2009 Killed Fashion As We Knew It - The Cut |
- 2009 Killed Fashion As We Knew It - The Cut
- 6 Emerging Designers to Watch This Fashion Month - The New York Times
- The Week In Review: Fashion Braces for Its Most Political Season Yet - GQ
- Zendaya says fashion has made her 'more courageous' - Page Six
- Fall Fashion Preview: The runway pieces that Southern California retailers are most excited about this season - Los Angeles Times
| 2009 Killed Fashion As We Knew It - The Cut Posted: 06 Sep 2019 06:11 AM PDT  What we talk about when we talk about 2009. Photo-Illustration: by Stevie Remsberg; Photo by Dennis Valle Your own time: You love to see it! Good luck trying. We're suspended in it, swimming through Jell-O, with all the clarity that suggests. Sometimes you can only see where you are by looking at where you were. Ten years ago, when I was a young fashion writer, things looked different, but not dark-to-light different. "President Trump" existed — as a Simpsons character. I was sure we'd never give up BBM. My in-box, that searchable tomb, from September 2009: a birthday reminder (from Friendster), notice of a Netflix delivery (on DVD), a newsletter from Refinery 29, their list of the best models who blog. Recognizable, but off. It was today in embryo, today 1.0: a huge terrain to cover in a mere decade, but not an impossible one. Blink, and you're here. Thus does the mold of history gel and set. This week, we're looking back to the year 2009 in fashion and the culture of fashion, a time that feels, in hindsight, painfully naive — really, almost sweet. Sure, there was a recession, with real anxiety and even realer layoffs at all the major magazines. But the near future was so unknowable as to feel absurd now. Fears about bloggers and front rows now look like the calm before the digital storm. This was before Instagram, before influencers, and for all intents and purposes, before much thought in fashion went into diversity or inclusivity (the famous black issue of Vogue Italia had come out the summer before). If anyone discussed "direct to consumer" shopping, it wasn't with the consumer, or at least not this one. All of this was a nascent dream then. But it's the disrupted then, which has brought us to the disrupted now. In September 2009, I was working for a website — funny how this happens — that no longer exists. I was struggling manfully to elbow my way into a world that was changing more than I knew. We'd all had our teeth rattled by the crash a year earlier, whose shocks, by some measures, were worse than those of 1929, and were settling into the grim reality of recession. (Sound familiar? The next may already be on its way.) Fashion, which trafficks in fantasy, was trying to grin through the worst of it, see the Champagne coupe half-full, but uneasiness spilled over. Facing a shrinking economy and an exploding internet, the old walls that closed off fashion were starting to shake. As they fell, the industry began experimenting with ways to dismantle them — some successful (Rent the Runway, launched November 2009, now valued at $1 billion), some surreal (step right up to Fashion's Night Out, where the Olsen twins will mix you a drink or Oscar de la Renta will personally serenade you for your shopping dollars), some disastrous (pooling individual magazines into crowdsourced hubs). In 2009, even more in retrospect than at the time, the old rules were wobbling and the new ones hadn't yet been written. Members of the fashion press, retailers, and brands, even legacy ones, wondered among themselves where the industry was going, and what place might remain for them in what looked like a new world. "There's a renaissance brewing," my friend and colleague Tim Blanks said to Anna Wintour at a show during that Spring '10 season. "Well," she said crisply, "we're all ready for it." The crowds at Bergdorf Goodman at the inaugural Fashion's Night Out: après ça, le déluge. Photo: Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image There was a renaissance brewing. Fashion's fantasy, once foisted onto the many by the few, was opening wide. An eager public lapped it up — they wanted, and were finally invited, in. At the first Fashion's Night Out in September, the "stimulus package" event Vogue stage-managed, crowds thronged and lines formed: It was fashion turned contact sport, whether or not it made much money for the stores it was hoping to save. The public appetite for style seemed insatiable. Websites (like this one!) catalogued every new outfit of our new icons, including a vibrant First Lady who wore young American designers and J.Crew. And new stars were exploding: the Gossip Girl girls, a young model named Karlie Kloss who'd debuted, at 15, two years before. Even the little clubhouses, fashion's private quarters, were beset, and being overrun: That spring, the Beatrice closed its doors, and by the fall, the Jane had, too, victims of their own success. They'd been smoky, noisy, the neighbors hated them; we loved them, of course. I'll always treasure the night in the Beatrice backroom when Kirsten Dunst accidentally elbowed me in the face. It wasn't only models who blogged. Fashion obsessives did too, and that season, they blogged their way to the very front row, in an undreamt-of crashing of the gates. 13-year-old Tavi Gevinson, an Oak Park savant in a crushed hat, was a front-row coup her first season in New York. In Milan that season, the exuberant Bryanboy, who enthused from his bedroom in Manila, was seated sequin-to-cardigan with Vogue's Sally Singer; Tommy Ton, who'd go on to be one of the biggest names in still rising street style, was a few seats down. Photos of it are few and far between: Dennis Valle, who worked at Dolce & Gabbana at the time in digital and marketing, took the lone photo that he circulated himself, when the usual photographers didn't for fear of offending Anna Wintour. "It suddenly became clear that the fashion establishment must now share space with, as one blogger has put it 'outsiders looking in,'" The Financial Times reported. "It is not a question of whether online fashion media is a growing force," Antoine Arnault, scion of the family that owns LVMH, the world's largest luxury group, told the paper, "but of where it will stop." The epochal D&G front row: Suzy Menkes, Michael Roberts, Bryanboy, Sally Singer, Anna Wintour, Hamish Bowles, and Tommy Ton. Photo: © Dennis Valle Online had barely cracked the perimeter of fashion, which still fetishized the printed page. There was carping from the establishment about the ingress of new voices —"I think she's very dear, but I think it's crazy," one style editor told the Cut back then about Tavi — but the blogs and forums were invigorating. (They also offered opportunities to a newly formed Recession Generation who graduated into a world that wasn't hiring.) Debates raged in comments sections and forum posts, and it was clear that designers themselves, even up to the top of the food chain, were reading, too. Tavi had the last laugh: magazines began commissioning her, until she decided to go out and improve upon them herself, founding Rookie, an online journal (later, a print "Yearbook") that spoke more directly to young women like herself than the magazines could. An even greater tectonic shift was right around the corner: This was the last year before Instagram upended the very way the industry saw, and disseminated, itself. It has become the preeminent platform to see fashion — more than the magazines, more than TV, more than the red carpet. After its advent, Alexander Wang told me in 2014, "The way that we shoot it, the way that we showcase it and the way that we make the clothes and design them changed." If the bloggers represented the start of a new democracy in fashion, Instagram would complete the transformation. With it would come a new breed of bloggers: the influencers, who became the magazines, the models, and the front row all at once. They began attending the shows — you can imagine which row the most popular of them are placed in — but they don't even need the shows. They are the shows. The shows need them. But even in 2009, the metamorphosis of fashion, from the demesne of a cloistered elite to the main stage of a global mass entertainment, was well underway. Only about ten years earlier, the fashion shows and those who attended them represented a kind of café society. Tim told me once that he'd started going to shows so that he could see the things he'd read about in W Magazine, "like Nan Kempner's ankles." (Kempner, who died in 2005, was the original "social X-ray" in Tom Wolfe's coinage, and a couture client par excellence.) Women like Kempner — lifelong customers, with means, history, and avid interest — were taken for granted as the ideal audience. Now, more and more people were paying attention, and had more ways to do so. If you couldn't be at the shows, you could see them on your desktop, then your phone, and with the media landscape uncertain, it became everyone's job and everyone's safeguard to start feeding the machine. Fashion on screen(s) was not new. It was enjoying a particularly front-and-center moment on TV just then: Sex and the City, which had introduced Manolo-envy to millions, was enjoying its second life, in syndication; the first film had been a hit the year before, and the second would arrive the next year. But even more of the talk just then was focused on its hormonal, teenaged successor for fashion fanaticism, Gossip Girl, which began its third season that September. The label-conscious adventures of Serena, Blair, and the gang had already had a "profound" impact on shopping (so said Stephanie Solomon, the fashion director for Bloomingdale's), and that season, its cast members were everywhere during New York Fashion Week. Is there a more 2009 image than Leighton Meester front row at Proenza, giving the Terry Richardson thumbs-up with Uncle Terry himself? Thumbs up! Photo: Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image If they were fashion fan-fiction, films and shows cropped up purporting to show fashion fact. The Devil Wears Prada had been a hit in 2006, and in August 2009, Vogue's counteroffensive, The September Issue, opened in New York, to show, in the words of its director, R.J. Cutler, "the real Anna Wintour," not the Oscar-nominated Streep amalgam. The year before, Rachel Zoe had gone from red-carpet stylist to newly minted reality star; the second season of her Rachel Zoe Project premiered in August, too. Kelly Cutrone, the fire-breathing PR fixture, whose cameos on The Hills and The City got her a book deal, was filming a show of her own: The Kell on Earth cameras began rolling that fashion week. And the collections? Some labels were hoping to get a bit of star shine whichever way they could — in September, the house of Ungaro appointed Lindsay Lohan as "artistic adviser." (She lasted one season, made heart-shaped nipple pasties.) But back then, fashion was still making its own stars. All anyone could seem to talk about in 2009 was the onrush of a group of young New York designers — curiously or not, all male, all gay, all Asian — who had been variously and collectively anointed the next big thing. The previous anointees, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler — at 28, still constantly referred to as "the boys" — were settling into seriousness, or at least being taken seriously. Behind them raced Alex Wang, Thakoon Panichgul, Jason Wu, Derek Lam, Joseph Altuzarra, Phillip Lim, and Prabal Gurung. They weren't all strictly new, more like a first and a second wave — Wang had been staging fashion week shows since 2007, Lam, Lim and Panichgul even longer — but they suddenly had a charge. Michelle Obama wore Wu to her husband's first inaugural ball in 2009; thereafter, he was a star. Panichgul's star rose with The September Issue, in which he appeared as Wintour's chosen one. And Wang, the boy prince, was the hottest of all: irrepressible (he literally barreled down the runway to take his bow), inexhaustible, so eager to begin that he didn't even bother to finish his Parsons degree. Wang, shooting toward the future. Photo: Thomas Concordia/WireImage/Getty Images He was a comer, and that season, he came. Up until that point, he'd been mostly known for what came to be called the "model off duty look": he palled around with the models and dressed them how they dressed themselves, which is to say, simply and shruggingly, in mostly black. He was young, they were young. But that September, he staged a show — the first with a newly-hired stylist, the influential editor Karl Templer — that leveled the field, put him on par with his elders. When you were in New York – and international editors and retailers came in bulk to New York — there was buzz and spectacle to go around, but you wanted to see Marc Jacobs and you wanted to see Wang. He was fun, he was photogenic, he threw the parties everyone wanted to get into: That season, he had the party of the week, taking over a westside gas station and letting guests run amok, pilfering what they pleased. He understood what his customers wanted, not the Nan Kempners, but his contemporaries. The collections would be great one season, so-so the next, but that almost didn't matter: The energy was all. That season, it was infectious. His accessories were so popular — an open-toed, high-heeled combat boot in particular —that in the months that followed, a Vogue market editor had to ask her editors to stop shooting it. Was it the beginning of something, or the end? The world was watching, and fashion had to get bigger, draw more eyes, be more exciting. The Bryant Park era was coming to a close after 16 years: It had been announced in February that the tents, a metonym for the industry itself if ever there were one, would come down the next spring. And yet, in the decade that followed, New York fashion has struggled to fulfill the promise of designers like Wang, or like Rodarte, the sisters from Pasadena whose "California condor" collection that season was a spooky marvel. Even those people who are cheerleaders in public huff privately that there's less and less to see. European editors and retailers come less, and for less time. The most ambitious designers of New York have a habit of heading to Paris when they spot a chance, with mixed success. The noise of New York Fashion Week (did you RSVP to this season's Cheetos House of Flamin' Haute fashion show?), the cost, and the timing have made some wonder whether it's a particularly efficient mode of communication when so many others are now available, and some, like Wang, have thrown it over altogether, to show off season. I can't recall a time when there was a collective excitement about New York designers the way there was then. The designers who elicited it are still going, though one wonders if some of them have outlasted their store of fresh ideas. New designers and movements have bubbled up in turn, many of them exciting: a changing of the guard (Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia taking over for their mentor, Oscar de la Renta, after his death); the art-school moment (Eckhaus Latta, Vaquera); an overdue redistribution of attention to designers of color (Hood by Air, Telfar, Pyer Moss). And of the mainstays, a few remain, Marc Jacobs above all. Still, staleness persists. When Vogue compiled a list of its most important collections of the 2010s in July, it was notable that not one New York collection was included. The most influential design of the past decade came instead from Europe: most of it with the backing of major corporations. Against Goliaths, even worthy Davids wilted. And there were great things to see, being made within the plush confines of major houses! We were on the precipice of Phoebe Philo's Celine; her first runway collection was shown that season. Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent, Alessandro Michele's Gucci, and Balenciaga's Demna Gvasalia would follow. Raf Simons's Calvin Klein was supposed to bring some of that spark and verve to New York, but despite some fireworks and a whole hell of a lot of popcorn, it didn't amount to much. What happened? I don't think any single thing. For one thing, there's just too much: too many shows, too much product, too many opinions to weigh, too much expectation, too many blurry, model-in-motion Instagrams from the runway to like, like, like, like. (The CFDA, mindful of these complaints, has mercifully contracted the NYFW show schedule a bit this season.) The glut of choice and the freedom to share yours will set you free, but it can also snow you under. We ate all our gas station candy, and maybe we feel a little sick. Partygoers getting into the candy at the Wang gas station after-party. Photo: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images But there's also not enough — not enough design that really matters, that changes the way we see. The smaller, more gated fashion industry of decades before had been ruled by auteurs, men and women like Martin Margiela and Miuccia Prada, who could, in a single piece, set the tone — if not for the entire world, certainly for its fashionable corners. (Was Margiela the canary in the coal mine? Having sold his label to Renzo Rosso, the Diesel czar, seven years before, he exited it, and the industry altogether, sometime in the fall or winter of 2009.) The widening of fashion's scope brought in a cacophony of new voices, and the loudest of all turned out to be those not of the designers, but of the brands — no accident, the biggest and best-adapted to survive. When the brand reigns, the logo T-shirt returns, and the creative-director tenure shortens. When Tom Ford quit Gucci, a company he restored to prominence, all the way back in 2003, it was in a kind of existential dispute with its luxury-group owners, who wanted to exert greater control: The implicit message was that brand was bigger than he was. It turned out to be a kind of prophecy fulfilled. Phoebe Philo's Celine could become Hedi Slimane's Celine, effectively its inverse, basically overnight: Celine was Celine. A few years ago, I sat over canapés at Cova in Milan with the fashion director of a major department store chain, wondering what about the announcement that Peter Dundas, then the designer of Emilio Pucci, was leaving would mean for the store's Pucci business. Not much, she said. Her customers assumed Pucci designed it. Emilio Pucci died in 1992.  |
| 6 Emerging Designers to Watch This Fashion Month - The New York Times Posted: 06 Sep 2019 03:46 PM PDT  Image  Fall Risk by John TargonJohn Targon, 36, New York John Targon is already a familiar name in the fashion world. As a co-founder of the New York-based brand Baja East and the former creative director of Marc Jacobs's contemporary ventures, the 36-year-old Chicago native has been in the industry's limelight on and off for half a decade. In 2017, after leaving Baja East, Targon took a step back from fashion. "I wanted to shut the door on shame and bring forward my life's learnings," he says. This ultimately led to his new label, Fall Risk by John Targon, which he launched in April of this year. The name is lifted from the wristbands given to medical patients, which caught Targon's eye when he was looking out for an intoxicated friend at a hospital in New York. "Life is unexpected and these chapters of our story are both humbling and hilarious — your clothes should reflect that," he says. Instead of showing seasonal collections, Targon is selling his garments — which are inspired by retro sportswear and streetwear — directly to his customers while creating buzz through social media. A knitwear expert, Targon seeks to create comfortable yet thoughtful clothing that is seasonless and uncomplicated. "My clothes should be a second skin so that when you're comfortable in them, well then, they're yours," he says. His latest collection, which will be Fall Risk's fourth, is inspired by the idea of remix, and it references the '70s and '90s as well as pieces from his own past collections. There's also a subtle sports motif, seen in an argyle polo shirt inspired by boarding school uniforms and a chunky powder-blue sleeveless sweater with a shrunken fit. [Sign up here for the T List newsletter, a weekly roundup of what T Magazine editors are noticing and coveting now.] Puppets and PuppetsCarly Mark, 31, and Ayla Argentina, 27, New York Carly Mark and Ayla Argentina met in 2016 through a mutual friend in New York City. Mark was working as a contemporary artist at the time but considering a career change (she had previously interned at Versace and Marc Jacobs before working as a gallery assistant at Gavin Brown's Enterprise). "Once I realized fashion didn't have to be corporate, and the art world was more corporate than I had anticipated, I moved back toward clothes again. This time feeling very free about it," she says. Argentina (who uses the pronoun "they"), had a background in fashion design, having interned and worked for brands such as Ralph Lauren and TSE Cashmere. Mark asked Argentina to collaborate on costumes for a video she was working on for a solo exhibition. Shortly after, Argentina joined Mark's art studio as her costume assistant and they continued to create garments for her work. In 2018, they debuted a collection of their pieces — patchwork suits and dramatic fuzzy dusters inspired by medieval garb — during New York Fashion Week, and the brand Puppets and Puppets was born. For the spring 2020 season, the designers will present their second collection, which Mark describes as "Romanov meets 'American Psycho.'" Expect to see tailored suits evocative of Wall Street businessmen mixed with Russian-inspired outerwear and hoop skirts. "Fashion is so corporate here that there is a pushback happening," Mark says. "Young designers are doing it their way, on their terms, whatever way they want." EftychiaEftychia Karamolegkou, London Eftychia Karamolegkou always had an eye for design. She grew up in Greece surrounded by paintings and hand-carved furniture made by her grandfather, a trained architect and self-taught artist, which continue to define her minimal aesthetic. Later, she worked in graphic design before enrolling in the fashion design master's course at Central Saint Martins and interning for the London-based brands Mary Katrantzou and Marques Almeida. Her graduate collection, shown in 2017, centered on suiting and quickly caught the attention of stores such as Opening Ceremony and Machine A, prompting her to found her own namesake label that same year. The brand still focuses on innovative tailoring; Karamolegkou takes inspiration from office wear, which she then transforms with baggy cuts and neutral colors. "I think I gravitate toward tailoring because it is a kind of secret language," she says. "It has so many codes that by changing details, you can reveal different messages." For her next collection, she mined business meetings and corporate hierarchies for inspiration, creating imaginary characters that informed her pieces. The archetypal chairman, for example, who doesn't need to prove himself and can adopt a more relaxed look, inspired a clean loose fitted shirt paired with relaxed trousers, while for a C.E.O. she designed a full suit. Karamolegkou's signature two-tone technique, in which she mixes tonal browns in one suiting fabric, will reoccur in this collection along with new styles such as a wool mohair Harrington jacket. Paula Canovas del VasPaula Canovas del Vas, 28, London Paula Canovas del Vas was born and raised in Murcia, Spain, where she spent much of her childhood at her mother's bridal dress store learning from the atelier's seamstresses and patternmakers. In 2013, she moved to London to freelance at the British brand Ashish and later interned at Gucci in Rome and Margiela in Paris — but she always wanted to design her own collections and began working on her own label while studying for her master's at Central Saint Martins. In 2018, her graduate collection of fantastically patterned neon jackets was picked up by Dover Street Market in Tokyo. "My tendency is to gravitate toward shieldlike volumes," she says of her oversize, eye-catching shapes. "There is something very comforting about wearing them." This month, Vas will present her third collection in London via a virtual reality installation that will be open to the public. The idea was partly inspired by the idea of voyeurism and the personal broadcasting made possible by social media. "I wanted to offer an alternative to a fashion catwalk and encapsulate the experience in a way that would be long-lasting and democratized," she says. Vas also wanted to give viewers insight into how she sources her upcycled materials and works with artisans in southern Spain to develop her fabrics, such as synthetic patent leather and whimsically embossed knits. One particular dress in the new collection, which was constructed from 10 meters of pink and green dead-stock organza, took two weeks to make. Susan FangSusan Fang, 26, Milan Susan Fang began designing clothes at age 5, for the girls in her comic books. Born in Yuyao, China, she moved from place to place during her childhood, from China to England, Canada and the U.S. "It was a lot of changes," she says. "But it made me extremely interested in the difference between people's perceptions and perspectives." Fang became passionate about exploring the arts, culture and fashion of the places in which she lived, and she eventually settled in London, where she studied fashion at Central Saint Martins. After graduating, she spent two years gaining experience at Celine and Stella McCartney before founding her eponymous label in 2018. Characterized by naturalistic and geometric motifs, her otherworldly pieces include bags made from bubblelike glass beads and sheer pastel dresses, but perhaps her most notable invention is the "airweave," a garment made from strips of featherlight fabric (such as chiffon, yarn) that shape-shifts as the wearer moves, creating the impression, in Fang's words, that her garments "swim between two and three dimensions." Although she is still based in London, Fang will show her spring 2020 collection in Milan, at the invitation of Sara Maino, Editor of Vogue Talents, a platform dedicated to emerging designers. Fang was also shortlisted for the LVMH Prize this year. Her new collection will be filled with optical illusions and unexpected materials, she says: "It will be very surreal and ethereal." Super YayaRym Beydoun, 29, Paris For her placement year at Central Saint Martins, the designer Rym Beydoun decided to go back home to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and take a step back from the fashion scene. "I wanted to be in Africa and reconnect with people and the culture," she explains. While there, she started to teach herself about the different textile weaving, dying and printing techniques of ethnic groups across the continent. Later that year, she interned at Uniwax, a wax print manufacturer in West Africa where she worked with street tailors to make custom suits, and at the Abidjan-based clothing label Laurenceairline. After graduating, she then moved to Beirut to work on her own pieces and in 2017 launched Super Yaya, a line of colorful clothes made from fabrics inspired by the different places where she's lived and traveled. For her next collection, she looked to Indonesia and the tradition of bati, a technique of wax-resist dyeing on fabrics. "I conducted research and gathered old photographs depicting Indonesian dress and compared them to the ones I had from Abidjan, Bamako and Dakar," she says. "I go to places for inspiration, specifically markets where I can exchange and learn from traders. I usually need to build my own research by taking photographs of the people and environment." Her new garments will feature a lot of patchworks made of hand-dyed bazin and wax fabric (both colorful African fabrics made of cotton). These fabrics are manipulated together to create an explosion of color as well as transparency, creating a sensual yet modest feel.  |
| The Week In Review: Fashion Braces for Its Most Political Season Yet - GQ Posted: 06 Sep 2019 11:18 AM PDT  New York Fashion Week begins on Friday, in a city gripped by a new sense of political engagement and social awareness. First, there's the flurry of protest around Hudson Yards, whose developer, Stephen Ross, came under fire in August for hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump in August. There's also a revitalized Council of Fashion Designers of America, newly overseen by Tom Ford (dad!!!!), who earlier this week appointed four new board members to increase the diversity of the industry trade association that supports and promotes American designers. Although the schedule is truncated—another of Ford's wise changes—the shows begin with a background narrative that has more real world implications than the usual palace intrigue. "I'm rearranging the board so that it is more diverse in age and more diverse in every way," Ford told WWD's Bridget Foley, who first reported on the addition of Virgil Abloh, Pyer Moss's Kerby Jean-Raymond, Maria Cornejo, and Carly Cushnie to the board. Their new roles also mean the exit of four older board members (or the transition to "non-voting emeritus status"): Georgina Chapman of Marchesa, jewelry designer Mimi So, rag & bone's Marcus Wainwright, and Kara Ross, a jewelry designer and wife of Stephen. Ford assured Foley that Ross's exit was unrelated to the protests around her husband: "This has absolutely nothing to do with her political views or her [husband's] fundraiser for Trump," he said. Still, the new board reflects an industry that feels more aware of its potential to speak out against injustice and drive political change than ever. In August, Out editor Phil Picardi set the tone with an op-ed declaring that "New York Fashion Week Has a Donald Trump Problem," calling on designers and press to sharpen their awareness of Ross's influence over the fashion industry, which far exceeds his ownership of fashion scene pillars SoulCycle and Equinox. Since then, a number of designers who were planning to show at The Shed, the performance space plunked into the middle of New York's schmanciest mall, announced that they would show elsewhere. For the most part, these designers said, their decisions weren't influenced by Ross's support of Trump, although Prabal Gurung tweeted that his departure for another venue most certainly was. What's notable about this wave of political activism is its brawn: in the wake of the election, fashion's political engagement was mostly expressed through slogan T-shirts and quilted fabrics that suggested a desire for protection. Now, "we are living in crisis mode," Gurung tweeted. Even Rihanna's Savage x Fenty lingerie show, which will be the feel-good highlight of the week, carries political undertones: The Cut wrote that Rihanna has "officially taken over" the market space vacated by the embroiled, Jefrrey Epstein-adjacent Victoria's Secret. Outside the confines of the fashion industry per se, the American garment industry is under a growing amount of pressure from Trump's trade war with China. While it's too early to measure the effects of the higher tariffs that went into effect on September 1, The Wall Street Journal reported in August that a number of apparel companies fear the tariffs will hurt their profits. In another story, the paper reported that the tariffs will affect womenswear more than menswear, because the quicker pace of women's fashion means more women's clothing is made in China, which has the infrastructure and manufacturing skill to better support trend-driven fashion. Should these predictions bear out, will we see a new wave of activism, particularly as some companies begin to move production from China to Bangladesh, which has yet to adequately address its poor treatment of factory workers?  |
| Zendaya says fashion has made her 'more courageous' - Page Six Posted: 06 Sep 2019 05:15 PM PDT  Zendaya, who will show off her new collection with Tommy Hilfiger this weekend at Harlem's Apollo Theater, says for her fashion "is emotional." "It's allowed me to just really say, 'I don't give an F,' " the "Euphoria" star said during the Daily Front Row's Fashion Media Awards, thanking her stylist Law Roach. "Fashion has allowed me to really find out who I am and be more courageous and more fearless." Hilfiger was quick to point out that the actress is more than a muse. "She works," he said. "The day I met her she was incredibly engaged in designing my collection for me. I gave her the tools, I gave her the staff and she and Law jumped in and chose every button, every zipper, every color, every fabric, and she fit everything on herself."  |
| Posted: 06 Sep 2019 07:00 AM PDT For many people, fall is a time to head back to school or the office, go hiking in the autumnal woods before the summer light completely fades or start preparing for the holiday season that's now just a few months away. But for the fashion crowd, fall is a signal to head back to the stores and stock up on this season's chunky sweaters, elegant boots and show-stopping outerwear. Fall is when designers show off their most important looks (many of which were seen on the runways of New York, London, Milan and Paris six months ago) and when retailers try to predict what looks and trends will be most popular with their customers. To get a jump on the season, we talked with more than a dozen influential retail executives in Southern California to see what they thought would be some of the standout fashion items this fall, and also what they were most personally excited about. Here is what they told us. Jay Bell, executive vice president, general merchandise manager, women's, Barneys New York Advertisement "One piece we're most excited to carry for fall is Bottega Veneta's oxblood laser-cut leather collarless coat, exclusive to us. It's the ultimate luxury piece for the season, where modern innovation meets the house's storied artisanship.  This Bottega Veneta laser-cut leather coat is an exclusive to Barneys this season. (Barneys New York) "We believe strongly in fall's shift toward a more understated, smart sense of luxury, led by brands such as Bottega Veneta, the Row, Jil Sander, Co and Loewe. This Loewe shirtdress is surprisingly simple and has charming surprises like jacquard fabric, mixed-media accents and an asymmetric hemline."  A Loewe shirtdress that Barneys' Jay Bell says "has charming surprises." (Barneys New York) Advertisement Sarah Stewart, buying director, Maxfield "Hedi Slimane created a beautiful fall collection for Céline inspired by the French bourgeoisie lifestyle and using the brand's archives. There was a pair of sequin-embellished culottes that perfectly blended Hedi's vintage rock aesthetic with the Parisian savoir-faire. Most of our clients need statement pieces in their wardrobe and this piece definitely is that without being over the top." Olivia Kim, vice president of creative projects, Nordstrom "I love the effortless, pretty-tomboy aesthetic of Scandi-styling with easy, relaxed silhouettes in punchy colors, over muted tones like black and browns. I find myself pairing fanciful, voluminous dresses with sneakers — you don't need a special occasion to wear a fun dress! I'm all about a dressed-down dress. Some of our favorite Scandinavian brands at [Nordstrom's emerging designer concept shop] SPACE include Cecilie Bahnsen, Ganni and Acne Studios. Plus we're excited to introduce brands like Stand, a Stockholm-based brand with cozy statement outerwear."  Fall looks from the Scandanavian designers Cecilie Bahnsen, left, and Ganni. (SPACE at Nordstrom) Marissa Jartcky, buying and merchandising manager, Dover Street Market Advertisement "I can't wait for the Comme des Garçons oversized, single-breasted, three-button jacket coming in later this fall — with its matching dress. Comme makes so many wearable pieces that distill the essence of what's shown on the runway; they're both strong and easy to wear. I'm also excited for all the suiting and outerwear coming in from the Row, worn with these chunky masculine boots. The great thing about these items is that there's no deliberation and no further styling required. They are statement-making and not occasion-specific." Bo Carney, women's buyer, Mohawk General Store "I'm most excited for these knee-high leather boots from A Détacher. They're feminine yet tough, functional and versatile. I'd wear them with midi-length skirts and dresses, slim jeans or tucked into trousers. They're a chic everyday shoe but could also be worn with a skinny pant and oversized blazer for a more polished going-out look.  A Détacher's black pebbled Duarte boots (Mohawk General Store) "This season, we really bought into puff-sleeved shoulders. Personally, I'm not a girly type who wears princess poof shoulders, but this season many of our designers [including Jil Sander and Batsheva] have executed this trend in such a cool way that even I would wear it. It's a mix of feminine and cool and at the same time quite flattering because it makes your torso look small and slim, and I just love the balance between romantic and modern."  A prairie dress in orange moire by Batsheva. (Jeremy Maz) Jennifer Mankins, owner, Bird Advertisement "The piece I'm personally most excited about this fall is Rachel Comey's Dasha psychedelic floral silk short-sleeve dress. It hits all the right notes and trends: It's long and flowy but more clean-lined and modernist than ruffled and romantic. It has a high neck — turtlenecks are a must this fall — and is a wild, super-saturated floral print. It's a perfect combination of '60s and '70s but feels very right now."  Rachel Comey's Dasha dress (Bird) Jenny Le, store director, Opening Ceremony Los Angeles "I'm really excited about the Hydra tank top from LAZOSCHMIDL, a new gender-neutral line we started carrying last year. It would be great as a layering piece with a wildly printed flowy dress or with a button-down shirt underneath and with a suit."  The Hydra tank top from LAZOSCHMIDL. (Opening Ceremony) Courtney Grant, senior buyer contemporary, elysewalker and towne by elysewalker "I went pretty nuts for the Cici cardigan from Ulla Johnson. I bought it in two different colors — 'citrine' for Elyse Walker stores, where my customer is a bit more fashion-forward, and 'blanc' for Towne, our more laid-back, everyday concept store. I love finding effortless, wearable interpretations of trends for our clients, and this cardigan covers a few. First, zebra prints were everywhere for fall — it's the new leopard — and I love Ulla's play on the neon trend with the citrine color — it's so fresh and surprisingly approachable." Ashley Petrie, vice president of merchandising & brand development, Fred Segal "Thinking of all the collections I saw for the season, one that really stood out was Jil Sander — the outerwear and suiting is incredible. With Phoebe Philo leaving [Céline], and that aesthetic disappearing a little bit, it's opened a gap. Jil Sander has obviously been doing it for a long time, but right now I think people are noticing the brand and it's filling that void. It's so effortless, it's so gorgeous, and it really captures the evolution of minimalism and speaks to a wide audience."  A Jil Sander top. (Jeremy Maz / Mohawk General Store) Laura Vinroot Poole, owner and founder of Capitol "I'm excited to carry these feminine, silk slip dresses and robes from the brand Bernadette — designed by mother-and-daughter duo Bernadette and Charlotte de Geyter. They can be worn as a set or separates, and they transition beautifully from day to night. Our customer appreciates a playful print and a dress that's easy to throw on and feels glamorous. On the other hand, the neon day dresses we are carrying from Roksanda, Peter Pilotto and Sies Marjan add some levity to our offering. Neon offers the same mix of colors but is a fresh, playful alternative to the floral trend."  This Raeya midi dress from Roksanda is inspired by the work of artist Rana Begum. (Capitol) Anna Irving, senior vice president, general merchandise manager of women's designer ready-to-wear, Saks Fifth Avenue "For fall, I'm most excited about the nude mirror-embellished jersey shirt dress from Bottega Veneta. I love the ease and simplicity of this look but the mirror embroidery adds the perfect amount of glam — it's both modern and retro at the same time. You can dress this piece up or down, with jeans underneath during the day or a tank dress underneath at night.  A mirror-embellished jersey shirt dress from Bottega Veneta. (Saks Fifth Avenue) "This season we're all about 'the new neutrals' — effortless yet polished dressing. A neutral palette is super sophisticated and a head-to-toe monochromatic look can be such a strong statement. It feels so fresh for fall. Chloé interpreted it in this shirtdress, and also touched on the utility trend but in a feminine and youthful way. The pleated skirt can be buttoned up to resemble a schoolgirl kilt or worn open to showcase the asymmetrical hem.  A stretch virgin wool shirtdress by Chloé. (Saks Fifth Avenue) "And there's this beautiful Brunello Cucinelli coat dress that delivers a lot of drama in head-to-toe white, and is accented with a romantic kimono belt; It feels powerful yet soft."  A Brunello Cucinelli coat dress with a kimono belt. (Saks Fifth Avenue) Lisa Kazor, senior vice president and general merchandising manager, women's apparel, Neiman Marcus Group "Personally, I'm so excited about the novelty skirt this season. An amazing example is this Brunello Cucinelli beaded tulle skirt — an exclusive to us — which is perfect for so many occasions and can be styled day into evening. We saw this in so many novelty skirts this season, this unique approach to modern femininity. We have a great variety of options in stores and online, and we think it's going to be a season favorite for shoppers."  A beaded tulle skirt by Brunello Cucinelli. (Neiman Marcus) Audrey Struve, buyer, Just One Eye "I've always loved the idea of the shoe making the outfit. So often women turn to classic stilettos or pumps for that allure, but this fall is all about the statement boot. I always find myself going back to metallic tones, and the gold booties by Francesco Russo are so versatile. The lower heel makes them a great option to go from day to night. Alexandre Vauthier's ChaCha crytsal-embellished ankle boots are showstoppers. And if you're really looking to make a statement, look no further than these pink patent knee-high boots by Prada. For a totally mod fall look, style these with a mini-dress under a fabulous coat."  Net-a-Porter's Elizabeth von der Goltz predicts a big fall for the square toe sandal, like this one from By Far. (Net-a-Porter) Elizabeth von der Goltz, global buying director, Net-a-Porter "Last season we talked about the 'barely there' sandal — we've sold close to 11,000 pairs of the naked sandals by the Row. The update for fall is the square toe. Brands like By Far, Gianvito Rossi, Neous and Bottega Veneta all made a version, and I think we'll see this everywhere this season. You can wear square-toe boots and heels with dresses, pants, jeans. They're the perfect evolution into fall from summer."  |
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