3 posts tagged "Julie Verhoeven"
AG Denim, Hollywood-Style
As stylist to some of Hollywood’s best-dressed starlets, Cher Coulter has made a name for herself by understanding her clients’ unique looks. Such was the reason that AG chose her to launch their debut Stylist Series—four capsule collections of jeans inspired by the actresses on her roster. “I work with fashion girls, so I wanted to carve out different personalities,” Coulter said of the design opportunity. “I am a celebrity fashion stylist, but hopefully I have different heads for different people. I’m not just a one-trick pony.”
For The Classic, Coulter was inspired by A.P.C. denim. “I turned to Françoise Hardy and the beat generation in late sixties Paris,” she said. They’re perfect for a young ingenue like Lizzie Olsen. The Eclectic is inspired by an artistic, bohemian girl, along with illustrations by Julie Verhoeven, who taught Coulter when she studied at Central Saint Martins in London. “She’s more of your model off duty,” she said of this second collection, which calls to mind Kate Bosworth. Coulter went back to London for The Rocker, taking cues from Balmain’s embellished jeans. A rockabilly vibe and darker colors toughened up the denim, which is just what you’d find on Coulter client Nicole Richie. And rounding out the series is The Bombshell, full of sexy, second-skin wares. “This girl was really influenced by nineties supermodels—statuesque women who weren’t afraid to wear really tight, skinny, high-waisted jeans.” They’re exactly what you’d expect to see on Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Indeed, the capsules offer a diverse range of cuts, washes, and treatments, each of which befit AG but also speak to Coulter’s range and influence.
At London’s MAN Day, A Dance With Decadence And Repentance
Jo-Ann Furniss reports on the highs and lows of London fashion week’s dedicated menswear day.
Fat Tuesday swiftly followed by Ash Wednesday, excess followed by penance. London fashion week’s MAN Day had the luck to fall on the latter this season. After the heady womenswear week closing on Tuesday, was it the turn of the sackcloth and ashes of menswear for Wednesday? Not quite; there were still some traces of carnival in the first day of Lent, even if at times they looked like the discarded remnants.
Earlier in the week, knit line Sibling’s carnival-referencing women’s collection, Sister, had been presented, alongside a few looks from the men’s—it made their best outing yet. But for the full men’s presentation on MAN Day, the party was over: Designers Joe Bates, Sid Bryan, and Cozette McCreery created an installation (pictured, above) in the form of a prison visiting room with a clever film by Sam Renwick and Thomas Bryant. It was in the shape of a triptych echoing the visiting booths, complete with telephone connections to the sound. “It’s where a matriarch might visit a son. Or vice versa,” Bates said. Yet the clothes were still their bright, excessive selves even behind bars. Called Marked Man, with designs based partly on prison tattoos, there was as much of the matriarch in the collection as there was the jailbird. An institutional bright orange was combined with pink ocelot spots in a men’s twinset. Their signature Fair Isle knits were further warped with the seamless addition of a skull with pompom ears blended into the traditional patterns. (It reflected the pompom-decorated full face masks and beanies also on view.) At once sinister and sweet, carnivalesque and penitential, there was something quite Leigh Bowery and Trojan in these proceedings that felt very true to the spirit of London. At the same time, Sibling’s output is so accomplished as to hold a global audience with ease.
Christopher Shannon’s catwalk was the first thing you noticed at his show. The brilliant backdrop was by the all-round creative and too-many-credits-to-mention Julie Verhoeven. “Creatively, I trust her implicitly,” said Shannon backstage. “I did want that inside of a Hoover bag vibe.” That’s certainly what he got. The set featured old tires, strewn pink net curtains with bricks caught in them, abandoned foil balloons in the shape of love hearts, and the bottom half of a female shop dummy, among other violent after-party detritus. At their best, the clothes and accessories had something of this random perversity, too; a broderie anglaise shirt with a ruffled back, a jacket covered in the designer’s swing tags, and a rucksack decorated with innumerable key rings. “We started excessive and pared back,” said the designer, yet there was maybe a bit too much paring back or, ultimately, the simple color palette of navy, white, sand, and black was a little too conservative or too flat to really help make some of the interesting points he was driving at. Continue Reading “At London’s MAN Day, A Dance With Decadence And Repentance” »
in defense of the working celebrity
“Where are the celebs?” pouted the partygoers midway through the overcrowded but underwhelming after-party for PPQ in Piccadilly’s Vendome Mayfair. “The best we can hope for is a Kelly Osbourne sighting,” lamented one journalist. While the absences at the PPQ fête might have suggested that London’s celebrities were sleeping on the job, Peter Jensen‘s show earlier in the evening was a defense of non-party-hopping famous people. “I dedicated it to Jodie Foster,” Jensen explained backstage after his joyful show, which combined frisky early Foster references with Julie Verhoeven’s prints. “When you go see a movie starring her, you see it because it will be a really good film. She’s an actress. She does her job. Her job is not to have us look under her skirt or have her fall on her face coming out of a club. Her job as an actress is to act.”