Versace Catwalk Fashion Show SS2011

Many pale, young male models walked in Versace’s rockabilly-inspired fashion show today. Their eye-catching hairdo’s, tight-fitting clothes and small silver necklaces gave them an absolute edgy look. They looked tough, like you wouldn’t want to mess with them.

The fact that they had to wear the most psychedelic (printed and sleeveless) blouses seemed to make them even more aggressive. But we can understand that. Donatella came up with the strangest graphic prints for those blouses. She introduced those as a tribute to the iconic images Bruce Weber made in the 80’s.

Like today at Calvin Klein all blouses were fully buttoned. So that might just become one of the new trends for next year. Apart from the blouses, Donatella designed many tight suits with rolled up legs and leather jackets with fringes.

Towards the end some printed beachwear was shown. Not in color, but in black & white, like the biggest part of the collection. But the absence of color didn’t bother us, Donatella’s prints were already spectacular enough!

Dolce & Gabbana Catwalk Fashion Show SS2011

Dolce & Gabbana keep on celebrating their 20th anniversary with memorable events. Not only a cocktail and exhibition in the Palazzo Marino (City Hall) in the centre of Milan, but also with great theatrical fashionshows. The shows not only tell the story of their roots, but also of their creativity and passion.

Today’s menswearshow was all about passion and drama. The duo took inspiration from their beloved Sicily, especially from the fishermen. They took their simple, but inventive way of clothing – pants held together by a rope, fishnet-shirts, simple linen suits, sandals and shorts – and translated that in a casual, relaxed collection with white, black and sand as their main colors. I’m sure there was something for actor Morgan Freeman or Matthew McConnaughey who were attending the show.

But the most dramatic part was the performance of singer Annie Lennox. Dressed in a  huge ballgown she played the piano and acted like a real diva. Her voice sounded better than ever and she sang her evergreens passionately.

Calvin Klein Catwalk Fashion Show – SS2011

Today’s Calvin Klein collection had an overall sporty vibe to it. This was visible through all kinds of aspects, like the hi-tech sneakers, the sweaters, the belly-exposing tops and jackets, the many zippers, the (partly visible) Calvin Klein logo and the sunglasses hanging on cords.

The many suits Italo Zucchelli came up with weren’t necessarily very sporty, yet they felt quite modern. Zucchelli once said ‘I no longer believe there is a fabric that’s wrong for making a suit. You could use material designed for tents and make a spectacular suit out of it.’ And so he did. Leather, silk, satin, he used almost any fabric for his slim-fit suits. Overall they looked very shiny and smooth. And the turquoise, the beige, the light grey and the blues appeared to be a good mix of colors.

In between the slick suits and sporty jackets some models in ultra-tight swim-shorts passed by to the sound of Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wildside.

The old-fashioned, fully buttoned blouses, the glossy suits and the belly-exposing tops might not be a huge hit in stores next summer, but overall the show was fun to watch. So we’re sure the people watching the show on LED screen at the Piazza del Duomo in Milan had a great time tonight.

Fashion focus: all about Anna Sui

Name of the brand: Anna Sui

Name(s ) of the designer(s): Anna Sui

About the designer(s): Anna Sui (1964) was born in Detroit, Michigan. She moved to New York to study art and design. After leaving school Anna worked for some junior sportswear companies, like Charlie’s Girls. She then started to design clothes that were sold at Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. Anna Sui is now sold all over the world and is particularly popular in Asia. She says her perfumes made her a global brand.

Start of the brand: in 1981 Anna started designing for herself.

First collection: In 1991 Anna Sui held her first fall fashion show, encouraged by her friends Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista, who were super-popular at that time.

The Anna Sui woman: loves to mix and match and is great fun

Anna Sui women: Paris Hilton, Blake Lively, Mischa Barton, Cher, Naomi Campbell, Sofia Copola, Nicole Kidman, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie and Liv Tyler.

The clothes are: boho-chic,

Type of clothes: colorful, hip, rock & roll, casual/street-wear

Signature: girly, patchwork, patterns, all kind of different styles and elements combined. Anna often uses the color purple.

Collaborations: In 2009 Anna Sui collaborated with Target to produce a Gossip Girl inspired line.
Anna Sui designed cellular phones for Samsung

Awards: CFDA Lifetime achievement Award

Quotes:

‘I always had to do extra design jobs just to keep my company going for the first 10 years.’

‘There were times after I paid my employees that I didn’t even have enough money for a subway token.’

‘On the runway, I’ll do crazy styling and crazy accessories, but there’s always a beautiful dress or a great shirt underneath.’

‘I’m kind of like a show-off.’

Extra:

Anna Sui’s fashion shows always have rock music and background designs.

In 1999 Anna started her fragrance and cosmetic line. She has launched fourteen different fragrances ever since.

In 2004 Anna launched a second, more youthful clothing line, named Dolly Girl by Anna Sui.

In 2009 a children’s line was added, named Anna Sui Mini.

In 2010 Anna Sui’s collection was seen in the finale of America’s Next Top Model.

There is a Anna Sui Soho Barbie

Before Anna’s label became successful she helped out her friend Steven Meisel with the styling of his photo shoots.

Graduation Shows: HKU – Utrecht

Yesterday 25 students of the HKU (Hogeschool voor de kunsten Utrecht) presented their graduation collections. In a beautiful location, called Winkel van Sinkel, they all gave their own little fashion show. The event was named ‘Platform’, yet each student could give his/her collection it’s own name. But apart from the name, they also had to come up with a theme, a collection (of course), the styling, the make-up, the choreography and the music. So you’ll guess they’d been working on this for months.

All the hard work was definitely visible; we saw some great collections.

Let’s start with Mariko Ferrier. Her theme was ‘The beauty of the ugly truth’. Her models first walked on stage very slowly, but started to walk faster towards the end. Her clothes were a mix of beautiful and ugly details. She, for example used light transparent fabrics combined with heavy, thick woollen parts. Her pants, her jackets and her tops all had wholes in them. They were hanging together by thick threads of wool. We loved the dip-dying she used, yet the music was awful.

Then we had Barbara Langendijk. She called her collection ‘Me versus My identity’ and was inspired by the search of her own identity. Her models stepped on the runway in towering high shoes and wore eye-catching glasses. Barbara had used her own shadow in her designs, which therefore had very high shoulders. She came up with strange combinations of fabrics like velvet and very thin transparent ones. An item we very much liked, was her beige cape.

The presentation of Mark Stadman, a fashion communication student, really stood out. Mark, who named his collection ?Mark, took his inspiration from the boy-bands in the nineties. He came up with five totally different outfits to stress the individual characters of ‘his boy-band’. His models had studied strange movements and wore crazy wigs. Mark didn’t design a collection, yet he managed to portray a very clear fashion message.

Esther Vijftigschild used the life’s tale of her Grandmother’s skin as a starting point for her collection ‘The metaphor of skin’. Like your skin can tell the story of your life, Esther did that with her clothes. Her designs were a mix of light and heavy fabrics. They had accentuated shoulders and volume in strange places. The ends of the fabric were decorated with thick wool. The silhouette was long.

Roos Woudenberg designed a good collection of men’s clothes. Not only did the designs look very wearable, they were all made out of sustainable materials too. Shades like brown/deep red were combined with dark blue. Especially the coats looked strong. Hats off for Roos for this sustainable and fashionable collection.

Jan Boelo Drenth’s collection was (like his music) very Gothic. He designed everything in black from capes to trails and cowls. It felt dark and mysterious, like he intended it. Jan used many different fabrics and created lots of volume. His great passion for couture was visible is lots of small accents he’d put on his garments. The good thing about this collection was that it was cohesive and became more dramatic with each outfit appearing on the runway. The skirts and the trails became bigger with each look. That’s how a good collection works. Well done.

Topmodel of the Week: Anja Rubik

Name: Anja Rubik
Age:  27 (she turned 27 last Saturday)
Date of Birth:  12 June 1983
Place of Birth: Rzeszow, Poland
Discovered: in a modelling contest in Paris. Her mother sent in her pictures.
City: Anja now lives in New York
Runway debut: Givenchy in Paris, 2000
Fashion shows: Givenchy, Chloe, Proenza Schouler, Hermes, Christian Dior, Valentino, Gucci, Fendi, Missoni, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Oscar de la Renta, Balenciaga, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, Karl Lagerfeld, Kenzo, and Ralph Lauren.
In 2009 she walked a Victoria’s Secret fashion show.
Covers: Vogue (Germany, Paris), Numero, Elle, V magazine
Vogue named her one of the top 30 models of the 2000s.
She was on the 3d place in the Top 50 Models Womens List.
Style.com named her the rising star of 2005.
French Vogue featured Anja as a topmodel in 2008
Ad campaigns:  Armani Code, Gucci, Barneys New York, Etro, Giorgio Armani, Valentino, Chloe, GAP, Jimmy Choo, Estée Lauder, Dolce & Gabbana, Tod’s, Belstaff, Dsquared, Oscar de la Renta, Fendi.
Tv Commercial: Armani Code
Agencies:  Next
Quotes:
‘I have a ring that brings me luck’
‘I love tea so I always travel with it, like an old grandma’
‘New York is so busy, where I come from it’s rather calm and things change slowly’
‘I like my legs’
‘I hate my lower lip’
Extra:
Anja lived in several countries. She moved from Poland to Greece, Canada and South Africa.
She wanted to finish school before starting a modelling career (and so she did).
Rubik is featured in a 2009 fitness video game for Wii Nintendo.
She talks kind of funny, her lower lip indeed looks strange when she talks. She lisps a bit.
Her photos (covers, ads, editorials) were taken by Inez & Vinoodh many times.
Anja loves scuba diving.

Goodiebag !? Launch of The Chesterfield Brand

Of course everyone of you is familiar with the Chesterfield chairs and couches. This classical furniture is famous for it’s buttoned style and usually comes in shades like black, brown or white. The Chesterfield furniture  has been popular for years and years. And since it has never gone out of fashion Dutch designer Viona van Dijk came with the idea to design a handbag collection based on the look of Chesterfield furniture. Today she launched the first Chesterfield bag collection in Amsterdam. We were there and took this nice goodiebag home with us.

Useful

June edition of Glamour magazine (from last month)

A brown leather wallet/agenda – The Chesterfield Brand

A pen – The Chesterfield Brand

A leaflet with images of the new Chesterfield handbag collection

Extra press material

Estimated Value: €30,-

Rating: 7

Graduation shows: WDKA – Rotterdam

As the end of the school year is approaching all fashion academies are presenting their graduation collections. Yesterday it was the Willem De Kooning Academy in Rotterdam who showed us the work of their graduation students. The Schiecentrale was their show area, a good choice, cause it all felt very professional.

After a few second and third year students showed off their designing skills, it was time to shine for thirteen fourth year students.

One thing that struck us was the great choice of colors. The students, independently of each other chose the most oustanding colors. Many shades that are in fashion now, like camel, peach, lilac and turquoise, were mixed & matched into wonderful eye-catching outfits.

The show started off with several design by Evalien van Gemeren, named Eva. She came up with colorful prints, which she called self-developed hieroglyphs. Overall her designs had a quite wide silhouette and came across as a bit manly.

Musa Shah presented a men’s collection, called Connected intimacy. Although…manly….. His fabrics were thin, transparent and shiny and thus gave the outfits a very soft touch. Some people will love it and some will hate it. But the truth is, Musa’s clothes were all very well made.

One of the collections that would probably sell very well was that of Ruby Verhoeven. She presented a classical and very wearable collection. Ruby played with the details of her clothes, like the pockets and zippers. They all appeared to be something different than what they looked like. Her fabrics were thin and feminine and the colors of the designs looked great together, especially with the blue shoes the models wore.

The collection of Anke de Vor, named TriBe, showed – again – a wonderful color palette. Peach, lilac and terracotta for example. Anke used a great print and also mixed jute with cotton for her imagine tribe. The clothes were based on those of neo-hippies. And for one of the designs (a peach-colored mix between a jumpsuit and harem pants) we sure could tell comfort and movement were important aspects in this collection.

Noortje Zijlstra’s collection caught our attention, while it was remarkable, yet not very wearable. The serie of dresses, named Meisjes met baarden existed of several dresses attached to the models’ faces by a small wire or threads, like a beard. The idea was fun, yet it made the actual clothes fade into the background.

The last collection we would like to mention was Zoot me if you can, by Mandy Minkman. Not only were her men’s clothes very well-made, we loved the whole concept behind it too. Mandy was inspired by the Zoot-suit from the late 30’s, mostly worn by jazz-musicians. This was visible through the great pants she designed with outstanding proportions.

We’re very curious about what we’re going to hear from these students in the future. But so far it looks very promising…

Fashion Focus: all about Ann Demeulemeester

Name of the brand: Ann Demeulemeester

Name(s ) of the designer(s):  Ann Demeulemeester

About the designer(s): Ann Demeulemeester (1959) was born in Belgium. She studied at the Royal academy of fine arts in Antwerp and graduated in 1981. She is now a world-renowned fashion designer. She is married to fashion photographer Patrick Robyn.

Start of the brand: 1984

First collection: 1985
Breakthrough: 1986; Ann Demeulemeester then shows her collection in London. She quickly become famous outside of Belgium. Ann is seen as one of the ‘Antwerpse zes’, a group of influential fashion designers who graduated at the Royal Academy of Antwerp in the eighties (including Dries van Noten en Walter van Beirendonck).

The Ann Demeulemeester woman: is not a specific type of woman. Ann said: ‘People can mix and match and adjust the clothes to fit into their lives. I don’t know exactly who will end up wearing my clothes. It’s like creating a present for an anonymous person.’ Ann does say the women she designs for have a strong personality.

Ann Demeulemeester women: Sarah Jessica Parker, Nicole Kidman, Nicole Richie

The clothes are: never ‘trendy’, their focus is on shape and structure. Ann designs with her feelings and uses lots of black in her clothes.

Type of clothes: outspoken, original, comfortable.

Signature: black designs in outstanding shapes

Collaborations: with Rodney Graham (1992), Patti Smith (1999), Steven Klein (2004)

Awards: Golden Spindle (1982), Culture Award (1996)

Quotes:

• ‘The idea that garments are alive is a big inspiration. I want to fill them with soul.’
• ‘I don’t travel’
• ‘I never planned ahead. I just go from one season to the next. If I ever feel like I’ve told my story in this medium, it’ll be time to move on to another.’

Extra:

• Ann has been designing jewellery and furniture as well. She even won some prices with that.
• In the beginning Mugler, Montana, and Versace were Ann’s inspiration
• Since 1996 Ann also designs men’s clothes.
• Ann and her husband Patrick have been together since Ann was seventeen.
• Regardless of the financial crise Ann Demeulemeester has sold more than ever.
• Especially Ann’s laced up boots were a bit hit.

Goodiebag !? Glammies 2010

Finally… the fashion events are back. After a cold winter our agenda’s are  filled again with fashion releases, fashion shows, premieres and award shows. And we all know what that means…..lots of goodiebags too!

Last night fashion magazine Glamour held it’s awards show named The Glammies in Amsterdam. Although the organisation wouldn’t give the press a goodiebag at first, we ultimately ended up getting one. And we sure wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on this one. Cause it sure is a goodie!

Useful

Latest edition of Glamour magazine

Yves Saint Laurent – Fragrance – Parisienne – 50 ml

Hugo Boss –  Fragrance – Boss – 50 ml

Evian – Facial Spray  – 50 ml

Moet  – Champagne – 200 ml

Lancome – Youth activator – 30 ml

Tweezerman – Pair of tweezers

CD single – Paloma Faith – 1 track

Spam

1 folder with names of the sponsors

Estimated Value: €150,-

Rating: 9

« Previous Page — Next Page »