coutorture --

Five Key Fall Trends: Shape Up

coutorture — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:27:38 -0700

One of our favorite trends from Fall 08 is the body con/exaggerated silhouette trend that we've titled 'Shape Up' for today's shoot. Shape Up is by far the most notable trend from the Fall 08 shows. Designers articulated this trend by skimming the body with razor-like precision or by exaggerating the silhouette to comment on the landscape of the body. Whichever direction they went, the physical form was at the forefront of their minds. From Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Jonathan Saunders, Miu Miu, and of course, Balenciaga, Fall 08 saw the female form (and not florals nor lace--though there was plenty of that, wasn't there?) take center stage. For our purposes we created two looks which articulate the trend.

The modern look called up a pair of Marc by Marc Trousers we'd written about in a while back in an immaterial post. Though there are options galore when it comes to parachute trousers, we thought these appropriately priced and nicely tailored. On top a Harlan Bel blouse tucked everything in to a tailored point (we first discovered Harlan Bel back when we shot our La Belle Dame sans Merci editorial). On the vintage side of things we couldn't really go wrong with a vintage Dior jacket from Zachary's Smile. The cuffed bell sleeve on this jacket inspired many a Fall 08 daydream in our mind. So nicely does it display the Shape Up vantage point.

Below, check out a spread of our favorite pieces from this trend and, below that, a trend gallery from the Fall 08 shows with every sort of Shape Up frock and trouser you can imagine.

Balenciaga Goes E-Commerce

coutorture — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:24:36 -0700

Strap on your padded helmet, Balenciaga's online shop launched late last week. As usual, the bells and whistles are distracting enough to give an innocent online shopper a seizure at their cubicle. This is what troubles us about the big name e-commerce ventures: if someone is going to buy a $2,300 dollar bag, they (or their personal shopper) probably wants to make the transaction in relative peace. That is, if you're slapping down your cc info, you don't want four thousand screens flashing and zipping and flipping all over the place. You want a shopping cart and a 'Thank You' screen (be it a chic one). When we tested this out to make sure we really felt this way about the online shopping process, we noticed another, uh, small detail. Namely, the prices.

On the Balenciaga website, the Maillon bag (our favorite) is $2,295 and on Bluefly, $1,596. Oh, you know, that's only about a one thousand dollar discrepancy. Without the sale, Bluefly still retailed the bag for $1,999 so it's basically the difference between a 2.25% markup and a 2.5% markup. Yes, Bluefly is a horribly unattractive website. Yes, the images on the Balenciaga site make the bag seem like it's actually worth the money. But, no, we do not understand how someone can be savvy enough to buy their designer handbag on the internet and yet not notice this vast pricing discrepancy. Although Balenciaga offers the full range of handbags, and the boutique e-commerce sites do not, there are still these issues. In the end, it's entirely possible that Balenciaga just doesn't give a damn.