Category Archives: BREAKING MODE
SACAI AND JONES IN DIOR RESTAURANT
The Dior men’s artistic director tapped Sacai designer Chitose Abe to work on a capsule line of 57 items that will bear a logo fusing the identities of both labels, with the Sacai name written inside the “i” in Dior a first for the French fashion house. The collection, dropping in November, is sure to be one of the most anticipated this year.
Abe is part of a loose collective that includes Jones, Virgil Abloh, Matthew Williams and Yoon Ahn who are responsible for transforming streetwear into a luxury category.
Both Abe and Jones are serial collaborators. Sacai has partnered with brands ranging from sportswear behemoth Nike to emerging designers like Tomo Koizumi, but Abe said it was important that the balance of power should be equitable.
“Dior is a very respected heritage brand which I’ve admired ever since I decided to become a designer, so it’s a huge honor. It’s also a brand that has historically demonstrated the importance of innovation, but I’m sure that for a maison like this, the decision to add another brand name to its own is not taken lightly. Continue reading
FERRARI DIVERSIFICATION
In an exclusive preview, creative director Rocco Iannone and chief brand diversification officer Nicola Boari mapped out their vision and strategy as Ferrari prepares to hold its first luxury fashion show on Sunday.
Ferrari is mythical, said the brand diversification creative director. Ferrari’s community recognizes itself in a series of values that is unique to the label and that need to be understood to be translated into fashion.
First runway fashion show in Maranello, at the headquarters of the storied luxury sports car maker. Iannone, who was tapped to the role in November 2019, will present the brand’s fashion manifesto with a collection for men, women and children. We will see.
VUITTON DANS QUEL MONDE ?
Nicolas Ghesquière will unveil Louis Vuitton’s cruise 2022 collection with a livestream scheduled for June 15 at 2 p.m.
Perhaps far from the most famous Parisian monuments, the Expiatory Chapel allows us to explore one of the darkest facets of Paris: the French Revolution and the Terror. Built on the very spot where Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were buried, it is one of the most secret monuments of the capital. Hotel Cheval should be a good idea.
The French luxury brand is keeping the location and other details under wraps, although it is understood the collection has already been paraded and filmed somewhere in the vicinity of Paris. The content will be viewable on Louisvuitton.com and its main social media. Continue reading
CHLOE RESORT 2022
COURRÈGES BACK IN 1986
Courrèges is marking its return to men’s collections, joining the official calendar of the next edition of Paris Fashion Week for men’s wear.
Under new artistic director Nicolas Di Felice, the brand will present a dedicated men’s in a show without guests, due to be unveiled online on June 23 at 2:30 p.m. CET.
Among the returning brands are Dunhill, Facetasm and Gamut, according to the provisional calendar published on Friday by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, French fashion’s organizing body. The men’s shows, debuting collections for spring 2022, are scheduled for June 22 to 27.
As France progressively lifts pandemic-related restrictions, the men’s wear week has been cleared for physical shows and presentations, although the calendar did not specify the format of each show.
MILAN MEN’S FASHION WEEK
Milan Fashion Week is expected to make a major comeback with a rich schedule of physical events in September only. For the time being, Dolce & Gabbana, Etro and Giorgio Armani are the only brands hosting physical runway shows during the week, on June 19, 20 and 21, respectively.
The week, which will involve a total of 63 brands, will also see the official debut of Glenn Martens as creative director of the Diesel label, as well as the launch of a capsule designed by Andrea Pompilio for casualwear brand Harmont & Blaine.
Ermenegildo Zegna will kick off the week with a digital event on June 18 and, among others, Fendi and Prada will also continue to opt for the digital format, scheduled on June 19 and 20, respectively.
TRUSSARDI NEW DIRECTION
Trussardi the Milan-based company has appointed Serhat Işık and Benjamin A. Huseby as new creative directors of the brand, tasked with overseeing all aspects of design, image and branding. Their first collection for Trussardi will bow for fall 2022.
Işık and Huseby are known for their own label, the Berlin-based GmbH, launched in 2016, and which they plan to continue to design.
Işık is a first-generation German of Turkish descent and Huseby, of Norwegian-Pakistani heritage, grew up in Norway. Işık, who had been teaching fashion at the university in Berlin, was making collections on a noncommercial basis. Huseby had been a photographer and artist, who as a child sketched fashion looks and made his own clothes as a teenager. Cultural mixes and a sense of otherness have informed GmbH, and the city and cultural scene of Berlin have also shaped their approach. Continue reading
RICHEMONT AND KERING
With a surge in fourth-quarter sales and Compagnie Financière Richemont in recovery post-pandemic, the last thing on Johann Rupert’s mind is selling the company he founded more than 30 years ago.
Rupert, chairman, founder and shareholder of reference, said the group has invested and reaped far too many rewards for the company to sell or merge now with a competitor. If that happened, he said, then all of the shareholders would suffer.
Profits climbed 38 percent to 1.29 billion euros, with the company confirming a “strong start” into the new financial year, “with accelerating trends across all business areas. Continue reading
DIOR 2022 BY KIM
Kim Jones for his resort collection, skipped forward a decade to Dior’s successor Marc Bohan, whose graphic patterns inspired the laid-back, sporty lineup.
Roomy pants that pooled around the ankles anchored most of the looks, from relaxed tailoring in a warm palette of chocolate, forest green, caramel and dusty pink, to casual pieces in tactile materials.
Subtle variations on the Dior Oblique pattern, perhaps Bohan’s most lasting contribution to the house’s visual identity. But the former Dior designer’s lesser-known logos also provided fodder for inspiration: the CD initials, shaped like a heart, came embroidered on jackets and shirts.
As the world emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, that pragmatic approach felt both grounded and optimistic: packing a suitcase never felt so good.
FRANCOIS PINAULT’S MUSEUM
More than 20 years after first floating the idea of creating an art institution in Paris, billionaire François Pinault will finally open the doors of his private museum to the public on Saturday. The Bourse de Commerce is the latest venue to house the Pinault Collection, after the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice, Italy.
The museum is housed in a historic building in central Paris that can trace its roots back to the 16th century. At one point it served as a grain exchange, with an imposing circular floor that is the centerpiece of a renovation led by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, who has erected a concrete cylinder in the central rotunda.
Project began in 2017 and was completed in March 2020, the new museum features more than 75,000 square feet of exhibition space, in addition to a restaurant, the Halle aux grains, run by award-winning chefs Michel and Sébastien Bras. Continue reading
HEARST AND THE EARTH
I wanna see bags and dresses, not bees reads one comment on Chloé’s Instagram account, which was recently scrubbed clean to make way for a radical visual narrative, so far focused on insects, plants, fruits and the occasional freckled nose.
To be sure, some of the French brand’s 9.5 million followers on the photo-sharing platform wondered if its account had been hacked, with users describing the nature closeups as super strange, stupid or weird.
Over Zoom on Friday, Chloé’s creative director Gabriela Hearst cited a deep and ambitious reason: A wish to rewire people’s brains and reconnect them to all the things the planet gives us.
It’s healing, she said. I feel that it’s doing something we never thought we could do on social media. It does have this healing vision for the eyes, as we go through the journey together of understanding where things come from. Continue reading
AIR OF TIME BY PUIG
Nina Ricci Closes Historic Flagship Boutique in Paris, owned by Spanish fragrance and fashion group Puig, the brand is pivoting to a digital-first.
The brand, founded in 1932 and known for its bestselling fragrances, including L’Air du Temps, is expected to launch an e-commerce site this fall. Ricci is carried by around 80 retailers worldwide, including Le Bon Marché, Printemps, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Isetan, Joyce and Lane Crawford. It is also sold online via Net-a-porter, Farfetch and Ssense.
The store, opened in 1979, will be taken over by Paco Rabanne which, like Nina Ricci, belongs to Spanish fragrance and fashion group Puig, the parent company of brands including Carolina Herrera, Jean Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Noten and Penhaligon’s.
The boutique at 39 Avenue Montaigne, across the street from Dior, is closed and its windows are covered with stickers bearing the Paco Rabanne logo. Continue reading
ADDIDAS AND MARVEL
Adidas just dropped a new sneaker that’s perfect for fans of Marvel Comics. The German sportswear giant has partnered with Marvel to give its ZX 2K Boost shoe a new look by taking inspiration from the iconic comic book character Iron Man and his fictional company Stark Industries.
The look of the Marvel x Adidas ZX 2K Boost “Stark Industries” is executed with a black-based textile upper that’s paired with white panels at the forefoot and heel counter. Adding to the style is the text “Stark Industries” on the lateral side, an orange heel tab, and a full-length Boost midsole. According to the shoe’s product description, glow-in-the-dark details appear on the upper’s overlays and on the outsole reminiscent of Iron Man’s armored suit while the tongue is designed in the shape of his mask. In addition, the sneaker comes packaged with a special box printed with various Marvel comic book characters.
The Marvel x Adidas ZX 2K Boost “Stark Industries” collab is available now at Adidas.com with sizes ranging from a men’s 5 all the way up to a men’s 12. The shoe comes with a $150 price tag.
THE BEAUTY OF THE DEVIL
Nike may have settled its lawsuit with MSCHF over the collective’s Lil Nas X “Satan Shoes,” but the controversy leaves lots of questions for both brands looking to be more litigious and for resellers.
After being granted a temporary restraining order on April 2 to halt the sale of 666 pairs of the $1,080 “Satan Shoes,” Nike’s settlement calls for MSCHF to initiate a voluntary buyback of the shoes, which were reimagined Nike Air Max 97s that featured an engraved bronze pentagram; the Bible passage Luke 10:18, which details Satan falling from Heaven, and one drop of blood in the sneaker’s air bubble sole that was provided by MSCHF staffers. Continue reading
L’ATELIER DE CHINE
Here is the most sublime collection of Fashion Week and the theme is Art Nouveau, an artistic style that develops from the late nineteenth century, first in Belgium and then in France. It flourishes in architecture and decorative arts. The search for functionality is one of the concerns of architects and designers. Art Nouveau is characterized by forms inspired by nature, where the curve of nature dominates.
Unlike many other artistic movements, Art Nouveau does not seek to promote a precise system of artistic principles invented by an artist or a group of artists and theorists. The name itself is that of a store in Paris, the Maison de l’Art Nouveau, opened in 1895 by the German art dealer Siegfried Bing. For Bing, as for many of his contemporaries, European civilization was going through a period of great turbulence and was facing unprecedented political, social and technological changes; the world of art and decoration therefore had to respond to the demands of this evolution. Continue reading
ERMANNO SCERVINO
“I always wanted to be a stylist” Ermanno once announced. And from a young age, he dreamed of dressing the most beautiful women in the world. This is not a first for us, because we already talked about him in 2010. A collection of ultra-feminine style and the time was to highlight the curves and other feminine attractions, because down the masks, thus throwing the spotlight on dresses guipure for legs as long as compasses.
Guipure from Ireland, Flanders, Le Puy; making guipure for a sublime trench coat, collar, cuffs with lace ruffles, not too young they say, but it is the only material that silk likes for neighbor, and this one comes from China. This static show deserves nothing less than the epithet of Royal, at least for the atmosphere of the almost moving sculptures, of an intense presentation that in terms of eloquence sews to the maturity of a great, from the Huang Mountains. Continue reading
CHINA YU PRIZE
Chen Peng, the designer best known for his outsize down puffer jackets, took home the top award from the Yu Prize, the platform founded by Wendy Yu that seeks out China's best up-and-coming fashion talent.
Chen will receive funding of 1 million renminbi, or $152,000, in addition to a year’s mentoring from OTB Group, retailing at Harrods, and a showcase by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. The inaugural event grew from one prize, as it was originally announced, to four awards that grant the winners a total of 1.5 million renminbi, or $229,000. Continue reading
SUPERMASK MEDICAL MUSIC
Music group Black Eyed Peas introduces his newest tech innovation today: Xupermask. Pronounced “supermask,” the product is made in partnership with technology and manufacturing company Honeywell International.
The wearable face technology, launching April 8, is made using medical-grade silicone and an adjustable elastic strap, featuring three dual-speed fans and a Honeywell created filtration system, plus noise-canceling audio, a microphone, a magnetic earbud docking system, Bluetooth connectivity and a seven-hour battery. Produced in two colors and sizes, Xupermask retails for $299 and will be available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and E.U. at Xupermask.com.
The product offers newness as consumers adjust to COVID-19, its impact on everyday life today and moving forward. While the price point might prove prohibitive for some, especially when compared to the myriad cloth or Continue reading
RALPH LAUREN AND SELFRIDGES
Ralph Lauren Corp., which has been on course to build even stronger digital connections, has made some key changes in its creative department.
Jack Becht, most recently digital fashion director at Selfridges, joined last month as creative director, agency, at Ralph Lauren, overseeing the Polo, Luxury, Lauren, Home and RL content studio divisions.
He reports to Alice Delahunt, chief digital and content officer, who has been with the company for three years, having cut her teeth at Google, Snap Inc. and Burberry, where she worked for six years and rose to global director of digital and social.
Becht has more than 10 years of experience in advertising, branded content and editorial. Prior to his year at Selfridges, he spent three years as creative director at Condé Nast, where he led the Fashion/Luxury group creating advertising and content campaigns for client’s channels, as well as the print, digital and social platforms of Condé Nast’s brand portfolios.