That is how I remember Grace Coddington, as the nice lady from the September Issue. Grace was romantic, poetic, endlessly creative, in contrast to austere Anna who slashed her editorial with ice-cold precision. Though I am not an avid believer of fashion stereotypes, I did fall for Grace.
Now, Grace is reported to be working on her memoir that will cover her modeling career in 1960s London and her rise to the upper echelons of the world of Vogue. Visions of Grace in the swinging sixties will serve as a nostalgic read and I expect her career path to be nothing less than deeply inspirational for all those aspiring.
What I personally love about her project is that Grace told Women's Wear Daily that she is “hoping it’s going to be very rich in fashion history. It’s more than just about me.” Not only is she angelically modest, she also has a great point.
Grace's memoirs have the potential to be a more accessible way into fashion history, a more fresh and fun approach. Oral history is a legitimate research method for both historians and dress historians, so what better way than to learn fashion history through biography? Go Grace!
I met Anna really high up in the freakiest school building in Midtown where we took a course in Fashion Writing together. I got to know Anna as quirky, smart and funny and so is her blog that is really worth a peek:
Over the past two years, I have been trying to master the art of travel. The saying that it is not the destination, but the journey that matters totally rings true for me. On the road anything can happen (and it has) and I absolutely love the possibility of the unforeseen happening. From spontaneous layover breakfast dates to the most tedious must-do's of air travel (security checks are like sacred rituals to me), I love it all. Of course, it does require a perfect travel attire.
I am usually trying to pull of a "comfortable and sophisticated" look that I hope will spontaneously land me in business class. So far, I have experienced that draped long-sleeves and moderate harem pants are definitely a please-pad-me-down look for security officials, but I still find myself aspiring to that upgrade. (A need fashion is now answering with actual travel collections)
But what-you-wear is now equally important to what-you-carry. The luggage belt is like a runway (btw. they could definitely make that black dirty rubber a lot cooler, think: advertising). Everybody stands around fixated on all the pieces that ride by. Though most people seem more concerned with their own luggage and getting out of there asap, I am convinced everybody evaluates other people's goods. I do it! In other words, an excellent opportunity to get a good review (or a follow-up let-me-help-you-with-that date). Unfortunately, dragging of my plastic hard-shells is somewhat of an anti-climax on my otherwise thrilling trip.
Though my little orange hard-shell does pop for all the wrong or right reasons, it is vintage or custom-made luggage that I would love to have wheeling behind me: 'Vintage Luggage is back in vogue' and I'm looking to those legendary houses of leather goods, Goyard, Louis Vuitton, Delvaux,Hermès, for inspiration. With a vintage leather trunk I'd imagine myself to be a late Victorian desert crossing Gertrude Bell cum a 1910s ocean liner lady off to New York cum a contemporary fashionable traveler.
Now, I often heard the petty objection that beautiful luggage is a waste because of the airport's cargo treatment, but what is more appealing than battered, tattered, worn and torn luggage that shows you 'been there and done that'? That is exactly what you want to exude right? Hard-shell just does not age well, leather luggage ages beautifully.
Jalou, publisher of L'Officiel (amongst other glossy titles), has made available online for free its archive of L'Officiel from 1921 onwards on Jalou Gallery.Com.
(not just L'Officiel by the way, also international editions, Jalouse, l'Officiel Hommes and more!)
L'Officiel de la Mode - 1960 - no. 455-456
I am pretty excited about all the possibilities it presents for fashion magazines and research. Though picking up a fashion magazine from a newsstand and carrying those precious glossy pages with you anywhere you go is a daily indulgence, an easily accessible archive of fashion magazines also creates amazing opportunities for the I-Pad and E-Readers. A mini I-pad donned in a leather Gucci case allowing you to browse hundreds of fashion magazines? I wouldn't mind picking that up either.
One a more academic note, the Archives present incredible opportunities for research in fashion studies. You could probably write hundreds of theses and essays around this archive, ranging from fashion illustration in the 1920s to the logomania started in the late nineties, the possibilities are literally endless. Also, historic editions, if available, are often kept in libraries and are very vulnerable to touch. The Archives allows researchers to easily access these sources anywhere without having to wear white gloves to browse through the o-so delicate copies.
Plus, the Archives are very user friendly. You simply search by keyword, print with just hitting one button and the archives saves trees and money as it allows you to print text and image separately. In an ideal world, the Archives would let you download PDF files.
Whatever your purpose is, either studious or pure nostalgia for fashion faded, the Jalou Archives are an exciting initiative that I would love for other publishers to follow.
Check out my debut entry for the MoMu (a.k.a. Fashion Museum Antwerp) blog here!
FYI: MoMu's Masters of Black in Fashion and Custome will be up until August 8! So if you're in Belgium, make sure to pay a visit. Or join the party in Fall, when MoMu is celebrating Stephen Jones' 30th anniversary with a grand exhibition on this legendary milliner's work. You can more info here on the MoMu website.
Finally, fashion's craze with celebrities is starting to pass. The Independent reported that high fashion is now eschewing stars and choosing models again, realizing that celebrities were starting to take center stage.
Gucci's Frida Giannini simply prefers a "generic face that's not related to any particular world." I cannot agree more , why would I want some super ego between me and the piece of my dreams. Like I mentioned in my very first post, the clothing itself conveys the dream and not its wearer. A celebrity's persona easily grows bigger than fashion, overshadowing the creative process and the aesthetic experience.
Does this mean the obsession with celebrity style will also fade? Some retailers thrive by positioning themselves directly to celeb style. A black dress and white heels allow you to "wear it like Whitney Port". The parts are anonymous, but the sum is celebrity. But for some reason, it is not something I can connect too.
At the same time, Scott Schuman (a.k.a. The Sartorialist) has unleashed a street style revolution which some brands now have lashed onto as a format for their campaigns. Despite this marketed type of street style, genuine street style photography like Bill Cunninghams's On The Street continues to connect me to everyday people who construct their own unique style identities (and not some pre-fab webshop one..)
With celebrities overthrown in a fashion coup, will the upcoming September issues herald an new era of autonomous fashion?
I haven't been around for a while, but one precious F/W 10 collection turned this gray rainy Monday morning into pure bliss and I just want to share my state of near-ecstasy. Browsing through the Fall/Winter magazine of Sien Antwerp, one of Antwerp's most magnificent designer boutiques, I fell in love with The Row.
The Row is Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's 2007 high-fashion brainchild of clean elegance and laser-sharp femininity in the finest and most comfortable of fabrics. Unlike some sort of celebrity idolatry you might expect from another celeb-backed line, The Row is altogether different and is all about intimate luxury. Cathy Horyn described the clothes a having "private meaning to the people who wear them".
That's exactly how I feel, I am ready for a secret love affair with those silk trousers and cashmere sweaters.
I have lived in New York City for more than a year now. It never ceases to amaze me how much I don't know about the city. In the video, I feel like I get to finally explore certain parts of NYC that has been ignored or overlooked. I seriously can't wait to take some time off work to truly enjoy every nook and cranny that NYC offers. Enjoy!
In the last couple of days, I've been revisiting Alexander McQueen's final collection for Fall/Winter 2010. Nothing exudes more McQueen than the last 16 show pieces he created for his signature line. The clothes are an epitome of Alexander McQueen and an embodiment of creativity and fearlessness. McQueen has created a mirage of fantasy in all of his show pieces. In fact throughout his illustrious career, he pushed and pulled the fashion frontier to the extreme. He is the only designer to put out piece after piece of hauntingly beautiful works of art and incites excitement and yearning among us poor followers of fashion. In this final collection, he has exceeded all expectations.
Marc Jacobs did it again. The slew of models in Parisian chic dresses walk around a fountain as if they're Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. The hourglass silhouette is back with velvet belts that cinch at the waist. The bouncy ponytail and the fresh dewy makeup enhance the joie de vivre quality of life in Paris. Everything is better especially worn with an air of insouciant attitude. Definitely don't take life too seriously.
Sometimes I feel like I need something inspirational to jump start the day. From now on, on Fridays I'll be posting images or anything that makes me feel inspired. I hope you will feel the same.
After last Monday's Marc Jacobs Fall Winter 2010/2011 show, I didn't think I would love another collection as much as Burberry Prorsum fashion extravaganza. While Marc Jacobs show harks back to his signature style, Christopher Bailey of Burberry Prorsum clearly outdid himself. With his collection finally shown back in London, his fall/winter collection is a mélange of Burberry's classic heritage mixed with a new individualism that is so fresh and original all at the same time. The collection consists of another fantastic reinvention of the trench coat and brightly jeweled cocktail dresses that exudes an ease of dressing, capturing a certain independent spirit that only the Burberry girl embodies.
The one reason I love fashion is the idea of visualizing a concept and transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. The trench coat has been done plenty of times, but the way Bailey does it makes it exciting and exquisitely new.
I just hope someday I get to be a proud owner of a Burberry trench.
While summer’s Chanel couture captivated Sam , I came face to face with the house’s 2009 couture collection last night at the opening of Voici Paris! Haute Couture.
Hubert de Givenchy, Cocktail ensemble: dress and coat, Paris Fall Collection 1960. Worn by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). From the Gemeentemuseum The Hague.
This spring, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague presents Voici Paris! Haute Couture, a dazzling collection of haute couture, offering a unique and up-close glance into the world of this ultimate branch of fashion, its designers and its history. Thanks to the museum’s Press Department, I had the honor of a front row experience:
Although the evening’s dresscode, “couture (haute or neo)”, had send me into a sartorial tantrum earlier, my all black ensemble with high-waisted bow skirt and pompom slingbacks endows me with a sense of, let’s say pseudo couture, among the pièces de résistance by names such as Lanvin and Dior. Either way, the glorious haute couture instantly humbles my disproportionate sartorial self-concern, and I move into a mood of thankful relief.
As I make my way through the exhibition, I travel in space and time, stepping from one dream into the other. From a feeling of nostalgia over highly feminine fifties dresses by Chanel and others, I continue my reverie and end up on the roofs of Paris surrounded by contemporary visions by the likes of Armani, Saab and Galliano. As I move from gallery to gallery, the journey through the sublime of fashion goes on and on through a kaleidoscope of designers, themes and eras. The individual aesthetic of each designer or era resonates through every part of the exhibition design, from the mannequins to the benches; I become immersed in the experience.
While traversing through the rooms, I discover that the exhibition does not only look at the most obvious glamour of haute couture. Among some encounters with lesser known names and more avant-garde designers, the exhibition manages to stir my nationalist sensibilities with a spectacle of Dutch couturiers and contemporary designers in a highly quirky setting of clotheslines/high voltage cables. Moreover, the exhibition’s attention to Chinese couturier, Ma Ke, forms an intellectual antidote to the intoxication of fast and disposable mass-produced fashion.
It is exactly this laborious aspect of fashion I miss in the exhibition. As Fong-Leng, icon of Dutch couture, commented in her speech earlier that evening, the process starts with the choice of material. Both couture and mass-produced fashion are highly laborious endeavours, albeit in completely disparate ways. I believe a public awareness of process, whether couture or mass-produced, can lead to a more conscious embrace of fashion and a healthier fashion industry. I feel the exhibition could have played a role there.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to bother you too much with my lecture ;) it does not make the experience any less sublime! The Gemeentemuseum has one of the largest fashion and costume collections of Europe. Plus, the museum recently acquired a piece from Maison Dior especially for this exhibition (take a peek at this March’s edition of Glamour). Don't miss out on this unique opportunity. So go see Paris in the Hague and experience this truly wonderful exhibition!
Voici Paris! Haute Couture
By Madelief Hohé (curator) and Maarten Spruyt (exhibition designer)
One of the major reasons why we started the blog is to share our thoughts and reflections on fashion, art and beauty. I've always loved drawing. I even went to school for art. In the last couple of months, I have been going back to the basics. Drawing what I see. I'm such a private person and for me to post a drawing of mine is something that is very cathartic.
Illustration of a model from the Chanel Haute Couture Spring Summer 2010 show.
Here are two of my latest inspirations: the fantastical element in the Chanel Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2010 where the models adorned Minnie Mouse hairdos and a girl lost in her own thoughts.
Yesterday, I had to trudge through the wet snow to the Marc by Marc Jacobs with my makeup kit in tow, it got me thinking what the look might be. The boys and girls at the show are always fresh, spunky and absolutely of-the-moment. Fresh skin and blushy cheeks. That's one look for the Fall/Winter season of 2010. Effortless and impossibly chic. That's what I'll be wearing next season.
S.
PS- The makeup for Michael Kors show is stunning. More windburnt cheeks! Will be posting the pictures up soon afterwards.
I just finished watching the Marc Jacobs show. Even though I didn't get to do it, but I really appreciate the way he presents his clothes in such an poetic dignified way. I loved how the clothes exude an awkward elegance and how the simple set design, along with the music command our attention. I think I've gone to heaven. So much beauty in 15 minutes.
That's why I love fashion. It's flighty and fanciful at the same time!
You can watch the show on the Marc Jacobs' website:
I really connect to what Judith Clark is saying here, I often find myself dreaming away over clothing. To me, however, the clothing itself conveys the dream much more than its wearer (Clark's "clothed people"). In a very egocentric kind of way, the piece needs to spark my imagination and must becomes part of my fantasy. It is a strange kind of power play, I want the dream to be all about me, yet I need the garment to experience the dream and start the fantasy in the first place. A needy and abusive relationship.. Maybe that is why I rather see what I desire on a mannequin than on a model. If she is already living the dream, it can no longer be mine and I become terribly jealous. I have to confess, I am possessive and jealous lover of fashion..
After moving through life in three different cities, I finally found my place in New York City. Makeup is what brought me here. Since I was a teenager, I've always been an avid makeup junkie. I moved all the way from Hong Kong, via Toronto, to the fashion metropolis of New York City. I came here with one goal: to be a damn good makeup artist. I can do that anywhere, but New York allows me to be THE best and to work with the best. I still have many lessons to learn. At least I get to do it in style in New York.
Gabriëlle Lucille :
As a dedicated lover of fashion and a fashion exhibition enthusiast, the world of style has always had a powerful resonance throughout my life, work and studies. After a BA in Cultural Studies, I moved from the Netherlands to New York for an MA in Contemporary Art. I devoted my MA dissertation to fashion exhibition and gained valuable experience at a fashion museum in Belgium. Believing fashion is one of the most powerful cultural media, my aim is to develop myself as a professional in the field of fashion to fully explore its potential.
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