Dope Ambition

It seems the collaboration collections, between high fashion designers/labels and stores like H&M and Target’s GO! International, is not slowing down, but rather picking up the pace with every passing season. After extremely lucrative and well-marketed collections with Versace for H&M and Missoni for Target, it seems high fashion has abandoned its suspicions about “democratizing” fashion with affordable collections for the masses, and is charging full speed towards making this semi-phenomenon a normal occurrence.

Italian fashion house Marni just announced its upcoming collaboration with H&M, to hit stores March 8, 2012. Consuelo Castiglioni has perfected the thrown-together, polished look in her collections that seamlessly blend bold colors clashing against offbeat pastels and playful patterns;the look comes off as Mary Kate Olsen with a dose of Calvin Klein.

Now, everyone will be able to shop Marni, and though her clothing has less outward sex appeal than Versace’s short hems and low necklines, I don’t doubt American women will run in packs to the opening because, well: it seems that has become the norm for these past few diffusion lines.

Thoughts? Will you shop the collection? The silver, chunky-heeled pumps look divine.

via// forbes

Magazines who offer dual covers? Four covers? A dozen? They’re all a drastically underachievement compared to the 20 covers Dazed co-founder shot for the mag’s December issue. The covers both time travel to the past and focus on the future, featuring some of the most influential musicians, models, actors, insiders and influences ever to grace the cover of Dazed & Confused, while also sharing the spotlight with the newest crop of talent.

Some of my favorite covers include Damon Albarn (lead vocalist for the Gorillaz), Pharrell, Juliette Lewis, Cillian Murhpy, Chloe Sevigny and of COURSE, Little Dragon, with every cover featuring a drastic play on light and shadow.

Check in with Dazed Digital to see all the covers and watch webisodes on each cover star.

Radness.

We’ve seen the tough-girl spikes and played out studs adorn the cuffs, collars, pockets and wrists of biker girl chic ensembles for awhile now, both in countless street style pics and on the pages of many an editorial. But being rough around the edges doesn’t have to translate to a cold, calloused exterior. The 3D geometric shapes and jagged edges in Reaction Poetique‘s collection are a perfect example of the tough girl aesthetic injected with ample doses of femininity.

The necklaces, brooches and fan-like cuff bracelets are actually 100% silk, twisted and transformed to make wearable cubes and triangles trimmed in steel and oxidate silver. You’ll also find inkjet digital prints either sprawled across or centered within the silk pieces displaying images with subtle Renaissance references. Check out more of this collection here.

In a recent interview with The Guardian UK‘s The Observer, former French Vogue Editor-in-Chief Carine Roitfeld has a few quotable gems. Lord, I love this woman. If she was my aunt/godmother/step-mother, I’d be fucking cool.

As you get older, you must never share your wardrobe with your daughter. Never ever. You will never look beautiful in a jean jacket and a mini-skirt, even if you have a beautiful body. You have to wear something for your age or you will look really ridiculous. There are too many 50-year-olds dressing as 20-year-olds. You have to look every five years at your wardrobe and say: “Is it OK to wear this with my legs? Is it OK to wear sleeveless with my arms?’ Then you have a cull. It’s not nice but you have to do it.

and

What I love with England is it’s very cool. [They] don’t judge people so much on their look. When you walk along the street and you see someone with tattoos and a punk hairstyle, people don’t look – it’s normal for them. I love that attitude because in France, if you have that look, people stare at you and not in a nice way.

image via// the telegraph uk

As I’m sure you’ve all noticed the past few seasons, Tom Ford has sidestepped the usual fashion week catwalk in favor of an intimate gathering of hand-selected press, buyers and “insiders”… no photographers or cell phone snaps allowed. This semi-drastic step towards privacy was a choice that almost simultaneously went against the current fashion week climate, otherwise: fashion bloggers populate the streets and rows of shows, tweeting and blogging their photos in real-time to their fans and, consequentially, the masses; street style photographers snap editors’ ensembles, and style sites break down their outfits down to the anklets; fast-fashion stores like Zara and Forever21 knock off next season’s most oogled trends, almost overnight, and before next season even arrives, women everywhere are walking around in the next best thing to what was seen on the runway only weeks prior.

Tom Ford clearly wanted to avoid the outpour of images from his show; he claims he doesn’t want people to bore of his garments before they ever see life on a store hanger.  And had his Spring/Summer 2012 collection seen the blogosphere before its time, the pieces surely would have been knocked off and copied; the collection is pretty exquisite.

Ford tells Vogue UK: “My focus is really old-fashioned. I want to do classic clothes. I don’t want to do trendy collections that swing around from season to season. I want to do things that will stay in a woman’s wardrobe a long time—quite ‘forever’ pieces. So I’m looking for consistency.”

Consistency, then, is seen in the overt sex appeal that sort of dangles at the edge of “too much” without ever actually crossing over. Bondage was a theme, with black leather belts cinching the waist with corset-like ties to really define a woman’s curves. Pencil skirts look like they were poured on and frozen, and the looseness of his tops (peasant blouses, fringe) are never allowed to free fall; they must accentuate the woman underneath them somehow. Most stunning, though, are his dresses.

Here are a few images from the collection; head to Vogue UK to see the rest.

Thus far in winter editorial season, most of the androgyny and editorial gender-bending has been women, roughing it up and slicking it back to appear as the more masculine counterparts to their glazed and shiny feminine friends. The Dolce and Gabbana A/W campaign did a splendid job of this, and I particularly think Freja Beha and Arizona Muse perfect the art of editorial androgyny.

This editorial switches roles with Naleye Junior Dolmans getting prettied up in pink for the very 70s-feeling, Marc Jacobs-themed spread in Candy magazine, shot by Leon Mark. That pout is out of control.

Candy touts itself as the first fashion magazine completely dedicated to celebrating transvestism, transexuality, crossdressing and androgyny in all their glory. And who else would cover the latest issue but the omnipresent James Franco? Is there anything he does not do?

images via//fucking young

I’ll be the first to admit I love a chunky, oversized almost ill-fitting grandma sweater as much as the next woman, but sometimes it takes an updated cut or silhouette of your staple to make you realize you need a modern upgrade. I really like the cut and detail of these two knits form Florence-based independent label WOMEN-SWEAR; the hand-knitted sweaters offer both texture and fit, almost as if you’re wearing a cozier, softer blazer. I especially love the exposed, frayed seams at the shoulders and on the back of these two knits.

Check out more of the collection over at her website.

Mikaela Carlén gets lost in a few knits and Ts for the latest issue of Velvet. I love the styling and overall aesthetic of this shoot; it’s clean and simple, an effect many other editorials fail to achieve with their busy backdrops and overly-conceptualized themes.

images via //fgr

It seems I can’t enter a new neighborhood in New York without passing an Urban Outfitters either tucked quietly in a stip or standing tall on a corner, announcing its sequined shorts, faux fur vest existence to the world.

According to Bloomberg News, however, the store, which also operates Anthropologie and Free People, is losing the interest of its investors thanks to “bizarre” and “lackluster” fashion. In response, Chief Executive Officer Glen Senk said “We need more compelling product.” But that also depends on what his and his fashion team’s idea of “compelling” really is.

I must say, Urban Outfitters used to be the store I could depend on for a moderately priced chunky knit cardigan or a winter scarf. I walked into Urban Outfitters yesterday after months of avoiding it, and I found that almost 3/4 of its inventory offered pieces I could not (and would not) wear everyday: sequined knit shorts, black dresses with the entire back cut out, and the same zip-up-the-front bandage skirt styles seen on the dance floors of Jersey Shore. Sure, there were still a few chunky knits, but they were tucked in the corner, hiding behind leather fringe vests and sheer pants. And I get it: UO wants to tackle a variety of trends and provide them for the masses. But they used to approach this goal in a more streamlined manner; now, it seems as if there are no “handpicked” items; everything on the floor in from the grab bucket of fall and winter trends with no aesthetic thread keeping it all stitched together. They should stick to boho chic-style basics and vintage-inspired gear. Sequined shorts and sheer pants? Leave those to someone else.

And this is embarrassing: UO’s shares have slid 27 percent this year, the biggest drop among U.S. specialty apparel retailers except for Aeropostale Inc.

left, a look from their "12 days of Christmas" dress collection; right, the bell bottoms investors are complaining about

I swear, the pink got pinker and the trend went worldwide. Almost half of my most recent posts highlight the lovely hair trend that looks like wearers dipped their ends in the company ink…day-glo hued, cotton candy colored, company ink. And that’s precisely what the woman below did.

At the Versace for H&M launch in London, Cicek Brown, a PR rep for Versace for H&M, shows that fashion spreads aren’t the only place where you can get a little wild with your ends. Now if only she’d smile a bit…pink-haired and “serious” don’t seem like a sensible combination.

via//vogue uk