Spring 2012: Runway Beauty: Colourful Hair

Spring’s exuberantly bright colors and shining metallics extend literally head to toe, with bold hair appearing on several runways in New York and London.


While we’ve been seeing the colors for some time – from designer Chris Benz’s neat, neon-pink ‘do, to Kate Bosworth’s blue tips – the trend shows no signs of slowing. A new look, however, is the gold-plated one, as seen at Topshop Unique, where an Egyptian theme ruled, and hair, nails, jewels and clothes were gilded a la Tutankhamun.

Clockwise from left: pink streaks at Mulberry; cool blue at Narciso Rodriguez; pink-encrusted locks at Thakoon; two tones at Peter Som; gilded hair at Topshop Unique.

Crystal Renn For Dutch Vogue

With regards to Crystal Renn, there is more, much more to discuss not least of which concerns her story in Vogue Deutsch October 2011 photographed by Sebastian Kim.

Crystal boasts a bit of a reputation for transforming before the camera in ways unimaginable by other models let alone actors. This Katie Mossman-styled story titled “As Time Goes by,” which clearly means something in German, is no exception and in fact presents the Barney’s Carine’s World Fall 2011 campaign model in an old Hollywood style that calls to mind Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, and Katharine Hepburn.

As if to demonstrate such 1940s styling can seduce again (verführt aufs Neue), which it clearly can, Crystal wastes no time in her brief and is seen wearing for her first look a knee-length dress with floral prints by Balenciaga by Nicholas Ghesquière, narrow belt by Salvatore Ferragamo, earrings by Camilla Dietz Bergeron; ring by David Webb, and pinching in her left hand a cigarette holder by Lynn Ban.


The story continues for another dozen pages and with each look ever more glamorous than the previous. Hair by Franco Gobbi accentuates the elegance at every turn. Standing astride a statue of a greyhound dog, a blond Crystal is seen wearing a black, high-slitted silk chiffon dress with sequins and narrow belt by Salvatore Ferragamo, earrings by RJ Graziano, diamond bracelet by Roberto Coin, diamond rings on left and right hand by Carla Amorim and Buccellati respectively, and sandals by Jason Wu.


For her final look, Crystal wears a floor-length, high-knecked dress with fur trim by Nina Ricci and various jewelry by Lynn Ban and Nicky Hilton. Suffice it to say this story, its style, and flawless execution are not only seductive, but are also personal favorites of the model herself. Considering the brilliant editorials Crystal Renn has done over the years, that speaks volumes. It is also clear from the story that no wire hangers were used. Ever.



Credits include: Vogue Deutsch Oktober 2011; Title, “As Time Goes By”; Photography, Sebastian Kim; Styling, Katie Mossman; Hair, Franco Gobbi at Art Department; Makeup, Lisa Houghton at Jed Root; Manicure, Michina Koide at Art Department; Set design, Anne Koch at CLM; Styling assistance, Eyob Yohannes.


 

London Fashion Week Trends Spring 2012

At a glance, here's what you need to know for next years hottest Spring / Summer  styles from the Episode offices.


Graphic Effects


Do not adjust your screen. Intentionally distorted patterns in London extended the graphic trend that seared retinas the week before in New York. Members of the geometry club included Peter Pilotto, who combined multicolor, repeating, yet not repeating patterns to dizzying effect, and Clements Ribeiro, who surely required serious computer power (or a Spirograph) to realize his optic visions.

From left: Pringle of Scotland, Clements Ribeiro, Burberry Prorsum, Peter Pilotto 

Florals


After New York’s bold expressions of flower power, London designers took the floral trend down a romantic path make that a mist-shrouded country lane. From the watercolor botanical dresses at Richard Nicoll to the eccentric English-garden mix at Erdem, the blossoms brought a day-in-the-country spirit to clothes that could charm any modern-day Jane Austen. Green thumb optional.

From left: Nicole Fahri, Richard Nicoll, Christopher Kane, Erdem

 
Fifties


Granted, June Cleaver never flashed as much thigh as some of the ’50s-evocative looks London runways revealed, nor was she as badass as the tough-chick looks that walked at Acne this season. But below Fashion Week's modern fabrics, bright colors and va-va-voom sexiness, the Leave It to Beaver era shone through with New Look silhouettes, buttoned-up crispness, and an infectious optimism.

From left: Jonathan Saunders, Daks, Acne, Erdem

Space Age


Is the ray gun Spring’s hottest accessory? Nothing would pair better with the space-age looks that landed in London. Antonio Berardi explored the trend with geometric cutouts and high-tech fabrics, while Richard Nicoll did Barbarella proud with clear-plastic layers. But it was Giles Deacon and his liquid-metallic flapper skirts, some beneath far-out photo prints, who really took one large step for fashion kind.

From left: Richard Nicoll, Peter Pilotto, Giles, Antonio Berardi

Frida Giannini On Gucci

“We must move on, move on, move on,”were the instructions Frida Giannini gave her staff when, in 2005, the accessories designer added womenswear to her job portfolio at Gucci.

Alex Sarginson For Vogue December 2005

A year later, Giannini assumed full creative control, bringing calm and profitability to an Italian house that had been roiled by upheaval. Giannini’s dramatic rise followed the sensational exits of, first, Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole, and then Ford’s immediate successors, Alessandra Facchinetti and John Ray.


“Creativity must create business,”said the pragmatic Giannini, whose designs soon got the cash registers ringing again—while occasionally also irking Ford-friendly critics. With her long hair and doll-like face, the young Roman designer presented a stark contrast to Ford (a handsome Texan with an artful stubble, whose hard-edged “sex sells” approach revived Gucci in the mid-1990s, making it a business-school case study).


The transition from the Ford to Giannini eras was an aesthetic volte-face, as well, but most of the naysayers eventually came to see, as a headline in The Australian put it, that “inimitable does not mean irreplaceable at Gucci.

Her History;

1972

Frida Giannini born in Rome, the only child of an architect father and art-history professor mother. As a young child Frida will visit many museums. Architecture and interior design are her second passions in life, she later says.

1978

Begins riding, eventually becoming an accomplished show jumper.

1988

Falls in love with chic shoes. “I got my first pair of Gucci stilettos when I was 16, she later recalls.

1991

Commits a big fashion faux pas as a student at the Accademia di Costume e di Moda: “I tried imitating Madonna,” she will admit in 2008. “Extremely ambitious, because who in the whole world can pull off Madonna apart from the Material Girl herself?”

1996

Accepts a job at Fendi. “I was only a bag designer by accident. After studying fashion in Rome, I went to Fendi as a ready-to-wear designer and then was asked, out of the blue, to go into the bag department. I think they saw I have a flexible hand.”

2002

September: Joins Gucci as design director of handbags, working under Tom Ford.

2004

As Gucci’s creative director of accessories—a specially created post—makes a splash with the Flora line.

2005

Launches accessories collection to benefit Unicef. March: Adds womenswear to her responsibilities and is given four weeks to create a cruise collection. July: Marries Giovanni Battista Guidi in a dress of her own design. September: Makes her runway debut with a spring collection inspired by a postwar photo of her grandmother, who in later years owned a fashion boutique.

2006

Takes over full creative control of Gucci. June: Her first menswear show is inspired by Peter Sellers in the sixties. November: Giannini appears on The Wall Street Journal’s list of “50 Women to Watch.”

2009

June: Named International Designer of the Year by the Fashion Editors Club of Japan. Honored as Fashion Designer of the Year at the British Glamour Women of the Year Awards. October: Receives Fashion Group International’s Design Star award.

2010

February: Recognized by Wallpaper for her innovative spring menswear collection.

Karl Lagerfeld - Baptiste Giabiconi: The Beauty Of Violence

The Beauty of Violence is Karl Lagerfeld’s portrait of Baptiste Giabiconi acting out an erotic seizure of myriad facial and corporeal expressions. Giabiconi is a theatrical chameleon: he hides coyly behind a lock of black hair, adopts a Classical contrapposto pose, bunches his limbs vulnerably, and attempts to stuff his fist into his mouth.


He alternatively confronts the camera’s presence with a provocative sultry stare, or withdraws from it into a state of wilful self-absorption. By teasing out the facets of Giabiconi’s athletic youth, Lagerfeld removes the threat of violence and suggests its seductive, indeterminate beauty.

The Beauty of Violence is both the exploration of an intense persona and the latest chapter in Lagerfeld’s ongoing photographic exploration of architectural forms made material by light, whether his subject be man-made structures, landscape, or the human form.

Karl Lagerfeld To launch Fragrance That Smells Like Books

You know print is in danger when it suddenly is exotic enough to inspire a perfume.

Designer Karl Lagerfeld  the eccentric creative director at Chanel and Fendi, as well as his own eponymous label  has announced  a new fragrance called Paper Passion, which will smell … like books. (Whether it will smell like the freshly printed and bound trade books you find at Barnes & Noble or the musty old things you unearth while rifling through used-book bins is uncertain.) His marketing company  reports that the perfume will come packaged in a hollowed-out hardcover tome.

Lagerfeld has long been known as a voracious reader: His enormous personal library  contains about 300,000 books.

Marc Jacobs Spring / Summer 2012

A giant curtain wall of gold lamé opened to reveal Marc Jacobs's collection in its entirety: 46 girls frozen in Bob Fosse attitudes on an arc of bentwood chairs—like the bar hawks in the Big Spender scene in Sweet Charity, or the flappers proffering an invitation to the Cabaret.


A fading antebellum dance hall in the Deep South was evoked by the wooden runway with the posts and beams of its central structure garlanded with yellow light bulbs (and in the many scaled gingham prints and the Amy Winehouse-ian do-rags), but although that Cabaret-era dressing informed the general silhouette of the show—the drop-waist chemise dress of indefinite shape—this was not another playful twist on period dressing (the Jerry Hall seventies or the comic-strip fifties of recent seasons for instance).

Instead, it provided a master class in classic Jacobs tailoring and enchanting dressmaking, ignited by some futuristic adventures in fabrication along the way.


The gleam of that curtain was echoed in the shimmering effect of sequins and tinsel and reflective fabrics galore—from thick, shining taffetas to something that looked like the colored translucent plastic in which florists wrap their blooms. Tiers of cellophane organza were shredded like raffia for the shimmy flounces of skirts (a device echoed in the trim of paper-thin leather coats and cardigan jackets with a Coco Chanel flavor) and leafy sequins were embroidered so thickly they resembled windswept fur. Even the shoes (in textile mixes that often included clear plastic)—pumps with a classically elegant heel, and no-nonsense two-tone loafers—and the boxy bags (in mid-century diner colors—like ice blue, maroon, lemon, and Nile green) were pragmatic in their streamlined utility.


After the Betty Page heroines who trotted the Jacobs runway last season with their hourglass jackets and hobbling pencil skirts, this collection represented a return to Jacobs’s softer side—a thrilling way to end the New York Fashion Week.