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 ?

A Closer Look at Christian Wijnants Fall 10

This is definitely one of my favorite collection for Fall Winter 10-11, and it seems like I'm not the only one in that case, many women around are impatiently waiting for Wijnants little printed dress or velvet capes to hit the stores, and most buyers are aware of this, putting Christian Wijnants up to another level in the industry.

Pink Moon - Calla Fall 10

Canadian born Calla Haynes launch Calla, a relaxed luxury label with strong print designs, for last Spring Summer 10 collections. For Fall 10 the prints, foundation of all Calla collections, came from textures found in abstract paintings, landscapes and more specifically from photographs of Flamingo feathers used on silk chiffon, stretch cotton, twills and jerseys for a series of bustier dresses, geometrical tops and skirts. The pale color palette keeps the collection in the continuity of Haynes work for the past season and even beyond when collaborating with Theyskens for the likes of Rochas or Ricci, a modern nostalgic look, a young cold beauty, body conscious but not constraining, a little lolita but never just cute and naive, a collection of charming contrasts.

Calla.fr

Human Fly - BZZ by Davide Bazzerla Fall 10

Verona born Davide Bazzerla has been designing his own line, BZZ, since 2005, while consulting for a bunch of major Italian brands, and it's only now that Bazzerla decided to concentrate "full on" his label, presenting this Fall 10 collection in Berlin and Paris fashion week. BZZ is a collection of shapes and structures, sexiness and proportions, at the edge of fashion, where it meets arts, politics, music and more... mixing haute-couture fabrics with costless second recycled garments into a reflection on the use, the social effects and the concept of fashion garments. The Carabinieri ( Italian police) uniform trousers turned into a short dress topped with a "cute" bow characterize Bazzerla's conceptual games, not without a hint of humour.

About A Girl - Maxime Simoens Fall 10

Something has happened during last Paris fashion week, the return of the young french designers. Well, in fact it's more like the return of interest towards young french designers, but only the result counts, and I'll keep the polemics aside (for now). Amongst this very limited group of promising designers ( that includes Anthony Vaccarello, Nicolas Andreas Taralis and still Charles Anastase ) is Maxime Simeons, french born and educated in the pure french tradition of the couture craftsmanship, and has been working in the best big house's studio before launching his eponymous label last season. Now for his second season, Simoens wanted to retrace the history of the woman's emancipation through fashion. No more corset, maybe a hint of it is left, the waist goes down, the neckline goes deeper, the skirts and dresses shorter.
It's for a woman who conquers and probably wins that Simoens created this collection with the dresses cut around a cross, like a medieval crusader's flag turned into a modern and urban city soldier, but if there is also some officers coat silhouettes, it is always declined with a touch of feminine and sexy evanescence, as Simoens dream girl is a strong but glamorous up-to-date amazon.

Anthem Of The Sun - Christian Wijnants Fall 10

Christian Wijnants presentation took place in the architecture gallery, in the heart of Paris, Marais. But Wijnants Fall 10 is not about architecture and structures as the location might suggest, it is more a fairytale of flower power generation with a touch of medieval age. The collection is articulated around natural and saturated earth tones colors like bronze, caramel, camel and rust in velvet, silk and wool layered sheer tops, hooded cape and dresses with prints inspired by Don Snyder's Aquarian Odyssey, resulting in a modern mystic take on fashion.

Digital Aura - No Editions Fall 10

This video shows No Editions Fall 10 series of digital prints and how they apply to garment's pattern.
( video courtesy of No Editions )

No Editions questions the idea of the high end fashion garments in the age of intensive industrial and digital reproduction, bringing back the aura of uniqueness without the hand-crafted touch often attached to this idea, as every item is produced only once with a unique print design following the elaborated process of the print creation : Digital movies issued of different web cams or online feeds are dissected in series of 60 stills that will then be digitally printed onto 60 clothing items, and after that prints are never to be used again, kept only as part of the label's online records.
For Fall 10 the prints are focused on three elements, Earth, Weather and Faces, digitally printed on almost elemental shapes coats or felt, tops of silk and polyester, leather jackets or Japanese denim jeans. But you won't recognize anything in the print, as they end up being mostly abstract block of color, created in series of variations around a print, developed on various artistic, personal or sequential criteria and never ever random manual or mechanical finishing. This the dogma of the label's German design duo, Christian Niessen and Nicole Lachelle, but don't necessarily need to know or fully understand all that to just like the result.

Western mysteries - Cerre Fall 10

L.A based design and life duo Flavie and Clayton Webster choose Paris to launch their first ready to wear collection. Established in 2005, their label Cerre started with handbags and accessories, playing around with their fetish material, leather of all kinds. For this Fall 10, Cerre showed a capsule collection of knits, denim jeans, suede and leather coats and jackets handmade in the finest italian leather and the softest wools, and overall there is in Cerre's first take on womenswear a mystic that only exist in the american far west, where dark rock meets folk, where native american heritage mixes in with the old european ancesters traditions. Results a modern nostalgic collection following the will of the Webters to create tomorrow's antiques. So if you're in L.A you should pop by their amazing mini universe shop located at 1647 N. Las Palmas Ave, Holywood, and take a dive into their world, where, as they quote as a guiding phrase : " Beauty is sacred, Craft is ritual, Quality is Law".

Clayton and Flavie Webster from Cerre.

In Bed with Generation 11 !

Installation from Nick Rosenboom

There's a only a couple of influencial schools for fashion in Europe, and amongst them is the dutch ArtEZ Institute of the Arts with it's master's course known to most as the Fashion Institute Arnhem. The likes of Victor & Rolf or Lucas Ossendrijver of Lanvin's menswear followed the Arnhem school before getting the success we know. For this season, Fashion Institute Arnhem presented 8 of their new graduates, the Generation 11, during Paris fashion week. Art directed by creative duo Freudenthal / Verhagen the presentation took the form of an installation, a kind of fashion dorm where each desinger had it's (bed)room, putting the visitor deep into the labels universes. The level of the students is incredibly high, but a couple of them stand out of the lot, Oda Pausma who works a strong fetishy womenswear with leather under-bra and soft fluid transparent silk suit, Rebecca Ward with her organic shaped printed dresses and trousers that remind us ( with emotion ) of the late Mc Queen, or Nick Rosenboom whose wood print stayed in my head for long.

Installation and looks from Oda Pausma

Installation and look by Rebecca Ward

Turning Japanese - Bernhard Wilhelm Fall 10

If you managed to go through the hordes of fashionistas crowding the stairs of Palais de la Bourse, you would have realised that there was no rush as what everyone thought would be a show was in fact a presentation. Wilhelm set different "tableaux vivants" where models were either flooding the chic wooden floors with a strange green gelly out of plastic teapots while holding "baguette" sticks or stretching and lifting weights, stabing a paper wall and other incongruous activities in a very hysteric manga esthetic. Fashion wise it was good old Wilhelm, fluid ethnic print dress, bicolor richelieu on heels, japanese lettered black and white karate outfits and more unidentifiable looks, needs to be said the crowd was as dense inside than ouside and circulation around the "instalation" was pretty difficult, but it's Bernhard Wilhelm, it's fun and refreshing , and that makes you want to part of it.

Photos by Randy Harris for DossierJournal.com

Robin Reacts : Beige Overdose

BEIGE OVERDOSE
The egg and the chicken

And we're only starting.

I am already wishing for a maximalist comeback. Please!

And we had seen it coming....

1 - Martin Margiela SS2007

2 - Celine by Phoebe Philo SS2010 (designed by MM ex assistant)

3 - Chloë by Hannah McGibbon (ex Phoebe Philo's assistant) FW2010-2011

Back To The Future - Balenciaga Fall 10

"The future called and wants it's jumpers back"
Robin Schullié

photos from WWD

Sleeper in Metropolis - Anthony Vaccarello Fall 10

For his Fall Winter 2010-11 collection, Anthony Vaccarello plays with the contrast of textures around a palette of black, mainly in transparency, creating a urban and graphic lingerie. Mixtures of velvet and veils, assembled by embroidery stitches to create a graphic silhouette that plays with the body, for a woman who wears her femininity as an armor. When worn, transparent parts of the garment creates unexpected lines, almost strange, like a new angle, which can be topped by a straight double coat or masculine jacket. The pure lines and graphics that characterize the collection, where Art Deco meets Metropolis, are gathered in a series of jewelry, structures without stones, like cold metal folded into it’s body, purified to its simplest form.

Lou Doillon in Anthony Vaccarello Fall 10 by Julia Champeau