American Woman

The fashion world is all abuzz; that wonderful time of the year has come again: the Costume Institute Gala and the accompanying exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute. This year, the exhibit is called American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity (May 5, 2010-August 15, 2010).

The exhibit itself has a pretty interesting history. The Brooklyn Museum could no longer afford to maintain its impressive costume collection, so in 2009,  the Met agreed to take charge of storing and maintaining the collection while the Brooklyn Museum still has access to it. As if to prove that point, American Woman does not have its own exhibit catalog. Instead, it is sharing a catalog with the Brooklyn Museum's sister exhibit, American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection (May 7, 2010-August 1, 2010).

The Met's own exhibit seeks to define the American woman as she presented herself at the beginning of the 20th century. According to WWD, the exhibit is divided up into several sections--the Heiress; the Gibson Girl (a Victorian prelude to the flapper); the Bohemian; the Suffragists; the Patriots; the Flapper; and the Screen Siren. The last room has videos and photographs devoted to America's style icons past and present.

Kyle Ericksen/ WWD

The categories are a somewhat curious choice, considering that some of the styles presented in the exhibit--most notably the Suffragists and the Bohemians--didn't affect the majority of American women. Obviously, the curators, as well as sponsors Vogue and the Gap, want us to draw connections with today's fashion trends (with varying degrees of success). The exhibit comes with the inevitable discussion on what, exactly, makes American style American. And who personifies American style? 

Most agree that American style is defined by a certain functionality, simplicity and independence, which Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton hopes each section of the exhibit encompasses. As for the quintessential American woman, he says that it's Sarah Jessica Parker (who narrates the audio guide tour).
"She is such a style icon, but apart from that, she is very adaptable in terms of the clothes she wears,” Bolton said. “She is somebody who costumes herself into roles. When you think of Sarah Jessica Parker, you almost think of a flapper, because she has this remarkable joie de vivre about her. Michelle Obama represents this idea of a democratic way of dressing high and low and is a contemporary patriot or suffragist. Chloë Sevigny may be a Bohemian, and Scarlett Johansson the Screen Siren."

The fact that you can't really name one perfect example of American style, or that all of these women are celebrities in some way, speaks volumes about how we as Americans treat fashion today.

Meet the CFDA Finalists

 The CFDA/ Vogue Fashion Fund Award is one of the industry's most important award for emerging designers: the grand prize includes a grant of $200,000 and mentoring by established industry professionals. Vogue published a short profile of each nominee in its November issue.There was a mix of women's apparel designers, men's apparel designers, and accessories designers. Despite the different categories, all the designers were similar in a sense: each designer either preserves traditional craft methods in their work or utilizes sustainable practices. I picked my favorites below--feel free to post yours in the comments! Who do you think should win and why? (All images Norman Jean Roy/Vogue. Click to enlarge.)

Women's Apparel: Gary Graham 

 Graham attended the Art Institute of Chicago and worked with Broadway costume designers before entering the world of fashion design. He now has a store in Tribeca that, according to him, is meant to evoke the backstage area of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. All the world's a stage for the woman who wears Gary Graham: his collections clearly evoke certain eras of costume history while taying completely on trend. It's no small feat to balance costume and fashion, and I think Graham has succeeded. His use of darks and lights, as well as his innovative finishing processes, make his clothes look used and new at the same time. His work creates a haunting bridge between the past and present while questioning the nature of fashion in the process. 

Men's Design: Patrik Ervell

 Patrik Ervell never planned on becoming a fashion designer:  he studied the economy of industrialized societies at UC Berkeley. He moved to New York and made some T-shirts for Opening Ceremony--the rest is history. Ervell is known for designing beautifully fitting suits and utilizing fabric in strange new ways. For his Spring 2010 show, he explored the theme of Americana: he took that most American fabric cotton and invented a way to get metal to rust on fabric.

Accessories Design: House of Waris 

 

You may have seen Waris Ahluwalia in some Wes Anderson films, but he's really a jewelry designer. Ahluwalia is known for his unique designs: beautiful, handcrafted, one-of-a-kind. Ahluwalia used to have his jewelry made in New York but now produces all of his jewelry in Jaipur, India, to protect and encourage Old World craft techniques. Unfortunately, his website doesn't have any images of his jewelry, but here's a close-up of one of his famous bird pendants:

 

House of Waris/WWD.com

As for the winner, I think it will be Sophie Theallet. Her work is more traditional than the other nominees', but, like them, her focus is on preserving and adapting traditional crafts for a new era. Her designs are beautiful, her color sense spot-on, her construction impeccable. If she wins this award, it will be well-deserved.

Paris Fashion Week: Lanvin

All images WWD.com 

Albar Elbaz certainly knows how to put on a show. His Spring 2010 RTW show was both a celebration of austere elegance and a comment on the modern woman. 

Elbaz claims that his show was inspired by his customers: high-powered women who run the world by day, but "collapse" when they come home. His collection was asymmetrical, often with one shoulder or limb bared, despite the protective envelope of the rest of the garment, often broad swaths of cloth barely controlled by pleating and draping. None of the silhouettes in this collection were new: tulip skirts, kimono-style dresses, jumpsuits, broad shoulders. We've seen these before. However, Elbaz has repackaged them in an intelligent concept. His emphasis was on the horizontal: each outfit came with a belt. By bisecting his modern women, he showed how her intellectual and sexual sides were, by unfortunate necessity, separate, but had every chance of forming a beautiful whole.

The materials used were, of course, stunning. According to style.com, Elbaz used polyester for the incredible jumpsuits and invented a new way of quilting. Some dresses had a chiffon over-layer. There were several leather dresses--a material tough but pliant, again, a comment on his customer--that showed lots of originality and lots and lots of sequins. In addition, the show had some interesting styling choices: there were several transparent tops (a remark on vulnerability?), and dresses layered over each other, creating a remarkable whole.

A lot of the Spring 2010 RTW shows have been beating us over the head with nostalgia, like crazy neoconservatives and a recession couldn't have told us that the 80s were back. Elbaz's collection shows the mark of a great designer: he's taken several shapes that, in many lesser hands were tired and gleefully frumpy, and injected a much-needed shot of intelligence and grace.

Updates

Interesting. Two updates on articles that appeared on the Contrast blog recently.

Christian Lacroix, as I wrote at the beginning of the month, is currently in a state of limbo. Last anyone heard about the company, the Borletti Group, a group that currently backs two Italian department store chains, was going to place a bid. Now it's been reported by WWD that an Ajman sheikh has placed a bid. Unlike previous bidders, this mystery man would allow Lacroix's couture business to remain intact.

Also, the Daily Mail is reporting that fast fashion is losing its legendary popularity in Britain. We at Contrast have already written twice about the dangers of fast fashion. According to the new Daily Mail article, High Street "supermarkets" are starting to drop the cheap, ill-made lines and expand into more expensive territory--dresses, knits, and such. This shift is partly because customers are now buying more expensive clothing that will last longer. In addition, the supermarkets want to attract a more "middle class" customer. What, so the poors don't deserve pretty, well-made clothing? If only there was a way to get cheap, nice clothing without exploiting or excluding anyone. A girl can dream, right?

The Fall of the House of Lacroix

Fall Fashion Week has rolled around again but one important contributor is missing from the Paris shows: Christian Lacroix.

Image from Magnum

The photography agency Magnum released some images from past Lacroix shows--a way to remember what has been lost and what can still be saved.

Lacroix did not exactly have a normal path as a designer. He initially went to school for museum studies in Paris but soon caught the eye of the fashion crowd. In the early 80s, he found a job at Jean Patou where he rubbed shoulders with Bernard Arnault, now at LVMH Moet Henessey Louis Vouitton. In 1987, Lacroix received funding from LVMH to start his own line. His first collection rocked the couture world: his bright colors and costuming techniques shook Paris from a dark, tailored rut.

Yet for all the praise he received from the fashion world, Christian Lacroix the company was never succesful. It went through 11 CEOs in about 20 years, Lacroix claiming that none of his backers ever wanted to put enough money into the company. Finally in 2005, the house was bought by the Falic Group, a duty-free airport chain. Obviously this is an odd choice of investor. Perhaps Falic wanted to enter into the fashion world, or it wanted to involve the house in lower-market branding opportunities. Due to the recession, Falic announced the comapany's bankruptcy in May of this year. The house hadn't turned a single profit in all the years of its existence. Falic slashed the company in size from 125 to 12 employees and has mentioned the possibility of selling ties, perfume, and the like in airport shops. This fate may have been averted when Borletti Group, yet another middle-brow investor (this time the owner of two Italian department store chains), placed a bit in late July.

Why is all of this corporate mumbo-jumbo necessary? Only to provide context for a wider trend in the fashion world. As this summer's Valentino: The Last Emperor also pointed out, the fashion industry tends to follow the financial world's business model du jour in ways that are not productive to the artistic process. In the 80s, it was licensing; in the 90s, mergers and diversification (for example, LVMH--both a fashion conglomerate and a champagne producer and exporter, among other things); now, it's public trading on the stock market. As fashion houses like Valentino and Lacroix get bought up by investors looking to turn a profit, artistic license will most certainly be compromised. Lacroix's clothing is clearly art--not always in the best taste, but still art--and commercial interests will only damage his reputation. Whether or not the designer recovers from this particular setback, it is very clear that the fashion industry has witnessed the end of an era.

Vogue Australia gets pretty cover and we don't.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary this fall, Vogue Australia has put Cate Blanchett on the cover of its September issue. And it isn't just any old photograph, oh no:

According to WWD, the September issue will have not one, but four different illustrated covers. Jealous! And who are we getting for our September issue? Oh yeah, Charlize Theron. The September issue is always the biggest issue of the year in the fashion world--both in terms of advertising content and physical weight. This year, American fashion magazines will be about a third lighter than last year's due to declining advertising revenue. Ouch. Vogue Australia is taking a big gamble on its September issue--the previously mentioned four different colors, an 11 USD edition that comes in a gold box, a 10 page swimsuit spread with designs especially created for the issue by such houses as Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana. But hey, we should all splurge on our birthdays. Congrats to Vogue Australia: here's hoping for another 50 years.

Opportunity............

WWD reports that Anna Wintour is working with Mayor Bloomberg on a program to get customers back in stores (it will be announced next week).

Details to follow...

Costume Institute Gala Benefit

WWD was at the Costume Institute Gala Benefit tweeting like crazy! They provided updates every few minutes about who was there, what they said, and most importantly: what they were wearing. It was almost like being there.They also already posted a slideshow of pictures from the event. Both Ciara and Ashley Olsen were rocking backless black and white floor length gowns:

Whose do you like better?

Social Media's Impact on Fashion

“Online marketing is the most powerful way we can reach our younger customer,” said Sheena Sauvaire, Topshop’s head of marketing. “To be perfectly honest, we have to be using this medium.”
Topshop well knows the power of bloggers. An unofficial Topshop page on MySpace has been sparking about 20 percent of the visitors to topshop.com, according to Sauvaire. The company provides Topshop’s blogger there with details of company events and news. It’s one of the brand’s newest attempts to stir interest via social networking sites, a tactic the retailer first tried three years ago.

- Samantha Conti, "Fashion's New Circuit: Social Networks", WWD. Read the rest of the article here.

Grey Gardens

"It’s time that we put into the media people and events that illuminate our own experience through theirs. When you see “Grey Gardens” there’s something to be learned from that. In spite of managing to live on very little income, they’re survivors and there’s love there between the two of them, and a lot of talent. I’ve spoken to people who know good voices and they say Edith could very well have been a professional singer. And the fashion world has been so excited by Edie’s fashionable dresses."

-Director Albert Maysles (who came to Vassar to speak!) on Grey Gardens in WWD

Top Ten

WWD has come out with their list of the top ten collections of Fall 2009.

Burberry Prorsum
Chanel
Christian Dior
Comme des Garcons
Lanvin
Louis Vuitton
Marc Jacobs
Marni
Prada
Ralph Lauren

Watch the slideshow here.

Social Media's Impact on Fashion

"This new wave of microblogging — Twitter and Tumblr — really appealed to me because you’re publishing but you’re not asking for comments. I sort of don’t care what you think. The other thing I like about it is it’s bringing many of the elements we preach together....To get an emotional connection, it doesn’t have to be so curated and art directed."

-James Gardner, CEO of Interactive Agency who represent brands such as Balenciaga, Burberry, Gucci, Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney, discussing the impact of developing social media on fashion advertising and relations in WWD.

Fashion Tweets

Garance Dore is on Twitter!

Ugh, she's so cool....
Also if you happen to be on twitter, make sure you are following TheMoment, NYTimesStyle, and Women'sWearDaily. Even in Pougkeepsie you can get play by play updates of global fashion.

Calvin Cameo

For those of you who are relaxing and watching a lot of TV over this spring break, you might have noticed Calvin Klein's cameo last night on 30 Rock. The episode is entitled "The Bubble," if you would like to watch it online. In this episode, Jon Hamm, who plays Tina Fey's boyfriend, demonstrates the joy of being beautiful. When walking down the street with Tina Fey, Hamm is complimented on his looks by a stranger and has his parking ticket torn up by a traffic warden. Then, Klein taps him on the shoulder and asks, "I am Calvin Klein and I think you should be my next underwear model." It is no surprise he was featured, his daughter, Marci Klein, is the executive producer of the show.

Watch it for yourself:

Marc Jacobs is Engaged!

Marc Jacobs and long term boyfriend Lorenzo Martone are engaged. The designer and his ad executive boyfriend, who have been together for about a year, will go public with the news beginning Thursday, when they arrive in Brazil wearing rings. The couple is headed to Martone’s native Sao Paolo for a fete celebrating the Marc Jacobs multibrand store there, which opened in January. They have not set a wedding date.
-WWD

WWD

Want to know what is happening in the fashion world the minute it happens? Women's Wear Daily is on Twitter! Right now they are posting play by play accounts of Milan Fashion Week.
http://twitter.com/womensweardaily

Pam Anderson for Vivienne Westwood?

WWD’s confirming last month’s wild rumor that Pamela Anderson’s the face of Vivienne Westwood for Spring 09.

The former Jane columnist, or Baywatch star, whichever, stars alongside Dame Viv and her husband Andreas Kronthaler in her Malibu trailer.

Juergen Teller’s shot the ads, no surprise there, in which Pam rocks all four of Vivienne’s labels - Red, Gold, Anglomania and MAN.

Apparently, Viv was as surprised as I was to see Pam sitting front row in a smashing gold dress at September’s Red Label show during London fashion week. She was so blown away, in fact, that when it came time to pick the models for the spring campaign she eschewed them altogether in favor of Pam.

We’d have picked a second round of Dita, but we’ll be patient, we swear.