Lisa Dengler
Rita Galkina
Manuella Lupascu
Mirka Germanova
Kellen Hofer
Brace yourselves, shoppers: H&M is opening a new 7,000-square-foot megastore in Times Square. The retail complex—which will offer super-late hours of operation (Monday through Sunday until 1 a.m.), a virtual catwalk that projects images of customers onto exterior screens, interactive mannequins, the Isabel Marant collection, and a 53-foot glitter wall—is set to be christened by Lady Gaga during its ribbon-cutting ceremony at 12:01 on Thursday morning. Unsurprisingly, H&M's new digs will sell the pop star's latest album. Because if there's one thing we need more than a massive glitter wall, it's another reminder to buy Artpop.
Lady Gaga's album ArtPop was officially released today. And aside from the past month's leaked tracks and her already-praised "Applause"—which, may we add, includes a nod to Jeff Koons—we've been curious to hear "Donatella," the rumored ode to Ms. Versace. Well, the wait is over, and we can report that the song opens with what sounds like a champagne pour, followed by the spoken intro: "I am so fab./ Check out./ I'm blond./ I'm skinny./ I'm rich./ And I'm a little bit of a bitch." Naturally, we were not disappointed.
While the pop star's love of extreme sartorial self-expression is ever-apparent (did anyone not see the flying dress she wore to her art rave last night?),"Donatella," is a reminder that Mother Monster can appreciate a trend. After all, the pre-chorus asks, "What do you wanna wear this spring?/ What do you think is the new thing?/ What do you wanna wear this season?" Oh, Gaga. We thought you'd never ask!.
When most people think of food as fashion, images of Ring Pops, candy necklaces, or even edible panties may pop into their heads. Yet when Threeasfour's Gabi Asfour considers the eatable sartorial, he comes up with techno-wire dresses crusted in fresh-baked challah bread. Go figure.
Last night at New York City's Jewish Museum, Asfour, along with his Threeasfour co-designers Angela Donhauser and Adi Gil, showed just that: a trio of models in custom "fractal" garments coated in carbohydrates, for a performance piece dubbed Fest. "Tonight was great for this," Asfour told Style.com. "It got cold, and now when you come in it smells even better, all this bread!"
The twist here was that the audience could look and also touch—patrons were invited to literally pluck their roll of choice off one of the girls, season it, and eat it. "We are using this as a unifying medium," explained Asfour. "Almost everybody in the world has bread in their culture. It's a unifying theme." Kind of puts the term food for thought in a whole new context.
Though Fest was a one-night-only affair, Threeasfour is currently airing an exhibition at The Jewish Museum (where the label also presented its Spring '14 collection in September) through February 2014 called Mer Ka Ba. Showcasing commonalities in language and text between such religions as Judaism and Islam, the exhibit also seeks to convey a unifying message. For more information, visit the museum's Web site.
While the rest of us are still mulling over the Spring '14 collections, which debuted on runways only weeks ago, Fendi is already looking ahead to Spring '15. Sure, it may seem a little early to start thinking about what we'll be wearing more than a year from now, but the house has a good reason for the jump-start. Today, Fendi announced that it will release a Spring '15 capsule collection with eyewear designer Thierry Lasry (left), who's best known for his hypersleek, sexy shades. The partnership marks Lasry's first collaboration with a luxury fashion house. Between this, its buggy bags, and Spring '14's Delfina Delettrez-designed jewelry (remember those furry little ear cuffs?), we'd say Fendi is seriously upping its cool factor.
It has been a year of firsts for Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida of Marques'Almeida. After being awarded NewGen sponsorship, the Central Saint Martins grads presented on the official London fashion week schedule for the first time during the Spring '14 shows in September. And this week, the duo—best known for their raw and unexpected denim looks—made their inaugural trek to Los Angeles as part of the British Fashion Council's traveling London Showrooms. In between press appointments and a trip to In-N-Out Burger, Marques and Almeida sourced inspiration from famed vintage emporium Wasteland—and they invited Style.com to tag along.
"Denim kind of found us," Marques said of their now signature medium. "We were so obsessed with the early nineties, when it was like the code of dressing always had to involve a really nice worn-out pair of jeans or a jean jacket. We thought it was the foundation of cool." The nineties is a decade that Marques and Almeida (who cut their teeth at Vivienne Westwood and Preen, respectively) reference often, explored through the lens of i-D and Kurt Cobain. "We started with the whole grunge movement and watching Nirvana documentaries. It was a lot more oversize, boy shapes," Marques continued, later adding that they abandoned the era once "grunge became a trend." Their latest reference is the noughties (i.e., the 2000s). "It was all about being sexy in a very obvious way," she said.
"This is a new way to make a garment that's never been done before," explained Shapeways industrial designer Duann Scott from the heart of the brand's Long Island City factory. He's talking about 3-D printing—the process by which a pulsed laser cuts through layers of heated powdered materials (such as nylon, powered plastic, sterling silver, gold, even sandstone) to create computer-calculated shapes and designs. Shapeways is one of a handful of companies bringing 3-D printing, a technology traditionally used by architects and engineers, to the public market. In the past, it has been used to create everything from hearing aids to museum interiors; Dutch designer Iris Van Herpen was one of the first to apply the process to wearable items. Now, Victoria's Secret is introducing 3-D-printed designs—just in time for its big fashion show on November 13.
"It's exciting that we get to use this—we've never done it," related Victoria's Secret collection design coordinator Sarah Sophia Lidz. "It's the first time, and it will be perfect for this section, too. It's called Snow Angels, and it's really a nod to the iconic Victoria's Secret theme, with beautiful white wings inspired by snowflakes, snowfall, frost, the northern lights—there's a lot of Swarovski."
The 3-D-printed item in question is a Swarovski Crystal-encrusted corset, modeled to look like a snowflake, encasing the model Lindsay Ellingson's body. It was designed off a full-body scan to fit Ellingson exactly.
"We've seen some 3-D printing in fashion, in the haute couture in Europe. So it's been very rigid things, very artful things, but nothing that's been nice to wear," added Scott. "This is the first piece for a mainstream brand—with a focus on the elegant, sensual form—not just rigid and stiff and alien-like. It's wearable." The corset debuts exclusively above.
As for what's up next in the 3-D sphere, Scott offered, "We're seeing an evolution in the materials that we can use in 3-D printing." As more and more designers turn to 3-D printing, more and more pliable fabrics will be developed. "But the interesting thing about 3-D printing and design is, traditional fabric is either a stitch or a weave, and maybe a chain mail in there, but with 3-D printing, we can do all three of those simultaneously, in one garment, in one material," added Scott. "So there are new ways to control the way the fabric falls and reacts to the body. There is lots of room for evolving the garment."
While fashion and art have always gone hand in hand, the Spring '14 runways were influenced by art more than ever. The creative cross-pollination continued this week with several designer-sponsored museum galas, which brought a bevy of well-dressed power players to the red carpet. New York City's Museum of Modern Art's tribute to Tilda Swinton, co-chaired by Karl Lagerfeld, had many stars donning Chanel's recent runway wares on Tuesday evening. Jessica Biel, Lupita Nyong'o, and, of course, the lady of honor, Swinton, all turned up in Karl's latest looks to celebrate. Later in the week, the Dior-sponsored Guggenheim International gala and pre-party in New York saw screen sirens like Elizabeth Olsen, Natalie Portman, Leelee Sobieski, and Cobie Smulders posing on the red carpet in a host of Raf Simons' takes on the LBD. On Saturday, Gucci presented the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 2013 Art + Film gala, which was studded with A-listers in showstopping Gucci gowns. Salma Hayek in particular stood out in an embellished beige Gucci Premiere halter dress with a sparkling belted waist.
While mesh is not the first thing that comes to mind for black-tie affairs, strategically placed mesh has been making its way onto the red carpet, thanks to its starring role on many Spring '14 runways. Zoe Saldana attended the LACMA 2013 Art + Film gala in a figure-hugging black Gucci gown with strips of mesh panels down the sides, which subtly made the otherwise conservative dress sexy. The following evening, Jaimie Alexander took the trend up several notches at the Thor: The Dark World premiere in L.A. The actress chose a floor-length, long-sleeve, high-neck Azzaro Spring '14 dress that showed about as much skin as it covered.
Here, more of this week's red-carpet highlights.
Over six years ago, former Hollywood stylist and Kitson buyer Christina Minasian launched the contemporary label Pencey (famously named after Holden Caufield's fictional private school in The Catcher in the Rye). It has become known for its trend-driven staples with a preppy yet rebellious twist, as well as recent capsule collaborations with It girls like Mia Moretti and Jessica Hart. While Minasian will continue to take a playful approach at Pencey, this season, the designer debuts CHALK—a new line with a decidedly more refined and timeless look. "The name reflects its clean aesthetic. I wanted to do something that focused on style more than trend, and create classic pieces that will last in your wardrobe at an affordable price point, " Minasian said at a preview this week. "The CHALK customer still aims to stand out and express her identity, but she doesn't want to look like she works at Urban Outfitters or hangs out on St. Mark's Place." Highlights from the Spring '14 collection (which debuts here on Style.com) include slouchily tailored suiting separates, a flirty cap sleeve shift, a cool bomber jacket whipped up from white lace re-embroidered with leather, and a poplin shirtdress backed in herringbone-patterned silk. That crisp number, in particular, felt polished and of-the-moment.
CHALK's Spring collection ($75-$385) will be sold on Shopbop.com and at Madison boutique in Los Angeles.
The basketball courts at Houston and Sixth Avenue made a big impression on Kevin Carrigan as a young Englishman in New York. He re-created them at the Calvin Klein presentation this morning, from the wire fencing of the set all the way up to his Spring clothes, which embrace and celebrate the all-American athleticism of the company's heritage. "Last season was about sensual, soft minimalism," he explained. "This one is more about fast-forward minimalism." A sheer cobalt-blue tank dress, for starters, was layered over boy briefs and a bandeau bra, and perforated PVC was whipped up into a zip-front sleeveless dress, a sweatshirt, and kicky to-the-knee skirts. Even the suiting took on a sporty edge, with a sleeveless tailored jacket layered over a mesh tee and trousers. You wouldn't mistake any of it for exercise gear, but the women's collection had a nice energy, emphasized by the graphic black-and-white color palette and the hits of sky blue.
Those hits kept hitting in the men's collections. From the underwear, which came in two-tone jewel colors and cut in a new Brazilian square cut, to sky-blue cotton suiting, Carrigan was delivering what he called "high-octane color." It was balanced by the usual Calvin palette of slate and ice grays. The sport-inspired mesh that suffused the women's collection was here, too, in micro-mesh textures layered on one another: A cotton mesh dress shirt with a silk mesh tie. "Wearing the mini-mesh textures together is a new direction, I feel," he said. "I'm taking the sport and introducing the formality—taking the formal out of formal." It gave even the more traditional silhouettes (a straight pant rather than a tapered one, a slight break rather than the ubiquitous crop) a slight charge. With the menswear more than the womenswear, a resurgent sense of the old mixed with the new. The inspirations were, on one hand, sportswear from the thirties, and on the other, from modern-day basketball. Leather lace-ups with athletic cotton ankle socks underscored the point.
"Of course I'm ready. Are you?" responded photographer Willy Vanderperre last night when asked if he was prepared for Dior's two-night-in-a-row extravaganza at the Guggenheim. The house has underwritten this year's international gala, which, set for this evening, celebrates artists James Turrell (his mesmerizing light installations were featured earlier this year) and Christopher Wool (whose paintings will be on view at the museum through January 22).
Yesterday evening served as an amuse bouche—or an amuse oreille, if you will—as the main event was an electro-deejay set by Plastikman. His beats were accented by a giant flashing LED pillar, which lit up the jam-packed space.
"This is one of the first places I visited when I came to New York many years ago," offered Dior CEO, and this evening's cochair (along with Raf Simons), Sidney Toledano. Olivier Theyskens, too, has a special relationship with the museum. "I used to look at it in books before I was able to come to New York," the designer recalled. "I was always intrigued by its shell-like structure. And I remember when Nam June Paik put all those TVs on the floor. I wanted to jump from the ceiling!" he offered before giving Simons a hug. "I'm very impressed, seeing all of Wool's work in one place," said Simons, referring to the artist's multilevel exhibition of black-and-white paintings. "He was a massive influence on a whole generation—on all the artists I kind of grew up with—so this is very well deserved. Bravo."
In addition to guests such as Elizabeth Olsen, Gaia Repossi, Daria Strokous, Pat McGrath, and Guido Palau, How I Met Your Mother's Cobie Smulders turned out for the pre-party. Naturally, she was dressed in tip-to-toe Dior. "I've actually never been to the Guggenheim," admitted the actress. "It's kind of…amazing," she gushed, looking out from the third floor of the rotunda. Smulders is flying off to Toronto this evening, so she won't be joining Dior and co. for the gala. But Simons has his hosting duties cut out for him. Is the designer up for round two? "Always," he said.
