Life’s a gamble, meet Adam Kimmel

Adam Kimmel is an New York based designer, who put up a distracting presentation yesterday. Kimmels collection was an ode to the style and tastes of the painter George Condo. The blazers, vests and capes with roulette prints had a plush, jaded, man-about-town feel. The presentation, in a gallery with gaming tables and low lights  – the gamblers (models wearing molded heads with twisted and ghastly expressions and clown-like ears and hair) were as real as anything else. The heads, based on Condo’s paintings,  did dominate the scene, but most of the clothes will look just fine without them.

Versus Fashion Presentation ss2010

It’s Christopher Kane’s new task to bring life back into Versus, the second line of the Versace-house which was hot in the nineties. The models were being placed on plinths to display the 25 wool, lace, and laser-cut neoprene dresses Kane has designed for his debut.  Donatella Versace herself was walking around looking over the group of black, mushroom, and sizzling red dresses. One dress was detailed with slashes held together with pink, red, and green aluminum safety pins—a reinvention of the dress that made  Elizabeth Hurley famous in 1994.

DFF Prelude: Catta Donkersloot & Sjaak Hullekes Presentation SS10

By Ivo Wiermans

It’s time for change! And we don’t refer to the legendary words spoken by Obama, but to the atmosphere at Prelude. You know, the seasonal event on the eve of Amsterdam Fashion Week, where young Dutch fashion talents show their newest collections. The young designers at Prelude brought a unanimous message. Long-lasting designs, with a focus on shape and excelling with simplicity, showed a new generation of designers that prefers high quality to short-term fashions

In the hotel lobby of The Grand Catta Donkersloot presented her collection, which was inspired by poppy flowers and summer birds. The feeling of a warm and romantic summer resulted in graceful ribbon-covered dresses, some decorated with bird prints. The models were draped at the lobby furniture, looking like taken away by a sunny day dream.
Inside one of the hotel’s most impressive rooms, the fashion show by Sjaak Hullekes took place. The collection covered preppy outfits with Riviera-like pieces: shorts, chinos, blazers and polo shirts. Accessories and other small details were both surprising and delicate. Small leather belts covered shirts, very short shorts had fringes at the legs and male models wore bow ballerinas. ‘I want to create a new androgyny in fashion,’ explained Hullekes after the presentation. ‘With small I want to give a new impulse to classic men’s fashion.’ The items and colour palet – bright pink, beige and brown – had a vintage look. ‘My menswear has a vintage edge, but when you come closer you’ll see the renewing materials and high quality’, Hullekes concludes.

Fantastic! Man

The extraordinary but oh so intelligent magazine Fantastic Man is probably the first magazine ever to have its own perfume. Founders Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom launched their little baby – which they created together with perfumer Ben Gorham of Byredo Parfums – last monday in Paris. And of course, it was no ordinary launch! It was an intimite moment where you could smell the fragrance in a private room by sniffing a blindfolded man’s wrist and neck. Hmmmm! This Fantastic Man smelled like a fresh summermorning in Italy: bergamot, lavender and a warm, mysterious hint of patchouli. Delicate and classic with a twist. Although it’s an eau de cologne it stays with you for hours. We cannot wait until they present their own collection of clothes……

Band of Outs Presentation FW09

Halston Fashion Presentation SS09

Catta Donkersloot Fashion Presentation SS09

Jan Taminiau Fashion Presentation FW08

Bernhard Willhelm Catwalk Fashion Show FW08