men's gladiators.... it's gonna happen

I knew this day would come. Ladies and gentlemen, the high-end fashion houses are beginning to produce stylish gladiator sandals for men. SO SO SO pumped for this, can't even tell you. Maybe I haven't been doing enough research, but I feel the sandal market for men is either catered towrads the old and drab (chunky leather rubber bottomed blah blah) or the guido (bizarre patent leather single-strap/ toe ring what what what?!). Hopefully some more affordable but still equally stylish options will make there way into stores.


Here are some gladiators from Alexander McQueen.

BREAKING NEWS- PARIS JE T'AIME

The rumors are true, people. Kingston Project will be heading to Paris in April.

So, to prepare myself, I will be doing a series of posts of fashionable places in Paris I intend to visit. Shopping (of course), museums, restaurants, anything and everything where I can soak in the Parisian sun and flex my style muscles.


Up first, the APC Surplus store.

APC, known for it's sharp tailoring, clean aesthetic and Parisian-streetstyle-je-ne-sais-quoi, maintains a surplus outlet in Montmartre in Paris. Everything leftover from last season is for sale at half the retail price, meaning big big discounts for the savvy shopper. So pumped, can't wait to check it out.

It's just a block or two away from the famed church-cum-Paris-kodak-moment-tourist-destination SacreCoeur. Which means after maxing out my visa at APC, at least I'll be able to go beg for forgiveness from the Lord. Sacre bleu!

Feathery Dreams

Feathers in couture.... when used the right way, I don't think you can get any chic-er. The designer has to be really cautious about the shape, the color, the concentration, and movement of the feathers. That being said, all of those things done well add so much glamour to a garment. Feathers are soft, the color combinations are usually interesting, and they look great in motion.

Prefall2010 Celine had more feathers than an ostrich farm. And I loved it. So chic and glamourous, but still distinctively Celine and not 'too' over the top. Enjoy.

Golden Globes 2010 Red Carpet-- Who Rocked It, Who... didn't

So it's awards season once again and although it rained cats dogs and small children on the day of the Globes, the fashion was pretty intense. Some people looked great, some weren't too good. I understand it was raining so maybe everyone wasn't on their A game, but that just means that you've gotta work it that much more, and if some people still managed to stop the show then you're just lazy.

Anyways here are some of the looks which stood out most to me.

Come on Sandra, this isn't prom. And that bag is... a mess.

Here's.... that chick from Glee.  A perfect example of a breathtaking dress

ruined by the wearer. Her pose is awkward, a little too

Wonder-Woman-y.

Marion Cotillard who I typically love (remember that fish-scale couture she wore

when she won for Best Actress?? bananas...)

Fell a little flat here. I really like the idea of this dress and the lace slip poking out from the slit

but the fabric is a little heavy-looking and makes her look a little large, to be frank.

First place for almost shutting it down.

And here, the lovely Kate Winslet

in all her glory

Completely shutting it down.

Sometimes less is more, kids. The line of crystals emphasizes her beautiful figure.

I really like the lack of necklace.... would've been too much.

Well done.

Diane Kruger, always one to take risks and rock the couture

Love her, love the dress, but not together.

The hot pink looks gross against the red carpet

and makes Frauline Kruger look a little washed-out.

The dress itself is insane, such good Euro-taste and construction and craftsmanship

I just feel it's a bit complex for an American Red Carpet event.

And, you guessed it. Anna Paquin gets my number 1 pick. Maybe it's the sparkle, maybe it's her,

maybe it's True Blood, maybe its the pose, maybe its the plunging-v.

Everything just meshes nicely.
And she manages to pull off this dress without seeming too sexy, she still has that

girl-next-door-but-classy-as-hell

vibe.

from DSQUARED SS10

 Something about this look really spoke to me.

I really want to recreate it....camp socks with birkinstocks, shorts (i'll have to experiment

and see if i can rock the long johns under the shorts) and a button-up paired with a pullover to play on the fancy/casual combination.

options galore thx to polyvore

So here's a set I just did because I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to style one of those new Proenza Schouler tie-dye pieces. Unfortunately, polyvore's only choices were between a frumpy tie-dye tank (I would just hit up Lands End and save some money if I were you) and this incredible dress- the choice was made for me.

The tie-dye effect of this dress gives it such a rocker-chic-cool-girl feeling that I knew immediately that I wanted to pair it up with a distressed, cropped leather jacket. Going for a cropped jacket will help add some shape, because the torso of the dress appears to be rather simple.

But then, there's the problem of shoes.... how do you match something to lime green tie-dye??
I thought it would have been hard to find some good shoes but I had the opposite problem... I couldn't narrow down the selection. So I decided just to give my top three. All three stick with the rocker-chic punk aesthetic, but take it in a slightly different directions.

What do you think??

KP6 by toddkingston featuring All Saints

Dress by Proenza Schouler. Cropped Worley leather jacket. Elisanero open toe belt booties. Jimmy Choo cage elaphe bootie sandals. Balmain studded suede sandal.

footballers

Out of left field, or... out from downfield? I don't know. I don't follow sports. Nor know anything about them. ANYWAYS what I'm trying to say is that suddenly on the Spring runways I've noticed a different sort of trend.....

FOOTBALL INSPIRED FASHION

The two most prominent *players* in this *arena* were definately Alexander Wang and Alexandre Herchcovich.

Alexander Wang did a play on oldschool mid 20th century football. Padded leather, laced-up detailing, heather sweathshirts. Of course, this is Mr. Wang we are talking about so things were kept classy. Leather was tastefully used for these giant headband things that were reminiscent of old helmets. Some of the clutches even looked like footballs.

I love the use of the corset in one of the earlier looks.... very thought provoking-- what is the link between how women had to wear corsets and how men compete on the playing field?? Chew on this... how is the way women in our world dress similar to how men on the football field have to dress--- practicality, protection... Interesting....

And, like any good fashion show, it starts out as one thing, goes on a journey and ends up as another. Wang started out with said 'classic' looks, then went to a denim-and-red-and-white Americana tomboy look, took the feminine shapes and glammed them up with sequins, mohair-looking fluffiness, and the like.

Alexandre Herchcovitch's take on football relied less on the architecture of the look and more on the fabrics themselves, all sorts of reflectives and striping like referee shirts. To me, at least, it seemed like pretty girls on the sidelines instead of Wang's getting down and dirty in the mud. Anywhoo....

Patrik Ervell

Patrik Ervell was a CFDA Fund Thingy award nominee last year. I was browsing his collections and something about his aesthetic really spoke to me. I can't find a good image online, but he does these schoolboy oxford shirts (white with the rounded collar, meant to be worn buttoned all the way up) with these incredible rust stain details. Picture a white shirt splattered with dots orange-red paint. But they are actually rust stains. And absolutely brilliant.  Check out his SS2010 show here:


Patrik Ervell S/S 2010 from Patrik Ervell on Vimeo.

V Magazine, forthcoming "Size Issue"

I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, I think that it is fantastic that such an important fashion publication is devoting an issue to the beauty of models of all shapes and sizes. Totally awesome. On the other hand, after this single "Size Issue" does this mean that they are going to go back to rail-thin models?? And the way they present the plus-size models is of course going to be just as important as the fact that they are in the magazine at all.... to really get the message of "all creatures great and small" across, the plus sized models must be presented in the same ways that the thin models are presented all the time: sexy, fashionable, fierce. I think whoever shoots the overweight models is going to walk a fine line between this ideal and presenting a carnivalesque version of the models.

But now i'm just blabbering on.

I just found a preview of a feature shot by the one and only Herr Lagerfeld, and it actually looks quite good. Here's a little taste....

OH MY GOD

My wildest dreams have come true..... RODARTE IS PRODUCING A SMALL COLLECTION OF MENS SWEATERS FOR SALE AT OPENING CEREMONY IN NEW YORK. I don't even think I need to explain why I love these so much.....
I wish I could afford.... a THREE THOUSAND DOLLAR SWEATER

Silver Linings

I'm not the only one who has been feeling a silvery/metallic pallette lately. I feel like if Mr. Cunningham saw me walking around midtown in my silver Swear sneakers he would have put me into his little segment. (PS still looking for the camera which took the picture of my New Years outfit... some things are worth waiting for, blog readers)

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/01/01/fashion/1247466356619/on-the-street-quicksilver.html?ref=fashion

"Fashion's not about looking back, it's always about looking forward." --A. Wintour

Ms. Wintour put this axiom to test in the January2010 issue of Vogue. I have to say, transitioning from one decade into the next provides a huge opportunity for a fashion publication like Vogue to sort of tie everything together, to summarize with an eye of what's coming next.

And Vogue did not disappoint.

The January2010 issue is one of my favorites to date, and not only because the feature on the "new generation of talent" included four of my favorite designers. It wasn't my favorite because they did a feature on hip-hop star MIA. It wasn't the exciting, thorough retrospect of the decade's best dressed. It wasn't the Demarchelier piece on "going west", paying homage to the eternal American spirit. It wasn't the Rachel McAdams piece. It wasn't even the "last look" which made a nod to the intersection of fashion and tech-developments by featuring a Tod's leather Nook e-book reader case.

Every image, every word in this issue of Vogue was cohesively addressing the question we all face on the upswing of a recession, on the edge of unprecedented climate change (both global and political), on the cusp of a decade: Who are we and where are we going?

Fashion isn't about this trend or that trend, it is a barometer of our culture. Fashion, through the voices of individual artists, tells the story of our people. And according to the Jan2010 issue of Vogue, we are are going into a new decade with our fists up.
Well, now that I've got THAT off my chest, here are some images from the "date with destiny" feature, Anna Wintour's selection of the freshest talent in fashion who are going to carry us into 2010.  First up, my girls at Rodarte:

This is a great shot, I think it really captures what Rodarte is all about. I understand that Vogue is all about what's CURRENTLY going on in fashion, I think it would have been a better "looking back/ looking forward" kind of piece if they brought in multiple models with sort of the "greatest hits". But that's just me.

Phillip Lim. Love love love.

Proenza Schouler.

Alexander Wang.