WATANABE 2022 TOKYO

Inspired by “Plight (The Spiralling of Winter Ghosts),” a collaborative album created by David Sylvian and Holger Czukay in the 1980s. Designers cut up motorcycle jackets, bomber jackets, and checked wool jackets into pieces of fabric and individual elements and spliced them back together to create new garments that were both totally different from and recognizable as the originals.

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MALION VINTAGE 2022

The Tokyo Fashion Week newcomer Malion Vintage uses vintage clothing as fabrics, cutting pieces up and repurposing them into new, unique pieces that speak to both the past and the present. Eriko Ishida and Aki Shimizu spliced fabrics with similar colors and textures in their first runway show.

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THE WHITE GLOW OF ANGELS

Fearsome grace, barely veiling the radiance of an angel! Abundance of outfits, which makes the passion of the profession vibrate. Like a silk thread that splits the moment, Dgena takes us between the shadow of the Black Widow and the sun of Josué, his Afro-European model Rapper of his state.
I look at the fashion which whispers the pure air of the iceberg which detaches itself from the Parisian streets where all the aroma of the sublime accumulates.
Strongly anchored in our planet, black for the time, and white to celebrate the purity, the designer injected the energy of the desert horizons of the cold by reworking the codes of ice and a quilting of the suburban grids, I felt the world moving, the chorus of spring days frozen for a moment.
The interplay of Yin and Yang, the necessary effect of principle and prevailing tendency, the ultimate harmony.
F.

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DIOR TO BE A MUSEUM

After being appointed as the brand’s CEO in February 2018, Pietro Beccari undertook an ambitious project: renovating its Avenue Montaigne flagship store. This means Dior customers can eat, sleep, dress and play in this new store, which is a “game changer.”

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CHINA LUXURY SLOWDOWN

Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Jilin and Hebei provinces, which are manufacturing powerhouses, logged thousands of cases over the weekend.
The government has ordered the city of Shenzhen, which is home to top Chinese companies like Tencent and China Resources, into lockdown.  A week of home confinement is expected for the city’s 17.5 million residents, who can expect to undergo three tests in the coming days. . Factories, local transport and shopping malls, except for essential services, have all been shut down.
It’s estimated that Shenzhen attracted more luxury brands than any other Chinese city during the pandemic since the border with Hong Kong remained shut, forcing its high net worth citizens to shop locally. Some 27 brands including Hermès, Chanel and Cartier opened stores there last year.

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MIU MIU 2022

One of the most defining runway looks of spring 2022 was Miu Miu’s midriff-baring miniskirt and super-crop top in a postage stamp-sized style.

The Aughts throwback became a viral hit, generating its own Instagram account, and becoming as recognizable to the public as the stars who wore it. Adding a touch of neo-preppy chic to girlishness, this fall’s look takes on a school-uniform flavor, with leather-clad misfits thrown in to keep things interesting.

Swedish artists Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg created beach chairs made of canvas for the show. What was on the runway also had a sense of transgression, with scandalously short skirts, shirts and the briefest of HotPants for those who do crunches, not lunches.

ETRO GLOBAL EXPENSION

Since July, Etro, controlled by the giant private equity firm L Catterton, has named Iacopo Martini as its chief financial officer. The position had been vacant since last June and was previously held by Michele Manzari. Company famous for its signature paisley motif and bold travel-inspired patterns.

They will report to Etro’s chief executive officer Fabrizio Cardinali, who, according to reports, took on the role of spearheading its global brand expansion in November 2021.

Martini graduated from Rome’s Luiss Guido Carli university and began his career at Procter & Gamble in 1995. He was the consumer goods giant’s CFO for its Italian subsidiary until he was promoted.  Most recently, he was CFO of the beauty company Kiko Milano.

CHANEL A TWEED FOR A TWEET

Chanel celebrates tweed throughout the event, from the fabric covering the walls, the floor, and the seats, to Virginie Viard’s tweed jacket in the battle of the tweed jackets.

A woman wearing a pink tweed jacket paired her leggings fastened with bows and rhinestone-covered shoes with a soft white dog in the peoples.

Viard’s color palette is influenced by images of the River Tweed in Scotland shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.

She used the full gamut of shades, from psychedelic pinks, purples and greens, to earthy tones fit for country walks at Balmoral Castle.

There’s an English spirit running through the collection, from ‘Spencer’ who drew on images of Coco Chanel wearing the duke’s oversize tweed jackets. Continue reading

DGENA THE BLACK WIDOW OF A THOUSAND RIVERS

This morning, the painless day drags, and I move towards the Faubourg du Temple, to measure the dichotomy between the city of Kiev that I left only 25 hours ago, and the cries of aficionados when Nabilla appears. Dgena, as for her, draws her seam in the veil of the clairvoyance and the paradox of this profession. Outside among the smoke and talent, while the others are well engulfed in a temple that has only the name, I see a figure that advances in scouting and jumps the barrier of the worries of youth, the day is beautiful, and yet a black widow appears of only 20 years.

 

The young girls, lined up like birds who have been entrusted with grace in all its splendor, walk towards me. I admire the hands that fill the fabric and the deft fingers that shape each collection, transforming old rolls, into the undeniable flower of sublime. It was yesterday in front of the Valentino show, the beauty made its majestic bed.

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VALENTINO MONOCHROME SHOW

After a heavy week dealing with the news, Zendaya’s bold look, which is just one of the elements of the simply joyful fashion show of Pierpaolo Piccioli, offered a glimmer of hope. The Spider-Man star posed for the Valentino fall-winter collection of the Italian house yesterday at the “careau du temple” during fashion week, and she looked simply stunning. Continue reading

BALENCIAGA FOREVER REFUGEE

After water on the ground a snowstorm in a cup of water. Guests arriving at the giant exhibition hall on the fringes of Paris discovered oversized T-shirts the colors of the Ukrainian flag on every seat, and a note card from Demna, whose family fled the civil war in Georgia in 1993. “And I became a forever refugee.

His title for the show, “360 Degrees,” appropriates the language of VR technology, which he subverted by recreating the same effect in real life behind a giant glass screen. It was something of a thumb in the eye to the metaverse, the latest comet hurtling toward planet fashion. The designer lives outside of Zurich and described “shock” at visiting familiar peaks at 3,500 meters and finding no snow.

He views this show as “chapter two” of his last IRL runway extravaganza pre-pandemic, which had models splashing through water in a dark, flooded arena as a metaphor for global warming. Before the lights went up, Demna’s voice could be heard reading a poem in Ukrainian by Oleksandr Oles, whose message, he said backstage afterwards, tells Ukraine “to be strong, to focus on love.”

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BRITISH FASHION CONDEMNING THE WAR

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the British Fashion Council is encouraging all those in its network to show support for the global campaign of condemnation. In a statement released Thursday, the non-profit organization referred to the British government’s position and the sanctions it imposed on Russia:

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LUXURY BRANDS AND PUTIN WAR

As a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a raft of new sanctions and travel restrictions have forced European brands to walk a tightrope balancing their moral obligation to help the suffering with their responsibilities to run their businesses.
As a result, a number of companies, including Kering, OTB, Gucci, Acne Studios, Burberry and LVMH Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton, have pledged their support to organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, and the Red Cross to aid war victims and those fleeing the Ukraine.
The brand community has reacted differently to the crisis: many have engaged in virtue signaling and posturing, while others have made grand declarations about boycotting Russia without doing any significant business in the country.
Apparently, Russia is no longer a hot market for European luxury brands. According to a Morgan Stanley report earlier this week, the importance of Russia for the luxury goods sector has diminished over the years, and is now essentially immaterial.

YSL

In last season’s Saint Laurent Collection, Anthony Vaccarello drew inspiration from Paloma Picasso, whose theatrical sense of dress was said to have inspired Yves Saint Laurent and nudged his creativity out of bourgeois codes. Continue reading

DIOR REQUIEM FOR A FOOL

D-Air Lab, a start-up that produces items such as the Antarctica Suit, which allows scientists to work at temperatures as low as minus-128 degrees Fahrenheit, collaborated with the designer. As well as the suit’s electronic control unit, the start-up also displayed variations of its airbag vests.

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DRIES VAN NOTEN FRAGRANCE

The designer approached fragrance and lipstick the same way he approaches his design work: with clashing concepts, a riot of colors, prints, and textures. When he joined Puig in 2018, he knew right away that he wanted to dive into the luxury beauty sector.

For Van Notens beauty collection, sustainability was paramount. The perfume bottles are re-usable and refillableThe pouches are made from unused fabric from the fashion line. And there is no plastic foil covering the outer boxes, made from paper pulp.

Starting March 2, Dries Van Noten boutiques and its website will sell the new fragrances and makeup lineSelect retailers will carry them starting at the end of April or early May.