15 posts tagged "Victoria Bartlett"
The Split-Second Preview: VPL
As we enter into a month of fashion shows, we’ve asked some of this season’s biggest stars and most anticipated new talents to offer a sneak peek. Naturally, it’s a busy time for everyone—designers and fashion watchers alike—so we’re pioneering the split-second preview: tweet-length previews at 140 characters or less. To view all of our Fall ’13 previews, click here.
WHO: VPL, designed by Victoria Bartlett
WHERE: New York, NY
WHEN: Saturday, February 9
WHAT: “The VPL dialogue centers on the mix of shapes like a jigsaw puzzle coming apart + rejoining; surfaces are segmented, dissected + rejoined.” —Victoria Bartlett. The designer sent us a collage of inspiration images, above.
Please, Do Touch The Art
Last night at Artisanal House, a renovated Chelsea town home turned gallery, Victoria Bartlett presented her Spring 2013 VPL collection to close friends and fans. But in true VPL style, this was no ordinary presentation; rather, it was a fusion of art, fashion, and whimsy, a combo the designer has mastered. Bartlett transformed the modern space via art by jewelry designer Jill Platner (who also co-hosted the event with Il Buco’s Donna Lennard). And while some guests weren’t exactly sure how to navigate around the jeweler-cum-artist’s giant moving honeycomb sculptures that dangled from the ceiling, Platner encouraged them to interact with the works. “It’s meant to move! It’s meant to be touched!” she assured. Bartlett enlisted a little audience participation, too. The designer asked some of her closest friends, like Arden Wohl, Julie Gilhart, and Tomoko Ogura, to model her new wares. Each picked out her favorite Spring 2013 VPL dress to flaunt. “We’ve got an army of really strong women!” said Bartlett of her models. “They’re all like family.”
Sustainable Design Gets A New Home
Steven Kolb was at breakfast this morning at the place he called “the best store in the city”: ABC Carpet and Home. As of now, the furniture and housewares landmark will offer a curated selection of sustainable pieces by CFDA designers, including those who have won the annual CFDA/Lexus Eco-Fashion Challenge, which awards $25,000 prizes to selected designers whose businesses are at least 30 percent sustainable. “Fashion is about change, and these designers are at the forefront of this idea that eco-fashion doesn’t have to be branded independently,” Kolb said today, toasting the 2011 and 2012 winners: Marcia Patmos, John Bartlett, Johnson Hartig of Libertine, Pamela Love, Melissa Joy Manning, and Victoria Bartlett of VPL. Their collections were on display alongside those of Diane von Furstenberg, Donna Karan, and Loomstate’s Rogan Gregory and Scott Mackinlay Hahn.
Sustainability tends to flow in and out of the fashion conversation—”People don’t realize that we manufacture in New York City with stones that are sourced ethically, because it’s not really part of our branding,” Love said, “but I started my jewelry line in my house in Brooklyn because I didn’t realize there was any other way to do things”—but the CFDA is hoping to bring it to the fore. For that, Patmos said, “The shop is really great because it makes the whole thing tangible.” She was so excited at winning the award, she added, that she’d wanted to jump up and down. “But I was at my desk when Steven called me with the news, so I had to contain myself.”
At Victoria Bartlett, Skin Is In
Fans of VPL won’t be surprised to hear that designer Victoria Bartlett is obsessed with anatomy—VPL is short for Visible Panty Line, after all. But her fixation on the body goes beyond her signature maxi dresses with the bra-cup tops. Tomorrow night, Bartlett is hosting an opening for an exhibition at her Mercer Street store in Soho that she curated with Renee Vara, in which she invited 15 artists to submit work based on the theme (and shown under the title) Second Skin. Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Jack Pierson, Collier Schorr, and Mark Borthwick are among the participants. Hrafnhildur Arnardottir (a.k.a. Shoplifter) is doing a performance in the shop window. All the work except hers will be for sale. “It could be literal, or it could be interpretive,” Bartlett says of the submissions. “It’s also about what’s underneath, getting under your skin, annoyance—all those different points are represented.” Ugo Rondinone’s wax and earth pigments sculpture, nude (xxxxxxxx) (pictured), could almost double as a mannequin. You won’t find any clothes hanging from it before or after the opening—the show will be up for two months—but more than likely his piece and the others will influence Bartlett’s own work. The crossover of media “keeps me ticking,” she says. “It’s fodder for my brain.”
Second Skin opens tomorrow at VPL, 5 Mercer St., NYC.
Knit Wit
Lindsay Degen is not your average fashion girl. The knitwear designer, who presented her first full collection yesterday (she showed a small lingerie capsule last NYFW), started out making large-scale knit art installations while studying at Rhode Island School of Design, then moved on to do more wearable pieces after various collaborations and encouragement from industry veterans like VPL‘s Victoria Bartlett. But a quick glance at Degen’s latest offerings reassures that she has in no way compromised her avant-garde point of view. Degen dubbed this season Ask Tell to honor the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell—she is professedly “all about celebrating individuality and being open.”
In keeping with the military theme, Degen did her own take on WWI battleship “dazzle” camouflage, taking her color palette from Communist propaganda posters. The result was a lineup that carried over cheeky items from Spring, like leggings with two well-placed cutouts on the bum and knit glove necklaces. But there were also more realistic items this time around, like cargo-inspired pants slashed at the knees (the designer was sporting them) and an abundance of sweater crop tops. Never one to take herself too seriously, Degen kept things playful with hyper-pigmented pastel “war paint” makeup and super-chunky platform sneakers that she embellished with yarn.