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Modo Brussels for Dazed Digital

"The other Belgian fashion city showed, through humorous and improvised art and fashion events, that it isn't all about Antwerp..."

- Click here to read more on Dazed Digital -

Quote : Mr. FORD

"He’d rather people didn’t ‘Tom’ him anymore.

At 49, he lets it be known he prefers “’Mr. Ford.’”

Vogue.com

False Shortage

A couple of days ago, a popular french newspaper ( click here for source ) featured a very intriguing article in it's economic section about how french Louis Vuitton Shops, victim of the label's success, will have to close an hour earlier till at least end of November as LVMH group was scared to be out of stocks of LV bags for the big Christmas shopping sessions. A quoted spokesman for LV even mentioned "how poor in stock" the label is.

It immediately made me click, LV in stock shortage ! and the whole article sounds like a barely modified press release. After discussing the subject around me, an editor in chief of a young and promising german publication sent me this message, oh so full of sense :

"A false shortage is a form of artificial scarcity induced by a supplier, often with the intent to elevate consumer demand above levels that may otherwise be achieved in the absence of such scarcity.

Companies may induce a false shortage to give rise to a common perception of the rarity or uniqueness of a product or service, when they are, in reality, neither precious, nor difficult to produce.

Suppliers often stand to gain from a false shortage, because it can help increase consumer demand without a corresponding decrease in price, and hence an entity's perceived value. This results in an increase in short-term profit."

The Switch

Following the nomination of Mister Formichetti as the new Art Director of Thierry Mugler, a fashion designer friend mentioned that it might be just the start of the rise of ( photo ) stylist taking over art direction positions in big houses... A new switch in the industry, well not really new as somehow stylists have been doing art direction for houses for a while but it was mostly in free-lance positions, at best consultancy, so yes stylists have been art directors for years anyway but taking the big job in a big house is a new way. The switch is purely semantic, stylist are re-appropriating the art director's term, and designers will do what they do best, designing under their directions, it could also mean no more outside stylist interventions for a creatively self-sufficient house, this could mean more risk taking but also could mean less, now the question is, after Mister Formichetti at Mugler, who's up next ? and for which house ?

Fashion In Motion - Act Da Fool by Harmony Korine for Proenza Schouler

Following the rise of video as a complement to the still images of lookbooks, campaigns and editorial usually produced by fashion designers, New York's Proenza Schouler asked Harmony Korine to shoot a short film on their Fall Winter 2010-11 collection, giving him the clothes and a picture by Christopher Wool as reference. Korine took this back to Nashville, where he lives, and filmed the collection on a gang of hardcore delinquent black girls he used to hang out with, resulting is Act Da Fool.

More and more respected film directors get into fashion films (Lynch, Anger, etc...), and this bring the question of fashion in films, does it really work ? We've seen plenty of photographer trying to turn pictures into film with various results but it is mostly disastrous in fact. On the contrary, directors manage the image / movement but the result of their fashion films is often diminished by the lact of actor or simply the absence of story to tell. The song says video killed the radio star, now the question is : who killed the video stars ?

Delay

Paris menswear fashion wrap up coming soon and then Berlin, another side of the fashion week.

just a little bit of patience....

Simon Gray by Andreas Lonn

Simon Gray born 1984 graduated from Central Saint Martins BA Fashion Print a little over a week ago. His playfulness with print and volumes makes this collection one of my favorite. The prints is something I would describe as galactic jamaican camouflage. The black skirt in the show was especially beautiful with a print made of lighter burns, a process which I imagine is not effortless yet it reminds me of lazy version of a greek orthodox priest lace veil.

There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out

The ANDAM award has been quite criticized this last year for not helping the upcoming french designers, even Anna Wintour mentioned it to the french ministry of the Industry during a well publicized lunch. True that giving the price consecutively to Richard Nicoll, Gareth Pugh and Giles Deacon, ANDAM was looking for gaining an international influence more than promoting new french talents.
This year, probably in reaction to many critical comments, Carine Roitfeld joined in as president of the jury and 3 on the 6 nominated are Paris based designers competing for the 220 000 Euros award. Still we're missing 2 upcoming Paris based designers that were praised in the french and international press, Maxime Simoens and Anthony Vaccarello, they could have done a good use of that money too, but c'est la vie.... also we can note that the accessory designers section, which used to compete for a smaller award has been erased this season.
So far my heart goes for Calla Haynes with her label CALLA, the most interesting and fresh collection, a promising talent on an international scale, now it's up to the jury to decide, and that includes Alber Elbaz, Hilary Alexander, Sarah Lerfel ( Colette ), Jefferson Hack, Virginie Mouzat ( Figaro ), and Jean-Jacques Picart. Who ever wins, let's hope it will mark a change in the way awards, press and buyers from France tend to ignore their homeland designers and give a kick of energy and hope in the sclerotic french fashion industry.

Click HERE to see CALLA Fall 10 collection.

Got a Pen?

Apparently paper notebooks are really over, practicality maybe, so whenever you need to write down something and still don't have an i-something or any dark colored berry high tech thingy instead of your hand yet, just use an Hermes birkin bag, people do that these days, works even better if you have a Terence Koh around, but that, is the easy part...

Don't Look Back !

That's it, PPR's McQueen is launching an underwear line, now let's wait for stationeries, homewear and so on, it's only the beginning of a commercial freak out !

The Post-Céline Syndrome

Céline SS10

The Gentle Woman Issue 1

And I have a feeling this is only starting !

R.I.P Mister McQueen

Alexander (Lee) McQueen
1969-2010

Faster, faster, Mark ! Sell, sell !

Mark Fast is launching a more accessible line, called Faster. And with an upcoming collaboration line with Topshop it seems like Fast is getting faster onto new markets.

"L'Exception Française"

The mysterious non-presence of young French designers in French press...

Sometimes the truth comes out of the editor's mouth. And it's been a little while now that many international fashion editors wonder what's going on in the French fashion scene, anything new? Well, they're not the only ones asking themselves this question, most of the insiders of the fashion industry in France have been thinking about this problem, trying to figure out what is wrong with young French designers.
What's wrong isn't the French designers, well some of them are, but the way the Parisian fashion industry doesn't support any of them is surreal, of course there are some exceptions and Maria Luisa is one of them, but that's unfortunately not enough. As Anna Wintour ( even her ! ) pointed in a recent interview to French TV fashion journalist Mlle. Agnes, there is a French exception to young designers support :
( link to the video : http://www.sundancechannel.com/fullfrontalfashion/video/ ) :

"I think it's totally important for all of us in the American fashion industry to support the young designers, and I think that's why New York's become such a vibrant fashion center, because people go there not only to see the Donna Karans of the world but a whole new generation. I'm just so sorry that there isn't something like that in Paris that's similar. I think that they should look for the younger generation here [in Paris] as well. Not only New York but London really supports their young talent; Franca Sozzani at Italian Vogue supports the young Italian designers, and I think when France is so known for its fashion industry — for them not to be reaching out to help younger people today is really a shame. [Agnes: "And there's space in your pages for them."] There's space in everybody's pages."

Apparently there's no spaces for young designers in French big magazine like Vogue or Numero, where the youngest featured french designer ( not being in a big house bearing someone else's name) is probably Jean Paul Gaultier... Yes it leaves your mind with a blank...
And when french fashion awards ( ANDAM ) gives funds ( about 150.000 Euros every year ) to British designers 4 years in a row, it really makes you wonders if all young french designers are crap or what? are they that bad that everyone ignores them so much ? I don't think they are, and they could do as good as Alexander Wang or House of Holland, and you'll admit it's not that difficult. But no, the industry in this country keeps trying to re-animate long time dead houses, and prefers to acclaim the geniuses from abroad better than looking at what's next door. Seems like there's no new talents for those people ( quoting Pierre Berger, YSL ex boyfriend ) and young talented designers like Anthony Vaccarello, Nicolas Andreas Taralis, Olivier Borde or Charles Anastase ( who relocated in London in search of support and found it over there) and many more just have to wait till an influential ( Hmm...Hmmm...) French editor dares to take a minute between a lunch with an advertiser's PR and a cocktail for an H&M collaboration to look a what they do and probably forgets about it the second after, already thinking of which dress from Balmain she hasn't shot yet.
Seems lame ? yes, it is !

We Don' t Care...We Smile !

Unfortunatly most of pre-fall collection...
Lindsay Lohan magazine three-some...really !!
Tom Ford's Golden Globe obsession
The end of Phi...really !!
Plus size special in fashion magazine
Galliano new menswear licenced line...no but, really !!

The Imaginarium of Gary Card

Gary Card
Illustration, Prop, Set design and more....

Gary Card Blog

We Don't Care...We Smile !

+H & M Sonia Rykiel collaboration...really !
+Art Basel Miami 's Horacio Kane party
+Largerfeld's toyboys...really !!
+The Sartorialist
+Ice Skating parties...no but really!
+Coco Rocha's venture into fashion design

We Don' t Care...We Smile !

+ J.Lo dedicated a song to Louboutin, titled "Louboutins"
+ Katie Perry ... really ?
+ Alexis Bryan Morgan is the new fashion director at Elle US
+ Victoria Secret show... really !
+ Uniqlo & Jil Sander's +J line continues with a spring edition
+ The Fur issue...really (again).
+ Terence Koh is probably doing a performance somewhere right now !
+ Snoods... ( no comment ).

( Not So ) Fresh Print - W Magazine Demi Moore December 09

Our lovely contributor Roxane Danset just brought this to my attention in a short email tittled : " I knew it !!".
When an Art director really can't be bothered with too much retouch for (yet) another mature turned young celebrity cover, well, why not just using the body that wore the chosen outfit at the catwalk show, and that's probably this simple and logical statement that made W copy / paste Demi Moore's head onto Anja's body from the latest Balmain show.

image source : FashionIndie