Wednesday 22 September 2010

Getting Catty

So before we know it the party season will be upon us, and nothing is more classic in makeup terms than a slick cat-eye.

MAC has always been my makeup brand of choice, so who better to teach us how to get that 60s flick?

Love To Love You Chloé

I love the soundtrack on the commercial for the new Chloé fragrance Love Chloé.

The head to toe camel on Raquel Zimmerman is pretty cool too, but then it was directed by Roman Coppola...

Chanelling Coco

Chanel is not a word, not an adjective, it is a name and trademarked brand - something the lawyers at Chanel want you to be very aware of; you may not use it in vain.

This week the super-brand took out a full page ad in WWD to inform the fashionable public:

“A note of information and entreaty to fashion editors, advertisers, copywriters and other well-intentioned mis-users of our Chanel name:
Chanel was a designer, an extraordinary woman who made a timeless contribution to fashion. Chanel is a perfume. Chanel is modern elegance in couture, ready-to-wear, accessories, watches and fine jewelry. Chanel is our registered trademark for fragrance, cosmetics, clothing, accessories and other lovely things. Although our style is justly famous, a jacket is not ‘a Chanel jacket’ unless it is ours, and somebody else’s cardigans are not ‘Chanel for now.’ And even if we are flattered by such tributes to our fame as ‘Chanel-issime,  Chanel-ed, Chanels, and Chanel-ized’, PLEASE DON’T. Our lawyers positively detest them. We take our trademark seriously.
Merci,
Chanel, Inc.”

Chanel is Chanel, and everything else is incomparable - now, by law.

Monday 20 September 2010

Fast Fashion

Tom Ford just staged his comeback womenswear "show", at a highly secretive presentation during New York Fashion Week.

There were no invitations, no emails, just a phone call, asking the chosen editors to be at the Tom Ford boutique at a certain date and time.

Again going against the tide, he chose to showcase his collection on fashion and cultural icons, instead of high profile fashion models: Daphne Guinness, Lauren Hutton, and Beyoncé, all walked in the show.

What's more, no-one was allowed to take pictures, apart from Ford's own in-house photographer. A few, however, have leaked onto Fashionologie's website, which is frm where I bring you the headshots below - how many of the famous faces are you able to recognize pre-makeup?





Explaining the extreme levels of secrecy to WWD, Ford said: 'this fashion immediacy thing — I get [it].…I don’t get the need for this immediacy. In fact, I think it’s bad. The way the system works now, you see the clothes, within an hour or so they’re online, the world sees them. They don’t get to a store for six months. 


...The next week, young celebrity girls are wearing them on red carpets. They’re in every magazine. The customer is bored with those clothes by the time they get to the store. They’re overexposed, you’re tired of them, they’ve lost their freshness, you see somebody wearing it and you say, “Oh, that’s that jacket that was in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Or [a] customer doesn’t want to wear that jacket that was in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In addition, all of the fast-fashion companies that do a great job, by the way, knock everything off. So it’s everywhere all over the streets in three months and by the time you get it to the store, what’s the point?'.


Personally, I am in complete agreement.

The Day Before

French journalist Loïc Prigent is continuing with his fly-on-the-wall fashion documentaries, and is about to release a second season of riveting behind the scenes footage of what goes on the day before a high profile fashion show.

Personally I love Diane von Furstenberg's segment, from which you can view an excerpt below. She is seen arguing with one of her team regarding the flatter value of wearing boyfriend jackets - a trend, along with boyfriend jeans, that I personally am totally against.

I love it when the assistant tries to impress the idea that boyfriend jackets are a huge fashion statement, and Diane says: "I don't care about fashion, I care about women."

Here, Here!

Lanvin Hearts H&M

So the wait is over, finally we know with whom H&M will be collaborating for its now-traditional end of year collection.

The collection will go on sale 23rd November, but you can start preparing your shopping lists on 2nd November, when the collection will be presented for the first time.

In the meantime, enjoy this filmed interview of Alber Elbaz describing the moment he laid eyes on the first collection of samples:

Belle d'Opium

OK so I know I'm currently posting a lot of video content, but there are quite a few fabulous short fashion "films" being released right now, and they are just so more interesting than your regular 2D print ad campaign.

Point in case is the new televised ad for Yves Saint Laurent's new scent, Belle d'Opium, featuring the French actress Mélanie Thierry.

She looks absolutely gorgeous; who wouldn't buy a scent if it promised to make you as sensual as she herself appears in this film:

Gimme Miu Miu

Madonna may not always be a success in front of the film camera, but she certainly seems to know what she's doing behind it, if this behind-the-scenes Miu Miu video is anything to by.

The collaboration came about accidentally, when Madonna popped in to see her friends Mert Atlas and Marcus Pigott, while they were on-set, shooting Miu Miu's new ad campaign. She volunteered to direct the "backstage" video herself, teaching the models' some of her own dance moves, and waiving a fee.

You can see the fabulous results right here:

Monday 6 September 2010

Guilty Pleasures

What do you think of Gucci's trailer for a short film produced to promote its new fragrance Gucci Guilty?

Check it out below:


Personally I am a bigger fan of Chanel's similar creative effort with Martin Scorsese, who directed the televised ad campaign for the brand's new menswear fragrance Bleu de Chanel:

Pour Memoire

Grace Coddington, Creative Director of American Vogue and star of The September Issue, is working on her first memoir.

One can only imagine how rich it will be in fashion history and anecdotes about the industry's high-personality designers.

A definite must-buy.