Hollywood News

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Uk Graduate Fashion Week

Uk Graduate Fashion Week announces George Gold Award line up

As the largest prize in British Style Education, Graduate Style Week Gold Award has become one of the most anticipated and coveted on the style calendar. Graduate Style Week is pleased to announce that the panel of judges for this time’s award will be Amanda Wakeley, Patrick Grant, creative director Norton & Sons and E.Tautz, Lucy Yeomans, editor Harpers Bazaar and Fiona Lambert, design director, George.

Date: June 5-8, 2011

Venue: Earls Court 2, London (Uk)

Amanda Wakeley launched her signature tag in 1990 and over the previous two decades has developed an worldwide reputation for designing fashionable, supremely luxurious, women wear and accessories. Amanda was awarded an OBE for her services to the style industry on 16th February 2010. She is also the victor of several prizes including three British Style Awards for Glamour.

Over the years, Amanda Wakeley has outfitted stars such as; Scarlett Johansson, Demi Moore, Kate Beckinsdale, Dita Von Teese, Charlize Theron, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mischa Barton, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Helen Mirren and Kate Winslet. Amanda Wakeley has also had the honor to outfit many members of Royal relatives, most notably the late Princess of Wales and Queen Rania of Jordan.

Amanda Wakeley

“I am truly excited about being involved in the judging of this year’s Gold Award at Graduate Style Week. Seeing new designers at the start of their occupation are so inspirational and I’m surefire we’ll spot some of the superstars of tomorrow. British Universities are renowned for their creativity and inspiring training of the world’s style industry and I can’t wait to see what this year’s generation has in store for us.”

Celebrated menswear designer Patrick Grant has been the creative director of men’s luxury prepared to wear brand E. Tautz since 2009 when he revived this classic British product. Patrick is the current British Style Council’s Men’s clothing Designer of the Year and the only menswear designer to make the shortlist for the BFC/Vogue Style Fund (2009 and 2010).

Patrick Grant

“Britain’s style schools attract the best young talent and their record of producing exceptional designers is unmatched. I am excited to see the very best of this year’s graduating class.”

The judges will review ten shortlisted collections made from 19 catwalk shows and put the scholars through a grueling interview process, before selecting the winner of the £20,000 reward cash. They will also select a Menswear and Women wear award winner.

To ensure that absolutely none of the occasion’s exceptional catwalk talent is missed, an elite industry panel of preliminary judges is in place to join the audience at every university display to highlight what they consider to be the newest collection from each show. The judges include GFW Trustee Professor Wendy Dagworthy, Sandra Hill, Paul Smith Head of Women swear, Mark Eley (Eley Kishimoto) and Head of design, Sadie Robson from George at Asda.

Uk Graduate Fashion Week

Uk Graduate Fashion Week announces George Gold Award line up

Date: June 5-8, 2011

Venue: Earls Court 2, London (Uk)

Amanda Wakeley

Patrick Grant

“Britain’s style schools attract the best young talent and their record of producing exceptional designers is unmatched. I am excited to see the very best of this year’s graduating class.”

Fashion Week For Full Figured Females

Fashion Week For Full Figured Females (It’s About Time)

At the present I do understand that even though it’s called a “week”, it is just 3 days at this point, but that fact that the style world is even acknowledging the more bountiful between us is noteworthy.

Just a few truths for reference:

According to Females’ Wear Regular (WWD to those in the biz or who follow the biz) the average lady in the US garbs a size 14. That is miles away from the model size 0 and 2 that are a style house and runway display staple.

According the US Census, there are over 159 million females in the US (51.7% of the population).

The government’s Women’s Health Information Center (womenshealth.gov) states that over a third of women are obese.

Thus, while I am not a mathematician, by my rough count, that means that there are at least 53 million plus size females in the United States who need outfits.

And if you are a style conscious plus-size lady like me, you know how problematic it is to find dress that is stylish and age appropriate. I can find a flowered muumuu any time. An all black ensemble? No problematic! But to find something that is fit for my 30-something flirty fun behavior, I have to work a little harder. And when you factor in my budget that includes student loans and growing gas prices, you’ve got a major challenge.

So, I am happy for FFFWeek and can’t wait to go.

Style police: Kerr Effect

If only we could all look this stylish in 36-degree desert temperature.

Of course, it helps when you are genetically gifted, with hair and make-up teams on hand and a excellent wardrobe in the wings, but such is life for Miranda Kerr.

This picture is the first sneak peek of David Jones’s new campaign starring the fashion model, here wearing Witchery, which was shot in Palm Springs, California.

Witchery is one of nine local and worldwide brands that have

Re-signed exclusive contracts with DJs, all for five years with the exception of Veronica Maine, which has signed on for three more. Dior, Coach, French Connection and Seed have also committed to the department store for another half decade, with the chief executive of Witchery, Ian Nairn, telling Style Police his company’s decision to re-sign was a combination of the ”Miranda effect” and the chance to develop the product within DJs.

”If we get the creation Miranda wears in the [David Jones] campaigns in stores at the right time, the result is immediate,” Nairn speaks. ”We’ve had pieces sell out.”

Witchery has just launched Witchery Man into seven DJs stores, with plans to rise that number to 13 within the next six months.

”We launched Witchery Male two years before, so being able to tap into the size of David Jones’s men’s clothing market share is really important for us,” Nairn says.

Where native varieties flourish

An intersection has blossomed into one of the country’s premier destinations for resident designers and it is all thanks to one man, writes Georgina Safe.

Attempting a low-key lunch with Theo Onisforou in Paddington is like trying for a quiet cocktail with Harvey Weinstein in Hollywood.

As we tuck into our salads, there is a constant stream of guests to our table at Jackie’s Cafe on Glenmore Road, among them designer Beccy Iland, the wife of architect George Livissianis, and former Woollahra mayor Keri Huxley, with whom Onisforou happily admits he’s ”had his moments” throughout the ages.

Outfitted down in a leather bomber jacket over a check shirt and jeans, you could be forgiven for thinking Onisforou was just another native breaking bread at Jackie’s, the unofficial ” style canteen” for workers and clients at the boutiques around the corner of Oxford Street and Glenmore Road, which is known as The Intersection.

But there you would be wrong – Onisforou owns most property around the style hub and counts 17 businesses as his tenants in the area, at present the most lively high-street shopping strip in Sydney.

Scanlan & Theodore, Kirrily Johnston, Anna Thomas and Zimmermann are between the predominantly Australian brands that have hung out shingles around The Intersection, which has become a shopping destination for not just Sydneysiders but clued-up go to see superstars such as Katy Perry and Reese Witherspoon, who swung by for a little retail therapy while in Sydney previous month to promote Water for Elephants.

When I see Onisforou on a sunny yet garden-fresh afternoon, the precinct is buzzing with window-shop girls teetering in heels on their lunch breaks, yummy mums browsing in cashmere and flats and working females ducking out for a sly purchase among meetings.

But it was a different story when Onisforou began buying up properties on what was then the moribund end of Oxford Street in the first 1990s, when the place to be was the eastern strip near the Paddington marketplaces. Onisforou snapped up a few more earlier the opening of Westfield Bondi Junction, after which trade dropped more than 30 per cent along Oxford Street.

But the depositor was undaunted.

”I was content that I was different,” he speaks. ”I always knew there was an opportunity for an outdoor Australian designer precinct with brands you just don’t find in every shopping mall.”

Onisforou has a thing about shopping mall – he detests them.

”I was a typical migrant youth from Cyprus; I grew up working in my close relative fruit shop-delicatessen,” he speaks.

”I’ve continuously disliked shopping malls and I think my dislike of them emanated from the fact my parents lost their business when it failed after the East gardens mall in Bondi Junction opened.

”It took away so much of our business. Sure, we were more costly but, on the other hand, with our local store we knew everyone; all our clients were our friends.”

After the family fruitlet shop foundered Onisforou went on to independent success, graduating from the University of NSW law school to open a restaurant with Malcolm Turnbull with the piquant moniker of Randi Wicks – ”obviously it’s a play on Randwick so it was an outstanding name” – before working as chief investment manager for Kerry Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings in the late 1980s and ’90s.

”I worked for Kerry Packer for about 10 years but I was self-sufficiently successful from investment and I’ve been a full-time investor ever since,” Onisforou says.

Thru that time, a chance meeting with the late Mark Keighery introduced Onisforou to the world of style, leading to a lifelong private friendship and business association with the Marcs founder.

”Mark was an absolutely desperate businessman and I was absolutely hopeless at style, so we started giving each other advice,” Onisforou speaks.

”I had many tours to Italy and France with Mark when he was importing Diesel and other trademarks to Australia and I got to like the style world; it was a nice juxtaposition to my lawyer brain.”

Onisforou’s first style tenant, Scanlan & Theodore, opened at the corner of Glenmore Road in early 2004 but it was not until May previous year that the area was officially branded The Intersection, when the property investor launched a blog under that name.

From the start Onisforou was adamant the precinct have a focus on Australian designers, which he speaks has helped it enormously, as other shopping areas with worldwide retailers have foundered owing to the increase in online shopping, fuelled lately by the strength of our dollar.

”Retail is tough at the moment but I’ve not had a day’s job in seven years,” he speaks.

”The one big advantage we have is that we are all Australian designers. What that means is if you visit their websites, the prices on the web are exactly the same as in the shop, so why would you bother and miss out on the pleasure of the outdoor high-street experience?

”The internet is really helping us – my 11-year-old daughter Stephanie alerted me to the fact we’d put images of Reese Witherspoon shopping at The Intersection on our blog and that got us a lot of attention.

”But if you go to a shopping mall, they are dominated by foreign brands and the problem is most of the product is cheaper online than in the actual store. I’ve tried to avoid ‘Mc Fashion’ and, in the process, it has worked to my advantage.”

It is difficult to get Onisforou down from his anti-shopping malls soapbox once he gets started – he asks me several times to Google Paco Underhill’s 2004 book The Call of the Shopping mall, which argues that the heyday of the shopping center is history – but where he is equally passionate is in his belief that emerging Australian style designers need better support to flourish.

”Kirrily Johnston had a conversation with me a couple of years ago and believed, ‘Theo, this is how much it costs me to run my shop each week, once you factor in rent, staffing and all the other costs,’ and I was blown away by how much money it was,” he speaks.

A Little History Of Red Footwear

A Little History Of Red Footwear :

This previous April, Christian Louboutin filed a claim against couture competitor Yves Saint Laurent, suing that the legendary style house had committed trademark infringement when it factory-made and sold shoes with a ruby-red sole. On Monday, the NY Post described that YSL’s representatives had argued in law court documents that the red sole cannot be considered copyrighted to Louboutin: “Red outsoles are a commonly used ornamental design feature in footwear, dating as far back as the red shoes worn by King Louis XIV in the 1600s and the ruby red shoes that carried Dorothy home in The Wizard of Oz.”

In history speaking, this is factual! Red shoes—if not always red soles—has long been related with issues of power and identity. During the reign of Louis XIV, only aristocratic men had the right to wear shoes with red heels—they were strictly reserved for the court of law. Therefore the color neatly distinguished between the haves and have-nots. Red dye at the time was lavish, made by crushing the dried bodies of an imported Mexican insect called the cochineal, and only royal family and their cohort could pay for it.

The shoes went out of grace with the French Revolution—not a time when one flaunted one’s wealth and status.

After Two centuries, Danish author Hans Christian Andersen contributed significantly to red shoe mythology. In his story “The Red Shoes,” a young peasant teen-ager named Karen is adopted by a woman of the gentry—but Karen fails to appreciate her good fortune, and instead aspires to transcend class boundaries even further. One daytime, she spots a princess. Red morocco shoes peep out from beneath the princess’s clothing. Karen brazenly tricks her adopted mom into buying her a pair of her own then, instead of attending to family obligations, wears the shoes to go out dancing. She discovers that once she starts dancing, she can’t stop, nor can she remove the demonic shoes from her feet.

Andersen’s moralistic fairy tale may not serve as the most appealing ad for red shoes, but it certainly attests to their potency.

When The Wizard of Oz performed in movie theaters in 1939, the joining among the color red and the magic of footwear was strengthened further. MGM’s costume designer, Adrian, who distinguished himself on the studio lot by designing stylish gowns for silver screen starlets like Jean Harlow, experimented with a few different versions of Dorothy’s sequined shoes before he settled on the final design: a simple, round-toed medium-high pump with a similar bow. The ruby slippers, like Judy Garland’s pigtails and her blue gingham smock, were meant to underscore the character’s blamelessness which, given the lingering effects of the Great Unhappiness and the threat of World War II, director George Cukor believed to be crucial to the film’s achievement. Interestingly, Dorothy’s shoes were originally silver—a holdover from L. Frank Baum’s original children’s story—and the switch to “ruby” came relatively late in the screenwriting process. It was assumed that red would look better in Technicolor. Without that one, momentous decision, Louboutin and YSL might be locked in a claim over sparkling silver soles nowadays.

In 1948, The Red Shoes, the magnificent film adaptation of Andersen’s story, debuted. Now set in the competitive world of typical ballet, this version downplayed the economic implications of the original fairy fiction; instead, the story was infused with a healthy dose of gender legislation, at a time when the battle (and the related rise in lady employment) had complicated the country’s understanding of the old-style roles for males and females. Vicky, the flame-haired protagonist played by Moira Shearer, is an wishful dancer, hungry to victory admiration for her talent as a prima ballerina. She achieves her vision with the help of a controlling director, who casts her as the lead in the ballet “The Red Shoes”: a shadow story that more closely resembles Andersen’s original. When Vicky falls in love, she’s forced to decide among her husband and her desire. Ultimately, she selects dance—and fame. Then, slipping on her red toe shoes for her act, she senses an overwhelming urge to dance off the theater’s balcony, where she plummets to her death.

Alike Karen, Vicky is punished for attempting to bypass societal boundaries, and for deeming her wishes more significant than the obligations of her marriage vows. The power of the red shoes lies in their ability to reveal some fundamental truth about the wearer—and deliver a penalty, or prize (as in The Wizard of Oz), accordingly.

But today’s litigation isn’t just about red shoes. Anyone can manufacturing and sell those; each day off season designers from Miuccia Prada to Steve Madden churn out festive red sequin pumps that are a wink at ruby slippers. In the case against Yves Saint Laurent, Louboutin isn’t laying claim to the color red. He’s defending his usage of the red outsoles that are the brand’s mark. Ever since the days when Sex and the City was a hit show on HBO, shoes have attained a cult-like status in this state, and buying costly, high-fashion footwear is now measured a rite of passage for any aspiring style maven. In the ’90s, the most coveted shoes were those designed by Manolo Blahnik, but then Christian Louboutin, France’s secret armament, arrived on the scene. By 2008, when the much anticipated Sex and the City movie premiered, even the franchise that made Manolo well-known had switched its allegiances. Carrie Bradshaw, who had once told a mugger, “Please, sir, you can take my Fendi baguette, you can take my ring and my wristwatch, but don’t take my Manolos Blahniks,” now wore Louboutins.

What makes Louboutin soles so brilliant is that it only takes a smidge of pop-culture consciousness to recognize them, unlike a Blahnik shoe, whose more subtle recognizing marks (quality, shape, whimsical embellishments) need some fluency in footwear to discern. Publics who can’t tell the difference among a Giuseppe Zanotti and a Jeffrey Campbell see the flash of red and know they’re looking at a Louboutin.

In the last period, Louboutin’s red soles have become a sort of visual shorthand that signals a lady’s high economic status and power. They also carry an undercurrent of the risqué, like the glimpse of a red lace bra strap under a conservative blouse. In this way, Louboutin’s shoes have become the material of a modern-day fairy fiction. Just as in Andersen’s story, they symbolize independence and high status. The woman who garbs them is given the opportunity to transcend economic and social limits—except this being labeling, and not grim Danish storytelling, she ends up, not embarrassed, but “empowered” by the shoes. Time and again, pop culture reinforces this narrative. In Jennifer Lopez’s single “Louboutins,” she invokes the red sole as the last thing her cheating mistress will see now that she’s found the courage to leave him (not unlike Nancy Sinatra’s calling upon the strength of her boots to keep her walking). 2009’s silly thriller Obsessed showed Ali Larter’s character—a sexy temp with a pathological infatuation on her married boss—climbing his stairs at the climax of the film with her red soles blinking behind her. And newly, the female leads of two USA dramas, “Covert Affairs” and “Fairly Legal” have been costumed in Louboutins to underscore their status as popular, self-possessed females.

It’s been pointed out that YSL has occasionally factory-made and sold shoes with red soles as far back as the 1970s. And it remains to be seen whether Louboutin can defend his product’s trademark against his rival in court of law. What is clear, though, is that Louboutins are a historically significant new take on our long fascination with ruby slippers.

Amber Le Bon strikes a pose in scholars’ designs to celebrate 20 years of Graduate Style Week

It’s the occasion that helped launch the occupations of John Galliano, Hussein Chalayan, Stella McCartney and Burberry’s Christopher Bailey.

This week, Graduate Style Week rejoices its 20th anniversary with a star-studded gala where the state’s style student elite will display their effort.

To mark the time Amber Le Bon, model daughter of Yasmin and rock star Simon, has been snapped modeling the pick of the students’ collections.

phie Ellis Bextor and Laura Bailey are to attend the glittering gala occasion on Wednesday, and George at Asda has been publicized as the display’s new title sponsor.

The GFW gala, to be held at Earls Court on Wednesday, is the opportunity for the country’s top style colleges to present the makings of their best graduating alumni.

Not just a stage for the weird, wacky and unwearable, GFW is a hotbed of marketable talent, and attracts scouts from top style houses who come in the hopes of signing up new talent to work with them.

Representatives from Burberry, Mulberry and Vivienne Westwood have joined in last years, and this year is set to attract yet more big names.

As the sponsors of the display, George at Asda – which celebrated its own big birthdate this year, turning 21 – will be proposing 62 graduates jobs in design, merchandising, buying, marketing and worldwide – equivalent to 11 per cent of its current workforce.

A spokesperson for George said: George has always been passionate about style, but we are also passionate about educating new talent and the next generation of creativity.

‘We will be helping to nurture fresh talent by championing the many routes and careers available in this fantastic industry and also encouraging the students to consider the options of working for a big brand like George.

‘These students are the emerging designers of tomorrow and at George we are pleased to be able to support their future careers.’

Managing director at George, Andrew Moore remarks: ‘GFW is a dynamic occasion, so important in developing and championing the future talent of the style industry.

‘Young persons are the lifeblood of the industry and crucial to our future achievement.

‘We are passionate about not letting this talent fall through the gaps.’