Fashion Focus: all about Ann Demeulemeester

Name of the brand: Ann Demeulemeester

Name(s ) of the designer(s):  Ann Demeulemeester

About the designer(s): Ann Demeulemeester (1959) was born in Belgium. She studied at the Royal academy of fine arts in Antwerp and graduated in 1981. She is now a world-renowned fashion designer. She is married to fashion photographer Patrick Robyn.

Start of the brand: 1984

First collection: 1985
Breakthrough: 1986; Ann Demeulemeester then shows her collection in London. She quickly become famous outside of Belgium. Ann is seen as one of the ‘Antwerpse zes’, a group of influential fashion designers who graduated at the Royal Academy of Antwerp in the eighties (including Dries van Noten en Walter van Beirendonck).

The Ann Demeulemeester woman: is not a specific type of woman. Ann said: ‘People can mix and match and adjust the clothes to fit into their lives. I don’t know exactly who will end up wearing my clothes. It’s like creating a present for an anonymous person.’ Ann does say the women she designs for have a strong personality.

Ann Demeulemeester women: Sarah Jessica Parker, Nicole Kidman, Nicole Richie

The clothes are: never ‘trendy’, their focus is on shape and structure. Ann designs with her feelings and uses lots of black in her clothes.

Type of clothes: outspoken, original, comfortable.

Signature: black designs in outstanding shapes

Collaborations: with Rodney Graham (1992), Patti Smith (1999), Steven Klein (2004)

Awards: Golden Spindle (1982), Culture Award (1996)

Quotes:

• ‘The idea that garments are alive is a big inspiration. I want to fill them with soul.’
• ‘I don’t travel’
• ‘I never planned ahead. I just go from one season to the next. If I ever feel like I’ve told my story in this medium, it’ll be time to move on to another.’

Extra:

• Ann has been designing jewellery and furniture as well. She even won some prices with that.
• In the beginning Mugler, Montana, and Versace were Ann’s inspiration
• Since 1996 Ann also designs men’s clothes.
• Ann and her husband Patrick have been together since Ann was seventeen.
• Regardless of the financial crise Ann Demeulemeester has sold more than ever.
• Especially Ann’s laced up boots were a bit hit.

Fashion Focus: all about Thakoon

This week we chose designer Thakoon for our fashion focus. The reason for that? Up until now we didn’t know a lot about him, besides the fact that Anna Wintour said she loved his designs in The September Issue. But why did she like Thakoon so much? Why are his designs so special?

Name of the brand: Thakoon

Name(s ) of the designer(s): Thakoon Panichgul

About the designer(s):
Thakoon Panichgul was born in 1974 in Thailand, but now lives in America. He moved to the United States when he was 11 years old.

Start of the brand: 2004. Thakoon had been working as a fashion editor at Harper’s Bazar before.

First collection: a ten pieces collection in 2005

Thakoon is based in New York and sold in 34 countries

The Thakoon woman: has an inner sensuality. She is nonchalant and casual, but still very sensual.

Thakoon women: Rachel Bilson, Demi Moore, Michelle Obama and Sarah Jessica Parker. (Michelle Obama was recently seen in two different dresses from Thakoon’s spring/summer collection on 5 and 11 May 2010.)

The clothes are: easy and sophisticated. For Thakoon the most important thing is the clothes are wearable. Thakoon also has a thing for prints, he works together with different artists to create the most lovely prints. He likes to use colors in his collections too.

Type of clothes: mostly dresses made out of classic materials like lace and chiffon, but used in a modern way.

Signature: combining punk and chic

Collaborations: Thakoon for Nine West (accessories)(2006), Thakoon for Gap (2007), Thakoon for Hogan (2008), Thakoon for Target (2008). Thakoon even designed a few menswear cardigans for Aloha Rag (2010).

Quotes:

• ‘For me it’s about creating silhouettes that sort of have built-in gesture.’
• ‘I would love to dress Coco Chanel, she embodies al those things I love so much. She has a chicness and a rebelliousness around her.’
• ‘My clothes represent a combination of punk and refinement’

What to expect: Thakoon’s fan base will keep on augmenting and we’re sure there are some interesting collaborations ahead of us.

Above you can see several of Thakoon’s designs from four of his latest collections.

Forty years of Roberto Cavalli

This year fashion label Roberto Cavalli celebrates it’s fortieth birthday. 2010 also happens to be the year in which designer Roberto Cavalli himself, like many of his first customers, turns seventy. Time to take a look back on Cavalli’s work from over the years.

Roberto Cavalli, who started working in fashion just to make some money, became first known for his printing techniques. After he had been hired by great fashion labels he decided he could just as well do it on his own. He set up his own fashion label.

Cavalli’s first collections were best described as boho- and hippie-chic. He knew innovative techniques to use silk and leather. His designs were ultra-feminine and heavily decorated and they were loved by the wealthy people in Saint-Tropez (his first boutique was also opened there).

After a small downfall Cavalli makes a comeback in de nineties, by that time assisted by his – much younger – wife Eva Duringer. His clothes, best known for their outstanding animal prints, embroideries and other embellishments are worn by the rich and the famous. All of those women confident, sexy and super glamorous. (The reason Cavalli women are so often referred to as glamazones).

Celebrities proved to be a great way of promoting the brand. Victoria Beckham, Jade Jagger, Hally Berry, El Macferson and Jennifer Lopez were often spotted in Roberto Cavalli’s designs. They were the ideal women to promote Cavalli’s clothes, cause with their sex appeal and confidence they can perfectly show off Cavalli’s fearless designs.

After years of glamorous collections Roberto Cavalli decided to move in a new direction. The past few years he has slightly changed his designs away from the limelight. Cavalli’s so well-known animal prints sometimes were not used at all or, like in his latest collection, were used in a faded variant. His colors have become less outspoken and his heels – from time to time – even turned to flats. Cavalli introduced suits and overalls and with his boyish designs he showed a more subtle sexy. The new Cavalli woman proved to be less of a show-off, but Cavalli has kept his customers satisfied.

Judging from how Roberto Cavalli is doing now we think he’ll have no problem celebrating the brands fiftieth anniversary in ten years. Cause although he admitted he’s less of a party animal, Cavalli (thanks to his wife Eva) is still going strong. But let’s first just celebrate the clothes he made over the past forty years. We selected the most eye-catching, showstopping pieces out of Cavalli’s last ten collections. Enjoy!

Cavalli has big plans for his label’s fortieth anniversary and is working on a book about his career in fashion. We’ll keep you posted!

The most Gaga-worthy outfits for SS2010

There’s no doubt Lady Gaga’s success has something to do with the way she dresses. From day one she has looked out of the ordinary with her structured creations, body-exposing outfits and crazy headgear. She has been wearing those extreme designer outfits no one dares to wear in public and therefore she’s always in the news…

We’ve seen Lady Gaga in Armani prive, Gareth Pugh, Jeremy Scott, Chanel and Hussein Chalayan to name a few. The pop-diva has also worn some Viktor & Rolf creations before. The Dutch designers even got to make an outfit for Gaga’s video Telephone. But apart from all those designs, we think there are many more looks that would get Lady Gaga’s approval.

Out of all the spring/summer fashion shows we selected the most Gaga-worthy outfits. Those pieces mostly have crazy shapes, they show a lot of skin and several times they go with an eye-catching headpiece.

We selected multiple black body-revealing dresses with cut-outs, wholes and tears all over them (Asish, Byblos, Julian Macdonald, Mark Fast).

We picked out over the top hats from Aguggini (large with zebra-print), Jean Paul Gaultier (blue with Napoleon shape), Givenchy (shape of a lamp shade) and Watanabe (strange kind of turban).

We chose for two designs with accentuated shoulders. At Ilincic the shoulders were huge and made out of feathers, at Todd Lynn they resembled shark fins.

The opted for the Giles dress because of the big spiders and we picked Julian Macdonald’s dress because of the scales. Alexander McQueen’s outfits need no explanation; Gaga has already worn one of those (incl. the crazy shoes) in her video Bad Romance and we think Gaga would actually love to wear all of his designs.

Unfortunately Gaga’s on-and-off boyfriend Matthew Williamson didn’t design anything kinky that that would suit her. Yet we think there’s more than enough to choose from for the 23-year old singer. And if she doesn’t find the right outfit, she can always ask a designer to make one for her. Cause designers understand that Lady Gaga wearing one of your outfits is good publicity and they’ll do anything to make that happen.

Emanuel Ungaro Catwalk Fashion Show FW2010

After a week of front row appearances Lindsay Lohan was a no-show at the Ungaro fashion show. She didn’t attend the show, she didn’t show her face at the end of the runway and according to the fashion label she wasn’t even involved in the collection.

Yet it is rather strange that at the one show where LaLohan was actually supposed to be, she didn’t even stop by to say hi. We’re sensing some kind of argument between Lohan and Ungaro. Cause, if Lindsay was just not involved in this one collection she could at least have taken a seat frontrow, like she did at all the other big shows in Paris this week.

We can imagine Ungaro wanting to end to collaboration. Last year’s collection was totally slated by the fashion critics, especially due to Lohan’s heartshaped pasties. Yet at this moment nobody knows if she’s still involved or not.

On the Ungaro website we can still read: ‘Lindsay Lohan is appointed as  Estrella Archs’ Artistic Advisor. They will work together using their combined talents, instinct and intuition to define and promote the Ungaro brand.’ Yet if you keep in mind what Estrella Archs said before today’s show: (‘You have up and downs and you learn a lot, more from the downs than from the ups. I feel that I have to work, work, work and work. I’ve been doing this for a long time, with different people and different houses, and I think this is the best medicine’) you know something’s going on.

We’ll keep you posted on this matter, now let’s talk about the new collection. And let’s see if it was any better than that of last seson….

Emanuel Ungaro showed some bright colors (green, red and pink) for fall. Those colors were used for the fancy cocktail dresses, the jackets, blazers and pants. On many outfits a colored waistband was added as well. We, for instance, saw a gold/yellow pair of pants combined with an animal printed coat and a red waistband.

A lot of the accessories came in red. A pink printed dress was finished by red shoes, a red clutch and a red waistband. Though you’d think the colors would clash it looked all right. Except for the black tights and the blazers, those items took away all the fun from the dress.

The collection had many strapless and asymmetric dresses. Some kind of dots in different bright colors were printed on them. The dots also appeared on a jumpsuit, but they never looked great.

Overall the collection was pretty save. There wasn’t anything new about it. The cocktail dresses may be cute, but I think we’ve seen enough of them already. The same goes for the blazers and the jumpsuits; there wasn’t a specific Ungaro style added to them either. Besides, it seemed the brand didn’t realize we were expecting a winter collection. Or maybe they just wanted a second chance at their (horrible) last summer collection, who knows…

McQueen’s label will live on

Alexander McQueen’s fashion label will live on despite the designer’s suicide last week. PPR, the French luxury group which has a controlling stake in the designer’s companies, said it planned to build on the McQueen brand.

Francois-Henri Pinault, president of PPR said at a press conference in Paris: “The Alexander McQueen trademark will live on. This would be the best tribute that we could offer to him.”

Robert Polet, president of PPR’s Gucci subsidiary under which McQueen worked, said the autumn/winter collection the designer was completing before his death will be shown at Paris fashion week next month.

Remembering McQueen #5

Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel designer: “I found his work very interesting and never banal. There was always some attraction to death, his designs were sometimes dehumanized. Who knows, perhaps after flirting with death too often, death attracts you.” (E!)

Remembering McQueen #4

Andre Leon Talley, Vogue editor-at-large: “It is a great loss. It’s a tragedy for the fashion world. He was truly an innovator and a master. McQueen had incredible talents and gifts and at the same time, he was a great poet. There are very few poets left.” (Wall Street Journal)

Remembering McQueen #3

Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief, Vogue: “We are devastated to learn of the death of Alexander McQueen, one of the greatest talents of his generation. He brought a uniquely British sense of daring and aesthetic fearlessness to the global stage of fashion. In such a short career, Alexander McQueen’s influence was astonishing—from street style to music culture and the world’s museums. His passing marks an insurmountable loss.” (Source: E!)

Remembering McQueen #1

John Galliano: “McQueen was daring, original, exciting. He shook up the establishment with his creativity and understood what it takes to be a great British ambassador for fashion. I admired him very much. He was a fashion revolutionary that, like me, made the journey from [Central] Saint Martins to Paris where he put his own unique mark on the industry. He will not be forgotten.” (Source: WWD)

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