Category Archives: BREAKING MODE
GUCCI NEXT COLLECTION IN APRIL
Gucci will present its next fashion collection through a short film on April 15 on several digital platforms around the world. This is the first collection to be unveiled in the year that marks the brand’s centenary anniversary, Gucci revealed that creative director Alessandro Michele has named the collection Aria.
The collection is presented outside of any fashion week calendar. In music, an aria is a self-contained piece for one voice.
The designer in November presented a seven-part film series he codirected with Gus Van Sant. The collection appeared throughout seven episodes running from Nov. 16 to 22, screened during a new digital fashion and film festival called GucciFest.
The collection and the series were called “Ouverture of Something That Never Ended,” shot in Rome and featuring actress and artist Silvia Calderoni as well as a range of friends of Continue reading
VUITTON TRAVELS TO EGYPT
Here is the passenger, sailing on a sinking ship, and around him the waves resound to finally crash and engulf this traveler in unknown seas, a feat for the house of Vuitton, symbol of travel. The collection wanders within the pyramids of Egypt in the Louvre, provoking in my mind the vision of Gizeh in Paris. Continue reading
OTTOLINGER FALL 2021
Inspired by Chinese writer Hao Jingfang’s science fiction work “Vagabonds,” Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient combined their quirky, deconstructed body-con with padded, protective forms in a more three-dimensional register.
Puffer jackets and suiting in a color palette of murky brights with quirky straps and accessories that wound around the body, creating what looked a little like futuristic armor. Continue reading
HERMÈS FAKE BAGS THE END OF THE BEGINNING
Are there more fake than real Birkin bags on the market? Twenty-three people were charged, including nine former Hermès employees, the news agency reported. A 41-year-old man was sentenced, in absentia, to six years in prison and fined 1.5 million euros; a warrant has been issued for his arrest. The individual was accused of being the mastermind of the network, which included a workshop in Hong Kong.
Some 400 handbags were made in clandestine workshops in France and Hong Kong, while 800 came from the house’s employee program, which allows workers to make their own handbags.
Hundreds of copied Birkin bags, supplied by the international network, were sold in France. Another individual, age 66, was judged to be the main supplier and sentenced to four years in prison and fined 400,000 euros. Continue reading
BREXIT FASHION SAVE THE QUEEN
With Britain still in lockdown and designers grappling with complex, costly paperwork and trading post-Brexit, fall 2021 will likely be remembered as the season of choking on red tape.
London Fashion Week begins today and runs through Feb. 23 and while the showcase is coed, and open to the public, it’s an unusual time. Many big names, including JW Anderson, Erdem and Christopher Kane, are opting not to show on the calendar, and London’s biggest brand, Burberry, is releasing men’s wear only, with women’s to come at a later date.
The British Fashion Council, which puts on the shows, has secured major new sponsors in the two tech companies TikTok and Clearpay neither of which is British and is taking a slice of LFW to Seoul, South Korea, via a collaboration with multibrand retailer Boon the Shop. Continue reading
KERING SLOW KING
Kering Q4 Sales Disappoint , Sales fell 8.2 percent in the fourth quarter, as organic revenues at Gucci dropped 10.3 percent, missing analysts’ expectations.
The French luxury conglomerate reported on Wednesday that revenues in the three months to Dec. 31 totaled 4.0 billion euros, representing a decline of 5 percent. Kering’s share price should take a hit as growth also slowed at its smaller brands, Bottega Veneta and Saint Laurent. Continue reading
FIRST LADY DESIGNER
There was already a retired person at the White House, why not a First Lady dressed as a surintendante.
The up-and-coming Markarian brand got a serious boost from First Lady Jill Biden on Inauguration Day, and with her fall 2021 collection, Alexandra O’Neill more than lived up to the hype, putting the designer on a course to become a new American classic.
That O’Neill can make a party dress is a given, and her one-shoulder blue-pink metallic wood grain minidress with dramatic pink train is this season’s prime example.
A petal-sleeve, 1940s-feeling rosewood silk jacquard dress with black bows and crystal trim on the bodice was also charming and very First Lady Biden. Continue reading
GIANT FURNACES FOR A POSITIVE BOTTLE
Ahn reveals that the limited-edition Champagne collection will have a positive impact on the environment. Never forgets that the production of glass requires giant furnaces heated up to 1,600 degrees day and night. The glass is an ecological disaster. The production of a glass bottle rejects twice as much CO2 as a plastic one, but when the bottle is named Moët & Chandon’s it suddenly becomes positive.
Moët & Chandon’s Impérial Champagne Bottle shows a New Cool Design. For the first time in its history, Moët & Chandon has teamed with a designer on redesigning one of its signature bottles.
Ambush founder and creative director Yoon Ahn are the first designers in the history of Moët & Chandon to have the chance to revisit the bottle of the brand’s iconic Moët Impérial Champagne.
Ahn, who is based in Tokyo and along with designing her own label is also the creative director of Dior Homme’s jewelry collections, put her signature minimal touch on the bottle, coloring the traditional gold neck in black, which contrasts with a new white embossed label. Continue reading
VICTORIA BECKHAM 2021
If there was ever a designer fully tuned into trans-seasonal fashion, and the laws of layering, it’s Victoria Beckham, who’s been spending her lockdown in Miami with the family, as husband David gets on with work at Inter Miami CF, the MLS team he cofounded.
The family has been in south Florida since Christmas, and Victoria has been homeschooling the kids and working remotely with her team back in freezing, snowy, locked-down London. This season, she’s combined her pre-fall and fall collections, and filled them with pieces that can work in a variety of climates.
Her lineup was packed with military looks — roomy topcoats with shiny buttons; navy trousers with red stripes, and a puffer jacket with regimental details.
LVMH STOPS THE FENTY BRAND
Rihanna, LVMH Are Pausing the Fenty Fashion House. Lord Arnault had thrown powder in Rihanna’s eyes to make her believe that she would become a fashion designer, but in fact he only wanted her brand of cosmetics.
The music star and the French luxury giant have mutually agreed to put the Fenty maison on hold, less than two years after the launch. The brand stopped posting on its Instagram account on Jan. 1, and the last collection drop on Fenty.com dates back to November 2020.
LVMH have jointly made the decision to put on hold the rtw activity, based in Europe, pending better conditions. According to sources, a skeleton staff remains at the Paris headquarters of Fenty fashions to wind down remaining operations. Continue reading
THE MANTERO ARCHIVE
The Mantero Archive has long been considered a comprehensive and extraordinary collection of textiles and an inspiration for numerous designers, with more than 10,000 volumes and 60,000 foulards from the top fashion houses, thousands of drawings and prints.
Now it has expanded further, housing the Ken Scott Foundation in Grandate, just outside Como. Italian silk specialist Mantero, which is based in Como, bought the Ken Scott brand in 2019, and has structured the foundation as an exhibition space.
We are anxious to open it up to the world, once the travel restrictions will be lifted, said Franco Mantero, chief executive officer of the family-owned company.
The Ken Scott Foundation was established in 1989 by the Indiana-born designer, who died in 1991 and became popular in the 60s and 70s with his colorful prints. Continue reading
ROCHA AND H&M
H&M is getting ready to release its latest designer collaboration, this time with Simone Rocha.
The retailer released the full look book for its Simone Rocha x H&M collaboration on Monday, a collection that includes women’s and men’s wear, and children’s options. The collection is said to take inspiration from the history and fashion of Ireland and Hong Kong, representing Rocha’s dual heritage.
“I hope that the items in this collection will be worn and treasured for years to come,” Rocha said in a statement. “They were all informed by ideas and inspirations that have shaped me and my brand over the last 10 years, and I am so excited to see them worn out-and-about and interpreted and styled in new ways.”
The collection includes a variety of feminine dresses with lace and tulle detailing in floral and tartan prints. Many of the pieces are embellished with pearls, a detail also seen in Rocha’s spring 2021 ready-to-wear collection. Continue reading
BRITISH FASHION WEEK KILLED BY BREXIT
British fashion threatened to be “decimated” by Brexit. The sector “risks being decimated by the Brexit agreement and current government policy,” the Fashion roundtable warns in a letter.
This is a call for help from the British fashion world to the government. In an open letter, the Fashion roundtable warns of the risk that the sector could be “decimated” because of Brexit.
Fashion and textiles, “an industry that contributes 35 billion euros to the UK’s GDP and employs almost a million people”, “risks being decimated by the Brexit agreement and the government’s current policy”, warns the letter, addressed to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Ministers of Culture, Industry and Home Affairs.
The sector contributes more to Britain’s GDP than the fishing, music, film and automotive industries combined.
Stressing that the EU is the biggest partner for both imports and exports, the fashion world denounces delays and “paperwork mountain” induced by the new rules. It calls on the government to support measures and consider tax cuts. Continue reading