Super flat ballerinas

Sea blue in Vancouver on the Pacific Ocean and Venezia on the Adriatic Sea, who would have known that it is the color in the mind of Marianna Giusti, the creative director for AGL’s next collection. While still in high school, Marianna had the luxury of having her sketches picked up by her father, made into prototypes and included in the collection – a designer was born then.

Started from Montegranaro Italy in 1958, three generations has inherited the art of shoes in AGL and three sisters now head the design team. The family, with its insistence on traditional craftsmanship and also modern technology, has brought purify, femininity, and audaciousness to its signature super flat ballerinas.

Perhaps it is the stunning architecture and history in Italy that provokes every bit of sensibility, the artisans at AGL create their work, with the most sumptuous “nappa” leather, from the state of the art facility to the world.

Reference:shuzsociety

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Objective exhibitions?

Dresses from Madame Grès  (1903-1993) on display at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris.

Photo credit: Trendland

Is fashion exhibition worthy? If only the crowds in the museums answer the question. This summer, crowds are going to the openings in Musée Bourdelle in Paris for the Madame Grès exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the “Savage Beauty” show, Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris for Hussein Chalayan, Pushkin Museum in Moscow for an “Inspiration Dior” exhibition, and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for the Jean Paul Gaultier show, … and the list goes on.

The moving exhibitions in museums around the world is straight forward – putting the dresses in the museums, better yet, juxtaposing them against relevant sculptures or paintings. Funding for these exhibitions, however, could be a complex subject. The director of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts insisted that the show in the museum had to be independently curated and funded; indicating that an exhibition mounted by a fashion house can hardly be objective. London’s V&A museum also adheres to a scholarly approach to fashion, as noted by its senior fashion curator, Claire Wilcox: “for me, objectivity is the key”. But Ms. Debo, the director of MoMu in Antwerp does not see problems of self-funded fashion exhibits in museums as long as there is an agreement of the collaboration.

After all, can a museum be just a showcase?

Reference: NYTIMES

 Balenciaga's religion influence

  Balenciaga's Francisco de Goya influence
 photo credit: fashionsconcretecatwalk

Nostalgia is Denial (Midnight in Paris Spoiler Alert)

One person's golden age is another's dreadfully boring present. The golden age, to the protagonist in “Midnight in Paris”, which he enjoyably bumped into, exists in the exciting Gatsby-like parties in the 20’s where he meets the Fitzgerald’s, Hemingway and Picasso. Sadly but inevitably, the golden age, to his almost lover, is in her own past with Edgar Degas and Gauguin in the 1890s. This is the problem of being thrown back in time, but of course, not a problem Salvador Dalí and Man Ray see.

“Nostalgia is denial, denial of the painful present”. The nostalgia shops have long been fashion’s favored references. The 70’s has been the contemporary’s golden age with its platform shoes, color blocking, and high-waist short shorts. The 20’s flappers with their sheath dress and bob hair had their own time of comeback too. It is perhaps inevitable that fashion in the present is never going to be as interesting as some age in the past.

Woody Allen, who still writes his screenplay on a typewriter, does not hide his nostalgia. If Woody Allen’s present that he deniably depicts will be looked back at as references, what fashion trend in the present would be intriguing enough when the golden age of fashion is searched for in the future?

   
Costume designer Sonia Grande searched the world's antiques 

"Freedom is expensive"

Bill Cunningham in the 80's

 How obsessive could one be about anything but still be controlled and balanced? Bill Cunningham has been obsessed with taking street fashion pictures since the 70s. The eighty-two year old is as passionate about women in interesting clothes, as forty years ago, and weaves the NYC streets on his bicycle. He is obsessed with clothes but disinterested in the celebrities, he is unsettled on the street but quiet in his own life of solitude.

Bill Cunningham shoots fashionable clothes, but could not care less about what he himself wears, at which he laughed in front of Richard Press’s camera: “It’s such a contradiction”. The contradiction of obsession and control defines Bill Cunningham’s world. Bill lives in a fantasy of fashion and beauty with his eyes, but has a workaday life at the New York Times. He spends evenings at high society extravagant social events, but his home is secluded in the file cabinet filled little apartment. In these contradictions, the personality of Bill Cunningham gradually and profoundly prevails in the bittersweet documentary.

“Those who search for beauty often find it”. Pursuing the extradinary beauty, Bill Cunningham, who always wears the same workman’s blue jacket and usually eats a $3 meal, lives an expensive life of freedom. 

Photos from: Zimbio

Bill Cunningham used to make hats in the 50's

Photos from: NYT

Run for the Roses

Queen Elizabeth at the Derby, 2007

Photo credit: Huffington Post

The royal wedding in England is not the only occasion for dramatic formal headwear. On the first Saturday of May, Louisville, Kentucky will be a city where everybody's head turns for the Derby, and, for the fancy hats.

In the early days of the Derby, to find a lady without a hat on would have been considered a fashion faux pas. The Southern tradition of the hats with flamboyant embellishments including ribbons, feathers, and floral arrangements is not just a fashion statement. The traditional wide brim provides a relief from the sun in the hot days of Kentucky.

Make a mint julep by mixing fine Kentucky Bourbon with sugar, water and some fresh mint, served over crushed ice in a tall glass; wear a fancy, if not gaudy, headwear, you are officially the mad hatter of Run for the Roses. 

Royal wedding watching

 

Easter coloring -- the colorer becomes the coloree