Anna Bromwich writing for VINGT Paris
Cité de la mode et du Design,image by Ollografik
Perched on Quai D’Austerlitz on the old industrial banks of the Seine is a 21st century Emerald City. The Cité de la Mode et du Design is a converted storehouse wrapped in a vibrant green, wavy skin that was designed to echo the murky Seine running beside it.
Cité de la Mode is due to open in early 2010 and the public should soon be able to visit the complex of boutiques, restaurants and exhibition spaces all pertaining to the theme of fashion and design. The building already plays host to the post-graduate fashion design and management school l’Institut de la Mode. However, it is the Cité's adventurous architecture which is the greatest testament to its proposed use. Twenty years ago this part of town was a run down industrial zone. Stretching from Gare d'Austerlitz to Boulevard Général Jean-Simon, a visit to this corner of the 13th arrondissement was easily bypassed unless you happened to be tugging a boatload of merchandise up the Seine.
More on: Cité de la Mode et du Design
Sarah Moroz writing for VINGT Paris
Fabien Larchez, creator of accessories brand Meilleur Ami, capitalizes on the idea that your wardrobe should be your best friend, your asset. It's a great concept, to mix friends and fashion. Larchez has done just that: reaching out beyond his accessories line, he’s recruited friends from the fashion community in order to organize ROOMconnection. He's collected clothes from various mode-immersed industry types (buyers,
editors, models, etc.) that they no longer wear, be it because they
don't have enough space or they're
ridding themselves of pieces bought they in a moment of folly (it
happens). Lanvin, Pierre Hardy, YSL, Isabel Marant, Chloe, Prada are
amongst the names you just might recognize...
More on: Save the Date: VINGT Paris invites you to our Sale Privée
Stephanie Wells writing for VINGT paris
Take it from a San Franciscan. Hippies do not great fashionistas make. Yet, am I imagining things? Could this be the elusive green-chic boutique that until now has avoided Paris?
While eco style outposts carpet New York and California, Paris has been fashionably late to jump onboard.
Green in the City owner Helene Sananikone approaches eco chic with a refreshing Franco-Asian attraction to refined modern elegance. The absence of flawlessly stylish green and fair trade apparel in the capitol of fashion stirred Sananikone to launch her Marais boutique earlier this year. Without a doubt, she has created something special.
More on: Green in the City: Baba chic
Magic and Wonder at the Pierre Berge/Yves Saint Laurent Fondation Exhibit
The Fondation Pierre Berge - Yves Saint Laurent exhibit on Russian Dress is filled with wonderful details, in a carefully designed space complete with lighting, and scenic elements which evoke the idealized world of the Russian Peasant. I was taken in by the sheer splendor of this beautiful exhibit space: Sheaves of wheat decorated the room, patterns of light were on the walls and the floors were covered with wooden floorboards which felt different under your feet. Music played and a large grouping of white figures dressed in full costume stood silently, as if a performance was about to begin.
The archive of Russian costumes were lovingly assembled by Yves Saint Laurent, an avid collector of all things Russian during his lifetime. He even built a Russian summer home, a “Dacha”, on his property at Normandie. A replica was recreated as part of the exhibition space and cleverly divided the rooms. I was prepared for a series of costumes that were simple in character: regional, homespun, and evocative of the typical Russian peasant that populates a Chekov play. Some of those costumes there, were showing homespun details, embroidery and fabrics mostly red in color.
More on: The Art of Russian Popular Dress
One way for young designers to gather together with a mass audience is to use commercial space left empty by retailers and create a boutique experience. Marie Raflin, the mastermind behind Espace Créateurs,(in the inglorious
FORUM DES HALLES has done just that to lure people in from the surrounding shops. Even a unique concept store, just for children, is there to tempt harried mums who are tired of H&M.
I took a walk through their eight design spaces and was glad to see a lot of variety. There is something for everyone, with the boutiques arranged by designer and grouped in a stylistic sort of way, which works well to begin with. But be prepared, it is not for the fashion faint of heart: these are new, young designers who have a vision you may not have seen before. The boutiques themselves reminded me of going to a sample sale - if you’re not an experienced shopper, this will be challenging for you.
More on: Espace Créateurs at Forum des Halles
ARTIFICE writing for VINGT Paris
Vionnet, perhaps one of France's most celebrated couture houses of the early 20th century put her stamp on the look of classic, pure line that was and is, the Art Deco period, in the 1920s and 1930s of Paris.
The art of line, shape, form and Jazz music were all playing together in a harmony with the body that was now freed form corsetry, stays, and other foundations. It was pure women, and pure feminine, and is something we have to search for, in but found it here at the Musée d'art Decoratif.
More on: Architecture of a BIAS CUT GOWN: Vionnet at the Musée D'Arts Decoratif
Ana Lee writing for I V Y paris
Saturday, June 27th, 2009, Petar Petrov held his fashion show at
the Espace Saint Martin in the 3rd. In squelching hot heat, we waited
in what looked like a Pharaoh's tomb - now turned sauna - one of
the space's many themed entrance halls. As guests were seated and
fanning themselves, the DJ teased us with the intro to Michael
Jackson's "Beat It" in homage to the late artist, but also uplifting
the mood at the end of a long day. Finally a variation of the song came
on full blast and so the show began...
Models came down the runway sporting eyewear reminiscent of anachrome 3D glasses. The clothes came in shades of bisque and honeydew in both jersey tops and tailored cigarette trousers - note even a pair of bubble shorts hitting just above the knee. A key accessory was to wear a contrasting pair of leather lace-ups, or pointed boots to enhance a smart silhouette. While most of the line remained casually chic in muted colors, inserts of red punctuated throughout, first introduced as imprints on t-shirts to likes of bullet wounds, then full volume on a pair of patent leather pants.
More on: Petar Petrov and Romain Kremer at Men's Fashion Week SS '10
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