Cebu designers bag 2013 Look of Style Awards

Heritage, apart from talent, played a big role in helping designers Rei Escario and Neil Felipp produce their winning collections in this year’s Look of Style Awards held Nov. 14 at Buddha Bar in Makati.

Produced by Inquirer Lifestyle, Look Magazine and the British Council, headed by country director Nicholas Thomas, with Bench, SM Accessories and Systema Tooth & Gum Care as major sponsors, the Look of Style Awards is now on its fourth year.

It’s the only nationwide fashion design competition that sends the winners to the prestigious Central Saint Martins in London, under the sponsorship of the British Council.

This year’s awards added a category—the accessories design. The winner is awarded a brief course at Sheffield Hallam University outside London.

Escario won the Best Fashion Design category. Neil Suarez San Pedro, known as Neil Felipp, won the Best Fashion Accessory category.

Escario, younger brother of leading fashion designer Jun Escario, won over eight other finalists in the apparel category, while Felipp (Neil Suarez San Pedro), scion of the Cebu-based family behind the famous Suarez college rings, won over 11 other finalists in the accessories category.

Escario and Felipp are both from Cebu.

This year’s board of judges for apparel were Inquirer Lifestyle journalist Cheche Moral, Look editor in chief Carmencita Sioson, British Council’s Anna Tan, and fashion designers JC

Buendia and Lulu Tan Gan.

For accessories, the judges were Amina Aranaz-Alunan, Emi Jorge, Joyce Makitalo, Nicole Whisenhunt, Ricky Toledo and Chito Vijandre.

Past winners Pablo Cabahug, Geof Gonzales and Roland Alzate credit the Look awards for jumpstarting their careers and providing them valuable insights derived from the contest’s scholarships and mentoring programs.

Each of the past winners showed a three-piece collection in this year’s awards night.

This year’s contestants worked around the theme “Pinoy Goes Global.”

Escario and Felipp will receive an all-expense-paid trip to England and scholarships courtesy of the British Council.

Escario, who also won a special award from Bench, is free to take up any short course of his choice at Central Saint Martins (CSM), the same school that produced such fashion design legends as John Galliano, Phoebe Philo, Stella McCartney and the late Alexander McQueen.

The same privilege awaits Felipp at the Sheffield Hallam University.

Escario, 25, did a three-piece collection made of “readily available” materials like jersey, duchess satin and Mikado silk in such colors as black, dove gray and orange.

“My intentions and materials were simple,” said Escario, a nursing graduate.

“I wanted to limit my collection to readily available materials in the Philippines. The lines and cuts were simple, but with enough play on techniques. My tops, for instance, were ‘volumized’ for more visual impact. Adding pops of orange was a last-minute decision I had to make to kill the boredom.”

These half brothers grew up in the same house. Escario credits his older brother for exposing him early to the business.

He also grew up admiring the works of such leading Cebu designers as Philip Rodriguez, Oj Hofer and Arcy Gayatin.

“Jun and I are very close,” said Escario, who has been designing for almost 10 years now. “I remember him bringing me to all his shows at the Midtown and Cebu Plaza. He and his assistant designers also taught me how to sketch. I owe it all to him.”

As part of his brother’s team, the younger Escario shuttles between Cebu and Manila to attend to their bride clientele.

He knows what to focus on at CSM.

“I plan to focus more on the business side by taking up either Marketing or Management,” he said. “You can learn creativity on the job. My goal now is for the business side to be more organized.”

Necessary tools

In the case of Felipp, 24, both sides of the family gave him the necessary tools to succeed in his field.

For Look, he did three minaudières that combined cast and gold-plated brass animal figures with materials sourced from Cebu, such as Mactan stone, wood veneer and black acrylic.

“My maternal grandfather and his brothers started Suarez Bros,” said the UP Cebu Industrial Design graduate. “My paternal grandfather, the San Pedro side, was the creative talent behind the rings. They eventually joined forces.”

Felipp credits his maternal grandfather for instilling in him a sense of business and integrity, while he values the creative gene he seems to have inherited from his paternal grandfather.

He has been professionally designing for almost two years now. He also took mentorship programs under Hofer and furniture and industrial designer Kenneth Cobonpue.

“My vision is to make Neil Felipp a global jewelry brand,” said Felipp, who plans to take up accessory and product design in Sheffield. “I want to elevate it and make it more than just a brand made by a Filipino.”

Winning pieces

One of his winning pieces was a wooden minaudière adorned with molded metal in the form of tiny monkeys. Dubbed as the “simian series,” the collection also featured a cuff and necklace made out of these tiny metal monkeys.

The other piece consisted of off-white Mactan stone with a decorative snake element also made of gold-plated brass.

The piece was inspired by the unlikely love story between snake woman Medusa and Midas, the king who turns everything he touches into gold.

“I love Greek mythology,” Felipp said. “What if someone like Medusa and Midas meet and fall in love with each other? Since both are cursed, they decide to end their miseries with a deadly embrace. As Medusa turns into gold, Midas turns into stone. Their lips are forever locked in a kiss in the form of a minaudière.”

Animal inspirations

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Felipp is aware of how animals have often inspired designers. What sets his work apart are the stories behind the pieces.

“All over the world, you could see all sorts of animal inspirations,” he said. “But the story in each piece I design makes a difference and adds to the whole experience.”

His third piece, which was auctioned off to benefit victims of Typhoon “Yolanda,” was also a minaudière with a brass dragon clasp dubbed as Suzy Wong. (A number of judges and contestants also donated items for auction.)

“We all know the story of Suzy Wong, the hooker with a golden heart,” said Felipp. “Suzy looked beautiful and fragile on the outside, but she’s tough on the inside and has the heart of a

dragon; I want to empower any woman who would hold this piece. It may look fragile, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.”

This year’s Look of Design Awards proved to be the biggest yet in terms of number of participants, awards and prizes.

Apart from bagging the grand prize, Escario won the Bench Award for apparel, while shoe designer Jun Artajo, one of this year’s accessories finalists, won a special award from SM Accessories.

Artajo, who has been designing wedding shoes since 2012, did a pair of platforms made of braided abaca and wood in gradating shades of orange.

“I was inspired by the headgear of the Ivatans of Batanes called vakul,” he said. “I named each of my masterpieces as Laji, Kalusan and Kanta, which the Ivatans sing when they’re happy and feeling prosperous.”

Toughest competition

Accessories finalists Angela Angeles, Ronald Ramiro, Earl Gariando and Adante Leyesa, whom Felipp considered as his toughest competition, also won scholarships from Sheffield Hallam University.

On Awards night itself, the university decided to add scholarships and named the four finalists.

Leyesa was inspired by three of Batangas’ iconic cathedrals to produce a collection of statement neckpieces. He won grand prize in the accessories division of “Weaving the Future,” a contest organized by the Fashion Design Council of the Philippines two years ago.

The self-taught Leyesa used unlikely and disparate components such as calado embroidery, glass, wedding cord and safety pins to produce his pieces. He welcomes the scholarship program as an ideal opportunity for him to learn the finer points of design.

“These cathedrals are San Sebastian in Lipa, Immaculada Concepcion in Batangas City, and San Martin de Tours in Taal,” the Batangas native said of his inspirations. “Almost everything was done by hand by me and my team.”

The piece Leyesa donated for auction was a charm necklace of sorts inspired by San Sebastian’s colorful stained glass windows.

As her way of acknowledging Jaggy Glarino’s potential and choice of material, Tan Gan added to the list of prizes by awarding Glarino an all-expense-paid trip to England and scholarship at CSM. A Lulu Tan Gan Award was created that night, and the veteran designer also invited Glarino to join her team.

The Davao-born Glarino, 27, worked for a time in Dubai. For his three-piece collection consisting of knitted separates, he ditched “normal” fabrics in favor of knits, which he developed from a combination of cotton, saluyot, water hyacinth and piña fibers.

Time constraints

He first considered using delicate Mindanao silk yarn for a more luxurious feel, but the idea wasn’t feasible due to time constraints and lack of materials. He then went to the Philippine Textile Research Institute and learned that piña had been utilized and combined with cotton to create knitwear in the past.

With the institute’s help, Glarino came up with an updated version incorporating yarns sourced from saluyot and water hyacinth with cotton and piña.

“I’m used to dealing with normal fabrics,” he said. “The main challenge for me was dealing with a different material. I really wanted to challenge myself by doing something that’s totally unexpected of me.”

When he realized how tough the competition was, Glarino was happy he didn’t “do the usual.” Knits stand out in fashion competitions because, apart from being unusual, they’re labor-intensive materials, he said.

Glarino also knew he had to do something different to land a place or at least stand out among his equally talented and hungry colleagues. Tan Gan, hailed as the country’s “Queen of Knitwear,” saw his potential and took notice.

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Kanye West Suggests Boycott of Louis Vuitton

Kanye West, the outspoken and abrasive rapper in an interview with 92.3 Now, suggested that people boycott Louis Vuitton this holiday season, after a less than friendly encounter with heads of the fashion company. Kanye West’s disdain with the high end luxury brand started with his disapproval of the fashion world’s “lack of diversity”, and has culminated into a heated exchange with Louis Vuitton.

In an interview with 92.3 Now on Monday, the hip hop recording artist turned producer, turned entrepreneur, turned fashion designer, chastised the brand after being given the cold shoulder by Louis Vuitton execs in Paris.

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Kanye West claims that he had tried setting up a meeting with the head of Louis Vuitton and instead of being greeted like the awesome larger than life celebrity that he is, Louis Vuitton asked the rhetorical question “I don’t understand why we need to meet with you?” Kanye’s response- “Influence.”

Kanye West went on to say that Louis Vuitton underestimates his “power” and that he could single handed take down the fashion company this holiday season.

“Everybody in New York City right now, don’t buy any Louis Vuitton until after January. Now do you wanna meet with me?” Kanye West said live on the radio show. Kanye’s threat to Louis Vuitton is a way to call out the company for their snubbing of the infamous artist.

Kanye West, not one to be shunned, is obviously not very happy with the French based fashion company. Kanye’s latest hypothetical boycott is another outlandish and somewhat feeble attempt at solidifying his self-made larger than life image, a powerhouse capable of driving entire industries with nothing more than his word.

Kanye’s latest venture includes a deal with Adidas, after being regretfully turned away by Nike when the company wasn’t willing to “bend to his conditions”

Nike’s refusal to provide Kanye West with his own design facility and royalties for the conceived “Yeezus” collection they said was not a snub of Kanye West, assuring that those benefits are reserved for professional athletes. Kanye in his all or nothing attitude walked away from the deal, signing with Adidas who agreed to satisfy those terms.

Kanye West continued by saying that he needs those royalties to “provide for his family”

“I said, ‘Well I need royalties.’ It’s not even like I have a joint venture. At least give me some royalties. Michael Jordan has 5 percent and that business is $2 billion. He makes a $100 million dollars a year off of 5 percent royalties. Nike told me, ‘We can’t give you royalties because you’re not a professional athlete.’ I told them, ‘I go to the Garden and play one-on-no one. I’m a performance athlete.’

Kanye went on to claim that he is going to be the “Tupac of product,” and that he is going to be “bigger than Walmart.”

While Kanye’s claim to “performance athlete” is a new one, you can’t put past Kanye any opportunity to make the headlines. And when it comes to performing, Kanye runs the marathon of attention grabbing performances. Kanye’s latest suggestion to boycott of Louis Vuitton is a testament to this “performance athlete” proclamation, and his endurance in the sport of fashion design haggling.

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Gabriela Artigas links family into her L.A. jewelry design studio

On the 10th anniversary of the year that Gabriela Artigas designed her first piece of jewelry — a cuff bracelet fashioned out of a boldly colored acrylic toothbrush, minus the bristles, which she purchased at the supermarket while studying fabric design in her hometown of Mexico City — the local brand has opened its first stand-alone studio in West Hollywood.

Chelsea Handler, Carey Mulligan, Emma Roberts and Tyra Banks are just a few star fans of the label, which is designed and handcrafted in Los Angeles. "But it was just three years ago that it became a day job and a real business, when [my sister] Tere joined the company," says Artigas, 32.

Indeed, the enterprise is a family affair. Teresita Artigas, Gabriela's 34-year-old sister, handles sales and press for the brand, and the sisters share an abode just blocks away. Tere's musician husband recently collaborated on a line of bolo ties. Older brother Alejandro, a local furniture designer, handcrafted the studio's pedestal tables, custom-upholstered furniture and cabinets with the line's signature gold tusks as drawer pulls. His wife photographs the collections. (It was Alejandro's study of architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture that initially drew the sisters to Los Angeles in 2003, after Gabriela sold a necklace off their mother's neck to a saleswoman at Maxfield for $90 in cash.)

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While Tere wears a uniform-like denim smock, dark angular glasses and lace-up brogues, Gabriela dons a ladylike metallic gold-and-burgundy blouse, accessorized with brilliant gold shooting star earrings. The earrings are part of a new collection designed in honor of her boyfriend, Jason Jones, creative director of local leather accessories company Parabellum, for his nomination as a finalist in the 2013 Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund competition.

Like the Artigas sisters, the Gabriela Artigas collection is a study in contrasts. A mix of bold and delicate, organic and geometric, precious and semiprecious, the pieces — including razor-thin diamond cuffs, standout ox horn pendant necklaces and hexagonal metallic rings — are designed to be combined and worn in different ways. The spring 2014 Stirrup Cuff ($195) can be worn upside down or laced with accompanying black or white ribbon ties.

"We want to keep creating pieces that are very architectural, clean and timeless, so it's a boundary between fine and costume jewelry in a very contemporary way," says Gabriela, who cites as inspiration the style of her father and paternal grandfather, Francisco Artigas, an internationally renowned Modernist architect in Mexico City.

"Our father had all his pens in the same color and his pencils sharpened the same way; his shirts were big, colorful square and stripe [patterns]. Everything looked so neat and clean," she says. "So we translated how we live onto the jewelry. We want to create a statement by the way you wear the jewelry, more than the jewelry itself — pieces that you can layer to become a part of you."

"[Gabriela Artigas] does spare that's not necessarily Minimalist, and she manages edgy in a very chic way," says Rose Apodaca, owner of the two local A + R stores, who has carried Artigas' line since 2010.

"If you just wear a T-shirt and jeans or a couture gown, you put on a piece of Gabriela's jewelry and it makes the outfit," says Desiree Kohan, owner of Des Kohan in West Hollywood, the first local retailer to carry the jewelry line, and a regular collaborator on exclusive pieces for her boutique. "But it's not trendy. I love that the jewelry [often] incorporates vintage pieces. That makes it really special. It doesn't matter if someone already has the perfect ring, they still add a Gabriela Artigas ring."

The core collection ranges from $70 to $1,200; an engagement ring and bridal collection, launched two years ago, starts at $1,200 for one of six prototype rings and from $4,500 for a completely bespoke design. The bridal and new four-piece Serrate collection, with a graphic design inspired by the company logo, are available exclusively at the studio. For spring, the brand is extending into men's accessories, with cufflinks and tie pins.

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LVMH launches first Young Fashion Designer Prize

“As a leader in our industry, we have a responsibility to discover young talents and to help them flourish,” said Delphine Arnault, daughter of Bernard Arnault and Deputy General Manager at Louis Vuitton in a press release send out today announcing the start of LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize. LVMH has launched its own namesake fashion prize to help cultivate young fashion designers around the world and was dreamed up by Delphine Arnault herself. She told WWD that “The aim of this prize is to try to discover talents that are unknown, and also to create a surprise.”

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The first winner of the inaugural award ceremony is to be selected by the end of May 2014, by a elite fashion panel, which will consist of eight creative directors from LVMH Fashion Houses. The members of the jury include the likes of Marc Jacobs (Marc Jacobs), Karl Lagerfeld (Fendi), Raf Simons (Dior) and the newly appointed Nicolas Ghesquiére(Louis Vuitton). The jury members will be joined by Delphine Arnault, Jean-Paul Claverie who is advisor to Bernard Arnault and head of corporate philanthropy for LVMH and Pierre-Yves Roussel, chairman and CEO of the LVMH Fashion Group.

LVMH Young Fashion Designer award open to all international designers

The LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize is open to all fashion designers under the age of 40, who have already shown and sold at least two men's or women's ready to wear lines. Any young budding designers who wish to apply can do so via the exclusive award site, which was specifically designed to enable the award to be open to all international applications and uses social media outlets such as Instagram to help designers gather support and allow other fashion lovers to show which designers they think deserve the spotlight.

Designers have until the 2nd of February 2014 to apply and afterwards Delphine Arnault revealed to WWD that LVMH would send 30 semifinalists to Paris during Fashion Week next year March to show their collections. A specialist committee, consisting of stylists, buyers and editors will meet with the designers and help selected the 10 finalists, who will then be allowed to show a 20 minute presentation of their collection to the jury.

The winning designer will be awarded a grant of 300,000 euros, as well as the aid of an internal team at LVMH to help develop their fashion company over the next coming twelve months. The team will support the designer in all areas that are 'critical to successfully building a nascent fashion brand.'

Along with the main prize, LVMH also decided launch another award to honor three young graduates who have completed a university program in fashion design. These three winners will be awarded 10,000 Euros each and the opportunity to join a design team at LVMH fashion brand for one year. Applications looking to apply for this side award can also do so via the LVMH prize website.

Delphine Arnault revealed in the press release that the “LVMH Prize has been created to support promising young fashion designers. This philanthropic initiative resonates powerfully with the core values of our Group. Our designers will recognize the talents of tomorrow, who will receive awards and support in developing their brand. Our goal is clearly to energize the vitality and creativity of the fashion world on a global scale.”

She also added that all participants, not just the winner, will gain something by entering the competition. “Even if they're not selected, it's going to help them grow,” she told WWD. The finalists who get the chance to meet the jury panel will have the opportunity to have “an experience that's quite unique and they won't forget.”

LVMH will continue to give its support to other fashion competitions the Group aids, such as the ANDAM Fashion Awards and the Hyres International Fashion and Photography Festival, which also take place in France. Since the founding of LVMH, over 25 years ago, the group has always looked to 'support creativity in every form.' With the addition of the Young Fashion Designer Prize, the Group hopes to encourage the 'momentum an emergence of fresh talent that are essential to the vitality and diversity of the fashion ecosystem.'

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Gert-Johan Coetzee designs for Kelly Rowland

Rowland was spotted wearing a Gert-Johan Coetzee dress at the Ms. Foundation for Women Gloria Steinem function in Hollywood recently. The singer took to Instagram to credit Coetzee for the stunning dress: a short, black beaded number which she rocked with black, strappy court heels.

“My beautiful dress that I wore to the Foundation for Women #GloriaSteinemEvent was by the South African designer AMAZING!” said Rowland on her Instagram account.

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An ecstatic Coetzee says he felt proudly South African after finding out that Rowland had graced the Gloria Steinem function in his dress.

“Every dress I make is like my child, so I feel very happy when it makes the woman who wears it feel beautiful. As with any celebrity client, I take my cue from what she has worn before to get a sense of what she likes and what parts of her body she likes to show off. I consider that any dress I make her may be photographed a lot, so I make sure it will look good under camera flashes.”

Coetzee says Rowland’s assistant had since contacted him to design and send over more of his gorgeous gowns.

“We are in the planning stages, deciding on designs, fabrics and embellishments. I’ve just been signed as Swarovski’s first African ambassador and am awaiting my first shipment so I will definitely incorporate some of those gorgeous crystals,” says Coetzee.

The designer met Rowland in September when she was in South Africa to perform at a private gig in Johannesburg. “I was asked to design something special for her and because she is looking so fit, I decided on a short, tight gown embellished with black beads in different sizes. I was thrilled that she liked it.”

Asked whether he would consider making a fashionable move to Hollywood, Coetzee said he wasn’t going anywhere just yet.

“There is so much happening in South Africa, and the growth potential here is so huge – I want to make the most of this. Plus, my gowns can travel, like this one did, so for now I have the best of both worlds.”

Coetzee is SA glamour queen Bonang Matheba’s fashion stylist and no stranger to international scrutiny. The young designer had two of his dresses worn by reality star Kourtney Kardashian and actress Kristin Cavallari.

An entrepreneur, Coetzee has partnered with Nedbank over the past two years to do regular fashion features at SA Fashion Week.

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How Vika Gazinskaya Put Herself on the Fashion Map

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“Doing fashion in Moscow is like reinventing the wheel,” said Vika Gazinskaya, who designs and manufactures her line in the Russian capital. “You have no people who understand how to shape [garments] or how to even answer emails from buyers or international press. We see what the wheel looks like, but we don’t know how to do it.”

The blunt-bobbed Gazinskaya, child of the Soviet Union turned beacon of Russian fashion talent, is helping to change this situation. Last year, Gazinskaya was named a finalist for the prestigious ANDAM fashion award. Her voluminous, structured, demi-couture designs, playfully punctuated by raindrop or cloud motifs on luxe French and Japanese fabrics, have won over influential retailers such as Net-a-Porter and Colette.

But getting to this point was anything but pre-ordained.

An only child, Gazinskaya grew up “in a very simple family,” living in a communal apartment in Moscow with two other families. “In those days it was the Soviet Union, and we had nothing about fashion at all,” she recalls. “We didn’t have most magazines, we didn’t have any TV about fashion. Nothing.”

It wasn’t until she was ten, after the Soviet Union fell, that Gazinskaya had her first introduction into what she calls “the glossy life.” Mattel had opened a store nearby. “I went there every week, just see to what they did. I mean, these catalogs for Barbie… I saw this life and it blew my mind. The dresses, the shoes, the houses, the horses, the husband, everything.” In fact, Gazinskaya’s first designs were for the Barbie doll her mother bought her. “I started doing small dresses — for example, the gloves that my mom wasn’t wearing anymore, I cut the embroidered part of them and they became a sweater for Barbie. Or I cut a stretchy umbrella cover and it was a skirt for Barbie.”

By the age of 16, her mind was set on fashion. She began taking drawing and painting lessons from a local artist and, at 19, enrolled in Moscow State University to study fashion design. “My mom couldn’t afford to send me to [Central] Saint Martins or somewhere else,” she says.

Through a local design competition in 2002, Gazinskaya was awarded an internship at L’Officiel Russia. “I really spend a lot of time educating myself,” she says of her time at the magazine, where she stayed on for two years, becoming a fashion assistant. “When I went there, I still had no idea who Richard Avedon or Guy Bourdin were.”

“Those days I was doing crazy makeup and nails and everything — I would copy all M.A.C advertisements, which were so colorful and bright, and all of Pat McGrath’s makeup [for Dior]. There was a black and pink collection by Viktor & Rolf: One half of the [models] had pink faces, [so] I also made crazy makeup with pink and big black dots I cut from lace. That’s how I expressed myself.”

In 2004, Gazinskaya struck out as a freelance stylist, “doing some projects for MTV and private clients,” before launching her eponymous label in 2006, with support from Californian artist Bart Dorsa, who financed her first show, but is no longer involved in the business.

For the first six seasons, Gazinskaya showed her collections with theatrical performances at Moscow art spaces. Her first show played on female archetypes — the blonde Hitchcock heroine, the Lichtenstein comicstrip woman — combined with elements of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and director Robert Wilson’s work. “I tried to mention all the things I loved,” she says. “I love rock and roll from the ‘70s, so every role that the model played was to different music. The curtains opened to the lyrics, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” from Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the finale music was The Doors’ “The End.” Her second show — which she dubbed “the shadow show” — featured a huge screen “25 metres long and six metres high,” which the models posed behind, creating six-metre-high shadows, before walking.

But the real breakthrough that put her on the fashion map came in 2009, Gazinskaya says, when she first decided to go to Paris for the shows. There, she cleverly introduced her work by wearing her own designs at the shows, where she was photographed by influential street style photographers like Scott Schuman and Tommy Ton, The Sartorialist and Jak & Jil, generating invaluable exposure for herself and her fledgling label. Indeed, she would later go on to become a member of the heavily photographed “Russian Fashion Pack,” alongside street style stars Ulyana Sergeenko, Miroslava Duma and Elena Perminova.

Gazinskaya says it happened organically. “I started to go to Paris for the fashion shows; I was wearing my pieces, and the bloggers just appeared,” she recalls. “I was shocked that I attracted interest from people. From the first season, Scott [Schuman] shot me and put it on The Sartorialist and his section. I had no idea who he was.”

But there’s little doubt that her consistent appearances on prominent street style blogs, “paved this road for a designer who doesn’t have money to advertise themselves,” she says. “[They instead can make a name] through the blogs, through the street style thing and through the Internet in general. It was not the [plan] but it happened to be a good thing.”

A couple of seasons later, Gazinskaya traded in her theatrical Moscow shows for a Paris showroom, a decision which helped her “get the buyers,” she says. “I would never get into the stores [outside of Moscow] if I didn’t show in Paris. In those days, Moscow was so far from the fashion scene — all these shows, no one saw them.”

In her first season with the Paris showroom, Gazinskaya emailed Colette founder Sarah Andelman some images of the collection: “She ordered and she gave me a window during Couture Week. That was also a very big thing, because in Moscow you can’t meet Sarah from Colette.”

Today, the label is stocked internationally — not only by Colette, but by Net-a-Porter, Moda Operandi, Fivestory and others. Gazinskaya declined to reveal current revenue figures, but says she is searching for a “really smart business partner” to help fund expansion.

“In London, under the British Fashion Council, they give you less expensive models, they bring you press; it’s like in the wild — a tiger, she grows her baby until the moment she feels he is strong,” she notes. “Here [in New York], the CFDA, they support so much. Our government [in Russia], they don’t care about fashion. In their minds, it’s something that the wives of oligarchs can do. When I’m asked how’s the fashion industry in Moscow, I say, ‘What?’ We have nothing.”

There are some advantages to working out of Moscow. “Creating samples is much cheaper,” she says, “and the salaries of my sewers [are] not that high. But to produce and to ship from Russia, it’s really really complicated. [There are] customs issues and my buyers are not happy.” Shipping delays have also cost her editorial opportunities.

Gazinskaya is considering setting up a small studio in New York, but “I need a budget for that,” she says, “because if I do it on my own, I will lose a season. Every step in fashion costs a lot.”

And Gazinskaya has a long list of to-dos: “add accessories, hire a Los Angeles PR, a European PR… and hire the right production person who can take control of things,” she says. “Today, I control this and it takes all the time away from creating. For example, I can’t create a second line, which I would love to do.”

Qui est Isabel Marant? The latest designer to create a collection for H&M is no Karl Lagerfeld

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You may already be in a scrum outside an H&M store reading this. You may be steeling yourself for the trip. Or you may have no idea what the hubbub you passed on your way to work is all about. The fuss is over French designer Isabel Marant's "masstige" collaboration with high street behemoth H&M. And, as that clumsy portmanteau betrays, it's yet another chance to get your hands on a piece of designer clobber at a bargain-basement price.

Mademoiselle Marant is no Karl Lagerfeld, the designer who fronted H&M's first high-end collaboration in 2004. His name, and his sunglassed, ponytailed countenance, were immediately recognisable, as was his fashion sense.

In some eyes – mine at, least – Marant is a step down next to the other talents H&M have tapped. Rei Kawakubo's Comme des Garçons and Maison Martin Margiela changed the course of contemporary fashion, questioning postmodern notions of luxury.

Isabel Marant makes jeans, embroidered jackets and fringed suede booties. Her most noteworthy contribution to the state of modern dress is that hybrid of training-shoe and trotter, the "wedge sneaker". It's an unholy coupling, but for the past few years it has proved ubiquitous, a fashion verruca we're not yet shut of.

I'm being harsh. But honest. Isabel Marant herself would probably agree: "I wanted to create clothes that I myself wished to buy," she stated, simply, to L'Express a decade ago.

Marant was born in Paris in 1967. Her mother was a director of the Elite model agency (and a model herself). She began customising her own clothes as a teenager.

In the mid-Eighties she designed a few pieces with Christophe Lemaire (now head designer of Hermès, a bastion of French hyper-luxury), the success of which encouraged her to abort plans to study economics: she enrolled at the Studio Berçot fashion school instead.

After working alongside designers such as Chloé, Claude Montana and Martine Sitbon, Marant established her own label in 1994 and began showing her collections as part of Paris Fashion Week. Success was swift.

Marant's success is also due, in no small part, to Emmanuelle Alt, Paris Vogue's editor in chief and for many years the stylist for Marant's label. Hence the fact that Isabel Marant became the "uniform" of the Paris Vogue set: impossibly skinny jeans, oversized jackets, unwashed hair, spindly heels.

Off-duty models also love its nonchalance – fashionese for "slept in", a snippy phrase thrown about a lot when describing her aesthetic. In the past, it's been slept-in rock-chick, or slept-in with Navajo embroidery. Autumn/winter 2013 was slept-in with studs.

Isabel Marant's look has ousted the stripey T-shirt and beret as the national costume of France. At least, for French fashion-followers. She's doing a roaring trade: cannily, her prices fall shy of high-fashion high-fliers. Marant's knitwear can be yours for around £300, a coat for £800.

Hefty, but hardly stratospheric. Otherwise, she punches like a heavyweight. Isabel Marant, and its signature cross-hatched asterix star logo advertises in all the glossies, and is stocked in 35 countries. She has 14 standalone stores, including one on chi-chi Bruton Street in London's Mayfair.

Isabel Marant may not be the world's greatest fashion designer, but she has the connections to know what's going to be cool before the rest of us. And that's what's got the crowds queuing at H&M this morning.

Billy Blue College of Design students showcase projects

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Billy Blue College of Design’s 2013 graduating class publicly showcased their graduate projects at the Biannual Exhibition on the Village Greens at Darling Quarter.

Friday night marked Sydney’s introduction to some of Australia’s most promising, young, emerging designers. 150 students across five creative disciplines unveiled their industry-grade works at Billy Blue College of Design’s Biannual Exhibition.

Thousands of people over the weekend treated themselves to a sneak peek at the future of design and the redefined role of the modern designer – being multi-faceted and multi-dimensional.

The exhibition, held in Darling Quarter, lit up the Village Greens with the colourful neon, stringed ‘Fuze’ sculpture fittingly representing the mergence between social networking and the meeting points of Sydney.

This year’s theme of the subconscious ‘Shift’ saw the works focus on the changing nature of the urban environment. It incorporated a diverse range of innovative projects from the college’s Communication Design, Digital Media Design, Branded Fashion, Residential/Commercial Interiors and Branded Environment design streams.

From miniature cityscapes in recycled paper coffee cups and fresh fashions, to indoor gardens in the form of an Urbarrium, the projects proved to be nothing short of outstanding. Guests dressed their necks in brightly coloured pieces in support of the Fuze sculpture, which was decadently created using the College’s new addition 3D printers, while screens displayed new 3D graphics and technology from the Digital Media students. Later in the evening, audiences flocked to the live screen-printing station to get their hands on one of four specially designed prints, giving them something a little more permanent to take home.

The 360 degree spin technology was on full display from the Branded Fashion course, thanks to Lizard Management and Hula Hoop Studios, taking the graduates final project garments to a whole new level.

Sight remained a well-satisfied sense with taste not far behind. One of the student projects ‘Savasana’, offered self-brewed organic beer and cider. This was mixed with the artistic displays and the old school wooden Milagro Tequila cart serving pineapple and coconut tequila delights – it was smiles and good times all round.

The Billy Blue College of Design Biannual Exhibition marked the students’ entry into the working world, placing them among design industry professionals and some of Sydney’s most creative brains. Being able to share the exhibition with friends, family and the supportive Sydney public, ‘Shift” was able to generate a celebratory atmosphere, electric enough to keep the Village Greens buzzing all weekend long.

John Varvatos: music, fashion and me

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I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for the music I discovered growing up in Detroit in the late 1960s and 1970s.

I came of age in Motor City, surrounded by the sounds - and look - of rock & roll. From the soul/pop of Motown to such local rockers as the Stooges, MC5, Ted Nugent, Grand Funk Railroad and Bob Seger, and touring bands like the Who and Led Zeppelin, the music enveloped me.

Looking back at those days, I realise I wouldn’t have become a fashion designer if not for the music in my life. There are traces of it in the way I dress and the look of my menswear collections over the past dozen years.

My first musical memories date to The Ed Sullivan Show, when I was nine or ten. That’s where I discovered the British Invasion, which gave me my initial perspective on fashion as well: it was unique and novel, just like the music. The Beatles’ matching outfits weren’t very exciting, but I loved the Cuban-heeled boots they wore. The Stones seemed like the bad boys, refusing to dress alike. They - and their clothes - had attitude.

Around the same time, I got hooked on the radio. We had both the Detroit and Canadian stations. Right across the border, ten minutes away in Windsor, Ontario, there was a music director on the AM radio station CKLW named Rosalie Trombley. She turned me on to a lot of great stuff. Some of my favorites were “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks and “I Can See for Miles” by the Who. I bought those bands’ records for the music, but I quickly noticed how cool the Kinks and the Who looked as well as sounded. All the artists I liked had a unique style.

I briefly played in a band when I was in junior high. My cousin Tim got a drum kit and started a group called the Golden Sound and asked me to join. We did a wedding and some school gigs, but we weren’t any good. I sang and played trumpet. We did “Touch Me” by the Doors because it had a horn in it. My uncle Gus was our manager and he thought we were going to hit the big time, but that was short-lived. I realised I didn’t have the voice or chops to make it.

Yet somehow I knew that rock & roll was going to remain an important part of my life.

I’ve seen literally thousands of concerts since my teens. Even so, some of those early ones, like the MC5 gigs, still stand out. The band was an absolute powerhouse. They moved around onstage like dervishes, and each guy dazzled me with his own look. Decades later, I found out that the band’s girlfriends designed and created much of their stage wear.

Led Zeppelin was another band whose musical and style influences are with me to this day. I first saw Zeppelin on June 6, 1972, at Cobo Arena, in downtown Detroit. That was life changing. The concert was the opening night of Zeppelin’s North American tour - and I was in the second balcony. I took my little portable tape recorder with me (no one searched you back then), and I still have the cassette that documented that explosive set.

Led Zeppelin’s clothing made a huge impact on me. Like the Stooges and MC5, their stage wear had a cool rock & roll vibe - both masculine and feminine rolled into one. The guys in Led Zeppelin wore flared pants and scarves. Robert Plant sometimes sported an unbuttoned, way-too-small girl’s blouse. Jimmy Page’s most spectacular outfit was his dragon suit, which he had custom made in both a black and a white version, with the fire-breathing creature and ZoSo and zodiac symbols embroidered on the jacket and pant leg. Seeing it made me more conscious of how important rock was to fashion - and vice versa. Of course, I didn’t have a clue that I’d be a fashion designer one day, but it got me thinking about just what fashion represented to the music: the sounds stayed with you, and so did the look; the visuals and sonics became intertwined.

Though I’d managed to see the Stooges live, it was their photographs on album covers that really struck a chord with me. On their 1969 self-titled debut, the tight shot of the band showed them wearing narrow-cut leather racing jackets. Their next record, 1970’s Funhouse, was it - the personification of rock & roll. You opened the cover to find a gatefold photo of the band sprawled out on a Persian rug wearing tight jeans with flares and simple T-shirts, with sneakers or Beatle boots. Guitarist Ron Asheton had on a black leather jacket over his cartoon-graphic T. This was the album, and this was the look, for me. It stayed with me and remains relevant today - simple clothes that fit the guys really well, showing off their physiques. Some 40 years after Funhouse, when Iggy participated in my company’s advertising campaign wearing one of my suits, I told him how much he and the band had influenced my fashion sense. He just laughed.

At 16, in order to feed my own rock-fashion habit, I got a job at Hughes and Hatcher, a men’s store in Dearborn, Michigan. There I worked my way up from the layaway department to sales clerk. After I graduated college with a degree in education, I didn’t have a plan but tried to find my way while continuing to work in fashion retail.

In 1980, I partnered in a unique new store called Fitzgerald’s in Grand Rapids. We carried Ralph Lauren before it became a household name. The management at Ralph Lauren/Polo took a liking to me, so when they were looking for a regional sales manager based in Chicago, I jumped at the opportunity. Within a year and a half, I was asked to move to New York City to become vice president of sales and merchandising. It was in my day-to-day contact with the design team that I realized I wanted to become a designer.

At 29, I set out on a new chapter in my life. While continuing to work at Ralph Lauren, I pushed myself into every fashion meeting and fitting possible, and I took design classes. I soaked up every bit of information that would help me become a designer.

In 1990, I landed at Calvin Klein as president of men’s design. Calvin gave me a chance to do something a bit closer to my personal sense of style. We started the Calvin Klein Collection for men, and we launched the CK brand to create something more accessible in terms of design and price. Over the next four years, we rebuilt the Calvin Klein underwear brand into a huge business, we incorporated the jeans line into the CK brand, and we significantly grew the Calvin Klein Collection for men.

In 1995, I was offered the opportunity to head up men’s design at Ralph Lauren, which I did until I started my own brand in 2000. Since then, my love of rock & roll and my love of fashion have merged. There wasn’t that much rock & roll in the brand when I started out, but there was some element in the line every season that had roots in my youth. Initially, I didn’t realise music would become such an important part of my company. But my passion for it is endless. If I don’t have music playing, I don’t work well. For me, music has always been about the excitement of discovery, and it remains that way. Then I discovered that musicians loved my clothes. So in 2005, I began collaborating with artists in our marketing campaigns, starting with Ryan Adams, then Joe Perry, Chris Cornell, and, in fall 2006, my hometown hero Iggy Pop. Iggy was the first of my Detroit icons to come on board.

My new book, Rock in Fashion - my design notebook - demonstrates how rock & roll has influenced fashion, but its major focus is on the styles and artists who have inspired me in terms of their music and image. Looking at photographs not only of musicians like Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, MC5, and the Who from the late 1960s but also of current artists such as Kings of Leon, Jack White, the Strokes, the Libertines, and Interpol, you’ll see timeless images, regardless of whether they were taken fifty years ago or today. You’ll recognize how the Stooges and MC5 influenced the punk movement and notice elements of glam that still exist. Every generation takes from what came before, then makes it their own by embracing and respecting it, and then taking it someplace further.

As the Stones say, “It’s only rock & roll, but I like it!”

Levi Strauss seeks to slow down fast fashion with sustainable practices

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Sixteen years of work as a fashion designer in New York was enough for Paul Dillinger. He quit and took a job teaching design at his alma mater, Washington University in St Louis. "I had become somewhat disillusioned – really challenged morally or ethically – by the industry," he says.

Then a friend recruited Dillinger to work for Levi Strauss & Co Today, he's leading a cutting-edge initiative to take sustainable design to new heights at the 160-year-old company: a Dockers line of clothes called Wellthread. The line brings together the best practices in materials sourcing and garment manufacturing, providing social and economic benefits to factory workers in Bangladesh and delivering durable khakis, jackets and T-shirts to consumers.

Dillinger wants to weave responsibility into every stage of design, manufacturing and usage, from the cotton fields to the factories to the market and beyond.

"I saw all these different nodes of activity in the company that were tackling different problems," Dillinger said, when we met this week at Levi's Eureka Innovation Lab, a research and development unit near the company's headquarters in San Francisco. "The opportunity, to me, was to string all of these ideas together and create a systems approach to change."

Michael Kobori, who is vice-president of social and environmental sustainability at Levi Strauss, describes the Wellthread collection as "the second generation of sustainable product because it is focused on both the environmental and social aspects of sustainability".

There's just one catch, and it's a big one: for now, at least, there are no plans to sell Wellthread at retail outlets in the US when the collection is released next year. In a move that appears to reflect uncertainty about whether sustainability can be effectively marketed to US consumers, the line will be sold online and in stores in Europe.

"By having this little lab to test and substantiate ideas at small-risk scale, we're then able to deploy these new best practices at large scale," Dillinger says.

What's clear, nevertheless, is the seriousness of thought that has gone into Wellthread. It aims to be the antithesis of fast, cheap throwaway fashion.

"The fashion cycle that seeks to reinvent itself every six months? It doesn't ask, 'How do we improve the lives of the people we touch?'" Dillinger told me.

On the contrary, he said, as a New York designer for American Eagle Outfitters, Calvin Klein and DKNY, he saw brands join a race to the bottom to deliver cheap clothes in ever-changing styles. That forced brands to compromise on the quality of their products and to squeeze costs out of their supply chain at workers' expense.

Dillinger, who is 41, has devoted his life to design. "I saw a fashion show on Donahue when I was 12 and I said, that's what I want to be," he said. He got a sewing machine for his 16th birthday and still keeps one on his dining table at home.

When he arrived at Levi Strauss, he found a company with a history that demonstrated a belief in durability – the company secured the first patent for the riveted pockets that help blue jeans last longer – and a commitment to an ethical supply chain. Levi Strauss was one of the first companies to set labor, health and safety standards for its global suppliers.

As senior director of color, concept and design for Dockers, Dillinger devised the plan for Wellthread. Last year, he became the first fashion designer to be awarded a First Movers fellowship at the Aspen Institute, where corporate executives develop ways to integrate social and business value.

He designed Wellthread to last for years, using a long-staple yarn grown in Pakistan (some of it under the auspices of the Better Cotton Initiative) that he expects will hold up through numerous washings and, eventually, recycling. Buttonholes and pockets are reinforced to make them more durable.

The manufacturing process will use roughly 30% less water and energy than conventional methods. Factory managers from a trusted Bangladesh suppler were flown to San Francisco to participate in design decisions. "Once we gave them permission to make suggestions, they were abundant," Dillinger said. Too often, he said, designers simply dictate specs, by email, to the factory floor.

Meanwhile, Levi Strauss – working with partners including its foundation, BSR and Ceres – also has been developing a program to improve the finances and wellbeing of workers in its supply chain. The Bangladesh factory that makes the Wellthreads line is participating in the program.

These clothes, of course, don't come cheap. Pants cost $140, T-shirts $50 and jackets $250. And Levi Strauss faces a big challenge of finding ways to market Wellthread to mainstream consumers so that the principles involved in its design can be deployed throughout the company.

Beyond that, the company must figure out to reconcile a commitment to long-lasting clothes with a desire to grow revenue by selling more stuff. Levi Strauss is a private company, albeit a big one, with $4.6bn in revenues in 2012. "We want to think about what thoughtful, intentional, restrained growth would look like," Dillinger said.

Yet Dillinger also wants his ideas to spread and to change the very terms of the conversation about fashion. As he once put it: "Maybe one day, discussions of the celebrities' red carpet choices will be go beyond daring color and revealing neckline to include the use of sustainable fibers and natural dyes. If you're going to dream, dream big, right?"

Beats, rhymes and Louis Vuitton: Hip-hop's new lust for high fashion

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Kanye West hit the stage at the 12-12-12 benefit in New York for Hurricane Sandy relief wearing none other than a leather pleated Givenchy skirt, confusing the world like never before. This defining moment in hip hop history was the single most dramatic act that validated the trend that many had caught on to prior to that night: the budding relationship between hip-hop culture and high fashion.

Up until recently, hip-hop and couture were rarely used in the same sentence. The trends seen in music videos and on everyone who was listening to hip hop in the late ‘90s and early2000s (think baggy, faded jeans, an oversized white t-shirt and lots of gaudy bling) have thankfully passed and been put away in the vault with all of the other historically horrendous fashion trends.

What rappers and their fans are wearing now — or wishing they were wearing — is more high fashion, to say the least. The infamous baggy Girbaud jeans have been traded in for Versace leather skinny jeans. Nike Air Force 1s have been swapped for Giuseppe Zanotti embossed leather high-top sneakers. Plain, baggy, white t-shirts have been replaced by fitted graphic Givenchy tees. And bling has been replaced by — well, morebling.

Rappers’ wardrobes aren’t the only things that have been“couturified” within the last few years. The actual lyrics of rap songs might as well be called ads with the amount of designer name-dropping involved. Sure, rappers have always been talking about brands, but now they’re talking about designers. Nelly’s “Air Force Ones” and Dem Franchize Boyz’s “White Tee” have now been substituted for Kanye’s “Christian Dior Denim Flow” and Jay-Z’s “Tom Ford.”

Though Kanye, who arguably was the one who initiated theintertwinement of high-end fashion and hip-hop, undoubtedly has a strong love and connection to fashion itself, he may have a separate agenda.

“Kanye is trying to better black culture and make it synonymous with white culture, (meaning) high-end fashion,” says Nigel “Hollywood” Holt, a rapper based out of Chicago. “In his mind if the biggest star says it's ok to do something the masses will follow. So he told the ‘urban’ world it's ok to like high-end fashion and quality garments, which sparked a new style revolution. Kanye wants to better the world and the way black people are treated, and he's doing it through his avenue of art.”

The importance of fashion and trends in hip-hop culture is nothing new. Those baggy jeans I mentioned earlier? All the rappers were wearing them in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, and in turn, so were all of their fans. Our generation has glamourized rappers to the same extent (if not more) as iconic musicians, like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

“Hip-hop has long been connected to fashion,” Daniel Makagon, pop music expert and communications professor at DePaul, said. “These styles existed prior to the emergence of rap, but rappers spread the styles … Rap's rising popularity from the late ‘80s through now has been a major influence on how people dress, cut their hair and use slang.”

The recent influx of high fashion in hip hop culture has caused people who probably didn’t know who Riccardo Tisci or Tom Ford were a year ago, to become obsessed with their designs.

“These rappers are bringing a whole other fan base of fashion that didn’t exist before,” says Natalie Wright, an up-andcoming fashion designer from Chicago. “People that listen to rap see A$AP Rocky wearing Alexander Wang, and then they want Alexander Wang. You have music blogs like ILLROOTS instantly posting links to where to buy the Givenchy t-shirt 2 Chainz was wearing after a performance. They’re setting trends.”

A$AP Rocky has undoubtedly created the biggest fashion designer name-dropping song ever (at least, so far). “Fashion Killa,” from A$AP Rocky’s first album that dropped earlier this year, mentions a record-breaking 27 designers in total, many of which are womenswear only. If Kanye has set the seemingly impossible standard for the men of our generation, “Fashion Killa” has definitely upped the ante for women.

“She got a lotta Prada/ That Dolce & Gabbana/I can’t forget Escada, and that Balenciaga/‘Cause everything designer/Her jeans is Helmut Lang/Shoes is Alexander Wang/ And her shirt the newest Donna Karan/Wearin’ all the Cartier frames / Jean Paul Gaultiers cause they match with her persona.”

Rihanna, one of the edgier fashion-forward celebrities, played A$AP Rocky’s muse in the video. The two are obviously donned in high-fashion attire, with Rihanna in a fully sequined zebra print gown by Tom Ford for the majority of the video (and we’re even graced with the brief presence of the notorious Maison Michel lace bunny-eared headband).

With technology like Twitter and Instagram, it is becoming even easier to find out which designers are behind the pieces rappers and other celebrities are wearing (and talking about). Celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Rihanna are constantly taking snapshots and “Instagramming” pieces sent to them by designers like Givenchy and Balmain, causing their followers to lust over fashion virtually all day long.

“Everything is so instantaneous now,” Wright said. “Minutes after performances, you’re seeing pictures of what people are wearing … I’m expecting a lot of collaborative efforts in the future of music and fashion. I see it kind of combining into one.”