Fashion – Fashion Business Lawyer

Our favorite shows from the Madrid Mercedes Benz Fashion Week

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:14:00 +0000

From 16 to 19 September, Spanish fashion realived after the pandemic parenthesis. A zest for life is noticeable in many collections, and this were our favorite shows here in FBL:

Ailanto

For the next SS season, twins Aitor and Iñaki Muñoz presented a collection inspired by artistic movements from the XIX century, in this case the work of Van Gogh. The presentation’s leitmotiv was Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, a painting whose luminous palette has inspired the prints for this collection. Romantic and flowy dresses wore with Suma Cruz jewels designed specially for the show, a relaxed and country-like mise en place and the words of Spanish writer Espido Freire guiding us through the event.

Jorge Vázquez

Vazquez celebrates 20 years in business, as one of the most important Spanish designer and creative director for sopanish brand Pertegaz. In his show/breakfast at the Madrid Mandarin Oriental Ritz, the models presented a feminine end Parisian-inspired collection to a carefully chosen audience of influencers, clients and socialites. References to many decades, and mostly classic silhouettes, with the occasional daring touch (short leggins in a few looks, for example). Old-school elegance updated.

Duyos

Un jardín flotante was the name of this collection, with which Juan duyos comes back to the MBFW after the pandemic. Joie de vivre, holidays and fair weather, inspired by the island of Madeira. A color palette rich and diverse, with plenty of prints to mix and match, and volumes that celebrate the woman’s silhouette: waistlines, voluminous skirts, dramatic sleeves under naked shoulders… Powerful accessories such as hats and bags crafted with artisanal techniques and a simple yet flattering hair and make up rounded up this show, who recreated a traditional Portuguese market.

Teresa Helbig

From Madeira to L.A. Barcelona-born designer Teresa Helbig celebrates 25 in the fashion industry and to mark the occasion presentes a lively and cheerful collection inspired by the L.A. from the 70’s American movies: think about Valley of the Dolls, Once upon a time in Hollywood, Sharon Tate… color, ruffles, sexy but comfortable mini skirts and jumpsuits, XXL sunnies and flowy manes. A tribute to the 70’s sexy, joyful and carefree.

Hannibal Laguna

No one in the MBFW takes glamour so seriously as Hannibal Laguna. This time presented Cosmology, a collection where black was the main color, with a handful of looks in silver and red. The gowns, a extravaganza of sheer fabrics, embroidery, ruffles and dramatic volumes glided among sculptures designed by Laguna himself, displayed at the runway. The models wore sleek half-updos and evening make up. Some of them even rocked black sunglasses, a la Anita Ekberg in the Dolce Vita, a sexy and humorous touch among so much glamour.

404 Studio

Special mention deserves 404 Studio, whose creative director, Anaïs Vauxcelles, won this edition’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Talent award. The designer presented a collection inspired by the world of French animation film“La planeta sauvage” (Rene Laloux, 1973). Different and revealing knitwear and colorists and postmodern beauty looks for a younger and more fashion-forward audience.

Imáges: Fashion Week Hola, Ailanto y Suma Cruz, Colección “La Planète Sauvage” de Anaïs Vauxcelles para 404 Studio. Mercedes-Benz Fashion Talent.

Not your usual style icon: Marisa Berenson

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 08:05:28 +0000

Before Kendall Jenner, the Hadid sisters or Cara Delevigne, there was Marisa Berenson. A quintessential It girl, she is one of those living legends that any fashion lover or professional must, simply, know. Born in 1947, the story of her life includes some of the greatest names in fashion, art and Western culture of the last 100 years. Myths such as Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Roy Halston, Studio 54 and Karl Lagerfeld, to name just a few, have blossomed and withered before her eyes. Today, at 74, she reigns serenely from her home in Marrakech like an ancestral goddess of Fashion. Because Marisa is like God; she has seen it all, and yet she is still smiling.

She was born predestined for art and celebrity: her father was the diplomat Robert Berenson and her mother, Gogo Schiaparelli, daughter of none other than the revolutionary designer Elsa Schiaparelli. At 16, she began her modelling career under the protection of the ineffable Diana Vreeland, editor-in-chief of Vogue America from 1963 to 1971, becoming “the face” of Vogue at the time. In those years Marisa would forge her supermodel status, bringing her innate beauty and elegance to countless editorials in front of the lens of photographers who are now History: Irving Penn, Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton… Those were years of impossible tans, huge hairpieces and endless eyelashes for her serene green eyes that competed with Twiggy’s goofy blue gaze.

By the seventies, Marisa’s beauty took on its definitive features. Her slender figure, wavy hair and eyebrows kept to a minimum (as was fashionable then) earned her the title of “the girl of the seventies”, coined by her friend Yves Saint Laurent. As with all good models, her own style has not endured as much as her talent for mimicking the aura of each designer, each photographer or even each era. Marisa’s je ne sais quoi and her entrepreneurial spirit soon spread to other fields: She made History in Cinema thanks to her roles in Barry Lindon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975), Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971) and Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972); in 1995 she published an autobiographical book and in 2015 she launched her own cosmetics brand; she has done theatre, and is the author of Marrakech Flair (Assouline, 2020) her contribution to the glamorous Travel Series collection by the American publisher, where she reveals the most seductive places in this city that has captivated her.

Today, what is truly inspiring about Marisa is that she was one of the first voices in the fashion industry to point out the importance of mental health. According to an article written by Eduardo Verbo for Vanity Fair in 2018, at the age of 18 she discovered meditation in India and since then, spirituality and the search for balance have been a constant in her life. She makes no secret of the fact that this has helped her not to get lost in the whirlwind of glamour, parties and occasional misfortune that has been her life (her father died in her teens, she has been divorced twice and lost her only sister in the 9/11 attacks).

Last but not least, she is a living example that a woman’s influence does not end at 40, not even in a world like fashion, which, until recently, seemed to glorify youth above all else: who else would have walked the runway for Tom Ford in 2010 at the age of 63 or gone on stage to perform the provocative musical Berlin Kabarett (Stéphan Druet, 2019) in Montparnasse at the age of 72, no less? Today Marisa Berenson continues to prove that you can be beautiful at any age, and although youth vanishes, what matters is that talent and intelligence are forever.

Images: @marisaberensonofficial

With Diana Vreeland and Grace Mirabella for Vogue. Image by James Karales.

Photographed by Arnaud de Rosnay, 1968.

Posing for Henry Clarke during a Vogue production, 1969.

In Capri in the 70s, image by Slim Aarons.

During the glory days of Studio 54 in New York.

Playing Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet (Kenneth Branagh, 2016)

In Marrakech, for the promotion of her last book. Image by Adam Scott Peters.

To evolve or to die, the story of Vogue

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 08:37:21 +0000

It’s time for a change at Vogue: the most venerable of the global fashion magazines hit rock bottom in 2020 when, after several years of losses the pandemic dramatically decreased its print advertising revenue.

To address this critical situation Condé Nast, the publishing group that owns Vogue, has decided to implement a severe cutback plan designed by its CEO, Roger Lynch. According to BOF’s What’s Behind Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief Exodus, written by Chantal Fernandez, the plan is to spend 10% of revenues on technology and content to improve digital subscriptions and e-commerce. Creating material for film and television and reducing costs for the printed magazine will be other priorities. While Lynch is counting on ending 2021 with losses, he expects to return to profitability by 2022.

Vogue cycles

It is not the first time that Vogue has lost touch with l’air du temps, but it has always been able to reinvent itself in time to retain its status as global fashion’s compass, and looks like this time will be no different. The first of these “evolutionary leaps” came when Vogue, born as a weekly newspaper edited by New York businessman Arthur Baldwin Turnure, was acquired by Condé Montrose Nast in 1905. From that moment on, it went from being a publication for men and women, inspired by the lifestyle of the Gilded Age elites, to focusing on a female audience particularly attentive to the ups and downs of fashion.

Since then and through the vision of each of its editors-in-chief (mostly women editors, in fact), Vogue has accompanied women through the 20th century, first with its North American edition and, from the 1930s onwards, with its progressive global expansion. Everytime a change of mentality was imposed or the competition stole too many sales, a new editor brought the necessary breath of fresh air: in the case of Vogue America, the most famous editors were Jessica Daves, who guided northamerican women during the golden years of economic expansion in the 1950s, the extravagant and charismatic Diana Vreeland in the 1960s and the most vindictive and feminist, Grace Mirabella, in the 1970s. And, after the decline of the latter, the era of Anna Wintour began, commanding the magazine since 1988.

Modern times

Digitalisation and the Internet, however, have been challenges that only Wintour has had to face. In the publishing world, as in nature, the strongest are not necessarily the ones that survive, but the ones that best adapt to the conditions of the environment, and that is Roger Lynch’s goal for all Condé Nast publications. The transformation of the Vogue “brand” involves prioritising online content over print. It is no coincidence that Wintour has chosen the 27-year-old super blogger Margaret Zhang, who has no previous editorial experience, to replace Angelica Cheung, who was editor-in-chief of Vogue China for more than 15 years. This appointment speaks volumes about Vogue’s current priorities.

The most immediate consequence of the Lynch plan has been a wave of redundancies, forced retirements and resignations that has already taken down editors-in-chief Emmanuelle Alt (Vogue Paris), Priya Tanna (Vogue India), Christiane Arp (Vogue Germany), Eugenia de la Torriente (Vogue Spain), Emanuele Farneti (Vogue Italy) and the aforementioned Angelica Cheung. However, it is not only the high executives who have fallen: as Triana Alonso reported in her article for Fashion Network Lo que los ERE de Condé Nast y Hearst España dicen del futuro de la prensa de moda en España, Condé Nast intends to let go off 49 workers across all its Spanish titles, a quarter of the staff. Similar moves have also taken place in Europe and the United States.

Behind this metamorphosis is the merger between Condé Nast US and Condé Nast International, announced in 2018, in order to form one global company. This move has translated into a striking concentration of power in the hands of New York-based executives, especially Anna Wintour, who now adds the positions of Global Editorial Director and Chief Content Officer to her role at Vogue America. Edward Enninful, editor-in-chief of Vogue UK since 2018, is now also Editorial Director for Europe, overseeing the magazine’s Italian, French, German and Spanish editions, which will reportedly continue to operate without editors-in-chief of their own.

The goal is to unify some of the content across all editions of Vogue, overcoming the traditional competition between them and making the editorial content budgets more cost-effective. However, the down side of this could be a certain loss of the “flavour” of each individual title, a problem that Emanuele Farneti alluded to in his farewell message as editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia a few days ago: “I believe we have honoured the tradition of innovation and freedom that underlies the greatness of this magazine,” he said. “This attribute is what made Vogue Italia the voice of an industry that gives credit to Italy around the world. Italy is a culture that deserves respect and to be represented for what it is: the culture from which many of fashion’s most influential ideas are conceived and through which the finest quality craftsmanship is produced.”

Not all editions of Vogue will undergo these changes, however. Condé Nast owns and manages its publication in the United States, France, Spain, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico and Latin America, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. In China it operates through copyright agreements and the rest of its international editions (Vogue Poland, Vogue Greece, Vogue Singapore, Vogue Korea, etc.) operate through licenses with local publishers and will therefore not be affected by the restructuring.

Vogue UK, Condé Nast’s greatest hope

To make matters worse, Condé Nast was also confronted in 2020 with numerous accusations of racism, work-place harassment and inequality at some of its publications, Vogue being one of them. Wintour acknowledged her share of responsibility on this in a memo and, despite rumours of dismissal, managed to retain the group’s trust. After the scandal, in June last year Lynch declared at a staff meeting: “There are very few people in the world who can influence the change and culture of our business activities like Anna,” she said. “The reason she is here is because she can help influence the change we need to make and I know she is committed to it.”

The “new” Vogue, of which the British edition commanded by Edward Enninful is the best example, does not want to be just a women’s publication focused on fashion and beauty that turns its face to social issues. As Vanessa Kingori, Chief Business Officer at Vogue UK and Condé Nast Britain Style Division said in a recent podcast for BOF, it is about expanding revenue streams but also expanding the magazine’s message and purpose, which is to advocate for inclusivity and social justice. And by offering new ways of advertising, improving its digital strategy and advising brands on how to address social responsibility, racism in the industry and other sensitive issues in an honest and effective way, they have achieved “unprecedented economic growth” for Vogue UK, which in the first half of the year increased its digital revenues by 75%, consolidating an upward trend that began last year.

Paradoxically for Vogue UK, improving the digital strategy has boosted sales of the print magazine, which in turn has further boosted online channels, creating a virtuous circle. Consider the tremendous success of last June’s issue, with Billie Eilish on the cover. Photos of the singer’s interview broke records on Instagram while all outlets quickly ran out of copies. “We sold out on the newsstand so many times, we had to pull office copies, gifted copies, etc. to keep trying to feed the newsstand. And it just kept selling out,” said Kingori. “For me there is no digital marketing that you can do that will be more effective. Our print magazine is our biggest marketing tool, and our social media platforms are our biggest agent.” Only time will tell whether or not Vogue UK’s recipe for success can be replicated in the rest of the world and how this turbulent chapter in Vogue’s century-long history concludes.

Image: condenast.com

Lanvin, the brand that was born out of love

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 07:43:29 +0000

On its 131st anniversary, Lanvin, France’s oldest fashion house in operation, faces an uncertain future. After several years of decay, Bruno Sialelli, its creative director since 2019, seems to have put it back on the path of growth, although it is still a long way from the figures once achieved by Alber Elbaz, and the health crisis must not have helped. The history of the maison begins with Jeanne Lanvin, its founder (Paris,1867- Paris, 1946). According to Lanvin, Jeanne was the eldest of 11 siblings, and from an early age she showed great independence and strength of character. At the age of 13, she began working for a milliner at the Faubourg Saint-Honoré as an errand girl, and thanks to her determination she soon became an apprentice. With her talent and creativity, at the age of 22 she opened her own parisian atelier with great success.

In 1897, during her first marriage, her daughter Marguerite, the great love of her life, was born. Thanks to her, the brand was about to take a new direction: Jeanne loved to design the most beautiful and sophisticated garments for her little girl and this attracted the attention of her clients. And, just like this, Lanvin’s career in fashion began, designing children’s clothes inspired by Marguerite. From there he moved on to creating coordinated outfits for mothers and daughters and, finally, to haute couture. The bond between Jeanne and Marguerite is forever reflected in the house’s emblem, a drawing by Paul Iribe titled “La mère et l’enfant”, based on a photograph of the two at a masquerade ball (see image gallery).

In the following decades Jeanne Lanvin continued to consolidate and expand her empire: sportswear, menswear, furs, perfumes, homewear, etc. until her death in 1946. The keys notes of the original Lanvin style are this specialisation in children’s fashion, the mastery in the use of colour and ornaments (embroidery, ribbons, pearls, crystals…), the so-called Lanvin blue (inspired, it seems, by the works of Fra Angelico) and a particular silhouette, the robe de style, which the firm popularised in the 1920s.

After Jeanne Lanvin’s death, the firm continued under the direction of her daughter and, later, other members of the family. Despite having great in-house designers such as Spaniard Antonio del Castillo in the 1950s and Claude Montana in the 1990s, its fame was gradually fading out.

In 2001, the brand was acquired by the investment group Harmonie S.A. led by Shaw-Lan Wang, a Taiwanese millionaire. Alber Elbaz was appointed Lanvin’s global artistic director and with him the brand rose from its ashes. According to the BOF article Can anyone save Lanvin now? Elbaz managed to turn Lanvin into a star brand known for its feminine values and impeccable cocktail dresses. “Elbaz may have been a taskmaster in the design studio, but he also brought rare business management and team building capabilities to his role”. In addition to that, the menswear line, under the direction of Lucas Ossendrijver from 2005 to 2018, delivered good results and some very successful hits such as the Urban Sneakers with patent leather toe caps or the appointment of Lanvin as tailor of Arsenal F.C.

Following a series of disagreements with Shaw-Lan Wang, Elbaz left Lanvin in 2015. He was replaced, first by Bouchra Jarrar and later by Oliver Lapidus, both hand-picked by Wang with disastrous results. They consolidated the downward trend that was already glimpsed in Elbaz’s final period. Finally, in 2018, Wang sold 80% of a struggling Lanvin to the Chinese conglomerate Fosun, which was quick to appoint a CEO trained in the LVMH empire and began the search for a new global creative director to relaunch the brand once again.
The chosen one was Bruno Sialelli, a young French designer who worked with Jonathan Anderson at Loewe, where he was responsible for menswear. Since his arrival in 2019, his collections have been well received by critics; although in the beginning he was criticised for being too influenced by the spirit of Loewe, he has gradually evolved into a more feminine style aligned with the house core values. Sales seem to support his work, although the Lanvin of today is light years away from the one that amassed 235 million euros in revenue in 2012 under Elbaz command. Sialelli, however, seems dexter in combining Lanvin’s DNA with the aesthetics and cultural references that appeal to today’s luxury consumer. He is determined to strengthen the accessories line, which is essential in today’s luxury market, and has rescued a JL print created in the 1970s by Jules-François Crahay, in a discreet concession to the prevailing, profitable, logomania. After a few dark years, the future looks bright for Lanvin again, but only time will tell whether or not Sialelli’s strategy works out.

Image: @lanvinofficial

"Madame", as Jeanne Lanvin was known by her staff, in her office with a model. Jeanne Lanvin and a mannequin, 1935 - © New York Times/Rea

Marguerite and Jeanne Lanvin; the Iribe-designed logo.Photo: (from left) © Lanvin Heritage; Mary Evans / Jazz Age Club Collection/Everett Collection Image: vogue.com

One of the mother-and-daughter coordinated looks that gave her fame. "La Fête est Finie - Robe d'organdi et robe de petite fille, de Jeanne Lanvin," plate 30 from Gazette du Bon Ton, Volume 1, No. 4 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Evening dress, SS1923. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

"Cyclone" gown. House, of Lanvin, 1939. Metropolitan Museum, New York.

One of Elbaz's looks for the 2012 Spring Runway show. Image:vogue.com

Another Elbaz creation. Lanvin, Resort 2014. Image: vogue.com

One of Sialelli's looks for Lanvin SS 2020, still a bit Loewe-esque. Image: vogue.com

In the SS 2021 women's wear show, Sialelli seem to have found his own voice, expertly updating the keys of the Lanvin classic style (robe de style silhouette, embroidery, femininity). Image: vogue.com

Il cavallino explores Fashion, Ferrari’s latest adventure

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 14:31:12 +0000

Gone are the days of caps, polo shirts and other humble merchandising items, Scuderia Ferrari has presented its first luxury RTW collection to the world.

In a spectacular fashion show held at the assembly line of the Ferrari factory in Maranello (Modena), designer Rocco Iannone presented a collection designed to seduce a young, contemporary luxury-loving public. Fifty-two logo-covered looks and one purpose: to update the brand’s visual codes in a commercial and easy-to-digest way. Footwear and accessories are by Puma and Ray-Ban.

According to Luke Leitch’s review for Vogue Runway, the aim of Iannone, a designer trained in the ranks of Dolce & Gabbana and Giorgio Armani, is to “broaden the brand’s fan base, including the younger generation and women”.

This new Ferrari adventure is part of an ambitious expansion policy to reach new markets and consumers. Another example of this is Cavallino, once the staff canteen at the Maranello factory and now a fashionable restaurant run by chef Massimo Bottura. As Nicola Boari, Ferrari’s head of brand diversification, said, “the purpose is to build a bridge to a wider audience”, a common approach among the big fashion houses.

It’s the first time Ferrari and F1 have inspired fashion. Iannone’s first collection for Ferrari offers interesting parallels and contrasts with Ralph Lauren FW 2017, which was presented in the Bedford Mills (NY) garage that houses the American designer’s breath-taking car collection. Whereas Ralph Lauren created then a “sporty” collection while remaning faithful to his principles of classic glamour, Rocco Iannone has put Generation Z and its values in his sights: unisex garments and an inclusive size range (from XXXS to XXXL). However, the leitmotifs of any motor-inspired collection seem to be the same: simple but powerful colour palettes, metallic finishes, innovative fabrics and technical inspiration.

Find out more:

Show review written by Luke Leitch for Vogue Runway including all the looks presented
Video of the show, a spectacular installation in the assembly line of the Maranello factory, which is sure to delight any lover of the legendary scuderia.
Cavallino, the gastronomic venture of Ferrari and Massimo Bottura

Image: ferrari.com

The roots of American style: Lilly Pulitzer and Bill Blass

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 23:26:54 +0000

“No woman can be well dressed unless she is comfortable in what she is wearing.”

– Bill Blass

Years before the now quintessential designers of America became well-known, two creators formulated the three rules of american fashion as we know it: elegance, practicality and timelessness.

Lilly Pulitzer and Bill Blass were the parents, if you wish, of American style. Not only they established the aesthetics on which the following generations of designers thrived, they also developed a new business model for the industry there. While Pulitzer gave the American answer to the joyful and glamourous Pucci prints, Bill Blass set the path for the minimalism that future designers, such as Calvin Klein would pursue to this day. Actually, it’s easy to envision some of Bill Blass’s SS 2000 RTW collection looks (the last as creative director of his homonymous brand), worn by Kendall Jenner or some other current celebrity (see gallery image).

The colorful empire of Lilly Pulitzer began by a happy accident back in 1959. According to the current brand website, “Lilly, a stylish Palm Beach hostess and socialite whose husband Peter Pulitzer owned several Florida citrus groves, needed a project of her own. With Peter’s produce, she opened a juice stand on Via Mizner, just off Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. Lilly Pulitzer’s business was a hit, but squeezing oranges, lemons, limes, and pink grapefruit made a mess of her clothes. Realizing that she needed a juice stand uniform, Lilly asked her dressmaker to design a dress that would camouflage the stains. The result? A comfortable sleeveless shift dress made of bright, colorful printed cotton in pink, green, yellow and orange. Although her customers liked Lilly’s juice, they loved her shift dresses. Soon Lilly was selling more shift dresses than juice, so she decided to stop squeezing and focus on designing and selling her Lillys. Lilly Pulitzer became a fashion sensation and a creator of authentic American resort wear as we know it”. The original company closed-down in 1983 but was revived in 1993 as a mid-price brand in the lines of Victoria’s Secret, although still pays homage to the cheery prints that gave it fame.

According to the legacy section on Bill Blass, “he is one of twenty-eight American designers of distinction featured on Seventh Avenue’s Fashion Walk Of Fame, titled the hardest working man on Seventh Avenue”. The web goes on to say that “Bill Blass studied fashion at Parsons School of Design and he could have easily made a long, lucrative career out of being an anonymous back-room designer, but that wasn’t enough for him. Bill eventually packed up his sketchpad and moved to New York with a dream. Instead of creating for other labels, he wanted to build his own fashion house. He was the first American designer to brand himself, using his own name and pulling back the workroom curtain at a time when the profession had yet to be glamorized. The NYC elite had never seen anything like it. Stylish, practical and timeless. His clothes were worn by a who’s who list of the City’s high-profile socialites.” Thanks to the then-revolutionary license system, Blass’s brand soon expanded to swimwear luggage, accesories, perfume and even chocolates. After his retirement in 2000 the brand was sold and purchased several times and many designers have tried (with no luck so far) to bring back the glory days. Of that stylish fashion empire, everything that is left today is a rather dull online brand of shoes and bags.

It’s worth mentioning, also, that American fashion has shifted in the latest years: some designers have succumbed (to a certain degree) to the ugliness exravaganza, such as Michael Kors or Tommy HIlfiger. Some fashion houses are wisely adapting the no-nonsense sophistication rule to the new times (Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera); finally, Ralph Lauren stands alone, through thick and thin, as champion for the classic american, old-world glamorous style.

Image: Ladies in Palm Beach in their Lilly Pulitzer dresses. Photo by Slim Aarons, from the book A privileged life, by Susanna Salk (Assouline, 2007)

IMAGE GALLERY

Lilly Pulitzer at her beginnings as a designer.

The golden era of the Lillys: 60's Palm Beach socialites in their Lilly Pulitzer dresses.

The Pulitzer style has been a constant inspiration for Michael Kors over the years. SS 2005.

Michael Kors, SS 2017.

Michael Kors, SS 2019. A new era for the Pulitzer-inspired prints.

A look from the last collection designed by Bill Blass himself. SS 2020.

Michael Kors, SS 2010, following Bill Blass's steps ten years after his retirement.

Bill Blass, SS 2000.

Ralph Lauren, SS 2012. The simplicity of american style with a touch of romance.

Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, silk and secrets

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Mon, 17 May 2021 20:17:20 +0000

As the Madrid Museo del traje recently reminded us, this month marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, a multifaceted artist who lived between the 19th and 20th centuries. From the mosaic of artistic trends that arose at the turn of the century, from that eternal struggle between what feels old and what feels modern, emerged an artist-artisan, industrial designer and businessman; a painter meant to change the course of fashion, photography, theatre and textile production in the 20th century.

Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo was born in Granada in 1871 with everything it was taken to succeed in painting: his father, Mariano Fortuny y Marsal, was one of the greatest painters of the 19th century and his mother, Cecilia, belonged to the illustrious Madrazo dynasty. After his father’s premature death at the age of 36, Mariano and his family moved to Paris, where he was trained as a painter. His interests, however, led him to also study chemistry and other sciences that would later allow him to develop his full potential. When he was 18, the family moved again, this time to Venice. Fortuny was a citizen of the world, but Venice became his forever home. In 1898 he moves into the ruinous Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei. In the following years, he would restore it to its former splendour, turning it into his house-atelier and filling it with precious objects of all kinds.

In these years he began to explore new horizons beyond painting. According to information from the Fortuny Museum (Venice), his love for the theatre and scenography led him to design a large collection of diffused light lamps and a dome system to illuminate the stage with cloudy skies and other projections that would be installed by AEG in the most important theatres in Europe. At the same time, he worked as a decorator and lighting specialist for the wealthiest families on the continent.

Around 1906, his interest turned to fashion and textile manufacturing, surely inspired by his mother’s collection of historic fabrics. With the help of his muse and lover, Henriette Negrin, Mariano began to sell the fabrics and garments which would make him famous. Recreating the costumes of Ancient Greece, as opposed to the Belle-Epoque aesthetic and its corsets, together they designed numerous pieces, the most famous of which was the Delphos dress, inspired by the Auriga of Delphos, a Greek sculpture discovered around those years.

In a fascinating analysis of one of these dresses written by Mª del Mar Nicolás Martínez, from the Madrid Museo del traje, the author tells us that, after visiting Greece with Henriette in 1906, Fortuny began reproducing designs he had seen on Cretan pottery and textile remains from Antiquity. The magic of the Delphos dress, immune to the passage of time, lies in several factors: the pleating of its silk, the brilliance and beauty of the colours in which it was produced and the apparent simplicity of its structure, which enhances the female silhouette without oppressing it.

Regarding the pleating of the silk, Mª del Mar Nicolás Martínez says that “the method for obtaining it was patented by Fortuny in June 1909. The patent gives, logically, the minimum information about the system, stating only that the way to obtain the pleating was by squeezing and twisting strips of wet fabric tightly between the hands until they were wrinkled in the direction of the length of the fabric, and then making the horizontal waves. These were obtained thanks to a semi-mechanical procedure consisting of inserting the fabric, suspended from a frame and tensioned by a counterweight, between a series of hot metal tubes arranged transversally in the frame of a devise designed by Fortuny himself; these tubes acted on the wet fabric, creating irregular and permanent folds and waves, of great ductility, with enormous expansion, which enabled the dress to adapt to the body, modelling it and revealing it without false modesty. On this basis, a few months later, on 4 November 1909, Fortuny registered in Paris the Delphos model. The cut of the dress is very simple and is structured on four pieces of fabric of equal size which are sewn together, joining the widths, giving rise to a cylindrical piece of equal width and height. This tunic is fitted to the shoulders by sewing the upper edges together, leaving, logically, a central opening for the neck and two side openings for the arms”. Over time, several variants of the original model were made, but the aesthetic always remained the same.

As for the colours, the author also tells us that “the dazzling range of colours displayed in the Delphos – indigo blues, emerald greens, carmine reds, oranges, pinks, ivory whites, violets… – with their iridescent shades that change with the light, is due to the dyes used by Fortuny in their manufacture. All of them natural, whether of mineral or organic origin, they were made using secret formulas taken from old manuals on the art of dyeing, as well as from old recipes entrusted to him by old craftsmen from the Veneto region. Fortuny never revealed these formulas, and the legend goes to say that, the day after his death, his widow Henriette threw the colours made by her husband into the waters of the Venice canals so that no one could imitate them. Something which, if true, she really did achieve, because despite the numerous analyses that have been made of the fabrics, it has not yet been possible to find the formula for these colours, so a perfect reproduction of them is not yet feasible”.

The immediate success of his creations propelled Fortuny’s career, and he opened a factory on the Venetian island of Giudecca in 1922 to meet the demand for his products. Thanks to his contacts, he established a select network of distributors across Europe and the United States. As we are told by the Fortuny textile brand, which continues the artist’s legacy, the New York interior designer Elsie McNeill Lee was, from 1928, the exclusive distributor of the brand in North America. Despite his successes and recognition (he was Honorary Consul of Spain in Venice and a member of the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts, among many other honours), his biographical note in the Royal Academy of History reminds us that, with both the First World War and the crash of 1929, Fortuny was on the verge of ruin. Despite of these setbacks, he managed to keep his business afloat thanks to McNeill’s help and by selling, at great personal expense, pieces from his invaluable art collection.

After a life devoted to work and the pursuit of beauty, Mariano Fortuny died in his beloved Venice in 1949, from a stomach cancer. Henriette, according to his wishes, wanted to donate part of his legacy and the palazzo to the Spanish State, but the government renounced it and, instead, the donation was accepted by the City of Venice, which turned the palazzo into the Fortuny Museum. Curiously, Fortuny’s creations, which today are kept in the Museo del traje, were bought in 2003 from the Austrian collector Liselotte Höhs for 2.967.273€ by INDITEX, as a settlement of part of its corporate tax.

After Fortuny’s death, the brand outlived its founder and went on. At Henriette’s request, Elsie McNeill, by then a friend of the couple, acquired the firm and ensured the smooth running of the Giudecca factory in the following decades. In 1988, Elsie sold the company to her friend, Egyptian millionaire and philanthropist Maged Riad, whose sons Micky and Maury are the current owners.

Mariano Fortuny undoubtedly took many of his secrets to his grave, but his artistic and industrial legacy can still be enjoyed in the exquisite fabrics that the Fortuny factory continues to produce, in the paintings, watercolours and engravings that fill his Venetian palace or in his coveted garments, which are exhibited in the world’s finest museums. Increasingly difficult to find, some Delfos are still within the reach of the most privileged women (see image gallery).

A curious fact to end this article: the Prado Museum holds one of Fortuny’s last works (and plenty, in contrast, by his father). It is a self-portrait painted two years before his death with a special tempera he himself created, of course. According to the description of the work, “the painter made these pigments using information provided by craftsmen in northern Italy, keeping their composition secret for years and selling them at the end of his life, due to financial problems”. A bittersweet end, as life so often is, for this 20th century Leonardo, alchemist of art and fashion.

Find out more:

– The current Fortuny brand, continuing Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo legacy in textiles.

– The Palazzo Fortuny in Venice.

– Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. Vestidos y tejidos de la colección del Museo del Traje, by Mª del Mar Nicolás Martínez (in spanish)

– The Delphos dress today, a video by Doris Raymond, owner of the prestigious L.A. based vintage fashion store The Way We Wore.

Image: Palazzo Fortuny, Google Arts & Culture.

IMAGE GALLERY

Fortuny as a painter. Image: fortuny.com

Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei, currently Palazzo Fortuny (Venice). Image: fortuny.com

One of the rooms at the Palazzo, showcasing a Delphos dress and a portrait of Henriette. Image: Google Arts & Culture.

Model wearing a Delphos dress, 1920. Image: Google Arts & Culture

The Peplos dress, another of his most famous creations, 1920. Image: Google Arts & Culture.

The famous Fortuny pleated silks, impossible to replicate today. Image: Google Arts & Culture.

The beautiful dye of the fabrics, another of the secrets that Fortuny and his wife took to the grave. Image: Google Arts & Culture.

No visitors are allowed in the Fortuny factory in order to preserve their trademark secrets but you can visit the surrounding gardens. Image: fortuny.com

The world of Fortuny today: the brand's Venice showroom. Photo credit, Steve Freihon. Image: fortuny.com

Glass bead trimmed Fortuny pillows stacked on the Tedino Chair in the Venice showroom. Photo credit: Steve Freihon Image: fortuny.com

The Riad family, current owners of the Fortuny factory. Image: fortuny.com

Lauren Hutton, posing with a Delphos in the 70's.

Natalia Vodianova wearing a Delphos dress to the British Fashion Awards 2009.

Henriette Negrin, the love of his life, his muse and partner.

Not your usual Fashion Icon: Dita Von Teese

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 10:03:12 +0000

“I have my signature look and I’m sticking to it, because it’s the look that is one hundred percent me, and one hundred percent created by me. I might be a one-trick for it. But it’s a pretty good trick!”

– Dita Von Teese

In a world where fashion trends are born and die quickly, Dita Von Teese’s attitude has something of rebellious. Trends come and go but, decade after decade, Dita remains Dita.

Thanks to her friendships with some of the giants of the industry (Christian Louboutin, Jean Paul Gaultier, Marc Jacobs…) she has successfully brought Haute Couture into the realm of striptease. From stages and red carpets, she lives her particular affaire with Fashion, without never becoming a victim of it. Ignoring the whims of a season, with that neo-vintage style that is already part of her DNA, Dita is only true to herself.

As the biographical note on her website says, Dita Von Teese is the most prominent name in burlesque worldwide. She is credited with bringing this art form back to the spotlight with a new sense of elegance and sophistication. Born in the not particularly glamorous state of Michigan, little Dita lived fascinated by the aesthetics of Hollywood’s golden-era. Due to who-knows what now irrelevant circumstances, when she grew she set her mind on becoming a professional stripper.

Since her beginnings in 1992, she has been perfecting her secret formula through professionalism and authenticity: her classic ballet training, her talent for costume design, her passion for lingerie… with all this she has elevated this genre, from an kinky fetishist’s spectacle to the status of a luxury product; Dita’s neo-burlesque is a striptease show every cool person would be very proud to attend. Glamorous and elegant, it’s a celebration of vintage eroticism and an ideal of beauty and femininity that still speaks to many women. It is no coincidence that they make up the majority of its audience today.

In an interview to Vogue in 2016 she said: “one of the reasons I started making burlesque shows and posing for pinups was because I felt like I didn’t have many modern models of sensuality that I could relate to, because I don’t look like a Victoria’s Secret model (…). Burlesque is the idea of creation: the red lipstick, the red nails, the high heels, black stockings, and garter belts, which accentuate and hide things maybe we don’t like about ourselves. Corsetry, which enhances the waist. It’s these symbols of transformation that we can all relate to, and we can all create if we want to. There’s never anything that is too overtly sexual onstage, but it’s still erotic. The combination of all these things is what makes it magical.”

When she steps down from the giant Martini glass (her most legendary show), Dita is CEO of her own brand: clothing, lingerie and gloves lines; candles and perfumes; books, costume jewellery, scarves… the list goes on and on, but it goes to prove that authenticity is very profitable. However, it is her celebrity profile that is most striking: in a world where stars give paparazzis the finger while sipping their Starbucks on the streets of Los Angeles, she is a rara avis. Always true to her image, polite and discreet. On her Instagram account, the promotion of her products alternates with tributes to burlesque stars, messages of inclusivity, her friends, her team and her cats.

It’s funny that, after almost thirty years of professionally satisfying fetishistic urges, having made adult films and being Playboy cover girl three times (among many others), Dita has more elegance and sophistication than today’s most promising celebrities. Of course, after waking up next to Marilyn Manson for seven years, little can surprise her anymore… Dita will have seen things, of that we can be sure.

Find out more:

Burlesque and the Art of the Teese (ReganBooks), by Dita Von Teese
Your Beauty Mark: The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour (It Books), by Dita Von Teese
A fascinating home tour around her Los Angeles home, courtesy of AD

Images: @ditavonteese

IMAGE GALLERY

Onstage with one of her many props, the giant champagne glass

In Monaco with the Grimaldis

In a gala, dressed by her friend Zac Posen

This time with a model by Jean Paul Gautier

Enjoying the Cannes Film Festival

In Paris with her friend Ulyana Sergeenko

The Dita style

“The Allure of Chanel”, an unfiltered biography

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 14:45:42 +0000

“Loneliness has formed my character, which is bad, hardened my heart, which is proud, and my body, which is resistant”.

“Was I really aware of the revolution I was about to bring in dress? Not at all. One world was ending, another was to be born. I was there; an opportunity was offered to me, I took it. (…) What was needed was simplicity, comfort, clarity: without knowing it, I offered all of those things.”

-Gabrielle Chanel

In this article we explore “The Allure of Chanel” (Hermann Editions, 1976), by Paul Morand. A curious and revealing book in which Gabrielle Chanel tells her own story, perhaps not the real one, but the one she wants to communicate. It is a work far away from the current universe of the french maison. For any lover of the legendary figure of Gabrielle Chanel, which the eponymous brand has beautifully reworked and sold since her death in 1976, this book will come as a shock. Written in the first person, it shows us the person behind the myth, her lights and shadows.

“The Allure of Chanel” was the result of a number of interviews the author had with Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel in Switzerland in 1946. It was a low point in her life: World War II was over and in Paris she was accused of collaborating with the Nazis during the occupation. In these conversations she retaliates against her legend, remembers her lost world and her friends. Sometimes sincere, sometimes malignant, with half-concealed vanity, self-pity and drama, Mademoiselle Chanel reviews her life in a cathartic exercise of which Paul Morand is a mere chronicler.

“That torrential voice, rushing like lava, those phrases that crackled like dry branches, her retorts, a tone more and more peremptory as age softened her, a tone more and more responsive, more and more categorical; for entire nights I had to listen to unappealable condemnations in that hotel in Saint-Moritz where I found her, during the winter of 1946, inactive, for the first time in disarray, biting her lips. She had voluntarily exiled herself to Egandine, hesitating to return to Rue Cambon, waiting for a stroke of luck. She felt trapped by the past (…), Verdurin of an age that took her by surprise, the time of De Gaulle; bile spilled out of her ever-bright eyes, under the arch of her eyebrows increasingly made up by the pencil, like basalt arches; Chanel, the Auvergne volcano that Paris wrongly believed extinguished”.

Morand, despite being a friend of hers (or perhaps because of it) chooses not to disguise the bitter personality Mademoiselle’s words reveal. It is clear that, like everyone else, Chanel was tormented by what people thought about her. When it suits her, she omits or skims over certain subjects. She denies, for example, two facts about her life that are part of her legend: that she grew up in an orphanage and that she was a singer in a cabaret. Instead, she describes in great detail her childhood in Auvergne with her aunts, who raised her when her mother died and her father emigrated to America, and from there she passes directly to her first romances.

What actually happened or not is irrelevant by now. What is interesting, though, is to compare the Gabrielle Chanel of this book, autobiographical in its aim, with the other Gabrielle, that idealised figure who to this day continues to inspire all the brand’s products, from Haute Couture to jewellery and make-up. Whatever they say today at Chanel, the woman who speaks here is a reader but not particularly cultivated, certainly not a feminist, and she seems to care very little about women’s rights. She was simply a woman of her time, but a tough, talented and independent one. Her much-applauded rebellion against the corset was not so much a feminist crusade as the revenge of the poor auvergne peasant girl, slender and strengthened by work, against the idle and plump ladies who concealed their greediness stuffing themselves inside a corset. With the turn of the century and the change of trends, she made them pay for their privileges: she took away their corsets to make them eat less and lose weight, she dressed them in humble fabrics, in black, without ornaments and, to top it all, she charged them a fortune for it.

Perhaps because of all this, Chanel uses this book with caution and doesn’t bring too much on it: too many mixed feelings, too many politically incorrect sentences. And yet it is more inspiring and authentic than all the brand’s recent advertising campaigns. It is comforting to see that, in order to change the world, you don’t have to be a heroine from a novel or a saint. All women can relate at some point to this Coco Chanel: sometimes good and sometimes not so good, clever and mean at the same time, first young and then old. A woman always fighting her demons and always moving forward. A real woman.

Find out more: The Allure of Chanel (Hermann Editions, 1976)

Image: Robert Doisneau, 1953.

Blood on the loafers, the murder of Maurizio Gucci.

Maje Pérez-Ramos — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:34:41 +0000

After All the money in the world featuring the Getty family, Ridley Scott shows us again the jet-set’s darkest side in his new project, House of Gucci. The film, currently shooting, depicts the turbulent story of the Gucci dynasty, focusing on the murder of Maurizio Gucci, which shook Italy in 1995.

The script is based on Sara Gay Forden’s book The House of Gucci: a sensational story of murder, madness, glamour and greed, a promising title if there ever was one. Adam Driver plays the aforementioned Maurizio and no other than Lady Gaga his former wife, Patrizia Reggiani. The facts to which we refer, which took Italy and the whole world by surprise early in the morning of 27 March 1995, were as follows:

Maurizio Gucci, 46, founder’s Guccio Gucci grandson and then CEO of the company had been shot dead at 8.30 a.m. when he was about to enter the brand’s headquarters in Milan. Not by chance, all eyes immediately turned to Patrizia Reggiani, his ex-wife since 1995 and with whom the relationship was far from peaceful.

The 80’s and 90’s were tumultuous years for the Gucci family, marked by constant disputes among Guccio’s descendants over the control of the company. The increasing tensions eventually ruined many personal relationships in the family, Maurizio and Patrizia’s marriage being one them.

Five years after the divorce, she couldn’t get over no longer being “la Signora Gucci” or that she had been abandoned for a much younger woman that Maurizio was about to marry.

Neither common sense (not that common, after all…) nor the fact that she had two daughters with him could prevent Patrizia from conceiving a reckless plan to get her revenge on Maurizio, the details of which seem to be taken out of an Almodovar film.

Assisted by her trusted tarot reader, who acted as intermediary, she had hired the services of a hitman who executed the crime. After a brief investigation, Italian police found several evidences that connected Patrizia with the perpetrators of the murder and soon she confessed she had planned the whole thing.

The former Mrs. Gucci spent eighteen years in jail, where, according to an interview she gave to The Guardian in 2016, she slept a lot and looked after her plants and her ferret, Bambi. Nowadays, Patrizia keeps a low profile and lives comfortably thanks to some financial settlements reached with Gucci. However, she stills come into the limelight every now and then: contacted by Italian press regarding the upcoming film about her story, she declared feeling offended by Lady Gaga not wanting to meet with her to discuss the case and details of her role.

In all honesty, such interview would be pure gold. I easily imagine Stefani Germanotta (a.k.a. Lady Gaga), in a haze of platinum blonde, mile-high heels and fake lashes, seating in Patrizia Reggiani’s living room at tea time. I almost see her, affectionately placing her hand on the now-elderly lady’s one while she whispers those immortal words “Mama” Morton said in Chicago (2002): “You don’t need to tell me, honey; I never heard of a man getting killed when he didn’t get just what was coming to him”.

Find out more:

House of Gucci, a Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour and Greed. Sara Gay Forden (Custom House, 2002)

Gucci Wars: How I Survived Murder and Intrigue at the Heart of the World’s Biggest Fashion House. Jenny Gucci (John Blake Publishing Ltd, 2009)

Image: Gucci