Chanel

Chanel - Mobile Art

Paris

T Minus 3, 2, 1...

DESPITE the imported Oscar buzz, Paris Fashion Week unofficially kicked off last night with the T Magazine party at the Mini Palais inside the Grand Palais (No, not at the Petit Palais!). There was no shortage of champagne and most likely the highest concentration of international beau monde this side of the Atlantic – Angela Lindvall with her sweater casually thrown over her shoulder; Karl Lagerfeld with his signature sunglasses-at-night look; Lou Doillon with her eyes tucked under her signature hat; Gareth Pugh swaddled in fur; Liya Kebede standing tall (and arriving very late); oh, and just about every single person that has ever worked at a magazine.

Vivienne Westwood

Westwood was born Vivienne Isabel Swire in the village of Tintwistle in Glossop, Derbyshire on April 8 1941, daughter of Dora (Ball) and Gordon Swire, a storekeeper.[2] She studied at the Harrow School of Art (later to become the University of Westminster) for one term. Vivienne went on to attend Trent Park College(later to become the Middlesex University) and later taught at a primary school in North London. She loved teaching.

Vivienne's first husband was Derek Westwood, with whom she had one child named Ben. Their marriage lasted three years before she met Malcolm McLaren, later known for being the manager for punk band The Sex Pistols. The two had a son named Joseph, and Westwood continued to teach until 1971, when Malcolm decided to open a shop, Let It Rock (also known as Sex, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, Seditionaries) where Westwood began to sell her outrageous designs. During this period, Westwood, McLaren, and artist Jamie Reid were influenced by the Situationists. She still owns the shop, which is at 430 King's Road, and sells her Anglomania label from there. The shop is now known as World's End.

The punk style began to gain notoriety when the Sex Pistols wore clothes from Westwood and McLaren's shop at their first gig. The "punk style" included BDSM fashion, bondage gear, safety pins, razor blades, bicycle or lavatory chains on clothing and spiked dog collars that were used as jewelery, as well as outrageous make-up and hair. Westwood invented the slashed A symbol for Anarchy at this time.

The inclusion of more traditional elements of British design, such as tartan fabric, amongst the more unusual elements of her style only served to make the overall effect of her designs more shocking.

Together, Westwood and McLaren revolutionised fashion, and the impact is still felt today. She has only a few exclusive shops including three in London, two in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Leeds. A ninth will open in Nottingham in 2008. Westwood worked historical factors into her collection by using historical 17th-18th century original cutting principles and modernising them. This collection was about 'gold and treasure, adventure and exploration'. Other influences in Westwood's work have included ethnic Peruvian influence, feminine figure, velvet and knitwear. A historical influence has always shown in her work.

In December 2003, she and the Wedgwood pottery company launched a series of tea sets featuring her designs.
Her first major retrospective of her work was shown in 2004-2005 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the National Gallery of Australia. The exhibition is made up of around 145 complete outfits, grouped into the themes which have dominated her work from the early 1970s to the present day and were drawn from her own personal archive and the V&A's extensive collection. They range from early Punk garments to glamorous 'historical' evening gowns. The retrospective is touring the world and is set to continue until 2008.

In September 2005, Westwood joined forces with the British civil rights group Liberty and launched exclusive limited design T-shirts and baby wear bearing the slogan I AM NOT A TERRORIST, please don't arrest me. Westwood said she was supporting the campaign and defending habeas corpus. "When I was a schoolgirl my history teacher, Mr. Scott, began to take classes in civic affairs. The first thing he explained to us was the fundamental rule of law embodied in habeas corpus. He spoke with pride of civilisation and democracy. The hatred of arbitrary arrest by the lettres de cachet of the French monarchy caused the storming of the Bastille. We can only take democracy for granted if we insist on our liberty", she said.[3] The sale of the £50 T-shirts raised funds for the organisation. Dame Vivienne has recently stated on television that she has transferred her long standing support for the Labour Party to the Conservative Party, over the issues of civil liberties and human rights.
Her Autumn/Winter 2005/06 Propaganda Collection drew inspiration from her archive, reinterpreting designs using Wolford’s exclusive knitting technology, who she has worked in close collaboration with since 2003. In 2006, collaborated with Nine West. These shoes are not designed directly by Westwood, however, the Nine West brand name shares its label with Westwood.

Westwood accepted a DBE in the 2006 New Year's Honours List "for services to fashion", and has thrice earned the award for British Designer of the Year.
In May 2006, Westwood wrote a poem and provided personal photographs eulogising Swallows Wood, a Nature Reserve near Tintwistle where she was born and grew up. The Reserve is threatened with destruction by the construction of the Longdendale Bypass.

Vivienne Westwood has spent much of 2007 designing new graduation gowns for King's College London, which will be conferring its own degrees for the first time in summer 2008.
Throughout her career, Westwood has been influential in launching the careers of other designers into the British fashion industry. Most notably, she employed the services of Patrick Cox to design shoes for her "Clint Eastwood" collection in 1984. The result was a prototype of the nine inch heeled shoes in which supermodel Naomi Campbell famously fell during a Westwood fashion show in Paris in 1994.

Diane Von Furstenberg

Well-regarded fashion designer and former Austro-Italian princess Diane von Fürstenberg became a powerful fashion icon in the 70s when she created the influential ‘wrap dress’, an example of which hangs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institute. Born Diane Halfin on December 31, 1945 in Brussels, Belgium, the famous socialite and entrepreneur was raised in a well-to-do Jewish family. Her Greek mother, Liliane Nahmias, was a Holocaust survivor.

Fürstenberg’s society life began while studying economics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, where she met the Austro-Italian Prince Egon of Fürstenberg. The couple quickly fell in love and married, and had two children together after moving to New York City in 1969. An aspiring designer and businesswoman, the stunning Manhattan socialite quickly rose to fame when she introduced the ‘wrap dress’ in 1973. The popular design, which began a women’s fashion trend due to its revolutionary versatility, is notable for its dual status as comfortable business wear and elegant evening dress. Suitable for the changing roles of busy urban women in the 70s, the dress became a sensation and Fürstenberg sold over five million of them before market saturation and over-exposure killed its popularity while new trends took over the 80s.

Divorced from Prince Egon and losing control of her fashion empire, Fürstenberg fled bankruptcy by selling most of her licenses and moved to Europe in defeat, a temporary victim of the highly volatile women’s fashion industry. In Paris she began her comeback by starting the moderately successful French publishing house Salvy, and in the early 90s re-entered the American fashion scene with Silk Assets, an early home-shopping QVC clothing line. Fürstenberg has since described her work for QVC as follows: “It was tacky, but it gave me confidence”. The legendary designer has never lacked talent or ambition, and was soon back on top with the founding of the Diane Fürstenberg Studio, which aimed to provide more affordable items to high-end department stores. The popular line, which is featured at elite stores including Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman in addition to her website, has recently began turning profits and has returned Fürstenberg’s signature styles to the forefront of women’s fashion. In addition to her triumphant return to fashion, she published her autobiography in 1998, titled “DIANE: A Signature Life”.

Fürstenberg remarried for the first time in 2001 to Hollywood powerhouse Barry Diller, the former Paramount executive who helped usher in today’s crop of entertainment moguls. One of the most important designers of the 20th century, Fürstenberg remains a powerful entrepreneurial and creative voice in the fashion industry.

What is a Kelly Bag? (Para a Amélia )

Em versão bolinho para a minha Amélia.

Senhora Dona Graça. Gracinha – Para as mais intimas.


The classic Hermes handbag, known as the "Kelly" since 1956, was joined in the early 1980s by the "Birkin."

"The Kelly is a touch more formal, a little more appropriate for an evening out, a business dinner, as a more refined look. The Birkin is more sporty, more casual. Often people use it as a briefcase, throw in a change of shoes," says Trina Sams-Manning, manager of the Hermes shop in Fairfax Square, which recently reopened after a major facelift.

Inga Guen, who sells gently used Kellys and Birkins at Inga's Once Is Not Enough, a high-end consignment shop in Northwest Washington, is even more emphatic about the difference. "A woman who is going to wear the Kelly is of very erect stature, she comes from money, very good background, is extraordinarily educated, and life to her is one where she will be very inconspicuous," says Guen, an avid Kelly carrier. She cuts a bit of slack for the Birkin femme, who "wears Manolo mules, a pair of jeans, a little Chanel jacket. She is the younger woman."

Both bags have made their marks on the cultural landscape. In "Le Divorce," a red crocodile Kelly was a sure sign that young Isabel was having having an affair with someone rich enough to buy her this five-figure confection.
The Birkin became an intense object of desire on "Sex and the City," when Kim Cattrall's Samantha told Hermes she needed one instantly for a client. Yes, it was a big fat lie, but morally defensible in social circles where owning a bag that can cost as much as a car is, like, truly, seriously important.

Conversely, a Birkin may have worked against Martha Stewart, who schlepped her well-worn Hermes to court during her 2004 insider trading trial, to the derision of critics who thought the super-expensive bag might not play well with a middle-class jury.

For the uninitiated, these bags, which start at about $7,000 and can top $25,000 depending on hide and hue, are named for a duo of beautiful actresses.

Philadelphia-born Grace Kelly -- so blonde, so patrician -- had been wed less than a year to Prince Rainier of Monaco when she deftly obscured her royal pregnancy with a structured, crocodile Hermes purse on a 1956 Life magazine cover. Created in 1892 as a large saddle carrier -- the French fashion house started out as a saddlemaker -- the bag was downsized for daywear in the 1930s. But after its moment in Life, it was dedicated to Her Serene Highness, and, as legends often do, lives on after her.

By contrast, it was during a 1981 airplane flight that the effluvia in British-born actress-singer Jane Birkin's overstuffed purse spilled in the vicinity of Jean-Louis Dumas-Hermes. Three years later, the venerable firm introduced a bag for Birkin's more bohemian lifestyle based on an 1892 design. In a splendid bit of irony, Birkin recently confessed she barely used hers because it had proved hazardous to her health.

"I told Hermes they were mad to make it. My one was always full, and it ended up giving me tendinitis," she told the Scotland on Sunday newspaper in March.

Like the Kelly, the Birkin is crafted entirely by hand by a single artisan from start to finish, and embellished with a petite padlock, keys and gleaming hardware made of white or yellow gold.

Tom Ford - A God

Dover street Market

Concept and Direction by Rei KAWAKUBO

"I want to create a kind of market where various creators from various fields gather together and encounter each other in an ongoing atmosphere of beautiful chaos: the mixing up and coming together of different kindred souls who all share a strong personal vision."

Versace-Bad Taste in the Sky

Not content with fashion and a burgeoning hotel empire, Versace will now be designing interiors for private jets. The fashion company has announced a new collaboration with Tag Group SA to design interiors for the Boeing BBJ, Bombardier Global Express and other private jets. The interiors will be shown at a British Air Show this summer. The prototype is described as having a white and black scheme including white leather chairs and black carpeting.

Fucking Tom Ford

Jessica Athayde

My baby's coming to town!



My first christmas present, a visit from my portuguese girl.

Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton. Chic or tacky?

For my 18th birthday my mother gave me my first Louis Vuitton travel bag. A vintage suitcase my father bought her when they got married in 1971. I use it every time I go somewhere more than a week and when not travelling with a low cost airline (even empty it weighs more than the baggage allowance!)

This Christmas, I am thinking of treating myself to a couple of new bags and maybe a trolley. But the reality is I am not 100% sure about it. Many people say that having new LV's bags are tacky and “Nuovo rich”. Is it? So let me get this straight, if they are new, its bad. But, if they are or look old it is ok. What is the logic on that? Should I buy them and kick them around till they look vintage? Or should I just buy an old one in ebay? Don’t think so…

True, old money have old bags and new money have the new ones - and then of course there are the millions of fakes. But how are they suppose to look vintage if they are new at some point? And, isn’t it possible to have new LV baggage and not seem nouvo?

Am I going crazy? Is my partner not being very logical? Or is it just too much to travel with Louis Vuitton when you are only 27?

What is tacky about wanting to have the best?

Instead, I could buy Hermes. But for THAT… I can’t afford. Yet!

Karen Kooper .com- Chanel Spring-Summer RTW 2008

Die!