Net-A-Porter have never been afraid of working with bloggers. If they're not profiling them in their magazine, they're collaborating with them on Twitter coverage and last season saw the online retailer take it one step further by featuring Hanneli Mustaparta and Elin Kling in their campaign. For their latest one, though, Garance Doré takes centre stage.
Dore took to her blog to announce the news saying, 'I am in it !!! (Yes, it’s me, the smiling girl with the brows.)' and the shot is definitely one of my favourite images from the new campaign. I mean, how amazing does Garance look in that killer dress from Stella McCartney's Fall 2012 collection with that tri-tone leather Victoria Beckhamtote that I wrote about recently?
It's as though Marchesa designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig have heard what we've all been talking about all these years. While the brand has always been a red carpet favourite, you can pretty much forget getting in on the action if you don't have pockets deep enough to pay the four figure starting prices. Thankfully, though, that will change with the launch of their upcoming affordable line and following on with that new accessibility, soon you'll be able to get the Marchesa smell too.
Last week WWD unveiled the bottle for their debut fragrance, Parfume d'Extase. 'Eveningwear evokes an emotion, and this scent does the same thing,' Chapman told the title. So if you think of iris, young violet leaves and freesia when you think of their gowns, you won't be disappointed, as they are the top notes that the fragrance includes. 'We didn't want anything too sweet. Georgina and I don't like perfumes that can smell sort of sickly, so that was very important when we were going through the process.'
Over the past few Gisele Bündchen has been surrounded by pregnancy rumours and while the model hasn't commented on the speculation yet, her latest editorial in Vogue Brazil hasn't done much to quieten the claims.
As you will see from the gallery, in just about every one of the Patrick Demarchelier-lensed shots, Bundchen poses either with an arm covering her stomach of standing in a strategic way to avoid having it on display. Okay, so it doesn't quite confirm that the reports are true but considering that the shoot was shot in June, it does suggest that the rumours shouldn't be rejected altogether.
While we've all probably long admired Julianne Hough for her dancing skills, it's only recently that the 'Dancing with the Stars' star has really made us take notice of her style too. It's been the promotional tour for her latest movie, 'Rock of Ages', and the events and appearances along the way, where we have seen her style really evolve.
First up was that Chinese red stretch-crepe Kaufmanfranco gown that she wore to the CFDA Awards last month and ever since, things have only got better. Interview magazine has been the first to take note of her transition and featured her in the latest issue of the magazine shot by Patrick Demarchelier and styled by Karl Templer. Something tells me this is only the first of many big fashion spreads to come.
Last year was definitely the year of Arizona Muse. It's hard to think of a magazine that did not have the 23 year-old model's face in one issue or another and for the S/S12 campaign season, she seriously swept up. 2012 is already starting off strong for the model as British Vogue has just released this image of her on the cover of their Patrick Demarchelier-shot February 2012 issue.
While it's refreshing to see a smiley face, the cover doesn't strike a chord with me. The magazine has been so strong with coves in the past from their beautiful close-up shot of Adele to their most recent Charlie's Angels-style Florence Welchcover so in comparison, this feels slightly disappointing.The Prada dress, which has been doing the rounds recently, fails to detract from the earrings that have an uncanny resemblance to something Pat Butcher would have worn in Eastenders.
Things change. Then, after a while, they come back. So things get longer and longer and longer. And then they get shorter and shorter and shorter. And at the fashion shows, people say, 'Ah! Fantastique!' — but things were like that 10 years ago; they go around. Only amazing designers think of the truly new.
We admit that Victoria Bartlett can't do much wrong in our book, so we weren't really a hard sell at the Spring '11 collection show at Pier59 on Sunday. Even with that in mind, VPL turned it out. The signature underwear-as-outerwear theme remained in full force, but there was a noticeable sense of growth in what we saw on the runway. Not in the sense of changing aesthetics, selling out, or anything else the designers who befriend downtown types can be accused of doing. With the introduction of prints and a few great collaborations, it seemed Bartlett was ready to do more.
Sheer panels, cutouts and bandeaus under dresses and sweaters will keep the designer on-point for spring, and her use of inventive jewellery will give her extra credit. Bartlett teamed up with designers Lizzie Fortunato, Orly Genger and Alyssa Norton to make inventive necklaces, but the wildest of all her jewellery came from Brian Crumley - who invented blown-glass backwards necklaces that rested on models' spines. (Crazy, but we adore.) Back to the clothes, Bartlett amped up her neutral-heavy palette with a venture into prints, inspired by an Egyptian artist. Not at all ironically, we consider what Bartlett made a work of art in its own right.
