32 posts tagged "Margherita Missoni"
Margherita Missoni: Bag Lady
Margherita Missoni is pretty busy these days. Not only is she five months pregnant and working on a book to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Missoni house, but next month the 30-year-old will launch the first collection of Missoni handbags designed completely in-house. “The most recognizable, iconic elements of Missoni are colors and knitwear,” said Ms. Missoni. “But those are not elements that could make a consistent handbag collection, and we wanted to create bags that would be able to stand on their own,” she added. The resulting Pre-Fall collection, which was created under the direction of Ms. Missoni and hits stores mid-May, features practical leather and suede totes, satchels, and slouchy square handbags in black, tan, and the house’s signature rust.
Indeed, Ms. Missoni’s designs are easy to wear and, perhaps, less punchy than the house’s typical vibrant knits. But fret not—the new wares still (subtly) boast the brand’s staples. For instance, Ms. Missoni told us that her grandfather sketched out a special zigzag pattern that’s found on each handbag’s jacquard lining. And the pyramidal studs on our favorite black style (above) are actually a reconstructed zigzag shape. “For the summer, we’ll bring back some more Missoni colors, and we’ll start to introduce more fabric where it makes sense,” said Ms. Missoni. The designer hopes the Italian-made bags will become “classics” that will appeal to different women in different ways. And even though Missoni’s latest additions, which range from $1,760 to $5,890, haven’t yet hit the shelves, they’re already turning heads. On her latest intercontinental flight, a fellow passenger asked Ms. Missoni where she bought her bag. “I told her it was Missoni, and she said, ‘I didn’t know they made handbags.’ So I said, ‘They do now!’ ”
Ladies who Lunch
“I’m literally here for a few hours,” said shoe designer Nicholas Kirkwood, who flew to New York from London for a luncheon at Bergdorf Goodman yesterday. The occasion? The arrival of his new Spring collection, which, featuring pearl-soled pumps and swirling metallic sandals, was on display in the center of the department store’s famed shoe floor. “It’s nice to meet the customers and have lunch with some New York ladies,” laughed Kirkwood, who revealed that he’s opening a new store in the Wynn Las Vegas this June and hopes to launch handbags in the next year.
Indeed, he attracted quite a set of ladies—from New York and elsewhere. The likes of Shala Monroque, Suno’s Erin Beatty, Hannah Bronfman, and Julie Gilhart joined hosts Cecilia Dean and Leslie Fremar to fete Kirkwood. A five-months-pregnant Margherita Missoni took a break from renovating her and her husband’s New York pad to dine with the designer. “I have a harder time wearing very, very high heels now,” conceded Missoni, who’s working on a book to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of her family’s house. “I’m loving wedges, so I bought three pairs to wear over the summer. And I’m so over platforms.” If the Spring trend reports are any indication, she’s not alone. “I’ve been trying to do single soles since 2009,” said Kirkwood. “I would have been happy if they went out, like, two years ago.”
Valerie Steele, who included Kirkwood’s shoes in FIT’s Shoe Obsession exhibition and lauded him as one of the “emerging superstars of shoe design,” was skeptical. “There are a lot of people who have practiced very hard to wear their platforms, and who love the extra height it gives, so I think they’re going to remain an option,” she said. “And, of course, just because it’s swinging toward single sole now doesn’t mean that in eighteen months it won’t swing back.”
Mini Missoni
It’s official: There’s a baby Missoni on the way. Margherita is expecting her first child with husband Eugenio Amos. We have a feeling there will be lots of zigzag onesies in this little bambino’s future.
Out Of Their Closets, Onto The Internet
For a certain species of vintage collector, the thrill is in the hunt. For those of us less inclined to dig through the occasionally mildewed piles that make up the secondhand shops, grandmother’s attics, and Goodwills of this great nation, the thrill is the find. Those in the latter category have good reason to celebrate tomorrow. Two separate vintage troves go on sale online—no muss, less fuss.
On Thursday, Ralph Lauren launches the new RLVintage.com. The e-commerce site will offer one-of-a-kind vintage RL pieces selected by Lauren and a team of label obsessives sourced from around the globe: Brooklyn-based consultant and curator Ali of A Noble Savage, the blogueuses Hollister and Porter Hovey, and more stylish, Western-kitted Japanese guys than it seems possible to imagine. (One, Tez Saito, was so touched by an encounter with the Ralph Lauren Home collection 30 years ago that he opened his own shop in Tokyo, Reflex, that specializes in vintage RL.) Fifty pieces per season will be offered, from rodeo jackets to Navajo sweaters.
Meanwhile, Margherita Missoni is debuting her own collection of personal vintage as well. Seventy of her own pieces—including, naturally, plenty of Missoni—debut on Yoox.com tomorrow, benefitting OrphanAid Africa. (She serves as the president of the charity’s Italian chapter.) “Sometimes life has been too generous with me,” she says. “This is definitely the case with clothes.” (So much so that to keep them all, she’d “need life to be just as generous in terms of closet space, homes, and patience from my husband.”) She’s paying it forward, with eveningwear, day dresses, coats, and accessories.
The pile-divers may sniff at such pre-sifted vintage as fish in the proverbial barrel. Their loss.
Turbans: A Wrapper’s Delight
Any way you wind it, turbans have been making fashion statements since Paul Poiret began topping off his creations with them way back in the early twentieth century (though Sikhs, of course, had been wearing them for centuries before that). Recall 1940′s film noir costumes à la Joan Crawford, the glory days of Yves Saint Laurent, Prada’s Spring 2007 show, and even Sex and the City 2. This summer, they’re making yet another return. On the street, It girls like Vika Gazinskaya and Margherita Missoni have adopted the look, and at his haute couture show last week, Jean Paul Gaultier took a bow in a turban similar to those he showed in his Resort collection. But perhaps credit for the current trend ultimately goes, as it so often does, to Karl Lagerfeld. The Chanel head honcho sent Baptiste Giabiconi down his pre-fall runway in Rajasthani jewels and a “murban.”
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