Recently I attended the one year anniversary party of Brazilian Babes in Harlem! They are a full-service waxing salon that specializing in vajazzling! If you don’t know what that is, just look it up 😉
They had some great cocktails and treats and it was a load of fun. Yandy Smith and her new family from Love and Hip Hop New York came through to enjoy the event as well. It was a good time!
With the snow being such a mess and this winter being so cold, I wanted to be comfortable even for New York Fashion Week. I wore my Spring 2014 sequined Ashish sweatpants(NEW SPRING 15 VERSION HERE) and my Michael Kors sweatshirt in a very loose outfit for Nolcha and Hernan Lander shows. I just loved these sweatpants. Want to know why? Well, for one, it is a sweatshirt/sweatpant combo, both super soft and easy to wear! Secondly, sequins just make everything better. Not to mention, they are very big on the Fall 2014 runways. We’ve seen sequins bedazzling the runway from Marc Jacobs, Rodarte, Tom Ford and more.
Speaking of comfort, have you entered my winter comfort GIVEAWAY? Only a few days left! I am all about being comfortable and stylish in this horrible winter we are having. Don’t forget to enter and check out more photos of my outfit and favorites from the Hernan Lander show below!
This week Tracy Reese showed her Fall 2014 Collection full of feathers, sequins, fuzzy fabric and chunky sweaters. It was my kind of comfortable clothing collection. The move to comfort is here to stay in fashion guys. I don’t know if it’s the horrible winter weather we’ve experienced or what but relaxed clothing with a bit of shimmer is what to wear for the winter. Hey, like Marc Jacobs says, happy days are here again.
See more backstage photos including Daisy Lewellyn from the Bravo TV show Blood, Sweat and Heels below!
Dresses and lace came down the runway last week at Nolcha New York Fashion Week. I especially liked shows from Magdalena Adriane, Claire Farewell and Tess Johnson. Wasn’t able to catch some of the other shows but check them out here.
This weekend I attended the Samantha Black Spring 2014 Show at Holy Apostles which was sponsored by DivaGalsDaily. Samantha Black was recently on Project Runway and I met her backstage along with a few of the models. I also ran into Basketball Wives star Jennifer Williams who walked in the show, Tami Roman and Elise Neal. Other reality stars such as Emily B. and Ariane Davis came to support as well. See more photos of the fashion show below!
I have a confession to make. When I first learned how to sketch fashion models and various fabrics, I remember being repeatedly chastised for drawing too wide of a nose and hips. It was like I had to re-learn the human body outside of my own shape or what I thought most people look like. Now, hey, fashion language is fashion language. And, fashion rules are ‘rules.’ Right? At this point, there’s just a few books being used to teach sketching, and an entire segment of our population is being ignored.
I’m not just talking about plus-size folks. I’m talking about anyone above a sample size. Anyone who isn’t at least five feet eight inches tall and skinny. And the largest segment, anyone who isn’t fair-skinned. It was funny that in class I naturally drew some color on my models while many others reached for the light pink marker only. Nothing wrong with that in class, but isn’t there something wrong with that in real life?
As Fashion Week (or month) approaches, we will all wait with bated breath to see the new Spring 2014 Collections, but we will also wait to see if anyone used a different marker for their models. That is, will we see any African-Americans or just plain non-white models on the runway? Recently, designers have missed the mark. And as the rich and famous (i.e. Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Kelly, Beyoncé) continue to be a muse and advertisement for designers, what does it really say that they can be photographed in the merchandise but no model on the runway can look like them?
Now you may care less and really this is not about my personal feelings. This is business. The world does not all look the same. I have admittedly not done my statistical research but from what I know, non-white women buy and enjoy high-end fashion as well. So why not break up the monotony of those fashion sketch models and moreover real-life models on the runway and represent the true diversity of the world?
According to the New York Times, fashion model Iman will be organizing a social media campaign at the beginning of New York Fashion Week to bring attention to the lack of diversity on the runways in the past several years. She contends that something is “terribly wrong.” Her experience in the 1980s and 1990s was that designers would routinely hire black models and now they barely hire one.
Whatever happens, I just hope that designers and the industry can wake up and see that huge business opportunities are being missed by completely ignoring of an entire group of people.
Last weekend I got plenty of sun in the nearly 100 degree weather at the Montauk Beach House. Michelle Smith showed her MillyResort 2014 Collection in a beautiful fashion presentation by the pool, part of a summer-long music and fashion series hosted by the Montauk Beach House. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and last weekend, I was on the beach or by the pool for 80% of the time!
Singer-songwriter Natalia Kills performed and we enjoyed great drinks and music all Saturday afternoon. I just loved the bright, bold colors in the collection, not to mention that much of it looked really comfortable. Artwork seemed to influence Milly as some of the fabric seemed painted like that on the model above. Crop tops kept cropping up in Milly’s Resort 2014 Collection as well. I don’t think they’re going anywhere.
I wore a pink neon Eresitty-bitty bikini along with an exclusive purple hat from couture millinerEllen Christine’s Spring 2014 Collection. By the way, if you want a couture hat of your own, she’s giving a 10% discount to blog readers. Just call her showroom and mention the blog.
While there I met a few from the Milly team, spotted some great poolside fashion and ran into Cannon Hodge of Bergdorf Goodman. She and her friend were wearing amazing kaftans from Camilla Franks that should be available at Bergdorfs in a few months. She showed me that this particular kaftan could be tied multiple ways for a causal or dressy look. Looks like it will be available soon at BG for about $500 or so.
So last year I picked up a dress that would fall under the “Tribal” trend and absolutely adore it. On brown skin, bright-colored prints look absolutely amazing. Now it seems everyone is onto the trend and we are seeing the prints everywhere. This “tribal” trend is really just borrowed from the beautiful and colorful African prints worn for centuries all over the African continent. And all of its regality, pomp and circumstance, and not to mention masterful headpieces have been noticed by the rest of the world and can’t be missed for Spring 2013.
There are a slew of African and non-African designers to go to for these beautiful garments, I can’t even list them all, but I’m really liking Boxing Kittenand Peter Pilotto for some of these great prints. See below for more inspiration including an old African inspired photo of myself in a headwrap taken several years ago downtown.
So this week I attended the Fashion Group International’s Ready to Wear Fashion Trend Presentation with host Diane von Furstenberg and discussion panelists blogger Bryanboy, Fashion Consultant Julie Gilhart, Fashion Editor Ana Maria Pimental, Saks Fifth Avenue Fashion Director Colleen Sherin and Beauty Director ofInStyle Magazine Amy Synnott D’Annibale.
Between the video and panel discussion, there was a lot to be said about current Ready to Wear fashion trends. The presentation mentioned several interesting trends including what I’ve been talking about on the blog; art, graphic prints and pop art on garments like that of Tom Ford’s Fall 2013 Collection (shown below) and Mary Katrantzou Spring 2011 Collection.
Also on the trend list, 3D fabrics and ‘touchy-feely’ quality like Commes des Garcon’s rose fabric manipulation in his Fall 2013 Runway Collection shown in Paris shown below. The presentation also touched on Marc Jacob’s nightwear to red carpet lingerie looking collection, hot pants and the Chanel runway boots shown for Fall 2013 shown at Paris Fashion Week.
It was noted that slouchy, comfortable and less rigid handbags like those from the Celine Fall 2013 Collection (shown below) were making the trend list.
In an amazingly patterned arm sling, Diane opened up the panel discussion asking the question: “what is fashion?” She added that “anything goes” these days as you see people wearing high and low end, mixing it all together. She also said that “everyone is a stylist.“ Bryanboy answered that it was about comfort; “lifestyles are different now…women work insane schedules” so they need clothing that will go from day to night. As someone that fits into that category, I wholeheartedly agree with that statement.
The conversation continued with comments about the future of fashion shows in the digital age, accessories on the runway, Yves St. Laurent’s Collection and John Galliano’s racist remarks. Diane brought up some major points including that shoes are really not accessories since a woman thinks about where she is going and if she will have to walk first before deciding the rest of her outfit. She also mentioned that 3D printing is big now and that if you don’t know what it is you will. When asked about the price of clothes going through the roof, Diane commented saying that her wrap dress “…was 86 dollars back in the day, now it’s about 400 dollars.” She explained that “things are different” and designers have more expenses. In the past, models would bring their own shoes to runway shows.
Moral of the story is that there are definitely trends happening but it is true that seemingly “anything goes” these days and everyone is simply adjusting to the rapid pace of change with the advent of the digital world in which we are living.