Highlights of the pre-fall collections

What is frustrating about the pre-fall and resort collections is that they always get lost in the shuffle. Two months after the spring collections and two months before the fall collections, that's why they always lack the attention of public. However, as they warm us up to get ready for the upcoming seasons by giving tips about what we are going to see in the fall collections, they deserve to be paid attention.

Here, below, are the screen shots i've done highlighting the details of the pre-fall collections up to now.

Theysken's Theory 

The sheer pants are just to be wowed at! The glittery ornaments embroidered on them are eye-catching.

Chanel

The leather gloves leaving only the finger tips open?! Naah, didn't like them!

Hella cool!

Am i mistaken or Viv has put on some new sunglasses??? This is definitely the first time that i've ever seen Viviana Volpicella with these round shaped sunglasses other than her gradient wayfarers! Now i could certainly say that whatever she puts on her pretty cool face, that Signora is the one that makes me think if she was born with sunglasses on her or something, because they look impeccably gorgeous solely on her!

J.E.A.L.O.U.S

I'm totally jealous! Damn! i'd have given everything to undertake the styling of this shoot! It's stunning and classic without being regular and summarizes that magnificently elegant style of 50's successfully. I've been missing a shoot that both inspires and takes my breath away for a while. And here it is. It's impossible not think just for a moment if this girl is a 50's icon or this shoot is done by an old-time photographer like Irving Penn. In short, congrats to the whole team!

ps. By the way, it's for the January issue of Elle US.

L'uomo ideale!

Finally, JakandJil.com is back. I couldn't understand why it took sooo long, because "scusami" but i can't see any dramatic changes between the previous layout of the site and the new one. But, never mind, it's Tommy Ton, he doesn't need a showy web site because he makes his photographs talk instead. 

Well, here are the photos i picked up from his "brand new" site, with the extremely cool styling tips for the men.

If you find the pocket handkerchiefs too formal, use gloves instead of them, they look much cooler.

If you have a coat whose colour or the style you don't like anymore, cut the sleeves off and ta taam! You have a completely modernised and classy waistcoat. (I've done the same thing for my black trench coat. )

I know this one looks a little bit weird but if you are skinny, give it a try. Tuck your jacket-attention: not your shirt- into your pants suit or jeans. 

Getting your name embroidered on the sleeve cuffs or on the pocket of your shirt is posh, yes , but be innovative and get it done on your trouser cuffs. 

Ah, that's my favourite! 

A standing collar will always make a man (also a woman) look like a swagger!

See who wins!

What i'm going to buy myself for the Christmas: Fashion Face-Off: A Trump Card Game. It's a perfect substitute for the bingo game. You can order it here on Amazon.

Senses be praised!

Well guys, i want those sunglasses badly, sickly and freakingly, i could fall asleep while staring at these, i could live the rest of my life with these on my eyes. 3D floral, pastel colored, oversized and make me think the girls in heaven must be given these... yes i'm going to stop here, because i'm going nuts!! 

p.s This shoot is from an editorial by Elle France, the whole editorial is heavenly. But what makes me hysterics is that i can't read to which label do these sunglasses belong to, it's too small to read. Help please!

It's all about the old times

While searching through Amazon.com to check out some new reference books on fashion, i found 'Vogue: The covers'. I've already known about other books on covers of French and British Vogue but i've been always hoping to see the one on American Vogue and ta taam; this one includes solely the covers of American Vogue throughout the 120 years period until today. It's a great source for those who want to see the development of the art of magazine covers in search of the best one ever. But one should keep in mind that “The best cover is always the next one, the one you haven’t seen yet.” as told by the dab hand, Anna Wintour. However, i beg to differ from Ms. Wintour. If you ask me, in our day, all the covers of fashion magazines look the same, and as i look through the precedent covers of Vogue, i can't help sighing and being inspired. There's this creativity in every single cover. Whereas, today, there are only three different styles of covers: there is a woman, a man and a woman or a  group of women posing for the camera, nothing more, nothing less. Sorry, but also i can see no art in those covers when i compare them with the ones in the past. That's why, i just can't get enough of looking at these old covers of fashion magazines. 

The 'V' on this cover looks quite the same with the 'V' we see on V magazine today. It's possible that they might have been inspired by this V. Why not?

I'm thinking seriously to get this printed out and framed and hang it on my wall. It's the most creative cover i've ever seen! And it's photographed Horst P. the Great!

Personal items of designers are on the block!

One of the leading fashion, music and arts magazine, Dazed&Confused celebrates its 20th anniversary by launching a time capsule auction collaborating with designers, stylists and make-up artists. They are asked to select a personal item of their own, which best represents their last twenty years. And all these items are put up for auction on Ebay. All the profits will be given to a confederation struggling against poverty and injustice, i.e. Oxfam. 

Knowing that buying one of these items is a good thing to do and also having the chance to own some personal items of our favorite designers'll probably be the best bargain we could ever do. My favourite items that i can't resist to put my hands on are; Alber Elbaz's bow tie, Kate Moss's Adidas trainers, Sarah Burton's embroidered scissors, Stephen Jones's signed book( which i've been planning to go and buy this weekend), and lastly, Karl Lagarfeld's tie-collar-hanger trio. But i guess, having the scissors handicrafted by Sarah Burton'd mean a lot for a fashion lover.

A great eye for fashion: Bill Cunningham

I've just finished watching the documentary film on Bill Cunningham. For those who haven't had the honour of knowing him, i mean knowing what he does, let me tell about it briefly. He's an 83 year old fashion photographer who works for NY Times for about 35 years. He's one of the oldest street fashion photographers, that is when there was no Sartorialist, Tommy Ton or Yvan Rodic there was Bill Cunningham. Every single day he rides through New York and hounds for the fashion trends on the street. To sum up the film in a few sentences i can say that Mr. Cunningham is a real fanatic of clothes, not of the brands, the people or the fame. He hounds only for clothes looking interesting and innovative. I highly recommend you to look at his page on NY Times regularly, it's updated every week. Every single week he gathers the images he shot during the seven days and compiles them under a topic. So as not to bore you, i'm gonna stop here and write down the quotations i noted down while watching the film and show you some screencaps from it, and his old pages on NY Times. 

"The best fashion show is definitely on the street. It's always been and always will be."

"I'm interested in clothes, i'd never be a paparazzi, i couldn't be. To torment people and chase them...oh i couldn't do, i wouldn't do. It has to be done just discreetly and quietly. 'Invisible' i think is the word."

"I just like fashion as an art form of dressing the body. If we all went out looking like a slob like me, it'd be a pretty dreary world."

"Fashion week in Paris is exceptional. It educates the eye. Every six months it's like going to school. You have to go back and reeducate the eye."

At an organization in which he's going to be awarded by the French Ministry of Culture, he keeps photographing the people around him, and a woman comes up to him and says "I just think it's so funny that you're working at your own party." and he answers her "My dear, it's not work, it's pleasure."

"Money is the cheapest thing, liberty and freedom is the most expensive."

And here is my favorite which i also noted down on my scratch book: 

"Fashiın is armor to survive the reality of everyday life. I don't think you could do away with it. It'd be like doing away with civilization."

Muse of the day: Ulyana Sergeenko

She carries that cold but undeniably seductive breeze of Russia everywhere she goes, whether she is in Paris, London or New York, you can easily tell that she is no European, because she has that aura which brings immediately Anna Karenina of Leo Tolstoy to my mind. Her style is all unique to her, and to every place she goes, she creates a small world of Russian Empire of the late 19th century and the early 20th. Multi-layered maxi skirts and dresses, extra-long coats, frilled stand-up collar shirts and Balmoral boots to bear up with the freezing cold of Russia are undoubtedly the key-pieces of her wardrobe.

La Vie en Noir et Blanc...

Nowadays, I'm in the mood for 20s and 30s, aka the Jazz Age, (by the way i have just come home from a play- The Glass Menagerie- written by Tennessee Williams, taking place in the 30s, as you can guess i loved the costumes designed for the play) the time when women switched from the highly constricting dresses giving them the desired S-shape figure to much more comfortable clothes, straight line skirts and dresses freeing their body without constricting. So here are my inspiration photos for 20s and 30s fashion. I often look at them and dream about how i'd feel if i could live in this era, thinking even the 1% possibility of encountering Mademoiselle Chanel'd be thrilling.