Roma, Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera. Chanel is Coming!

Rome, Don't Be a Fool Tonight.

The day is almost here! On December 1st Chanel will stage its Métiers d'Art show at the Cinecitta' studios in Rome. As a proud Roman I'm really happy that once again, after the magnificent Valentino's Haute Couture show in July, the city is back on the fashion map and that the Chanel guests and the entire (online)  world will be able to appreciate its beauty, at the same level of Seoul and New York, where the Cruise 2016 collection and the last Métiers d'Art show were held.

Rome, Don't Be a Fool Tonight. 

I really hope that the city and the Roman people will give their best and that the luxury experience of this event will carry on outside the show venue too; in the streets, in the restaurants and bars, in the hotels or simply having a 'cappuccino e cornetto' for breakfast in one of the thousand excellent coffee bars in town.

Rome, Don't Be a Fool Tonight.

Last but not least, it'll be interesting to see Karl Lagerfeld take on the city historical, cultural and cinematografic heritage and how he'll translate that into the collection. Rome, do your best to cast your spell on the Chanel guests and make them fall in love with you.

Roma, Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera.

Ci siamo quasi! Il 1mo dicembre Chanel mandera' in passerella la collezione Métiers d'Art negli studi di Cinecitta' a Roma. Da romano orgoglioso sono molto contento che nuovamente, dopo la sfilata d'Alta Moda di Valentino a luglio, la citta' sia di nuovo nel circuito della moda e che gli ospiti di Chanel ma anche tutto il mondo intero (online) ne potranno apprezzare la bellezza, allo stesso livello di Seoul e New York, location della Cruise 2016 e della precedente collezione Métiers d'Art.

Roma, Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera

Spero vivamente che la citta' e i romani facciano del loro meglio affinche' la lussuosa esperienza Chanel prosegua anche al di fuori della sfilata; nelle strade, nei ristoranti, negli alberghi ma anche solo nei centinaia di bar con cappuccino e cornetto.

Roma, Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera.

Infine vedremo come Karl Lagerfeld interepretera' il passato bagaglio storico, culturale e cinematografico della citta' nella collezione. Roma, fai del tuo meglio per affascinare gli invitati di Chanel e falli innamorare di te.

Marni AW 15 AD by Jackie Nickerson

I usually flick through the new season advert campaigns quite quickly and in some cases I do stop and look at the pictures with interest. That's the case of Marni's AW15 campaign that, funnily enough, I discovered following the work of its photographer, Jackie Nickerson, whose African farmers portraits inspired Danielle Romeril SS16 collection Paradise Lost that I wrote about a month ago.

Di solito sfoglio le campagne pubblicitarie della nuova stagione abbastanza velocemente e solo in alcuni casi mi soffermo con interesse sulle immagini. Questo e' il caso della campagna Marni AW15 che, buffamente, ho scoperto seguendo il lavoro della fotogrfa Jackie Nickerson, i cui ritratti dei contadini africani hanno ispirato la collezione SS16 di Danielle Romeril di cui vi ho parlato un mese fa.

Jackie Nickerson's portraits

The adv pictures are the best example of what fashion photography should be; it tells a story and a mood where you look at the person first and then coincidentally this person is wearing the clothes you are advertising. To pick a photographer like Nickerson clearly was the right choice for Marni as the focus of each picture is on the woman, whose face we don't always see and it is up to us to figure out why sh'e on the floor, is sitting on a fallen chair or leaning on a table.

le immagini della campagna sono uno dei milgiori esempi di come dovrebbe essere la fotogrfia di moda; racconta una storia e un mood in cui si fa attenzione prima alla persona e poi, incidentalmente, il soggetto indossa gli abiti e accessori che si vogliono promuovere. Scegliere una fotografa come Jackie Nickerson e' stata chiaramente un'ottima scelta per marni poiche' in ogni foto il focus e' sulla donna, il cui viso spesso non vediamo e sta a noi, osservatori, capire perche' e' stesa a terra, seduta su una sedia caduta o appoggiata ad un tavolo.

Brighton Fashion Week 2015

This is the English translation of my article on BFW 15 that appeared on Fashion News Magazine in Italian a week ago. I'm translating it to make it accessible to my English speaking audience.

All pictures by Malcom Tam

The success of last year's Sustain event, convinced Lizzy Bishop, the founder and creative mind of Brighton Fashion Week, to focus the 2015 edition entirely on sustainable fashion. Not only upcycling workshops in order to create new garments out of old ones, but also debates, networking events and overall fashion shows whose designers used sustainability as part of their production and business model.

If Brighton Fashion Week doesn't attract thousands of journalists, fashion insiders and buyer like London, with the English capital shares a really strong push towards innovation and the right balance between creativity and business. To have thirty 'sustainable' designers on the schedule is not an easy task but the excellent scouting work done by the BFW shows that it is possible to create an event that proves that sustainable fashion can be real, a viable model for the future of this industry.

Even in the wide ranging diversity of the collections, all the brands share some 'good pratices' like using end of the roll fabrics, digital prints, eco-friendly dyeing techniques and the use of  organic materials and chemically treated as less as possible. Finally in order to show that sustainable fashion is a model that works well globally, in this 2015 edition, there were both designers from Brighton - the talented Isaac Raimond and my bias L.O.M - and from Asia - Angus Tsui and Tiffany Pattinson - who showed the best four collections of the event together with the floral menswear suits by KellyDawnRiot, that were a hit with the Brighton audience

Fashionable Halloween. AW15 Looks for Halloween.

Even though I'm far too old for Halloween and dressing up, I still like the visual aspect of it and decided to apply it to some of the AW15 looks that we saw on the runway six months ago. Can you guess which villain/character am I referencing in the opening picture? If not, read on to find out the designers/characters pairings.

Anche se ormai sono troppo grandicello per Halloween e i travestimenti, non posso fare a meno di apprezzarne il lato visivo che ho applicato ad alcuni look AW15 visti in passerella sei mesi fa. Riuscite ad indovinare quali personaggi mi riferisco nell'immagine di apertura? Scopritelo qui sotto nelle accoppiate tra stilisti e travestimenti di Halloween

MARC JACOBS, LOUIS VUITTON = CRUELLA DE VIL

MARC JACOBS, GIVENCHY = MORTICIA ADDAMS

OSCAR DE LA RENTA, ZAC POSEN = QUEEN OF HEARTS

MC QUEEN, GIVENCHY = MALEFICENT

LFW New Designers: Faustine Steinmetz

Faustine Steinmetz completes the triad of new emerging designers that I picked up on the latest LFW season, together with Danielle Romeril and Molly Goddard, with whom she's just been nominated for the upcoming British Fashion Awards as Emerging Womenswear Designer.

What makes Steinmetz stand out from her fellow new designers is her unique take on garments production and crystal clear vision of what her brand stands for.
Her focus is on creating mass produced garments using hand-craft techniques, craftsmanship wins over trends and every process is manual: hand-weaving, hand-dying, hand-knitting, hand-embroidery, hand-painting. 

Watch the video below to really understand what I'm referring to.

Faustine Steinmetz completa la triade dei designer emergenti che ho adocchiato durante l'ultima edizione della LFW, assieme a Danielle Romeril e Molly Goddard, con la quale condivide la nomination ai prossimi British Fashion Awards nella categoria Emerging Womenswear Designer.
Cio' che distingue la Steinmetz dagli altri giovani stilisti e' l'unicita' del suo approccio alla produzione dei capi e una visione cristallina dei valori che il suo brand rappresenta.
Il suo punto di forza e' la creazione di abbigliamento di massa usando le tecniche del fatto a mano, l'artigianalita' vince sulle tendenze e ogni processo e' manuale; la tessitura, la tintura, la maglieria, i ricami,
Guardate il video sottostante per capire meglio a cosa mi riferisco

LFW New Designers: Molly Goddard

I included Molly Goddard in my LFW SS16 10 best looks and told you that I'd write specifically about her in a later post. Here it is with perfect timing, as she is one of the nominees at the British Fashion Awards 2015 in the Emerging Womenswear Designer category. She's also the second of the three new designers that I'm writing about, together with Danielle Romeril and Faustine Steinmetz, who's a nominee in the same category too.

The picture above doesn't scream fashion in the usual way and such a ''charming awkwardeness'' - quoting Goddard's description of her style - is what makes her collections and overall inspiration stand out; a fresh, down to earth approach to clothes and a simple way to show how wearable they are. The SS 16 collection was in the form of a presentation where models where working in a sandwich factory, wearing party pretty party dresses, looking grumpy and bored as if they just got from a party or were ready to rush to one after their shift.

Ho incluso Molly Goddard nei 10 migliori look della LFW SS16 e vi ho promesso che avrei scritto di lei in un post successivo. Eccolo qui con tempismo prefetto visto che e' una delle nominate ai British Fashion Awards 2015 nella categoria Emerging Womenswear Designer. E' anche la seconda delle tre stiliste che ston approfondendo sul blog, con Danielle Romeril e Faustine Steinmetz, anche lei con una nomination nella stessa categoria.

L'immagine qui sopra non grida moda come ci si aspetta e questa '' affascinante stranezza'' - citando la descrizione del suo stile della Goddard - e' cio' che fa emergere su tutti le sue collezioni e la sua ispirazione; un approccio con i piedi per terra, fresco e un modo semplice di mostrare gli abiti e di come siano facili da indossare.

La collezione SS16 e' stata una presentazione in cui le modelle lavoravano in un'azienda che produce sandwich, indossando dei party dress con un'espressione annoiata e arrabbiata come se fossero appena tornate da una festa o fossero pronte ad andarci, dopo il turno di lavoro.

LFW New Designers. Danielle Romeril SS16. Paradise Lost

As promised a couple of weeks ago, charting the 10 LFW SS16 best looks , I'm going to focus in this post on one of the three emerging designers that showed her collection on the main schedule: Danielle Romeril. As her name and her namesake brand is totally new to me I had to do some research into them and that lead me into an interesting journey through her African inspiration for the SS16 collection.

Come promesso un paio di settimane fa, facendo la classifica dei migliori 10 look della LFW SS16, in questo post approfondiro' una delle tre stiliste emergenti nel calendario ufficiale; Danielle Romeril. poiche' sia il suo nome che il brand mi sono totalmente nuovi ho fatto un po' di ricerca che mi ha portato a 'viaggiare' in Africa attraverso l'ispirazione della sua la collezione SS16.

Brighton Fashion Week 2015

I've always been a keen supporter of fashion designers and fashion weeks close to the place I live; it doesn't matter if it's Rome Haute Couture - AltaRoma - and the Vogue Italia talents or the annual Brighton Fashion Week. Since I moved to Brighton, as you know, I've followed and be involved in it and year after year seen it become bigger and bigger. The 2015 edition is upon us, from the 15th to the 17th of October and is going to be entirely sustainable as the events, workshops, talk and last but not least collections show will be eco-friendly.

The Open Market will open the schedule with Fashion Salvage, a workshop that is aiming to show and educate people on how to up-cycle discarded clothes, using a 'Tonne of Clothes' that will be shipped to the Market as source material for the workshop. The same 'Tonne' will also be used on Saturday the 17th by LYC ( Love Your Clothes)  in partnership with Cancer Research UK and is open to the general public.

River Island Design Forum. Zoe Jordan - Christopher Shannon

In its 8th season, the River Island Design Forum has just dropped its lastest two collections. The high street brand has infact teamed up with Zoe Jordan to produce an 11 capsule collection for women and with Christopher Shannon for men.

The two designers may not be mainstream names but here lays the strenght of the River Island collaborations as they team up with  up and coming designer that are well know to the fashion insiders and introduce them to a huge audience. For the River Island customer the Design Forum is a great opportunity not only to own and wear something different and unique from the usual high street offering and a chance to get be 'educated' and get to know designer brands that will be well know in the near future.

Alla sua ottava stagione, il River Island Design Forum ha appena mandato nei negozi le sue ultime due collezioni. Infatti il brand ha collaborato con Zoe Jordan alla produzio e di una capsule collectiin di 11 pezzi per la moda donna e con Christopher Shannon per l'uomo.

I due stilisti non sono ancora conosciuti al grande pubblico ed e' qui la forza delle collaborazioni di River Island, associandosi con nomi emergenti ma ben conosciuti dagli addwtti ai lavori e presentandoli a un'audience molto vasta. Per i clienti River Island il Design Forum e' un momento non solo per possedere e indossare dei capi unici e diversi dal solito stock ma anche per 'istruirsi' e conoscere dei brand che saranno conosciutissimi nel prossimo futuro

London Faahion Week

Zoe Jordan/Christoher Shannon AW 15

London Fashion Week SS16. 10 Best Looks.

LFW has just finished and I'm not going to write any review of the shows, all of them are already on line but I've rounded up the 10 best looks that I saw on the runway. This season I didn't get involved as much as I wanted both because I was away on holiday ( South of France!!) and because when I had the chance to go to show/presentation I decided to be a responsible grown, stay at home and deal with a bathroom 'crisis' 

( no toilette, shower, basin for a day and then thick dust everywhere!). I followed the show everyday though as I daily rounded up the best 5 looks for FashionNewsMagazine on Facebook and posted a review ( in Italian about the whole season). Some of the designers are established ones that I particularly love, others are emerging designers ( Romeril, Steinmetz and Goddard) whom I 'll talk about in an another post

--------------------

LFW e' appena finita e non scrivero' alcuna recensone visti che tutte sono gia' online ma ho raccolto i migliori 10 look che ho visto in passerella. Questa stagione non ho potuto partecipare attivamente all'evento come avrei voluto, sia perche' ero in vacanza ( Sud della Francia!) e sia perche' ho deciso di fare l'adulto, rimanere a casa e far fornte all 'crisi' bagno (senza toilette, doccia e lavabo per un giorno intero oltre a stati di polvere e calcinacci dappertutto!). Ho comunque seguito le sfilate online ogni giorno e ogni mattina ho postatop i migliori 5 look sulla pagina Facebook di FashionNewsMagazine e ho postato una panoramica sulla manifestazione. Alcuni degli stilisti sono affermati e mi piacciono particolarmente, altri sono emergenti ( Romeril, Steinmetz e Goddard) di cui vi parlero' in un prossimo post.

CHRISTOPHER KANE

BURBERRY PRORSUM

ERDEM