// Fade to #C5C5C5 » Yves Saint Laurent

Black Swan

awais — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:35:30 +0000

Thanks to my friend John (who is finally taking his first baby steps into the world of blogs), I recently had the opportunity to attend a press screening of the Black Swan, courtesy of the lovely people at L’Oréal and Yves Saint Laurent’s fragrance La Nuit de l’Homme. What’s the connection between the fragrance and the movie, you ask? Well, there’s a several. The movie’s male lead is played by none other than French actor Vincent Cassel, who also happens to be the face of YSL’s new campaign for La Nuit de l’Homme.

Some might recall that this isn’t the first time he is fronting a campaign for the maison’s best selling fragrance; he also fronted their campaign in 2009. Very well, another connection with the movie is that the TV commercial for the fragrance was shot by none other than Darren Aronofsky – the director of Black Swan.

The perfume is spicy and masculine, but at the same time very sensual with notes of bergamot, cedar and lavender. It is definitely one of my all-time favourite men’s fragrances and I’m currently on my third bottle!

The movie itself was amazing. Not only was the story really captivating, but all the imagery surrounding it was beautiful as well. The fantastic ballerina costumes by Rodarte, or the amazing makeup by M.A.C. should be reason enough for any fashionista to want to see it. Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel and Winona Ryder all delivered amazing performances in the movie. I think this might be Natalie’s strongest role till date, and if she doesn’t get an Oscar for this role, there just is no justice!

Marchesa Casati – A dash of eccentricity

awais — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:45:22 +0000

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

She wasn’t only an inspiration to her contemporaries, more than 50 years after her death she still continues to inspires artists and fashion designers alike. In 2003 the New Yorker wrote an article about the Marchesa. The photograph of Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld dressed as Casati was taken by none other than Karl Lagerfeld. The article also featured sketches by Lagerfeld inspired by Luisa Casati.

Chanel resort collection 2010

The Marchesa also seems to have been one of the main inspirations for Lagerfeld’s resort collection for Chanel 2010. The show was held in Venice, a place which was home to Casati for a large part of her life. The models’ hair and makeup was clearly inspired by her signature look.

Another designer who cites the Marchesa as a major influence is John Galliano. His extravagant haute couture show for Dior in 1998 was inspired by her and cost 2 million dollars to stage. The show was held at Opéra Garnier in Paris and the setting was inspired by the Marchesa’s lavish soirées.

Galliano for Dior Couture 1998

Galliano was also inspired by Casati when he launched his debut fragrance in 2008. The design of the flasque is inspired by this portrait of Casati, painted by Giovanni Baldini.

For his autumn/winter 2004/05 collection, which was named ”a dash of eccentricity”, Armani named Visconti’s movie The Damned, La Belle Époque and the Marchesa as his main influences.

Armani autumn/winter 2004/05

She was also the main inspiration behind Tom Ford’s spring/summer 2004 collection for Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche.

Yves Saint Laurent, spring/summer 2004

The Marchesa is also the theme of a recent editorial shoot in Acne Paper’s fall/winter issue. The shoot features Tilda Swinton and was shot by Paolo Roversi.

Tilda Swinton as the Marchesa in the autumn/winter 2009 number of Acne Paper

Casati was once quoted saying “I want to be a living work of art”. Throughout her life, she tried to commision her own immortality by patronizing some of the biggest artists of her time. When looking back at how she still manages to inspire people to this day, I would say that her quest was successful.

Photo sources: Vogue/Style.com, Acne Paper, Chanel, The New Yorker

Must-see frockumentaries

awais — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:27:46 +0000

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 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07

CNN: Carine Roitfeld Revealed 01 | 02 | 03

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

Art-inspired fashion

awais — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:04:06 +0000

Earlier this summer I was watching the video of La Roux’s Bulletproof and in the video she is wearing a Mondrian-inspired jacket by Jean-Charles de Castalbajac.

The fact that designers often take inspiration from art is hardly anything new, but what I find really fascinating is how different designers’ interpretation of the same piece of art can be. The brief for one of the first projects I did when I was in fashion school was to design an outfit inspired by an art piece. I remember chosing Mondrian’s iconic grid-based paintings and drawing a white skirt and jacket with black lines – it looked like a butchered version of Yves Saint Laurent’s iconic Mondrian dress from 1964.

Designers taking inspiration from art is hardly anything new. One thing I find really fascinating though is how different the outcome of different people’s interpretation of the same piece of art can be. One of the most famous examples of “fashion-inspired-by-art” is probably Yves Saint Laurent’s day dress from 1965 inspired by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s work. Earlier this summer I was watching the video of La Roux’s Bulletproof and in the video she is wearing another nice Mondrian-inspired piece – a jacket from Jean-Charles de Castalbajac‘s Spring/Summer 2009 collection.

One of my favourite Mondrian-inspired collections though, has to be Norwegian design duo Batlak & Selvig‘s spring/summer 2009-collection. Click >> here for a video of the fashion show which was held at Galleri Riis in Oslo in August 2008.

For those interested in reading more about Mondrian-inspired fashion, please check out this blog post by John Coulthart. In the post he also links to another great blog post on this topic by Couture Allure.

Photo source: Galleri Riis