strength.
Kansuke Yamamoto :: Departure, 1950
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strength.
Dirk Vogel :: Renata Ericsson, from Personal / source: dirkvogel.com
give me strength.
©Diana Antohe
you ARE tougher.
via:semperper
ICE STYLE.....2017 Rostelecom Cup of Russia COSTUMES REVIEW: THE LADIES!
"Please Let Me Win Gold!'--Russian figure skater Evgenia Medvedeva closes hers eyes as she begins her Short Program at this weekend's 2017 Rostelecom Cup of Russia Grand Prix of Figure Skating competition, Moscow Russia
It's Grand Prix of Figure Skating Season!!! (as well as International Pageant Season! What a coincidence!). The first one is the 2017-18 Rostelecom Cup of Russia, held in Moscow over the weekend. In my previous post HERE, I discussed my thoughts on the MEN'S COSTUMES--and Yuzuru Hanyu's (almost) Costumes Repeats. Now, it's time to review the LADIES!
The Necklines Win!--Bedazzled necklines of some of the ladies' costumes seen at the 2017-18 Rostelecom Cup of Russia Grand Prix of Figure Skating: (Clockwise, L to R) Mirai Nagasu(USA), Mariah Bell(USA) and Wakaba Higuchi(Japan)
Carolina Kostner of Italy: Italy's Carolina Kostner is BAAAACK! And kids, she is looking quite good! For her Short Program to Ne me quitte pas by Jacques Brel, performed by Celine Dion, she wore this Cabernet red colored costume which was simple, romantic and right for the iconic song. The red evoked passion, heart (notice the sweetheart neckline!)...while the oversized jeweled "straps" have a slight look of a delicately detailed gown. This costume was beautiful. in it's sublime qualities.
Free Skate to L'apres-midi d'un faun by Claude Debussy: For her Free Skate, Carolina wore this lilac-hued costume which honored the music and Nijinski ballet. I LOVED the leaf-like gathered tulle details and crystals that highlighted the upper torso. Nicely done Carolina!
Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia: Evgenia is an INCREDIBLE skater. SUPER INCREDIBLE. No one can touch her. She has matured with her skating and she has matured with her costumes. For her Short Program to Nocturne by Frederic Chopin, she wore this gray, blue and ombre lilac costume. I thought this was just gorgeous; it looked as if it cost $5,000 if not more!
Free Skate to Anna Karenina (soundtrack) by Dario Marianelli: I also loved this costume which Evgenia wore to her "Anna Kerenina" Free Skate. The design was chic, sexy and different. I liked the black and silver sequin applique highlighted throughout the costume and I especially liked the see-through stretch chiffon in the back, sides and skirt. I am usually not a fan of those finger-less gloves but here, it worked--both with the "Period" theme of the music and the rest of her costume.
Mariah Bell of the USA: Mariah skated her Short Program to Roxie (Chicago soundtrack) performed by Renee Zellweger and All That Jazz (Chicago soundtrack) by John Kander, Fred Ebb. This was the same music and costume Mariah wore for last year/season's Short Program which I LOVED in my Costumes Review of 2016 Skate America HERE. So yeah...I still love it! It's jazzy, excellent for the music and really gives extra vibrancy to her skate. The silver jeweled sequins + the skirt fringe=FABULOUS!
Free Skate to West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein: For her Free Skate, she went "Sequined Maria" in her costume. And I loved it! The halter neckline costume featured a red base fabric with lots of multicolored sequins that looked AMAZING especially near her neck. I love the dripping bugle beads from the neck and the combination of red and purple. This was a very nice costume and well designed.
Mirai Nagasu of USA--Mirai skated her Short Program to Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp Minor by Frederic Chopin. This was the same music as last season's Short Program as well as the same costume...
Mirai Nagasu at 2016 Skate Canada International (above photos)--I really liked this costume then and naturally, I still do. Would I have wished she might have "changed" the costume just a teeny-tiny bit? Maybe. But, this is so outstanding that heck, why not? Give it a second run! Since is the first event of the season, I'm kinda hoping these repeat program gals and guys will at least give us a switch in costumes. One can only hope!
Free Skate to Miss Saigon by Claude-Michel Schönberg: The minute I saw this red costume, I just knew it was "Miss Saigon". The red cheongsam silhouette, the Mandarin collar, the intricate silver and gold crystals...all added up to a very pretty costume perfect for this music. I especially liked how the sequins were put on to highlight her upper torso as well as almost "draw" a sweetheart neckline bustier.
Kaori Sakamoto of Japan: Kaori skated her Short Program to Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven and wore this blue ombre-dyed costume. the design featured a gathered one shoulder-like design plus lots of silver sequins throughout the garment. It was pretty and expensive-looking.
Free Skate to Amelie (soundtrack) by Yann Tiersen: For her Free Skate to "Amelie" she wore this olive-colored design. It was drab as drab can be. I get the connection to "Amelie" with the color and mini "Peter Pan" collar but this just didn't have enough of that figure skating costume "razzle dazzle" needed to make an impact and this is one of the most unflattering colors one could possibly choose. It was SAD; she looked like she was playing a refugee from a war-torn land.
Wakaba Higuchi of Japan: Japan's Wakaba Higuchi wore this costume for her Short Program to Gypsy Dance by Leon Minkus and I loved it! The strawberry red costume featured gold, silver and emerald jeweled sequins as well as feathers which framed her shoulders and upper torso beautifully. I especially loved the jeweled sunburst in the center front bust. Wakaba did look like a gypsy...and a very fashionable and fabulous one!
Free Skate to Skyfall (James Bond soundtrack) performed by Adele: For her Free Skate, she also made me very happy with this indigo blue colored costume as she skated to "Skyfall". LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the entire look--from her sleek chignon, the silver crystal neck...to those AMAZING oversized jeweled stones on her upper torso. Her costume literally looks as if the stars in the sky...fell!
Mae Berenice Meite of France: France's Mae Berenice Meite is know for her costumes, and also, being a lover of jumpsuits/bodysuits. She did not disappoint for what she wore for her 2017-18 Season's Short Program to Halo by Beyonce, cover version by Jasmin Thompson
Who Run the World by Beyonce. The halter neckline jumpsuit featured a STUNNING display of gold jeweled sequins on her upper torso which really gave me goosebumps! Seriously...take a look at those photos above! THAT, my dear readers is what a top level figure skating looks like! The costume--I assume--was inspired by these looks from Miss Beyonce:
Beyonce in DSquared2 at the Super Bowl Halftime Show (Left) and in Roberto Cavalli for her "Formation" Tour
Free Skate to Les Nocturnes de Chopin and Happy by C2C: For her Free Skate, Mae Berenice wore this black and white costume featuring a very "Lady-like" Peter Pan collar, and tuxedo-like shirt and cummerbund ensemble. I thought this was pretty "safe" especially knowing what Mae Berenice has worn before. It was very un-Mae Berenice. I was like "OK, this is soooooo not her!". And then, halfway through her program...
She did an "outfit change" of sorts and flipped her wrap skirt flap and exposed multi-colored jeweled shorts! While, yes, it was arguably a bit gimmicky and possibly semi-tackylicious...I still LOVED IT! Now THAT'S the Mae Berenice Meite I was looking for!
NEXT UP: The 2017 Rostelecom Cup of Russia COSTUMES REVIEW for PAIRS and ICE DANCE!!!
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.
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.
