Saturday 23 February 2008

Old School Glamour for Demi and Rumer





On the runway shows of designers like Kimora Lee Simmons for BabyFat, we are getting strong references to that old school glamour that we all love. I'm talking cigarette pants, sharp tailoring, floor length gowns, the full works. This got me so excited for the new autumn/winter collections. Even more so after seeing these latest pictures of Demi, Ashton and Rummer at Grisogono’s Hollywood Dominos Benefiting The Art Of Elysium yesterday. Demi looks amazing in her white floor length gown. The swarovski crystals and fur really lends itself to that old school Hollywood glamour. Hopefully, we'll see more of that at the Oscars tomorrow. More and more celebrities are playing it safe on the red carpet. It's about time that we had more stars going all out for their 5 minute spot on the red carpet.

Rumer's dress looks amazing in her white floor length gown with it's intricate yet simple Grecian style draping. And I'm loving how both stars use the glamorous woman's make-up staple: the red lip.

Stunning

What does everyone else think?

Karen and Casey in Vogue




Here are the latest pictures from the current issue of Vogue

Enjoy!

What's on Watson



I was trailing through old pictures on my PC and came across quite a few of Harry Potter star, Emma Watson looking well......rather stylish!
I'm really inspired by her at the moment. Not only does she epitomize old British elegance, she's a classic beauty and beings something different to the young fashion scene in London who are simply try to be carbon copies of fashionista's like Aggy, Lily and Kelly.

Watch this space. A style icon might be in the making

Nylon March 2008: Rachel Bilson





I've just had a look at the new Nylon cover with Rachel Bilson and I'm really disappointed. For a girl that has so much innate personal style, stylists always manage to make her look so generic and 'teeny' on magazine shoots. Her hair is always non-descript and they always put her in the generic pinks and pastels. I'd love to see her in a more challenging shoot where they change her style completely. Something more like the recent shoot with Michelle Williams in Nylon. They completely changed her style and was creative with it and she looked amazing. Isn't that what we expect from fashion stories.....creativity!

What does everyone else think?

Two of a Kind




Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman can be seen gracing the cover of the latest issue of W magazine.
Fully clad in the spring/summer Mui Mui collection both actresses spoke about working together on their latest film 'The other Boleyn Girl'

I love the shoot and think Natalie Portman really rocked it. She really got the intensity of the shoot and looked amazing in the different Mui Mui numbers. I hate to say it but I really didn't like Scarlett in this shoot. Her wide eyed expression looked scared as opposed to her usual sexual, femme fatale aura.

Thursday 21 February 2008

Westwood Back in Town


British fashion treasure Vivienne Westwood was back in the capital last week showing her hotly anticipated Red Label collection in London for the first time in nine years.

Westwood has shown her main-line collection in Paris for almost a decade and has no plans to change that, however her Red Label collection is back to Britain for the foreseeable future and she has called for other British big name designers to bring back their diffusion lines to LFW.

It's about time British designers came back to London. So many of our great designers like Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and even Preen have got up and left the capital. With the increase in London grown talent like Giles and Christopher Kane, London is proving to be a city that buyers and press dare not miss and it's about time.


Who, What, Wear





Stylists are now synonymous with high fashion and red carpet and the power of transformation. The last decade has brought around the rise of the stylist. Rachel Zoe? We all know her now but would you have recognized that name say 5 years ago. As a celebrity stylist behind the seams, Zoe sets the tone for what Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan wear. In doing so, she and other stylists have morphed from dressers-and-schleppers hired by magazines to press and pin clothes at photo shoots to star-shapers and fashion visionaries who are courted by designers, celebrities and clothing brands.

Hollywood icons used to attend the Oscars wearing dresses by their favorite designers -- or bought off store racks -- and no one ever asked, "Who are you wearing?" The days of going it alone ended after Demi Moore was snapped in a disastrous self-designed bike shorts-and-bustier combo at the Academy Awards in 1989. Now, as Italian designer Giorgio Armani rued to the "Wall Street Journal," "No actress moves without her stylist."

"We've entered a topsy-turvy world where the stylist has more power than the designer,'' says Cohen, who's also chief industry analyst at the NPD Group, which follows the fashion trade. "Stylists are the matchmakers between designers and stars. And celebrities have become the vehicle for designers to communicate and separate themselves from the field."

Like puppet masters, stylists pull designers' strings, says Tom Julian, longtime fashion analyst for Oscar.com, the official website of the Academy Awards. "I have heard tales that a stylist believes that this gown must be in this color -- so it is," he says.

The art of transformation has always been apparent in fashion with icons such as Madonna all the way to pop starlet Kylie constantly changing their style but the art of transformation has not been as important as it has been in recent years. In a society where you are only as good as your last look, celebrities are all too quick to get their stylist in to change their look to get that front page spread of the magazines. The most recent example is Rihanna. Rihanna was nothing more than a R'n'B wannabe until she hired Phillip Bloch as her stylist and came out with hit single Umbrella. The rest is history. More recently Rih Rih cut her Pob in favour of a short Yoanna style that she's sporting at the moment in order to keep on top of the transformation game.

Another woman playing the transformation game recently is Kate Holmes. Since marrying Tom Cruise, the former Dawson's Creek star had been thrust into the fashion limelight. Kate's style epitomises classic chic and is far cry from Victoria Beckham's 'try hard' attempt at being fashionable. According to Galina Espinoza from People magazine: 'Katie Holmes is one of the most remarkable style revolutions. She's always very simple, very elegant and her clothes fit her properly'.

Who do you think has had the biggest style transformation from a stylist?







Beautifully Broken




Beautiful Fashion Week newcomer Jourdan Dunn,17, made history today as the first black model to hit the runway from Prada since Naomi Campbell did as long as 15 years ago.
This all comes at a time where race in fashion is a hot issue. Recently supermodel Naomi Campbell showed support for the Hammersmith born model in her fight to bring more non-white models to the catwalks.

“London's not a white city so why should all our castings be white? I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around and there's just me and maybe one other coloured face” said Dunn.

Talking about those with darker skin, she said: “They just don't get picked. I hope it's because the designer just didn't think they were good enough as a model but I don't know”.

With Dunn being one of the hottest models hitting the runway this season, hopefully this marks a change in attitudes amongst the fashion industry.

Only time will tell.

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