Emmanuelle Alt appointed Editor of French Vogue

Carine Roitfeld (former Editor) and Emmanuelle Alt (on left, future editor)

photograph courtesy of mystylefest.wordpress.com

I adore French Vogue and how Carine Roitfeld has re-invented it these last few years, without limits, and using it as a vehicle for her personal expression about women, luxury fashion and lifestyle. Then suddenly, the carpet was whipped up unexpectedly and she resigned. It has just been annouced that her partner in crime, Emmanuelle Alt, has been appointed the new Editor in Chief. This is a woman with a more nonchalant style, less sexy, more tom-boyish (actually the petit bateau striped top in the January screensaver post just below is dedicated to her ... ) and I do hope she is fearless and shares with us all her inner wishes about life, fashion and being a woman. It was sooo fun with Carine (who personally I hope creates something ravishing ...), but I am certain it will be just as amazing with Emmanuelle!

A New Year, a fresh start, new faces, places and thoughts. It is all so positiviely invigorating. Change is wonderful. Embrace it while you can.

Upstairs Downstairs - a sumptuous BBC fashion delight!

On BBC tonight, in just a few minutes - is the last episode of a beautifully conceived revival of “Upstairs Downstairs.” Set in 1936, in London, it is a story of the lives of an aristocratic family (upstairs) and their household help (downstairs.) I am swooning over the retro clothes (Amy Roberts) AND the interiors (Eve Stewart).
The women’s clothes are simply marvelous. One woman is dressed gorgeously eccentric, reflecting an Eastern influence - you feel the touch of silk velvets, hand woven silk crepes, hand beading and piecework, which is worn unexpectedly with a pair of shocking peacock green stockings popping out of sturdy leather shoes – streaming long scarves or bright coral jewelry – with her pet monkey and brilliant heirloom tiara as props … while another character is all sultry and pale, with chiffons in flesh tones, or shades from the white of the eyes, something you can’t put a finger on, because it is so fragile and beautiful – and all of it contrasting beautifully with dark brunette hair or blood red lipstick. Another woman is dressed with all out glamour - but it’s her coarsely knitted beret worn with an expensive fox cape-let which makes it so real, and a body skimming (in this case serious vintage couture wear) fully beaded evening gown which is the ultimate dress because of the extraordinary way it fits – how it glides over the body and then the beauty of the hair styling, make-up and jewelry.

The men are equally turned out, with immaculately tailored and fitted tuxedos – here as with the women, the beauty is in the perfection, the fit, the way the clothes glide effortlessly, move so easily, it their charm, and that sort of made-to-order feeling is a luxury not seen today.
The household help have beautiful lace detailing, tiny tucked and pleated bibs, pretty, sanguine starched caps and interesting collar shapes. The men wear fitted salmon striped silk waistcoats. Everyone is turned out in tip to toe splendor, from sunrise to sunset, and you glimpse or just feel that no possible detail has been forgotten, and assume that all their undergarments must be of the period as well to get this kind of ease of fit. The shoes are sturdy but fine, with a medium proportioned curved heel (silly me, why did I discard an old pair of Maud Frizon shoes from years ago with just that heel ... .)
The settings are sumptuous, with interesting moldings, colors, dark silk wallpapers, the glow from side table lamps - all setting a stage of beauty. As I scurried around to find out about the stage designer, I discovered that she adopted her colors to best show off the beauty of the leading women. The settings dictate the moods, the manner of walking. There is a revealing interview with the actor Adrian Scarborough who plays the butler, who mentions: "My favourite room was the kitchen pantry. There were shelves and shelves of provisions, boxes and jars from the period along with home-made preserves and chutneys, bottled beetroot and pickled onions.”

Admittedly, the story line moves slowly, but maybe that reflects the reality of the pacing of life in 1936, which would be so different from our lives today. No matter, I am swooning over the series. It celebrates fashion and style as we embrace it today – ageless, and as a tool to bring out the character and emotions of the women, expressing her personality and individuality and beauty. I’m off to see the last episode and to bring some fresh retro beauty into my wardrobe!

(And the photos are from BBC.)

Rodarte Spring 2011 return to nature

Spring 2011 collections started in New York, continued to London, are happening right now in Milan and soon will, en wrap Paris. Via the inventiveness of the Internet, there is much for everyone to see and learn about the collections, the designers, the fashion shows and the behind the scenes creative talents who make these presentations so sumptuously remarkable and influential. Once those "talents" and their techniques were privy to a select group of fashion editors and key store buyers, but today you can whip around the web and find more and more detailed information about who does what, and with a little searching - some how-to photos to support their processes.
Being a romantic, I was totally swooned over by the Mulleavy sisters’ “Rodarte”– chiefly, their accessories – meaning all the accessories including the hair and makeup as well as the shoes and belts.Seventies suburban Californian, the Redwood forest, Big Sur and the rugged Bay area inspiration for the collection has been well documented, but actually, how and why it happened has no significance for me. I was drawn in by the fantasy of feeling closer to nature. The hand carved barrettes, in raw chunky wood become so beautiful with the shapes of butterflies, beetles and branches. They stimulate and intertwine with one’s own colorful associations and imagination of nature with the interpretation and softness of this artist's hand carved image. These feelings are carried over into the hair, make-up, shoes and belts. (click here for Vogue's how-to and scoop.) The golden hues of an imagined golden flecked frost, deep in the forest, added a magical glow to the make-up with their carefully gold-dipped eyelashes, lips and cheeks. The slightly disheveled hair with uncommon streaks of texture feels like a pile of windswept leaves. It all has the hand of craftsmanship combined with a personal voice from the designers which spurs my desire to collect, own, make and find a way to be part of this natural beauty.
And even though I love the clothes, my style would be to wear all their accessories with my own jeans, cashmere and silk, with more streamlined and wrapped dresses, allowing them to glow with the touch of sun and moonlight and no competition and truly become a part of my life, and feel I am in the forest, even though I am in the city. Uhmmm… .

images from http://www.vogue.com/collections/

The Dress I Made

Dutch product designer Renske Solkesz is documenting on her new blog her personal challenge to create her own wardrobe. She is commited to wear only clothing of her own design that has been created with her own hands. Renske is searching and exploring her clothing needs and desires following a pure, sincere and beautiful design philosophy. She is not creating a utilitarian wardrobe of basics, but a wardrobe of her emotional, aesthetic as well as her practical needs and visions.

There are belts:

Scarves, skirts,

dresses and more.

Personal challenges reveal and surprise. They take commitment, energy and power. Her blog is her way of revealing and sharing her artistic story.

Free September Fashion Wallpaper

(click here to download this month's calendar

as your screensaver or to print a copy)

Each month, when I sit down to create the calendar, I surprise myself with the final results. Even though I start with a planned thought and direction, regardless the wallpaper takes on a life of its own, developing and evolving as I sketch, until I am content that I have sincerely expressed the mood that I feel about fashion and style - at that moment.
This month I knew I wanted to include a project from my book, since the special sale - of $10.00 (click here! for info) is continuing and so sketching the little Russian caplet project from the book was a natural.

With it's faux-fur collar, and rugged frayed edges it captures a way to re-cycle your old jeans to fend off that first gust of fall with carefree style.

From there it went to pony tails like on MADMEN, and then elegantly manicured finger nails, which were sketched with Serge Luten’s “Sang-Bleu” nail polish –

-- interesting and unique colors on finger nails are turning quickly into the key accessory this fall.  All of that is wrapped with thoughts about searching as an artist surrounded with the backdrop of André Masson’s “Leonardo da Vince et Isabella D’Este.” This woman may be in New York, Berlin or London, in the countryside, just somewhere where there is a stimulating mood to search, ponder and try to make sense of life, politics, art, the future and our roots.

Wishing one and all and yours a wonderful September!

Nancy

Barneys New York Denim Competition

Barneys has offered up a style challenge.

 --- Get out your favorite blue jeans, the ones that are truly you ---

and style them up with your most daring, outrageous, runway vision.

Then snap a photo and email it to the Barneys fashion directors.

The prize - 5 x $500 gift certificates !!

and to take part in a NYC/Barneys fashion fun and games competition.

I hope you take the challenge,

release your imagination and enter -

and

 hope you win!

Les Khakis de Chanel

Just wanted to pass the word-

before the limited quantities of Chanel's hottest nail polish disappear in their boutiques in

NYC (with a complimentary manicure ! no less at the Chanel Boutique on Spring Street),

as well as in London and Paris --

Chanel's special nail polish collection of three colors, created for

Vogue's Fashion Night Out - that look like this ...

on nail-polish maven Sophy Robson.

So perfect!

Soft and southern, heirloom style

Creole Sha explained that my post triggered the idea -- but this design duo gave it their signature, romantic touch - turning a pair of old denim jeans into soft feminine panties.

I adore them and wanted to share them with you.

All their designs on their etsy shop have that feeling of a hot, carefree, late afternoon in the south. 

The lazy luxury of hand-dyed family heirlooms … makes the last of the hot summer days feel lost in time and especially cool … .

Thank you Creole Sha for sharing your New Orleans style.

A quilted, pieced, morning coat created diamond shaped cotton

Labeled simply, as "Man's Morning Gown, 1825."

  Created from a cloth pieced together from hundreds of diamond shaped cotton fabrics.

It is the ultimate luxury.  Simply beautiful! 

Displayed as a rarity as part of the costume exhibition currently at the Brooklyn Museum (see below post).

The softly hewed earthy tones feel like a pile of leaves, swept by the wind and dappled in the morning light.  

The lift in the sleeve cap, the waist detail, wide cuffs and collar, covered buttons, every inch, softly hand tailored with the same grace and beauty that stitched the cloth together.

It is terribly romantic.

The back view shows the freedom of movement the wearer must have felt. 

Fullness comes from the soft gathers at the waist and a bias cut side seam. 

It's made by a master, but one wonders if it was commissioned by a professional, or stitched by a family member or by household help....and how glorious the lining must be - lovely it is!

American Women Costume Exhibitions at the MET and in Brooklyn

Elsa Scaparelli Bug necklace (Brooklyn image)

If you are in New York – you simply can’t miss the pair of costume exhibitions at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. Brilliantly drawn from the Brooklyn’s deep coffers of masterpieces, the exhibitions, celebrating American women, are filled with clothing, accessories and unique novelties from the mid 19th to the late 20th centuries. At the MET the focus is on the desire to embrace a new freer lifestyle that inspired the designers, liberating women, decade by decade. While in Brooklyn, it is motivated by the designers’ creativity and women of stellar style (with budgets to support their whims) who together defined and inspired artistry and change.

Liberty cape, 1900-1920 (MET image)

True to their character, the MET’s exhibition is staged, with showmanship and polish, while the Brooklyn just opens its closets and displays its exquisite wares in their bare bones, and astonishes with the unexpected, the rare and the historical references. When I finished, the MET exhibition, a previous visitor had written in the guest book, “I am proud to be an American Woman.” Proof of the invigorating emotional pleasure derived from the exhibition. I am switching back and forth between in my descriptions between the two exhibitions because they are both, equally so rich and beautiful. The textiles are fragile and certainly will not be displayed again very soon. I can’t encourage you enough to try to squeeze in a visit. “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection” at the Brooklyn until August 1st, and American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity” at the MET until August 15th.

Paul Poiret's evening dress, 1910 (Brooklyn image)

With these exhibitions, the museums have also launched their new partnership – the transfer of the entire Brooklyn costume archive to the MET, for its care and preservation. Though initially it seems, spurred by the financial limitations of the Brooklyn, the collaborative combination of the Brooklyn’s collection focusing chiefly on the Belle Époque period, Elsa Schiaparelli, Charles James, the American designers in the first half of 20th century, and collections donated by extraordinary American women collectors, such as Millicent Rogers -- with the MET’s European and contemporary clothing – has created a magnificent, powerful collection. The weekend I was there, the Museums jointly held a symposium covering all aspects of their collaboration culminating in the work of these two exhibitions. I attended Jan Glier Reeder’s (Consulting Curator) lecture on the three year documentation process, followed by her gallery talk of the exhibition. Needless to say, I was ecstatic and it was splendid!
One hopes though, that the MET will be able to maintain the unique character of the Brooklyn’s collection. It is as much the sensitive and subtleties as the obvious and well documented reasons, that identity the heritage of the Brooklyn Museum’s pieces and how they came to be so generously donated.

Charles Frederick Worth, late 19th c (Brooklyn image)

Below Elsa Schiaparelli cotton dress, patched with seed package prints and a bold zipper down the back.

I have many more images to share with you!

Re-cycling hats and dresses like Gone With the Wind

Gone with the Wind is and will always be a most favorite fashion inspiration. Tattered or dripping in gold, either way, the clothes play a supporting role. This week two associations with this movie popped up.

In the last room at the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition “American High Style,” one finds the hat created by Mr. John in 1939, for Vienne Leigh. With a can-do spirit, this hat was industriously re-fashioned with proud determination and glamorous style.

Perched on top is a rooster feet ornament (barely visible in this photo due to the dimmed lights and no flash.) They have been lightly dusted in gold, blending artfully with a grand swash of gold cord, fringe and green velvet upholstery fabric.

Then in “My Mother’s Clothes” by Jeannette Montgomery Barron, on page 45, the writer explains that her mother, who wore only the finest designer clothes, fashioned the below elegant dress from upholstery fabric.

Suggesting that it was motivated by …perhaps a divorce, Barron connects the curtains of Tara to her mother’s defiant creation of this re-cycled dress as her vehicle to show she can conquer a painful personal war.
I just posted a review here on Barron’s book – which I most highly recommend. Visuals and prose combine high style with human thoughts and feelings about mothers, daughters and life and loss.

Re-cycling, re-fashioning with energy and resolution is tremendous and beautiful.

A spot of sunshine in Seattle

In my family, Connie takes the most beautiful pictures.  She just sent me this one of little Panda enjoying a wink of sunshine in Seattle.  Isn't she glorious?  And inspiring a sewing project ... with soft, worn denim of course, ... naturally after a well deserved sleepy morning and a cozy read.

The Chanel Tweed Fabrics - Linton Tweeds

Nothing is nicer than sewing a Chanel suit with the same material that Coco used. The British mill, Linton Tweeds, located near the Scottish border in the English Lake District is where Coco went for her legendary fabrics … so why shouldn’t you! The quality, patterns and colors are luxuriously beautiful. I contacted them and they sent me the above swatches - plus more - with their not too high - price list.  The materials catch light and have a soft handfeel unique to the mill.  If you start to unravel a swatch you end up counting a dozen different yarns, mixed and twisted and colored in all kinds of unique ways.  The ability to weave this broad variety of textures is what makes Linton so valuable, and one really wants to support such a mill and the timeconsuming, individual products that they create.  Visit their website to follow how the fabric is woven, washed, inspected and read about their history. Below is a zoomed in view of my stash of swatches.  One of the plaids even has sequins woven into the fabric.

Here is a link to a sew-a-long blog just for the Chanel suit . (Isn’t it a wonderful way to use the internet to advantage for a most hand-crafted, personal project?) And even if you're not quite up to sew yourself a suit – what about a newsboy cap or a beret, or some flower brooches ... in a Chanel tweed?

ohh, and one more favorite, Ralph Lauren

Love RL's collection. The soft, short, circular, sleeved blouse, layered over a black, lacey (must be silk) sweater, and all those yummy classic fall wool, shoes and shapes. For home sewers, those sleeves are super fun to draft yourself and sew up. And what an inspiration, from the best of the New York runways, to start layering one's wardrobe to complement one's lifestyle. London's next. Photo from NYMag

Jacob and Rodarte and their dreamy looks for fall

The New York Fall 2010 collections are wrapping up and here are my personal favorites. From the top, I adore the new, longer, softer skirt silhouettes from Marc Jacobs. In this photo he has layered it under a high waisted English riding coat. These clothes celebrate beautiful materials. Suddenly, what is more luxurious than the feel of a swirl of fabric that has been finely tailored. His stockings, which must be silk, the bags and the no-color colors all capture the childlike dreamy spirit of his theme music for the collection "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Then there is Rodarte, and who doesn't love the work of these sisters and how they re-invent fashion. Again, like Jacobs, they showed longer skirts, or if they were shorter, it's feels more like the effects from layering, always soft, with wispy layers, in their unconventional vision. The puff sleeved dresses, silky knee high stockings, ties wrapped around the ankles, pretty gloves, everything is cloudy, mysterious and feminine.

photos from NYMag.com

Hommage à Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen, the legendary force behind fashion as we know it today, a master tailor, creative genius and inspiration and friend to so many in the fashion world, has passed away today. Fashion was his canvas, but actually, it didn't matter, his influence was far beyond that medium. His artistry filtered through our lives on all kinds of levels. He was a true innovator. He will be so very greatly missed.Daphne Guinness wearing McQueen in all it's glory and below, Lady Gaga,

... dancing in McQueen's spectacular boots in her "Bad Romance" video, only a few of endless images of women who were captivated by his art.

Paris Couture Spring 2010 Madness

Dior Couture, Spring 2010

above photo from Chanel is from style rookie, who, don't you think, was Karl's muse ...

While I have been at home hemming my jeans, some people have been thrown into the twilight zone of the Paris Couture fashion fantasies, for the Spring 2010 shows. As I gaze through the images, while mending my jeans, I do feel a bit like Cinderella ... I mean, after all, we are on opposite sides of the moon and the stars, at this moment, as I'm trying to be resourceful and others are inventing magic and looks destined for fantasies. But how can one not love all the creativity and madness. Chanel's silver glitter is everywhere, stockings, nails, shoes and jewerly - silver highlights in the hair, the way it's been teased into a power shape accented with flowers and bows, is so 2010 and looking forward. Thank you Chanel!
Dior is also on the other side of the stars. The sumptuous flowers and fabrics drapped all over the runway, with the overly elaborate taffetas, make-up, hats and clothes, are simply out of this world literally. We must pause, enjoy the magic, the imagination, and the world of never never land...... realizing, that what looks outrageous at this moment, as fashion goes, is going to be on everyone tomorrow - just watch it happen! Hmm, can't wait for Spring, for the piles of flowers and sumptuous clothing. Photos from French Vogue, The Vine, Style Rookie and the Chanel site.