"vintage" balenciaga

Fashionista had a post about Balenciaga mag-ads from 2000 and today. I am kind of partial to the 2000. There is wear-ability, directness, accessibility with out losing the air of luxury. I still appreciate the molded forms from ss08 and the de-constructed ease of fw08 and surely I will find beauty in the offerings for ss09. My point lies in that these ads are shown, most often, in up-market women's magazines, vogue, W, harper's bazaar, et al which, especially in American, you cannot throw a Chloe bag at the editorial section without landing on a page that is entirely recreating a Balenciaga runway look. So, why rehash the same look for the ads? The consumer has seen, most likely, the $3000 dress on the runway, in the editorial, and now must see the same thing posed against ad for horse-face's newest vomitous fragrance. Ads are inherently for sellin' and I appreciate the ads that make that a possibility for the consumer. The 2000 ad below and it is kind of refreshing to see two gorgeous people, a dog tee shirt, and a horse without the haughtiness that luxury ads can often impart.

schematically thematic

Peter Jensen showed last week in london for spring 09. Peter who you may say? Peter our new paramour. Each season he devotes the entire collection to a rigid theme which ends up ruling my brain once i see it. Last spring (08 season), vastly ahead of trend, he channeled the heroines of John Waters movies. Pops of bright, drop crop, light wash denim, fringe; he had it all! All looks were on-point, pre-trend, and wearable, but still cohesive to a tangible theme. There may be nothing I love more than adherence to a concept. Rigid follow through and excellent outcome. Making it centric to J.Waters is just an added bonus. For spring 09 it was all about Jodie Foster. Each look paid thoughtful, affectionate, patronage to every film Mlle Foster has appeared in from Taxi Driver to Silence of the Lambs (that new one where she played a futuro assassin was excluded). It is so refreshing to see a designers spring09 theme that isn't intentionally a mass cash cow digression: ahem...the various permutations of prada lace; its expensive to make, but still exists in every price point from 5$ to 50$K making it easy to adopt the trend which can go ridiculously wrong and will most likely make you look like an (attention) whore if you dare to err on the cheap end of the spectrum. Anyways, below are images from P.Jensen's spring 08 and 09 shows which are fresh to death and in homage of Cry Baby and Taxi Driver respectively.

kenley makes me want to vomit

how the fuck are you going to argue with LLcoolJ about what is and is not hip hop?! i am so glad she is getting ripped a new asshole behind her back right now. fashion schadenfreude on p.runway right now takes it to the top. after hearing that lindsay lohan is a guest judge on the upcoming lifetime network proj runway and that some other hills skank face is getting a tv show for nothing (fun fact: the hills one with fake tits, whitney, and possibly that other one, were told at san fran art institute that if they wanted to be famous designers the needed to move to LA. ie: you are unskilled at design so try your hand at parlaying your vapid lives into cash. congrats), this short 15minutes of reason is trying it's best to put things right. look for a regular post this weekend.

like a truck driver goin to church

how on earth, has bravo gone from the bane of my existence to the apple of my eye in a scant few weeks? oh with the rachel zoe show, dastardly villians of proj rungay, and new season of top design with special guests from PROJECT RUNWAY! it's like a fictitious reality design-gasm.

firstly, re: rachel zoe: lovable genius. lovable because her earnestness is genuinely believable. genius because this mico-series, following her and her associate and assistant, shows that she is a real live person and not a harbinger of the apocalypse. also, girl knows her shit. and! invents hilarious and steal-able slang every episode. example: witch vibe. i am using that. now.

secondly, re: top design, how do you confuse blade runner and blades of glory? one is post apocalyptic L.A. the other, shitty will ferrel movie. fat georgia dude and Wisit, the song bird he is, had to design a window display for Jeffery Sebelia. J.S. , sportin an epic 'stach, rightly hates the pink and yellow twee puke fest that the contestants constructed to sit with his sleek modern jacket and knife-ish pant outfit.

maybe i am relaxing taking these shows to be the frivolity and fun that they are; maybe i have a lot of free time; maybe its nice to hear illuminated industry professionals rip minor assholes into the people that you feel need to hear it most, but on any given night there is something cattily current on channel 53. someone tells me that a tv show about hair on this station is equally venomous and a good cathartic hour of visuals.

post script:
OH MY GOD JOHNATHAN ADLER'S FACE DURING THE ELIMINATION OF TOP DESIGN! it is like he smelled a fart at a funeral; he doesn't know if its cool to call someone out on it on account of the over-arching stench of death.

rungay

Jezebel is giving the rundown of last nights eposiode of rungay. Tracie is on the proj run beat for the site and her comments are exceptionally excellent, as always. regarding my new most-hated character ever, Kenley,"...what Kenley needs is a heaping spoonful of shut the fuck up. She is so argumentative on the runway, it's embarrassing. Because it's ultimately disrespectful!". Jez has all of the pictures of the outfits up in the post, which is worth checking out. Kenley got in an argument with the judging panel, interrupting them and raising her voice, like always and stated the gem that she 'doesn't look at collections' therefore doesn't believe-seriously, she was not accepting that her outfit was unoriginal, even when M.Kors listed the designers that each piece she made was knocking off-that her vile outfit was knocking off things that had been done before. Just because you don't deign to look at it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that someone, or EVERYONE, has done it better and before you. The most galling thing about last night's episode was not Kenley's head up her ass, Suede talking about Suede, or even Michael Kors saying that Suede is not established enough to even THINK about referring to himself in the third person. It was that, all of these yo-yos cry and whine that no one understands their 'vision' or 'taste' (what, that neither exist?) in other challenges, but when they are given the carte blanche of creating a true avant garde outfit no one brings it. shameful shameful.

push it! push it real good!

spring 09 runway time! just as the first cool night, signaling the beginnings of fall, comes around it's time to think of next years effusive frocks and sculpturally winding sandals. so far just NY has shown and there is a heavvvvvvvvy homage to el-80s; mutton sleeves and stiff shoulders galore not to mention a quick return to body concious silhouettes. out of the gate there appears to be three camps of trend: 80s lady as just described, future forward with clarity in form and saturated color, and a mind-fuck of 90s executed as an archival design direction and not something that just recently happened. salt n' pepa's push it music video came on as i was flipping through runway photos and every member of the video's outfit was represented one way or another for sp09. innovators in every way. below are my favorites thus far. you can see i am erring my favor more towards future-90s. also, scope the marc by marc jump rope web necklaces. (designers l-r: chris benz, dkny, jenni kayne, marc by marc jacobs, rachel comey, vena cava; images from style.com)

le freak c'est chic

maybe you have noticed, stayin' up late at night, watching cops or re-runs of cheaters, interspersed between ads to talk to hOt cHixXX in yr area and bowflex commercials are poorly directed spots for 'chickdowntown.com'. maybe you haven't noticed. if so, totally your loss. these commercials look like they should be for high class call girls and if it weren't for the micro-designer run down at the end of the commercial. i gather it is a shopping website since it lists brands such as see by chloe, current/elliot, among others. they also have two page ads in lucky, elle, etc. have i gone to this website? hell no. if they have see by chloe and current/elliot, two brands that are oft sold out then, why do they need to advertise on late night cable television? i can understand the magazine ads, but even those are just a rundown of the brands the site sells. print and television ads are pricey and not something you see generally trusted high-end retailers-barneys, saks, bloomingdales-throwing cash into. what consumers are they trying to reach? ones that aspire to mid-range fashion pages and love joey greco (im not hatin')? that consumer sect doesn't usually have $400 to drop on a brocade miniskirt and would sooner buy the 'designer inspired' version from forever21. if you are trying to expand your customer base there are less sketchy ways of doing it that don't involve product-placing yourself between phone sex line commercials and erectile disfunction ads, just sayin'.

pls, allow me, to geek out for a piece

so! News! Wwd reports that Phoebe Philo is designing for French brand Celine! Philo was most recently designer for cool boheme french brand Chloe. During which she posed classic French chic-itude with nostalgic mid-century silhouettes a la demure virgin suicide attire. At the same time the juggernauts that were/are the paddington and the less apocalyptic bay bag dominated the accessory scene. Philo designed for Chloe after Stella McCartney who in turn was after K.Lagerfeld all of whom-along with current designer paolo melim andersson-have all put their own twist of laissez-faire cool into chloe. Chloe is doin' alright with andersson's effusive looks anchored by semi-cubist architectural shoes and accessories, but Philo is so good! Which is why I am freaking to hear that she is lending her talents to Celine (owned by lvmh. Previous head of rtw design was michael kors. Started as a made to measure childrens shoe company). Not too much has been going in with Celine which is why I am psyched that Philo was chosen. She is perfect to bring the house back to the future with a clean effortlessness and tight style.

Disgust and laughter: down by da beach

I thought waking up to the sounds of waves, labor day sunshine and the fifty pound fall fashion issue if W would be a good goodbye to summer and hello to fall. Little did I know that ten-ish pages into the actual articles (which start a good 100pages past the ads), I would be near vomiting from the overtly cloying article on the nonsense that is San francisco academy of art. I am typing this from my phone-that's how much I think you need to know about this-so instead of going into great detail I am going to bullet point the offenses:
-an instructor saying graffiti started in the west coasts-knowlege much?
-it is a for profit private school with open enrollment
-those c-mdumpsters (sorry mom) from the hills tv show went there, but atleast they dropped out
-an instructor defensively prefacing herself with "I've written two books on illustration" chill, if you were confident in your former students work you wouldn't have to freak on yourself so hard
-full sports program; what? That makes no sense
And the two biggest crimes
-Saying "we can teach good taste...we can teach anyone to be am artist"
-followed by an ADVERTISEMENT to enroll at the school a scant 25 pages after the article

How much did that school just PAY to give themselves a better image? Hard work and actual design acheivemet is so last season