22 posts tagged "Vanessa Traina"
Max Snow’s Ladies In White
From now until February 2, New York-based artist Max Snow’s latest photography project, The Lady of Shalott (named for Alfred Tennyson’s poem) will be on view at Paris concept shop Colette. Featuring eerie black-and-white images of nude women hiding under sheer veils, their faces often obscured with white, the exhibition includes shots of such fashion stars as Rebecca Dayan and Arizona Muse. Not surprising, considering the artist’s wife is stylist Vanessa Traina—who, it should be noted, was also photographed for the show. Decidedly (and, perhaps, deliberately) more covered up than the rest of Snow’s subjects, Traina was shot wearing the custom Givenchy gown she donned for their wedding last August.
The Lady of Shalott runs through February 2nd at Colette, 213 Rue Saint-Honoré, Paris.
Putting Off The Ritz
Style.com contributing editor and party reporter Darrell Hartman circles the city and, occasionally, the globe in the line of duty. In a new column, he reports on the topics—whatever they may be at whatever given moment—that are stirring the social set.
As usual at the most recent Paris Couture collections, there were openings—including a big one for Louis Vuitton’s haute joaillerie store on Place Vendôme. But this time around, there was a major closing, too. As just about everyone knows by now, the Ritz is shutting its doors at the end of July. Not forever, just for two years and change. Of course, to a lot of fashion people, that is forever.
“Everybody’s talking about it,” Claire Courtins-Clarins told me at the Louis Vuitton party. We were, incidentally, at the Ritz; Vuitton had booked the hotel’s pool room for one last go-round. The Atelier Versace show had happened there two nights before—poignantly, considering it was Gianni Versace’s old venue. (That’s Gianni, below, with the usual clatch of supermodels backstage at the Ritz during one of his Couture shows.) Immediately after Donatella’s runway came down, a VIP section went up, for an after-party with a performance by M.I.A.
If the hotel owes its place in the fashion annals to anyone, however, it’s Coco Chanel. The designer lived there from 1934 until 1971, albeit on the less glamorous Rue Cambon side. “Poor Chanel, I use the front door of the Ritz, she must use the back,” Elsa Schiaparelli liked to snipe. Continue Reading “Putting Off The Ritz” »
Her Family Is Famous For Diamonds, But Gaia Repossi Is More Inspired By A Feather Through The Nose
In recent years, the jewelry house of Repossi—founded in 1925 and nearing its 90th birthday—has won over a whole new generation of fans. Credit goes to Gaia Repossi, the 26-year-old artistic director, who took over her father’s post in 2007 and quickly introduced her own style as well as collaborations with friends like Joseph Altuzarra and Alexander Wang. (Her pieces made Style.com’s Top 10 Jewels list for Spring and Fall 2012.) All this despite protests that she’d never enter the family trade. “I was very intellectual, in my little own world,” Repossi said on a recent visit to New York to toast her ongoing partnership with Barneys. “I rejected completely the jewelry world.” But after studying painting, anthropology, and archaeology, Repossi edged into the business by the side door, as it were—she initially wanted to focus on its image and marketing—and wound up giving it a timely overhaul. “I wanted to bring it closer to what jewelry is nowadays to me,” she says, “and maybe also what jewelry was missing.” She spoke to Style.com about her work, her studies, and her art. For the record, she still paints.
Tell me a little bit about your background, and how you came to work for the family business.
It’s a little bit unexpected, even if it seems expected. When you grow up you can have two reactions: You can be very keen on what your parents are doing, or you want to look for something else. I was absolutely not willing to continue to work as my dad did [at Repossi]; I strictly wanted to do something different. I was painting as a teenager and I was aiming to really focus on that as my career. I started studying painting and I finished doing archeology, because I wanted to go more in the past, in the civilizations and the history of art. In the meantime, while I was in Paris studying, I saw a few things I didn’t like in my dad’s image of the company that I wanted to touch. Slowly it came out, the idea to launch a collection. And it worked, without even thinking about it. Unconsciously all my studies and my own imaginary world started applying to jewelry.
For example…?
It’s like, you go to India and see the nomads with garlands of silver things that they consider cheap, but they are extremely elegant. Nowadays, women don’t know how to wear the jewelry anymore, but when you go in India, there’s people barefoot but they are extremely elegant with all their jewelry. There are some codes, there’s an aesthetic that inspires me and has me working, a lot more than this [European] lady with her beautiful diamonds, even if she is elegant. It’s more that those silhouettes are striking. In Africa too—in Congo with their combs, and in Amazonia with their feathers in their nose.
Your anthropology courses proved to be good training.
Exactly. I was studying anthropology—ethnic similarities in between the civilizations. Even in those classes, jewelry became very important. Sculpture, too. When I go to shows, they have patterns, it’s the same. [But you also need] the family and the background that knows how it do it in a very refined way, because there’s no point to making a sculpture [for jewelry]—it has to be wearable and refined, not a heavy object you don’t know what to do with. Continue Reading “Her Family Is Famous For Diamonds, But Gaia Repossi Is More Inspired By A Feather Through The Nose” »
Borgo Magic
In keeping with the tradition of using his famous stylish fans as his models (Vanessa Traina, Lauren Santo Domingo, and Kate Lanphear, to name a few), Eddie Borgo brought on V‘s Cecilia Dean to star in his latest ad campaign. “Cecilia was a natural progression for us; she exemplifies all those mysterious, sexy elements of a woman with effortless style,” Borgo tells Style.com. “I was so nervous, at first, to ask for her participation, but so thrilled when she accepted at a friend’s dinner party in Paris.” The collection was inspired by magic and the occult, referencing the work of British occultist Austin Osman Spare and Robert Mapplethorpe’s projects outside of photography. “The connection between the two artists was their ability to create imagery that was simultaneously strong as it was elegant and refined,” explains Borgo. His translation of the two artists’ work came in the form of geometric shapes, like stars and pentagrams, which he then covered in white powder “to evoke the feeling of lace.”
For the shoot, he enlisted his go-to team: stylist Keegan Singh and photographer Paul Maffi. Here, catch Dean in action in this Style.com exclusive video along with a shot from the campaign.
Rx Chanel
At last, a coloring book for all ages. The RxArt coloring book was technically created for kids—it’s handed out to children in the hospital as way to take their mind off their illnesses, but the Chanel Beauté-sponsored booklet will make just about anyone want to get their crayon box out. Between the Lines features designs by more than 40 artists, including Hope Atherton, Mr. Brainwash, Deborah Kass, Jose Parla, and cover art by Rob Pruitt. (Pruitt also made the sparkly panda bear stickers that come in the centerfold—Lisa Frank, watch out.)
On Thursday, the third volume of the coloring book project will be officially unveiled at the 2011 Rx Party (also sponsored by Chanel Beauté) at the Highline Stages, hosted by Jen Brill, Leigh Lezark, Vanessa Traina, Poppy Delevingne, and Caroline Sieber. Works of art, including pieces from Yoko Ono, James Franco, Nate Lowman, and Terry Richardson, will be on auction at the event—no Crayolas required here.
To buy tickets to the event, visit www.rxart.com.