FASHION Magazine

French billionaire François-Henri Pinault, husband of actress Salma Hayek, has already pledged over 100 million euros.

The post Fashion Might Be What Rebuilds the Notre Dame Cathedral appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

It’s officially official. Balenciaga has issued a press release stating that Alexander Wang will take on the role of creative director of the fashion house, succeeding Nicolas Ghesquière, making last week’s rumours a reality.

“I am deeply honored to embark on this new role for a brand and house that I have such great admiration and respect for,” said Alexander Wang in the press release. His new role at Balenciaga will include designing women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, accessories and maintaining the house’s image. His first collection for the almost 100-year-old house will be for Fall 2013—which is only a few months away. Wang’s role at his eponymous label will not change.

Just following the success of his recent Spring 2013 show in Paris, it has been announced today that Nicolas Ghesquière is to leave Balenciaga. According to WWD, the designer, who has been creative director of the French brand for 15 years, confirmed today that they have made a “joint decision to end their working relationship”, […]

The post Nicolas Ghesquière to leave Balenciaga appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Off-duty, she’s into family, fashion and fitness. But it’s Linda Evangelista’s gift for bringing clothes to life that makes her the most super model of all.

See our Linda Evangelista cover shoot images »

First and foremost, there is that face—a transcendent convergence of flesh and bone that you can’t take your eyes off. But beauty alone does not explain what makes Linda Evangelista the greatest fashion model alive, or, quite possibly, who has ever lived.

Evangelista also has taste and pluck. They inform her work and the pride she takes in that work. As she, less gushily, puts it, “I like what I do.” What is it that she does, exactly? It’s fair to wonder. Watching her in Pamela Hanson’s New York studio shooting FASHION’s 35th anniversary cover, I get to see.

Since I first met Linda Evangelista, backstage at Chanel in the autumn of 1987, I’ve seen her do lots of shows. She’s done them all. But it’s her record of print jobs, her performances in front of a camera—her preferred audience—that test her skills and give her the bigger kicks. Years ago, she told me, “My book kills.” That’s still true. In the past year, Evangelista has appeared in some of the most memorable images, both charming and daring, of her career. On the cover of Italian Vogue, she was a mambo queen, ruling the beat with a pair of maracas. Inside the September issue of W, she was a super-freak, naked under a latex cape and transparent catsuit. As a mannequin, Evangelista is more than willing; she’s also capable. She doesn’t just put on a garment; she populates it. Watching her, I realize what she meant when she long ago told me, “Once I’ve worn an outfit, I feel I’ve really worn it.”

Check out today’s photos from Paris Fashion Week Spring 2013

Today’s set of street style photos from Paris is equivalent to the fashion (and Twihard) jackpot. With major shows like Carven, Balenciaga, and Balmain going down, you know a fashionable crowd is going to show up and thankfully, our street style photographer Stefania Yarhi, was there to capture it all and do a little bit of stalking.

Stalking who? Oh you know, just Kristen Stewart, the most most buzzed about actress du jour (du year?). As the face of Balenciaga’s Florabotanica fragrance, it’s only natural that she sat front row in a yellow quilted leather jacket and floral printed pants accessorized with a petite smile (we repeat: petite).

By Kyla Parrish

A still-secret settlement has been reached between fashion heavyweights Linda Evangelista and Francois-Henri Pinault, who turned the Manhattan Family Court into an all-out battleground on which the two waged war last week over child support for their son, Augie.

Evangelista, the Canadian supermodel and former Cover Girl who is famous for saying “we [supermodels] don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day,” was seeking a record $46,000 in monthly child support from Pinault.  To date, the largest child support cheque in New York was awarded to Sean (P. Diddy) Combs’ baby’s momma Misa Hylton-Brim to the tune of $19,000 a month.

The Evangelista/Pinault child support case turned ugly as mud was thrown and both sides made allegations. Evangelista’s lawyer, William Beslow, claimed Pinault “suggested she terminate the pregnancy.” Pinault’s lawyer, David Aaronson, claimed that Evangelista was “trying to boot-strap herself into disguised alimony.” Aaronson continued by saying, “Most of the expenses [in Evangelista’s list of $46,000 a month in child care expenses] do not relate to Augie but they relate to Ms. Evangelista.”

We know what you’re thinking: does a five-year-old boy really need $46,000 a month in child support from his billionaire father? Evangelista seems to think so.  How else is the former Cover Girl supposed to cover the tab for 24-hour nannies and pricey chauffeurs—the chauffeurs are former NYPD cops, so at $16,000 a month they’re a steal—for young Augie?

We’ve been longing for some spectacular—as in, spectacle-laden—fashion since the days of Alexander McQueen’s Widows of Culloden hologram and Galliano’s snow tunnel. And then came McQ’s Fall 2012 finale starring model and actress Kristen McMenamy (all masterfully caught on video).

The grey-haired fashion doyenne (with her tresses in what we can only describe as a cross between a ‘50s pin-up ‘do and a Twister bagel) closed the show in a white tulle wedding gown. But in true McQueen style, McMenamy does so much more than just strut down the runway; she discovers a rope hidden in the floor and artfully prances around follows it.

As she reaches the end of the catwalk, the brick wall disappears only to be replaced by 60 real-life trees straight out of Harry Potter’s Forbidden Forest (we literally gasped) and a little cottage with pulsing lights and techno music. Now that’s our kind of rave.

We think this is a brilliant PR move for the lesser-known brand, which has been trying to realign itself with its eponymous big sister since the two recoupled in 2010. Both Sarah Burton and François Pinault (chief executive of McQueen’s parent company PPR and, more famously, Salma Hayek’s husband) have acknowledged that they are trying to elevate McQ to new sartorial heights. And wow, have they ever succeeded.

We got a serious case of the awws when we read that Frida Giannini and Patrizio di Marco, Gucci’s creative director and CEO, respectively, have outed their relationship to the world after more than two years of dating. Workplace romances can be risky, but after a fateful business trip to China, the two knew that it was a risk they were willing to take.

It seems like they went about their “coming out” in all the right ways: they separately met with François-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of PPR (which owns Gucci), to admit the affair—aware that they might lose their jobs—but luckily, Pinault was “very supportive.” They told the rest of the company before the rest of the world, and we’re hoping that everyone’s as supportive as we are.

Balenciaga’s SS 2012 show is all over Twitter and fashion news sites this morning, but not for the reasons you would expect. The headlines were enough to make any fashion editor cringe with sympathy: “Broken Benches Send Editors and Buyers Crashing to the Floor at Balenciaga Show” and “Balenciagea Attendees Forced to Stand Throughout the Show Because of Faulty Benches”. No one was hurt, thank God, but standing during a runway show? How terribly gauche!

Thanks to live Tweeting, we get to experience the event almost as if we were there. Runway show veterans the Traina sisters were the first to hear the bench creaking, and jumped up seconds before it came crashing to the floor. (Kate Lanphear and Eric Wilson weren’t so lucky!) But despite the surprise of a standing-room-only presentation (and difficulty for the shorter members of the audience), the show did go on. Everyone present, including the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Salma Hayek, and François-Henri Pinault, stood like champs, and watched the show as though the models were brides heading down the aisle. We can’t even imagine how horrible it would have been had Anna Wintour been one to fall on the floor.

Canadian-born supermodel Linda Evangelista once said she’d never wake up for less than $10,000 a day. Now, she’s asking for $46,000 a month—in child support. The father of Evangelista’s four-year-old son, Augustin, is François-Henri Pinault, the CEO of the luxury conglomerate PPR, which owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Bottega Veneta. His family is worth an estimated $11.5 billion, while Evangelista is worth about $8 million.

How can Evangelista justify demanding such a large sum? While Pinault and his wife, Salma Hayek, have a daughter, Valentina, on whom Pinault spends about $50,000 a month for a $12-million estate held in trust in her name, he hasn’t paid Evangelista any support for Augustin.

Each year, $80,000 of Evangelista’s child support would go towards 24-hour nannies and $175,000 would go towards former police-detective drivers. New York Support Magistrate Matthew Troy was sympathetic to both the nanny and driver costs, but immediately nixed the $7,500 Evangelista was seeking for monthly vacation expenses.

Now, we wait for the verdict. Will Evangelista win as Pinault fights to keep as much of his fortune as possible? Either way, it looks like it’s going to cost the fashionable CEO a pretty penny.