Noovo Festival for Fashion & Photography by A. Esteban Librero, part II

part I

My personal trip to Noovo Festival in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. (part II)
by Angela Esteban Librero.


The afternoon of November 1st was the first day of the Noovo Festival, starting with the opening of the photography exhibition co-curated by Diane Pernet.
On my way there, I had time to enjoy Santiago's sun and nice weather as well as it monuments.

My favorite photographers were Miguel Villalobos, Daniel Riera and James O'Brien, who I had the pleasure to meet and admire their work with. I don't know why but I did not take any images except of Miguel Villalobos.










Then the organizers of the festival did the official presentation and speeches. On the right you can see Diane Pernet between the directors Jorge Margolles y Charo González who are responsible for the Noovo Magazine as well.



Then we had some wine and Spanish "aperitivos" with friends before having lunch at San Francisco Monastery.















Graham Tabor and Peter and Christopher from Peter Pilotto



Sara Sáez from YoDona, Ramón fashion editor of Neo2 and L'Enfant Terrible.

Dori, accessories designer for Zara Woman and Basic and Yolanda Muelas, Director of Metal magazine.

November 1st was also the first night for the international fashion show featuring Three As Four, Eley Kishimoto, Patrik Soderstam, Boudicca and Gareth Pugh.
They built a tent in the middle of the Plaza Quintana, which I think it was a mistake because they could have done the shows in one of the amazing cloisters of San Francisco Monastery.
To me, it was one of the best nights of Noovo; those designers set very high standards for the rest.
My favs: Boudicca and Gareth Pugh, I was very greatly surprised by the androgynous looks of Patrik Soderstam, beautiful Three As Four prints and silhouettes and I would love have seen not just S/S Eley Kishimoto.
Here are some photos from the shows, enjoy!

Three As Four:






















































Gaby, Angie and Adi



Eley Kishimoto:
















Marc and his sales representative, who has been working for them for 2 years and now she is leaving, that was her goodbye trip!




Patrik Soderstam:

The artist of the head pieces was modeling and opened the show filming the audience with small video camera nude and just wearing that pink piece around his waist...


















Patrick





Boudicca:















Gareth Pugh:




























After the show we had some cocktails....

From (L-R): Yolanda Muelas from Metal, Miguel Villalobos, Gemma and Henderson from Gareth Pugh (wearing boots and skirt from the show!!! Gareth doesn't need to know that!), Peter Pilotto and Graham Tabor from FLY magazine.


Three As Four team














Patrik Soderstam and the artist that opened the show with the video camera.














Dino Dinco, who was exhibiting his work in the morning, and his friend and artist Gustavo.

A Girls Night and YSL

When Wendy Brandes realized I was a NY-based blogger like her, she very kindly contacted me to arrange a girls night some day.
I was rather excited and amazed as she is one of the funniest fashion bloggers I read and her blog is one of those that lift my day when things go wrong.
Along the way, Jenn from In Your Fashion was "added" to the party and so three days ago the three of us met at a very fancy restaurant uptown.
I arrived late, shame on me, and the two lovely women were waiting and talking and they were so nicely dressed that i felt suddenly a what-the-heck-i-am-doing-here with my jeans, and my hoodie and one of the first bags I designed when i was 16 years old ... Actually the maitre d' stopped me at the door (i never told the girls) to ask me"what do you want?"; he probably thought I just wanted to use the bathroom and the bathroom was "for costumers only"...

The food was amazing but I can't say the same of my talking as there was practically any. I wasn't very talkative that night, so dazzling Wendy and sweet Jenn (just like a Lou Reed song) did the talk and I found myself in awe at their knowledge in all kind of high class matters. They talked and I ate, not bad, right?.
Wendy was wearing, among other amazing pieces, one of her famous poison rings and i regret that I didn't take any picture of her jewelry because it was really impressive and brilliant.

The time passed by very quick and it was time for me and Wendy to go to our appointment with YSL...
Jenn accompanied us to the French Institute where the movies was about to happen and then we said bye to her and she took a cab back home.

In a comment made by riz in Brandes' blog about the great French couturier, she mentioned the feeling she had when watching the docs at IFC in NY: "he was so lost and depressive he could barely speak..." And there's very little I can add to that.
The two documentaries we saw, Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times and Yves Saint Laurent, 5 Avenue Marceau 75116 Paris, portraits the life of the artist through his friends and persona in the first, and his job in the latter.
The first documentary was unmistakably my favourite and I'm still remembering with shrives the talk of the great couturier for almost 15 minutes about his life, his work, his love for Bergé, his friends... Pierre Bergé does one of the most memorable talkings in the movie as does Betty Catroux, whose extract I could find in Youtube.

extract of the movie Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times

by David Teboul

extract of the movie Yves Saint Laurent, 5 Avenue Marceau 75116 Paris
by David Teboul

Catherine Deneuve does her part at the beginning of the movie.

Unfortunately the second documentary wasn't as pleasant as the first one, therefore Wendy and me left before its ending.
I found very annoying to see the hypocrisy around Saint Laurent, witnessing how everyone around would say "how wonderful" to everything just for the sake of it and never giving a sincere answer.
Isn't it sad to get to a point in which people is afraid to tell you the truth? So here we left and Wendy went with me to the subway to make sure I was going to be ok which it was such a lovely detail. Thanks W.B. :)

Wendy says bye to me with the program of The Fashion Month at the French Institute in her hands ... Salut!

Noovo Festival for Fashion & Photography by A. Esteban Librero, part I

Those of you who follow Wendy Brandes' blog or Jen's In Your Fashion might already know about the meeting these two lovely women and yours truly had last night in uptown NY.
Please forgive me if I don't post about it today but I would like to publish what my friend and Metal magazine's NY fashion coordinator Angela Esteban Librero wrote for bobble-bee about her experience at the noovo Festival for Fashion and Photography in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, where she went with really great people and where she met all those artists I admire and whose work I truly respect.
I couldn't go myself because I was called at the very last moment to do a gig but she kindly brought the good news and wrote about them for me.
Here it's only the first part... more to come.


My personal trip to Noovo Festival in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain.
by Angela Esteban Librero.

Noovo Festival, hosted by Diane Pernet and organized by El Correo Gallego, featured 30 fashion designers from around the world including: Gareth Pugh, Boudicca, Three As Four, Eley Kishimoto, Patrik Söderstam, Henrik Vibskov, Txell Miras, Luxoir, SinPatron, Jan iú Mès, Romain Kremer, Peter Pilotto, Petar Petrov or Mikio Sakabe. In photography, we could see the work of Michael James O'Brien, Miguel Villalobos, Daniel Riera, Pierre Gonnard, Dino Dinco, Ari Versluis, or Ana Laura Aláez.

There were as well special presentations from Magazines like FLY DVD , B-guided and fashion, style and beauty festival You Wear It Well. Before going further, I would like to introduce to all of you the beautiful city of Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, which is an extraordinary, historic, monumental city and pilgrimage destination.

PART 1

All checked in, Miguel Villalobos, Graham Tabor and I started our trip to Santiago. While we stopped in Madrid to change flights we discovered that there is a Chapel in the new airport!!


Once in Santiago a bus took us to the hotel; Miguel V. happy to be there and Dino Dinco and his friend and artist Gustavo admiring the view from the bus.
In the bus we met the guys from ThreeAsFour, Peter Pilotto and Gemma and Henderson from Gareth Pugh (you can only see their heads!).













Once we checked into the hotel we went to take an "aperitivo" around the city with the lovely Peter Pilotto's duo: Peter and Christopher.
This part of the country is know by their "Empanada Gallega", sea food and Tetilla cheese and that is exactly what we order! How delicious is to be in Spain!

Later in the evening we joined the rest of the group for diner at a sea food restaurant. I arrived late and everyone was already eating…

From left to right starting from the image at the bottom: Gemma and Henderson from Gareth Pugh, Graham Tabor from FLY and Miguel Villalobos, in the center, the amazing Diane Pernet, Robb Young (in charge of the international Press), Peter and Christopher from Peter Pilotto and Mark Eley of the design team Eley Kishimoto. Later on ThreeAsFour guys and Joseph from Seven NYC joined us for drinks.


The gorgeous Diane Pernet posed for me because I wanted to take a photo of the great jewelry she was wearing (the snail was made for her by Miguel Villalobos).

Blogs That make Me Think

The fact that bloggers are creating their own awards is something quite sweet because it means the respect we profess to each other and the value we give to our peers for their time in keeping us informed.
The first award that fashion bloggers started was Rockin' Girl Blogger whose "inventor" I still don't know but whose impact in our busy lives was such that it run like gunpowder through the fashion bloggosphere: smiles, happiness and lots of compliments to each other.
Dear Mahret at F&Art awarded me in August and soon thereafter Stella et Moi did as well. I couldn't be more surprised and happy because "to win" is one of those verbs that don't abound in my vocabulary.

Now it's the Thinking Blogger Award, whose "starter"' this time I know (please follow the link), a reward for those blogs that make us think, which is, mind you, the best award one can gets.
For this reason I'm so grateful to Moni at Miss at La Playa for thinking of me (and please visit her awesome project The Fashion Box) and for giving me this lovely surprise.
Now is my turn to give back the happiness, and so I hope to do ... The winners of my award are:

* Mode et Utopie. This graduate student and newcomer in the fashion bloggosphere has become my fav in just less than three days. She makes me think and sends me news from the side of fashion that i love so much

* Wendy Brandes Jewelry. Wendy makes me think through laugh and there's not better way to do so. Shes funny in the smartest way. Wendy, please don't lose EVER your sense of humor.

* Style Bubble. Should I even say why? I wonder if she hasn't got this award yet but in any case, she is the one and only and without her inspiration my fashion life wouldn't be as intense as it is nowadays. She is the best fashion writer I know and her blog is a true inspiration and pleasure everyday.

* Independent Fashion Bloggers. But basically this award goes to its creator, my dearest Jennine, who started this amazing project with all her generosity, hoping to make us more aware of our little world. This project has made me think about fashion blog issues more than anything else.

* Disney Roller Girl. Her witting is fantastic and the way she expresses fashion facts is very inspiring. She, as Susie does as well, keeps me linked to London and its whereabouts in the most interesting way.

As always, and unfortunately, I have less awards to give than needed as there's other bloggers that feed my mind in a daily basis like F&Art, Parallel Entity or Voluminous and Billowing. So I hope someone invents a new award soon to continue giving and paying my honors.

SANS paroles

It might seem old fashion at this point to talk about a Winter collection when the spring-summer collections are blooming everywhere. But I just discovered the work of the design team Lika Volkova & Alessandro Devito whose label, SANS, took them to be one of the 6 women's wear designers winners of this year Ecco Domani Fashion Fundation's award, a grant of $25,000 (17,241 Euros) to help producing a show during NYFW.
Their designs got my attention for their simplicity and shape-investigation at the same time. The wide range of different volumes and silhouettes is fantastic, and so it's the fact that they only use eco-conscious fabrics created from natural resources such as bamboo and soybean. Who did it say that "progress" couldn't go hand with hand with "nature"?
Their SS:08 collection is up in their website already but i feel mellow and rather to covet winter than summer...

* SANS, Autumn-Winter 07-08

Vintage at $19

Sometimes I get so much spam in my bobble-bee email that, I'm very ashamed to admit it, I don't even dare to open many of them.
But some of them are NOT spam at all, just the subject is not very "inviting".
Chic Today magazine sent me an email with one of their "offers" and I said to myself, "more free subscriptions no, please...". But I was so wrong.
For some reason I opened the email and the "offer" was there, but not the one expected.
Chic magazine is selling a DVD under the name Fashion Flashbacks! with fashion videos from the 60's and 70's, and only for $19.

i don't know if the video, (1h total duration), is worth it or not but the price is very good and the teaser they publised (the first collection of designer Marc Bohan at Dior, who took the control of the French house when YSL, designer at the time, was called for military duty) is very promising. So i might be thinking seriously about it.
If any of you have purchased it already and know more about it, please tell, we're eager to know.

More Bergdorf Goodman For You

I went to the MET this morning to see the amazing exhibition Tapestries in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor, which I hope to speak about very soon and if you are in the city please DO NOT MISS.

Coming back home I passed by Bergdorf Goodman and saw they were removing the windows displays of the front side of the building.

They weren't as spectaculars as the ones I posted before- they showed the Cruises collections and everything was too Spring-y (butterflies, birds...) for the season.
But I had the pictures taken anyway (at the same time as the others) and decided to dig up in my computer to find them and show them to you, considering the success that these windows have among us. They are some piece of "history" now...

PS: In the last trio of pictures, the first one is the only one that don't feature a cruise collection: it's Harper's Bazaar 140th anniversary and Bergdorf Goodman pays homage to it featuring the most famous covers of their history.

Brett Day Windham for Bergdorf Goodman's Windows display

I feel a little like miss Holly Golightly approaching Tiffany's in the morning every time I leave my house late at night to go to Bergdorf Goodman to take pictures of their windows. I stick my face in the glass and it's hard for me to move: I'm in awe.

Now you wonder why on Earth I do go at night instead of choosing anytime during the day I might be passing by. The reason is very simple: at night there's no one blocking the view and the reflections in the glass are none whatsoever. It's the perfect time.

The right side of the building is always the most creative one and it's always the last I choose to photograph (I like to keep the good things for the end).

The artist Brett Day Windham is the person behind the great soft sculptures that surround the mannequins in the current displays. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any information about her anywhere.

Halloween Scenes And Other Stories

Halloween is carved pumpkins, trick-or-treat, horror movies and candy candy. Orange & purple are the colors of the season, skulls, coffins and black velvet dresses; tonight America's dancing with the muertos...

Back in Spain we celebrate the spooky night tonight as well and it's called "La Víspera de Todos los Santos", which sounds quite similar to Halloween when you translate it to English: "All hallow's Eve".

The story of this festivity is a very tragic one, it dates back in the days to Roman Emperor Diocletian's Christian's persecution in 303 AC.
A total of 3,000–3,500 Christians got killed (among them Saint Lucy, the lovely girl in the painting, whose story can be read only for those with strong stomach) and each of them, alas a martyr, became a Saint.
The poor Christians left remained in panic and horror, also with the concern of finding a celebration day for each martyr: a year has 365 days and they needed at least 3,500 ...
They ended up choosing a day to celebrate them all together, a smart and very Christian solution. The day, November 1st, became official when Pope Gregory the III said so.

The night before this famous date, the Saints Day, is the All hallow's Eve, where, I guess, the ghosts start to get ready for the party the following day.

The concept is pretty much the same as in America's Halloween, ghosts and horror stories, add some ring of bells and buy chrysanthemums rather than pumpkins. The play "Don Juan" is shown every year on TV and this is one of our National Holidays, therefore no one has to work the following day.

Let's recapitulate fashion moments of this year's Halloween ..

* Sportmax (what did happen with their website?) decorated its mannequins with bat-man wire wings... a very settle and elegant way to dress the "creepy".










* Mexican dolls from El Dia De los Muertos (Day of The Dead) in a jewelry store's windows in Key West.
It was pouring that night but i took the risk of fucking up my camera to take their picture because they're amazing and i loved the dresses they were wearing.



* This hotty Centaur was trotting in the restaurant where I was taking lunch with a friend this morning.
I couldn't resist the temptation of taking my picture with him


HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!

The New Campaign Of YSL Is Over The Top

For those who visit my bedroom the question "Do you like YSL?" is inevitable.
The reason why they ask is all the YSL ad campaigns I have stuck in my wall, thus they wonder weather or not I'm a fanatic of the Algerian designer. Ma non... I like his designs, but I'm a fanatic of his ad campaigns.

They're always so Parisian, with that Helmut touch that I love so much, many times shot at night, enigmatic... They give my room some kind of chic exoticism that I enjoy like a kid with chewing gum.
Photographer Juergen Teller has been a regular for the last 4 campaigns, but this season Pilati teams up with Dutch photographers couple Vinoodh Matadin & Inez Van Lamsweerde to bring the best of Paris la nuit in the Seine-side streets of Île Saint-Louis with Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen looking better than ever.

* images courtesy of SHOWstudio

On Cristina Ortiz

I've been in love with Cristina Ortiz since her days at Lanvin back in 1997.
After working for Prada as Designer Director for 3 years (1994-97), this Canary Islands native became head designer of Lanvin, being the person who helped the French fashion house to reborn after years in anonimity. Her designs, still today so avant-garde, were pure 90's: sleek, minimal and very chic.

When she departed from Lanvin in 2001 (to be replaced by Alber Elbaz) she remained "silent" for some years and then I got nervous...
Then in 2005 the Italian fashion house Brioni appointed her Creative Director of its women's collection, good news for me and new designs for all.

Her debut at Brioni was spectacular and I couldn't take my eyes off her black/white designs: no wonder, again, so sleek, so chic, so minimal.

She became my favourite over again and I always wondered, why is she still not as famous as, let's say, designers that work for other houses like Guesquiére, Theyskens or Philo? I dunno.

Last summer Ortiz was in the headlines again when Salvatore Ferragamo named her creative director of its women's ready-to-wear collections, succeeding Scottish designer Graeme Black that will focus then in his own label.
Ortiz's appointment as chief designer will begin with the Fall 2008 collection, and I would lie if I'd tell you I'm not excited.

* all images courtesy of style.com

Spanish Fashion From Spain.

[For those non-American bobble-bee readers the tittle of this post might seem incongruous, but for US citizens "Spanish" means "people who talks in Spanish", alas Mexicans, Venezuelans, Chileans, Cubans etc. It can be very confusing when you're talking of only Spain, therefore I decided to clarify.]

The Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in NY is hosting an exhibition about Madrid Fashion Week.
Distributed in two rooms, the Institute is showing the work of 25 Spanish designers (see inset) whose work is shown during Madrid's Fashion Week Cibeles. They brought not the best but yet the best well known, and hey, it's always nice to have news from home.

The fact that the Association of Creative Designers of Spain (Asociación Artística de Diseñadores Nacionales de Moda de España) is supporting and promoting Spanish fashion in one of the fashion capitals of the world is something to celebrate. But, just wondering, wouldn't be nicer to cover not only the famous and rich but also the young and interesting? Designers like Txell Miras, Gómez or Carlos Díez?

Spain is a very rare country, it gives birth international geniuses that many times are believed as non-Spanish.
Just to name a few; Balenciaga, Picasso, Cristina Ortiz, Manolo Blahnik ... And I guess they rolled their "R" 's the same way that I do but still, they're considered French, or British in the case of Mr Blahnik. (Sex & The City wouldn't be the same without us).

They are a great example of artists who were "forced" to look for a place where their talents would be appreciated, and so they did.

I'm very aware of this fact, I'm an emigrated myself (not in the group of geniuses), so when the Spanish Government gives money for shows like this I am really all for it, support is all we need.
My drawback is the disappointment at the lack of young designers to get the support.

A Book About Us

Back in the days when i started to move around the Globe in search of the perfect job, I decided I wouldn't buy any book until I would settle, avoiding any extra overload in my life. (i forgot magazines could be as heavy though)

I thought that moment would arrive earlier, and I thank the Providence that I live in a city like NY which Public Library is such I've never needed to buy any book to be well informed in terms of fashion going ons.

Now there's the dilemma... Tomorrow is the released of Stylist: The Interpreters of Fashion from the people at style.com and introduction by Anna Wintour, one of those rare books one waits years to see released, how can I say no?.
I must admit that the price is not helping to make a decision: $75 in stores, $48 in Amazon, (I never understood such differences...).

The image of Paul Cavaco (one of the stylists featured in the book) with his copy during the launch party that style.com hosted at Skylight Studios in NY made me want it even more: this is a BIG book, in every sense.

The book documents the work and contributions of each stylist (a total of 16) through photographs of their creative output and inspirations, and illustrates their distinctive taste, individual flair, and talent for igniting global fashion fervor.

All times favourites stylists of mine like Carine Roitfeld, Lori Goldstein or Polly Mellen are among these pages so that's reason enough for me to buy the book.

As a stylist myself, is such a pleasure to finally being able to enjoy a book about us.
Ours is a very strange profession due to the frivolous connotations it implies, so it's quite rare to find anything that talks about it in a professional way.
When someone asks me, "what do you do?" and I answer, "I'm a fashion stylist", no one understands what I'm talking about and if they do, they just rise one eyebrow and say, "I see...". "No one thinks styling is a real job, but it is. Not one person profiled in the book isn't a workhorse." in words of Paul Cavaco, so there we go.

Every time they ask, I try to find a good explanation, but it's kind of difficult because there's too many things involved.
The closer I got to what I really wanted to say is that a stylist is to clothing what an artist is to ideas: it doesn't really matter what you do, it matters how you do it and the meaning you give to what you're doing.
Stylists show the designer's clothing to the public, they "put" it out there to be enjoyed, and the way they do it will affect the way that that designer or that garment will sell in the market.

For this reason labels are so picky in the choosing of stylists that will work with their clothing, as are magazines (the books of fashion) to hire this or that one, because they know how important is a stylist to interpret the look of a certain moment, and how bad it can be in terms of sales and reputation if the interpretation made is wrong.

So the decision is made, I will end up purchasing this book because I know myself and my soft spots and I won't be able to live the rest of my days thinking about the content of what I was missing. So weight overload, there we go!.

Halloween

Although the official Halloween party is happening next Wednesday Oct 31st, people couldn't resist the freedom of the weekend and last night all NYC was burning with Halloween Balls.

I ended up in an illegal party in Chelsea with a lot of French people, Italians, Germans, Spanish... It was the European Union Halloween party! although this was not made on purpose.

I dressed up like German actress Marlene Dietrich but my costume ended up looking like the one of Charles Chaplin... not even one person guessed who really I was. So frustrating...

I had have taken more pictures ( i did not take any actually) to show you some of the costumes because some of them were really good. One guy was dressed up just like Andre J.!, the subject of my latest post, with a huge black afro wig...
Another girl was Amy Winehouse and it was so good everyone thought the British singer herself was partying there with us.

* Thanks Angela for taking my picture. :)