Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, partners with Hermes in a limited edition silk scarf collection.
This past Monday (April 9th), Belgian designer Raf Simons was named Artistic Director of Christian Dior, succeeding Galliano as the chief designer. Galliano was dismissed from Dior in late February of last year, after being convicted of anti-Semitism.
The new Artistic Director studied industrial design and began his career as a furniture designer. His first menswear collection showed in Milan in 1995, under his own name. He started designing womenswear collections in 2004. And in 2008, he expanded his collections to include accessories. As Chief Designer at Dior, Simon is responsible for Haute Couture, Ready-to-Wear, and Women’s Accessories. Simon is known for his innovative, minimalist designs at Jil Sander, and he is associated with launching the bright color trend.
In an interview with The New York Times, Simon discussed his excitement about designing his first collection at Dior: ‘Of course, I haven’t been in the archives yet, but for me the strongest impact is the first 10 years of Dior and how to link that to the 21st century. Mr Dior was very innovative during a short time span. And it was in the middle of the 20th century, a period I am very interested in, whether it’s linked to fashion, architecture or art. So I find it very challenging to rethink couture.’
Simons’ first collection at Dior will premier as soon as this upcoming July, during Paris Fashion Week.
For those of you who aren’t aware, I’ve been doing an internship all semester long at Anthropologie, Rockefeller Center. I wanted to take this opportunity to share what we (the visuals team) have been working on recently.
At Anthropologie, its time for the annual Earth Day inspired windows. This year, the company is partnering with the Wyland Foundation to raise awareness of the decaying health of our oceans. It is estimated that over the next thirty years, sixty percent of coral reefs are suspected to either vanish, or suffer irreparable damage.
This year the window displays were constructed from all recyclable materials including: cardboard, bottle caps, styrofoam, wood, skewers, tooth picks, and light bulbs. It has been a long process, and has required the effort of the entire visuals team to complete. Also in honor of Earth Day, our store is having a huge volunteer event where associates can spend Saturday, April 21st cleaning up two local beaches. I’m very excited for the volunteer event.
Overall, I feel incredibly lucky to have obtained an internship at the company flagship store. I work with the best of the best display coordinators and merchandisers. I was lucky enough to work on many different aspects of the Earth Day windows. Our windows are already attracting attention. We had a visit from a professional photographer last week who works for DDI. Our windows are going to be featured in an upcoming issue of the retail industry news magazine.
Everyone, if you are at all interested in visual merchandising, please take a few minutes to stop by Rockefeller Center and check out our windows!
Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, partners with Hermes in a limited edition silk scarf collection.
I consider Hermes to be the number one luxury brand for multiple reasons: the first being that Hermes has remained a family owned corporation throughout the ages. Unlike LVMH and PPR Luxury Group, which are controlled by business executives seeking to take over and exploit the most marketable luxury fashion brands in order to make a profit, Hermes has remained a family owned brand.
Another great aspect of the company is the Hermes production strategy. Hermes produces the vast majority of their products in-house in order to control production and ensure quality standards. Unlike the hand-made products of the past, many of today’s most sought after products are produced in third world countries where labor and production costs are cheaper. This has resulted in a significant reduction in quality, and also an increase in mass production throughout the fashion industry. Another quality of Hermes that sets the company apart from other luxury brands is their growth strategy. The Hermes family has continued to control the majority of stock ownership in the company. The company strives for steady, organic growth based on classic product offerings. Hermes has avoided infiltrating new markets through franchises, and has maintained company ownership of retail boutiques. Mimi Tompkins of U.S. News & World Report referred to Hermes as “one of Paris’ best guarded jewels.”
Over time, Hermes has continued to differentiate itself from other luxury brand tycoons. Limited edition collaborations with the fine arts realm serve as a was for Hermes to cater to a rich niche market which still holds high quality as the number one value when shopping for new products. One can tell that Hermes is the greatest of the luxury brands simply by looking at the characteristics of luxury: Hermes products are rare, and of the upmost quality.
Hermes: Collaboration of Fashion and Art
While sitting in a cozy coffee shop on 14th Street and enjoying a cinnamon spice latte, I stumbled upon a photograph of Violaine Bernard, Fashion Director at VELOUR Magazine. To be entirely honest, I’ve never browsed through the pages of a copy of VELOUR, or heard the name ‘Violaine Bernard,’ but after seeing this image I was instantly inspired to learn more.
As it turns out, VELOUR is a British magazine, with a passion for photography and images. The magazine features content on fashion, photography, film, music, people, and lifestyle. VELOUR online resembles that of a blog. Posts read from top to bottom: title, author, and date of submission, followed by a large image accompanied with a caption or article. I love the style of the website. It is very in-tune with the increasing popularity of blogging and social media. One interesting thing I saw during my research was that a subscription to VELOUR only includes two issues. I can only assume that each issue includes both beautiful images and articles with great content.
After a while spent perusing the internet, it was quite a challenge to find biographical information on Bernard. However, she did come up in many online articles. Bloggers appear to love Bernard, as she is featured in many street style blogs simply due to the way she puts her outfits together. Bernard has been the Fashion Director at VELOUR since April of 2010, after Jason Wu. I completely admire her style and would love the opportunity to learn more about her position at VELOUR. I would like to attempt to contact her for an interview, but I feel it may be overly ambitious. It can’t hurt to try, right? - “Only those risking to go far will ever know how far they can go.”
(Source: fashiondragon, via megangooch)
There was a lot to be admired on the Red Carpet this year.
Michelle Williams looked stunning in a burnt orange Louis Vuitton gown. She’s one of my favorite celebrity personalities and I always love her Red Carpet choices. Her brooch and choker necklace were perfect accents to her strapless dress, and provided the right amount of sparkle. Overall, she looked incredibly elegant, and unforgettable.
Sandra Bullock was also a favorite this year, wearing a black and white backless Marchesa gown with jewels at the waist and shoulders. She is completely stunning at age 47.
In my opinion, the worst-dressed actress to walk the Red Carpet was Viola Davis in a floor-length, bright green Vera Wang gown reminiscent of a bad prom dress. Both the cut of the bust line, and the rhinestone detailing combined to create an extremely unflattering strapless bodice. The bottom of the dress is a combination of pleats and ruffles that looked messy and unfinished. I felt disappointed to see such a beautiful actress in an unflattering dress.
One event I can’t leave out was Sacha Baron Cohen’s disgraceful interview with Ryan Seacrest. Cohen described his military attire, and then proceeded to dump an urn’s worth of “ashes,” or pancake mix, all over Ryan’s suit. The event was definitely a distraction, and Ryan struggled to keep his composure during the interviews immediately following the event.
Oscar Fashion
BTS photo from the Nicki Cozzolino show!
For this week’s blog post, I wanted to share my experience volunteering for Fashion Week. In a blog post earlier this month, I spoke about participating in a model pre-casting for 3VPR and really enjoying the experience.
Last Saturday I received a call from Emily, an employee of 3V, asking if I was free on Monday evening to help out with the Nicki Cozzolino AW 2012 runway show. Of course I replied: “yes, I would love to help.” On Monday I went straight from my internship to the venue for the show, located at 80 Essex Street, Manhattan. My job title was Backstage Assistant/Photographer, and my responsibilities were to assist the Backstage Manager with anything she needed until the start of the show, and also take behind the scenes photographs and photograph during the runway show. From the time I arrived until the start of the show, I took pictures, checked in models, contacted modeling agencies inquiring about missing models, and assisted the Backstage Manager in prepping the space and other volunteers. The show started around 8pm, and I got some amazing pictures of the runway and models. Nicki’s collection was beautiful and I felt lucky to be able to meet her in person and participate in her show. Overall I think the experience has taught me a lot about Fashion Show Productions, and I’ve discovered it may be a field I want to pursue in my career.
Nicki Cozzolino AW 2012 Runway Show
