In the midst of colourful Christmas-time shops overflowing with decorations, each window of Stephen Jones' millinery salon in Covent Garden displays only two hats against white background. In the left window sits a ladies headpiece made of what is best described as cerulean blue leafs reaching up to the sky. It's so extraordinary that even ... Read more
Emilio Pucci dress, 1968 Back in March I visited the Diana Vreeland After Diana Vreeland exhibition at Museo Fortuny in Venice, Italy. It was the day after the opening that was accompanied by an international symposium on Diana Vreeland, bringing to Venice notable scholars, curators and other fashion people I felt I should have recognized ... Read more
With last week's news of Anna Dello Russo designing an accessories collection for H&M and revival of the brand Elsa Schiaparelli, I've been asking myself what is rotten in the fashion industry that the most exciting designers seem to be non-designers and dead designers. Anna Dello Russo for H&M I. When the press release announcing ... Read more
Clockwise: ice-cream sundae shoes, meat shoes, red-bean rice shoes. Before Lady Gaga's meat dress, there were Tokio Kumagai's meat shoes. Shoe designer Tokio Kumagai first produced his Shoes to eat (Taberu kutsu) series in 1982, reviving Elsa Schiaparelli's trompe l'oeil technique from the 1930s. As the title would suggest, the shoes were not edible. Kumagai ... Read more
Elsa Schiaparelli designs, 1934 I've always admired Elsa Schiaparelli's ability to transform the quotidian into the quirky. Looking at her designs in the time of Lady Gaga and the ever-present need to shock and be shocked, they might not seem as off the hook as they once had, but they definitely haven't lost their charm. ... Read more