FASHION Magazine

Ever look out your office window, mid-winter, and feel a sinking sense of blah? Why is it dark enough to be cocktail hour at 2pm? And on that note, why are we not sipping on cocktails at 2pm? A feeling of despair due to winter darkness is a real thing, but Canadians are far from […]

The post How Winter Beauty Routines Differ Around the World appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

The upcoming release of Anna Karenina has generated some major buzz, particularly with the release of the film’s trailer, which showcases stunning costumes from the silver screen adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s famed romantic tragedy. As if that weren’t amazing enough, Banana Republic has announced their upcoming Anna Karenina-inspired holiday capsule collection, which will stores and online at the end of October.

The Russian fashion elite (also known as the “Russian Fashion Pack”) are having a moment right now, one that may have culminated yesterday in street-style-star-turned-designer Ulyana Sergeenko’s debut couture collection.

Rolling out right in between Chanel and Armani Privé’s shows, the couture collector’s first-ever collection was an ode to her country’s folklore and heritage, complete with babushkas, hand-carved wooden shoes and fur-lined military coats. Grace Coddington and Carine Roitfeld sat front row, which if anything, is a testament to Sergeenko and the rest of the Russian Fashion Pack’s appeal right now.

“America has Jackie O, and the world has Audrey Hepburn, but Russia never had a fashion icon of the moment,” Anya Ziourova, the fashion director of the Russian version of Tatler, told the New York Times in a feature titled “The Czarinas Are Back.” “Maybe that is what is happening: the modern Russian icons are being born.”

If street style blogs are any indication of style, then the Russian fash-pack has it in spades. Something about their individually distinct aesthetics and sartorial risk-taking has caught heavy-hitting and influential photographers’ eyes, turning them into fashion stars overnight.

Take designer Vika Gazinskaya, for example: the Russian gamine quickly gained visibility online, thanks to heavily circulated photographs of her by Garance Doré, Scott Schuman and Tommy Ton across the blogosphere. In a strategic move, she wore her own designs to the fashion show circuit, and thanks to the blogosphere pics, the move worked out: her pieces are now carried at Colette in Paris and Fivestory in New York.

There’s also Miroslava (or Mira) Duma, the daughter of a Russian senator and the former editor of Russia’s Harper’s Bazaar, who has become as known (if not more so) for her quirky, colourful style as her popular fashion website Buro 24/7.

And then, of course, there’s Sergeenko, arguably the leader of the pack: like her couture collection on Tuesday, the former model’s signatures are full, ‘50s-esque skirts paired with tight wool sweaters, dramatic Russian touches like babushkas and stunning makeup that hearkens back to another time.

The leading ladies of the Russian Fashion Pack may have some deep pockets (Sergeenko’s husband is an insurance billionaire), but their inimitable style and work is what’s really distinguishing them among their peers.

Diplo sprang to our collective consciousness as rap star M.I.A.’s DJ and collaborator (and, briefly, romantic partner). He’s gone on to record two albums as one half of Major Lazer and work with pop-dance artists such as La Roux, Santigold and Robyn, and he worked with Beyoncé on the beats for “Run the World (Girls).” Naturally, all of this led to a busy touring schedule. While he criss-crossed the globe, Diplo (a.k.a. Thomas Wesley Pentz) began to explore local music scenes in search of acts to sign to his Philadelphia-based Mad Decent label—notably baile funk from the favelas of Brazil, kuduro from Angola and “bounce” from New Orleans. Now, he’s released a book of the highlights from his journeys, 128 Beats Per Minute: Diplo’s Visual Guide to Music, Culture, and Everything in Between (Universe), with a foreword by the high priest of coolness, Alexander Wang.

Word: Lubok

Meaning: Russian popular folk art print, common from the last half of the 17th century through the beginning of the 20th.

Usage: “It was the naive coincidence of picture and narrative that gave pleasure to the spectator-reader of the lubok.” — from some textbook on Russian post-modernism