Hakaan Accepts the ANDAM with Aplomb” y 11 mas

Hakaan Accepts the ANDAM with Aplomb
Ten Questions For Project Runway
Geren Ford’s True Identity
Quote of the Day: Carine Roitfeld’s Song for the Fashion Industry
Trendspotting: New Stripes at Jil Sander, Versace, Prada
Street Style: Julia Would Get a Tattoo of a Hanger
Trendspotting: Garden Parties Galore
A Writer Goes Undercover…To Beauty School
Most Wanted: Camel Coats, Our Favorite Trend for Winter
New Plus-Size Magazine Launches, Is It A Good Idea?
Fashion News Roundup: Heidi Klum No Longer An Angel, Lanvin Launches E-Commerce, and Team Zoe Breakup Not Amicable
Rochas Spring 2011: Marco Zanini Makes Editors Happy

Posted: 01 Oct 2010 06:30 AM PDT

Hakaan with the Minister of Culture and models wearing his Spring 2011 looks.

PARIS–Hakaan Yildirim is not who one would call an ingenue. Indeed, Yildirim, whose “debut” at London Fashion Week last season made a decidedly large splash, has been a working designer in Turkey for more than a decade.

Within a year, Yildirim has gone from a local Turkish talent to the fashion world’s next big thing, and his collection, shown Wednesday in Paris, further sealed his fate.

Last night, Yildirim officially accepted the spoils of his latest achievement: the ANDAM fashion award. ANDAM–which stands for National Award for the Development of Fashion–is handed out each year to one up-and-coming designer who the judges–including Carine Roitfeld, Alber Elbaz, Jefferson Hack, Sarah from Colette, LVMH execs, Pinnault family members–deem the most promising in the world. (Last year the award went to Giles Deacon.)

The event took place at the French Ministry of Culture, and was hosted by Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand and Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent’s partner.

It’s because of this prize–€220,000, to be exact–that Yildirim was able to show in Paris this season. After the show, he told me that it was worth it: “We’re in Harvey Nichols, Colette, Opening Ceremony–it’s nearly 26 stockists internationally now.” That quite a lot for a collection that’s been on the market for less than a year. “My agents were very surprised!” Not too surprised, we’re sure. Congrats to Hakaan.

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Ten Questions For Project Runway

Posted: 01 Oct 2010 06:00 AM PDT

1) Is this possibly the most emotional show that Lifetime has ever broadcast? And that's saying a lot. Everyone cried. Tim. All the contestants. Michael Kors almost did. Oh, but not Nina. (Shocker.)

2) How hot is April's mom?

3) Who else absolutely, positively knew what a foulard is? I certainly did. It didn't take me five attempts to spell it either.

4) Can we all agree that make-up that makes you look like a streetwalker or a figure-skater is never a good thing? Thank goodness the L'Oreal Paris make-up room is around to remind us.

5) What kind of crazy ass fights do you suppose take place at Michael C's house during family parties?

6) Who suspected that Rachel Roy had such an edge to her? I love it when Project Runway has actual designers rather than "stylish" celebrities judging.

7) Do I owe a mea culpa to everyone? OK, OK Christopher's design was really boring today. Not a little bit boring. A lot.

8) Are Michael Kors' jabs getting more meta? "That is funny. Like a joke." The man is a genius.

9) What happened to them all this week? Everyone fell apart and forgot how to make fashion.

10) How fantastically brave and inspiring is Mondo? And three wins in a row, too. I adore this man so much.

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Geren Ford’s True Identity

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 03:15 PM PDT

Before she launched her line, Geren Lockhart–the designer behind Geren Ford–was an ad exec. Long hours and constant traveling inspired her to create a label that would be versatile but chic, even in transit.

Yesterday, I stopped by Lockhart’s studio to preview her Spring 2011 collection. There were maxi dresses and flowy tops in an textured fabrics, as well as these awesome brown leather shorts that I want to have in my closet right now.

The most intriguing part of the collection was the prints. If you looked closely at one dress, it seemed to be covered in a print made of, well, fingerprints. Lockhart told me that the print is actually comprised of her own fingerprints, which were been scanned and translated onto the fabric (she also confided that her fingerprints had been altered a bit so that no one would steal her identity –ha!).

But details aside, Lockhart’s collection is meant to be versatile. “The clothes are all really about being able to wear them in several different ways,” she said.

Click through to take a look at some of my favorite looks from Geren Ford’s 2011 Spring Collection.

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Quote of the Day: Carine Roitfeld’s Song for the Fashion Industry

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 02:00 PM PDT

“‘You're So Vain.’ I think in this business, it's a good song. It's dedicated to a lot of people.” –Carine Roitfeld’s response to Cathy Horyn in the NYT when asked, “What would be your song?” And we love her that much more…

Trendspotting: New Stripes at Jil Sander, Versace, Prada

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 01:00 PM PDT

Forget about the Breton for the moment: A new stripe swept the runways at Milan Fashion Week.

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Street Style: Julia Would Get a Tattoo of a Hanger

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 12:00 PM PDT

Name: Julia Hafstrom

Occupation: Model

Agency: IMG

What is your favorite dessert? Ice cream! Absolutely!

If you were to get a tattoo today, what would it be? A black line drawing of a hanger.

Where would it be? Probably on the back of my arm, above my elbow.

What is your favorite thing about fashion week? Seeing all the fun people.

Where are your corduroys from? Cheap Monday.

And your jacket? Topshop.

**All Photos by Ashley Jahncke

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Trendspotting: Garden Parties Galore

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:03 AM PDT

Designers took the phrase “spring collection” literally this season, and headed for the garden.

From D&G's flower-lined runway, to Mulberry's "secret garden" show, designers went beyond floral prints this season to incorporate every element of the garden party, and with good reason.

Gardens are obvious sources of inspiration (see also: Dior couture). The colors are vibrant and blend together, there’s a balance to the shapes in flowers that designers also strive to achieve when putting together their collections. Perhaps designers figure that consumers no longer want hard, severe silhouettes. Instead they want color and pretty floral prints.

And to be completely honest, I’m digging all these garden soiree’s. Perhaps we’ve moved on from “sex sells” to “nature sells.”

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A Writer Goes Undercover…To Beauty School

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:00 AM PDT

Spas are luxurious places where a woman goes to feel pampered and beautiful. And usually drop a good chunk of coin–Americans spent over $200 billion on spa products and services in 2009. But are the results worth it?

That’s a question, among others, that Virginia was hoping to answer. Virginia (I'm withholding her last name so as not to blow her cover yet), a writer in upstate New York, recently enrolled in an aesthetics program to take a peek at the beauty industry from the inside out. She has a keen interest in the industry, the safety of its products, and the treatment of its workers.

Virginia enrolled in the program part-time, which took about ten months to complete. She attended school four nights a week from 6pm until 10pm.Tuition for programs like this average around $8,000 to $12,000. She just finished and is currently waiting for paperwork to sit for the licensing exam.

What is she qualified to do? In school, Virginia did 75 facials, waxed 20 pairs of eyebrows and ten bikini lines, did 25 makeup applications, and performed over 100 other services–peels, body wraps, microdermabrasion, etc.

She kept a blog, called Beauty Schooled, to chronicle her experiences. In it, she explores many issues: Racial conflict, tipping, the paternalism of the school, bad reactions she had to products. It's all done with humor and she is never on a soap box. She often admits her own conflicted feelings, like when she was required to grow out her leg hair to practice waxing but, ewww, who wants hairy legs?

I spoke to Virginia about her experiences as a beauty school student.

Do you get REALLY get enough experience to perform these skills competently?
"It varied," Virginia told me. "I’m not sure I feel ready to go out there and start doing the more advanced stuff like glycolic peels and micro[dermabrasion], because you only need five or so signatures on each of those things to graduate–and they can be pretty aggressive treatments."

Her bigger concern was, do these treatments even work? She really felt that a lot of the results a treatment promises are overhyped. "We all want a $50 facial to work, so we start seeing things–rosy cheeks! that post-facial glow! smoother skin!—that are pretty subjective," she explained.

What weird or disturbing things did she see?
Well, Brazilian bikini waxes topped the list. But she had other issues. Remember last year when those pictures of Lola Leon popped up in the tabloids and captions made subtle snarky remarks about her unibrow? Virginia had a 13-year-old client come for a brow wax, which was not her first and which was obviously initiated by the parents. The father even suggested that perhaps she needed a lip wax, too (which according to Virginia's great post on this, the girl really didn't.)

She was also quite tickled about how the beauty industry is marketing to men. Some gems from the text book Milady's Standard Fundamentals for Estheticians include:

–"Male clients can be better clients than women in some ways because they are willing to follow suggestions and want a basic, consistent routine."

–"Using the term skin treatment rather than facial is perhaps a better way to promote men's services."

What about products and chemicals in the workplace?
"I’m sure I came into contact with between 5,000 and 10,000 chemicals between all of the products we used. The standard European facial involves nine products alone," she told me. “It would be pretty impossible to quantify how my ten months in beauty school and the exposures there may have contributed to my overall risk for say, cancer. But I don’t like knowing that a lot of these products do contain questionable ingredients like formaldehyde, phthalates, etc and there are almost 400,000 American women working with these chemicals in salons and spas day in, day out.”

So what kind of salary can you expect after beauty school?
“Income potential varies a lot because like most service jobs, salon workers are dependent on tips for around 20 percent of their take-home pay. The Bureau of Labor puts the median hourly income at $9 to $15 before tips, so an esthetician at the high end of that, earning $15 an hour, 35 hours per week, is still only clearing around $27,000. If every client tips 20 percent or better, you might get up to about $33,000 before taxes," she told me. Shocking.

All I know is, my manicurist just got a raise.

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Most Wanted: Camel Coats, Our Favorite Trend for Winter

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:00 AM PDT

From Phillip Lim to Michael Kors to Celine, camel overcoats were all-over the runway for Fall. And we're obsessed. Here's a roundup of our favorites, courtesy of Nordstrom.

The cream of the camel crop, from left to right: 3.1 Phillip Lim Paneled Double Face Wool Coat, Piazza Sempione Double Face Camel’s Hair Coat, Ralph Lauren Black Label Drape Neck Sweater Coat, Smythe ‘Cadet’ Wool Blend Coat, Burberry Brit Hooded Wool Topper

Think of the camel coat like the LBD for fall. Throw it over any old thing you've got on and you're insta-chic. Of course, we've got some thoughts on the perfect way to show off fall's must-have item. For a mod-ish dressed up look, perfect for a dinner date on a brisk autumn evening, consider donning your camel coat over a simple shift and thick black ribbed tights (spring for Wolford's if you can afford it), and black booties. If you're on your way to work, try it with wide leg tweed trousers with a strong seam and some simple flats. And on a lazy weekend, while you're out admiring the foliage (or running a quick errand before returning to the couch to watch some Lifetime movie marathon—we don't judge!), camel goes perfectly over beat up skinny jeans and knee-high flat boots.

For more fall fashion insight and to share your own thoughts on this season's top trends, join the conversation at Nordstrom.

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New Plus-Size Magazine Launches, Is It A Good Idea?

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 10:30 AM PDT

Just As Beautiful, the first glossy aimed solely at women sizes 14 through 20 launched this month, the Daily Mail is reporting.

Like any glossy lifestyle mag, Just As Beautiful will feature fashion spreads, interviews, articles on cooking, entertainment, etc., with the exception of one glossy mainstay: the diet feature. Just As Beautiful will not put out any dieting articles (only exercise tips), and EIC Sue Thomason, a former lifestyle coach who is also size 18, says that only models size 14 and up will be used in editorials.

Thomason created the mag, because, told the Daily Mail, “If you’re a woman over Size 14, you’re likely to be stuck for something to read that doesn’t make you feel like you’re too big or ‘wrong’ because you’re not a Size Zero.”

“What we want to do is supply a magazine for women who don’t want to be made to feel bad about the way they look,” adds publisher Ronnie Ajoku.

On the one hand, Just As Beautiful seems like a great idea. Despite all the talk about the fashion industry working towards embracing models who deviate from a sample size zero, there’s not much to show for it. For the most part, the major fashion glossies still only feature fuller figured women in their requisite, once-yearly, “size” issues. So kudos to Just As Beautiful for refusing to wait it out until magazines truly change.

On the other hand, previous plus size mags haven’t been successful. Mode magazine, billed as the “first and only high fashion monthly targeted to full-figured American women,” folded in 2001. Radiance: The Magazine for Large Women shuttered after 16 years of publication, in 2000. Is the latest round of buzz centered around fuller-figured high fashion models like Crystal Renn enough to ensure the success of a publication like Just As Beautiful?

Renn, who has become the unofficial spokesperson for issues around body-size in the fashion industry, has said she would like to see all shapes and sizes in the pages of glossy mags, on the runways, and in campaigns, so that when she lands a Chanel campaign, it might not necessarily make headlines. “What I think would end the confusion is if we call all the models just ‘models,’” she told the Today show after her recent retouching scandal.

So there’s also the danger that a plus-size mag might relegate fuller-figured women to a niche publication, rather than making strides to diversify the body types in existing mainstream glossies.

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Fashion News Roundup: Heidi Klum No Longer An Angel, Lanvin Launches E-Commerce, and Team Zoe Breakup Not Amicable

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 09:30 AM PDT

Heidi Klum Bids Farewell to VS: After 13 years of wearing the VS Angel wings, Heidi Klum says good bye to Victoria’s Secret. With only four official angels left, and two of them pregnant, who will walk the November 10th show? Will a new angel be named? We smell a reality show. {Fashionologie}

Lorenzo Martone, Now Party of One: Lorenzo Martone, best known as Marc Jacobs ex, has given the NYT a look at his life post-Marc. He dishes on his relationship with Marc and the connections he made while they were together. {The New York Times}

Nasty Breakup?: Yesterday, we told you about the amicable split between Rachel Zoe and her assistant, Brad Goreski. But today, PopEater is reporting that the split was a tad more tumultuous then previously reported. “Brad was sitting on the front row of every show and getting invited to as may events as his boss. However the final straw was when Brad appeared on the cover of The New York Times style section. Rachel hit the roof and reminded him he was her assistant and it was called ‘The Rachel Zoe’ show not the Brad Goreski show. That was the moment that the two of them were over.” This is bananas. {PopEater}

Lanvin Launches E-Commerce Site: Lanvin has launched their stateside e-commerce site which allows you to shop their women’s, men’s, shoes, and accessories collections. {Racked}

Getting To Know Irina Lazareanu: Marie Claire gets to know the model who has walked more runway shows in one season than any other model. Irina Lazareanu speaks to the glossy on life, modeling, and how many times she had sex this weekend. Hmm. {Marie Claire}

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Rochas Spring 2011: Marco Zanini Makes Editors Happy

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 08:00 AM PDT

PARIS–This is Marco Zanini’s fourth season designing for Rochas. Yet his short-lived tenure at Halston–as well Olivier Theysken‘s time at Rochas–is still very fresh in our minds. The good news: with every season, the Versace-schooled designer moves further and further away from those sticky associations, making Rochas his very own.

For Spring 2011, Zanini sent out a solid collection of floral satin tops and bottoms and plain satin slip dresses. All with handkerchief-wrapped hair that first reminded us of babushkas, then of 1930s and ’40s working mothers. It was as if Zanini had taken working class clothes and tinted them with wealth.

But there were some straight-up princess pieces, too, including an off-white ball gown with the tiniest Swiss dots and a milkmaid frock printed with a distinctly Scandinavian textile.

Zanini’s certainly got a few fans in the American section. T‘s Sally Singer out-n-out cheered when the designer took his bow, and we could see Grace Coddington crack a smile. Wintour was there, too, but it’s difficult to tell her expression behind those glasses. We’re betting she was pleased.