Sunday 29 November 2009

Alessandra Colombo and the sartorialist (29-Nov)

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Well, I DO remember what I said about women with short hair, but have you seen this picture? She looks beautiful, I couldn’t resist.
Yes, this is “The Sartorialist look of the week”, and she is an Italian fashion designer called Alessandra Colombo.

1. The leather jacket: First: Brown!, is in my honest opinion, the best colour for a leather jacket, yes, I know, black is the colour make them famous, is the classic one, and etc, etc, but, brown make them wearable to anyone, I mean, not everyone can where a black leather jacket, it has a preconceived meaning to me, is like wearing a uniform, you don’t usually add nothing to it, it just labelled you as a type of person (feel free to contradict me). Well.. Anyway. And second: The zip. Double zip or two ways zip, very Armani, (you can see it in most of his “collezioni” leather jackets). This type of zip is what “practical” fashion means, because is let you show the belt and is twice better because it has a practical use too, how many times have we seat in a car with our jacket on and we have pushed our jacket up with our legs making it uncomfortable to wear it and awful to see?, well, with this kind of zip, you just unzip it up a little bit and Voila!, problem solved. Yes, I like it.

2. The belt: now that we can see it (thanks to the zip, :D) we see how special it is, double golden buckle, different, giving some shiny contrast to the whole look (plus the bracelet). Great, but, maybe in a darker brown could have stand out a little bit more, but is still fine like this.

3. The trousers: this is the way I like a woman to wear a pair of trousers, in some way is how they womanise them, the way they make them different from a man’s pair of trousers. I don’t think this would look nice in a man, but I love them on women, is just the way the own them.

4. The shoes: another statement piece (remember the trench?), you all should have a pair of this kind of shoes (man and women), so easy to dress them up and down you will want to wear them with anything.


Result: “I am a woman, and I know how to show it”. Beautiful!


- One more to go (See now what I mean about the trousers?):

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-PGdeR-

Sunday 22 November 2009

Herr Karl, nice to meet you

Karl Lagerfeld is one of those persons you are not sure whether you want to meet him or not. Let me explain, on one side, you think how possible is to be friend with a guy who looks like is always wearing the same clothes and thinks a pony tail looks nice on a man, and, on the other side, you see his work and, after hours and hours looking at his work, (and with a terrible pain in your jaw, open for so long with looking to such an impressive career) you find out the artist, the hard worker, the essence of Chanel since 1983, and yes, you may want to meet him then.
Lagerfeld’s work, is good, well, really good (and helped by his collaborators) he is able to do things like what he did in the last Chanel’s Spring Summer 2010 show in Paris, (video below), where he decided to show the Chanel’s collection in a barn he created, yes, I repeat, a barn, a beautiful barn (btw), but a barn after all, and it look amazing.
He inspired himself (he said) in Marie-Antoinette's hamlet in the grounds of Versailles. This project took 6 weeks to create, one week to assemble with 38 men working full time (see what I mean with his collaborators) and consisted of, 4000 hand painted wooden tiles, 150 metres of field flower garlands, 2 tonnes of clay and 20 cubic metres of hay, (link here to see how it was done).
I downloaded a video with a fragment of the catwalk, one song of Lily Allen’s gig performed live and the end of the show with “Herr Karl” saying goodbye to all his fans (Prince included).
I also included a few pictures of the last “Dom Perignon Oenotheque" campaign, made by Lagerfeld with Claudia Schiffer.

-PGdeR-

The catwalk:




A few examples:



Dom Perignon” Oenotheque campaign:



-PGdeR-

Friday 20 November 2009

The Sartorialist picture of the week (15 Sunday):




-Well, this picture has many elements I like.
1. The hair, I am not usually a big fun of short hair, first, it reminds me to some very old women from north Europe who, were very pretty when they were young (and had long hair back them), and now, they are not that beautiful anymore and they lost the sense of fashion and class on the way too (a pity). Secondly because it usually looks very masculine to me, well, this is maybe because once I heard a terrible feminist woman, who said she didn’t feel comfortable having it long, because, it was a symbol of the oppression related with their condition among men, well, I suppose she had some bad experience when she was young.
Anyway, in this case, I don’t see just a confident woman, I also see a really pretty one, so in my opinion, she knows how to wear it short!
2. The trench, is not just the piece of the season, a must have garment (visit “the art of the trench” of Burberry,) but, is also a really “dress up” coat that she actually dressed it down by adding a casual scarf and rolled up jeans. Just a beautiful job, really.
3. The shoes, I like them, I mean, they are really eye-catching, in a good way. The colour goes with the scarf and jeans and is also a way of adding some “life” to the usually “solemn” look of a trench, so result: uncommon shoes but elegant. Don’t you think?

PS: the flowers are a great touch to make the picture even more special. (lilies, I believe)

-PGdeR-

Sunday 15 November 2009

Provoke me!

Marketing and fashion are like politics and influence peddling, they usually go together whether we like it or not. And marketing, it has one undeniable use, “to sell”, the more, to the higher price and to the lower cost, the better.


People use marketing every day, to sell and idea, a product, a project, a lie, themselves. Think of any job interview for example, and how, you prepare yourself to make you look different from the rest of those candidates.

Let’s take that example to fashion:
Benetton, the Italian retailer, founded by Luciano Benetton around 1965, is famous because of the “out of the ordinary” publicity campaigns they do. They play with the really thin line, between the easy controversy and the sharp criticism, with more or less success.

They want to provoke a reaction in the potential clients, look at the pictures; can you tell me, if you didn’t already know the brand, if you would had been able to actually tell, that is a clothing company doing this publicity campaign? I don’t think so.

Well, Dove, the brand owned by Unilever that sells mainly, personal hygiene products, is also playing this “card”. And after a few campaigns with women of middle age and some extra kilos showing how happy they are with themselves, they created the “Dove self-esteem fund”. Well, I want you to please watch the video I attached below to check on of their TV campaigns, and let me know if this, is not a damn well marketing job!.
I mean, I don’t know if I would buy a Dove product right away after watching the video, but, maybe, I will start to think of Dove as a company that “cares”, and then, we are going to, in a short period of time, transfer that “good image” we have now, right to their products.
Well, it may get also the opposite reaction, and then we could ask ourselves "who the hell is Dove to tell me how to raise my daughter?", in case you did not watch the video yet (or you don't understand italian) I said this, because the video, ends with the phrase "Parla a tua figlia prima che l’industria della belleza lo faccia". that it means "talk to your daugther befote the beauty industry does". Result: you tell me.

Everything, I repeat, everything can be promoted by this useful and powerful tool called marketing. And companies, big and small ones, know this, and are trying to use it as a diversion, as a way to hide the real purpose for what they are really looking for. Is not that I find this immoral or wicked, because, after all, there is of course, a lot of people eating everyday thanks to this, but, I think is important, we see the real truth of things, and we question all happening around us. I think we shouldn’t “bite” this as easy as they want us to bite it. At least, we should try to look behind the picture and think, if we are looking at deep concern about a real problem in our society or just to simple deep profit. think about it.


United Colors of Benetton press campaign.




Dove's self-esteem fund video campaign.



-PGdeR-

Sunday 8 November 2009

Photography, is IT fashion?


When does photography become fashion? Or when does Fashion become photography? Is it a real piece of fashion a picture as those that come out of Galiano's couture (picture below)? Or is the most classic looks Giorgio Armani (picture below) is so proud about, those who really define fashion? Either way, photography is really tight connected to fashion (in one way or another) and I know one guy, who knows this really well, and he is in the right spot and at the right time most of the times, getting, the perfect picture of someone, feeling great, wearing usually, the more common garments out in the street.
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This man is, Scott Schuman (in the picture), also known as “the Sartorialist”. He has become famous worldwide thanks to his blog where he shows those pictures he shot around the world (NYC, Milan or London, the most), where he finds normal people who in one way or another are influenced by fashion and express themselves throught what they like wearing.

I created a short video with a small collection of some of his best (in my opinion) looks of the last months, portraits accompanied with a beautiful song I love from Jason Mraz, “I’m yours” that always makes me smile.

From now on I will post what I will consider “the best The Sartorialist look of the week” and make my own judgment about it. And of course, will love to hear everyones opinion about it and even other propositions they found more interesting in that week’s pictures.

Helped now by Mr Schuman, I would like, to introduce everyone to “Loveblog”. This website is what I call an “information giver”. Loveblog is an easy way of following the blogs you like from your inbox. All you have to do is register in, and click on “follow” in any blog you find and every time the owner of that blog, add a post, LoveBlog will automatically send you an email telling you so. This system will let you gain a lot of time by receiving alerts directly into your inbox so you can forget about checking everyday all the blogs you like and just see how everything comes directly to your hands throught this easy tool.

My small tribute to "good" fashion on the street and to the Sartorialist.


John Galiano's couture gathering!
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A classic Giorgio Armani Privé suit



Galiano's amazing couture dress to finish this post.



Enjoy it and let me know if you like it.

-PGdeR-