Get a Life
All ad campaigns are not created equal. Despite their commercial origins, some creep into the realm of contemporary art—particularly when shot by a photographer as singular as Juergen Teller for a client as fearless as Vivienne Westwood.
NYFW backstage beauty: The Chinese military meets ’40s Hollywood at Jason Wu
NYFW style snaps: We’re at Peter Som and Jason Wu, and so are Grace Coddington, Kate Lanphear, and Olivia Palermo
NYFW diary: The dispatch from day one including Jason Wu’s updated Mao jacket, Rag & Bone’s granny mishmash, and Suno’s sweet, sweet garden print
They said/We said: Kate Moss battles good and evil (like, really evil!) in a new W photoshoot
NYFW style snaps: We spy many fur coats, lots of studded leather, and is that Waris Ahluwalia?
Archive for Rani Sheen
Shopping
Bhldn: Saving bridesmaids everywhere
For a good swath of us, right now is bridesmaid season, which can be a trying time—if not as hilariously eventful as that of Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. It’s those months leading up to summer when showers and bachelorettes have to be planned, decorations consulted upon and, of course, matching dresses bought. Unless your bride-friend is going the “just get a black dress” route (yeah right), this can be torturous exercise in body shape assessment, silhouette negotiation and perusal of thousands of geriatric satin numbers, many of which are composed of highly flammable fibres and aren’t lined properly. Need we mention that those will never be worn again?
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Fashion
RAFW diary: Favourites from the finale of Rosemount Australian Fashion Week
Photography by Don Arnold/Getty Images
The second half of fashion week brings some of the buzziest shows—notably Dion Lee and Josh Goot who are known at home as well as abroad as the new kings of Australian fashion. Both put on an impressive and memorable show for their adoring subjects, and their joint reign remains unchallenged.
Dion Lee has come back to the Sydney Opera House’s glass front foyer for his Spring show—and why wouldn’t he? Of all the images from last season, the ones of rows of models in pastel draped minidresses, framed by the soaring glass structure, are the most enduring. Local PR powerhouse Holly Garber, in a navy Dion Lee dress and complicated-looking headset, directs seating with military precision, but can’t control the searing beams of morning sunshine assaulting the eyes of the front row on the lower level. Happily, I’m facing the other way. Models walk along the two levels and up and down the shallow stairs in stiff, short dresses with moulded shoulders and skirts—even bootleg trousers have strategic volume behind the ankle, like rounded alien shin-fins. Shoulders and hips appear through Lee’s signature cutouts, keeping things light and allowing natural movement. He’s added brightly coloured prints—one resembles a photograph of a sheet of crumpled metal foil. There are shiny black accents, and metallic ones. Makeup impresario Napoleon Perdis has delivered wondrously illuminated skin that gives the sunlight some reflective competition. Flat Camilla Skovgaard Grecian sandals quickly give way to vertiginous ones, and metal breastplates provide a layer of glimmering protection. At the end, the models line up like a resolved and very pretty army—if Lee continues this show format, these money shots will provide an interesting slideshow of his development as a designer.
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Fashion
RAFW diary: Early favourites from Rosemount Australian Fashion Week
Left: Morrison and Right: Lover shot by Stefan Gosatti/Stringer.
On a greyish autumn morning (in Australia that is), fashion press, retailers and industry people click-clop along the impressive Sydney Harbour foreshore towards the Overseas Passenger Terminal for the Spring/Summer 2011/2012 collections. Cruise ships dock at the large glass structure on the lip of the water, but we’re here to be transported through five days of presentations by the best Australia has to offer. Here we present our favourites so far:
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Scene
Alexander McQueen: A suitable tribute
Alexander McQueen (British, 1969-2010) Dress, Autumn/Winter 2010. Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The invitation that has New York fashion lovers waiting by the mailbox is that of tonight’s Costume Institute’s Met Gala. This year’s extravaganza opens the exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (May 4 to July 31, metmuseum.org), which encompasses everything from McQueen’s Central Saint Martins post-graduate collection of 1992 to his final presentation, which was shown days after his death.
Scene
Assouline helps Japanese relief-efforts with stunning imagery
You’ve probably already donated to help the earthquake-, tsunami- and nuclear accident-stricken people of Japan via the Red Cross, but here’s another way to help: Buy a copy of The Light of Tokyo—and its publisher, Assouline, will donate 50 percent of the sales to relief efforts. Photographer Jean-Michel Berts, who has shot campaigns for Hermès, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Oscar de la Renta but also specializes in documenting the beauty of urban architecture, captures Japan’s soaring skyscrapers, serene formal gardens and elegant Buddhist temples in velvety black and white.
To purchase the book, visit shopassouline.com
Beauty
In which we meet Nael, the manly masseur
He’ll have you at hello—or more specifically, at his handshake. With a firm but gentle grasp and smooth skin, soft from kneading oil into muscles all day long, you can just tell that these hands, belonging to Nael Dababneh, a massage therapist at The Hazelton hotel, are going to work magic.
Deep in the lower level below one of Toronto’s swishiest hotels, the Spa at the Hazelton is a study in neutral marble and frosted glass, with a mosaic-tiled lap pool and a eucalyptus steam room. Such a luxurious setting promises a fantastic body scrub and mud wrap (which certainly is delivered) but not necessarily a strong, therapeutic massage. But Dababneh’s baby face and sweet manner belie his masterful technique. Read more »
Shopping » Daily steal
The daily steal: Embroidered iPhone case, $35
Protect your phone from the cavern of your handbag (or stuff a stocking) with one of these colourful iPhone sleeves by Toronto textile maven Virginia Johnson ($35, virginiajohnson.com).
