Prada Goes on Vacation with little Baggage

There is a new fashion blogger in town whose blog is in my faves already, Joie de Mode.
Written in French I have really few chances to know what's going on in there, but her selection of images and topics hooked me instantly.
Thanks to this lady now i know that Prada is the queen of reinvention. If you don't think so, take a look to her ss07 catalogue and let me know.

Another Versace to Take Care Of

I've been following the news about Allegra's battle against anorexia for four days now, trying to find a good source that would throw a fair side of the story. But I guess this story is good meat for tabloids and unfortunately all the pieces that form this puzzle are very easy to build an obvious and unfair story.

But worst of all is to read some of the comments that are circulating around in gossip blogs. Things like "maybe she should just get lipo and a bypass too", signed for someone under the name of Gucciguirl ... How easy is to talk shit when you're hidden by the web anonymity !

Thinking about all this came to my mind the kind of models the Versace family has been using in their shows. If Versace is known for something, is known for hiring sexy women, for a clear celebration of models with curves. And not only Versace models have curves, their clients have them too. Who doesn't remember the infamous Versace dress that la Lopez wore in the Grammy Awards in 2000? That was a real ba ba boom, here is my body people! ..

All families have their own tragedies, who doesn't?, and it's stupid to critize what others do. So let's just say six more words: Avanti Allegra, la vita é bella!

Black Snake Moan

I missed it and no theater in NYC is playing this movie anymore.. please enjoy it twice if you go to see it; one for you and one for me...
Christina Ricci just looks amazing, as does Samuel L. Jackson. What a bummer!

Versace is more than Donatella

Mentioning Versace will give you a great oportunity to know the kind of people you're hanging out with. I mean, Versace is a name to be loved or to be hated, there's not in between. So if you happen to be in a boring party just ask around about the subject; you will get a conversation right away... oh, wait a minute, did I just say Versace? Maybe it's time to start putting names because now there are two Versaces to beging with...

I was flipping through the pages of the latest issue of Lula magazine when I spotted a pink wavy dress that made me feel in love with its movement and girlyness instantly. I was like I want that dress!! Where does it come from?? .. ashamed
It was back then when a new Versace name came to my life: Francesca.
This Central Saint Martins student is demostrating again that Versace is to be loved, or hated.
I personally think that she is learning and so far she is doing quite cute things. Few people's work is an awe after graduating.
The people at TFS might not like her too much though... and i understand their position, but let's give the girl a chance.

Lula: What is your biggest fear?
Francesca: To be hit by a jellyfish

[extracted from Lula magazine issue 4, Curiouser & Curiouser,
Styling by Joanna Schlenzka, Ph by Marcus Palmqvist]
* Jumping girl picture by Olimpia Von Karuck Soheve

The Prada Factor

The shorter than ever look that Prada amused us with in her Spring 07 collection, was something I was hardly trying to see in normal bodies' fellas. I personally love the look, and was thinking hard the best way to pay good money at the gym to get the proper legs to look Prada this year.
But thanks to my fav Chloë, whose body is getting womanly and beautifully rounded, now I can see that is not all about the gym. She just looks gorgeous.


>> Chloë Sevigny at the Prada American's Cup Party in Valencia, Spain. April 15th 2007

* image at wireimage.com

>> Prada rtw spring 07

* image at style.com

Men Bloggers

It's always said that fashion is more followed by girls than guys.
In fashion blogging this sentence is quite true, in a world where girls are plentiful and men the least, with exceptions like Style Scout or The Sartorialist.
So when by chance I found the blog of Pelayo, a Spanish model living in London whose fashionable life can be read and enjoyed at k a t e l o v e s m e, I couln't be happier; a fash-insider men's voice ... fantastic!
No wonders that this über cool guy is friends with our favourite girl in town, am_lul.

If I'd be ever known...

... when I was 19 years old that i would eventually meet the woman behind one of the first books i bought about fashion: Secrets of a Fashion Therapist, the great Betty Halbreich...
I bought that book just because i felt in love with the illustrations that Sally Wadyka did to portrait the ideas of this grand dame of the personal shopper's world. But then, once in my house and tired of looking at the images over and over again, i started to read the actual words in it. And it took me a while to really get into, as i am a defensor of the Do This Don't; i dont quite understand the reason of a fashion style guide, evey single person in this world has a style, it's a matter of time and imagination to show it at its best, isn't it?. And you need to find it by yourself unless you want to be someone else's clone.
But for some reason this fashion style guide hooked me. It had something, two things, that i appreciated the most: respect for women and sense of humour.
Eight years later, absolutely by chance, i met Betty while looking for a coat i needed for a music video i am styling the next weekend.
She was the person in charge of Studio Services at Bergdorf Goodman, she said Hi, I'm Betty Halbreich, and I knew who she was right away... I asked her about her book and she smiled.
If there is something I love of NY is this everyday chance of meeting someone you have been thinking of forever... ^_^

The fashion Biz as an Award

I just got a newsletter from Style.com announcing a curious raffle: the "chance of win a day in the life of a model".
Then i found out it was just a way of advertising The Agency TV show.
I haven't seen this show yet so I can't quite talk about it, but looking at the videos around in Internet I might say I wouldn't be a big fan of it. I would probably get addicted though, as one gets addicted to trash food! Let's say it feels like bad energy, the awful side of the fashion biz. But one thing is true, that's the awful truth of the fashion world.
I have gone myself for some of the situations pictured on the show: the stress of working with a "fat" model, when the clothing don't fit her and every angle you try to choose for the picture can't hide a thick leg or a big arm. The pressure of time during a photo-shoot, the brush with someone on the team...
Each time this happens you get home and try to calm down, pull yourself together and think about the good things that fashion has: the creativity, the [sometimes] fun, the clothing and the fantastically crazy people. You think also, c'mon girl, this is just fashion, you're not saving the world!
But watching to this show makes me difficult to get rid of bad fash-energies!. I can't spend any more money in yoga classes to relax so i guess i won't netflix this show... ^_+

Cool Turbant

Cory Kennedy pulls off trends like no one else. She is the first one to wear a turbant in a way that makes me feel in love right away!
I don't quite understand why people is so critic towards her. She is enjoining life and sharing it with whoever wants to enjoy it with her. If you don't like it, then why you should even bother to talk about it? She is 15 years old, what's wrong with partying, enjoining life, fashion, boys, shopping, whatever? Well, even if you're 80, that's no one else's bussiness but yours. I think is great that she is living the way she is. Taking it while it last.

It reminds me To...

This week's The New Yorker cover "First Bloom" by Carter Goodrich reminds me the beautifully customized Sportmax dress by dearest Susie Bubble...

When a Photographer is More Than That

For me a good fashion photographer is not that one that has good ideas or is a very creative one. It is that one who, besides all that, knows how to work with models, how to make them move. Unless they are Top-Models and just a mere lens in front of them will make them pose, a photographer is key to create an atmosphere on set, to make the model feel confortable and TOP, no matter she/he is or not.
For this reason big photographers use to have big personalities; You need confidenze to carry a whole photo-shoot team plus the expresion and moves the model will do in front of the camera. A good photographer is like a good film director.
When you are lucky to work with one of them is such a pleasure you can even forget to do your job!; you spend your work- time looking at them instead of doing your own stuff.

I would place Steven Meisel into that club of BIG photographers. You might like his style or not, but the way he works with models is just amazing.
In 1983, American film director Robert Guralnick filmed a docu-drama called Portfolio where famed fashion models shared with the viewer all the ins and outs of their profession. One of the scenes of that movie has been uploaded to YouTube for us fashion-addicts to enjoy what we couln't otherwise, or could, just a little more difficult to; watching a big photographer playing with models, telling them how to move, in other words, working.

Viva the 80's ... For Real!

Two days ago D. was showing me some very funny videos that he found in YouTube... One of them wasn't funny at all to me, it was hilarious and super inspiring! [by the way, Goggle is going through some trobles since they aquired YouTube. I fiercely hope Google will win this sue, because I'm tired of big companies agains't the freedom of sharing information.]
But that's another story... The video I was talking about reminded me the 80's I lived in Europe, because living in America, in this era of 80's love, I always forget that 80's in Europe were quite fun too and, with similarities, with its own personality: La movida Madrileña [The Madrid scene] in Madrid, with people like Alaska, Pedro Almodovar or Rosi de Palma, The New Romantics in London, Post-Punk and Electro in Berlin, and Amanda Lear everywhere... Model and muse of Salvador Dalí, singer, artist, actress and TV host... Enjoy!



* from Italian TV show Ma Chi é Amanda Lear? 1983
[But Who Is Amanda Lear?]

About Cool and Pretty Girls 2

A year ago I met Fiery Furnaces's lead singer Eleanor Friedberger in a DJ friend's party in Greenpoint, NY.
At the time she was already a famous lady; she had 4 albums in the market, a miu miu ad campaign by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, and an über famous boyfriend, Franz Ferdinand's vocalist Alex Kapranos. Besides all this, i have two things to say;

1- i didn't know who she was so... i just met her as Eleanor
2- she is the most down to earth person i've ever known in my whole life, and i really mean it, so i never had the impresion i was dealing with a celebrity.

I had a crush on her for both her lovely personality and the way she was dressed up. We were hanging out with some cool Williamsburg kids but her look was far more interesting than the average around.
I started to ask about her and then I found out who she was.

Since then I have seen her every once in a while, we live in the same neighborhood and we share some common friends. She always has the smartest outfits on; if Chloë Sevigny is cool, believe me, Eleanor is 10 times her.

I liked her Jane Birkin allure and her personality. She is cool and she is sweet and she sings like no one else.
What a pity I don't see her that often as I used to, because every time i did, i felt so inspired that i had my head full of fash-ideas for a whole week!

About Cool and Pretty Girls

There are some people whose name pops up constantly in magazines, tv shows, radio tunes and all kind of parafernalia that sorrounds celebrity. We know those people so well that we don't even need to say their last name to know who we are talking about. We know what they do, what they wear, who they hang up with and what they eat. And sometimes, where they work or are working at.

There are other people though, whose name only pops up every once in a while, and if you are not aware of, those people just pass by and voilá, you just missed a piece of the story without even notice it.

I had that feeling of am i missing something in here? when I started to read here and there the name of Liz Goldwyn... It was always written along with names of people i truly respect, like Chloë Sevigny, Peggy Moffitt, Dita Von Teese... so it must be something good what i was missing there...

Then I found out about her love for vintage clothing, her book Pretty Things about Burlesque, her work at the Sotheby’s newly created Fashion Department and about her friends, which are, mind you, some of the most interesting people in and about the film and fashion bussiness, and her great grand father, movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn ...

Dancing Queens by Charlotte Sanders
When film maker and designer Liz Goldwyn went on a one woman quest to find the last stars of burlesque she had no idea the impact it would have in her life. She talks about dressing up, learning to dance, and finding a family. [...]
[Lula issue 3]

This Old Thing? by Dana Goodyear
[...] Liz Golwyn, a close friend [of vintage mogul Cameron Silver] and a wearer of vintage down to her undergarments, says, "He's gotten more dandysh -sometimes when just my husband and I are at his house for dinner he's get completely turned out [...]
[...] He [Cameron Silver] has bought [vintage] in New Hope, Sydney, and at several places (a tailor, a charity shop) in La Jolla that Liz Goldwyn turned him on to. [...]
[The New Yorker The style issue, March 2007]

Chloë Sevigny by Liz Goldwyn
[...]
Liz: Certaing people know what i'm looking for, but I'm very careful with not revealing and not buying what all the other girls are looking for. It's funny, they're all obsessed now with Hervé Léger.
Chloë: And Alaïa
Liz: It's fucking annoying. I've been buying vintage Versace and Thierry Mugler for years! And then they come in and rack up the prices and they don't even know like any of the history.
[Self Service issue 26]

PICTURE CREDITS
* http://blog.honeyee.com
** http://www.style.com/
*** http://www.hbo.com/
**** http://www.vmagazine.com/

Supporting Beauty

In 2003 Alin Huma spent his time in Sidney trying to build up a magazine. But building up a magazine is not an easy adventure and one year spent went to nothing... or so he thought.

Fortunately he collected material enough to creat a zine who was called TA KE HA RA I.

His intention was to create a magazine following the Japanese alphabet kana, starting with the A and getting until the N.
The first issue got some distribution here and there, Alin thinks he got even famous for 15 people at least... and he wants to continuing with this project and start back again with the E issue. But before that, he hopes to get famous for at least 15 more people with this first issue, the one you're enjoying, hopefuly, right now...

I think this zine is a wonderful little piece of art and I thanks S. for letting me know about it. So hopefuly I will let 15 more people to know about it... supporting beauty and talent.