Opie x Rodarte

Image of a Rodarte gown by Catehrine Opie.

The photographer Catherine Opie is known for her portraits of gender. She takes photos of "men" and "women" in ways that show you the confusion of those terms, the identity they impose, and the ways they are expressed. She also photographs the body as a platform for thought and or pain. Self-portraits of the artist are disturbing and beautiful documents of self harm, or of love. It's this mix of the rough and soft, of the dark and the warm, that makes her pairing with Rodarte a natural fit. As a satellite to their MoCA show (which they call a case study of their still young work) Rodarte is releasing a book of photographs by Catherine Opie and Alec Soth. Californian landscapes of interest and inspiration to Kate and Laura have been photographed by Soth, while Opie has taken photographs of the Mulleavy sisters' clients and favorite models in their gorgeous American couture pieces.

The photos above are all included in the book which is available for pre-order on Amazon.

The Prettiest Nightmare I've Never Had.

Guinevere Van Seenus runs in Rodarte.

Wow. Rodarte's latest collaboration more than makes up for their lackluster show at the New York tents a couple of weeks ago. The video Todd Cole did featuring pieces from The Mulleavy Sisters' Spring 2010 collection is a mind warping romp through a rocket ship ghost yard. Shot on location at the now defunct space-tech field lab of Paypal co-founder Elon Musk, the video piece is chillingly sparse. It stars a lone supermodel, the excellent and underused Guinevere Van Seenus, who was a glossy page regular in the late '90s/early aughts. Her reemergence here is perfect for the strangeness of the video--where'd they find Guinevere? In that deserted spaceship hull?

Pretty/creepy.

Wherever she was, she's not happy about where she's wound up. Her pained expression and laborious running through the ghosted space spot are haunting to say the least. The eerily industrial soundtrack buzzes, hisses, and basses the perfect tone for all of the unsettling that unfolds. So, what's pretty about this nightmare of strain, strife, and space? The dresses! Rodarte's Spring collection was a collage of gorgeous fabrics that had gone through some really tough times--they were burned, stretched, dirtied, dunked, beat up--kind of like our seemingly tortured Guinevere. But they came out on the otherside knotted and resewn into some beatuiful pieces of work. Purgatory to the heavens. Watch the video, it makes a better case than I.

Click the above images to watch the full Todd Cole/Rodarte collabo.

Ruh-Ro.

A makeup look from the latest Rodarte line.

Dear Mulleavy Sisters,

I will never stop loving you. Never. You of the wittiest knits, of the blood and guts inspiration, you of the spiderweb tights and the stake-in-the-heart heels. I will never, never not love you. But. But. But. This latest collection was not your best work. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, or bad about yourselves, but I am trying to make sure this doesn't happen again. You put a whole collection together based on the idea of getting dressed in the dark. Flip the switch and catch a glimpse of the mash-up.

Your craftsmanship is a wonder to behold. Do not question this. Your patchwork pastiche is always a showcase of some damn fine handiwork. Those sweaters that look like thick, loomed yarn? Gorgeous. Those strands of pearls strung sideways over the shoulders? Nice. But all of that mashed together with an ill fit and some ghostly makeup? Not so nice. This is tough love for my favorite pair. I have faith that you'll return in top form next season. Total faith. 'Til then? I have to speak my truth.

Tavi Hearts Rodarte.

Tiny fashion blogger Tavi is still the only 13 year old that I'd even consider going back to pre-pubescence to be. I mean, I'd suffer some acne and hormonal insanity if I could redo my tween years as a favored front row fashion show guest or a BFF of The Sisters Mulleavy. Since that's not possible, let's let Tavi do her own thing and give us a taste of the Target line Rodarte is going to drop nationwide Dec 20.



If you are a luck member of the New York Area Residents Club (and you are if you live here) you get to scope the goods at Target's special pre-Holiday event at the Gansevoort entrance to the Highline Park. The event, featuring Rodarte pieces among a selection of other giftable items, kicks off today, December 11 and runs through the 13th from 10am to 8pm. Get there. Maybe the freezing temps will keep the crowds away.

Straight To The Heart.

Rodarte for Target. Rodarte for Target. Rodarte for Target. Rodarte for Target!

Ah, the diffusion line gods have answered my unyielding prayers for Rodarte frocks that I can afford. I must admit that my excitement for Target collabo's has ended in dashed hopes for cool gear before, so I'm approaching this seeming godsend with a little hesitation. But, I can't help be quite excited--especially when a small pic of one of the dresses in a mag I leafed through looked so darn cute and was labeled as $39.99.

A blurry, leaked photo (l) of the $40 Rodarte for Target dress I spotted in the mag (r) this week.

Let's just be excited for now and leave the disappointment for later, k? That's the only way life can work sometimes. The collection hits Target locations and the Interwebs on December 20.

Three's A (Great) Crowd.

The indomitable Suzy Menkes takes a guided tour through the Rodarte installation at Paris' Colette shop.

Click to head over to NYTimes.com to view the video.

The three of them together signifies all that is good about fashion. All that is good, plus googly eyes.

Rags To Riches.

The fact that Rodarte shows as a ready to wear concern is quite astonishing. The much loved sister act of Laura and Kate Mulleavy get their hands dirty in every single scrap of fabric they use to construct their incredible garments. The shredding, dyeing, stitching, smudging, scaling, sanding, and staining are all done by the ladies of the line. The results are incredible to see in person. In fact, I venture to say that if you are a fashion fan, you haven't quite lived until you've experienced a Rodarte garment up close, with all of your senses, especially your fingertips. Theirs are the only garments I've seen in a long time that don't induce rage at a high price tag. You can see the work, the time, the effort in their clothing. It's a work of art, and priced accordingly.

This season the ladies showed a collection that emerged from a runway clouded in green mist. With the backstory of abandoned women crafting together their own wears from bits and pieces of found clothing after an encounter with some detrimental forces, the show featured overtones of warrior women. Inked in thick black tattoos and donning black-blood-red lips, the post apocolypse catwalk looked punk rock and heavy metal. Studded, zipped poured on pants met ankle high, equally studded stilletos that can only be called hardcore. Dresses were pieced together of variously tortured fabrics.

It's interesting to me that the clothes actually swirl around a sentiment that's been popping up in fashion coverage lately, the idea of streetpeople as inspiration. I'm not talking about hip streetstyle, I'm talking about actual homeless people. People who make outfits out of something most would think of as nothing. There was a recent article penned by Cathy Horyn in The New York Times about this very subject and I think the Rodarte collection falls right in line with this. Now, the juxtapoition of those down on their luck and dwellingless, and the superriche garments of a design duo that go for thousands on the well constructed minimalist floors of Barney's isn't made as an insensitive or naive comparison. I'm not saying that the homeless are cute, fashion source material. Not in a trite way, at least.

In terms of the Rodarte collection, the idea that the materials were treated as scraps and refuse individually and brought together to make something functional, something beautiful, is really what draws the line of conncetion. Well, okay, maybe not the straightest line. Let's scale back on the severity a bit. How about the idea of making the best of what you have, when you don't have much? That's the place a lot of us shoppers are finding ourselves in now. Without the disposable income, our disposable clothing is also not being disposed of quite so often. How do you take what you wish you could get rid of, what you were intending to wear once and toss, and make it fresh? New? Like new? If you are the Mulleavys you weave and stitch and sew. You dye and bedazzle and wrap. You shred and burn and scissor. You make materials raw and you build things anew from scratch.

Models backstage at the Rodarte show.

That is what I love so much about Rodarte. You can see the creativity so evidently, so clearly, so wonderfully. Also, they seem like they would be excessively cool to hang out with.

Runway photos from Style.com, backstage photos from nytimes.com.

Just Lookin' Out For My Girls.

The Sisters Mulleavy should be secure in their fashion world standing, and I'm not saying that they need my protection at all, but I've got their back. In my humble opinion CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nominees Ohne Titel are encroaching quite strongly on the universe of Rodarte.

Looks from Ohne Titel's 2010 Spring show.


Lookin' a bit like some past seasons of Rodarte, no?

Ultimately Kate and Laura should take this as a sort of sincerest form of flattery. Fashion is a universe of ideas where nothing exists in a vacuum and everything is up for grabs and refits and reuse. There's nothing wrong with some borrowing. I just can't believe I haven't heard anybody raise the issue. Don't worry Sisters, I'm on it.

Funbelievable.

My date (that's my mama!) and I "shopping" at Bergdorf's on Fashion's Night Out.

Dear Ms. Anna Wintour,

Thank you for inviting me to your party last night. It was so much fun! I saw a little, Indian man in acid-colored golfer gear talking to a bedecked zaftig lady in ruched ruffles of black on black at Bergdorfs! That was fun. There were too many people on the 7th floor for me to see Mary Kate and Ashley, but I did watch Andre Leon Talley walk by. Anna, that was wonderful!

One of the gorgeous windows at Bergdorf's.

I saw your frenemy Grace Coddington at her exhibit at Prada. She let me get a picture with her, which I thought was very kind of her. Next time she tells you off in the office, let her go easy. She was sweet to me.

Look, our photo came out "soft" just like Coddington likes it! She set up those suit-wearing wolves at a Red Riding Hood themed exhibit at Prada.

I bumped into one of your cover girls, Sasha Pivovarova who told me that she'd really rather be a full time artist and that I should check out her exhibit at Bendel's down the street. I did. There was a giant doll made of all sorts of things! That was cool.

God, if you ever want to feel dorky and stocky stand next to a supermodel! Recent I Want To Wear It. post subject Sasha Pivovarova's art was on display at Henri Bendel's. She's really tall.




Shots of Sasha's show at Bendel's

I also got an astrological reading at Bendel's. I wanted a Poppy King lip reading, but I settled for a star-ologist instead. She told me I was an old soul, with a natural ability to lead, but a tendency to get stuck doing grunt work and loving people who lack commitment and structure. That made me think about all sorts of things that weren't fun, but then I spotted a fashion illustrator doing portraits of women who waited on a line and that made me happy again.

Custom portraits at bendel's.

Anna, I was a little worried throughout the night that the mix of mobs, booze, and expensive (with a capital E) clothes would prove disastrous for you. I was having thoughts of the Terminal 5 exhibit that backfired when art got wrecked, ruined, and snagged by drunken revelers. I thought the triumph of the evening could turn out badly for you in the end, but maybe I wasn't giving the fashionistas enough credit.

It was crowded everywhere! But, I think the biggest crowds were at the bars, not the registers. I wonder what the final takes for the evening were.

The next stop of the night was at Opening Ceremony, and let me tell you, Anna, it was a hipster mobscene! The store was p-p-p-packed to capacity and even the sidewalk was jammed with people wearing fake prescription glasses and giant bows on their heads. It was the place to be. I really wanted to see The Mulleavy Sisters there, but alas, it wasn't going to happen.

All I saw of Rodarte were their Kurt Cobain t-shirts on the car they customized outside. The hipsters were packed into every square foot inside and outside the store!

My last stop was at Topshop. Where I bumped into Karen Elson, literally. She stumbled down a few stairs in her stilettos. I felt so bad! Good thing she's got practice in those things. She teetered but didn't topple. Once she steadied herself, I told her how much I loved her work, which I guess is an awkward thing to say to a model? But I do. So I said it.

Mannequins were out for fashion too.

My Mom admiring a gorgeous orange Thakoon dress. We shopped with our eyes, not our pocketbooks.

Anna, all in all, I had the best time. I satisfied some dreams my ten-ear-old self has been carrying around since she became an avid Vogue reader (um, hello? Meeting Grace Coddington? ALT? Supermodels?) Amazing.

I'm sorry I didn't buy anything, but maybe next year?

Thanks for the good times,
Anna Y.