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subscribe to style file blog via RSSIsaac Mizrahi, Curator
July 8, 2009 4:23 pm
Does Isaac Mizrahi sleep? It hardly seems likely. Not only is Mizrahi prepping Spring ‘10 collections for both his own label and Liz Claiborne, where he came on board as creative director last year, but he plays a starring part in Bravo’s new series The Fashion Show, he blogs, and he hosts his own weekly fashion klatch on his Web site, and frankly, God knows what else he’s up to, but certainly something. Nevertheless, Mizrahi has managed to carve out some spare time over the past six months to jump into a new role as curator: His first exhibition, Summer Pictures, opens at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea this Thursday night and features work by artists such as Maira Kalman, Adrianne Lobel, Lisa Sanditz, Julia Sherman, and Wayne Thiebaud. Here, Mizrahi talks to Style.com about color, cupcakes, and more color.
What made you decide that you wanted to curate an art show?
Oh, gosh. Let’s see…Well, my friend Julie Saul has a gallery, and not too long ago she became the gallerist for my very dear friend Maira Kalman, and then we started talking. She—Julie—was telling me that the gallery is usually pretty slow in the summertime, and I mentioned that I’d love to put together a small show of work by artists that I really love, and then, you know, it was just one of those things.
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tags: Adrianne Lobel, Andre Leon Talley, Isaac Mizrahi, Julia Sherman, Lisa Sanditz, Liz Claiborne, Maira Kalman, Wayne Thiebaud
Blasblog: Sweet Scents And Sweeter Charity
June 24, 2009 10:56 am
My Tuesday morning was, to steal a term from the contemporary fashion scene, very high/low. It started uptown at the Plaza Hotel, where Marjorie Gubelmann hosted a breakfast for Sardinia, the newest scent in her luxury candle line Vie Luxe. Why Sardinia? “Because that place is heaven on earth,” said Gubelmann. “It’s luxe!” After scarfing a croissant and orange juice, I headed downtown to the God’s Love We Deliver headquarters in the David Geffen building on Spring Street and Sixth Avenue, where Joan Rivers, Blaine Trump, and Estée Lauder’s John Demsey were helping the organization prepare for its ten millionth meal for people living with HIV/AIDS. Down in the kitchen, Rivers was on packing duty, scooping pork chops, carrots, and brussels sprouts into containers. There was a countdown to number 10,000,000, followed by cheers and a little dance to “I Am What I Am,” and then the troop hightailed it to MacDougal Street to deliver the landmark meal. “This charity means so much to me,” Rivers explained in transit. “Look at me, I’m in a hairnet. You know I’m serious if I would wear one of these—every hair is important.” For more information on the charity, go to www.godslovewedeliver.org.
tags: Blaine Trump, Estee Lauder, Joan Rivers, John Demsey, Marjorie Gubelmann, Plaza Hotel
Exclusive: Proenza Schouler Breaks Language, Fashion Barriers In Florence
June 22, 2009 1:36 pm
UPDATE: While the rains continued in New York, the weather held for Proenza Schouler’s multipart Pitti W happening in Florence, Italy, and despite being taken over by the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, the Villa Petraia’s sixteenth-century gardens remained happily intact. “This is the crown jewel of Medici villas,” said Jack McCollough. “[And that’s saying a lot] as they are like Starbucks in Italy.” Among the New York imports helping him and his partner Lazaro Hernandez “export a slice of Americana overseas” were Yvonne Force Villareal and Bee Shaffer, along with video stars Chloë Sevigny, Liya Kebede, and Kalup Linzy (click to watch them in action above). Waving the flag for the Brits was the indefatigable Suzy Menkes.
Click for a slideshow of the party pictures >
The Proenza Schouler show is one of New York fashion week’s hottest tickets, and tonight that sense of anticipation goes international, as Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough unveil their Spring ‘10 pre-collection at Pitti W in Florence. For their debut on the world stage, Hernandez and McCollough say they want to “up the ante”—and they’re not kidding. Far from a run-of-the-mill runway show, the event will feature a performance by Kembra Pfahler, in the guise of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, an installation by sculptor Haim Steinbach, and a video by the soap-spoofing, drag-wearing, stardom-bound performance artist Kalup Linzy (with a cameo by a bewigged Chloë Sevigny). We’re posting the video exclusively here, though fair warning: If this song were ever released as a single, it would have one of those “Explicit Lyrics” stickers.
Watch the video >
Read our review of Proenza Schouler’s Spring 2010 pre-collection >
This is your first time showing a collection in Europe. What made you decide to debut with a multimedia extravaganza?
Lazaro Hernandez: When the Pitti people asked us to show the pre-collection, we were a little skeptical at first. I mean, pre-collections are sales-driven—
Jack McCollough: Not the most fantastic, editorial thing.
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tags: Chloe Sevigny, Jack McCollough, Lazaro Hernandez, Proenza Schouler, Yvonne Force Villareal
A Conversation With Moon’s Duncan Jones
June 10, 2009 5:16 pm
“Yeah, that’s pretty much unavoidable,” admits Duncan Jones. “But on the other hand, I don’t mind.” The subject Jones is addressing is a surprisingly un-touchy one: The director is set to release his debut feature, a sci-fi flick about a man floating alone in space, and certain Major Tom allusions seem inevitable, given that Jones’ dad is one David Bowie. But Moon, starring Sam Rockwell, stands up to the “Space Oddity” comparisons that have run amok since the film screened at Sundance earlier this year. A taut thought experiment on the vanishing separation between technology and humanity, Moonis a far cry from the whiz-bang escapism of Star Trek, a movie Jones admits he enjoyed. For that matter, the film is also a far cry from the work Jones was previously best known for, the controversial “Fashion vs. Style” ad for French Connection in the U.K. Moon is, however, perfectly in keeping for a man whose college thesis was entitled “How to Kill Your Computer Friend: An Investigation of the Mind/Body Problem and How It Relates to the Hypothetical Creation of a Thinking Machine,” and whose dad is, well, David Bowie. Here, Jones talks to Style.com about Twitter, Helium 3, and a computer named Gerty.
On the surface, Moon is a movie about a guy who, at some uncertain point in the near future, is overseeing the mining of the moon for a source of green energy. But really, the film is a meditation on self. Which part of the story came to you first?
Really, the whole idea for the film came out of my wanting to work with Sam Rockwell. I met with him about three years ago to discuss another project, which was maybe too ambitious for a first feature, and as we were chatting we began talking about the kinds of movies we both loved. There was this period of science fiction filmmaking in the late seventies and early eighties—films like Outland, Silent Running, Ridley Scott’s Alien, where these blue-collar guys would be thrown into alien environments, and you’d watch them try to maintain their humanity. Or you’d see how their humanity starts to be eroded away. That was the kind of film both Sam and I wanted to make. So, I left that meeting and immediately began thinking about Moon.
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tags: David Bowie, Duncan Jones, Sam Rockwell
A Conversation With Photographer Miles Aldridge
June 2, 2009 12:32 pm
Something’s always a little off in Miles Aldridge’s world. The London-based fashion photographer has made his career on images that are almost diabolically surreal—a woman with a perfect lipstick pout, crumpled against a countertop, stabbing a birthday cake; a lady clad just-so in yellow, pushing an empty swing; a disembodied mouth biting into a forkful of spaghetti. The neon-hued weirdness of Aldridge’s shots makes them leap off pages of magazines and into the same psychological territory as early Almodóvar films: All his women are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. (An exception to the rule, perhaps: Aldridge’s wife, model Kristen McMenamy.) Symptoms of Aldridge-mania include: titillation, studious blankness, frenzy. Now, Aldridge-mania is coming stateside. On Thursday, Aldridge opened the first U.S. show of his work at the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea. Today, he publishes Miles Aldridge: Pictures for Photographs (Editions 7L/Steidl), a compilation of his photographs for magazines such as Vogue Italia and Numéro. This week, Aldridge takes over the Fifth Avenue windows at Henri Bendel, re-creating a few of his images with mannequins. Aldridge will be on hand at Bendel’s to open the display and sign books; here, he talks to Style.com about good luck, lots of cats, and puckers.
You studied illustration at Central Saint Martins. How did you wind up a fashion photographer?
To a certain extent, I just got lucky. In London, around ‘95, I was dating this girl who was really beautiful, but not beautiful in a particularly model-y way, at least as that was understood at the time. Basically, she was too short. But then Kate Moss came along, and my girlfriend decided she could be a model after all, so she asked me to take some photos of her, which I did. When she showed her book to British Vogue, they asked to see me. Her career never really got off the ground, but that’s how mine started. It was a good time—between Kate and the whole grunge thing, if you were English and could hold a camera, people in New York would meet with you. And my sister, who was a model, let me know that in her experience all photographers were idiots, so therefore I was qualified.
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tags: Henri Bendel, Kate Moss, Miles Aldridge
A Conversation With Halston’s New Man
May 28, 2009 1:08 pm
Ask Marios Schwab for the picture that comes to mind when he thinks of Halston, and he’ll admit that he reaches for the same mental snapshot we all do: Bianca Jagger, in a draped black dress, entering Studio 54 on a white horse. Unlike the rest of us, however, Schwab has the chance to conjure a new vision of Halston, one scrambled out of the brand’s sexy, seventies-heyday DNA but updated in Schwab’s own image. Last week, it was announced that the London-based Schwab would be taking the reins at Halston, a label that’s seen its share of troubles since Roy Halston Frowick exited the stage. Since 1983, the Halston legacy has been entrusted to more than a half-dozen designers, with fitful success. The previous designer, Marco Zanini, lasted only two seasons. Schwab has a rather formidable challenge before him as he seeks to turn the ship around. And the Greek-Austrian designer will be upping the ante for himself by continuing to design his eponymous label, which launched in 2005 and earned him the Best New Designer prize at the British Fashion Awards in 2006 and the prestigious Swiss Textiles Award in 2007. Here, Schwab talks to Style.com about moving into the house that Roy built.
Congratulations! I’m sure a lot of people are crawling out the woodwork to say that. Are you feeling overwhelmed?
I’m happy. Overwhelmed…not as much. This was quite a lengthy process, with Halston, so I’ve had a lot of opportunity to settle my nerves.
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tags: Bianca Jagger, Halston, Marios Schwab
Talking Expansion Plans With Satine’s Jeannie Lee
May 27, 2009 9:44 am
A lot has changed in the six years since Jeannie Lee opened her boutique Satine on a cozy stretch of Third Street in West Hollywood. Third Street, for example, has gone from a pedestrian-friendly series of blocks intermittently dotted with shops to one of L.A.’s key retail destinations—a change due, in part, to the presence of Satine. Shopping in Los Angeles is different now: The city is peppered with independent boutiques, each one expressing a unique, carefully cultivated point of view, and all of them, in so doing, following a template set by Satine. Lee made unconventional and off-the-beaten-track look easy—and maybe, at the height of the boom, it was. Now, in the teeth of the bust, she’s charting a new course. The most noticeable change? Next month, Satine moves to a new location, a space across the street and just down the block, but more than double the size of the current shop. Here, she talks to Style.com about silver linings, unmentionables, and Michelle Obama.
Everyone else seems to be downsizing. What made you decide you wanted to move Satine to a larger space?
Well, my lease was ending, and I decided to consider my options. One silver lining to this economy is that rents have fallen, and so that made a larger space affordable, at the same time that I was feeling ready to spread out. I love my store now, but it’s crowded.
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tags: Satine
Remembering Guy Bourdin
May 7, 2009 3:56 pm
The Costume Institute at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art gave the topic of models and muses a gala spin on Monday night. Now, the Wapping Project is getting into the act: The show Unseen Guy Bourdin arrives at the East London arts center this weekend, and its opening Saturday night will be hosted by none other than Bourdin muse Nicolle Meyer. Star of many of the photographer’s most iconic images, including 30 of his game-changing ads for Charles Jourdan, Meyer is a less immediately identifiable muse than some. As often as not, Bourdin kept Meyer’s face obscured, hiding it under props, snapping it from some bizarre angle, cropping it out of shots entirely. Their work together is an inventory of dislocated body parts. But in the years since Bourdin’s death, in 1991, Meyer has come to the fore, emerging as one of the key caretakers of the Bourdin legacy. She compiled the images in the two-volume book, Guy Bourdin: A Message for You (Steidl, 2006), for example, and here, she talks to Style.com about life behind the scenes of the surreal.
How did you meet Guy Bourdin?
It was a very normal thing—I was a model on a go-see. I had just started modeling and I only had a couple of tear sheets, and not having come from a fashion background at all—I was a dancer—I had no sense of his notoriety. That week, he booked me on a job for French Vogue. I was terribly excited, of course, to have this first Vogue opportunity, and then when we took the photos, I mean, they were odd. My head was missing, or it was just my leg. Nothing I could use for my modeling book, in other words.
tags: Charles Jourdan, Guy Bourdin, Nicolle Meyer
HOT! HOT! HOT!
May 6, 2009 4:36 pm
There’s nothing like a sodden week in spring to make a city dweller dream of the beach. The sun. The surf. The salt air. The lifeguards. The appeal of those bronzed, zinc-nosed gods of the shoreline is one photographer Matt Albiani and designer Michael Bastian understand implicitly. Albiani has spent the past four years shooting lifeguards all across America, from Oahu to Nantucket, photos that are now collected in his new book Lifeguard on Duty. Coincidentally, Albiani was wrapping up work on the book just as Bastian was seizing a lifeguard inspiration for his Spring ‘09 menswear collection. Great minds think alike, apparently—and now Bastian and Albiani have joined forces, launching Lifeguard on Duty with an event at Bergdorf Goodman’s men’s shop this evening. (Later this month, the duo will be toasting the tome at the Los Angeles boutique Confederacy.) Here, Bastian and Albiani talk to Style.com about Baywatch, California dreams, and beauty and the beach.
Most people hear the word “lifeguard” and immediately think: Baywatch. Suffice it to say, that’s not the vibe either of you are conjuring.
Michael Bastian: Well, we all grew up watching Baywatch, it’s true. But my whole lifeguard fixation started with the seventies movie Lifeguard, with Parker Stevenson. It’s about a college kid who works as a lifeguard over the summer…Matt, that was kind of your experience, right?
tags: Matt Albiani, Michael Bastian
Double Vision
May 4, 2009 11:04 pm
While some stars enjoy a red-carpet surprise (Madonna, we’re looking at you), other celebs stick to a favorite silhouette. For Kirsten Dunst, one of those shapes is a twenties-inspired gown with sheer panels, short sleeves, and marabou detail. Witness the actress’ two Chanel frocks—the navy one she wore tonight to the Met ball and the aquamarine dress she donned at the 2007 Oscars. Which do you prefer?
