Schiaparelli & Prada at ‘The Met’ Benefit

Celebrities Honor Two Great Designers at Event

Schiaparelli and Prada, many guests at this year’s ultimate fashion gala on Monday night observed some surprising similarities between two women whose work is separated by half a century. Walking through the displays of ugly-chic dresses and slightly surreal designs in a new Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition that compares the designers Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada.  “I loved the play of the two of them together,” said Tom Ford, arriving at the Costume Institute gala with the model Chanel Iman, who wore a dress made of pheasant feathers molded to her body. “It was amazing how hard it was to differentiate some of the pieces.”  Best not mention that to Mrs. Prada, one of the most influential female designers in recent history, who initially rebuffed the museum’s plans to mount an exhibition that compared her to Schiaparelli, who died in 1973.

Mrs. Prada said in many interviews about the show that she had never been inspired by the work of her predecessor. “Well,” Mr. Ford said, “Coco Chanel said that creativity is the art of concealing your sources.”©NYtimes story by ERIC WILSON

Versailles ’73 Black Supermodels

Introduced ©By Audrey J. Bernard

Bold, Beautiful and Black models are reunited at the special luncheon at The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Amina Warsuma, Norma Jean Darden, Pat Cleveland, fashion designer Stephen Burrows, Charlene Dash, Alva Chinn, China Machado, Billie Blair, and Bethann Hardison. (Not pictured: Barbara Jackson, Jennifer Brice, Ramona Saunders ((deceased)) (Photo by Mike Coppola / Wireimage)

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Back in 1973, The Palace of Versailles played host to a fundraiser orchestrated by American fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert and Palace of Versailles curator Gerald Van der Kemp to raise money to restore the aging structure to provide exposure for American fashion.The time was right to introduce and celebrate some of the hottest Black Models of the Day like the ones so featured. French Fashion Designers as well as Italian Designers have long featured minority models for their shows. Myself and several other Models, walked the Runways of Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy 1969 for Valentino’s ‘Black on Black’ Fashion Show, with creations by Silvano Malta. It was an ALL Black cast of Models with Everyone wearing Designs that were in the Color Black. It was Wonderful. These Shows showcased the Beauty of All People to the Industry as well as The Public. It paved the way for today’s successful Black Models and other Minorities as well who work constantly without having to worry about being typecast. People like Naomi Campbell, Iman, Tyra Banks, Alek Wek and so many more, have these Women, like the Versailles bunch, to thank for helping to make the job of Modeling a little easier and friendly. It’s the same way Josephine Baker made show business more receptive for many other minorities of the times. Even before the models mentioned above walked the Runways, French Designers like Christian Dior, Jean Patou, Ungaro, Pierre Cardin and a few more, hired Women of Color to walk in their Catwalk shows. Now, it is very much mainstream for fashion shows to be filled with  Models of different cultures. In the 70s, particularly, Henri Bendel featured Stephen Burrows clothes, exclusively. He remains innovative to Fashion as Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Carolina Herrera, Ann Klein, Tracy Reese, Nicole Miller, Donna Karan, Bill Blass, Prabal Gurung are today. All of these fashion designers represent American Fashion, worldwide. French fashion designers somewhat rely of America for setting the trends. France Fashion Catwalk shows in Paris, many times, reflect many American Signature styles. New York Fashion Week is an example of Haute Couture and American Sportswear for the masses. Like Europe’s Pret-a-porter, American clothes is marketed with the intention of clothes being affordable. Fashion events like Fashion Week New York City, FW London, FW Paris, FW Milan and others is a prime example of the American Fashion industry‘s impact on the rest of the World. – - Find out more

Stephen Burrows – ABC news from NewsMark PR on Vimeo.

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Costumer JOHN DUNN for Cable Drama, talks

John Dunn began researching costumes for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire by scouring the legendary libraries at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as photographs inside the Library of Congress. Executive Producer Martin Scorsese even compiled a 1920s film reel for the costume designer, who also visited New York vintage shops and Los Angeles costume warehouses. “That’s what really informed us about the construction, the fabrics, materials, details, colors. And the latter was really eye-opening,” says Dunn, who was Emmy-nominated for the first season of Mad Men “We are so used to looking at that period in black-and-white films and sepia photos. Not a lot of the original color survived. But if you take apart a hem or a seam in a vintage garment, you’re like, ‘Holy Cow! Look at that color!’ It was not a drab period at all. We were amazed by the colors even the men were wearing back then.” Dunn used only authentic fabrics, nothing that did not exist in 1920, and often had to have fabrics specially woven for the men’s suits to get the proper period weight and texture. Steve Buscemi’s clothing was custom-made by master tailor Martin Greenfield, who could turn out a suit for the show in just four days, often in triplicate. — Read more about John Dunn HERE

Article by Elizabeth Snead @ deadline.com

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Daphne Guinness Wants to Showcase Her Isabella Blow Collection in a ‘Virtual Museum’

Daphne Guinness calls buying all of late fashion editor Isabella Blow‘s wardrobe to halt its auction “probably the maddest decision ever.” Speaking late last week to Platinum and Centurion American Express cardholders at an exclusive tour of the Met’s new “Savage Beauty” exhibit— showcasing the work of her and Blow’s friend Alexander McQueen — she explained

I thought what’s going to happen is the pieces are going to be lost. She had an incredible eye and she truly loved her pieces, they’re like a diary. I didn’t want to buy them and wear them, I wanted to buy them and keep them because I think it’s very interesting for students and people who are interested in fashion to see.

Read more about this, CLICK

You can Also CLICK HERE to View ‘Slideshow’

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Beautiful Images of Met’s Alexander McQueen

On May 2 the annual Met Ball kicks of the Metropolitan Museum‘s Costume Institute’s new exhibit, Savage Beauty, a retrospective of Alexander McQueen’s work. The hefty catalogue of the exhibit was recently distributed, and it features new glorious photos of some of the late designer’s most glorious pieces. The book also includes Tim Blanks’s interview with McQueen’s successor, Sarah Burton — one of the most extensive that’s been conducted to date. Burton tells Blanks that when McQueen (she calls him by his first name, Lee) got the call from LVMH to go to Givenchy, he merely thought they were calling him to do a handbag collaboration with Louis Vuitton, which was the hot thing in fashion at the time. Burton went with him to Givenchy. “We had one pattern-cutting table, which used to belong to Body Map and Flyte Ostell, with chairs that didn’t reach the table. When Lee got the Givenchy job, we got chairs that reached the table,” she tells Blanks. “And he was really excited because it meant there was money coming in, and he could do things he’d never done before.” One of the most memorable collections from those days was for fall 1999, “which involved a model in a Perspex robotic body,” Burton says. “The guy who made the robot told us ten minutes before the model walked out, ‘If she sweats in the suit, she’s going to electrocute herself. So tell her not to sweat.’ “.
……more on this

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Fashion Museums: Edgy Exhibits

By BETH J. HARPAZ

For fashionistas who love vintage fashion and couture, many museums in the U.S. and abroad can give a fashion fix. Fashion museums and costume institutes offer close-up looks at contemporary designers and cutting-edge trends, as well as classic styles and fashion history. These collections of clothing, accessories and textiles can be found in style capitals such as New York, Los Angeles and Paris, and in unexpected places such as Indianapolis and Antwerp, Belgium.

New York City

Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Los Angeles

Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising

Museum of Contemporary Art

Midwest

Indianapolis Museum of Art

Europe

Italy: Salvatore Ferragamo Museum

France: Les Arts Decoratifs

Belgium: Mode Museum

Canada

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Bata Shoe Museum

Designer Norma Kamali and Vogue Editor Jill Spalding Praise Shen Yun Costume Design

NEW YORK—“I was very impressed with the clothing and costumes,” said famed designer Norma Kamali after seeing the over 400 hand-made costumes donned by Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company dancers. Jill Spalding, a writer and editor for Vogue Magazine, was also in attendance at Sunday’s sold-out performance at the David H. Koch Theater at the Lincoln Center. Both appraised the colorful garb of the different regions of China.

“I saw here the best example about how fabric, clothing, and sleeves can enhance the movement and tell the story,” remarked Ms. Kamali, who also designs costumes for dance. Ms. Kamali is better known, however, for her bathing suits, which have been featured on the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine, and for her parachute designs, on display in the Vanity Fair permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum. A part of classical Chinese dance, the silk costumes are designed to be a rippling and flowing extension of the dancer.

“When the sleeves became a part of the rhythm and a part of the overall design of the set, it was very impressive!” said Ms. Kamali of the long, cascading sleeves found in several of the Shen Yun dance pieces.

Taken from EPOCH TIMES

more about “Shen Yun“

Stephen Burrows: Host “Tribute to American Fashion” @ Met Museum

Retrospect: Stephen Burrows at Studio 54 in 1977

 

Mr. Burrows gathered some of  his Model Greats like Bethann Hardison, Amina Warsuma, Billie Blair, Pat Cleveland, Alva Chinn, Norma Jean Darden, Barbara Johnson, China Mechado & Ramona Saunders.

 

Event held at Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the annals of fashion smackdowns, few events have attained anything resembling the legendary status of the 1973 Grand Divertissement à Versailles. A stunt benefit ginned up by Eleanor Lambert, the publicist who invented the Best Dressed List, this fabled fashion show, promoted as a Franco-American collaboration, was always destined to be seen as a battle for dominance: the Old World slugging it out with the New, a muscular group of comers with Studio 54 as their shared point of reference taking on the fusty world of the haute couture.

Read More in NY Times Article by Guy Trebay | Originally Published: January 12, 2011

NOTE: View Story & Pictures of actual Event documented by GLENN TUNSTULL

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