Posts for 'For Women' Category

Heidi Klum didn't put her best fashion foot forward at the fashion show for her upcoming TV series. The German model wore a head-to-toe tomato coloured outfit that didn't best highlight her model figure. Klum wore red trousers, shirt and waistcoat and even red shoes, looking more like she was going to join the circus than being a part of fashion judging panel.The mother of four is currently in New York for Fashion Week and to tape the finale of the upcoming series of Project Runway. She was joined by fellow judges Michael Kors, Nina Garcia and guest judge Jessica Simpson. The singer-turned-actress who has been slammed recently for wearing unflattering outfits wore a dress that accentuated her curves and the chic ponytail and drop earrings finished her look perfectly.

Following in the footsteps of Victoria Beckham, Faith Hill and Debra Messing, Jessica will help to choose the winner of popular clothing design show. Since only six Runway episodes have so far aired on Lifetime, all 10 of the remaining designers presented collections so that the results of the finale would not be revealed.Simpson debuted her own Show Me Your Blues Jeanswear collection on Tuesday. Her boyfriend Eric Johnson and sister Ashlee Simpson-Wentz came to lend their support. The night before the show Heidi was the guest of honour at a party to celebrate her gracing the September cover of City magazine.

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Madonna has been hit with a lawsuit over her new "Material Girl" fashion line for teenagers by a California clothing company that says it has been using the name since 1997. L.A Triumph filed a lawsuit against the pop superstar in the California Central District court on Thursday, just two weeks after the Madonna line went on sale in Macy's.

The company said in its suit that it has been "continually selling similar clothes in similar retail outlets at similar price points under their Material Girl brand since at least 1997, and Madonna and her newfound company do not have the right to trade in the same space under this brand."Madonna teamed up with her 13 year-old daughter Lourdes to design the 1980s inspired clothing line, which borrows from the pop star's punk-girl style when she rose to fame in the 1980s and earned the moniker, material girl.

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Lanvin will be the next high-fashion house to become a partner of fast-fashion retailer H&M. The joint collection, featuring womenswear and menswear, will go on sale Nov. 20 in North America and then to the rest of the world three days later.

"H&M approached us to collaborate, and see if we could translate the dream we created at Lanvin to a wider audience, not just a dress for less. I have said in the past that I would never do a mass-market collection, but what intrigued me was the idea of H&M going luxury rather than Lanvin going public," said Alber Elbaz, artistic director of Lanvin.  Elbaz will oversee design with menswear designer Lucas Ossendrijver.

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The Alexander McQueen fashion house presented its first menswear collection following the designer's death, drawing on archives and the fashion house's British roots in a bid for continuity.

But not everyone stuck close to familiar territory on the second day of men's fashion week Sunday: Giorgio Armani presented a surprisingly edgy and militaristic/borderline S&M line for next summer.

In a diametrically opposite look for the season, Gianfranco Ferre's young designing pair looked to India, Japan and China for a relaxed, easy-to-wear collection cut largely of linen and silk.

ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Alexander McQueen's spring/summer 2011 collection was the first solo outing for Sarah Burton, who has worked with the fashion house for 16 years and was named creative director last month.

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Bringing out the wild side of teenagers may be a dangerous thing, but local apparel brand Fresh Gear (dubbed “F’g") is using it as inspiration for its latest line, Wild Stories.

Rebel wear

A few decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for anyone to claim that they were designing a fashion line consisting of cargos, skirts, shirts, shorts, and T-shirts to bring out the “rebellious streak" of 13-to-18-year-olds. But that seems to be F’g’s selling point.

“F’g’s vision is to be a trendsetter in teen's wear by providing popular, innovative, edgy and modern pieces that effectively help the youth find their unique voice," says Fresh Gear brand Manager Jo Anne Jamela.

Fluid art

“Through F’g, we want the youth to be fearless with their fashion choices instead of merely conforming to what is currently selling in the market That’s why we’re veering away from the standard ‘sweet girl’ or ‘boy-next-door’ look and into something more dynamic and expressive," she adds.
Pop culture nature

As such, Wild Stories takes its cue from a concept that is currently taking the international fashion world by storm: nature.  Divided into four main categories, F’g’s collection pays homage to.

The wide spectrum of nature’s colors as well as geometric and abstract designs. Colors of Nature pays homage to the wide spectrum of colors that nature possesses, such as the deep blue of the oceans.

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Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo has said its menswear designer Massimiliano Giornetti will also take on women's ready-to-wear. He succeeds Cristina Ortiz, who has worked with the Florence-based fashion house designing the womenswear collections for the last two years, the company said in a statement late on Tuesday. Ortiz will display her last collection at the Milan September catwalk shows. Giornetti is working on the new womenswear collection for Autumn/Winter 2010. Family-owned Ferragamo, for whom supermodel Claudia Schiffer has recently modeled, is known for its silk scarves, ties, shoes and bags

Christian Lacroix sank to his knees, surrounded by his models in funeral black and his bride in gold lace, overcome with emotion at the end of his haute couture show on Tuesday, which could very well be his last.
"It's heartbreaking to see all these pretty girls in tears," he confessed, after embracing many of the 280 guests, who gave him a standing ovation, and all the "petites mains" who slaved behind the scenes on the collection.

Since his house went into administration last month, and no white knight has yet come forward, it could close its doors by the end of July with nearly all its employees losing their jobs. Half an hour before the collection went out on the catwalk, rich customers were arriving to take their seats in the salons of the Musee des Art Decoratifs in a state of incredulity.

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Karl Lagerfeld gambled with a whole new silhouette and proportion in Chanel's latest haute couture runway show Tuesday, July 7, and though he came up with some remarkable looks, this heads or tails collection was ultimately not a winner.

The key idea in this fall 2009 collection, adding fabric extensions to dresses, coatdresses and gowns frequently looked ill proportioned, even contrived.

It's all very well adding a fish tail to a classic Coco suit or gentlemanly tails or Belle Époque dress, and gussying them up with silver lining, but if the net effect is that models waddle rather than walk, then the result is not so chic.

That said, the collection offered lots of beautiful clothes, in particular a flared dress of horizontal ribbons worn with a sleeveless jacket, which screamed cover try, delightful ruffled blouses and some remarkable shaggy chiffon cocktails that had all the delicacy that one expects from Chanel. Plus, Mark Rothko style abstract sequined dresses had tremendous pizzazz, and Lagerfeld remains fashion's acknowledged master when it comes to creating flesh colored looks, like the exquisite trio of embroidered cocktail, column and Grecian goddess outfits.

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Lights, camera, Gaultier! French fashion's enfant terrible Jean Paul Gaultier found it, at the movies with a fall 2009 haute couture collection on Wednesday, July 8, inspired throughout by cinema.

Gaultier telegraphed his punch to guests as soon as they walked in the door of his Paris headquarters by naming each area of the show space after a major studio.

Each look was named after a famous movie, opening with curvaceous Dutch model Lara Stone as Le Mepris of "Contempt," Jean Luc Godard's classic starring Jack Palance and Brigitte Bardot about the cynicism of film making. Stone strutted out in leather trench-coat and seamed tights, her blonde hair piled up in a beehive just like Bardot in the movie.

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Several couturiers staged pared-down catwalk shows or even scrapped them altogether, opting for simple presentations, as even the highest echelons of fashion felt the global economic downturn.

Amid the gloom, Gaultier sounded a defiant note.

"For 30, 40 years... one has been talking about the funeral of haute couture... find solutions... and put even the most basic things into question," he said, presenting his 2009-2010 winter collection inspired by 1930s and 1940s movie stars watched by Australian singer Kylie Minogue, US actor Mickey Rourke and French designer Sonia Rykiel.

"But the crisis is the time when one should create new ways of doing things," said Gaultier, a central figure in the Paris fashion scene for more than two decades.

At Valentino, designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli presented their second collection for the house, which will always be associated with their predecessor Valentino Garavani’s dramatic red gowns.

They opted for black dresses lightened by ruffles, lace and cascades of mousseline in a collection inspired by "fragile and dangerous" femininity.

A little help from his friends

French couturier Franck Sorbier put on a much more limited show, and even dipped into his stocks of ribbons and fabrics to pull together the collection despite the crisis.

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