Vintage Chic in Des Moines

A congratulations goes out to VFG Member dorotheascloset for her magazine feature debut in Core Magazine which covers Des Moines lifestyle and culture.

View the beautiful layout of City Runway Vintage Chic with all items from Dorothea's Closet!

Coco Goes Eco

A bicycle built for who?

"As the debate on global warming rages, Chanel has chosen a timely launch for its newest covetable accessory: an ergonomically designed, eight-speed bicycle. The bike has been created as part of Chanel's spring/summer 2008 offering to celebrate the heritage of the house, which is steeped in Coco Chanel's love of sport."

"...next season's hand-finished Chanel bike, which is accented with the house's signature quilted leather and double-C logo. Add it to your Christmas list now (and start being very good indeed) - it will be available in Chanel boutiques from December."

Vera vs. Vera

Thanks to VFG member and author Claire Shaeffer for pointing out this interesting article to us today.

Designers Wang, Neumann in trademark fight over 'Vera' name

By EMILY FREDRIX
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

(Original publication: October 17, 2007)

MILWAUKEE - Understated versus bold. Contemporary versus vintage. Composed versus carefree. These are forces at odds in a trademark fight over the use of the name "Vera."

At stake are millions of dollars and the branding of two fashion icons, modern urban designer Vera Wang and the late Vera Neumann, whose bright, floral scarves were favored by such celebrities as Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s and '60s.

Wang is suing The Vera Company, which owns the rights to Neumann's trademarks and designs and is relaunching the Vera Neumann brand.

The lawsuit seeks to protect pending trademarks for Wang's new line of clothing at Kohl's department stores, called "Simply Vera Vera Wang" but commonly referred to as "Simply Vera."

Wang's lawyers want a judge to rule the phrase does not interfere with the stylized, black "Vera" trademark held by The Vera Company. They want that mark canceled, saying it has not been used enough, and they want to bar The Vera Company from objecting to Wang's trademark applications.

The case was filed in January, well before the launch of Wang's line at Kohl's stores last month. It is set for a federal jury trial in New York starting Dec. 10.

The Vera Company has countersued, saying the phrase "Simply Vera" could confuse shoppers as the Neumann brand relaunches at boutiques and department stores across the country. They don't object, they say, when Wang's last name is included.

The Vera Company added Kohl's to the suit and estimates damages could exceed $20 million if Wang and Kohl's use the names, according to court filings. Kohl's Corp. is based in Menomonee Falls, Wis.

Wang holds a trademark to a simple form of "Vera," which her company applied for in 2004 and has not yet used, according to records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. An earlier attempt by Wang's lawyers to trademark "Very Vera Vera Wang" was abandoned in July, according to records.

Neumann was known professionally as "Vera" since she started her business in the 1940s. Her designs were in 1,700 stores by 1977, when sales hit $100 million. She died in 1993 at the age of 84.

"They're trying to eliminate this Vera from history so that Vera Wang can be known as 'Vera,' " said Susan Seid, who bought the rights to Neumann's designs in 2005 and formed The Vera Company, based in Atlanta.

Wang's company in New York has not returned messages seeking comment. A lawyer representing the company, Beth Goldman, said she would not comment on pending litigation. Kohl's spokeswoman Vicki Shamion also declined to comment.

The terms of Wang's deal with Kohl's, announced in August 2006, have not been disclosed. But Wang's lawyers wrote in court papers that Wang and Kohl's have invested substantially in developing the names and products. Kohl's has not said what it expects the line's sales to be, and analysts haven't said either. But total sales at Kohl's last year were $15.5 billion.

If The Vera Company wins, it will ask that all uses of the Vera Wang trademarks in question be removed immediately from Kohl's stores and relabeled, said Rob Frohwein, a lawyer representing the company.

Kohl's President Kevin Mansell said in a recent interview that the line of jewelry, clothing, shoes and home linens has attracted new shoppers and is selling out of some products. He cited handbags and apparel, including shoes, as top sellers for the retailer, which has about 900 stores nationwide.

Seid said she respects Wang but doesn't want her using the name "Vera" by itself, because it would impede her efforts to rebuild Neumann's brand. Some of Neumann's scarves and apparel are now available in more than 120 stores, including some Bloomingdale's branches.

Her signature silk scarves retail for about $78, while cashmere wraps sell for $300. All bear a tag that reads "Vera" in a dark script with a ladybug, also one of her signatures. The Vera Company will have sales of up to $4 million this year, Seid said. That could double next year with the introduction of new products and more distribution, she said.

The two Veras were and are influential, but they couldn't be more opposite, said Pamela Klein, chairwoman of the associate in fashion studies program at Parsons the New School for Design in New York.

Wang uses purples, tans and grays and has feminine, elegant clothing, she said, while Neumann's bright scarves were more carefree, and spoke to the colorful opportunities of life in the 1950s.

"Imagine people sitting on a patio drinking gin and tonics and loud music and palm trees and laughing with Vera Neumann," Klein said. "And Vera Wang, you're drinking martinis in a very elegant, quiet way."

Klein said Neumann's "Vera scarves" are known to women who were born before the 1960s. She added she never thinks of Vera Wang as "Vera" but always with her first and last name.

"This is an icon. This is eviscerating an icon, taking her out of the history books," Seid said. "This is putting this company out of business, for no reason. This is all over one word."

Check out some 'original' Vera vintage ladybug signature scarves - like this pink orange and purple geometric 60's print one from Morning Glorious Collectibles (pictured).

Or Vera signature linens - like this super cute red linen kitchen towel printed with adorable kittens from Posh Pig Vintage.

And also, be sure to read fuzzylizzie.com's blog post on the Vera vs. Vera issue here.

William Good

S.F. designer Nick Graham teams up with nonprofit Goodwill to recycle fashionably

Sylvia Rubin, Chronicle Fashion Editor

Sunday, October 21, 2007

More...

Into this golden age of all things eco-friendly comes a quirky new fashion line called William Good.

Nick Graham, the eccentric San Francisco designer and founder of Joe Boxer, the company that gave boxer shorts personality, has teamed up with Goodwill to produce the line, which is made entirely from items from the discard bins.

The clothes can be in bad shape or have no flaws at all - after 30 days on the floor, whatever hasn't sold goes to the discard bins. The other day, Michele Addey, an interior designer turned fashion designer, laid out some old buttons, a pastel striped shawl ("great fringe"), and a stained brown leather jacket on a long workbench. "Look at the lining! It's pristine brown suede. This is absolutely perfect for appliques," she said, as she cut out the figure of a dog.

Addey, along with four others, works out of an old Goodwill on Mission near 19th Street. Their goal is to create about 300 pieces in time for the opening of the first William Good shop in the country, scheduled to open inside the Goodwill on Fillmore and Post streets, in mid-November.

A Fair Isle sweater becomes a cropped halter top. A plaid lumberjack coat will get a new collar and toggle buttons. A multicolored sequined dress with shoulder pads will most likely be re-cut into a little jacket. A little black dress with imperfections is newly embellished with a stuffed swan, a la Bjork.

"She's a total inspiration," Graham says.

Refashioned clothing is nothing new of course. It is, after all, how Banana Republic came to be, in 1978, when San Franciscans Mel and Patricia Ziegler redesigned Army surplus clothes.

What's different here is the green goal. The Bay Area Goodwill is the first in the country to try this pilot project, with the ultimate ambition of taking the line to the mass market and, in the process, saving 75 percent of all its donated items from ending up as landfill.

"We think this will spread across the country," says Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez, the president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin. "It's no accident that the CEO of the New York Goodwill was just here and will be coming back with his production people to look very seriously at this."

Goodwill has expanded in other ways as well, including offering a link to eBay, where it sells more expensive pieces that have been donated, such as a silver and ivory cuff bracelet for about $200. To jump-start the William Good promotion, Graham and Alvarez-Rodriguez flew to Los Angeles last week with about 100 items of the new line for an informal presentation at L.A. Fashion Week. On Nov. 11, the collection will be on sale for a 24-hour period in a temporary pop-up boutique in Los Angeles.

The William Good concept was hatched, pitched and put into production almost as quickly as a runway show whizzes by.

"I was driving by the San Rafael Goodwill one afternoon," Graham said. "Within a block I came up with the name and the concept; within a couple of days, I sent an e-mail to Goodwill. Within a half hour, maybe less, Deborah answered me."

Graham had the fashion muscle to propel the project forward, Alvarez-Rodriguez said. "It was a good fit. We've got the retail outlets, production capabilities and will train workers to do the refashioning, deliveries and office work. He's got the name, the creativity and the passion."

The savvy shopper who is not put off by the inevitable garage sale aura of Goodwill knows that a good eye and open mind is imperative. The William Good line is pretty, um, whimsical, judging from the pilot collection. What's up with all those stuffed animals?

"It's my sensibility of eccentricity, irony and fun," Graham says.

"We have lots of shoppers who love to put together unique ensembles," Alvarez-Rodriguez says. "I think there's a range. If we'd let Nick do it completely by himself, the line would be all quirky. But there are sophisticated things, too. And we are very good at pestering him, in a good way, to make sure deadlines get met. It's a real collaboration." The profits will be split equally, she says.

The prices, ranging from $15 to about $300, will shock the system of the regular Goodwill shopper. "These are one-of-a-kind items!" Graham says. "They're a steal!" A merino wool sweater with simple embellishment might go for $35, a man's button-down with a silk-screened William Good frog logo is $15. On the high end: the cashmere, beaded and fur items. About 50 pieces will also be available at www.shopwilliamgood.com in mid-November.

Graham, one of San Francisco's most recognized designers, founded Joe Boxer in 1985, and sold it to Iconix Inc. in 2005. He now owns 100 Minute Co., which sells branding and retail merchandising services to the apparel industry, and he is a partner in Wonderbrand, a small underwear and sleepwear branding firm.

Alvarez-Rodriguez had heard of Graham but never met him before, but his idea to start a refashioned clothing line was not a foreign one. For the last year or so, she had been working with students and faculty at California College of the Arts on an environmental fashion project. "We had already started to work on a business plan to sell repurposed clothing in our stores and then Nick calls out of the blue," she said. "We called back in, like, five minutes."

(Students from CCA's Environmental Fashion Design class, led by Professor Linda Gross, will be offered internships, or will do class projects with Graham and Goodwill.)

Keeping the concept as green as possible is Graham's main goal. "We're not buying anything new for this project. We're even looking at getting donations of thread. We're being very conscientious. The labels are the only thing that's new."

Why the frog logo?

"I like frogs," he said. "Frogs are the first amphibians to feel the effects of climate change. Another way of looking at it is that one man's frog is another man's prince - we can turn a garment around from a frog to something great."

The same will happen with a portion of the Fillmore Street store that now is rather nondescript. "We're taking 200 square feet of the store and redoing it and making it into a William Good boutique," Graham said. "All the decor will be recycled: The floor of the shop is made from vinyl record albums, the paintings on the wall of clowns and dogs are found art. The racks will be made out of books - they get a lot of books at the Goodwill. We'll just stack them up in two rows and run a bar across it, and that's where we'll hang the clothes."

Alvarez-Rodriguez says she wants to employ 75 to 100 disadvantaged or impoverished people, for whom Goodwill provides job training, to work on the new line.

"I wouldn't be interested in doing this if we couldn't really build this into a viable business. We don't know yet if we can produce 10,000 pieces four times a year ... a million pieces? We're still working that out."

They'll need more creative types for that.

"We're looking for talented young designers," Graham said the other day, before heading over to the Mission Street workshop to peruse a new load of discards. "Nick's direction to us is rather broad," Addey said. "He'll say, give me pink and blue! So, we find pink and blue."

Rather than wait the traditional six months for a line to go into production, Graham says, "We go in and say, I'm going to do this today - it's so refreshing."

The daily discard bins are a constant source of surprises.

"This is basically a great treasure hunt every day," he continued. "We never know when we get to the studio what we're going to design that day. Goodwill is the ultimate recycling machine. They get 23 million pounds of clothing a year here."

E-mail Sylvia Rubin at srubin@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/21/LVQ0SQ96N.DTL

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Steinberg & Tolkien

A rare vintage: Bon voyage to fashion icon Steinberg & Tolkien
By KAREN KAY

A found farewell to the iconic London fashion emporium which inspired designers from Galliano to Gucci

Over recent weeks, the great and the good of Planet Fashion been coming in their droves to pay their respects to one of the style greats of our time.

The pavements of the nether reaches of London's Kings Road have echoed to the distinct clip-clop of Louboutin-clad feet, and the gentle padding of ballet slippers, as stylists, designers, students and aesthetes have joined the pilgrimage to Steinberg & Tolkien, the tiny, iconic boutique that gave birth to the trend for vintage when it opened its door to an unsuspecting world some 14 years ago.

It seems almost unthinkable that, at that time, it was a rare being who ventured out admitting to wearing 'secondhand' clothes, but as stylish names like Kate Moss, Helena Christensen and Winona Ryder pushed the boundaries of fashion, experimenting with vintage pieces, the quest for unique, antique style gained a momentum no-one believed possible. Suddenly, it was hip to admit your outfit had a bit of history, and Steinberg & Tolkien was at the heart of the vintage movement with its idiosyncratic take on the trend.

In a cruel twist of fate, as fashionistas from across the globe arrive for London Fashion Week to celebrate the creative genius of a city that is blessed with such a strong style heritage, and in a season where retro remains a burgeoning influence, the place where so many have unearthed vintage treasures is about to close for good.

In just a week's time, Steinberg & Tolkien will hang up the 'shut' sign on its small, black shabby-chic door for the last time, the victim of rapacious councils and landlords unapologetically exploiting commercial demand from for prime sites in London's premium shopping streets.

It is perhaps a romantic delusion to wish that this dressing-up box of a shop, which was opened mother and daughter Anne Steinberg Tracy Tolkien, could survive in 21st century Chelsea. To the untrained eye, it was a basement and ground floor crammed from floor to ceiling with clutter: no more than a stuffed second-hand shop. To aesthetes with an appreciation for craftsmanship and design details, it was Style Mecca.

"The staff there were amazingly passionate, with an encyclopeadic knowledge of the stock," says Funmi Odulate, author of 'Shopping for Vintage: the definiteive guide to vintage fashion' (Quadrille).

"Tracy, Anne and Mark were real pioneers: they didn't look at the catwalks and try and source stock to fit with trends, they just went for it with their own unique vision. Somehow, they achieved the impossible: finding vintage pieces that looked contemporary, so you didn't look like you'd walked straight out of a period drama or a 1970s sitcom. That, for me, was their special touch.

"And I'd never go there if I was in a hurry, because you would end up being in there for hours, drooling over some amazing piece from Chanel or Ossie Clark. I'd usually end up with an anonymous 1980s belt that I'd bought for a tenner, but that was equally thrilling in its own way."

So its demise is nothing short of a tragedy for the hoards of style leaders who have rummaged through the cramped rails of this two-floor Aladdin's Cave to find the kind of unique period pieces that would provide the foundation of a new look – either in their own wardrobes or the collections that would be generated as a result of sourcing an amazing sartorial treasure.

Vogue magazine's Fashion Features Director Harriet Quick believes the store has, on some level, been a victim of its own success: "It really spawned a huge interest in vintage that didn't exist before they came into being: and they have perhaps suffered as a result, because eBay and other vintage stores have opened in their wake and made sourcing truly unique clothes much more competitive.

"However, the shop has been hugely important as an influential fashion outlet, selling a really well-chosen selection of stock, from nameless hippy fur waistcoats to exquisite Christian Dior cocktail dresses and the span of prices that represented that.

"I once bought a Loewe handbag in there and a St Laurent blouse, and remember being thrilled with my purchases: once vintage was taboo, now it's all about individuality and an expression of personality.'"

Designer Sara Berman, now co-Creative Director at NPeal cashmere, recalls heading there as an 18 year-old St Martin's fashion student: "I vividly remember buying a beautiful beaded handbag soon after I first started as a fashion student, which was 'investment vintage' rather than the shabbier styles you'd unearth on the Portobello Road.

"I couldn't really afford it, but it was simply not going to get left in the shop. Likewise, a python clutch I bought soon after.

"Steinberg was filled with exquisite treasures that you couldn't help but covet. Little girls who dreamed of being princesses could go in there as grown-ups and treat it as the most fabulous dressing-up box. It wasn't just a shop; it had a rare quality that made going there a whole experience. It'll be desperately missed and, in my eyes, is very much the passing of an era."

"It's so sad that such an institution will no longer be around," agrees fellow designer Ann Louise Roswald.

"I remember going there trying to source some vintage gloves, and I found wonderfully glamorous Fifties satin ones after rummaging in the baskets there. I then got a glove-maker to replicate them in pure white, because they were a bit grubby, but sourcing the authentic style was made easy at Steinberg. I also used to adore the amazing 1920s flapper dresses with their intricate beading, which I'd swoon over."

Berman and Roswald are not alone in their love for the store, with many catwalk legends, including Tom Ford, Alexander McQueen, Ralph Lauren, Stella McCartney and John Galliano using it as a resource for design inspiration. In fact, almost every designer showing on the international runways this month has at some stage headed to Steinberg & Tolkien in search of that seed of inspiration to begin a new collection.

Continue reading this article here.

Princess Grace

Princess Grace lingers in memory

By Maria Puente, USA TODAY

Moving on from Princess Diana, it's time to remember an American princess, Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco, who also died in a car crash, 25 years ago this week.

The tiny European principality with an outsize reputation as a glamour destination commemorates its lost princess this fall with exhibits, a first-ever auction of her frocks, and book and magazine tributes. In keeping with her influence as a fashion icon, there will be window displays in New York and a new "Princess Grace Coral" lipstick by Estée Lauder.

"It seemed the right time to bring to the land of her birth some of the special things that made her such an iconic and memorable figure," says Maguy Maccario-Doyle, Consul General of Monaco in New York.

Americans under 40 might be forgiven for not knowing much about the former Grace Kelly — not even that she is the Kelly in the much-prized Hermès "Kelly bag." She went from Philadelphia Mainliner to Hollywood star to fairy-tale princess in the 1950s, when celebrity coverage was less pervasive, even polite compared with today. She went to her death, from a twisty corniche road in Monaco, just as celeb madness was about to explode.

On Sept. 13, 1982, Grace, then 52, was driving to her family's palace from their country home when she had a stroke, lost control of her car and plunged down the mountainside. She died the next day; her younger daughter, Princess Stéphanie, suffered minor injuries. Grace's royal funeral in Monaco's St. Nicholas Cathedral (where she married Prince Rainier in 1956 and where his funeral was held in 2005) was watched by an estimated 100 million people around the world.

Before Diana, there was Grace — just as beautiful, just as fabled a wedding, just as fashionable, just as much a royal philanthropist, just as tragic a death.

Except Grace had the added cachet of Hollywood glamour —she had an Oscar. And she was well-mannered in an era in which stars never appeared in public without underwear and princesses never blabbed to the media. Grace helped shift the international perception of Monaco as a "sunny place for shady people" to the financially successful tourist mecca it is today.

"What came through was her kind, good soul," says Jamie Niven, 61, vice chairman of Sotheby's. The son of actor David Niven, he knew Grace when he was growing up.

Tributes to Grace include:

•Exhibits.The Grace Kelly Years has drawn tourists in Monaco all summer and wraps up Sept. 23. A free exhibit, Grace, Princess of Monaco: A Tribute to the Life and Legacy of Grace Kelly, will be at Sotheby's in New York Oct. 15- 26. Items include dresses, jewelry, letters and photos.

•Auctions. On Oct. 25, at the annual Princess Grace Awards gala in New York, Sotheby's will auction two outfits. Proceeds will go to her foundation.

On Oct. 24, Sotheby's and Wynn Resorts will co-host a silent auction for six one-of-a-kind outfits created by American designers "inspired" by Princess Grace; they'll be on display in the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue in New York Oct. 22-26.

•Publishing. Available now: Remembering Grace: 25 Years Later (LIFE Books, $10.99), a selection of intimate photographs from the archive of Grace's favored photographer, LIFE magazine photojournalist Howell Conant. Upcoming: The Grace Kelly Years (Skira/Rizzoli, $55) and Grace Kelly: A Life in Pictures (Pavilion; $27.95).

•Media.Town & Country magazine will feature rare photographs in its November issue. WQXR radio in New York will broadcast a special edition of Making Music in Monaco, with music by her favorite musicians and her poetry readings Oct. 15-26.

•Awards. At the gala, trophies will go to emerging artists in theater, dance and film.

Goodwill Fashion Show

Goodwill Holds Fashion Show
Staff Writer Genevieve Makris

Shopping for vintage clothes has become so popular that individuals are moving away from trendy pieces found in department stores and focusing more on timeless finds that will last in one’s closet for years. Goodwill, a regional thrift store, has begun to take their marketing of vintage to another level. Senior Shanna Gidwani interned at the company over the summer and came up with the idea to advertise Goodwill’s annual Virtual Runway show on the popular networking site, Facebook.

Via eBay, the Virtual Runway show will display a series of vintage looks that can be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Every year, this fundraising event donates all profits to classes that help the disadvantaged in communities throughout the U.S. find jobs in areas such as custodial work, construction and bank hosting.

Local fashion designer Tu-Anh from Alexandria put the finishing touches on all of the pieces for the show which included sharp blazers and slacks, bargain handbags for business attire, wide leg twill pants and oversized cotton t-shirts for casual dress, and bright colored cocktail dresses and long black evening gowns for evening wear. Tu-Anh’s expertise and respected fashion sense helped refine the prearranged looks for each model.

“We want them to know they are not purchasing just bargain clothes, but high quality bargains. They are getting great deals and they are supporting a great cause,” Gidwani said.

With a little help from Emily Hall, the company’s retail marketing manager, Goodwill has also started a fashion blog. While trying to shed the stereotype of being just a bargain store, Hall’s blog has had as many as 200 hits in a single day and is quickly becoming a respected writing post for fashion devotees. Blog topics range from trends she is interested in, to actual outfits that she has picked out and draped over mannequins for viewers to gain inspiration from. By pairing different fabrics and sorting through donations, the looks are already pre-made for you and proving that Goodwill has a lot more to offer to the fashion conscious than what meets the eye.

The auction for the virtual runway show begins Sept. 12, but if you lose your bid to another anxious buyer, there is always the upcoming trunk show that will be at the H Street festival in Washington, D.C. For more information about the clothing being auctioned off, click here or visit Hall’s blog.

Would Cary Grant have worn this?

From The Times

September 5, 2007

I ask myself: ‘Would Cary Grant have worn this?’

Cameron Silver, purveyor par excellence of vintage pieces, tells our correspondent that today’s stars risk having no sartorial legacy

Cameron Silver has been selling vintage clothes to such celebrities as Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie for more than ten years. His boutique Decades, which sells one-off vintage dresses, is located on Melrose Place in Los Angeles. He also has a concession in Dover Street market, Central London (020-7518 0680). His shops have become a sourcing ground for many of today’s top fashion designers. Silver is also a creative consultant at Azzaro, the French fashion house.

I used to be a German cabaret singer; it’s what got me into the fashion industry. My favourite composer was Friedrich Hollaender, who made music for Marlene Dietrich. While I was touring I found old Yves Saint Laurent suits and cool Pucci ties. This was 11 years ago, and vintage wasn’t on the fashion barometer. Instead of a star being born, a store was born.

I am very selective about what I buy for the shop. The best clothes come from the closets of the original owners. I don’t have to hunt them down any more, they find me because there is a certain cachet to having your dress sold in Decades. When I first opened the store I spent time with a recent widow. I bought a dress from her and she said: “Cameron, this is the dress that I met my husband in.” Clothes hold memories.

Celebrities today borrow too much, they are losing their own legacy. I remember spending three days in a Washington suburb that certainly wasn’t the fashion capital of the world, but one woman had 3,000 pieces to sell. These women like to sell to me because I enjoy hearing their stories. I look for vintage that doesn’t look vintage. When I buy something for the shop I ask myself: “Does this look modern?” But when I buy clothes for myself I ask: “Would Cary Grant have worn this?”

We are very democratic at Decades; people think that every customer of ours is a Lindsay Lohan or a Paris Hilton, but our bread-and-butter clients are a little more sophisticated. And no, they aren’t all size zero. I don’t care if you’re a housewife from New Jersey or an Oscar nominee – everyone is a VIP in the store.

I think the Primark, Target fast fashion trend is tired. I’m over it. When you are buying a dress for $18, there is a reason why it is $18, just like there is a reason why your hamburger is $1! Modern fashion is ubiquitous. You can get anything, anywhere, at any price; there’s the couture version and the Topshop version, but it is very difficult to find clothes that are truly unique. Even haute couture isn’t sacred. You aren’t going to want to spend $150,000 on a Chanel couture dress, only to see Jennifer Aniston wearing the same one to the Golden Globes.

I am very influenced by London. I spent summers there as a child. It sounds clichéd, but I remember going to Portobello and Camden markets. Later, in my teens, when I was formulating my interest in fashion, it was Katharine Hamnett and John Richmond who inspired me.

Some celebrities don’t want to be fashion darlings. Not everybody wants to be in People magazine; a lot want to be known as just actresses first and foremost. I don’t think Meryl Streep is worried about being a fashion icon, for example. But at the end of the day, all women want their boobs and butts to look good, and I hope I can be a vehicle for making that happen.

I’d like to take a fashion house that has great DNA and put it in the washing machine – spin it around a bit, the way that Tom Ford did at Gucci. Successful designers will always be stars in their own right. Look at Ossie Clark: he lived the lifestyle that he designed for. Paul Poiret was a rock star designer, and Coco Chanel was the public’s darling.

It’s not often that I see something on the catwalk I’ve never seen before. Most current fashion trends look rehashed. Every season there is going to be a Studio 54 moment, there is going to be a goddess moment, there will be a Sixties Mod moment. All of these “moments” are just resuscitated vintage trends. When we look back at fashion history the first half of the 21st century will be known as “the vintage years” because it’s the one really identifiable trend to have happened. The black dress that Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is so iconic. I’m not saying that every piece you buy from Decades is going to increase in value a million-fold, but it does prove that collecting 20th-century fashion is like collecting 20th-century art.

More Than Dressing the Dummies

Check out the answer to yesterday's Tuesday Trivia in the following article:

More than dressing the dummies

August 27, 2007

BY KARALEE MILLER

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

First impressions go a long way. Business interviews. Blind dates. Meeting the future in-laws. Shopping trips.

Think about it. When you're out shopping, whether it's for something specific or just as a means of killing time, your eyes roam. Perhaps you notice the ornately dressed mannequins, draped head to toe in the season's finest, configured in a way that tells a story within the confines of a 3-foot-by-12-foot store window.

Maybe you spot unexpected artistic touches -- vintage framed photos, a pile of distressed Western books or an assemblage of rustic antique clocks -- that propel a display table beyond being just a stack of folded crewneck tees.

Those first impressions are carefully thought out and executed by designers specializing in visual merchandising.

Their goal? To attract your eye, romanticize your senses, reel you in and make you buy.

"It's not just about dressing a dummy," says Larry Leathers, the merchandising and display designer for Ruby, a Texas boutique with locations in Fort Worth and Southlake.

The world of visual merchandising is ever-evolving -- ambitious and hopeful one moment, artfully implemented the next. These designers come from all walks. Some sought higher ed for training; others are self-taught. Some have long held the dream of design; others stumbled onto the creative path. All, though, gain knowledge through imagination and experimentation.

"Often I can see it in my head, but I hate to put it down on paper," says Mark Criswell, owner of Home to Garden in Fort Worth. "I just want to dive in."

While their display subjects may differ, designers seem to agree on one thing: Less is more.

"You want to make it as clear and simple as possible," Leathers, 51, says. "Some think that means minimal. But it means making sure your design can be understood. It has to be approachable."

It's like summing up a two-hour film in a 60-second trailer.

"People have to come around the corner, stop, look and say, 'Wow, I want to see more of that.' " says Jennifer Hutson, display designer for Leddy's Ranch in Ft. Worth and M.L. Leddy's, north Ft. Worth.

Hutson, who grew up thinking she would work at a museum, has made the four display windows at Leddy's Ranch a mini fashion attraction of sorts. About every three weeks, Hutson, 42, transforms the windows to showcase a new bounty of elegant Western fashion. She'll bring in props from outside the store to flesh out the window's theme, while making sure nothing distracts from the focus.

"The main subject should be what I'm trying to sell -- the outfits, the boots, etc.," she says. "If people only notice the painting hanging in the back, that's a problem."

People do, however, take notice of quaint touches added to displays. At Neiman Marcus, a high standard of styling is key to the store's fashion forward approach. Local and regional art, unique artisan pieces and fresh floral arrangements are just a few of the ways the store aims to set itself apart, says Ignaz Gorischek, vice president of store development and visual planning for the luxury retailer.

"Only fresh floral and vegetables are used in our stores," he says. "These elements add a visual texture and interest that are impossible to create using artificial elements."

Each Neiman Marcus store has its own visual team, led by a manager and supported by a team of stylists.

"Each store is given the same creative direction," he says. "However, no two stores will ever look alike."

When it comes to narrative storytelling through window design, there is perhaps no grander example than the whimsical musings brought to life in the windows of Barneys New York in New York City. Overseen by the store's illustrious creative director, Simon Doonan, the windows at Barneys, especially at Christmas, are iconic to the Big Apple.

While Doonan has become a celebrity through his visual design work, others have dabbled in visual merchandising before hitting it big in other areas. Acclaimed fashion designer Giorgio Armani turned to the fashion world after working as a window dresser in a Milan department store in the early 1960s.

As with most things, timing is important.

"You need to capture people's attention in seconds," says Leathers. "That's all you've got."

Zandra Returns

The 1970s fashion diva Zandra Rhodes is back

By Ruth La Ferla

Monday, August 20, 2007

NEW YORK: When she breezed into Manhattan last week, Zandra Rhodes had shed some elements of her operatic style. Her fuchsia hair, which she tends to wear upswept in a chopstick-anchored bun, was straight and fastidiously groomed. Her eyebrows, crazy semaphores that she sometimes pencils in like arrows, were conventionally shaped. And her eye shadow, which she applies in a rainbow-colored medley, was confined to two or three tints of blue. "The first thing I said to her," recalled Ed Burstell, an executive at Bergdorf Goodman, where Rhodes had paid a sales call, "was, 'Zandra, you've calmed it down.' "

If so, it is just as well. At 66, Rhodes, the doyenne of British haute punk, has surfaced in yet another incarnation - not a tame one for sure, but surprisingly accessible. A style-world rara avis as famous for her personal eccentricity as for the clashing colors and vividly exotic prints she has shown on the runway since the 1970s, she is emerging as a commercial force, with several new projects in the works.

Rhodes is aware of the irony, having once confided, "Whenever I've tried to make myself a bit more mass, it never worked." Now it seems she has reversed herself. She has introduced a flamboyant makeup collection for M.A.C., furs for Pologeorgis and a jewelry line. In New York last week she fluttered about in a squiggle-patterned jumpsuit with butterfly sleeves, a look from her spring collection for Topshop, the fast-fashion chain based in London. She was here to talk up her latest venture: a line of lambskin handbags patterned with her exuberant prints.

They represent a distillation of Rhodes's design identity, a zany fusion of the ethereal and the raw. Her chiffons have unfinished seams. They are typically embellished with motifs inspired by Native American, Egyptian or Chinese culture. Some are incongruously festooned with chains. Safety pins, a hallmark of her punk collection of the late '70s, have resurfaced on her bags, a brash emblem of Rhodesian chic.

Rhodes is the first to acknowledge that she is riding the crest of "a Zandra moment."

Her vintage designs - origami-folded coats and elaborately layered caftans that fetch $1,200 to $6,000 - are catnip to collectors, and have turned up at red-carpet events on personalities as disparate as Helen Mirren and Kate Moss.

In recent seasons, interpretations of Rhodes' prints have surfaced on the runways of Dior, Miu Miu, Louis Vuitton and Fendi. This month interpretations of her looks found their way into Fashion Rocks, the fashion and music magazine from the publishers of Vogue.

"Someone congratulated me," she said diffidently, "but those clothes weren't mine."

Seeing her designs routinely knocked off appears not to faze her.

"I quite like people talking to me and saying, 'Your look is coming round again,' " she declared, her working-class accent intact. "It's like the Beatles coming round again."

In an era of pallid conformity, her periodic resurrections seem to feed a gnawing hunger. "Her influence returns in cycles, but when it comes back, its essence comes back clearly," said Burstell, who commissioned a collection of zestfully patterned shawls and patchwork designs for Bergdorf. "It's original. It had a clear identity from the start."

Cesar Padilla, an owner of Cherry, an influential vintage clothing boutique in New York, carries a selection of her designs. "In America she is still a bit under the radar," Padilla said. "But in the fashion crowd, even the youngest people know what she's about."

For all her resurgent popularity, Rhodes has not lounged on the sideline, letting others cash in on her past hits. A gypsy in more ways than one, she shuttles between her studio and home near San Diego (she lives with Salah Hassanein, a retired Warner Brothers executive) and London, where she also has an apartment and work space. Last year she showed a runway collection, her first in 20 years.

In 2003 she opened the Fashion and Textile Museum, a hot-pink and orange rectangle in South London that houses her archive as well as the works of her own fashion heroes, including Giorgio Armani, Issey Miyake and Thierry Mugler, and those of influential textile designers.

"The textile people never seem to get enough credit," said Rhodes, who began her career designing fabrics. Today the museum, disparaged at first as a vanity project, is part of Newham College of Further Education, housing textile and fashion designs from the 1950s onward.

In New York she still turns heads. "Looking at me, people think, 'Oh, she must be somebody.' " They do, indeed, sometimes addressing her as Ms. Johnson (as in Betsey) or Ms. Westwood (as in Vivienne), madcaps who have likewise sustained famously long-running careers. "I don't correct them," she said with a shrug.

Her own trajectory, which peaked in the mid-'80s, hit something of a low point in 2000, when Rhodes was issued a standing-room ticket to a Matthew Williamson fashion show. Even the ticket-taker, a fellow Londoner, did not recognize her.

But then, Rhodes has never lived for the spotlight, having mostly sidestepped the London club scene of her high-profile contemporaries, designers like Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell. "I tended to end up working," she said.

She rises before dawn to send faxes around the world, then withdraws to her studio. Her stringent work ethic leaves little room for frivolity. She has said she sleeps in her makeup, because, "to put it on every day would simply take too much time." Her nails, lacquered in a searing pink, were peeling at the edges.

"When I'm busy I find they get chipped," she said. "But I'm learning to move my hands quickly, so you won't see."

Shop for original Zandra Rhodes designs with VFG members Couture Allure's 80's silvery purple print velvet dress and Vintage-a-Peel's gorgeous and rare early piece dress from 1971 (pictured).

And of course you can read more on the designer on the VFG Label Resource.

Vintage Threads

Recently Threads magazine did an issue highlighting vintage patterns and not one but two VFG members were a part of the August/September 2007 Number 132 issue!

VFG member Alexandra Reynolds aka evadress is credited with the "Working With Vintage Patterns" article. The piece explores the "stunning Butterick Starred Pattern 5156, A Katharine Hepburn Frock, designed in 1933. This design was modeled after an actual garment worn by Katharine Hepburn in the film Christopher Strong."

After reading Alexandra's article be sure to check out "More on Rejuvenating Vintage Garments" featuring a handy checklist, courtesy of VFG Member Melody Fortier, TangerineBoutique.com, for evaluating a garment's condition.

Poiret in New York

Originally posted by Jonathan Walford, author of The Seductive Shoe: Four Centuries of Fashion Footwear and Ready to Tear - Paper Fashions of the 1960s at The Vintage Fashion Guild Forums - click here to discuss the exhibit. I wrote a review of the Poiret exhibition for another costume journal, so thought I might as well put it here as well: ‘Poiret: King of Fashion’ is the current costume exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (sponsored by Balenciaga Paris). Unlike the Met’s 2005 commercial-looking Chanel display or last summer’s theatrical and borderline content-free ‘Anglomania’ show, Poiret: King of Fashion avoids the pitfalls of its predecessors. Like Poiret’s clothing designs, the exhibition is simple, colourful and elegant. Hand painted two-story theatrical backdrops of spring gardens, party-light strewn terraces, and dark Oriental lounges set the scene for the groupings of garments. Most of the clothes from the Costume Institute’s collection were made for Poiret’s muse-wife Denise and were acquired by the Institute in 2005 in Paris at an auction of Denise Poiret’s clothes. The garments do not overly favour glamour but show a realistic balance of smart walking suits, exotic embroidered coats, block printed tunic dresses, harem trouser evening gowns, classically draped negligees, and elaborate beaded party dresses. It becomes abundantly clear through the fifty gowns on display why most fashion historians call Poiret the founder of modern fashion. Famous for abandoning the corset, Paul Poiret (1879 – 1944) used simple cuts, luxurious fabrics and saturated colours to create his designs. The chemise dress, originally known as a ‘minute robe’ because it could be made up so quickly, was an early brush with modernism along with his straight hanging pleated skirts and kimono cut coats. Poiret revived harem trousers with little success but much publicity and introduced a ‘T’ shaped blouse that was essentially a forerunner of the T-shirt. Poiret’s interest in historical and exotic sources was obvious in his designs but he was not a tailor – Poiret draped his clothes. Poiret was also an excellent businessman and knew how to use the press to promote his designs. Understanding the power of celebrity, he hob-knobbed with the artsy crowd of his day and dressed actresses on and off stage. He was also the first designer to create a scent – Rosine, in 1911. If I have to find fault with this exhibition, I would point to the lack of identification of prop clothes such as Fortuny Delphos dresses under theatre coats and various hats to complete 1920s daytime ensembles. At first I wasn’t sure I liked the elongated grey- toned alien-eyed mannequins but I see the inspiration for the installation was borrowed from contemporary artists of Poiret’s day, in the same way Poiret borrowed ideas for his clothes. The mannequin faces resemble Modigliani portraits and because of this, they are the perfect choice for Poiret clothes. However, when it comes to depicting hair, the stylized mannequins become problematic. Organdy knotted hairstyles look intentionally but not always successfully like turbans. For me, the most controversial element appeared at the entrance and exit of the exhibition. Here, digital animated presentations show how a length of fabric was folded and sewn into two different garments. The dress from which the presentation was created is lit up behind the scrim for the finale. I know museums often feel they have to use technology to appeal to their audience and these presentations did draw crowds but did they really teach anything that could not have been learned faster and better in a simple line drawing? No. In fact the problem with the presentations was their speed where clever little tucks and pleats were glossed over too quickly for anyone to understand exactly how Poiret had manipulated the fabric. I usually tend to see presentations like these more as gimmicks than educational tools but I am sure others will disagree with me. Regardless, these are minor issues and hardly worth mentioning in what is an overall landmark costume exhibition – the best I have seen produced by the Met. The oversized $65.00 book on Poiret offered to accompany the exhibition is a glorious all-colour publication with close-up shots of details. However, many of the garments photographed in the catalogue do not appear in the exhibition and those garments that are in both book and exhibition appear on different mannequins, so don’t expect the book to be a catalogue of the exhibition, it is not. Regardless, the book is a worthy purchase and an important addition to any library of fashion history. Go to New York if you can and take in the Poiret exhibition before it closes in August – it is worth it! Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art The Chemise dress The earliest example in the exhibition, coat, c. 1905 Image from the catalogue of one of Poiret's famous costumes c. 1911

Dyeing To Be Fashionable

Are you Dyeing to be Fashionable or Ready to Tear around in your Seductive Shoes?

Written by Vintage Fashion Guild

Our VFG member, Jonathan Walford, has been busy writing this past year and has two books that will soon be available including: The Seductive Shoe - Four Centuries of Fashion Footwear, published by Thames and Hudson; and Ready to Tear - Paper Fashions of the 1960s, published by Kickshaw Productions and available starting July 2 at www.kickshawproductions.com. Jonathan has also written the new Vintage Fashion Guild Feature article, Dyeing to be Fashionable. JONATHAN WALFORD is a fashion historian, curator, and private collector and was the founding curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. He is currently writing a book on the history of fashion during World War 2 and is in the process of founding a museum of fashion history in Cambridge, Ontario. You can pre-order The Seductive Shoe by clicking here and you can see his Dyeing to be Fashionable article by clicking here.

Gianfranco Ferre

Fashion designer Gianfranco Ferre dies at age 62
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MILAN, Italy -- Gianfranco Ferre, the Italian designer known as the "architect of fashion" for his structured, sculpted shapes and for his groundbreaking tenure at Christian Dior, died Sunday, a hospital said. He was 62.

Ferre was taken to the San Raffaele hospital in Milan on Friday after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage. The hospital, in a statement authorized by Ferre's family, said he died Sunday night.

Ferre started his career as an accessories and jewelry designer, and then moved on to clothes. His unofficial title as Italy's architect of fashion came thanks to the degree in architecture he obtained in 1969 from Milan's Polytechnic Institute that inspired his designs.

He started his own company in the mid-1970s, but his major leap came in 1989, when he was tapped by Bernard Arnault to be the top designer for Christian Dior. At the time, it was almost unheard of for a non-French designer to lead the venerable Parisian house.

Ferre stayed on at Dior until the fall of 1996, when he returned to Milan to tend to his
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own men's and women's collections.

Ferre's style was based on simple and structured lines, and the white blouse became one of his trademarks. His suits were used by businesswomen around the world looking for a sophisticated look.

For the evening, Ferre often made important dresses with ample skirts supported by layers of crinolines.

In 2002, Ferre sold Gianfranco Ferre to It Holding, but he stayed on as creative director. His spring-summer 2008 menswear collection is scheduled to be presented next week in Milan.

Born Aug. 15, 1944 in Legnano, in northern Italy, Ferre worked and lived in India for several years. His passion for travel and world cultures was often reflected in his collections.

He is survived by a brother and sister-in-law.

Read the VFG Labels bio on Gianfranco Ferre here.

Sisterhood of the Time-Traveling Dress

VFG Member Jody S. aka coutureallure has been featured in an article from the Bangor Daily News. Read this charming story!

The travels and adventures of a handmade dress
Tuesday, June 05, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

Dorrice Trickey Wetzler of Bangor died in October 2006 at age 92 and passed into the history of humankind. But the dress she made in 1935 has become an artifact of costume history and therein lies a tale — the travels and adventures of a handmade dress.

Who knows precisely where the story began — in a southern cotton field, perhaps, where the bolls were picked and shipped to a Massachusetts textile factory, where the fabric Dorrice eventually chose for her dress was manufactured. From there the fabric may have been shipped to a store in Maine, where Dorrice bought several yards of it — for what, 10 cents a yard?

She would have pinned the dress pattern to the fabric and cut it out with sharp dressmaker scissors. At that time, 1935, Dorrice was a young woman and a student at Farmington State Normal School, now a campus of the University of Maine. Perhaps the dress was a project for a home economics course.

In later years, Dorrice wrote a note and pinned it to the dress: "Made in sewing class at Farmington State Normal School 1935 — Dorrice Trickey — got a D because I didn’t use a thimble."

Did Dorrice wear the dress on a date when she met Robert Wetzler, the man who would become her husband? Or did she relegate it to the bottom of a trunk or a remote corner of a closet so she wouldn’t be reminded of that bad grade every time she looked at it? We don’t know. Those years of the travels and adventures of the dress are not known to us. But the fact that Dorrice saved the dress all those years is testimony that she had a certain affection for it, despite that bad grade. Surely, she knew good times while wearing the dress.

When Dorrice wrote the note that accompanies the dress, she was no longer young, and was in the process of donating the dress to the now defunct Webb Museum of Vintage Fashion, owned by Frances Webb Stratton, in Island Falls. Thus began the dress’s days as a museum artifact, where it mingled with other garments from the 20th century and those from the 19th century. Surely, it was gazed at by museum visitors, perhaps conjuring fond memories of similar dresses in the minds of women who also had been young during the Depression years.

Stratton died in March 2006 and in September of that year her museum collection was sold in 800 lots through Poulin’s Auctions in Fairfield. Proceeds from the auction were donated to five Maine charities, according to Jeanine Poulin.

One of the buyers at that auction was Jody S., owner of Couture Allure, www.coutureallurevintage.com, an online vintage fashion business based in Winthrop, Mass. "I made the trip to Maine for the weekend to attend and buy at this auction," Steinman said in an e-mail. "It is quite rare that a collection of vintage clothing this large and extensive comes to the market, so it was well worth my time to be there." Dorrice’s dress was one of the many items from the auction that went home with Steinman. Soon, she posted the dress for sale on the Internet.

Photos of Dorrice’s dress and the note also were posted at Erin McKean’s blog spot, www.dressaday.com, in the February edition. Those who participate in the blog chat about dresses, vintage and otherwise, and provide links to related topics. I stumbled onto the blog when I was seeking information on how to make pocket welts. That was where I came face to face with the photos of Dorrice’s dress and the note.

Good grief, I thought as I stared at the photos, I know this woman. Indeed, I had known Dorrice when we were members of Hampden Historical Society in the 1980s. She and her sister, Kay Trickery, helped me learn the ins and outs of genealogy.

Intrigued, I backtracked to www.coutureallurevintage.com where I found Steinman’s description of Dorrice’s dress: "Lovely vintage 1935 dress ... Depression-era dresses like this are very hard to find, as they were usually worn until they were worn out. The dress is fashioned from cotton broadcloth in red and cream geometric Deco print with large cream polka dots. There is a slit at the front of the neckline and an inverted pleat at the front. The long center front seam is top-stitched on both sides. The self-fabric belt closes with a snap. No closures — slips over the head."

In March, Dorrice’s dress continued its travels when it went to its new owner, Danika Myers in Pikesville, Md.

Thus the 72-year-old dress continues its travels through time.

It’s a wonder that the dress survived at all, and even more amazing that we know its maker, and can honor her memory, considering that the makers of so many pieces of handmade clothing in museums and private collections remain anonymous.

Stratton, Poulin, Steinman, McKean and Myers have become members of a unique group — the sisterhood of the time-traveling dress.

Amelie = Chanel

Tautou will channel Coco Chanel
Fontaine will helm the yet to be titled pic
By ALISON JAMES
Audrey Tautou will star as Coco Chanel in a $15 million biopic about the legendary French fashion designer.

Anne Fontaine will helm the yet to be titled pic, with French shingles Haut et Court and Cine @ producing. Films Distribution is handling international sales.

The film, which will focus on Chanel's childhood and early womanhood, was specially conceived with Tautou in mind, said Haut et Court's Caroline Benjo.

"Anne said she would only make a film about Chanel if Audrey was in the lead. They met and both liked the idea."

Script, penned by Fontaine and Christopher Hampton, who is also creative consultant, was freely adapted from the Chanel biography "L'Irreguliere" by Edmonde Charles-Roux.

Pic is slated to shoot early in 2008.

A French thesp will play Etienne Balsan and an A-list Brit actor is being sought to play Englishman Arthur "Boy" Capel, two men in Chanel's life when she was still a young unknown.

Said Benjo: "It isn't really a biopic because it is about Chanel before she became famous, it is about the events and people that shaped her."

The woman who invented French chic was born into poverty as Gabrielle Chanel, the illegitimate daughter of a traveling salesman, in 1883. After the death of her mother and abandonment by her father she spent seven years in a Catholic orphanage, where she learned to sew. But fashion wasn't her first career choice. As a young woman, Chanel had ambitions to be a singer and it was while warbling "Who's Seen Coco in the Trocadero" in a cabaret that she acquired the nickname Coco.

While working as a cabaret singer, she also took to sewing the stage clothes for the likes of French cabaret star Mistinguette before being taken under the wing wealthy Balsan. His chateau became Chanel's home and her gateway to a new life.

Balsan introduced her to Capel, who played a crucial role in Chanel's rise to fashion fame and fortune.

There are two other French Chanel project the works.

William Friedkin will helm one focused on the fashion diva's relationship with Stravinsky, with "Lady Chatterley" thesp Marina Hands playing Chanel. Daniele Thompson is also writing a Chanel project.

Prints, Please

70's City-scape print dress from fast_eddies_retro_rags
In the mood for some funky prints? Seems everyone is! Prints are a hot trend this year.

After a very dark fall season, prints are making a comeback in a big way. Three you'll see this upcoming season are: 70s style, animal and floral. Rebecca Taylor is known for her “cool girl” designs and this season was no exception. I love her printed top and 70s style jean. And there is nothing sexier than an animal print done right.

Florals range this season from 60s mod to sophisticated and refined. All of these prints are appropriate for any age group. What's important is that the print should match the stature of the woman. Very petite woman will look dwarfed by an oversized print and woman with a bigger frame can dwarf a print if it's too small or cutesy. Look for styles that play up the shape of your body to use prints to their best advantage.

Also, if prints scare you, start small. Do a printed accessory like a scarf or a shoe or bag and slowly work in separate pieces first, like a blouse or skirt and then take the plunge into dresses or printed coats. Read the rest of the msn.com article here.

The VFG has also called out Prints as a super hot trend in vintage this year. Vintage Inspirations focused on prints both charming & valiant for Spring.

And over on the VFG Forums - pinky-a-gogo asked posters to show their favorites. Come by and show us yours or oogle the goodies featured (like this pictured stunner by Alfred Shaheen from pinky-a-gogo).

Rei Kawakubo

5/22/2007

Rei Kawakubo

Fashion Designer Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garcons, was born in Tokyo in 1942.

She is untrained as a fashion designer, but studied fine arts and literature at Tokyo’s prestigious Keio University. After graduation, Kawakubo worked in a textile company and began working as a freelance stylist in 1967.

Rei 1

In 1973, she established her own company, Comme des Garcons Co. Ltd in Tokyo and opened up her first boutique in Tokyo in 1975. Starting out with women’s clothes, Kawakubo added a men’s line in 1978. Three years later, she started presenting her fashion lines in Paris each season, opening up a boutique in Paris in 1982.

Rei 2

Comme des Garcons specializes in anti-fashion, austere, sometimes deconstructed garments. During the 1980s, her garments were primarily in black, dark gray or white. The materials were often draped around the body and features frayed, unfinished edges along with holes and a general asymmetrical shape. Challenging the established notions of beauty she created an uproar at her debut Paris fashion show where journalists labled her clothes ‘Hiroshima chic’ amongst other things. Since the late 1980s her colour palette has grown somewhat.

Rei 3

Rei likes to have input in all the various aspects of her business. Rather than just focussing on clothes and accessories. She is greatly involved in graphic design, advertising and shop interiors believing that all these things are a part of one vision and are inextricably linked. Her Aoyama, Tokyo store is known for it’s sloping glass facade decorated with little blue dots. This was designed in collaboration between Rei and a Japanese architect. Rei published her own bi-annual magazine, ‘Six’ (standing for ’sixth sense’), in the early 1990s. It featured very little text and consisted mainly for photographs and images that she deemed inspiring. In 1996 Rei was guest editor of Visionaire magazine.

Rei is known to be quite reclusive and media shy, preferring her innovative creations to speak for themselves. Being a student of Philosophy in the University of Tokyo, you can see her application of philosophy in her designs.

Posted by The Expedited Writer in Japanese Fashion, Fashion Designers |

Two Cents, For What It's Worth

Two cents, for what it’s worth
By Joyce Zakierski Simmons

Most postage stamps honor personalities or events in history. The two-cent stamp first issued in 2005 when first-class rates jumped from 37 to 39 cents celebrated Navajo jewelry.

The illustration of a squash blossom necklace with handmade “squashes” and a naja from the First Nation is a rarity among stamp designs. The Postal Service has re-issued the Navajo stamp due to another postage increase.

It joins a 2004 Canadian issue as the only stamps to commemorate jewelry making. The reissued stamp shows the painted detail of a Navajo silver and turquoise necklace with sand-cast “squash blossoms” set with polished blue turquoise nuggets.

Navajo history is one of the notable success stories of Native American people. The Navajo traced their originas from Northern Alaska more than seven centuries ago. A small group of men and women traveled through Northwestern Canada to the Southwest corner of the US. In the late 15th century, the Navajo nation encountered Spanish colonizers who introduced them to livestock and they learned farming from the nearby Pueblo communities. Exquisite silversmithing, now a Navajo tradition, was likely learned from Mexican silversmiths who learned from the Spanish.

There are two general categories of Native American jewelry: metalwork and beadwork. Early Native metalwork was fairly simple. It involved hammering and etching copper into pendants or earrings and fashioning copper and silver into beads.

The ornate “baroque style,” squash-blossom necklace derives from the naja or najahe, Navajo for crescent. This crescent-shaped silver ornament is of Moorish derivation. It originally was an iron forehead pendant ornament on horse bridles of the Spanish Conquistadors in the late 1500’s and 1600’s. It evolved into the centerpiece which hangs from squash blossom necklaces. The crescent brought from Spain reflects early Moorish conquests and the occupation of Spain, but it became associated with crop fertility ceremonials of the agricultural cycle. Tracing it back before the Moorish occupation it was an amulet to ward off the evil eye. Earlier still, found as boar’s tusks hanging point to point, it decorated a Roman Legionnaire’s stall.

The squash blossom derived from a pomegranate flower used by Spanish and Mexican silversmiths as trouser and jacket ornament. The pomegranate is a symbol of fertility and abundance while the naja is a symbol of good luck as a hand amulet form. Both designs represent the cultural migration of an ancient Near Eastern image, traveling via the Jews to the Muslims and via the Moors of North Africa to Spain and the Americas.

(Editor’s note: Joyce Simmons is a regular contributor to the Vintage Fashion Costume Jewelry Magazine, a quarterly published subscription magazine for jewelry collectors. Her collections are at the Hamburg Antique Center, One Main St., Hamburg. She is coordinator of the annual jewelry show at the Lake Mohawk Country Club)

Spring Into Fashion

Spring into fashion

By Casey Gillis
cgillis@newsadvance.com
April 30, 2007

When you hit stores this season to update your spring and summer wardrobes, don’t be surprised to feel caught up in a time warp.

“Vintage fashion is getting more and more popular, especially as the fashion designers are going more retro,” said fashionista Nicole, who writes for the Web site Fashioniq.com (she doesn’t reveal her last name).

As designers go mod, you’ll start to see more designs straight outta your mother’s closet - think minidresses, bold colors and crazy geometric patterns.

“Edie Sedgwick is back,” Stacy London, co-host of TLC’s “What Not To Wear,” recently told USA Today Weekend. “So you’ll see ’60s sack dresses that fit in the shoulder, but are sacky through the rest of it. You’ll see ’70s caftan dresses, which have a lot of volume. And you’ll see gold lame leggings, which are very ’80s yet futuristic.”

And prints - florals, stripes, polka dots, graphics and those aforementioned geometrics - will be big.

“It’s really fun,” Clinton Kelly, London’s co-host, said in the USA Today Weekend article. “They’ve sort of blurred the lines between geometrics and florals in a lot of cases. But be careful: if you’re petite and you go for an oversize print, they walk into the room before you do, and that’s the last thing we want. Proportion is everything.”

While each print will be beautiful on its own, the first exit to a fashion disaster would be to pair them up.

“Never mix two prints,” Laurie Brookins, senior fashion editor at Ocean Drive and Vegas magazines, recently told USA Today. “Pair a solid with a geometric in whatever color works with the print.”

Everything is trending more toward a feminine look, as well.

“Last spring, it was all about gold,” Nicole said. “It was very ritzy and glitzy. This year, it’s more feminine. It’s more like country club style rather than jetting off to Monte Carlo.”

Color me fashionable

Bold, bright primary colors will be on the palette this spring and summer.

“Things come back in fashion every 10 or 20 years,” Nicole said. “It’s spring, so everybody wants to see color. They’re putting away the dark navies and bringing out the pinks and greens.”

Plus, “anything yellow is really wonderful right now, especially for evening,” she said, adding that stars like Drew Barrymore and Kerry Washington have chosen the hue for several recent events.

But if you go with yellow, choose a soft, feminine color - “and not the ugly mustard yellow,” Kelly cautioned.

London said we’d also see lots of black, white and red - like Dara’s black and white polka dotted dress with red accents in the photo.

“You’ll see a lot of white and cream and nude,” London added. “And a lot of neon color, too. We recommend you do that in very small doses. Stick to neon or bright accessories rather than dress head to toe in one of those colors.”

On MSN’s Shopping Web site, style editor Shannon McCarthy recently recommended wearing these colors as separates, like “a stand-out, bright leather jacket with your favorite jeans, or the finishing touch of a red belt with that blue and white nautical-inspired outfit.”

Shine on

Looking for the perfect accessories to spice up an outfit?

Think metallic: silver, copper, bronze, gold.

These tints will be popular in everything from shoes to clutches to jewelry.

Plus, “we’re seeing lots of sheer overlays,” London said. “Many have a metallic tint to them and are over florals. It’s a new way to make clothing slightly more interesting.”

When it comes to accessorizing, bangles are going to be a hot item.

“Tons of them,” Nicole said. “People are pretty much lining them halfway down their arm.”

USA Today recently reported that delicate jewelry is out, and in its place will be chunky, dramatic pieces.

“Everything was so minimalist (for the longest time), it seemed almost vulgar to have stones,” Alison Burwell, jewelry news editor for W magazine, told the newspaper.

But after seeing so many starlets on the red carpet embrace their inner divas, it’s “given women the confidence to try bolder looks.”

When it comes to footwear, flats - especially those with a little bit of ornamentation on them, Nicole said - are still going to be a sought-after item.

But sandals will also get in on the action, whether they be wedges in the season’s trendy metallic and patent leather or gladiator sandals (as long as you keep the straps at or below the ankle so the shoes are versatile enough to pair with different lengths of shorts or skirts, Syle.com executive editor Nicole Phelps recently told USA Today).

The long and short of it

When it comes to skirt and dress lengths, Nicole said there isn’t one particular trend as there has been in seasons past.

“This season you can have anything as long as it’s in a beautiful color, and it will be perfect,” she said.

London and Kelly made a similar sentiment in the USA Today Weekend article.

“Spring is a little bit of a retrospective of the ages,” London said. “You’ll see ’40s-style high-waisted pencil skirts and really high-waisted denim. Now they’re also doing high-waisted denim in skinny jeans, which is as hard to wear as any low-rise jean you ever ran away from in the first place.”

Another USA Today story reported that short-sleeve jackets and coats with a bracelet sleeve would also be popular.

“It’s a little bit more practical,” Phelps of Style.com said. “You don’t have to worry about shirt cuffs awkwardly poking out at the arms.”

She added that it gives “a little bit of a feminine touch to the jacket. Everyone wants to feel a little bit girly when the sun comes out.”

Sleeves will also trend toward being ornamented, adorned and puffed - but “aim for a subtle puff at the shoulder,” Phelps said, “so it doesn’t seem too fashion victim-y.”