Dubrovnik Fashion Week International is multicultural fashion, art and music manifestation that introduces a blend of exceptional young and well established designers from the global fashion scene as well as audio-visual and installation artists, performers and musicians.It will showcase work of number of innovative and exciting designers from Croatia, alongside most interesting emerging designer talents and progressive artists in Europe. An exclusive haven of solitude and luxury, the breathtaking Croatian old city of Dubrovnik is set over the peninsula overlooking the serene, crystal blue waters of Adriatic Sea. Utilizing this UNESCO world heritage site as a backdrop for this happening, organization of Dubrovnik Fashion Week International is dedicated to achieving the perfect balance between tradition and innovation. TDubrovnik Fashion Week International with principal support of Ministry of Tourism and Dubrovnik City Council, have announced dates from July 1, 2009 to July 5, 2009.
Fashion designer Ziad Ghanem and graphic designer Robert Boon deemed their company, Maiden Britain, a “new art collective” rather than just another fashion label. The company was founded on an interesting concept to eliminate creative limitations in apparel. The term, collective, also plays out nicely in the company as Boon and Ghanem garnered forces of creative individuals all over the world, across industries such as literary, music, art and film. The designers come from all occupations too- tailors, poets and performance artists all bond under this London-based group. Maiden Britain’s Autumn/ Winter 2009 collection is definitely your conspicuous rebel yell—daring geometric printed one-piece tight suit and oversized hooded poncho with big ethnic prints are some of the catchiest pieces in the collection. Regardless of the garment’s practicality and functionality, the collection captures the eclecticism of the art world and dynamic anarchical spirit Maiden Britain set out to represent.
Photo By Yukie Kasuga
Vogue Nippon and Comme des Garcons’ feted their new temporary store “Magazine Alive” in Tokyo’s Aoyama district Wednesday evening, attracting a large crown of fashion editors, Takashi Murakami and a camera-shy Rei Kawakubo and Junya Watanabe. The space- the same one the Japanese brand used for its one-off Louis Vuitton boutique- sells an intriguing mix of fashion and accessories, from t-shirts bearing the manga likeness of Hedi Slimane, Marc Jacobs and Donatella Versace, to silk gowns from Undercover, knits from Martin Margiela and transparent plastic handbags from Loewe. The content of the store will change from month to month to coincide with the contents of each new issue of Vogue until “Magazine Alive” finishes its run in November. In keeping with the July’s manga-themed issue, Murakami decorated the second floor of the store with his signature flowers while Karl Lagerfeld crafted an original window display featuring mannequins clad in silver lame and miniature dolls in quilted get ups. “His face is like a manga,” quipped Adrian Joffe, CdG’s managing director and Kawakubo’s husband, as Murakami hammed it up for the cameras. While Joffe admitted he isn’t a fan of all the products of the store, he said the project came together nicely. “I think it’s always so interesting that Rei is meeting with other people, like with Louis Vuitton [and] having Chanel here,” he said. “It’s great.” via:WWD
VOGUE NIPPON and Comme des Garçons MAGAZINE ALIVE ｜Map
Aoyama, Tokyo, 5-12-3
Opening : 28th May ~ 27th Nov 2009
Part of the initiative for the ‘Taiwan: Touch Your Heart’ theme consists of a series of short documentary films produced by Monocle detailing travel and tourism in the country, entitled ‘Touring Taiwan’. The films will run on Monocle.com as a complement to an ongoing advertorial programme in the magazine’s monthly print edition. In a statement, Matthew Farrar, managing director of Mezzomedia, the publication’s regional advertising representative, described the partnership between Monocle and the tourism board as “groundbreaking”. The second episode in the series will focus on Taiwan’s traditional culture.
Swedish by nationality, Rita Saardi is a lot more Parisian than Swedish in terms of her design sensibility. With practically no trace of the Swedish minimalism in her collections, Saardi’s pieces are ornately adorned with frou-frou, inspiring details and full of colors, something Swedish designers are traditionally not accustomed to using. After a wonderful pastel palette in her previous collection, between Heaven and Earth, Saardi is back with a collection with luxuriously darker palettes of rich purple, black and indigo.
The collection, “All Wrapped In Black”, features intricate and operatic organza folds and origami-like detailing. Bows, flowers and sashes drape strategically yet flow casually down sides of the garments and create wonderfully dramatic silhouettes atop basic dresses and leotards. The subtle colors tone down the pieces and make the meticulously detailed pieces wearable, achieving the fine balance between artistry and practicality. Sure enough, by practicality we do mean these will make cocktail dresses and will be head-turning at formal events, as the large amount of bows may be over the top to be donned in daylight. Even so, Saardi achieves what she does best with interesting volumes by creating beautiful silhouettes with decorations once again in her new collection. It is both surprising and delightful to see work by a designer uninhibited and unaffected by trends, operating on her personal values and aesthetics. Though low profile and difficult to research on, Saardi is an important addition to formulating a wholesome and intriguing fashion landscape.
Fashion meets art in a heartwarming continuation of family legacy in the de Maria clan. Diane de Maria, granddaughter of Surrealist painter, Pierre de Maria has created a line of ultra luxe handbags which fuses her grandfather’s art onto her collection’s body designs. Like the famed Salvador Dali, Pierre de Maria’s works are iconoclastically Surrealist. He was most concerned about the relationship between machine and men, and most of his pieces depict the dichotomous relationship between both entities. Diane de Maria handpicked several nuts and bolts motifs from Pierre de Maria’s most iconic works and emblazoned them onto all six different series of her handbag collection. The series comprise of Colette, Greta, Bonnie, Louise, Marika and Lucie, each with specific silhouette. The sizes and shapes of the bags range from a medicinal bag to a slim tote. All bags are water and fade resistant and crafted from French calf and lambskin. Diane de Maria has also paid amazing attention to details of the bags—all the hardware are personalized and produced from gold plated brass. She is aiming to produce bags that can be passed from generation to generation, delivering a family legacy to her customers rather than just a handbag. These bags are can now be bought at Beyond
There can never be too much of a good thing, especially if it’s a good thing all dressed up and turned into something familiarly new. Stockholm denim label, ACNE, trekked back in time and selected four of the most popular dresses since it was founded in 1996 and remade them in true blue denim. The four dresses that received lucky makeovers were the Tootsy, Bella, Baroque and Melody. The dresses’ shapes were adjusted and redesigned accordingly to accommodate the fit and feel of denim but the iconic design characteristics of each dress was kept.One of our favorites, the Melody, is a remake of one of the Spring/Summer 09 key pieces. This Grecian inspired dress was actually designed with the picture of Bridgett Bardot wearing nothing but a towel in mind. It is updated in soft blue denim drapes with comfortable, slinky underconstruction in silk cotton. For those who loved ACNE’s dresses and are looking for a new way to wear denim this summer, these dresses are now available at ACNE.