Men Fashion
Online tie retailer teaches men the vocabulary of vogue with its newly launched Fashion Encyclopedia. In this fashion A-Z men learn everything there is to knot about style – defining everything from fabrics and textiles to accessories to weaving techniques, and much more.
The Encyclopedia of Fashion also includes entries for fashion designers from around the world, explaining a label’s history, specialty and trademark prints and patterns. It is chock-full of interesting trivia for the beginner fashionista. Readers learn that Giorgio Armani was born in Piacenza, Italy and started his label in 1974; the Lacoste fashion house was founded by French tennis star Rene Lacoste in 1933; British fashion designer Paul Smith has no formal training in design; Karl Lagerfeld’s middle name is Otto; Hermes was initially a workshop specializing in harnesses for carriages; and Japanese designer Takada Kenzo started his label without any financial support from his family.
An excellent reference tool for region-specific fashion trends, the Encyclopedia of Fashion chronicles the use of clothing and accessories in different cultures. For instance, an Academic Scarf is a woolen scarf worn to display school pride in the British school system. The Guernsey Sweater, worn by Scottish fishermen, was created on the English Channel island of Guernsey some time in the mid to late 15th century. The Jutti is a traditional style of shoe first created in the Northwest Indian state of Punjab. Lederhosen were originally primarily worn by Bavaria, Germany’s outdoor laborers and eventually fell out of fashion by being associated with the working class. The Nehru jacket, which became popular in India in the 1940s, came into vogue in western countries when The Beatles started wearing them.
Founder Hendrik Pohl says that “It is our goal to be more than the world’s largest tie retailer. That’s why offer detailed shirt and tie matching tips, teach men how to tie a tie, and we also hire fashion experts to educate our customers and readers on the latest trends on our Mens Fashon Blog.” The Fashion Encyclopedia is Ties-Necktie’s latest addition and Pohl plans on opening up the Encyclopedia to allow readers to comment, share, and even to contribute.
New York Fashion Week
Times Reminds the World New York Wasn’t Always a Fashion Capital
The CFDA might stop fighting Italy’s plans to hold Milan Fashion Week on dates that would overlap with New York and London Fashion Weeks, and just begin the New York shows earlier than planned next September. This would be in exchange for a formal agreement with Italy about show dates for 2013, CFDA president Diane Von Furstenberg said. Her statements come even after Condé Nast threatened to have its Vogue editors boycott Milan Fashion Week in favor of attending the New York and London shows — a threat that wasn’t great enough for Milan Fashion Week chief Mario Boselli to change his mind about Milan’s dates.
However the issue will be resolved, it will show which fashion capitals have the most power in the industry. Eric Wilson reports for the Times:
“We have to protect the industry,” Ms. Von Furstenberg said. “To give jobs is the No. 1 responsibility for anyone today, and that’s what we have to realize.”
If the shows go on as planned, Wilson points out, “To see Gucci and Prada in Milan would mean missing Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein in New York.” But would that really be a sign of the apocalypse or just symptomatic of an ever-changing industry? Like clothing trends, certain cities come and go, just not with the same rapidity of harem pants.
Paris has ruled fashion since the mid-19th century, and the American collections did not come into any prominence until World War II. Eila Mell, the author of the recent book “New York Fashion Week,” said that New York carried equal weight with Milan and Paris only after its designers decided, in 1998, to show before the European collections instead of after. In recent years, Milan has faced criticism that its designers, despite their advertising power, are not demonstrating their creative worth.
So New York has only been a true fashion capital for thirteen years, while cities like Rome and Barcelona that are now mere flickers on the dashboard used to carry much more weight. And just think about all the Fashion Weeks there are in the world — from Brazil to Australia to India to China, designers are fighting for significance in every corner of the globe. The luxury industry is enjoying rapid and prosperous growth in Asia, and big labels increasingly take advantage of the marketing opportunity that staging special shows there affords. Of course, convenience will be a huge factor in who gets to be the most powerful on the fashion calendar, since actually going to fashion shows all day every day for a month isn’t nearly as much fun as it should be. (Remember the foot.) As Wilson notes, “For some retailers and editors, who have complained of the ever-expanding duration of the shows and the feeling of being harassed to attend them all, it would be a welcome development for one city or another to fall by the wayside.” You know what, let’s just all stay home and get fat and watch live streams next year. That is clearly the solution.
Ebony Fashion
Ebony Fashion Fair’s Reboot
The legendary traveling show returns to Chicago today, headed this time by the magazine founder’s daughter partnered with Desiree Rogers.
In its heyday, Ebony Fashion Fair was one of the hottest tickets around. Beginning in 1956, the lavishly designed traveling fashion show hit the road with primarily black models, stylists, and makeup artists while also offering African-American communities the rare opportunity to witness international couture designs personally chosen by the late Eunice Johnson, the co-founder of Ebony magazine. On Saturday, fans of the chic production and savvy fashionistas in general will have a chance to purchase a piece of fashion’s past during a live auction at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers in Chicago.
Eunice Johnson and her husband, John H. Johnson, went down in history as the founders of Ebony magazine—but for decades their brand provided the black community with much more: the news. Fashion Fair makeup was a mainstay in the most households during the ‘70s and ‘80s while the ‘90s saw the company expand to African-American-themed greeting cards and beyond. The company, now headed by the Johnsons’s daughter, Linda Rice Johnson Rice, is continuing its expansion of the iconic brand, especially with bringing on former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers as chief executive officer of Johnson Publishing Inc.
‘’My mother changed the way people from vastly different backgrounds experienced fashion.’’ said Johnson Rice, who serves as the chairman of Johnson Publishing. “She loved all beauty in fashion and art and wanted that offered to the black community as well. There was also no way we could continue to house all those clothes because there all so many pieces from so many years. So we wanted to give people a chance to see the clothes and buy them at great prices.’’
Prices for the avant-garde designs range from $50 to $300, which Johnson Rice said is in keeping with her mother’s belief that high style belonged in the everyday lives of all women.
Using her fond memories of attending Pierre Cardin’s 1960s Paris runway show as a 7-year-old as inspiration, Johnson Rice painstaking chose more than 7,000 items of clothing, shoes, and accessories from the company’s large archive collection to sell both in stores and online. The collection mixes well-known names such as Chanel, Christian Dior, Halston, Bill Bliss, Givenchy, and Valentino with largely unheard-of African-American designers.
Johnson Rice’s mother, Eunice Johnson, began traveling the fashion capitals of the world in the early 1950s to find designers to use in her Broadway-patterned fashion shows. The result was the Ebony Fashion Fair, which traveled to 170 cities per year and eventually raised more than $55 million for various African-American charities.
World Fashion Week
One of the country’s most accomplished fashion designers, Ritu Kumar, is the only designer from India to be nominated for the first-ever World Fashion Week, to be held at Capriani in New York City on November 11. The event has come out of the partnership of World Fashion Organisation, International Trade Organisation, Global Entrepreneurship Week, University Network, the Art of Living Foundation and various fashion organisations from around the world. The world premiere of the event will see fashion icons, influential leaders and international media from five continents come together to celebrate cultural diversity expressed through fashion and also the launch of global campaign ‘Give your Light to the World’. The celebration will also benefit the Art of Living Foundation towards their women empowerment and global poverty eradication initiatives in over 150 countries.
Ukrainian Fashion Week
29th Ukrainian Fashion Week: Paris Hilton Takes on Modeling gig in Kyiv
The Ukrainian fashion industry reached a new milestone in the international vogue arena. Ukrainian Fashion Week, which unfolded on October 13, has become traditional for international fashion experts, buyers, designers’ clients, and media representatives. The event attracted world-renowned fashion industry representatives, including Dutch fashion consultant Li Edelkoort and British fashion designer of Italian descent Antonio Berardi.
One of the highlights of the event was a catwalk by Paris Hilton, who demonstrated a bright yellow silk dress by the Ukrainian designer Andre Tan. “The 29th UFW is remarkable for featuring high scale collections as well as attracting a large number of foreign guests,” noted the Head of the UFW Organizing Committee Iryna Danylevska.
The famous designer Antonio Berardi demonstrated his collection for the next fashionable season. A collection of swimwear and lingerie, created by Jean-Paul Gaultier for La Perla, became another highlight of the 29th UFW. Together with the on-stage program, UFW offered a number of seminars, round tables, and presentations. One of the 25 most influential fashion experts according to The Time Li Edelkoort held a seminar and presentation Bliss. Spring-Summer 2013, during which she shared predictions about the fashion trends for the next couple of years.
The 29th season of the show featured collections by 42 famous Ukrainian designers, showcasing works of Lilya Poustovit, Victoria Gres, Elena Burenina, Alexei Zalevskiy, Viktor Anisimov, Tatyana Zemskova, Elena Vorozhbyt, Liliya Litkovskaya, Svetlana Bevza, Christina Bobkova, Andre Tan, Iryna Karavay, and many others. “Participation in UFW enables designers to present their new collections …and helps them prove their credibility to the market players,” commented the General Producer of the UFW Volodymyr Nechyporuk.
This season’s UFW was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. The exposition was titled The Borders of Body and focused on the interaction of an artist with the human body. It included 40 outfits by Ukrainian designers created between 1991 and 2011.
Tyra Banks
Tyra Banks Says Writing A Book Gave Her Alopecia
Tyra Banks says it took five years to write her New York Times best-selling sci-fi Young Adult novel, Modelland. Characters like Tookie de la Creme don’t name themselves, ladies! (Seriously though: her poor, ignored ghost-writer.) Ty-Ty got the idea while in the back of a car, wrote it down on a piece of paper, and promptly lost the piece of paper until she cleaned out her purse. Once she got serious, it sounds like she really got into the research. “I love Roald Dahl. On my nightstand right now is James and the Giant Peach, which I’m reading for the second time. I just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I read three Twilights.” Now we’re picturing Tyra Banks in bed with her banker boyfriend, furiously reading all the YA she missed out on as a kid. She worked on the book while shooting Top Model and initially produced a draft of over 1000 pages. She says the stress made her hair fall out.
Russian MTV
This week, Russian MTV started “Project Podium,” its homegrown version of the U.S. hit show “Project Runway,” where young designers compete to create the best outfit and show it on catwalk models.
The fun of the show is seeing the bitchy contestants labor over their bizarre outfits with sweatshop hours. Unlike most reality shows, it does actually require some skills — sewing for a start, which impresses me anyway.
The U.S. version stars doll-faced model Heidi Klum as one of the judges, curtly condemning terrible outfits and eliminating the offenders. Perhaps she will make an appearance on the Russian show, although her husband, British singer Seal, misstepped recently with a performance at Ramzan Kadyrov’s birthday celebrations. Seal justified himself in an ill-judged Twitter message, insisting he was playing for the “Chechenyan people.”
The Russian version is hosted by Anna Sedokova, a former singer in the VIA Gra girl group, known for its minimal amount of clothing. A pinup favorite, she was described as the “most stylish presenter on national television.”
The winner gets to show a collection at one of Moscow’s fashion weeks and to design a capsule collection for Bosco Sport, as well as have a fashion shoot in Russian Elle magazine, whose editor is one of the judges.
The Russian contestants are a real mixed bag, coming from all over the country, with two from Vladivostok alone, and one from Belarus. The first show introduced the most one-dimensional character, Olga from the famed textiles city of Ivanovo, a dizzy blonde who thinks Vladivostok is in the north and loves pink. Then there were the cool people. Dima from Omsk has little braids and designer stubble. “I’m not interested in these people,” he said of the other contestants. But he made an exception for Dasha Dee-Dee, a slim nightclub dancer, who explained she did not want to be eliminated because her flat has just burned down.
The first competition was to design an outfit from materials bought at the Carousel hypermarket. Contestants dashed around with trolleys and a budget of 3,000 rubles ($95.50), provoking some confusion among shoppers. “You should get a LCD television,” one suggested.
The weirdest choices were by Belarussian Dima, who piled his trolley with slices of processed cheese, and Muscovite Anton, who bought plastic cups. Others went for more manageable options such as plastic wrap and aluminum foil, while the cool Dima examined the chili section.
The contestants had to work till midnight, cue frazzled nerves. But somehow they managed to get something on the catwalk models in the end, and it is was impressive how the models managed to make the outfits look passable.
The voice of reason on the show seemed to be Elle editor Yelena Sotnikova, who questioned the designers about the wearability of their outfits. Yorgas from Sochi showed a dress that was basically just green twine and flowers. “You could only wear that dress in a forest,” she said. Another designer said she created a minimalist structure of coat hangers to show urban isolation, prompting the response: “I’ve lived in a metropolis quite a long time and I’ve never felt like this.” And she shuddered in horror at a designer who made a dress of mats tacked together with string, saying: “I’m very afraid of patchwork.”
In the end, the bizarre cheese dress got through — although it lacked geometry, apparently — and Anton cut up his plastic cups into sequins for a highly praised shimmering 1950s-style number. The overall prize went to a minimalist white dress scattered with salt crystals, and the coat-hanger girl tearfully went home.
Lindsay Lohan
Lohan and Plein: just work or something more?
This past weekend, Lindsay Lohan was officially revealed as designer Philipp Plein’s muse for Milan Fashion Week. Because of how the deal actually went down — Plein flew Lohan to Italy, the two met on Friday, Lohan saw the clothes Saturday, and began shooting on Sunday — rumors have been flying that the two are engaged in more than just work-related business.
According to Fox News, an insider informed FOX411’s Pop Tarts that, “Lindsay has been staying in Philipp’s room every night since she has arrived. There’s a lot of chemistry there.”
Celebuzz further reinforces this concept with a picture of the two holding hands in Milan.
Although the idea that Lohan and Plein are dating seems to be very plausible, Lindsay’s rep puts an end to the rumors when he told Celebuzz that the two are not dating.
Now that the 25-year-old is attempting to ignite her career once again as both a model and actress, she is being introduced to more “European endeavors.” She will be making a trip to Russia in October to meet with Russian diplomats.
Fox News releases a quote that Nathan Folks, producer of the company which facilitated the fashion deal between Lohan and Plein, has said about the actress.
“Lindsay is dead set on reviving her film career and modeling career. We are proud of her. Her comeback has begun,” he said.
Sri Lanka Design Festival
Sri Lanka Design Festival 2011 showcases fashion, island craft next month
Sri Lanka Design Festival 2011 showcasing island craft, design, fashion and apparel industry will be held for the third time from November 16th to 20th at the Mount Lavinia Hotel.
The Sri Lanka Design Festival (SLDF) is the largest creative arts event that provides a platform for the country’s artists and designers to showcase their talents.
The five-day event comprising exhibitions, fashion shows, seminars and conferences offers a key opportunity for fashion buyers, brands, retailers, opinion leaders and graphic and fashion designers to explore the island’s craft and textile industry.
At the South Asian Apparel Leadership Forum on November 18, apparel industry leaders will gather to discuss the future of the Sri Lankan apparel industry, sustainability and green technology within a global context.
The organizers say with confirmed participation from key opinion leaders and buyers from international fashion, the series of events have been programmed to help the local industries to enter their designs and products to the global marketplace.
The mega event organized by the Acaedmy of Design (AOD) has the strategic support from the Sri Lankan government ministries of Economic Development and Industry and Commerce.