With Shelby Bryan, Sex and the City After Party; New York, May 27.
*images: source
>> Here's one that's almost as bad as the Marc Jacobs scarf debacle of February 2008. Martin Margiela created an emphasized-shoulder cotton t-shirt with an esoteric horse graphic as part of his Spring 2008 collection. The shirt has been sell-out, even at a whopping $1,395 a pop.
Problem is, the image on the tee is nearly identical to an image painted by British artist David Penfound in 1998, which also covers t-shirts . . . thatretail for $19.95. Margiela's reps say their graphic is a "collage of nostalgic images compiled in-house," but you can jump to your own conclusions. Let's just put it this way: When asked about the similarity, Penfound said he planned on contacting Margiela.
>> Naomi Campbell often appears to have a larger than life personality, and now, Nick Knight is working to make appearance reality.
The photographer is using 3-D scanners to create a series of 30-foot tall Naomi sculptures. So far, he has scanned Naomi "straddling the barrel of a large tank" to form one sculpture, and another is envisioned as a "circle of three Naomis, like The Three Graces." No word on what material will be used to fashion the final product — alabaster and fiberglass are both being considered — but Mr. Knight hopes to have the sculptures ready by the end of the year.
As for the flesh-and-blood Naomi, she has to return to the Heathrow police station by the end of this month to hear whether she will be charged with assaulting a police officer aboard a British Airways plane . . .
*image: source
With Anna Wintour, Sex and the City Premiere; New York, May 27.
*images: source
>> I don't know if I'm just noticing this or what, but Playboy France is really starting to get fashiony — Karl Lagerfeld shot last October's cover, Lou Doillon was on the March cover (NSFW), and now Anouck Lepere is featured front and center on the June 2008 cover with her new bob. I wonder if it's a coincidence that her fiance Jefferson Hack is profiled inside . . .
To see more of Anouck (literally), go here (NSFW).
*image: source
>> Although she's not being honored, technically, Raquel Zimmermann is still going to be the woman of the hour at the CFDA Awards next Monday night. Unlike past years, when each nominees' look was showcased by a different model, Raquel was photographed by Mikael Jansson wearing the designs of all 25 nominees, menswear or not.
The final shots, which were produced in a four-day shoot under stylist Karl Templer and evoke each individual designer's style, will be handed out in book form to the awards attendees.
Top: L — Dries Van Noten, R — Tom Ford
Bottom: L — Michael Bastian, R — Marc Jacobs
*images: source
>> Time to revisit that time-honored debate: Will it be models or actresses? Marc Jacobs has swung the other way after using Victoria Beckham for his Spring 2008 ads: "We're using models next season, we're not ready for Kevin & Britney yet." Wonder who the lucky ladies are?
Also, leave it to Marc to describe the value of teamwork in such a way: "Everybody who says they do everything themselves is just exaggerating. Doing things by yourself is well, it's masturbation. It's not nearly as exciting as doing it with somebody else!"
*image: source
>> Roberto Cavalli recently said that his two adult children by his first wife are not being groomed to take over the family business,
Versace-style: "I don't think I'll hand it down to my kids because I
like them to choose their own way in life."
So what is his son, Daniele, choosing instead? It looks like music. He may have been spotted most recently on Roberto's yacht for a Cavalli party last week in Cannes (left), but his MySpace reveals that he likes Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and Sly & the Family Stone more than leopard print and zebra stripes.
He has a band himself (or at least posts pictures that make it appear so) . . . and it appears that he has (or had) a thing for the drummer.
>> Carine Roitfeld is really giving the Balmain Fall 2008 collection a workout. After wearing a long leopard gown from the label last Thursday, she went back to her favorite black Balmain dress on Friday for the Dolce & Gabbana party. Talk about an endorsement.
*images: source
>> We heard what Marc Jacobs had to say earlier today, and now it's Roberto Cavalli's turn. For a man who first rose to popularity back in the '60s with his hippiefied patchwork jeans, Cavalli still has some strong stylistic opinions to air out . . .
On vulgar dressing: "There is a real vulgarity in the way women dress at the moment. They show off too much and try too hard. They don't understand where
the line is between sexy and vulgar. I know where that line is." [Ed: Gotta love the irony . . . ]
On undesirables wearing his
clothes: "It happens a lot with women of a certain nationality - I'm
sure you can imagine which - and you just want to say 'Give it back!'? . . . The English - oh my God. I
shouldn't say this because I live part of the time in London, but they
are on a par with the Swiss stylistically."
On how much he loves Kate Moss' Topshop line: "Kate Moss's collection was badly made, stupid and bland; you see things
like that everywhere. You can't just buy things for the label - it's
ridiculous."
That last comment is especially weird, considering that Kate has been his go-to campaign girl for a few seasons now (including Fall 2008).
*image: wireimage
Dolce & Gabbana Party; Baoli, Cannes Film Festival, May 23.
*images: source
>> We've gotten a lot from the mouth of Marc Jacobs lately, and he'll be the first to admit that he's "not shy when it comes to talking." But I have to give it to him, he does have a knack for keeping things interesting.
In the article that accompanies his Warholian Interview cover shot and Louis Vuitton drag editorial, Marc reveals how Serge Gainsbourg kickstarted all of his highly successful artist collaborations at Louis Vuitton:
I was looking to rent an apartment when I first got here. Charlotte Gainsbourg had just had a baby and she was sitting in the bedroom breastfeeding, and I was looking at her apartment, and, in the corner, she had a trunk, a Louis Vuitton trunk that had been painted black. But a lot of the black had come off. It was her dad’s—that being Serge—and he had painted it black. And for some reason, that triggered me thinking about my favorite work of art ever, which is L.H.O.O.Q. by [Marcel] Duchamp. And I thought, This Vuitton monogram is sort of the Mona Lisa of this company.
And what I wanted to do, in the same way Serge had done, was deface it. The same way that Duchamp had done with L.H.O.O.Q., by putting this moustache on [the Mona Lisa] and making it something hipper, a little bit anarchic, and just cooler. And by defacing something, making it new again. And so I had this idea of asking Stephen [Sprouse] to come here and do graffiti on top of it.
The Stephen Sprouse graffiti collaboration from the Spring 2001 collection (above) ended up making Louis Vuitton over $300 million, but more recently, Marc had some other money in mind that never came into fruition:
I wanted to do money. Last season, because of all the recession talk, I wanted to do a $9 bill print. They sent the print down to our legal department, who told me that I couldn’t reproduce U.S. tender if it was the actual size, and I had to make it noticeably larger or smaller.
Maybe next time. For more snippets from Marc's mad imagination, and plenty of art speak, the full article is up here.
*image: source
