Love's new girls.
New Accessories Bazaar will display Spring 2011 shoes, bags, and jewelry collections so you can actually see them during Fashion Week.
Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig will answer your red carpet glamour questions in InStyle.
Julia Restoin-Roitfeld's new gigs: face of Lancome, Mark Fast consultant.
September fashion mags earn praise for skewing older this year.
>> It Was Isabella Blow Who Told Marchesa to Stick to Eveningwear —If there's one fact that's inarguable, it's that Isabella Blow had quite the sphere of influence over designers and their success. When Marchesa started in 2004, Georgina Chapman says, she and Keren Craig had nothing really to sell and definitely no business model. They did have an invite to a "smart party," however, and wore their own designs. Chapman's backless sari dress caught the eye of Isabella Blow, who asked if she could borrow the dress for Paris Fashion Week. Blow also is the one who told Chapman and Craig to focus on eveningwear. [Huffington Post]
>> Last night, with the help of keynote speaker Alber Elbaz, who doled out gems on the perils of success — "It's like a bottle of perfume. You smell it, you don't sniff it or drink it" — Alaia veteran and Michelle Obama favorite Sophie Theallet took home the 2009 Vogue/Fashion Fund prize of $200,000 and a year of mentoring. Fellow nominees Patrik Ervell and Monique Pean were named runners-up, and received $50,000 each plus a business mentor.
In her speech, Anna Wintour said that in addition to the US, Italy, and the UK — which just started a similar talent-nurturing program — she just met with the French minister of culture about mirroring the contest there. "And Brazil, India, Russia, and China aren't far behind."
Theallet Tweeted of her win: "my american dream comes true tonight thanks and much love to all of you!xox." Cathy Horyn, too, weighed in on the choice:
"The money and the mentoring will help Ms. Theallet because she needs to be able to offer more range in her collection, as well as expand her production options. She has such a distinctly feminine eye, and the skills, that I’ve often wondered why a big retailer doesn’t ask Ms. Theallet to design some blouses and summer dresses for them, using the store’s resources and manufacturing connections."
Videos of the nominees going through the competition and the awards ceremony last night can be seen here and here, respectively.
Marchesa is known for its ultraglamorous gowns, but the luxury house is about to be recognized for its equally stunning accessories. Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig have decided to enter handbag land for Spring '10. "We were frustrated because we couldn’t find [an evening] bag to fit it all," said Craig. The collection consists of 28 clutches and evening cases with elaborate details such as beading, pleating and corsetry. Elements of jewelry are also in the mix — handles have beads and crystals. Expect to find Marchesa handbags in evening-wear departments where its dresses are sold, as well as on the main floor in accessories departments. If I'm excited, then Rachel Zoe is for sure going bananas!
To see a few more glam Marchesa bags, read more
>> Marchesa's bread and butter is gowns, so even when some designers are shying away from them this season, Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig have to go ahead full-force. The inspiration for Fall 2009? A whimsical fairy tale involving girls walking through the woods in ballgowns, resulting in a tulle-d, lace-d, sequined, and beribboned collection — sometimes overwrought, but always red carpet-ready — the shredded candy pink cocktail dress and two sparkly black tulle dresses, as well as the navy one-shouldered dress with cut-out waist, if turned into a gown, will do swimmingly. The real problem was how much the high-heeled toe shoes caused discomfort for the models — one's feet were going purple, another had to sit down, and some were leaning against the wall. Brings the fairy tale back to reality, no?
*image: source
>> Now that Georgina Chapman has officially realigned herself as the designer of Marchesa, leaving Keren Craig, former co-designer, to the more business side of things, she's branching out beyond Marchesa.
Garrard, the British jewelry brand that supplied Princess Diana's engagement ring, is seeking a creative director since Jade Jagger left the post in 2007, and in the meantime, they've asked Georgina to be a guest designer. The Georgina Chapman for Garrard collection is to be unveiled next September during New York Fashion Week — no doubt accessorizing the Spring 2010 Marchesa collection — and prices are expected to run in the $10,000 to $15,000 range.
It's interesting that the collection is called "Georgina Chapman for Garrard" rather than "Marchesa for Garrard," don't you think? Especially when the company is looking for a new creative director and Garrard's CEO says Georgina's line is expected to be "a significant part of the Garrard business." Not that Georgina would leave Marchesa behind for jewelry — but it does seem like she's trying to do things more on her own without Keren.
*image: source
>> Along with the annual International Best-Dressed List, the September 2008 Vanity Fair features a spread dubbed "America's New Fashion Guard," featuring up-and-coming designers, including a few designing duos like Laura and Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte, Sophie Buhai and Lisa Mayock of Vena Cava.
Marchesa was also spotlighted, but as Chic Report so astutely pointed out, only one half of the brand's designing duo is pictured: Georgina Chapman, with no Keren Craig in sight.
Interesting, in light of the rumors back in May suggesting that Keren was being phased out as a co-designer; the photographic evidence here definitely lends credence to that possibility. Or maybe, as Chic Report suggested, Keren was just on her honeymoon when the picture was taken.
*image: source
>> At last night's CFDA-hosted "Beauty of Health" discussion, Michael Kors, Coco Rocha, and casting agent James Scully all stepped up to the plate to address the waning weights of models.
Kors threw in a designer's perspective, suggesting that his peers should "stay away from child-size clothes unless [they're] designing for children," and pointing out that when designers offer such small sample sizes and celebrities starve themselves to fit into them, their super-skinny aesthetic has a far-reaching impact on the general female population. He also advised agents to only send the most suitable girls to castings: “Sending a girl when there's little chance of her being booked throws a 16-year-old into a tizzy. The odds of a girl being booked for my show and Rick Owens’s are slim.”
Next up to the podium was Coco Rocha, who just like Natalia Vodianova and Ali Michael before her, admitted that the job comes with some very unhealthy habits. Two years ago, she weighed 108 pounds (at 5'10"), and yet people were stilling telling her "you need to lose more weight. The look this year is anorexic. We don't want you to be anorexic, we just want you to look it." Even crazier, an agent once advised her to throw up after meals.
Eventually, she submitted to the pressure. "Last season I took diuretic pills. Once I took so many on an empty stomach that I was doubled over for hours. That's the last time I ever did something so terrible to my body." She asked designers to provide healthier food at their shows — "No one wants to be caught with that photo 'Model Eats Cake'" — and to make their fit models, and therefore their sample sizes, bigger — models are humiliated when zippers won't zip up at castings.
Finally, casting agent James Scully advised insiders to consider the weight of their words. "Let's stop treating models like greyhounds we plan to shoot after a race. We have to remember we are dealing with real people who have real feelings."
Francisco Costa, Georgina Chapman, Keren Craig, Donna Karan, Richard Chai, Marcus Wainwright, David Neville, Derek Lam, Doo-Ri Chung, Diane von Furstenberg, Phillip Lim, and Anna Wintour, plus several other Vogue editors, were all in attendance at the event — which leaves quite a few American designers unaccounted for. But as Michael Kors pointed out, designers aren't the only people responsible. "The next one we need to do is about skinny people who work in fashion: editors, buyers, stylists. That’s called ‘Why Does This Sample Fit Me?”
*images: source
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