Custo Barcelona

Custo Barcelona is a cosmopolitan and urban Spanish designer. He has started his designer career in Barcelona, and despite he presents now his collections in NY Fashion Week, he always presents a preview of his collection in Barcelona. You can recognize his garments thanks to his splendid prints. His team experiment with different materials to make you feel a great comfort when you are wearing his creations. In Spain he is mainly known for his T-shirts, his best trick. He still offers affordable pieces (from 100 euros aprox. a T-shirt), and the quality and the design are worth it.

In his winter collection only dark colours are available. The predominant colours are violet, and of course, black. The knee-high tights are a basic, and he can't conceive the winter without dresses.


All the pics from Vogue.es

A new brand to desire...

I was reading the online version of Nylon magazine, and I read a report about Heimstone. After it I browse on its website and I was really surprise to see how much I like their clothes! I suppose most of you already know the brand, but just in case, stylists Alix Petit and Delphine Delafon launched this new brand, after working in Michel Klein for a while. You can find their designs in Paris and NY. I leave you here some pics from their new spring/summer collection:

The empire cut and baby-doll is apparently still on, and the dominating colours are black and white. Their dresses look really delicated, and personally, I love their outfits with dress and jacket matching together.

The Golden Age of Couture

The V&A Museum of London is currently offering the exhibition "The Golden Age of Couture: 1947-1957". I am looking forward to going there, but I don't have any spare time so I have to be happy with checking in its website. For my surprise, the information there is really complete, and I feel honestly well about watching these awesome dresses, despite I am thousands of kilometres far from them.

"The launch of Christian Dior's New Look in 1947 marked the beginning of a momentous decade in fashion history, one that Dior himself called the 'golden age'. Celebrating the end of war and the birth of a new era, it set a standard for dressmaking and high fashion that has rarely been surpassed.
In Paris, couture houses such as Balenciaga, Balmain and Fath attracted worldwide attention for elegance and glamour. London was renowned for formal state gowns by court dressmakers and impeccable tailoring by designers like Hardy Amies.
The production of couture was important to the prestige and economy of both France and Britain. While traditionally catering for wealthy private clients, the couture houses also sought new markets. As the decade progressed, they created perfumes, opened boutiques and licensed their designs to foreign manufacturers. By the late 1950s, the leading couture houses had become global brands". (Text from the website of the V&A Museum).

If you are going to London before 5th of January, I strongly recommend you going to visit it.

Givenchy

Balenciaga

Dior

Roger Vivier

All the pics are from the V&A website

P.D. The exhibition's official book, on amazon, it's a high-quality compilation of the best garments from that decade.

The importance of the little black dress

I was thinking in doing a post about little black dresses. Inmediately after, I realised how obvious that post would be. I guess for me, a little black dress is a way of escape from reality, because it does not matter how many I have, I always need another one. Because it's the answer when you are about to go and you don't know what to wear. Because, honestly, when do you feel better than in a LBD?

Because all the fashion icons know about the importance of the little black dress. I'd like to know what meaning has for you the Little Black Dress.

Audrey Hepburn

Carrie Bradshaw


Chloë Sevigny

Kate Moss


Anna Wintour

Marta Ortega, the cool ones club

She is the youngest daughter of the richest man in Spain. His daddy, Amancio Ortega, is the owner of Inditex, thanks to that, is the third richest man in Europe, and the eighth richest man in the world. She could be the Spanish Paris Hilton, but she is not. When you google Marta Ortega, it appears 1.760.000 pages, when you write Paris Hilton, 20,600,000. The 23-year-old does not grant interviews (as her father), she has a discreet private life. At the moment she is working in some Berskha shop in Spain, as a shop-assistant. Now you will be shocked. His dad's fortune is estimated in 21.500 millions of euros, and she is working as a shop-assistant?

It has a reasonable explanation. His dad, who started from the very beginning (he was working-class), wants the same for her daughter. Despite she will be the future President of Inditex (heiress of his dad's job and enterprise) he wants her to know the operation of the enterprise from the below to the top. That's why, after studying Economics in London, she will work in the different departments of Inditex: shop-assistant, design, production... She will know perfectly the productive chain when she finishes. She is going to work in Paris, London and Shanghai, and she can speak fluently four languages: Spanish, English, French and Italian. She couldn't be a better example of how you can be rich, and still give a good education to your children, far from the celebrity cult and the money-for-nothing.
Amancio Ortega, owner of Inditex, and her dad


With boyfriend


With her parents

She loves horse-riding

Back to classics

I was thinking about investing in a high-quality handbag, the kind of handbag you will use all your life, and maybe, if you are lucky, your daughters would heir... After that, I have realised how influenced by consumerism we are. Each season there are several "bags to die for", you spend all the season desiring that bag, and six months later, nobody remembers it, and nobody dare wear it because is completely inapropiate and off. That's why, if you are not rich, the best is investing in classics, those which you'll be always able to wear, no matter which the trends are.

Rules which make a classic:
1. It must be at least three years old
2. It must be from a consecrated house (Dior, Gucci, Chanel...)
3. Don't check celebs outfits when deciding
4. Better to buy it in a neutral colour (black, beige, brown) so you can wear it with everything

Gaucho, from Dior -my favourite-

Chanel 2.55, a new version of the classic

Balenciaga

Gucci

Birkin by Hermès

Two examples of the ones which have been forgotten:


Stam bag, by Marc Jacobs


Spy bag, by Fendi

Pura López

She is one of the most famous shoe-makers in Spain. Despite maybe she is not famous out of there, I think she can show off her designs because its two main characteristics are good-quality and great design. The shoes are quite affordable and they are main characters in the principal shoe-boutiques in Spain. Pura Lopez grew up in a family of shoe-makers, so she could learn from the begining of her life what a good-shoe was. After ending her studies, she decided to continue the family business. Until now, the only thing she did was improve it.



Pics from www.puralopez.com

Goodbye Leggings

The leggings say bye bye to a fast but intense reign. This season (thanks God) tights have won the match. Despite some people continue wearing them, they are completely out of the fashion panorama. Tights stylize more your figure and they are more comfortable and warmer for the cold winter days. At the catwalks of the principal fashion weeks around the world was already difficult to see people wearing them.

The vast majority chose tights:

I love her outfit!

Pics from The Sartorialist

Vogue's soldiers. The eccentricity becomes a person

Anna Piaggi is an eccentric Italian fashion journalist. Her odd style and her "doppia pagine" (double page) in Vogue Italy turn her into an icon. I admire how she is still interested in fashion, and how she mix her garments at her aged, and furthermore, how she is able to adapt the trends and to maintain her special and authentic vision of fashion. "I always wear Manolo Blahnik. His shoes are so artistic and friendly and always suit my mood" said A. Piaggi in an interview for the Daily Telegraph. She is one of the most famous fashion writers despite she is not the editor in chief of any publication. Maybe you can't understand her style, but she is a leading figure in the fashion writing, not only for the way she writes, but also for the art of the pages she designs.

Piaggi & Mr. Blahník

A portrait of Anna drew by K. Lagerfeld

I strongly recommend you her book "Fashion Algebra", a compilation of spreads from Italian Vogue.

http://www.amazon.com/Anna-Piaggis-Fashion-Algebra-Vogue/dp/0500018766/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7867302-1818251?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192216225&sr=8-1

Pics by Style.com and Amazon.com

How much is too much?

Balenciaga is one of the best labels in the fashion industry. Its designs are worth thousands and thousands of dollars. However, are you ready to pay 5.595$ for a scarf? As I've read on the New York Times website, there is already waiting-list for the Palestian scarf from Balenciaga, which costs 5.595$. Taking into account that the costs of production could reached 100$ and adding 200$ more for the firm's prestige and quality, it would be 300$. 1000$ for the designer for his "great idea" and we have still 4.295$ left for each scarf they sell.

On Balenciaga's website, the garment is described as "tricolor fringed chèche with silver chains".

Not-so-rich-fashionistas from around the world are getting Chanel bags or Louboutins with their efforts and their savings. I think this is a crude exaggeration of the price, and it is a step forward in the back of the exclusive garments, those which only can pay the richest.

Welcome to the army

Steven Meisel is a photographer who has always loved the polemic. This time he went too far, doesn't he? His photographic report for Vogue Italy (September issue) named "Make love, not war" shows models in expensive clothes having "fun" with soldiers. This report has opened the controversy one more time: Even if he is trying to claim how caotic the US army is, where is the frontier for an artist? Is he allowed to pass that border? to make ironic photographs of caotic situations where people die? In my opinion, Meisel is a genius, I have always loved his pics, but for first time in my whole life, I have felt bad watching his report, I feel he is playing with something too serious this time.

Gisele, The Last Top

She is the last top. She has been the queen of the runways for almost the last decade. She made $33 million in 2006, adding to her estimated $150 million fortune. She is currently listed in Guiness World Record as the "world's richest supermodel.

In the fashion panorama, Gisele is the only model who is followed by paparazzis,

and surprisingly, she is not known for taking drugs, being anorexic, or other terrible adjectives which normally surround models. Moreover, she is an example for thousands of girls around the world for her supportive attitude with charity.


Claudia Schiffer recently said: "Supermodels, like we once were, don't exist any more.", I agree. When I asked my friends (who are not interested in fashion) if they know Gemma Ward or Caroline Trentini they have no idea, but when you said, Gisele they already know who are you talking about, basically, this is the difference.