FASHION Magazine

All girls (and some boys) growing up in the ‘90s will unabashedly admit that back in the day, we lived and breathed the Spice Girls. We knew all their songs, we learned how to pull off a questionable but convincing British accent and we definitely coveted every single one of their outfits. So news that we might be able to get our hands on Scary’s original leopard-print catsuit or Sporty’s many tracksuits in a charity auction gala has us way too excited. Proceeds from the auctioned off items, which will be sold at a gala event later this year, will go to Save the Children and Children in Need.

In a move that could be straight out of The Devil Wears Prada, the New York Post’s Page Six is reporting that Condé Nast is pulling out all the stops in its attempt to freeze out former Condé editor Carine Roitfeld.

A source told Page Six that Condé Nast CEO Jonathan Newhouse sent out a friendly “reminder” to contracted contributors like Mario Testino, Craig McDean, David Sims and the Mert Alas/Marcus Piggott team about their exclusive contracts with Condé, and that contributing to Roitfeld’s new biannual glossy CR Fashion Book would violate their agreements.

Even those who are not under contractual obligation with Condé Nast are being strongly “discouraged” from contributing to CR, which will be published by Fashion Media Group LLC.

After having left her post as editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris amid a flurry of rumours (most hinting at tensions between Roitfeld and Newhouse), the fashion industry was abuzz with excitement over what direction the always edgy and fascinating Roitfeld would take. So far, all her ventures have been far from disappointing.

Given Roitfeld’s popularity with the who’s-who of the fashion world, it will be interesting to see how this rumoured power struggle unfolds. We can only imagine the number of advertisers, brands, editors and photographers who are caught between a desperate desire to collaborate with Roitfeld and the fear of some serious backlash from publishing heavyweight Condé Nast.

The annual Full Figured Fashion Week may only be in its fourth cycle, but its message of empowerment is already abundantly clear.

“We need to stop with the marginalization. I’m not asking for couture, but I demand the right to go into any store and buy a simple black dress,” the event’s creator and former plus-size model Gwen DeVoe told WWD.

With the average woman’s dress size now sitting around a size 12–16, a huge portion of would-be shoppers have had to bypass size 00-12 retailers for years. But it’s not all bad news, at least not for the plus-size retail market: last year, they churned out a whopping $17 billion. In other words, curvy women are just as into clothes as their skinny counterparts.

“If you’re in this business for the sake of doing business, why are you excluding this entire community?” DeVoe asked. Fair enough!

The FFFW’s fourth year in the making marks quite a few firsts for the four-day-long event. Compared to its more modest first three showings, this year’s event was kick-started by an all-white sunset cruise Wednesday night. On the boat, the men got a nod in the Big and Tall male fashion show. Aside from runway shows later in the week featuring plus-size styles from designers like Jill Alexander and Ashley Stewart, the event has also organized blogger workshops, a runway show put on by Bloomingdale’s and shopping events.

Though there have been some recent instances in which the fashion industry has addressed size-related issues (including Vogue’s international health initiative and that scintillating Vogue Italia cover celebrating plus-size beauty), DeVoe has a point: many women are still finding it hard to shop for their body size, and as anyone who’s ever had a near-meltdown in a fitting room can attest to, that can be both demoralizing and infuriating. Anything to make the industry more inclusive is all right by us!

At long last, Anna Wintour has finally spoken out about the controversy surrounding Vogue’s glamourized portrayal of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad last year, as well as addressed the atrocities that are ongoing in Syria today.

“Like many at that time, we were hopeful that the Assad regime would be open to a more progressive society. Subsequent to our interview, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue,” Wintour said in a statement Sunday.

The “Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert” feature, which was penned by former Paris Vogue editor-in-chief Joan Juliet Buck, described the beautiful, British-born al-Assad as “glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.”

Almost immediately after the feature went live, news of the conflict and violence happening under her husband Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship became public, and the situation in Syria has only worsened over the past year and a half. In fact, yesterday the UN’s annual shame list on children and armed conflict was released, naming Syria as one of its worst offenders.

Buck herself spoke out about the feature in the wake of all its uproar.

“I think that Vogue is always on the lookout for good-looking first ladies because they’re a combination of power and beauty and elegance…that’s what Vogue is about. And here was this woman who had never given an interview, who was extremely thin and very well-dressed and therefore, qualified to be in Vogue. And they had — Vogue had been trying to get her for quite a long time,” she told NPR. Should have stopped at “lookout.”

In what must be a first, an invitation to dine with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour is being viewed as inappropriate. The sponsored-by-Obama video invitation, which was released last Friday, shows Wintour in a Thakoon-designed Runway to Win scarf as she encourages Barack Obama supporters to enter for a chance to win seats at a Sarah Jessica Parker–hosted dinner, which Michelle Obama and Wintour will also be hosting.

So, what’s inappropriate about that? A report released on the same day as Wintour’s video detailed the dismal numbers of unemployed Americans. Unsurprisingly, the Republican Party was the first to point out the unfortunate timing, lampooning the Wintour video in a video called “Meanwhile.” As Wintour’s video plays in one corner of the screen, unemployment numbers before and after Obama’s presidency flash under the title “Meanwhile…” in the opposite corner.

“There couldn’t be a better demonstration of this president’s misplaced priorities than a glitzy fundraising video release on the same day that marked more unemployed Americans,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. “It’s more than obvious that this president just doesn’t get it.”

While it’s true that the Obama campaign’s timing wasn’t spot-on in this case, will this really affect voters’ confidence in their current president? It’s important to note that both the Democratic and Republican parties have their own sets of supporters, and both organize celebrity-run dinners to bring out voters. Mitt Romney’s campaign has been promoting the “Dine With the Donald” dinner, which gives supporters a chance to rub shoulders with the business tycoon. Before the Wintour-Parker-Obama trifecta, Democratic Party supporters had come together under George Clooney’s roof as the long-time Obama supporter hosted a campaign dinner.

Does the release date of Wintour’s video show that the president is out of touch with the average American, or is the Republican Party simply using this as a convenient opportunity to take a jab at their political opponent?

This should come as no surprise, but Janice Dickinson isn’t impressed and she’s not afraid to say it.

This time, Dickinson is mouthing off about Vogue’s new international Health Initiative. The initiative brought together all 19 of the magazine’s international editors, who co-signed a pact stating that they would not use models who appear to suffer from eating disorders or who are under the age of 16.

Dickinson, however, isn’t buying it.

See our vintage-inspired slideshow »

By Samantha Shephard

It’s a sunny Saturday morning in West Hollywood and Rita Ryack, the Oscar-nominated costume designer known for her work on Casino and A Beautiful Mind, is on a hunt for sequined dresses. Production on the film Rock of Ages is wrapping and she needs one more piece for Catherine Zeta-Jones’ character. Judging by the racks she’s browsing, which are filled with this season’s hottest labels and trends—Versace print T-shirts, heavily embellished Moschino jackets, sweeping red carpet–worthy gowns—you’d think she were shopping at an upscale department store. Think again. She’s at The Way We Wore, a vintage-clothing mecca that attracts A-list clients like Angelina Jolie, Dita Von Teese and Katy Perry. The shop is full of high-end designer pieces, like little black dresses from Chanel, elegant Christian Dior gowns, Pauline Trigère party dresses and Pucci pyjama pants, all dating from the 1930s to the early 1990s.

When Liza Herz decided to embrace her grey and stop hitting the bottle, it wasn’t a statement about aging gracefully

GREY MATTER: A roundup of silver hair–friendly product picks »

Just in time for Earth Day this Sunday, The CFDA and Vogue have co-headed a new green initiative campaign, Clean by Design, in partnership with the National Resources Defense Council.

The campaign, which has already caught the attention and support of many renowned fashion faces including Tory Burch, Zac Posen and Diane von Furstenberg screened a video yesterday which made clear “how toxic fashion’s impact on nature can be,” unearthing the elephant in the room environmental damage that lies just beneath the industry’s surface.

The facts, we have to admit, are surprising. According to WWD, a key focus of the NRDC is the troubling conditions of factories (we’re looking at you, Alexander Wang!) and the dye-polluted rivers in China, revealing that over 200 tons of water is needed to produce just one ton of fabric. This is a pretty outrageous figure taking the current global crisis for clean drinking water into account.

So, what’s the solution? Most clothing is made in China, which makes it difficult for brands to govern what occurs in their own factories. But Linda Greer, the director of NRDC’s health and environment program thinks this problem is inexcusable: “[…] the standard of operation of many, if not most, factories was far below global standards and desperately needed to improve […] it’s really time to get moving and not just figure that ‘It’s halfway around the world and nobody will ever know.’”

This global issue has been put into higher gear in the last few years. Brands such as Stella McCartney, H&M (have you seen their drool-worthy Conscious collection?) and events like Vancouver’s Eco Fashion Week have certainly increased interest for sustainable fashion to both designers and consumers. It has become necessary, and dare I say expected, that organizations like the CFDA and the like join the green movement.

We’ve been missing André Leon Talley—former Vogue editor-at-large, forever cape-wearer and sole creator of “dreckitude”—in our lives ever since he left his seat at the judges’ table on America’s Next Top Model. Lucky for us, the fashion icon will be starring in a new Bravo reality fashion show (yes, another one of those), tentatively titled Fashion Stories of NYC.

By Sven Schumann

Staunch fans of fashion photography view Paolo Roversi as a one-man revolution. One of the early adopters of the Polaroid, the Italian-born, Paris-based photographer saw the potential in the camera in the ’70s, years before many of his contemporaries did. Using the Polaroid’s filter and frame to accentuate fashion’s most immediate and delicate moments, Roversi’s style of shooting spawned a legion of admirers, including Carine Roitfeld and the late Herb Ritts. After working under Harper’s Bazaar lensman Laurence Sackman during his salad days, Roversi developed his own POV and began to shoot solo for Elle and Dépêche Mode. His work created such a domino effect in fashion photography that his style became the new industry standard in the ’80s and ’90s. Scrolling through paoloroversi.com offers a taste of his influential commercial campaigns for the houses of Giorgio Armani and Romeo Gigli, as well as his contributions to Paris, British and Italian editions of Vogue. Hot on the heels of launching his most recent book of photographs, Paolo Roversi (Thames & Hudson), the 64-year-old visionary sat down at the Camera Work Gallery in Berlin and spoke to FASHION about his iconic visions—past and present.

Read our interview »
View the photos »

It is no secret that childhood obesity is a growing issue with various solutions. Eating healthy and physical activity? Sure. Publicly humiliating a child and having them endure a rigorous calorie-counting diet? No go. The author of a controversial Vogue article has done just that and has now come under fire for chronicling her overweight […]

The post They said/We said: The Vogue editor who put her 7-year-old daughter on an extreme diet has now scored a book deal appeared first on FASHION Magazine.