Archive for September, 2012

New York... Fashion's Night Out 2012

New York… Fashion’s Night Out 2012

September 19, 2012

Going to New York Fashion Week is the gravy on Thanksgiving. It’s the icing on the cake. I set aside two whole days – Thursday & Sunday – to do whatever I wanted. Friday and Saturday were for what passes for “work” in this field – fashion shows and street-style photography – but Thursday & Sunday were for vacation. This post is about Thursday, and Fashion’s Night Out. I’ll be posting about Sunday and all my great thrifting finds within the next week or so.

Being on vacation is all about a state of mind. It’s about being relaxed, and exploring a foreign place. Well, with all this self-imposed free time on my hands I did what every young broad in the big apple should do – I spent half the day wandering through Bergdorf Goodman. If there’s a Vatican of fashion, this is it. The precisely decorated nooks for each designer lent an Alice-in-Wonderland vibe to the excursion, and down the rabbit hole I fell. I ran into Phillip Lim’s team dropping off comic books for the FNO party later that evening, and they invited me down to the party at the boutique in Soho where they said there’d be autographed copies.

Phillip Lim Comic Book

See Phillip Lim’s signature in gold above the sticker? And the dress on the cover matches the dress in the window (yes, captain obvious…) After chatting with Refinery29 New York’s editor (and party hostess) Annie Greenberg, I jumped on the subway and headed north to the Opening Ceremony party at the Ace Hotel. Unfortunately my New York partner-in-crime Rhianna had to work at ACNE’s FNO party that evening, so I was flying solo. God, #fashiongirlproblems I know!

Opening Ceremony’s FNO party was a must see, especially since it was K-Pop themed. Rhianna and I waited outside for hours last year. This year, no way! I got in early. I adore Opening Ceremony and my credit card feels the pain. Shopping at OC feels like being in the clubhouse for fashion kids, like you just absorb coolness via osmosis through the air. I was a little disappointed the other people at the FNO party weren’t so friendly, but that’s par for the course in fashion especially at a public event. With loud music and partygoers arrayed in cliques like social armour, I knew right away that it’d be hard to meet new people. But whatever, I had a blast anyway and I met a really cool blogger, Kerrin, wearing the coolest Charlotte Olympia cat shoes. Going to parties in New York alone is like trial by fire – it takes a thick skin, but the benefits are well worth it.

New York... Miroslava Duma

New York… Miroslava Duma

September 18, 2012

Miroslava Duma Street Style

I always look forward to photographing Miroslava Duma in New York. Multiple outfit changes throughout each day never disappoint, and allow us to photograph her over & over again – smart cookie! I thought I’d post her photo now with all the green on my blog, what with the Kenzo sweatshirt and Rag & Bone show posts below. It’ll be interesting to see what Pantone declares to be the color of 2013… I think I have a hunch!

NYFW... Rag & Bone Spring 2013

NYFW… Rag & Bone Spring 2013

September 17, 2012  |  Fashion Events, Feature

After three whirlwind fashion weeks in a row I made the conscious decision to scale things down this year and treat my trip to New York like a vacation. I know what you’re thinking: what the hell is she thinking? Fashion weeks are supposed to be madness! If 2011 was the year my fashion blog blew up, then 2012 was time for me to focus on *real* life. I graduated from DePaul with a Master of Science in Management (go me!) and began a real career as an advertising copywriter, which was actually my only goal for 2012. So you know what? I was tired. I needed a vacation. And so I took one!

Karlie Kloss rag and bone

Karlie Kloss

Rag & Bone was one of two shows I attended this year, along with MM6 Maison Martin Margiela. Both fit into the schedule I planned with family & friends and are two of the brands I wear the most. I wear one of my 6 pairs of Rag & Bone jeans nearly every day and wore my Margiela sneakers religiously for the past year. I really wanted to cover presentations for designers I not only adore, but ones that fit into my life in a very real way. Plus, I’d rather go to no shows at all than shitty ones and feel obligated to throw the photos up on my blog. I learned that lesson…

Rag & Bone is a heavyweight show, and the scene didn’t disappoint. An ice cream truck on a patio? Why not. Anna Wintour striding through the venue, magically parting the front-row crowd like the Red Sea with nothing more than her presence. Oh, and that guy I saw running around who looked like Thom Yorke was actually Thom-fucking-Yorke. I mean, of course it was. But I literally couldn’t believe my eyes, so it wasn’t until the music came on – and I realized it was Radiohead playing – that it was him. He DJed the show using prerecorded tracks for his friends, designers Marcus Wainwright and David Neville. I’ve been listening to Radiohead religiously since early high school so this was truly a fashion show I’ll never forget.

Enough of me blathering on – to the clothes!

This green knit dress with an Alaia-style silhouette was undoubtedly the standout piece of the collection. If the engineer striped dress below was a more literal interpretation of the designer’s inspiration – the Paris-Dakar rally – then this dress was the concept rendered abstract. Cut in a deep, techno green (not a gimmicky fluorescent, colors which frankly feel tired after several years), the streamlined, body-hugging silhouette and swinging hem elicited a feeling of speed and motion.

Rag and Bone engineers dress

Although this dress is more literal than Rag & Bone tends to design, it illustrates precisely the saleability of Neville & Wainwright’s brand. Straddling the demands of the magazine editors with the buyers on the sales floor is not an easy task, and Rag & Bone nails it. No matter how obscure the reference, Rag & Bone collections are wearable. And at the end of the day, what fashion brand can survive with clothes that don’t sell?

Below, the same dress was shown in honeysuckle pink:

Crackled leather doused in the same acid green color of the knit dress above, this swoon-worthy piece is continuing the trend of oversized motorcycle jackets with a boxy silhouette. Last year, I purposely bought my Allsaints leather jacket 2 sizes too big because I liked the way it looked better than close fit of my own size. This might just be runway styling and the jacket produced for stores might be closer to a true fit, but that’s the beauty of a versatile piece. Wear it how you want!

A desert-themed collection wouldn’t be complete without some tan, now would it?