Fashion Dress in The Present: fashion shows

Showing posts with label fashion shows. Show all posts

Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing Shows How You Can Turn Any T-Shirt Into Punk Lingerie

Earlier this year, Victoria’s Secret and Olivier Rousteing joined forces to create the VS x Balmain collection, making graffiti-covered T-shirts and ’70s rock–inspired finery accessible to the masses. While Rousteing’s in-your-face aesthetic translated into the lingerie giant’s edgiest collection to date, the designer reveals in a new video that you don’t even need to buy the collection to get its signature look. Behind the scenes at the brand’s Shanghai show, Rousteing delivered a crash course in how to elevate a basic tee into something exceptional. Utilizing items that you’re sure to have lying around the house—safety pins, beads, and a sharp pair of scissors—he transformed Josephine Skriver, Ming Xi, and Romee Strijd into the newest members of the Balmain army.

While Rousteing is a regular in the front row at the annual VS show, this year marks the first time he has worked with the brand. Making the jump from spectator to being a major part of the production came with challenges. “It’s totally different when you’re a guest. You just enjoy the show. When you’re actually collaborating and creating your own collection, you’re really stressed!” he shared backstage.

Working throughout the course of the year on the project, Rousteing enjoyed seeing his vision move from a sketch to reality, elaborate Angel wings and all. “After I shared [my drawings] with VS, they were like, ‘Yes, we love this! Let’s make it happen.’ With Balmain, the craftsmanship is so important but I have to say, the result is completely in line with the Parisian house that I come from. I want my clothes to look perfect and for the girls to feel good and powerful in them.”

Judging by the powerful opening segment filled with Angels in plaid bustiers and studded wings, Rousteing got his wish. Watch as Rousteing and the Angels remix T-shirts into daring crop tops, skirts, and more.

FROM MIAMI SWIM WEEK TO SWIMISSUE ANGEL STARDOM

You may know our friend Alexa Collins as one of the models you saw quite a lot of at last Miami Swim Week. She’s very beautiful, with a beautiful spirit, and now has been chosen as the first “SwimIssue Angel” by SwimIssue, a new

brand entering the swimwear entertainment space.

According to The Huffington Post, “SwimIssue will operate in much the same way as Sports Illustrated or Victoria’s Secret works — by cherry picking a small selection of elite models that become the faces of the company and who make up the swim brand’s core family.

“The brand is set to become an iconic franchise spanning fashion, social media, brand activations, TV and even movies … but where Sports Illustrated sells magazines, SwimIssue will focus on its TV series and Instagram stores, selling swimwear from the hottest trending designers in the business.”

Alexa is a true fan of Miami Swim Week. In fact, she says, “My favorite photos are from [last] Miami Swim Week. They show my true colors and they also show how happy I was on that day. I also love our first Charlie’s Angels style shoot.”

You can see that video at top.

As Miami Swim Week becomes more popular, we’re looking forward to seeing how TV and film will continue to augment this exciting series of annual events.

Fashion Shows Fall 2017 Couture Jean Paul Gaultier

I was sitting in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a friend whooped it up in Klosters, and not so far away there was Val d’Isère. Except that none of us were really in those jet set–y ski destinations, which always sound like the kind of places where Roger Moore–era 007 (may he rest in peace) would have dispatched a cat-stroking nemesis. Rather more prosaically, we were in seating sections named after those resorts in the ever-so-slightly stifling heat of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Rue Saint-Martin studio, awaiting his Couture show to start.

Never let it be said that Gaultier doesn’t love a theme. Some of his most monumental collections of the past were worked to very specific ones, indeed—be it tribal tattooing and fetish piercing, or the clothing worn for religious observance by Orthodox Jews. This time it was ski culture, focusing on the glamazon on the chairlift, and the bejeweled and bedazzled snow bunny. Even before the show started, it was plainly evident, what with Gaultier’s program displaying his old-school penchant for naming each look with a suitably saucy wink: Gstaad the Way It Is, L’Avalanche, What You Looping At, et cetera.

Jokes, as we all know, can be a potent vehicle for something deeper, and so they were here: Humor in the service of heightening the sincere commitment of Gaultier to his couture—I Look Like I Don’t Take It Seriously But Really I Do! For all of the campy excess on his runway, glance to the balcony above and you can see his atelier gathered together to view their (oftentimes very impressive) handiwork. And for every RuPaul’s Drag Race quip (one look was dubbed “Sasha Velours”) there were some exquisite pieces that riffed on Gaultier’s iconic moments, but look just as good now: the slouchy cardigan jacket embellished with blue and white Fair Isle patterns created out of pearls, say, or the fairly abbreviated Aran sweater dress crafted from mousseline ribbons.

Tailoring, as usual, took center stage. There was the off-kilter bias cutting of his le smoking, or a camel coat deconstructed to slip-slide with a swoosh across an ivory knit body, both looks being pretty darn chic. That’s a phrase one usually wants to avoid like a skier hitting glassy ice when discussing a runway show, but in this case, it’s entirely appropriate.

fashion shows fall 2017 ready to wear tommy hilfiger

Some of music’s biggest legends have taken the stage of the Roundhouse—the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Pink Floyd, to name a few—and today the famous north London venue played host to Rock Circus, Tommy Hilfiger and Gigi Hadid’s latest fashion extravaganza.

Hilfiger has been inspired by several of those iconic bands in his label’s history, though Hadid is certainly too young to have known those rock ’n’ roll glory days. She marched out onto the runway to a ’90s hip-hop soundtrack (what else!)—Biggie, De La Soul, Naughty by Nature, and so on—in denim cutoffs and a long coat, with a padlock swinging from her neck, an accessory that was first made famous by punk’s most notorious enfant terrible, Sid Vicious.

Overall the collection didn’t adhere to any one musical genre and read more like a mixtape of different subcultural references, ranging from the slip dresses of grunge to heavy metal–style merch to the voluminous puffer coats of, yes, ’90s hip-hop. Generation Yers like Hadid are more likely to cherry-pick from history in this way when assembling their style identity. Ascribing to one tribe or look just isn’t a millennial thing. The collection did have an overarching I’m-with-the-band vibe that was born out of the current trend for festival dressing—hence, perhaps why Hadid, who is no stranger to Coachella, opened with those cutoffs.

Thankfully there were no headdresses or flower crowns here; instead the clothes were accessorized with what looked like backstage passes strung on colorful leather lanyards, sexy thigh-high socks, and buckled ankle booties that are likely to be an instant hit alongside all the great outerwear—studded denim jackets, bombers, and cozy shearlings. As a supermodel, Hadid has an all-access pass to the fashion world. As Zayn Malik’s other half, she gets a behind-the-scenes peek at pop stardom, too. Given her track record of sellout collections for Tommy Hilfiger, not to mention an Instagram following that’s over 30 million strong, she’s fast becoming a rock star in her own right.