Make Something Out of Everything

Maison Martin Margiela's Artisinal collection for Spring 2009 is a delicious display of found objects, twisted and turned into creations that defy their simple origins and transform into daring designer pieces. Here are the looks, some are made of shoelaces, some of paper towels, some of shredded, old fabrics. All are stellar and strange.

Makes recycling and reusing seem like terribly chic things to do. Job well done.

Mrs. Mia Wallace

Mia Wallace is one of my favorite cinematic characters of all time.

If I were to judge by the white-shirted, black-bobbed models backstage at his show, it looks like Armani may share that sentiment...

Photo by Greg Kessler for Style.com.

Beauty, Writ Large

Jean Paul Gaultier is an institution and his recent collections have felt historic--in a way. They've seemed a bit stuck in his hey day of the late '80s/early '90s. But this season's couture show is phenomenal. The flourish of the calligrapher's pen, with it's inky black lines and unfurling curls is the clear inspiration behind his gorgeous dresses and pantsuits. From the minute crisscross of a frequently used netted material, to the grand swirls of neck pieces, the designs go from sharp lines to loops and back again. The lines also seem to reference the black tape that couturiers use to establish the draping on dress forms, bringing the designer's process to the surface. Gaultier's corset-minded wear has always been showy about its underpinnings, but seeing these dresses with their structures and bustles and stuffing on clear display is like an education in dress building. But nothing is too technical, there is a nice balance of romance to center the pointed stiffness. I love this show. Here are some money shots (I swear couture closeups are practically pornographic to me. TMI? Hope not...):









Love it. I wish the hair and makeup were a bit more flattering and a little less concepty, but the garments are both interesting and gorgeous. This is shaping up to be a strong couture season. Just when you think it's down and out, up it comes!

Photos by Alessandro Lucioni/ Imax Tree and Mateo Volta/ Imax Tree via Style.com.

Sally Sells Shoe Shells By the Couture

I'm loving these white bead encrusted heels from Valentino.

They remind me of these gorgeous white domed sea shells I found on the beach in Rincon last week. So pretty.

Photo via Style.com

He Rocks The Paper And Scissors

In couture there is this paper thin line to be walked between spectacle and serenity, between indulgence and restraint, between luxury and elegance. The ability to tread that thread of a line is what separates the brilliant from the rest. It is the same process in any successful artwork: make something beautiful, make it interesting, push some boundaries, and reach a level of newness that creates space and thought. Do it all in a way that makes the finished product look effortless and simple; natural and approachable, yet impeccable.

Karl Lagerfeld's collections for Chanel couture do that. They do that thing that makes even the most classic, time-proven shapes and pieces come alive anew again season after season. In pop culture terms, he keeps a storied house's main lineage visible enough to qualify as timeless, but makes it innovative and fresh enough to slide right onto the backs of the hottest young things in the flashbulb saturated entertainment world. He's got the game down and he manages to draft the most brilliant players onto his team. Aside from his uber-talented seamstresses, for this spin around the fashion wheel Karl worked with Katsuya Kamo, the genius hair and makeup designer who's creations are unparalleled in their power to turn simple materials into beauty.

For his collaboration with Chanel this season, Kamo's team took scissors to paper and snipped, cut, and shaped the simple raw material into blooms, thorns, twists, spikes and poufs of headdresses and set decor. The results are gorgeous and compliment the seamstresses' craftwork completely. Well done.

Photos by Alessandro Lucioni/ Imax Tree (full images), and Mateo Volta/ Imax Tree (details) via Style.com

Hair Apparent

I'm not crazy about Galliano's new couture collection for Dior. He's gone all Dutch on us. While I can never knock his immensely impressive craftsmanship and his "dream my little dream" fantasy mentality, I suppose my fashion dreams just don't involve stiff, overstuffed Flemish Master Painter-inspired gowns because I'm not feeling this collection.

It reminds me a bit too much of stuffy living room upholstery, and giant window treatments. You know what I do love, though? The hair:

I know, it's crazy. It's a lion's mane of crimped tresses all sewn through with string and braided in corn rows. It seems to be showing the underpinnings of a wigged woman, the behind the scenes, undone state of something meant to be more pristine. I love it. See, that makes it into my fantasy land. Big hair does it for me. Something undone does it for me.

Photos: full body: Alessandro Lucioni/Imax Tree; details: Matteo Volta/Imax Tree; all via Style.com

Built By Armani

The '30s are here again. Maybe it's the economic mood, maybe the very real limitations of materials and skilled labor that are reoccurring, maybe simple nostalgia for a time of hardship and perseverance are all pushing the decade up through the many layers of our cultural conscience and bringing it flush to the surface. Whatever it is, I have to say I'm excited to see it. The focus on draping, on tailoring, on minimalism and structure, rather than flounce and too much indulgence, are refreshing. Pare down and suit up. That seems to be the M.O. and is clearly the message of Armani Prive's couture collection.





Strong angles, shapely shoulders, fitted silhouettes, structure; it all leads to a sense of solid stability, of strength and forward motion. The odd tassel, the Eastern prints, the cuffs-as-weaponry action; they all make for an economically decorated new power uniform for the monied set. I'm loving the black bobs.



Flattering, simple, DIY even. Put a bowl on your head and cut around it. That's a cost-cutting hair style right there.

Fancy Timing

Couture is coming, couture is coming! That's the battle cry of the economically downturned. The custom-made, hand-sewn-by-French-ladies, high-cost, luxury-wear Spring 2009 Season is here. How strange, right? Yesterday 75,000 people lost their jobs and today there are slideshows up of outfits that sell for easily more than what a good portion of the population brings home in a year. Part of me wants to resist looking at it, thinking about it, writing about it. Part of me wants to yell at the designers with the nerve to go on with their frivolous, overdone ideas, their gaudy shows of spectacle and wealth. Then I got to thinking: I could never afford couture, couldn't have before and definitely can't now, and there will always be someone who can afford it. That is the way of our capitalist world. So, rather than sit and stew in resentment or throw eye darts at the stomping models catwalking down my computer screen, I'm going to focus on the beauty of it all, the fantasy, the escape, just like I always have. Things themselves don't make me happy, but looking at things, appreciating them, admiring their craft, their aesthetics, their shape, color, size, that all makes me happy. Super happy, in fact. So, on with the show. Just like old times.