FASHION Magazine

It’s Paris. It’s raining. And the fashion cognoscenti are rethinking their footwear for Paris Fashion Week Spring 2013. Velvet slippers are out. And maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to leave the Hunter wellies at home. Here are some high and low lights from my first day in the city of light: Champagne with […]

The post Paris Fashion Week Spring 2013: See-through trousers at Dries Van Voten, peplum hems (and a bit of Gaga) at Mugler, champagne with Eddie Borgo and more appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Miuccia Prada isn’t exactly known for being all that press-friendly, and a rare interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica may shed some light on why the legendary designer hasn’t warmed to the media in the same way chatterboxes Karl Lagerfeld and Roberto Cavalli have.

In a translation by WWD, Prada’s feature in La Repubblica details all her concerns about the flagging Italian fashion industry. More than any other nation, Italy has the most family-owned luxury fashion houses: Prada, Gucci, Missoni and Fendi are just a few brands that still have an active voice from the founding designers’ families. But with more and more Italian fashion houses looking to sell (Valentino sold to Qatar’s royal family for over $850 million) or to expand by going public with IPOs, Prada is worried Italian fashion may become “second league.”

“[…] If our brands cross our borders, the credit, glamour, fame and decision making is in the hands of others, and we are abandoned, downgraded,” she cautioned.

Prada doesn’t fault the designers themselves; after all, she shows Miu Miu in Paris because of the city’s “attraction that is called glamour,” and Raf Simons’ move from Jil Sander (which shows in Milan) to Parisian fashion house Dior will mean “his value will further be emphasized.”

According to Prada, the real culprits are the Italian media and left-leaning intellectuals. Journalists’ treatment of their nation’s fashion industry as “frivolous” instead of a relevant industry contributes to the view that Italy is seen as a place with “less resources, culture, protagonists, ideas, vitality and money,” meaning that like Simons, “fashion goes elsewhere, looking for the best.”

It’s only fitting that the last of our snaps from Paris should include so many queens of fashion—the queen of big screen fashion, Sarah Jessica Parker, the queen of fashion media, Anna Wintour, the queen of fashion pop, Katy Perry, the queen of the current front rowers, Virginie Courtin-Clarins, and the queen of vintage inspiration, Catherine Deneuve. Enjoy today’s visual feast, and be sure to come back next week when we share our snaps from Toronto.

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We’re just about ready to pass style snapping off to Toronto, but before we do, we’ve got two more extra special photo galleries to share! Today, we give you this glorious selection caught from outside the Chanel and Chloé shows. Tomorrow, we’ll present our last batch from outside Louis Vuitton and Miu Miu. Stay tuned, lovelies!

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It doesn’t matter what else happened at the opening night party for the Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs exhibit at the Musée Des Art Décoratifs. It doesn’t matter that Gwyneth Paltrow was smiling, amiable, and stunning; that Kristen Stewart was hard to recognize with dark hair; that there were more Vuitton outfits on guests than on […]

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View every look Kate has worn since her engagement »

“When the clock strikes 10, the train will pull into the station,” read the show notes for Louis Vuitton’s Fall 2012 runway show. Well, the train arrived about 8 minutes late, but pull into the station it did—a full-on locomotive chugging into a tent in a courtyard of the Louvre, pulling a passenger car full of models.

As each girl stepped off the train she was accompanied by a bellman carrying her oversized Vuitton bags tipped in goat, mink, ostrich, and croc. These weren’t the type of ladies who travel in steerage. Even the simplest A-line coat or pea jacket had enormous jewelled buttons.

The fact that we spotted Paul (that’s Sir, to you!) McCartney outside his daughter’s show should really be enough, but no. We got Alicia Keys, Salma Hayek, and every gorgeous model leaving the show with their vibrant blue lashes, too! We’re feeling pretty happy with ourselves right now…

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View our picks » “You want volume? I’ll give you volume.” That seemed to be Sarah Burton’s thinking for the Fall 2012 Alexander McQueen collection. The show opened with white jacquard skirt suits featuring fluffy collars that extended from chin to elbow then moved into doily dresses with arcing sleeves and hips. Pink puffballs of Mongolian […]

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The crystals rising from the gravely floor of the Grand Palais were the first clue that today’s Chanel show was going to be about shine—and was it ever. Fabrics and trims literally glistened from top to toe—from the models crusty brows to the crystals on their Lucite heels.

In between, amethyst bits covered the shoulders of a jacquard top, sequins lined the hood of a crisp bomber, and wide metal collars like small breastplates were tucked under suit jackets. Prism motifs included jewel-tone prints, seaming on a grey flannel coat, plastic-y appliqués on another coat, and geometrics carved into shearling. Reflective fabrics included a blue crinkly foil blouse, crushed-velvet stovepipe pants, and some sort of silver weave, probably lurex, for pantsuits.

While Paris Fashion Week may be coming to a close, the styles on the street show no signs of slowing. Keeping the excitement up are the ever-stunning faces of Arizona Muse, Alana Zimmer, and the like, as well as the constant freshness brought by international editors such as Giovanna Battaglia, Miroslava Duma, Anya Ziourova, and of course Anna Dello Russo. It also might help when someone named Jane Birkin comes to call.

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See the collection » “He sure is going out with a bang,” said the retailer sitting next to me, summing up Stefano Pilati’s final collection for Yves Saint Laurent. Black suit after black suit—each one chicer and stricter than the next—opened the show, then life-size calla lilies in purple and green jacquard began appearing from head to […]

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View the sleeve and shoulder trend in action »

We need to talk about sleeves. Shoulders too, but first sleeves.

There is a majorly mannish tailoring trend forming at the Fall 2012 shows in Paris, but what keeps it from being dull is that the designers are having fun with sleeves.

Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci cut his sleeves short and wide for boxy jackets and colour-blocked furs. We’ll surely be seeing these goods on Alicia Keys and the other stars who were in his front row.

There were striped knit sleeves on wool coats at Kenzo (made ultra-cool thanks to designers and Opening Ceremony co-founders Humberto Leon and Carol Lim).