The Exhibition of the Season; the dark side of fashion at the FIT

Big news; I'm moving back to Spain for 9 months, October-June 2008.

Big changes and better jobs. I will be coordinating the styling courses of the ied design school in Madrid, so back to my roots for a little while.
I'm leaving on Friday to go first to Paris for the shows, been invited to attend BLESS and Antonio Berardi's so i will keep you updated on that.
Then cheap flight to Madrid and a new life will start !

These days I'm trying to attend every single exhibition that's going on in town and the one that has kept me in awe was FIT's Gothic; Dark Glamour.
I was a bit reticent to go because the picture they chose for the exhibition's ad and the graphic design of it wasn't very appealing. But it was a fashion exhibition and that was reason enough to go. Glad i did.

Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), responsible of some of the best fashion exhibitions I have ever seen, including Love and War: The Weaponized Woman, and so many others I have missed, including The Corset: Fashioning the Body, gives us again an absolutely beautiful and interesting exhibition that is both a surprise and a pleasure to see.
Gothic; Dark Glamour explores and analize the interest on Gothic among certain fashion designers like Yohji Yamamoto, Rick Owens or Alexander McQueen.
The exhibition is divided in 10 sub-exhibitions each of one deals with a different side of Gothic in fashion terms.

The quality of the selected pieces is marvelous, and it's impressive to see a real Balenciaga, Yamamoto or Comme des Garçons in front of you in such an environment as the space has been rearranged as a cemetery.
I must admit my disappointment though on seeing John Galliano dresses because they are not good at all, they seem taken right from the laboratory of a firts year fashion design student. Really cheap.
In the other hand, as I mentioned before, absolutely in awe at the view of Comme des Garçons or Rick Owens.

The finishing touch of the show was the work of Japanese designer Kei Kagami. His designs seem out of the darkest Science Fiction movie you could ever think of... SHOCKING_GEORGEOUS_AMAZING !

Late Post from NYFW.- Unconditional

The pictures I took from Unconditional spring 09 fashion show during New York fashion week have been lost in my computer till today, when i realized I never wrote about this event.

It took place right after United Bamboo's so that is why the pictures got lost; I focused on UB and forgot all the rest. Inexcusable mistake.

Bed Peace, the collection's name which takes inspiration from John Lennon and Yoko Ono's infamous 1969's "Bed In" peace protest, was shown at the Maritime Hotel in the Meat Packing District, one of those hotels that take your breathe off once you're in.

Up on the rooftop I stumbled upon a cocktail party with free cocktails, beautiful people, photographers and models wearing the collection, both male and females, mixed with the crowd as in a party. So this wasn't really a fashion show, it was more a presentation, and for that reason it was so special and surprising.

Philip Stephens, the head behind Unconditional, started this label in 2003.
His designs have been since characterized for the use of ethically produced (often organic) fabrics and sustainable dyes.

Bed Peace is definitely a very 60's collection for her, but for him was a bit different and was hard for me to realized this was a 'together' collection (male/female).

Both genres seemed from two totally different worlds; women came from Woodstock wearing sheer and loose dresses... men right from a Norwegian summer, with long sleeves cotton t-shirts, bear's ears crocheted hats and striped blue&white sailor tees...

models mixed with the press

the people


the models


a room with a view

Ode to the slow blogger

For the last couple of months I've been reading several apologies from bloggers who didn't have the time to write a post everyday... It is a very common thing, i have noticed, but I would like with this post to send a message to all my fellow bloggers that feel the stress and the pressure to publish once daily and if they don't, they think they're failing in some way... not at all!

My point is, although there are very gifted people that have the capability, energy and wit to write very insightful posts on a daily basis, such people as Susanna Lau from Style Bubble or Diane Pernet from A Shaded View on Fashion, this is not the norm. It is an extra-ordinary thing that can't make you feel bad, stressed or inferior if your pace needs to be slower.

Leisurely rhythm gives you perspective to think an idea over and to develop your own creativity.

It's important to digest a thought instead of just giving it away half digested. Big thinkers take time to process and develop and idea, and even the fashion blogger Queen par excelance, Cathy Horyn, doesn't give away a daily post... she takes her own time to write and to think what she wants to say, so don't feel bad.

Fast food is unhealthy for a reason...

I personally like, and love for this matter, fashion bloggers that take their time to live before talking about it in their blogs. I like bloggers who experience and "cook" an idea or an opinion before bringing it to their blog. I like bloggers whose real life goes before their virtual one because the latter can lead you to copy-and-paste other people's ideas; you need time to live your own feelings and experiences before hand.

This is the reason why i find amusing and inspiring to wait for new posts on blogs like Suzanna Mars' Style Sauvage, Mike Huynh's Cultures in Between or Search & Destroy because I know that while i wait, they're living and thinking of great things to tell me a bit later...

Good magazines, the good ones I mean, like self service, purple, the purple journal or fantastic man, are quaterly or biannual; only crap magazines are weekly, and some monthly. It might be a reason for that. Information needs to be processed before being exposed.

So next time you've been absent from your blog for days or even weeks, don't apologize; we know you're living.

Matvey Lykov for Jil Sander

Model Matvey Lykov (Fusion NY and Success Paris) was just arrived in the Big Apple when we did a shoot together; it was his career's second shoot and my second male shoot as well.
What a surprise when two years later I see him as the face of the new campaign of Jil Sander... in a two pages spread on i-D magazine.

Dear Matvey, if you are reading this blog, 2 is definitely our number !

Matvey Lykov for Jil Sander's AW 08-09 campaign

Stupid Magazines

When you work with magazines, you never know.
Even when they give you an assignment, chances are (many) that the project doesn't get published. You can try to find another publication to run the story but sometimes the time you have to find it is so tight that the work just expires unpublished; magazines is a fast world.

I own a magazine and have lived the experience from both sides, the non-published professional and the one who decides not to publish something assigned; so I know.

As a stylist/photographer, it sucks when a publication rejects a job: time and energy, and so many times money, go directly to the drain.
But as a "decider", as a fashion editor, I know some works are just not what I expected and to be honest with the aesthetic of a magazine, you need to back up.

The good news is that now we have a wonderful blog that publishes very renown professionals' work that was rejected for magazines. They tell you what went wrong and how the shoot was made. Some works are good, some are not, but you will know first hand what the hell happened. The blog is called Stupid mags, and it's pure eye candy.

Full Time Sado by Tony Solís

Full time sado was made almost two years ago with the help of 'El Pana', my ex roomie who was a Venezuelan model. All the equipment and the clothes were borrowed from a rock/sado store. The day of the shooting was the last day of El Pana living on our apartment too, so I woke him at 8 am and in two hours we made this series. They are lots of images, so I tried to make a selection that represent the story I tried to tell. It couldn't be published for unknown reasons.

Hot Dogs by Colectivo Banquels

These polaroids were made like three years ago. We sent them to a magazine or something and they never were returned. It was a goofy work but I think they are great. The scanning is awful, but it is the only thing we have of them. Anyway, they don't look like what we are doing now at all.

New York Fashion Week. SS09. United Bamboo

I was really exciting to attend United Bamboo's SS 09 show.

My relation with them started when I interviewed them for hotel diana magazine months ago.
Although their style is too girly for my taste, I respect and like their subtle experimentation in a place and a market, New York, where experimentation is not the norm. I even think they don't experiment more because they're not "allow" to, not because they don't want. I remember once in a sample sales to see really interesting dresses that i didn't see later at the stores. When I asked their PR why he told me because American buyers told them not to produce those pieces because the stores would never buy them... too avant-garde for American standards. Here is where I live...

Miho and Thuy presented their SS09 collection at the Altman Building in Manhattan.
It was Saturday and hurricane Gustav was paying a brief visit to New York. The day woke up windy and overcast and looking depressing. At least for me.
In any case, there I went, exciting with my invitation on hand.

The line to enter the building was LONG as expected and we had to wait outside for a little while. The girl in front of me was dressed beautifully, with a nice floral dress and red shoes and purple shirt, the same color combo I was about to see inside... in general people was dressed really nicely and there there were many street style photographers taking pictures, among them Yvan the FaceHunter.

One of the reasons I love to see shows is for the people who attends them. The show sometimes is secondary because at times your location is so far away you can't even see the cloths, or the show is way too short to really enjoy... United Bamboo's crowd was really interesting to see.

The collection was pretty and very 60's, girlier and less experimental than their SS08, with really nice color combos.

The finishing touch was given by Iekeliene Stange; it's always a pleasure to see this girl on the catwalk.

New York Fashion Week. SS09. Iris Loeffler

A show that starts with Grauzone's Eisbär can't be a bad show.

German designer Iris Loeffler's SS09 collection put a beginning to my fashion week schedule, and it was totally by chance that I went because I was still unpacking from a trip to Madrid when I received the call of my friend Max sanjulián who was DJ-ing at the event.

The show was held at LaViolaBank gallery on East Broadway, and it was cram with beautiful people, many of them European.

Free beer for everyone, just like an art opening.

This was Iris, who interns at Zero Maria Cornejo, first collection.

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El viernes pasado, recién llegadita de Madrid, se inauguró mi fashion week con el desfile de la colección Primavera Verano 09 de la diseñadora alemana Iris Loeffler.

Iris, que trabaja en Zero Maria Cornejo, se estrena como diseñadora con esta colección que fué presentada en la galería LaViolaBank en East Broadway, en la zona de Chinatown.

Mucha gente guapa, muchos de ellos europeos cómo no :) y cerveza gratis para todo el mundo.
Para empezar el show, un tema mítico, Eisbär de Grauzone, que mi amigo Max Sanjulián, DJ del evento y quien me invitó al sarao, nos regaló para dejarme más contenta que unas pascuas. Con una canción asi no hay show que pueda quedar mal!

Another Year Again. New York Fashion Week.

As opposed to other seasons when I used to RSVP to every single show in town, I decided I only want to attend those I am interested in and avoid wasting my time with designers I care very little about.

Thus, this year's summary of my NYFW experience will be petite, maybe just 4 or 5 shows on the whole.

This doesn't mean I only like 4 or 5 designers in town; it just means that among all my invitations there are only 4 or 5 I am interested in.

Unfortunately there are many others I love I haven't been invited to like Patrik Rzepski, Zero Maria Cornejo, Ohnetitel, Y3, Alexandre Herchcovitch, Alexander Wang, Preen, Rodarte, VPL...

Yesterday I attended my first show, the SS09 collection of German designer Iris Loeffler, an intern at Zero Maria Cornejo who was presenting with this her first collection.

I'm uploading the images, will be ready by tomorrow with more news from today's shows, among them, United Bamboo.

Good morning Fashion Week!