Watch: Poppy de Villeneuve’s “How You Look At It”

From NOWNESS:

Summer in the city: a bustling, stifling and less-than-calming experience. But even in the midst of blaring car-horns, sweltering commuters and dizzying throngs of irritable pedestrians, there’s a pocket of peace to be found in every metropolis. Such moments of sweet escape provide the inspiration for today’s film, How You Look At It, directed by photographer Poppy de Villeneuve (who has shot for Vogue, Jalouse and Nylon, among others) and starring rising Chinese fashion model Liu Wen, who was recently signed as the first Asian face of Estee Lauder. To create her moment of blissful cool, De Villeneuve took to the serene spaces of New York’s Asser Levy Recreation Center—a turn-of-the-century bath house, replete with Art Deco pool—where, in a heat-induced reverie, a Norma Kamali clad Wen is joined by former Sopranos regular and actor in the upcoming Martin Scorcese-produced HBO series Boardwalk Empire Edoardo Ballerini, for a sensual, teasingly ambiguous swimming lesson. De Villeneuve found the rookie actress a “delicate, quiet, playful and dry” performer — subtle qualities that enabled Wen to breeze mesmerizingly through the city in a Dolce & Gabbana trenchcoat and Calvin Klein stilettos, her softly frizzed hair tumbling over her Cutler & Gross sunglasses. “The city is so busy and full, it’s like you’re lost in a sea of people,” says the director. Accompanying De Villeneuve on the shoot for NOWNESS was cult fashion blogger Hanneli, who shot an intriguing series of behind-the-scenes images.

posted by: Tricia Rock

Watch: David Lynch’s “Lady Blue Shanghai” for Lady Dior

Dior’s latest ad campaign for the Lady Dior bag features Marion Cotillard in a series of short films from different directors. In the first chapter of the series, Lady Niore, director Olivier Dahan takes Cotillard and her black Lady Dior bag on a film noir inspired journey up the Eiffel Tower. For the second installment entitled Lady Rouge, Cotillard and her red Lady Dior bag sing and star in a music video with Franz Ferdinand. And for the latest release, Lady Blue Shanghai, director David Lynch takes Cotillard on a mystical journey through old Shanghai, complete with a tripped out flashback scene and glowing blue Lady Dior. I’d have to say I find the least satisfying thing about this ad campaign (beside the fact they’re attempting to sell me something I neither want nor need) is the bag itself.

Check out Dior’s 2011 resort collection inspired by French New Wave film and debuting in Shanghai this past Saturday here

posted by: Tricia Rock

Go See: Brooklyn Museum Exhibition “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection”

From the gallery:
May 7–August 1, 2010
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor

To mark the new relationship between the Brooklyn Museum and the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum presents an exhibition of some of the most renowned objects from its costume collection. American High Style consists of approximately eighty-five dressed mannequins and a selection of hats, shoes, sketches, and other fashion-related material that will reintroduce the collection, long in storage, to the public. The exhibition is organized in groups representing the most important strengths of the collection. Works by the first generation of American women designers such as Bonnie Cashin, Elizabeth Hawes, and Claire McCardell are featured, as well as material created by Charles James, Norman Norell, Gilbert Adrian, and other important American designers. Also included are works by French designers who had an important influence on American women and fashion, such as Charles Frederick Worth, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jeanne Lanvin, Jeanne Paquin, Madeleine Vionnet, and Christian Dior. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will celebrate the arrival of the Brooklyn Museum costume collection at the Met with a related exhibition, American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity, on view May 5–August 15, 2010.

posted by: Tricia Rock

Style Icon: Iris Apfel

-
“There’s a sad lack of glamour in the world today,” Apfel mourns. “And there’s absolutely no fantasy.”
-

Via The Observer:

Iris Apfel is 88, a “geriatric starlet” (her own description) who has suddenly become a staple of hip New York life – photographed by Bruce Weber, admired by designers such as Isaac Mizrahi and Duro Olowu, featured in Paper magazine, Vogue and the New York Times, blown up beyond life-size in the window of Barneys department store. In the five years since a show of her clothes at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute was a word-of-mouth sensation, she has taken the world of style by storm. Her looks are now so legendary, so otherworldly, that many who first saw the exhibition assumed she was dead. Her nephew made a habit of taking friends to see it, and she gave him strict instructions: “If you hear anyone say I’m dead, tell them: ‘No, she’s very much alive and just walking around to save funeral expenses’”…

“People say: ‘You have inspired me, you’ve given me courage…’ They’ve gone so far as to say you’ve changed my life! And I would come back and say to my husband: ‘I can’t understand it – what kind of poor little life did she have if I had to come and change it?’” Her husband said she should ask. And sure enough, the next time someone said she’d changed her life, the fan was a 70-year-old lady in Florida. Apfel thanked her, then took her aside and said: “Would you mind very much explaining that to me?” So the woman did. She said that she’d never wanted to look just like everybody else, but she wasn’t sure how to do that without looking silly. Once she saw Apfel’s show, she knew, and what’s more, she said, “now that I’ve learned I don’t have to look like everybody else, I don’t have to think like everybody else”….

I suspect Apfel has become a more intriguing proposition with age and white hair, as if she and her clothes have evolved into an entirely new species – a “rare bird of fashion”, as the title of her book has it. And while she has advice to give if you ask for it, she recognises that not everyone can carry off such wonders as have erupted from her mind. “Doing your own thing is very good,” Apfel concludes, “if you have a thing to do.”

Read the full article here

posted by: Tricia Rock

Earth Day Fashion Show 2010 in Lawrence, KS

This Saturday, April 24 Lawrence, KS presents its 2010 Earth Day Fashion Show at the Granada Theater (1020 Massachusetts). Along with a runway featuring local designers and shops, this year’s show will also include an art exhibit and sale, DJ IggyBaby, The Honeysuckle Strings Band, AZ-ONE Reggae Band, and an opening act by Haskell Indian Nations University showcasing individual native regalia.

The art exhibit begins at 7pm and the fashion show at 8:30pm. Admission is $5, or $4 if you bring a used CD. All proceeds go to benefit Audio-Reader, a reading and information service for blind, visually impaired, and print disabled individuals in Kansas and Western Missouri.

Featured designers:
Prodigy
Mixed Media
Haskell Indian Nations
Ecoboutiquo
Player Jene Co.
Amuse Design

Featured shops:
Creation Station
Beyond the Door
Vintage Van
White Chocolate
Social Service League
Wild Man Vintage
Third Planet

posted by: Tricia Rock