FALL 2010 - Alexander McQueen

The last Alexander McQueen collection was shown after his death. It consisted of 16 outfits (below are my favorite ones) and had been 80% finished at the time of his death. Unlike his previous collections where the futuristic element and modern technology were crucial, for this collection McQueen found motivation in the medieval times. Handcraft and appropriate materials were used to create the gorgeous, fairytale-like outfits...

FALL 2010 - Balmain & Balenciaga

BALMAIN














BALENCIAGA

FALL 2010 - Alberta Ferretti, Fendi, Gucci & Louis Vuitton

One of the most influential people in the fashion industry said that fashion is all about looking forward, not looking back. So, not to focus only on current trends, I am selecting my favorite pieces from the fall 2010 collections.



ALBERTA FERRETTI





FENDI







GUCCI







LOUIS VUITTON

Fashion moodboard for TUESDAY 23rd MARCH

A feminine dress made string with navy military jackets and aviators. Spring boots are a must. Sunny, warm mornings are made for having a coffee in an outdoor caffe and every free time is reserved for being outside, enjoying a fashion magazine...

Fashion moodboard for THURSDAY 4th MAR

Despite the weather today, I feel like dressing up a bit...Thursday is a nice day for an after work cocktail and catching up with friends...listening to jazz in the office and later at home as well...

SERIES: Ladies of style - international Vogue editors

Alexandra Shulman
Alexandra Shulman is the most untypical Vogue editor – she is not skinny, she doesn’t follow the latest fashion trends on her dressing and she is down to Earth. However, she has the most important traits a Vogue editor should posses – intelligence, creativity and sense for balancing the reality and fantasy offered in the magazine.

Shulman has been editing UK Vogue since 1992 with a very journalist-like approach. In fact, she has stated that Vogue is not so much her type of magazine, but she the work in the magazine as reporting on fashion and her editing it.

Tough she has always been a bit overweight Shulman says that she has always felt good in her body and has never actually tried hard enough to lose weight. In this direction of feeling good with your body, Shulman is openly dissatisfied with the designers’ trend of making the clothes smaller constantly. In June 2009 she sent out a letter to the majority of designer stating that the garments magazines receive for shootings are sometimes small even for star models and so extremely skinny girls have to be hired to fit them. Afterwards, the pictures are digitally re-worked so the girls look healthy.

Compared to the US and French Vogue, it can be said that the UK issue stands somewhere in between them – on the cover it features models as well as celebrities and inside there is a path between haute couture and high street. This is what Shulman pays particular attention to – balance of what is presented in the magazine with the intent never to be too gloomy or too frivolous, too young or too old oriented.

Apart from editing the magazine, Shulman writes a section in the Daily Mail where she touches many subjects she feels strongly about – one of them was the length of maternity leave. Quite surprisingly for a mother of three, Shulman thinks that a yearlong maternity leave is too long for being out of the work place.

Shulman is famous for managing to keep her professional and private life apart. She admits that she is not personal friend with any designer; when she is at work she is completely focused, but when she goes out of there she switches off and lives her other life dedicated to her family.

Franca Sozzani

The Italian Vogue editor-in-chief is one of the most stylish ladies in the fashion world, a yet is one of the most mysterious figures. There is really little information about her. Basics say that she has been editing Vogue Italia since 1988 and has written several books on photography, fashion, art and design in the meantime.

Franca seems uninterested about the circulation of Vogue Italia – in one interview she stated that she doesn’t know the exact number and doesn’t even care about it. What she is concerned about is always brining something new and even a bit controversial to the magazine. One of these ideas was the “All Black” issue of Vogue Italia in July 2008 when almost all models featured were Afro – American. The idea behind this was to emphasize the lack of ethnic models featuring covers, advertisements and or appearing in any other way in fashion magazines. The Black issue was a success and was re-printed for US and UK markets.

The newest thing from Vogue Italia is the Vogue Curvy website launched in February 2010 (http://www.vogue.it/en/vogue-curvy), featuring full-figured ladies and glorifying the beauty of the curves.

I find quite interesting her approach to the essence of editing a fashion magazine: ““Basically, I am more free than anyone else because I don’t think that you sell clothes through a [fashion] credit. I think that you go through an image, that you sell a dream, and [then] the clothes.”

Tough quite serious Sozzani is known to be approachable as a person. Her style is very Italian – she is always elegant and almost always dressed up. She says that her favorite fashion combination is a black coat over a black dress and one of the most precious items in the wardrobe are Manolo Blahnik heels.

Aliona Doletskaya

When Vogue Russia launched 13 years ago, the country was facing big economic problems and one could hardly imagine starting a business in such economic climate. Still, Aliona Doletskaya and her team have managed to push through the difficulties and ensure the quality that Vogue provides its readers around the world. These days Vogue Russia has a circulation of est. 200,000.

Aliona is recognizable by her rough voice with British accent. She’s also known for her toughness and business skills, traits that have initiated many comparisons with Anna Wintour and even rumors that Aliona is on the short-list of candidates for Anna’s replacement.

On the other hand, she is also quite different from Wintour – while Anna hasn’t had a proper education, Aliona has a Ph.D. in comparative linguistics; she moves surrounded by cloud of smoke and bunch of gay man and once she is known to have held an editorial meeting in a hotel room naked.

Regarding her work on the magazine, Doletskaya says that she is trying to reach to her Russian audience, which in the past 13 years has changed and has overcome isolation now being much more sophisticated. Still, she strives Vogue Russia to reflect things that have historically defined Russian style.

SERIES: Ladies of style - international Vogue editors

Vogue if often called the fashion Bible and for more than 100 years it has been regarded as the most influential fashion magazine. Advertising in Vogue is enormously expensive, each issue is being prepared at least two months ahead and making the pages on this glossy paper is an achievement for any designer. Thinking about this I did a little research about the editors in chief of the various Vogue editions. The most (in) famous of them all is Anna Wintour – the editor of US Vogue, but even those who are not well known as she is are very interesting and powerful women, all of them different from each other.

Anna Wintour

The US Vogue editor - in - chief since 1988, has been recognized as one of the coldest and toughest people in the fashion journalism and industry in general. She is however, considered as one of the most successful and powerful as well.

With her trademark bob and sunglasses Wintour is to be found in the front row of the most important fashion events around the globe. Her judgment of what is good or not is reflected in the pages of Vogue – neither the magazine nor Anna never openly criticize designers, they simply exclude them.

Working her dream job Anna is completely devoted to what she does – she is said to be very demanding, disciplined, involved in every tiny bit of the magazine creation, clear about what she wants and very decisive. What is also important to her is being surrounded with great talent – mediocrity within her team or in designer’s collection doesn’t work for her. The best creatives and editors have been working with Wintour for 15-20 years.

Conde Nast has been quite awarding to Ms. Wintour’s success of 1,200,000 circulation – apart from her salary, every day of the week her hair and make-up is paid by the company and she has an annual 200,000 USD clothing allowance.

Wintour has involved Vogue in several projects that support fashion and young designers. Each year Vogue chooses aspiring designers, supports them and recommends them to different fashion houses. Additionally, on annual basis a gala event is organized to support the New York’s Metropolitan Museum’s costume institute and so far 50 million dollars have been raised.

Still, Anna hasn’t only been scrutinized for her temper only - her work has undergone criticism as well. Many have noticed that US Vogue has become much more commercial and celebrity oriented than its Europe counterparts. The number of pages with advertisements is on the rise constantly and while the perfect “American” lifestyle and look are being promoted. Recently, she has been criticized of losing a battle with ELLE as the October’s issue of Vogue had quite less advertisement pages than its strongest competitor.

Another fight that has been going on for years is the one with PETA who accuse Anna of her love of wearing fur.

No matter how much praised or criticized and even rumored to be replaced, Anna doesn’t feel that it is time to leave her position – in one interview she claimed that in times of financial crises when fashion is suffering as well, she is motivated to give her best in succeeding to over come the obstacles.

Carine Roitfeld

In the movie “The Devil wears Prada” French Vogue editor replaces Miranda Pristley to bring fresh air and new approach to the magazine. Tough the reality is far from Carine Roitfeld replacing Anna Wintour, it is true that she is her opposite – a trait that didn’t discourage her to be successful at what she does. The fact that French Vogue is internationally influential despite its circulation of 133,000 (which is very little compared to US Vogue) points that audiences like the artistic and less practical approach the ex-stylist and nine years now editor – in - chief has created.

Roitfeld says that she is not business-like as Wintour is – she can never imagine herself having the big job of editing US Vogue; her perfect job is being a stylist, being creative, making stories when she sees a model and developing them through editorial pictures.

What French Vogue now is clearly depicts Roitfeld herself – her love of untypical beauty, of high heels and clothes with sharp lines. Roitfeld is said to enjoy simplicity and minimalism – her office is supposedly almost empty as well as her desk, since she doesn’t use (and doesn’t know how) the computer at all.

Roitfeld differs on another level from Wintour, she is quite close to the people she is working with, claiming that she cannot separate work from friendship and that is the way how she functions the best. There was a rumor that each month she weighs her stuff, but she has denied it in several interviews.

The French Vogue editor is not a woman without higher ambition than the one she is living now - she constantly tries to answer the expectations for a refreshing, exciting and full of imagination Vogue issue every month.

To be continued...