Designed by Roula Ghalayini, Poupée Couture bags stand out via unique aesthetic and attention paid to detail. Ghalyani’s signature crystal and metal adornment hinting at her Arab heritage provides a special touch, enabling to project both an opulent futuristic or vintage feel. Needless to say this Snobette is smitten. On the next page we picked a few of our faves from the extensive assortment, while you can purchase some styles here.
We love the idea of airbrush make-up. However, as cool as it sounds it’s even cooler to see the ladies effortlessly applying Feride Uslu’s line of cosmetics to their own faces. The glimpses of her signature nail polishes is of course a major treat, and we give kudos for the inclusion of a little skin tone variety. Presenting an Asian woman and a black woman in the same beauty ad, we just love! Of course there are many more skin tones and races to represent, but from an independent beauty brand perspective we’re clapping!
Lady Gaga as of late has been having a lot of fun showing off her stiletto-shaped nails, featuring lots of flashy art. For her latest single, “Judas,” her creative side kick, Nicola Formichetti, featured images pulled from the video on his site, crediting all the labels and stylists. Her chain-drenched nails shown above are by nail artist Aya Fukuda, who recently conducted an interview with Bellasugar on her work with Lady Gaga.
One more Lady Gaga nail art image on the next page.
The premiere of Rihanna’s latest single, “California King Bed.” Muscially the theme is about the growing distance beween two lovers and has a country rock feel to it. Next up from her Loud album is “Man Down,” which is being shot in Jamaica.
Fashioning today recalled a dust-up over its posting of Lisa Blue’s Summer 2011 collection of swimsuits for Australian Fashion Week. The one piece shown above is the site’s most viewed photo. Editor Daniel Dykes explains:
“The swimsuit, as you can see, features a print representation of Lakshmi, a Hindu goddess. Visual representations of deities are nothing new, when applied to swimwear though, they can certainly provoke an emotional reaction. And provoke this one-piece did. Since the image ran on Fashionising.com our editors have been filtering out hundreds of comments about the piece, none of them pleasant. Largely aimed at the label and its designer Lisa Burke, they’ve ranged from statements of concern to mild slurs, and at the other end of the spectrum have also included curses and all out death threats.”
Since the show, Lisa Blue has apologized and removed the offending print from the collection. Controversy aside, the designer clearly has a gift for choosing graphics and striking color and pattern combinations, not to mentioning styling a runway show to perfection. To see a few more suits from the collection, click through to the next page. More at Fashionising.
Madonna has contributed a pair of black and white Chanel boots (preworn and autographed) for a fundraising auction being held at her daughter Lourdes’ school, LaGuardia High School, a public high school located in New York City’s Upper West Side. This school is often referrred to as “The Fame School,” for the movie which was inspired by it. More recently, Alicia Keys [UPDATE: Keys attended Professional Performing Arts School not LaGuardia] and Nick Minaj are a couple of its more famous attendees and there are many, many more.
Not sure what program Lourdes is a part of, but whatever it is, she had to try out for her spot. Laguardia is one of a handful of highly-ranked New York City public high schools for which you have to meet very high test-in or try-out entry standards to be admitted. As for what those boots may bring to the school, the highest bid at the moment is $2,860, with three days left.
Despite lukewarm reception to previous efforts, Karl Lagerfeld remains undeterred, directing another film, The Tale Of A Fairy Tale, using it as a tool to promote the Cruise 2011/2012 collection. The video here features just a clip from the short film, which will include Anna Mouglalis, Amanda Harlech, Kristen McMenamy, Freja Beha, Bianca Balti, Baptiste Giabiconi, Brad Koening, Jake Davies, Mark Vanderloo, Oriol Elcacho, Sébastien Jondeau, and Seth Kuhlmann. The full version will be available to view at Chanel tomorrow.
One of our fave shoe etailers Solestruck has launched a “Summer Essentials” lookbook, highlighting the key shoe styles for the upcoming warm weather months and it really does nail every one, highlighting wedges, flatforms, neons, slippers (see above image–be still my beating heart!) and flat booties.
Alexander McQueen image from book that accompanies exhibit
A NY Times articles covering the Alexander McQueen “Savage Beauty” show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art brought up some interesting points. First, the show is mostly paid for by the Alexander McQueen fashion house, which suprised me. I didn’t realize you could essentially pay your way into a museum as prestigious as the Met. And apparently this is even “the norm,” according to the article:
“Two years later the Guggenheim — though it denies this — effectively rented its Manhattan premises to Giorgio Armani for his retrospective. (Such deals are now the norm, and the Met is forthright about stating that most of the money for the McQueen retrospective comes from the fashion house called Alexander McQueen.)”
The other thought-provoking point was author Holland Cotter’s observation that while fashion designers often want their work to be viewed as art, they’re very rarely critiqued as such with the end result exhibits that are big on fluff and lacking substance. In speaking about the McQueen exhibit, he says,
“The Met exhibition passes all this off as manifestations of a Romantic temperament, but you have to ask critical questions. The chief problem with the fashion-as-art fad of the 1990s was precisely that it didn’t ask them.” And then later adds, “My point is: If you’re going to deal with fashion as art, treat it as art, bring to it the distanced evaluative thinking, including social and political thinking, that scholars routinely apply to art. Such an approach is standard in exhibition catalogs that accompany most Met shows, but not in the McQueen catalog, which, beautiful though it is, is heavy on pictures, skimpy on text.”
Holland also challenges some of McQueen’s assertions about his design intent, as well instances in which he feels the designer was hypocritical. A fascinating read, which challenges how we view fashion. Plus, there are lots of pretty pictures from the show.
Sleek menswear styling with a color choice that we cannnot help but marvel at. The Brett shoes by Dieppa Restrepo illustrate the beauty of the simplicity, design and craftmanship. View in more angles on the flip , available ta Mnzstore.
