musicians, artists, designers. You have to devote your life, you have to make sure that you are doing the best you can.”
The night before, the team hit glitzy Ginza to relaunch Lanvin’s Asian flagship, the first to house both women’s and menswear. Andretta, who praised the “sophisticated” Japanese luxury market, gave us a personal tour of the dual-level store. The first floor is a decadent dressing room strewn with dresses, shoes, bags, and baubles and the “Supermarché de Luxe” anniversary display, with black-and-white photos from the Lanvin archive gazing down from the walls. The second floor includes the White Room, with a selection of clothes curated by Elbaz and a menswear section offering bespoke tailoring. “Modern doesn’t mean necessarily minimalism,” Elbaz said. “Modern means emotion and history and stories.” Here in Tokyo, no one will argue with that.
tags: Alber Elbaz, Kanye West, Lanvin, Lucas Ossendrijver, Thierry Andretta
Meditate On This: Acne’s $2,000 Jeans
October 30, 2009 10:06 am
It appears shoppers have decided that 300 bucks is too much to spend on a pair of jeans. To these people, Acne says: HA! But those of you with an extra $2K lying around will be pleased to know that the Swedish brand is introducing new styles of made-to-order jeans for spring that will extract about that amount from your pocket. Hurrah! Actually, snark aside, the jeans may be worth the price—the styles feature (real) silver patches designed by buzzy London jewelry designer Husam El Odeh. Sounds dubious, but looks cool, and the same can be said for much of the other stuff in Acne’s Spring ‘10 line. A lavender suede jacket covered in fringe? Tie-dyed denim dappled with Swarovski crystal? A marbled minidress with shaping seams that map the chakras? Hm, hmm, and hmmm, respectively, but kudos to Acne for proving that a New Age-y outlook can translate to a style that’s hip, rather than hippie-dippy. To achieve the proper blissed-out effect, however, you should probably meditate before dressing.
tags: Acne, Husam El Odeh
Should Ashton Be Jealous Of Prabal?
October 30, 2009 10:01 am
Perhaps it’s because of all her tweeted support, but I was surprised to hear that Wednesday night’s GQ Gentlemen’s Ball was only the third time that Demi Moore has worn newbie New York darling Prabal Gurung. Still, three times over the course of six months or so isn’t too shabby. Moore first wore Gurung in late April—his graphic black and white satin cocktail dress from Spring 2009—to Cartier’s 100th anniversary party in New York.
Then, after Moore wore another Spring dress of his in June to the launch of her Helena Rubinstein fragrance campaign in Paris, one of the actress’ fans tweeted to ask Moore who made the dress. She answered and provided Twitpics. “It was incredible,” says Gurung. “My followers went from 50 to over 1,000. I tweeted about her. Then she sent me a direct message, and was so sweet.”
But Moore’s support has had an effect beyond social networking. “Because of her, I’ve been in magazines and blogs. It gives you great brand recognition,” says Gurung. “There was a store in Canada that saw Demi and then called to place an order.” He also added 15 stores for Spring 2010, including Ikram, Harvey Nichols, and Harrods. The designer finally met his muse in the real world in September at the Boom Boom Room. (Where else?) “I heard someone yelling ‘Prabal, Prabal,’ and it was her,” he says. She came by the showroom sans stylist Rachel Zoe the next day. Nevertheless, Moore isn’t the only A-lister to wear the designer this week. Carey Mulligan wore look 24, a beaded chiffon strapless number, two days ago in Beverly Hills. “Carey and Demi, I think it’s a good mix,” says Gurung.
tags: Demi Moore
Duskin’s Stephanie Tran Gets (And Gives) A Little Help From Friends
October 29, 2009 4:53 pm
I’ve known Duskin designer Stephanie Tran since her days at Vogue, and I’ve always admired her sense of style. You can count on the editor-turned-designer to have honed in on something like the perfect Chanel shoe that you kick yourself for not having bought. It’s likely the same talent that lends an immediate I-want-to-wear-it quality to her collection of sweet little dresses, high-waisted pants, and blazers, now in its third season.
I’m not the only one who’s gotta have it. “Honestly, right now my friends are my best customers,” says Tran from her Williamsburg studio-cum-apartment. Stylist Kate Young, for one, bought Tran’s entire Spring 2009 collection. Renwick Gallery owner Leslie Fritz is another faithful fan-friend. In fact, after a buyer from Aloha Rag saw Fritz wearing a Duskin coat, she called Tran for an appointment. “Leslie is a shopper. She wears crazy stuff, Margiela,” explains Tran. “The buyer thought the coat was Comme.” Though Tran herself doesn’t shop as much these days, she does her karmic fashion part by putting in orders with designer pals like Gryphon’s Aimee Cho, Doucette Duvall’s Annebet Duvall, and blogosphere friend Lisa Dorr’s line, Le Bouton. (You can read Tran’s blog here.)
For spring, I’ve got my eye on a breezy triple-layered gauze tunic dress with beaded sleeves and Tran’s staple unlined blazer, now with princess sleeves. You can find Duskin at Steven Alan in New York; Confederacy and Fred Segal Flair in Los Angeles; Frances May in Portland, Ore.; and online at Les Nouvelles.
tags: Aimee Cho, Annebet Duvall, Duskin, Duvall, Gryphon, Kate Young, Le Bouton, Lisa Dorr, Stephanie Tran
Riccardo Tisci Surprises Fans At Barneys’ Givenchy Trunk Show
October 28, 2009 10:00 am
It’s a good thing Riccardo Tisci wears comfortable shoes. The Givenchy designer made a guerrilla appearance at Barneys New York yesterday, fresh off the plane from Rio and sneaker-shod, the better to keep up his sprinting pace on projects. To wit: Just after sending out his lauded Spring ‘10 womenswear collection in Paris, Tisci got to work on his Fall ‘10 menswear, then jetted to Brazil, where he presented a combined show of Givenchy men’s, women’s, and couture at Oi Fashion Rocks. The stop-off in New York, meanwhile, not only coincided with a trunk show of the Givenchy Spring stuff, but also provided Tisci with a chance to meet with a new collaborator on a top-secret project. “Sorry, I can’t say anything about it yet, except that I’m very excited,” he said. Given his breakneck schedule, however, it did seem fitting that, just in time for the Barneys trunk show, Givenchy’s debut Redux collections had arrived on the sales floor. Yes: Spring clothes, already, but the embroidered white cotton dresses exclusive to Barneys were begging to be layered over tights and worn with a pair of the sky-high Givenchy Spring ‘10 platforms on display. Or maybe not quite so sky-high. It turns out a few styles arriving soon feature a new heel, 50 centimeters shorter. Not exactly made for sprinting, still, but every centimeter helps.
tags: Barneys, Givenchy, Riccardo Tisci
Boudicca Joins Fashion’s Digital Revolution, Reinvents Lookbooks Online
October 27, 2009 11:59 am
As the season of technology (a.k.a. Spring 2010) approaches, you’d think we’d have seen it all via Facebook, Twitter, etc. But Boudicca’s Spring lookbook, called Real Girl SS2010, is in fact unlike anything I’ve ever laid eyes on. It involves motion, but it’s more like a flipbook than a video. You click on each look and the model moves around, a bit robotically—spinning, taking off her jacket, laughing—while showing you the clothes from all angles. It’s not the first time designers Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby have experimented with alternate and somewhat artsy modes of presenting their clothes. “With the speed of change, video phones, and flip creatures in our pockets, we were sure to see the end of still photography online,” says Kirkby. You can see more of these experiments at www.boudiccacouture.com. They describe this collection, meanwhile, as a collision of contrasts—one between machine and real. Let us know what you think of this new evolution of the workaday lookbook.
tags: Boudicca
Zac Posen’s Western Adventure
October 23, 2009 3:27 pm
Call it an early birthday party. Just hours shy of ringing in his 29th, Zac Posen took a break from back-to-back sales appointments, a client brunch and trunk show at Neiman’s in Beverly Hills, to hold an impromptu fête and fashion show at Bar Marmont. In between showing off the Spring 2010 collection—applause was especially heavy for look 36—Posen caught up with his L.A.-based friends like Rosson Crow (pictured at left with Posen), the Like’s Tennessee Thomas, and Zoe Saldana, who wore the designer’s sculpted Lily Pad Lotus print dress.
Teen phenom Lily Collins took a spin on the designer’s arm right as L.A. mainstay Anthony Kiedis walked in and headed straight to a table where the motley crew of Fred Durst, David Spade, and Ron Burkle were holding court. Even though Posen was headed straight back to his Tribeca studio over the weekend, he did make time for at least a little pleasure on his business trip out west. When pressed, he finally admitted, “I actually went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the [Grauman’s] Chinese Theater earlier today. I had to see how small Judy Garland’s feet were.”
tags: Lily Collins, Neiman Marcus, Rosson Crow, Tennessee Thomas, Zac Posen, Zoe Saldana
