Coutorture

Fashion In 50 Seconds 08/31/09 The September Issue Box Office Hit, Versus is Back

FabSugar — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:52:02 -0700

The sweet box office success of The September Issue.

Versace to re-launch Versus with a ready-to-wear runway show at Milan fashion week.

Fashion priestess Carine Roitfeld talks personal style.

Olivier Theyskens gets literary with a book titled "Olivier Theyskens: The Other Side of the Picture."

Kate Moss - in the wax.

Paris Fashion Week: Nina Ricci Spring 2009

coutorture — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:09:43 -0800

Paris Fashion Week Nina Ricci Spring 2009 Photos by Eric Ryan

Olivier Theyskens Captures The Castle

coutorture — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 07:41:59 -0700

Delirious fluttering romance has never appealed much to us, which explains why we can't stand Jane Austen or expansive Edwardian romances, but we do love a knowing reinterpretation of the genre hence our affection for steam punk and Dodie Smith's dark commedic romance I Capture The Castle.

Olivier Theyskens too seems to share our desire to make something more of the magic of Edwardiana. But Nina Ricci's Spring 2009 collection isn't simply in the vein of over done gowns and dusty organza, there is deeper and more haunting history of Theyskens' work here. As in I Capture The Castle, many of the hallmarks of the romantic era are there, brooding beauties, gauzy flights of fancy, and yet there is a sense of decay and displacement as neither the collection nor the novel are in the proper timeline required to be taken at face value. The backdrop is right for romance but the time, place, and viewers are not. And therein lies the strength of the Spring 2009 collection. We have the woody colors, the billowing sleeves, and then we have bared legs ripping us out of any hoped for historical place holder.

If the construction were not so impeccable on the fly away dress panels connecting the hose we would wonder at a kind of deliberate deconstruction at work in order to show the legs in the midst of otherwise full gowns. It gives the sense of a tearing away at the original to create something new, not a simulacrum of an age gone by, but a sad renewed sense of the "now" even as the world (as is the case of Smith's protagonists in I Capture the Castle) moves on without them. Brooding, sad, and deeply romantic Theyskens' collection for Nina Ricci is hardly commercial enough to appeal to many. It doesn't veer enough to the side of authentic period romance to make sense to anyone that isn't just a little twisted in their own interpretations. We imagine Olivier Theyskens as something of Dodie Smith's Cassandra Mortmain, living between two worlds, a genius without any appropriate ending.

Fashion in 50 Seconds 8/29

coutorture — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:17:06 -0700

Nina Ricci has reopened its Paris store on Avenue Montaige after a 6th month renovation. Olivier Theyskens' new gray cozy interior has contributed to daily sales tallies roughly triple that of last year.

Short Starbucks lines seem like a good thing until you realize that no one is shopping. The deserted Vegas Starbucks is given as evidence that things are unusually subdued at Magic Marketplace

Japan Fashion Week, which runs September 1st through the 5th, is a challenge for Japanese designers.

Stefano Pilati faults Tom Ford for giving women what they want. We are torn on this opinion.

Sallie Underwood Baker, fashion collector, one cool broad, has passed away

Canadians need a little extra insulation to keep warm in their frigid winters. Or at least that is the sense we get considering the outcry over Quebec retailer La Maison's use of overly skinny models. The catalog has been recalled and everyone is happy again.

The Venice Film Festival debuted Valentino: The Last Emperor. While the title references the famed designers it is really about "the deeply rooted, inspirational and unique union between Valentino and Giammetti."