// Fade to #C5C5C5

是不是有点超低龄？Chanel resort campaign 2011

It was back in May when Chanel launched their Resort 2011 lookbook in Saint-Tropez. I have really been hesitating to post this entry. Does Georgia Jagger look a bit too young there? Feels a bit like a little girl stealing from her mum’s wardrobe and showing off…

Then later in a discussion with a fashion fellow, she shrugged—’isn’t that a Chanel thing?!’

‘What?’ I was confused.

‘Back in the 80s when my boss had to entertain Karl in HongKong, he particularly requested some young boys.’

‘How young?’

‘Like 12, 13.’

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Tags: Chanel, Georgia Jagger

Another Chanel

Last week I went for screening of the other Chanel movie —- ‘Coco & Igor’. Indeed a powerful movie that I felt even more powerful than ‘Coco Avant Chanel’, which was  wide released last year in UK. 2 Chanel movies were actually being film around similar time. But both team were really supportive to each other like one family. They would stand up for each other when unnecessary comments attacked both movies.

This movie opened up with moving snow-flake-and-arabian-like patterns and Coco was rushing to theatre after meeting her long-term lover ‘boy’. This scene was captured in ‘Coco Avant Chanel’ towards the end. She was about to experience the issonance of the score and the shocking choreography of ‘The Rite of Spring’ by Igor Stravinsky. It takes 7 years before they meet again in Paris – now Chanel is both rich and respected (and moaning for ‘boy’s accidental death), whereas Stravinsky is living in exile as a penniless refugee. There is an immediate powerful attraction and she decides to shelter Stravinsky, offering him her villa ‘Bel Respiro’ as a sanctuary for his composing, as Chanel herself begins creating the revolutionary iconic perfume No.5. Stravinsky moves in straight away, with his children and consumptive wife. And so a passionate, fiery love affair between two creative giants commence…

I felt the script and dialogue was very well considered and composed, they were short but full of psychological tricks. Here’re a few moments I’ve memorized and would like to share.

Moment 1:

After Coco and Igor re-met each other 7 years later, she made an appointment with him to meet in a museum and of course she was fashionably late… (don’t know how long) However, she walked in and laid her steady eye-attention on him. Nothing apologetic, she simply said ‘I Am Late’.

Moment 2:

She walked downstairs in the middle of night in a gorgeous silk night gown, floor length, embellished, with tiny button fastening around neck. She stared into Igor’s eyes quietly and unbuttoned gracefully and stood naked in front him…(only physical dialogue)

Moment 3:

Igor was playing piano in a ground-floor room and Chanel returned. She sat on him with her back against piano. Her skirt was lifted up showing white crochet stockings. The poor wife sitting in bed upstairs clearly noticed the piano has stopped, but could not come down to stop anything. I felt her pain, because she couldn’t do anything there. It would be even more painful situation if she physically saw. (again…only physical dialogue.)

Moment 4:

The poor wife decided to leave Igor and took all 4 children with her. At the door step of Chanel’s villa, her last word to Igor was ‘I love you’. The man didn’t return any word.

Moment 5:

After the wife’s departure, Igor saw Chanel in the garden and followed her into the woods. He wanted to kiss her and she pushed her out, once and twice…She had to refuse it. I know the woman must feel that she could predict everything from Igor and he became less interesting. He had eventually finished a masterpiece and felt exhausted and fell in bed in his dirty clothes. It was Chanel who called him up and put him into bath and later left a kiss on his forehead. I know, by that time, all Chanel could feel for Igor was caring and understanding. However the passion of love has not only slowly disappearing but also had to be forced to burry down after she read the last letter left on her bed by the wife. By this stage, it was actually the quiet wife who was seemingly weak and depended and a character completely opposite of Chanel, has finally won this moral fight. Yes, she is weak, ugly and unattractive and depended, but it somehow reminds me of a famous saying—-sometimes, the weakest power could be the strongest.

If Audrey Tautou has successfully portrayed a younger Chanel from beginning of her grand career, Anna Mouglalis  in the movie, has completely sculpted up a closest image of Chanel from later stage—–who is confident, cold, passionate and graceful. She has got a most smokey French voice. Mads Mikkelsen as Igor was also a very strong character. I’ve always loved him ever since the Bond Movie ‘Casino Royale’.

Overall, it’s a very artistic movie which has a perfect flow on language using. It has started in English but slowly changed into French and Russion with english subtitle. However you could barely feel tiring from reading the lines, because as I said above, all dialogue are considerably short and well composed. I couldn’t help but put a short a comments on Facebook that night—–a very French movie, lots of shagging and little conversation.

Tags: Anna Mouglalis, Audrey Tautou, Chanel, Coco & Igor, Mads Mikkelsen

Ready to be Beige for AW10?

Actually it seems like the word ‘beige’ is being completely avoided in the entire magazine world. Instead they are using the word ‘caramel’ to describe one of the hottest trends for AW2010.

Coat by Oasis…on UK Vogue August…

Wool Cardigan by Surface to Air in UK Vogue August…

Akris campaign for AW2010…UK Vogue August…

And here comes some images from my vintage magazine collection…

absolutely loving her long limps…black body-con hot-pants makes this ‘Caramel’ long-line Chanel cardigan so young and energetic! And this image is from Elle 1995, more than a decade agao!!

Then here is the gorgeous Lavin caramel man suit mixing with leopard print velvet trousers.

and love the red lipstick and car with caramel…

Tags: Akris, Chanel, Lavin, Oasis, UK Vogue

What’s in your bag? — vol.1

Right, so you could see from title when I set ‘vol.1′, you might sense that this would be/could be another regular feature. I had this idea many years ago when I read an article saying ‘handbag reflects women’s insecurity’. I think I sneered the topic then and it’s definitely difficult for me, an eleven year-old back then to understand how much women rely on their handbags. The article described a perfect example of a woman attending a dinner party (kind of more upper class social event type) carrying her hand bag with a book inside due to boredom may appear. And the second book in her bag is because she thought she might finish the first book at the Appetizer. Funny part is here, the third book she carried in her bag is due to —- ‘I might not enjoy the second one!!’

Now growing up I realize that I, like many female, without a handbag, feel absolutely naked! Still with the curiosity from childhood, I would like to dig in the scene of what handbag people would carry and their very own contents. Here I thank my colleague showing me her bag and to help me creating the very first entry of this topic.

I fell in love straight away with her bag since we first time met in January. She found her bag at Zara Sales on boxing day 2009 and had since held on it tight. It’s in a mid grey soft leather with wooden handle and a practical shoulder strap.

Most interesting thing caught my attention is a set of 3D playing card with different cats images. She’s a cat lover and enjoys playing card in the old man pub near where she lives. The cards are part of Christmas presents from her boyfriend (how sweet and thoughtful, all boyfriends take note here!)——-Rose Drops, random sweet given by BoyF for no reason because she loves rose.——-Prada Perfume No.3 Cuir Ambre 30ml——-Wallet by Amy Morris for Sara Berman.

Pink Mac Lipstick amplified / Elizabeth Arden 8 hours cream / Chanel Pressed Powder, she got from Selfridges because it was a shit day and needed something special to cheer up!

White 16G iPhone. She loves blogging and eBaying, but confessed to be a lazy iPhone user as only downloaded 1 App so far (which she hopes it’s growing slowly). But she got lots of music and currently listening to Florence + Machine and The History of Blues.

Luella CatsEye Sunglasses / Pens & 2GB USB Keys, she’s a designer as you could guess now / Turban for rainy day as she doesn’t like umbrella and hat. / Paracetamol, her quotes ‘need it’ just in case!!

Alexander McQueen Scarf, a birthday present from BoyF and surprisingly selected by himself after McQueen’s tragic news as he wants her to have something collectable of McQueen’s (all BoyF take note here again!!)——-’The Book of Other People’ edited by Zadie Smith——-Red Moleskine Notebook in which she got lots of random beads (a total designer thing)

And of course she got house keys plus bike lock keys, a little lucky cat from a Tokyo trip and this little metal house charm which turns out to be a tape measure!

–’How long do you intend to use this bag?’

‘I’m going to use it not until I’m bored of it, but until it breaks and falls apart!’

That’s how much she loves it.

And so do I !

Tags: Amy Morris, Chanel, Elizabeth Arden, iPhone, Luella, MAC, Moleskine, prada, Sara Berman, Zadie Smith, Zara

Fashion windows: Barcelona March 2010

A few days back Qing and I were talking about adding some regular features here – one of the ideas we both agreed on was posting pictures of interesting shop windows. I’ve always been fascinated by visual merchandising and how designers present their creations to customers – both in the shop and in the shop windows. As a fashion student I used to go on excursions to New Bond Street, Selfridges and Sloane Street to snap pictures of the shop windows. The pictures I would save in my sketch books for inspiration.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Barcelona, and here’s a few snaps I took of some of the designer shop windows around Passeig de Gràcia.

Trussardi

More pictures after the cut

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Tags: Burberry, Chanel, Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, Trussardi

Marchesa Casati – A dash of eccentricity

Earlier we’ve blogged about how art inspires fashion, but how about when the artistic inspiration is a person – a muse? One such person, the Marchesa Luisa Casati, has inspired many writers, painters and also fashion designers .

The Marchesa was born into a wealthy Austrian-Italian family in Milan in 1881. A patron of coutouriers such as Paul Poiret, Mariano Fortuny and Erté and jewellers like Lalique, Casati astonished European society for the first three decades of the 20th century with her eccentric personality and outrageous style. In his autobiography Erté described her as the “the most extravagantly odd woman I have ever met”. She would wear living snakes as jewellery, throw parties where her servants were covered in leafed gold from top to toe and parade her pet cheetahs around in Venice on leashes covered with gold and diamonds whilst wearing nothing but a fur coat. Her hair was a dyed a deep henna red, her skin powdered pale white and her eyes heavily kohled.

The Marchesa painted by Augustus John to the left. Carina Roitfeld as Casati, photographed by Karl Lagerfeld.

More after the jump

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Tags: Carine Roitfeld, Chanel, Christian Dior, Couture, Giorgio Armani, John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld, Marchesa Luisa Casati, muses, Tilda Swinton, Tom Ford, Yves Saint Laurent

Favourite Part of a Female

No…not a question from Dr.Hannibal, but when you look at a female, which part would you notice first.

Many people would say eyes as they are said ‘the window to heart’, how much can you see a person from looking into the eyes. Christian Dior’s least favourtie part on a femal is actual the knees. And that is the reason he always had all his skirt length to be ‘just over the knee’. He obviously quite prefer the female waist and therefore invent the ‘new look’ with cinched in waistline. However, Coco Chanel thinks that was a backwards move since she freed women’s body from corset by dressing them in cotton jersey which is at the time a common material for mens underwear.

I personally favour John Galliano’s choice, the back view of a female. It could speak so much attitude with a simple back view. Johnny Depp admits when he first time saw that beautiful female back in a Paris hotel lobby, he knew he had found the one—Vanessa Paradis.

And that’s why so many designers are focusing details on the back. Australian designer Willow had this quite cleverly done on a ready-to-wear day & night dress.

It’s romantic, yes it’s powerful too.

Tags: Chanel, Christian Dior, John Galliano, Johnny Depp, Vanessa Paradis

Fashionomics

The past three months have been insanely busy, so I haven’t had the opportunity to post much. However, I have been writing a few drafts in this period that I will try to wrap up and post in the coming few days. First one up – Fashionomics!

There’s an economic theory that says that hemlines rise in good economic times and drop in poor times. If one was to judge by the hemlines at some of the fashion show weeks this season, the economy is definitely skyrocketing next year and the recession will finally be over.

Yulia Kharlaponova in Lanvin.

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Tags: anja rubin, Chanel, ginta lapina, lanvin, lisanne de jong, prada, proenza schouler, spring/summer 2010, versace, yulia kharlaponova

Must-see frockumentaries

Maybe it’s because of all the recent hype surrounding The September Issue, Valentino: The Last Emperror and The Day Before, but as of lately I have a new addiction – watching fashion documentaries.  What I love about documentaries like the ones listed below is that you get to see what things are really like behind the scenes. You get an insight into how the designers work and what inspires them. Here’s a few of my favourites from YouTube:

BBC: The Secret World of Haute Couture >> Playlist

Loïc Prigent: Signe Chanel >> Playlist (episode 1 – 5)

Loïc Prigent: Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton >> Part 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09

Masters of style: John Galliano >> Playlist

Vivienne Westwood >> Part 01 | 02

Yves Saint Laurent >> Part 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06

Although I do like to watch fashion reality shows and find them entertaining, I find it kind of sad that a lot of people seem to think that reality shows like Project Runway is what fashion is really all about.  As Loïc Prigent told Maya Singer in a recent interview:

I’ve seen a little bit of these reality shows, and whatever they’re about, they’re not about fashion. Competition, making fun of people, but not fashion. It’s very hard to convince people to do a real fashion show— there’s a prejudice against fashion people in TV, even in France.

I really hope that the recent popularity of the fashion documentary genre will help change this and that people realise that there’s more to fashion than creating dresses out of chocolate wrappers (heads up to Hershey’s for the great PR effort though!).

Photo source: NY Magazine/Christopher Anderson

Tags: Chanel, Haute Couture, John Galliano, Loïc Prigent, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, vivienne westwood, Yves Saint Laurent