with Samantha Moray at MoMA’s Party in the Garden, sponsored by Cartier. April 22, 2012.
Accidentally deleted this post! My column made it’s way across the sea from the December 2012 issue of Sense & Style. 2011 highlights and what to look forward to in 2012.
Gorgeous. Couture image on Vogue.com
Dévastée
S/S 12 Paris, FR
In the showroom of designers Ophelie Klere and Francois Alary of Dévastée.
CS: What was your vision, and your inspiration for the collection?
OPHELIE: “Devastee has many principles – codes – like black and white, shapes, very quite street, classical…and also very, very graphical pictures. So the inspiration more for this coll is about and started from a book with many, many letters of Andre Breton, the French surrealism artist. When he wrote to his daughter, Aube, so from “Lettres a` Aube”, and he sent many cards with landscapes from the South of Frances where he was spending all of his summers. So that’s the place where we have grown, so we have created dresses with big landscapes, and stuff like that. That’s the first point where we started from…After we add silver prints or silver touches, and many things.”
CS: That silver coat looked incredible on the runway, with the bodysuit underneath.
OPHELIE: Smiles. “We were looking into transparence, and different techniques of fabrics where you hide the threads and you get a kind of lace, but its not lace, its just an effect of the fabric.”
CS: Could you tell me more about the materials for the collection, is it mostly silk?
OPHELIE: “The collection is mostly silk for the summer, we wanted to keep the natural fabrics…the silver is not paint, it is the threads.”
CS: I loved the models that you chose, like the girl with the short blonde hair.
What did you think about when you were going into model casting?
FRANCOIS: “We wanted really girly models, very feminine. Because the concept of the collection is symmetries and the themes are quite hard with something that could be sad, so we wanted the girls to be very feminine and happy, and kind of joyful girls. It would not have been the same at all with gothic girls with black hair – it would be too much.”
CS: Our magazine is published in Asia. Are you selling in Asia yet, or do you plan to?
FRANCOIS: “Yes, most of our customers are in Asia.
Many in Japan, China, Taipei, Korea.”
“Hong Kong,” adds Ophelie.
1
The view from the Harper’s Bazaar event to celebrate Glenda Bailey’s new book. New York Fashion Week, September 2011.
Going along with the trend of “I can’t believe this, that, or the other thing just happened,” CFDA, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, just reblogged my Prabal Gurung post from yesterday. So did Prabal! #melting
Monique Péan and her gorgeous SS 12 jewelry collection.
“The collection is all inspired by my recent travels to Peru, and I learned all about Peruvian opalina and opal,” said Péan, ”This is the Peruvian opal, and this is the Peruvian opalina - these really deep, electric blue colors. All the pieces that we make are eco friendly and sustainable, so we use all recycled gold and all artisinally mined materials as well as conflict and devastation-free diamonds and our main materials are fossilized wolly mammoth and the fossilized walrus ivory.”
Gesturing to her wrist, “So this is all fossilized woolly mammoth that has fossilized jet inlay, and you can see some scrimshaw work as well, where artisans have hand-etched into the wolly mammoth, and then vintage ebony wood from an old furniture mill, and sustainable pearls.”
How sweet is Prabal Gurung? He’s showing me the collection! When did I get so lucky?!
At the CFDA “Americans in Paris” preview.
Britton Parker, Prabal Gurung Sales Manager, on the inspiration for the collection.
“He was inspired by a Japanese photograph series called Sensual Flowers. So he worked with a printmaker in London to kind of use those prints as an inspiration for these prints, which are called the Surreal Floral prints.”
“He used this very feminine soft floral print and kind of mixed it with bondage materials – leather, rubber and latex, these are rubber paillets – this is spray painted latex, feathers and lace, so it’s kind of about using this soft feminine floral to soften up these harder materials.”
Lanvin
On September 30, in the sweltering Indian Summer heat of Paris, Espace Éphémère in the Tuileries filled with a damp haze. Champagne was served, and the twinkling of breaking glass punctuated the pre-show music as waiters jostled with the excited (and overheated) crowd.
A member of the production team showed a photo on her iPhone of her own foot inside one of the show shoes. “The toe box was made far too narrow, the girls cant bear to stand in the shoes,” she said. “We were given pairs to take home and wear around the apartment – to try and stretch them out.” The house lights went down, and the full house fell silent.
Like Sirens striding forth from the mist on their island of rocks and cliffs, the women of Lanvin possessed a dark, dangerous allure. The show began with the confidence of a neutral done excruciatingly well – black, ivory, dusty peach. A snake coiled around the neck of the first look to combine the three shades of the neutral seperates. The distinctly Elbaz shaping of past Lanvin collections was still present; a taupe top tucked in to create the organic, almost floral structuring that previous seasons have featured so prominently. The silhouettes looked both suited for the cold transition into spring as much as they seemed to fit the lingering warmth of pre-fall. Reworked suiting, structured shoulders on perfectly constructed dresses and an exquisite all-white pant and jacket look, a crisp, clean reference to luxury.
The sheer look on Iris Strubegger in the S/S 11 show was fully explored with this collection. The concept was given life, the tight hemline on Iris was shirked for a free flowing A line. Julia Nobis, in the first muted rose version, was greeted with applause and an audible chatter of approval. The final five looks of the show were a delight – rose, olive, surf, gunmetal, and Karlie Kloss is a shade of berry that can only be described as succulent.
