12 posts tagged "Sergio Rossi"
Memphis Meets Beijing
Last night, Sergio Rossi gave Beijing’s design and fashion enthusiasts a thrill with the unveiling of its swank new store in the China World Shopping Mall. During the opening fête, which was hosted by CEO Christophe Mélard, guests perused the label’s vivid Spring Sergio Rossi Meets Memphis collection, which was inspired by the Memphis design movement—popular in Italy in the eighties.
The boutique, however, had a seventies aesthetic, and was complete with bronze shoe displays, plush blue carpeting, lots of velvet, mirrors, and a curvaceous couch designed by Vladimir Kagan.
After the in-store cocktail reception, a cozy mix of creative partygoers were ferried off to dinner at Yishu 8, a renovated Chinese courtyard and private art gallery near The Forbidden City. In addition to light fare and Franciacorta (Italy’s answer to Champagne), guests like artist and Sergio Rossi-collaborator Peng Wei and designer Masha Ma were treated to a small exhibition of original Memphis design items, all of which were loaned from the Memphis art gallery in Milan. Needless to say, Sergio Rossi succeeded in transporting its guests to another time and place entirely.
The Sergio Rossi Love Story
Francesco Russo unveils his latest Sergio Rossi collection in Milan today. To go with the presentation, he’s screening a short film by director Drake Doremus (the 2011 Sundance Film Festival winner behind Like Crazy and also the man behind his Fall ’12 movie), featuring top model Marcelle. “Ever since I saw Like Crazy last year, I’ve been fascinated by his romantic sensibility,” Russo tells Style.com. “I asked Drake to show us his interpretation of the collection, and the result is The Search—an oneiric love story.”
That love story is told through the designer’s seductive fringe stilettos and green and gold wedges and graphic prints. Of the collection, he explains, “It is a tribute to Italian design: Memphis on one side and the more warm work of Carlo Bugatti on the other.” Here, Style.com has an exclusive first look at the collection and the video, for all those who aren’t in Milan right now.
Where Shoes Are Art, Art Is Shoes
Barneys’ new shoe floor was unveiled this week—all 22,000 square feet of it. To celebrate the occasion (as well as to raise some money for the marriage-equality efforts of the Human Rights Campaign), Sergio Rossi creative director Francesco Russo will be on hand tonight for a private shopping event spotlighting Rossi’s increased presence at the store. Rather than go the usual route of signing soles, Russo decided he’d rather sketch. Customers who purchase a pair of shoes will take them home not only in foot-ready form, but in frameable version, too. In honor of the occasion, Russo sent over a little preview illustration to Style.com.
Sex And The Sergio Girl
Rather than its usual day-long open house, this season, Sergio Rossi and creative director Francesco Russo elected to host a more intimate cocktail party to debut their new Fall collection in Milan. And intimate fits the entertainment as well as the event. For the occasion, Russo and director Luca Guadagnino created a three-minute short film starring model Diana Dondoe, whose shod (but largely unclad) form is placed front and center in the erotic piece.
Eroticism is nothing new to Guadagnino, who hit big with his film I Am Love, starring Tilda Swinton as a Milanese matriarch who embarks on a passionate affair with a young chef. (Russo cited a scene in which Swinton’s character and the chef first make love as a favorite.) “I’ve known Luca for 15 years, and for me it’s very important to work with people I feel close and comfortable with,” he explained to Style.com. “It all came together quite naturally, really.”
If the sensual is nothing new to Guadagnino, it’s familiar ground for Russo, too. Sex appeal has been one of his trademarks during his time at Rossi. “For me, the shoe is not just an object for its own sake, but something that can change the state of mind of the person wearing or observing it,” he says. “I’m moving forward towards accessories addressing the entire woman’s body. I refer to this project as ‘Skin to Skin,’ because the body pieces become a sort of a second skin playing with female transformation caused by wearing wonderful shoes.”
And those shoes? “Most are made of different types of leather and exotic skins like python, ostrich foot, lizard, crocodile, and kid suede, mostly in monochromatic colors to underline the different textures,” Russo says of the new collection. “They’re like objects in a constant mutation.” The film screens at the presentation, which begins now in Milan, and debuts here on Style.com.
Giovanna Battaglia’s Best-Of-Gala Gown—Revealed!
At last night’s amfAR gala in Cannes, one partygoer stood out for us among the rest: stylist and W contributor Giovanna Battaglia, who showed up on the arm of boyfriend Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld in a jaw-dropping, barely-there gown we didn’t recognize. (Internet speculation briefly misidentified it as vintage Versace.)
On a hunch that it was, in fact, vintage, we asked vintage guru Cameron Silver of L.A.’s Decades to weigh in. Silver spotted it straightaway as a Stephen Sprouse. And this afternoon, Battaglia herself wrote in to confirm. The piece, Battaglia says, is a 1992 Sprouse from Rare Vintage, Juliana Cairone’s New York shop. (Longtime readers may remember Cairone from the postcard she sent us from her trip to Hong Kong.) Battaglia paired the gown with Sergio Rossi shoes and clutch and an Emilio Pucci jacket, but the dress itself is clearly the centerpiece. “I was so happy when I found it!” she says. “It’s a true art piece for me.”