Valentine's

My partner in fashion at the school newspaper I work at Joanna and I decided to do a fashion shoot inspired by our favorite teen Vogue photoshoot:





Photo Credit: Teen Vogue

Here's a shot from our take on Valentine's day in our city:



photo credit: Me

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Inspirations

One of the most inspirational collections of NYC Fashion Week so far is Peter Som's collection. This is surprising to me because I've never been a huge fan of his. But I love his mixing of prints here and his mixture of textures, too. Today I dressed mixing prints, as well. I am wearing my pointy leopard print flats, a blue and white striped oxford shirt and a floral print cardigan. Very out of the ordinary for me, but I love mixing prints now and with Som's collection for inspiration I will continue to do so.

I really can't wait to mimic these outfits!

Photos from WWD.com

Seems Impossible but...

It's fashion week in NYC. It's snowing (read:blizzard) there and many people were scared this would put a damper on Byrant Park, but fashion waits for no (wo)man.I know it will be hard to continue fashion week now with out many tributes to Alexander McQueen. I look forward to London Fashion week the most to see what they do.

Right now we'll focus on NYC. The earlier shows have started and I my opinion these are the less high fashion clothes. Look for those, like Marc Jacobs, later in the week. BCBGMaxazria showed as well as Gwen Stafani's high end brand L.A.M.B. But I will be doing the highlights from Vena Cava because they are my personal favorites out of this bunch.

Overall I see this collection as very wearable. Pieces that I as a normal person, or broke person, would put together out of my own clothes. This might not be the best for a Fashion Week collection. If people are going to buy expensive clothes in this economy then they are going to want fanciful pieces that they could not get anywhere else. The touches of fur seen throughout the show do add a bit of luxry to the over-all laid-back vibe. The dresses and the pants were slouchy which is a nice comfortable fall trend many women can relate to. The overall color scheme was black with a few splashes of dark colors.

pictures from WWD.com

Tribute to the Queen

Now I can finally pay tribute to McQueen the master after the intial shock of his loss is gone.

For McQueen his shows were not just about showing the clothes he designed so masterfully, but they were shows in the utmost sense. They were productions, theatrical productions. He made videos and set pieces to go along with his motifs. He incorporated technology and fashion. He used a hologram of Kate Moss in one of his shows, something which had never been seen before.

He played with not only materials like plaid, but with romance and darkness as themes. He used feathers and other creative themes to the best of his masterful ability. His floor-length dresses were wonderful with the emphasis on "wonder." They were inspired by nature a lot of times.

He worked for the great House of Givenchy for a time and played wonderfully with the House's traditional aesthetic making it his own.

McQueen was the kind of designer others copied, he never copied anyone. He was truely an orginal and his genius and artworks will be sorely missed.

photo from: WWD.com

End of an Era

Today fashion great Alexander McQueen was found dead in his apartment in England. I can not find the words to express how sad I am. I wish I could have met him. I looked forward to his shows every season. He truly was a visionary. Personally I am kicking my self for not running out and getting his collaboration with Target. Now we will never again see a new piece from McQueen.

1969-2010

TV/Fashion Cross-Over

According to WWD there will be several new designers debuting collections at Fall/Winter 2010 New York Fashion week which starts this week.

One of these new designers is 2nd season Project Runway runner-up Daniel Vosovic. Because of his success selling a small capsule collection online following his stint on the show Vosovic decided to show a full collection at NY fashion week. His first show was in connection with the TV show and now he is branching off on his own.

Vosovic's style was and continues to be off of the show very tailored and simple.

Here is an image from his Project Runway fashion show:

Gone are the days of designers being celebrities only for their clothes. It seems to be successful designers should be celebrities first and to become celebrities for who they are not what they design. The name is everything in other words.

Personally I like Project Runway and do not mind the designers from the show, as long as they are good, becoming famous from the show, but it is another thing for Lindsay Lohan to be allowed to design for a real fashion house with no prior experience when thousands of worthy designers are struggling to find work. But that is another post for another day.

Chanel Couture Show

This week was Couture Week in Paris. Couture is a dying art. In order to be considered couture everything must be hand made. I watched a TV mini-series about the making of Chanel's couture line and Karl Lagerfeld, the head designer, commissioned an elderly lady to hand-make lace for each of his dresses. The lace was beautiful and intricate and she was the last in a long line of lace makers. For this reason haute couture is beyond expensive. Almost $100,000 per dress is a good estimate. Not everyone can afford this obviously, but I hope someone is always able to so I can see the over the top designs Karl and other couture designers like John Galliano cook up. It's wearable art.

For this post I chose what I think are the highlights of the Chanel Haute Couture show:

The theme of the show was iridescent colors. Pastels mostly. It produced a lovely effect. The pink long dress would be a refreshing change to the normal mermaid dresses that you see on the red carpet these days. Lets hope some ingenue like Cate Blanchett picks it up and wears it to a premiere.