Last night’s Met Galared carpet did not disappoint! Many came dressed in black and white ensembles to honor the late Karl Lagerfeld but others like Salma Hayek above wore bright, fierce colors. I just loved Salma Hayek’s red Gucci dress and think she was definitely among the best dressed on the red carpet last night.
Gigi Hadid donned a gorgeous, custom-made Givenchy dress that was just jaw-dropping. These two looks along with Rihanna’s Valentino number, Janelle Monae’s Thom Browne outfit and Sydney Sweeney’s Miu Miu were among my favorites of the night. Scroll down to see more of these beautiful dresses.
So Rihanna is gracing the cover of British Vogue in a durag. And, well, durags have been making their appearance on the red carpet too. Guapdad reportedly wore an 11 foot durag “train” and Solange Knowles wore a durag to the Met Gala in 2018. I find the trend to be really cool but I feel like you have to have some guts to wear a durag on the red carpet.
So this time of year is great for sales! Summer is in full swing and you’ve just got to catch these deals before they’re gone! Proenza Schouler, Rag & Bone, and even a pair of those fabulous Dolce & Gabbana headphones from the line that Rihanna was wearing earlier this year!
And, starting tomorrow add an extra 20% off on all ModaOperandi sale itemswith the code MODA20.
I’m sure by now you’ve seen Rihanna’s yellow couture Met Gala look by Chinese designer Guo Pei but Have you seen the Met exhibit China Through the Looking Glass? The Costume Institute at the Met has had the exhibit open for a while and it was supposed to be coming down but due to popularity and traffic levels, however, the Met has decided to extend the exhibit until Labor Day! If you haven’t seen it already, you must! It is absolutely fabulous.
“High fashion is juxtaposed with Chinese costumes, paintings, porcelains, and other art, including films, to reveal enchanting reflections of Chinese imagery.” Designers like Paul Poiret and Yves Saint Laurent take inspiration from Chinese culture and aesthetic.
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.
I personally like shoulder pads in women’s clothing. Know they were big in the 1980s, I hardly ever saw my mom walk out to work without them in a fancy suit. They have recently made a come back but, are they here to stay?
I was sitting in textile class talking about how different fabric does different things for women’s wear and shoulder pads came up. We started chatting about if in ten years, we’ll look back and say absolutely not. I know that mohawks and shaving half of your head will definitely be a thing of the 2010’s but shoulder pads, I don’t know.
Elsa Schiaparelli, an Italian designer of the 1930s and 1940s inspired by Surrealists like Dali, is noted to have introduced shoulder pads in women’s clothing. She seemed to be into form and structure like what we are seeing in some of the newer designs today. Like, for instance, this skeleton dress with shoulder pads below.
Check out the detail on the shoulders of this dress worn by Mrs. Reginald Fellowes in 1933. Schiaparelli and Prada were featured and compared at TheCostume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) last year for their spring exhibition.
Schiaparelli had some great vision for her time. I think there might be periods when the shoulder pad will be more prevalent in fashion than others, like the 1940s and 1980s. But, my prediction is that the shoulder pad is here to stay.
