Luxe For Less

I just heard that when Gucci CEO Domenico de Sole left the company in 2004, he was bequeathed an 18-carat white gold Gucci discount card - with no expiration date - as a leaving gift.

I mean, how do you beat that?

Dresses At Dawn

A lot is being made of Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johansson's recent similar outfits in the same colour, no less, at an appearance to promote their new film.

This was then followed by them both being dressed by Giorgio Armani in his Couture label Armani Privé, in silhouettes again created in very similar hues.

Who knows if these "fashion malfunctions" were accidental or not, but who - quite frankly - really cares, when  the result is simply stunning?

Gwyneth looked young and fresh, even though she was wearing hand-made Couture, that usually gives off the opposite effect.

Hands up to Armani!

Fashion Plays On The A-Team

The Eighties are one of the most influential decades in fashion, influenced themselves not just by the fashion designers of its day, but by film, art, and even television.

Who could forget the killer shoulder pads and the multicoloured eye-shadows in Dynasty and Dallas? 

The wardrobe of another hit TV series is another big fashion reference, particularly with regard to the current military trend: A-Team.

And now you too can enjoy those combat outfits all over again, as the remake comes to a big screen near you, soon.

Who wants to see a modern take on Mr. T's layered gold jewellery? I do!

Here's a little preview of the updated outfits and soundtrack we knew and loved:

A-team Official Trailer

Shoe Time

How gorgeous are these Valentino shoes by Philip Treacy?

Some shoes are not just impressive feats of engineering, they are also little works of art.

Un Amèricain à Paris

Ralph Lauren has just launched a new store on the boulevard Saint Germain, which was apparently years in the making.

As well as stocking the various Ralph Lauren collections, this new address also boasts a restaurant, Ralph's, which might just be the first place I've found in Paris that serves proper frozen margaritas.

It also has the most gorgeous terrace, which will be the perfect setting for sipping rosé once summer arrives.

Time Out

The luxury fashion industry is on the up, despite the crisis, and yet there is only one fashion designer featured in this year's Time 100 list: Marc Jacobs.

No surprise there: the man is a money-making - and handbag-designing - machine.

In an ironic twist, Time preferred to include fashion's greatest personae on the other side of the pen - as the interviewers rather than the interviewees.

Tom Ford profiles Liya Kebede, Donatella Versace interviews Jet Li, and Donna Karan talks to Zaha Hadid.

Fashion and culture always have been a compatible intermix.

Game, Set, Chanel!

This is quite possibly the chicest pétanque set in the world, having been designed by Chanel, no less.

What's more, you can also use it as a picnic hamper, if you remove the boules.

Love it.

Gossip Girl

Spotted: having early evening drinks on the sun-drenched terrace of Le Fumoir in Paris, Christian Louboutin and fellow designer Andrew Gn.

Both have their studios in the area.

Who knew that celebrated designers are just like you and I, meeting up for post-work, Happy Hour drinks, and enjoying the first rays of summer sun.

xoxo

Show Me The Inspirers

Yves Saint Laurent is gone, Hubert de Givenchy no longer designs for his namesake Couture House or ready-to-wear brand, and Alexander McQueen has left us.

I look around and I see so much new creative talent: Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, Mark Fast, Louise Goldin - is it any coincidence they all emerged in London? - and yet I see very few great designers in between the established and avant-garde.

Who is left in charge, running the show until the next generation of aforementioned designers have been fully groomed to take over?

I feel like we are currently swimming in a sea of beautiful and desirable brands, but where are the inspirational GREATS, the revolutionary designers that will take us through to the next chapter in fashion's history?

Is it any wonder that the fashion industry feels obliged to continually relaunch old, previously ground-breaking Houses such as Vionnet? Which designer could influence the power-playing luxury groups to open a new House in their name? Clearly none.

Hence we find John Galliano at Dior, Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, Christophe Decarnin at Balmain, and now Phoebe Philo at Celine.

Who will define our generation's fashion and style? Who is the Yves Saint Laurent of our day?

Tasty Mango

High street chain Mango has just gone up in my esteem, launching a collection by Oscar de la Renta's son Moises.

The line of jewel encrusted, ribbon and chain decorated t-shirts, which also featured luxurious fabrics such as tulle, is a perfect way to go from day to night without having to run back home for a wardrobe change.

Moises de la Renta is only 25, but he already counts Michelle Obama amongst his clients, who has worn one of his dresses to a White House function.

When Politics And Fashion Don't Mix

Carla Bruni Sarkozy recently guest-edited the weekly French style supplement Madame Figaro.

What one would expect should have been the magazine's most successful issue of the year, if not to date, was surprisingly and notably thin on advertisers.

Is this a case of politics and fashion not making a successful financial mix?

Do the usual heavyweight suspects of fashion branding not like to pick sides (any brand advertising in a publication with a First Lady acting as editor in chief cannot avoid this been seeing as overt support of the acting political party)?

Perhaps so, since the issue in question must have a spectacular seller, seeing unprecedented readership figures...and thereby making that particular edition of Madame Figaro an anticipated advertising record-breaker.

Clearly the fashion industry seems most comfortable on neutral ground, whichever designer heels it is standing in.

From Trash To Couture

Here is a little reportage by American Couture Queen Susan Tabak, on one of my all-time favourite brands, Trash Couture.

They make the most romantic, feminine, and out-of-this-world creations - entirely original dresses, handmade from recycled Haute Couture fabrics, that really are the stuff of dreams.

Fellow collectors include Penelope Cruz, Kirsten Dunst, and the late, great Isabella Blow.

But then with iconic model Veruschka as the brand's muse, how could the result be anything but timeless elegance?


Susan Tabak at Prêt-à-Porter Fall 2010: Trash-Couture from Susan Tabak on Vimeo.

Waxing Fashion

Anya Hindmarch has designed a small collection for Barbour, the 116-year old British label that is the go-to for country outerwear.

My favourite jacket is "The Foxy", which has been rendered a little more glamourous by detachable fur cuffs. I also love the quirky hidden touches, such as inner pockets labelled "lipstick" and "dog and bone" - Cockney rhyming slang for a telephone.

The perfect way to bring a bit of fashion to the hunting season.

Mixing Politics With Fashion

Bernard Arnault, who practically owns the French fashion industry, has managed to persuade Bernadette Chirac, wife of the former French President Jacques Chirac, to join his board at LVMH.

Chirac is a front-row regular and BFF of King Karl, which makes sense of her invitation to appear at Arnault's court. 

The appointment is further made relevant by a new French law currently being drafted that would oblige publicly traded companies to have a minimum of 40 percent female input within their staff of directors.

Being a woman has never been more fashionable!

No Cannes Do

There is a very real possibility that we will be deprived of a high-octane red carpet fashion fix, if the Cannes Film Festival jury lineup is anything to go by.

The only A-list stars on board are Kate Beckinsale and Benicio Del Toro, upon whom one certainly can't count for an extraordinarily glamourous gown.

All style-sensitive attention will have to be centered on the sidelines to the official competition, which are playing host to Woody Allen's film with Naomi Watts, Antony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and Freida Pinto, as well as Oliver Stone's sequel to Wall Street, featuring Michael Douglas. 

No doubt the latter's wife can be called upon to inject a high fashion contribution, if all else fails.

Smells Good

Jennifer Aniston has finally put her celebrity name to an endorsement, and will be launching her first fragrance at Harrods in June.

Aniston describes the scent as "a nonperfume perfume", which is of course in keeping with her easygoing, clean, California lifestyle and image.


She describes the fragrance, named Lolavie, as “sexy and clean” and “floral, but not too flowery.” 

A Fine Vintage

I just discovered a great new online vintage boutique, with clothing by some of history's most important and influential designers.

Check out Vintage Academe for original creations by Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Pierre Balmain, Christian Dior, Madame Grès...the list of designers is a long one!

It certainly beats trawling through flea markets and musky second hand shops to find that hidden treasure!

Alaïa A Match for H&M?

If I could wish for a fashion dream that would come true, it would be for Azzedine Alaïa to partner with H&M and create an affordable capsule collection.

Apparently, this is also a dream of Alaïa's, who disclosed in a recent interview with Flaunt, that if he had the time he would love to design a collection for the high street giant.

Who knows whether this will indeed ever become a reality, but oh goodness one does hope so!

In the meantime we'll have to content ourselves with Mark Fast's designs for Topshop. The London-based, Canadian designer is the closest thing I've seen to a successor to Alaïa's King of Cling crown.

The Revolving Door of Fashion

It has just been confirmed that Estrella Archs, so fatally paired with Lindsay Lohan to revive the Emmanuel Ungaro brand, has just quit the Parisian fashion house.

No prizes for guessing why, although one can't deny that the whole debacle has very definitely put her name on the fashion map...if she makes a success of her own label, she will be living proof that in this industry, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Rumours of Estrella Archs's departure started circulating this week when established designer Giles Deacon was spied having lunch with the owner of Ungaro at the very public Le Relais Plaza on avenue Montaigne.

Was the designer being interviewed for a forthcoming vacancy?

We'll have to wait until Ungaro's revolving door swirls back around in order to find out...

Is Kate Losing Her Midas Touch?

It used to be that everything Kate Moss touched, turned to gold. Her collaborations with Topshop and Longchamp are just a couple of examples of her Midas touch (her partnership with the latter label earned them a 25 percent increase in sales the month it was launched).

It would seem however, that the Parisian art scene is not in agreement, if the cancellation of the Kate Moss exhibition at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris is anything to go by.

Scheduled for March next year, the exhibition planned to examine the Kate Moss myth in advertising, but it has now been shelved due to a lack of sponsorship.

This does seem odd, since Kate Moss is not only a muse to the fashion industry, but to the art world too; she has posed for artists Marc Quinn, Sam Taylor-Wood, Gary Hume, and the legendary Lucian Freud.

What's more, how easy would it have been for either Topshop, Longchamp, or another one of the brands for which Moss is the star of their advertising campaign, to sponsor the exhibition (and in the process, reap even further financial reward from Moss's image)?