fashionologie

Sophie Theallet Takes Home 2009 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Win

fashionologie — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:48:45 -0800

>> Last night, with the help of keynote speaker Alber Elbaz, who doled out gems on the perils of success - "It's like a bottle of perfume. You smell it, you don't sniff it or drink it" - Alaia veteran and Michelle Obama favorite Sophie Theallet took home the 2009 Vogue/Fashion Fund prize of $200,000 and a year of mentoring. Fellow nominees Patrik Ervell and Monique Pean were named runners-up, and received $50,000 each plus a business mentor.

In her speech, Anna Wintour said that in addition to the US, Italy, and the UK - which just started a similar talent-nurturing program - she just met with the French minister of culture about mirroring the contest there. "And Brazil, India, Russia, and China aren't far behind."

Theallet Tweeted of her win: "my american dream comes true tonight thanks and much love to all of you!xox." Cathy Horyn, too, weighed in on the choice:

"The money and the mentoring will help Ms. Theallet because she needs to be able to offer more range in her collection, as well as expand her production options. She has such a distinctly feminine eye, and the skills, that I’ve often wondered why a big retailer doesn’t ask Ms. Theallet to design some blouses and summer dresses for them, using the store’s resources and manufacturing connections."

Videos of the nominees going through the competition and the awards ceremony last night can be seen here and here, respectively.

Burberry Returns to Home Turf for Spring 2010

fashionologie — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:21:07 -0700

>> Spring 2010 brings a number of firsts for Burberry: the first time Christopher Bailey has shown under the label in London instead of Milan and the first time the show was streamed live on the Internet - the video can be seen here. It was a big bash for the likes of London - a guest list of 1,500 and a tent venue erected on the grounds of the Chelsea College of Art & Design - bringing front row faces like Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham, Mary-Kate Olsen, brand face Emma Watson, plus Mario Testino, Jacquetta Wheeler, Bruce Weber, and Agyness Deyn.

When the show was ready to start this evening, the venue - with Burberry check-embossed walls - went dark, and the Burberry logo lit up the runway until the stream of models, wearing pale-colored or metallic knotted, draped, and twisted variations on the classic trench and miniskirt, commenced. A few furs were even thrown in, despite the Spring season. At the end, in celebration of the quintessential British brand's return to home turf, a rain of silver confetti streamed down.

fashionologie — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:20:50 -0700

>> Models Missing from the New York Runways: An Update -With only one more day of New York Fashion Week to go, a number of top models still haven't set foot on a catwalk. Anja Rubik finally appeared at Michael Kors this morning - so did Carmen Kass and Jacquetta Wheeler - but Catherine McNeil - who is supposedly booked all through the New York shows on another job - Toni Garrn, Lara Stone, Anna Maria Jagodzinska, Sigrid Agren - who's rumored not to be doing any shows this season - Tanya Dziahileva, Raquel Zimmermann, and Georgina Stojiljkovic are all totally MIA. In other modeling news, Jessica Stam joined the increasingly large number of models bleaching their hair - she debuted the new hue today at Anna Sui. [Fashin]

Vogue Paris, Three Stylists Turn Out 65 Pages Worth of Models in Iconic Brand Looks

fashionologie — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:48:05 -0700

>> Some thought that Vogue Paris's August 2009 cover with Daria Werbowy all decked out in Burberry check looked too blatantly like an advertisement, but in the context of Inez van Lamweerde and Vinoodh Matadin's 65-page accompanying editorial inside - with a plethora of models, each embodying a different brand's identity - it all makes sense.

It's a few of the magazine's usual suspects - Anja Rubik doing Gucci's "glam star" in fauxhawk, Kamila Filipcikova striking an eyepopping McQueen silhouette - plus a few new faces like Regina Feoktistova and Ranya Mordanova in Gianfranco Ferre and Junya Watanabe, respectively. The trifecta of stylists that produced these images - Joe McKenna, Emmanuelle Alt, Carine Roitfeld - prove that there is creativity to be found within the bounds of a studio shoot, after all.

Full editorial here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; gallery below NSFW.

fashionologie — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:03:02 -0700

>> Kate Moss a No-Show at Glastonbury; Lily Donaldson There In Her Stead -No Kate Moss at Glastonbury this year - despite rumors otherwise - but Lily Donaldson was there to see Kasabian (after meeting them on a Burberry shoot) and Neil Young in leopard and a fringed bag; Jacquetta Wheeler, Theodora and Alexandra Richards, Valentine Fillol-Cordier, and Eliza Cummings all popped up, too. [Style.com, Style File]

fashionologie — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:19:08 -0700

>> ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL -The first of many Fall 2009 Gucci ads has dropped, this one featuring Anja Rubik. Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin still did the photographing honors, but the look is a hard-edged change from the pastoral, verdant ads of seasons past. Expected in upcoming images: perennial Gucci faces like Jacquetta Wheeler, Raquel Zimmermann, Freja Beha Erichsen, Natasha Poly, and Abbey Lee Kershaw, with a few surprises - Myf Shepherd, Dree Hemingway, and Jamie Bochert. [TFS, TFS, TFS]

fashionologie — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:20:39 -0700

>> INSIDER WIRE -Carine Roitfeld dedicated the entire February 2009 issue of Vogue Paris to Lara Stone, and now it sounds like an upcoming issue of Vogue Paris will be dedicated to Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin - they are photographing the entire thing, cover to cover. Recent rumors have placed the duo shooting Jacquetta Wheeler with Shalom Harlow and Sessilee Lopez with "the fastest rising new Asian star on the scene" and a recent VP cover girl for the magazine - perhaps it's all for this issue? [TFS, The Imagist, The Imagist]

Jacquetta Wheeler Chose Southeast Asia Over Thousands of Dollars

fashionologie — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:14:13 -0700

>> Natalia Vodianova took us around Moscow yesterday, and now Jacquetta Wheeler chronicles her recent three-month trek through Southeast Asia - highlights below. Although she's back at work now, walking in Singapore earlier this week (left) and shooting the upcoming Gucci campaign, she spent February through the middle of last month wandering through the backcountry of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, because like a number of other models recently - Daria Werbowy, Coco Rocha, Caroline Trentini - she needed a break:

Often I’d wake up in a hotel room and it would take a few seconds before I’d figure out which country I was in. My life had become a whirlwind of catwalk shows, hotels, airports and studios. There was another reason why I needed a change. I had come out of a six-year relationship [Ed. note: presumedly with photographer Alexi Lubomirski], and up until three weeks ago was feeling utterly lost. I was dealing with both the pain of the break-up and the muddle that my life had become.

The decision to travel cost her.

So, here I am, sitting at a cafe in Nong Khai, about to cross the border into Laos. I have just cut off all communication with my agent after I received an email from her offering me a job for thousands of dollars. It would be so easy to be seduced by the money and abandon this trip, but I know that if I don’t commit to this journey now, I never will, and I would hate myself for that.

Eating beetles, $20 dresses . . . »

Gucci Taps Face from a Decade Ago, Flanks Her with the Usual Suspects for Fall 2009

fashionologie — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:01:30 -0700

>> We found out a couple of weeks ago that Frida Giannini chose nine models for the Fall 2009 Gucci campaign, and now we've got more details. Apparently the designer is quite taken with London and decided to have her usual campaign photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin do the honors in a north London studio; she's even picked to feature native Londoner and 1999-2000 Gucci face Jacquetta Wheeler (left, Fall 1999). “We’re in London, so of course I had to have an English girl.”

Joining Jacquetta in the campaign are Raquel Zimmermann, Natasha Poly, Freja Beha Erichsen, plus Myf Shepherd and Abbey Lee Kershaw, whose television commercial for the brand's Flora fragrance, which was filmed over four days in Latvia last July and created using more than 20,000 fake flowers, just debuted.

Three faces are left to be named - Lily Donaldson is likely one of them, since Frida likes to stick with the same girls and Lily has been in at least two of her campaigns. Plus, a Gucci spokesman advises that the upcoming campaign will be similar to past seasons, “a continuation of Frida’s Gucci generation."
*image: source

Fashion Fund 2009 Kicks Off with "Donatella Delight"

fashionologie — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:33:27 -0700

>> One of Valentino Garavani's favorite models, Natalia Vodianova, missed the big premiere of his documentary; she was in London for the launch of the 2009 Fashion Fringe search for emerging British design talent - the UK's version of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award - instead. In celebration of this year's honorary chairperson, Donatella Versace, who flew in from Milan for the event, guests like Claudia Schiffer, Roland Mouret, Jonathan Saunders, and Jacquetta Wheeler were served "Donatella Delight" cocktails. Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet is also on the judging panel this year, as is Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon, who is overseeing the introduction of Fashion Fringe's first accessories prize. The four as yet unnamed finalists will show capsule collections during Spring 2010 London Fashion Week, and the winner - who in the past has been Basso & Brooke and Erdem - receive upwards of £100,000 for a follow-up show.
*image: source