“Up until six months ago, I thought OpenSky was an airline,” CFDA CEO Steven Kolb admits. For those in the same boat, OpenSky.com is actually a new e-commerce site that offers members (sign-up is free and open to anyone) access to a virtual cabinet of celebrity and expert curators. Members to the site choose the [...]

The Harper’s Bazaar-sponsored Accessories Bazaar opens today at the Lincoln Center tents at New York fashion week, where some of the best designers working—including Prova’s Irini Arakas, Albertus Swanepoel, Philip Crangi, and Fenton/Fallon’s jeweler extraordinaire, Dana Lorenz. To spotlight her new Spring ‘11 offerings, Lorenz created a short video with fashion’s go-to filmmaker, Sharif Hamza. [...]

First blanket capes, then all those furs and shearlings, and now the ever multiplying boot-cut trousers on the runways—I smell a certain ritzy-boho something in the air. (It’s not, thank God, patchouli.) This fall, it’s free to be you and me, a little bit gypsy, a little bit hippie. It’s one reason why I’ve been [...]

The First Lady selected a plum, high-waisted Isaac Mizrahi dress—with sleeves!—for last night’s State of the Union address. We’d say she came off at least as well as her husband. [HuffPo]Having exhausted every even barely reasonable trend, It piece, and runway-only gewgaw, Lady Gaga is now sporting infomercial-peddled girdles to her concert appearances. Well, at [...]

In what’s certainly a first, Marc Jacobs‘ name was called not once, not twice, but three times tonight at the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s official announcement of the nominees and honorees for the 2009 CFDA Fashion Awards. Come June 15 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, in addition to accepting the International Award [...]

Phoebe-philes will be forced to exercise their patience for a season. The former Chloé designer won’t be presenting her debut collection for Celine until this fall for Spring 2010.
Start planning. New York fashion week gets slightly demystified as more locales are confirmed (and another design team drops out) . If you haven’t already, [...]

Albertus Swanepoel has been through this before. When the South African designer arrived in the United States in 1989, he was flying high—his apparel had earned him a Coty Award back home. Once in New York, he easily secured a design position at one of the local houses. Then came the recession. The early nineties [...]