FASHION Magazine

By Randi Bergman and Meredith Gillies

2012 has been quite the year. We’ve waited for Carly Rae Jepsen’s phone to ring since what feels like forever, we developed major girl crushes on Girls director/writer, Lena Dunham, and we felt like we’d never be as cool as Azealia Banks. Jepsen, Banks and Dunham may have rocked our worlds this year, but in the world of fashion, important things that have gone down too. There have been soaring highs, crashing lows, and shocking changes for celebrities, designers and even journalists.

Designer shifts at Balenciaga and Dior that are just a sampling of what seems like an endless list of fashion shakeups that went down over the past 12 months including Stefano Pilati and Hedi Slimane at Yves Saint Laurent, YSL becoming simple Saint Laurent Paris and more. And speaking of shakeups, Kristen Stewart’s rise from a teen queen to a heartbreaking fragrance face has been epic to say the least. So let’s look back, reflect, and count down together the events that made 2012 so real.

See our list of 2012’s top influencers »

Take a look back at Nicolas Ghesquière’s Balenciaga Top 10 »

As any entry-level fashion historian might know, clothing is as good a representation of what’s going on in the world as any. At a more micro level, its one of the best ways to chart changing aesthetics through time. What better proponent of so many of fashion’s most recent aesthetic shifts than Nicolas Ghesquière, creative director of Balenciaga, who announced today that after 15 years with the brand, he’d be stepping down. As someone who was so effected by Ghesquière’s genius while wading through my own fashion discovery (namely the one-two punch of Spring 2007 and Spring 2008), this news is real sucky. On the bright side, it’s a great time to look back at just how unbelievably influential Ghesquière was in starting so many recurring trends.

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, consider Kristen Stewart to be blushing. Stewart—the face of Balenciaga’s Florabotanica—can now offer her boyfriend and fictional vampire husband, Robert Pattinson, some tips on being the face of a fragrance because he has reportedly signed a contract with Dior.

RPatz will be modeling for men’s fragrance campaigns (unlike a certain Brad Pitt we know) and a source told E! News, “Rob likes the brand.” We consider that statement has to be true because Robert wore Dior Homme while walking both the red carpets at the Teen Choice Awards and the Cannes Film Festival.

Still craving more Kristen Stewart? Read our interview with her! »

The post EXCLUSIVE: Watch the Florabotanica Balenciaga interview with Kristen Stewart live at 3pm EST! appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

It’s been a mind-bending year for actress Kristen Stewart. Sarah Daniel sits down with Balenciaga’s new fragrance face.

The 3 things we learned about Kristen Stewart during our interview »
Watch the behind-the-scenes video from the campaign shoot »

In the advertising campaign for Balenciaga Florabotanica (from $90, at department stores and thebay.com), Kristen Stewart, the face of the dark floral fragrance, stands amid a minefield of ominously beautiful botanicals, inspired by the same vintage Pierre Frey wallpaper that influenced Nicolas Ghesquière’s Fall 2011 collection. Hovering near a stoic Stewart is what appears to be a Venus flytrap, angling to chomp down on her head.

“I think he’s fucking amazing,” Stewart says of Ghesquière, the house’s creative director and the man who wooed her to front its latest fragrance, perhaps with the promise that she wouldn’t have to pose on satin sheets—or smile. Though, on set, she would have been willing to cooperate if that had been the order of the day. “I was like, ‘Do you want me to stand a certain way to show the curves of the dress? Do you want me to model it up?’ By default, you sort of learn these things over the years, but they were like, ‘No, no, no, just stuff your hands in your pockets and just stand there.’”