My first piece of Artwear by Darousso

In the afternoon the doorbell rang and the postman delivered me a package from Greece. It was well packed and I wanted to open it very careful.

When I opened the box in the brown paper a yellow box with a blue string appeared and a small card was attached.

The yellow box with a blue string and a lovely card

Opening the card, I read a very kind message by Dusanka Duric.

I met Dusanka in 2008 in Athens when I just started photographing as professional. Now Dusanka has launched her own brand and I am proud of her. Because she doesn't design just great pieces but she also cares for the environment. Her Artwear collection is zero-waste, which means creating environmentally friendly fashion without creating waste.
Each piece of her Artwear collection is unique as it is hand painted, there aren't two exactly the same!

A sneak preview

For those who can't wait reading more about her Artwear collection visit Darousso.com!

Sleek & Proud presents Lady of Legacy @ Le Bar Bodega

Fashion label Sleek & Proud presents its Lady of Legacy collection at Le Bar Bodega in the center of Athens. In collaboration with Hair Designer Minos it promises to be an unique event at March the31st, at 9:00 p.m!

Le Bar Bodega is an all time classic spot, with a history of 32 years, and has always been Avant Garde. Le Bar Bodega is pleased to host a presentation of transformable female clothes under the title 'Lady of Legacy' by SLEEK & PROUD.
The series is inspired by the Samurai Tomoe Gozen woman.

Source: Pinterest Kim Fujiwara

"Tomoe was especially beautiful, with white skin, long hair, and charming features. She was also a remarkably strong archer, and as a swordswoman she was a warrior worth a thousand, ready to confront a demon or a god, mounted or on foot. She handled unbroken horses with superb skill; she rode unscathed down perilous descents. Whenever a battle was imminent, Yoshinaka sent her out as his first captain, equipped with strong armor, an oversized sword, and a mighty bow; and she performed more deeds of valor than any of his other warriors." 

The Tale of the Heike (Source: Wikipedia)

The designer behind the fashion label is Constance Puyt, since a little girl she is designing clothing, got educated in fashion and loves her designs to be comfortable and chic, her designs are transformable and pieces of art, always inspired by Japanese art. Her pieces of art can be worn in different ways. See her design on her Facebook page.

The hair designer Minos, will complete the look, with his unique hair styling.
He has put some interesting questions and on Thursday you will find the answers to it!
How could a sophisticated and comfortable garment be designed in such a way as to be able to transform itself, creating different looks ?
How this everlasting dress can be customized to each and every woman's desire and appearance aiming to improve her psychology ?
How does it begin with the use of systemic psychology, resulting to an architectural design or even music ?
Hair designer Minos claimed: "the only dress a woman owns for ever is her hair! "

Due to a limited amount of seats please make your reservation by a personal message on the Facebookpage of the event.

Gigi Hadid by Patrick Demarchelier for Vogue

Patrick Demarchelier captured Gigi Hadid and Lily Aldridge for the editorial 'Leader of the pack' for the April 2016 issue of the American Vogue.

I love the motion in the photos. And the hairstyling by Duffy is great!

Source: Vogue

Lara Stone by Mario Testino for Vogue

Lara Stone, David Genat, Jordan, Louis and Zac Stenmark are captured by Marion Testino for the cover of the April 2016 issue of Vogue Australia.

Mario Testino was invited by Vogue Australia to guest-edit the April 2016 issue. It was his first time in Australia but for sure not his last one! He captured editorials in several wonderful places, it isn't just promotion for the clothing but also for the great country.

Just a glimpse of the many editorials Mario Testino did for the April 2016 issue! To see them all: get the issue!

Go Behind-the-scenes with Mario Testino and his crew as they create the guest-edited April 2016 issue of Vogue Australia.

See Mario Testino bring to life the guest-edited April 2016 issue of Vogue Australia with the help of Lara Stone, Jess Hart, Jordan, Zac and Louis Stenmark.

19th AXDW announces its program

The international Fashion Week of Athens, Athens Xclusive Designers Week announces with great pleasure the participating designers and the fashion brands from Greece and abroad that will present their collections for the season Fall/ Winter 2016-2017, from the 8th until the 11th of April, at the Conference Center of Ethniki Asfalistiki.

Twenty five fashion shows by well-known fashion brands & designers and upcoming designers,   showrooms full of accessories, design competitions, live DJ's and the  New Designers Awards are part of the 19th Athens Fashion Week.

The catwalk of 19th AXDW will welcome: .LAK Lakis Gavalas, Celebrity Skin, Funky Buddhα, Gio Sourgiadakis, Jaroszewska, Kathy Heyndels, Makis Tselios, Notis Panagiotou, Panos Apergis, Tassos Mitropoulos and TOPSHOP by Sotris.

As a tradition on the Sunday of Athens Xclusive Designers Week new designers will present their collections for F/W 2016-2017 by participating in the established institution of New Designers Awards, which 10 years now promotes and rewards young talents: Andry Anastasiou, AthensFashionClub Fashion School, Chloe Moumbaris, Chris & Tonia, Christina Teligiannidou, Euphrosyne Vlassi, Fotini LGK, Joy Koumentakou I madebyjk, Maria Vytinidou Luxury Handwoven Design Brand, Marω Martzh, MK by Marios, Penelope Demetriou, TLΓΔ, Valia Kaσtrouny,

The 19th AXDW accommodates for one more season interesting side events for all days of the fashion week that will impress the guests:

• Xclusive Elements: AXDW, faithful to its vision to promote the maximum of Greek creativity, presents also this season the Xclusive Elements, a specially designed installation for Greek fashion accessories creators, that they will have the opportunity to present representative items of their collections, and associate with the media and the buying public of AXDW! 
• Fashion Design Project: Everyone who believes that has talent in design can take part in the open design competition Fashion Design Project, regardless of profession and studies and compete for a place in Young Designers of next event, by «winning» the votes of public through the open online voting. So as to take part, the candidates can find more information on www.axdw.gr, in the tab Fashion Design Project.

It seems to be a great and fashion event! So save the dates!

Claudia Danna Fall-Winter 2016-2017

Claudia Danna presents her 'Involution to the Comfort Zone' collection for fall-winter 2016-2017.
The world of Claudia Danna is ephemeral, experimental, introspective and beyond the common standards of beauty.

The concept of the 'Involution to the Comfort Zone' is about a defensive mental function, about the escape backwards to a comfortable dimension: an ideal childhood, where you can feel safe from adversity. These ideas are materially translated in Claudia's collection.

The color choices are expressed through the pastel palettes of face powder, cornflower blue and camel, that collide with the intense blue and brown shades, until the hot mustard, bright as the space white.

Spongy, soft and enveloping fabrics, microfiber, bouclé texture, shaved fur, chenille velvet and rough crêpe are used. All to give the collection a solid, liquid and aeriform look.

About Claudia Danna

Everything began in an old embroidery lab, in the heart of Rome. The learning of the ancient techniques of embroidery was an essential starting point to experiment and create a unique product, applying the traditional handcrafted “Made in Italy” on innovative surfaces.

Forms and volumes are inspired by the avant-garde and, at the same time, by ancestral ideas, archetypes and symbols. The concept of temporary is the protagonist. Every collection represents a fragment of an evolutionary process. In the same way, the fabrics and the construction of the clothes constantly change, just as human mind and body do.

Source: press release

Make Up becomes art @ Kiko Milano

With the limited edition collection The Artist, make-up becomes art at Kiko Milano.

Kiko Milano: "Τhe brush strokes of a young painter convey the splendor of a whimsical and spirited femininity. Make-up takes the stage with the right tools to create perspectives of beauty that are outside of the box. The skin is smooth and radiant, while the look is a masterpiece of expression. The lips come to the forefront, lit up by brightly-coloured lipstick. The video interprets the creative look of The Artist. Don’t just be a bystander: dare to take part in the experimentation. The moment to express your beauty like a fine art has arrived!"

For more information visit Kiko Milano.

CATWALK in Amsterdam

Sunday I had the pleasure to visit the exhibition CATWALK at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I was invited by ING to visit it and to listen to Carien Kanters.

The exhibition shows 80 garments, from the 17th century until 1960 and is divided in 6 rooms.

The first room is about children's clothing. Until the end of the 19th century children from the age of 6 years old had to wear a stays or a corset. For boys it was fashionable to have narrow shoulders and a swayback so the jackets were tailored like that, boys grew up with this ideal image in stays.
Broad shoulders were for the workers, for the well-off not a desirable icon.

The sailor suit on display is the only exception, it is of jersey and no stays. A first comfortable garment for children of the rich people.

In the second room gowns by family of Oranje-Nassau are on display including the underpants of Hendrik Casimir I, earl of Nassau Dietz (1612-1640).

According to history Willem III wore an impressive purple gown with embroidery, inspired by a kimono, but we see a beige one.

So maybe it wasn't the famous gown, but with today's techniques it was proven that the colour was bright purple. It was dyed with Logwood, a natural dye and very sensitive to light so the purple faded.

In the third room it is all about the 20th century. Dancing dresses or flapper dresses of the twenties, a jacket of baby-corduroy, made for the mother of the bride of curtains just after the second world war. The black dress by Balenciaga of taffeta (1951), probably a copy from the original but made according the pattern and couture techniques. The instructions were send to the seamstress and she created it in the Netherlands. Each dress has its own story and Carien Kanters told us all about it, wanting us to hear more an more about the details and the gossips!

And you can sit front row looking at the dresses as they passes by! Like a real catwalk!

Corsages are made by silk velvet flowers, this one has a bunch of 67 grapes, made of little hollow glass balls coloured with paste.

Room 4 is the road to freedom. Women left the corsets, shortened the dresses and had a choice.
The masks refers to a play women had to participate with dresses with wide hips, low necklines with lace edges. As the ankle was the most sexy part of a women's body it had to be covered.

It shows gowns from 1625 until the well-known dress of Yves Saint Laurent, inspired by Mondriaan.

In room 5 I am impressed by the paper wigs of the mannequins, this room is all about the silhouettes.

In room 6 all eyes are going to the mantua dress with train. The 22 year old Helena Slicher married Baron Aelbrecht van Slingelandt in the dress on the 4th of September 1759. Spanning more than 2 metres, making it the widest dress in the Netherlands.
The embroidery of the flowers on the dress are a bit old fashioned in 1759, but the sleeve with three ruffles was all the rage then. The dress has its volume by hoops under the skirt and were called panniers a codes (elbow panniers).

And I couldn't resist being photographed with it!

Carien Kanters reading was very interesting and I just shared a few details but she is also giving guided tours through the exhibition. For more information visit Rijksmuseum.nl.
For everyone interested in fashion, this exhibition is worth visiting I advise you not to choose a Sunday as it is very busy! Until the 15th of May the gowns are on display!
See also my post on Behind the Scenes of the exhibition and for more photos Patricia Reports.

And a big thank you to ING for the invitation and hospitality!

Behind the scenes @ CATWALK Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Today I visited the exhibition CATWALK at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Impressed by the wonderful dresses, created with care and workmanship I will publish in my next post a summary of the reading of CATWALK by Carien Kanters but let us have a look at the behind the scenes of the exhibition.

 

The photos of my visit you can see on Patricia Reports.

Fashion Forward: 3 Centuries of Fashion

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its fashion collection from April 7 to August 14, 2016.

Christian Dior, evening dress “May”, Haute couture, spring-summer 1953, photo by Jean Tholance

In doing so the museum is responding to their public’s strongly expressed desire to at last be shown an all-embracing panorama of fashion history over several centuries. It is also an unique opportunity to see on showcase the jewels and highlights of the particularities of a national fashion and textiles collection curated in full dialogue with the other departments of a museum dedicated to all the decorative arts.

The ‟Fashion Forward, 3 Centuries of Fashion (1715-2016)” exhibition will bring together 300 items of men’s, women’s and children’s fashion from the 18th century to today, selected from the museum’s collections to provide a novel chronological overview.

Charles Frederick Worth, evening gown, around 1885, Photo by Jean Tholance

The Arts Décoratifs fashion collection now comprises more than 150,000 works, ranging from ancient textiles to haute couture creations and emblematic silhouettes of ready-to-wear fashion, but also including accessories, major collections of drawings and photographs, and the archives of iconic creators such as Elsa Schiaparelli, Madeleine Vionnet and Cristobal Balenciaga.

Now France’s foremost national collection, it is the result of the amalgamation of two admirable collections, that of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs since its creation in 1864, and that of the Union Française des Arts du Costume (UFAC), founded in 1948 and currently presided by Pierre Bergé, of which the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is the proud custodian.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Musée des Arts de la Mode, founded in 1986 on the initiative of Pierre Bergé and the French textile industry with the support of Jack Lang, then culture minister, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is paying tribute to this collective adventure and great ‟fashion moment”. The ‟Fashion Forward, Three Centuries of Fashion” exhibition, casts a new spotlight on one of the richest collections in the world, freed from its display cases in the Fashion galleries to be shown for the first time in the museum’s Nave.

The three hundred pieces, selected from a collection constantly enriched by donations and acquisitions, take us on a journey through time, highlighting the key moments in fashion history from the very late 17th century to the most contemporary creation. Freeing itself from the dictates of the conservation of works and the stringent conditions of their display, the exhibition is conceived as an ideal museum of fashion, featuring the finest examples of three centuries of creation habitually illustrated in reference books. It also provides a fascinating new insight into fashion’s evolution via its designers, clients and periods, because now more than ever at Les Arts Décoratifs, fashion is treated as an artistic field that has wide-ranging echoes in the museum’s other collections. Fashion is a history of evolving techniques, materials and designs but also a history of changing times and attitudes, a reflection of the art of living. Fashion is even more fascinating when it is not self-generating but dialogues with the arts of its time, as did great figures of Couture such as Charles-Frederick Worth, Jacques Doucet, Paul Poiret, Jeanne Lanvin, Madeleine Vionnet, Gabrielle Chanel, Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.

In a completely novel manner, the exhibition recreates each of these ‟fashion moments” in its human, artistic and social context, not didactically but via ellipses illustrating fashion’s constant elective affinities with the decorative arts. Eighteenth-century wood paneling, scenic wallpapers by Zuber, Paul Iribe’s drawings for the ‟Robes de Paul Poiret”, and the straw marquetry doors created by Jean-Michel Frank for the writer François Mauriac, provide perfect settings for fashion’s stylistic expressions and the metamorphoses of the body and style from the 18th century. The exhibition culminates in the effervescence and singular eclecticism of the global contemporary fashion scene, in which the names of the most original creators are now associated with the most ancient fashion houses. Because the entire history of fashion is also a history of the body and style, the exhibition’s artistic direction was entrusted to the British dancer and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, formerly one of the stars of the New York City Ballet and winner of a Tony award for his stage adaptation of An American in Paris in 2014, based on the film by Vicente Minelli. In collaboration with the scenographer Jérôme Kaplan and assisted by Isabelle Vartan, Christopher Wheeldon has succeeded in giving the collection a sensual, poetic dimension, breathing new life into these illustrious creations by transforming every stage of the exhibition into a world in itself. Each of these moments is enhanced by a unique collaboration with the dancers of the Opéra de Paris, in which a choreography gracefully casts new light on a silhouette, posture or attitude characteristic of this social and artistic evolution of the body.

Source: Musée des Arts Décoratifs

H&M Conscious Exclusive Collection 2016

The 2016 Conscious Exclusive Collection by H&M effortlessly merges a sense of history with modernity.
Launched to coincide with the opening of the exhibition Fashion Forward - 300 years of Fashion at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, to which it pays homage, the collection conveys an idea of painterly and sophisticated elegance.  The Conscious Exclusive Collection is a modern collection full of historic charm, made with sustainable materials.

Julia Restoin Roitfeld is the face of the campaign

The H&M design team has delved into the museum's collections of archival fashions in order to pick up key pieces from the last three centuries of haute couture. The result is a contemporary and artistic collection that is soulful, progressive, conscious and truly unique. The collection will be available in approximately 180 stores worldwide and online from April 7.

"Working with innovative sustainable materials and ornate embellishment, the collection is a layering of references, shapes and textures topped off by intensely decorative accessories and deco-inspired bijoux,” says Ann-Sofie Johansson, Creative Advisor at H&M.

The fluid and easy silhouette revolves around languid dresses, arty kaftans and sculpted skirts. Prints add a dash of surprise, turning dresses into trompe l'oeil paintings or sculptures. A long ball gown with a deep neckline features a marble draping print; a liquid dress is adorned with a slice of Botticelli's Three Graces. Short dresses and painter blouses ooze nonchalant sophistication, creating an electric and eclectic short-circuit between present and past.

“One of my favourite pieces from the collection is the mini asymmetric dress that was inspired by a painting by Gustave Moreau. I love the mix of a conscious, sustainable fabric and an old painting. It’s great to be able to have sustainable clothes that still look red carpet-ready,” says Julia Restoin Roitfeld, the face of the campaign.

Materials include organic silk, hemp, recycled linen and Tencel® blends as well as new innovative materials such as beads and rhinestones made from recycled glass and Denimite − a material made out of recycled worn-out denim, which H&M is the first fashion company to use.

Also new for this season's launch of Conscious Exclusive are three wedding dresses − a feast of lightness and embellishment materialised in dreamy, draped lines, for the bride wanting to be as beautifully dressed as she is conscious.

H&M will be the exclusive sponsor of the upcoming exhibition "Fashion Forward - 300 years of Fashion" at Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Pamela Golbin is the Chief Curator of the exhibition.