yup, rub your eyes! i am doing an 'advertorial'... well, not really since i am not paid or stand nothing to gain in this. for this week's '@dd it', i am asking you to go into an armani store and pick up something for yourself.
yes, you did not read it wrongly, i am throwing my weight behind a brand. my love for armani is no secret anyway. whether it is armani exchange, emporio armani or giorgio armani, shopping in an armani store is always a pleasure. for as well as my memories serve me, i've never walked out of their stores empty-handed.
like i once remairked, 'i have an insane amount of armani. his work is crisp, clean, elegant and tailored. armani's designs have changed the look and feel of contemporary fashion in business, entertainment and the fashion industry itself.
giorgio armani himself can sum up his design philosophy, which has proven to be so successful, best, 'i design for real people. i think of our customers all the time. there is no virtue whatsoever in creating clothing or accessories or clothing that are not practical.' hence as we approach the end of another week, we should never forget that every piece of garment remains fabric until someone buys it and wears it.
iris van herpen is a dutch fashion designer. she studied fashion design at artez institute of the arts arnhem and interned at alexander mcqueen in london and claudy jongstra in Amsterdam. in 2007, she started her own label. since july 2011, iris is a guest member of the prestigious parisian chambre syndicale de la haute couture, which is part of the fédération française de la couture.
iris van herpen had an intuitive appreciation of fashion and art as a youth. her first passion was actually dance. it was when she attended the preparatory course art and design at artez during her high school years that she became particularly interested in designing clothes.
she graduated in 2006 from the fashion design department of artez. her graduation collection machine jewellery already bears van herpen’s characteristic interest in the visualization of elusive concepts and intangible elements. in this case ‘time’ and inventiveness in material use and treatment.
from the beginning of her career, iris van herpen’s talent has been singled out as very promising and it has grown strong over the years. it has been recognized through awards, exhibitions, publications and her guest membership of the chambre syndicale de la haute couture.
singer-songwriter björk wore dresses from several iris van herpen collections. additionally, singer-songwriter lady gaga, artist and style icon daphne guinness have worn dresses by iris van herpen. van herpen’s designs follow, complete and change the body and the emotions that accompany it, when simultaneously the body adapts and adopts the new forms. movement is key. it is of decisive importance for the ultimate design how a moving body reacts on a piece of clothing and vice versa, how a piece of clothing behaves when worn.
van herpen’s decision to explore the rapid prototyping technology of 3d printing allowed her to be the first to introduce this technology in fashion and to create astonishing designs with it. van herpen became fascinated with the endless design potential of 3d printing. in recent collections she further developed her prints by adding detailed handwork. the 3d prints only added to that other much-heard term to describe van herpen’s style: futuristic.
besides the use of new technologies, the term mostly refers to the appearance of her looks. what is very important to realize, though, is that her designs combine new technologies and diligent handwork. in fact, this is characteristic for all van herpen’s collections. exactly this combination of handwork and innovative technologies brings van herpen to her edgy designs. she equally values techniques from the past with techniques and technologies of the future because they have their own power and beauty that, when rightly combined, can be enhanced instead of being substituted by one another.
azzedine alaïa is a tunisian-born couturier and shoe designer, particularly successful since the 1980s. his parents were wheat farmers but his glamorous twin sister inspired his love for couture. a french friend of his mother fed alaïa's instinctive creativity with copies of vogue. he lied about his age to get himself into the local ecole des beaux-arts in tunis and began studying sculpture where he gained valuable insights into the human form.
after his graduation, alaïa began working as a dressmaker's assistant. he soon began dressing private clients and in 1957, he moved to paris to work in fashion design. in paris, he started to work at christian dior as a tailleur but soon moved to work for guy laroche for two seasons, then for thierry mugler until he opened his first atelier in his little rue de bellechasse apartment the late 1970s. it is in this tiny atelier that for almost 20 years he dressed privately the world's jet set, from marie-hélène de rothschild to louise de vilmorin (who would become a close friend) to greta garbo, who used to come incognito for her fittings.
his seductive, clinging clothes were a massive success and he was named by the media 'the king of cling'. in 1996, he participated at the biennale della moda in florence, where along with paintings by longtime friend julian schnabel, he exhibited an outstanding dress created for the event. schnabel-designed furniture, as well as his large scale canvases, are decorating alaia's boutique in paris.
alaia refuses the marketing-driven logic of luxury conglomerates, continuing to focus on clothes rather than 'it-bags'. alaia is revered for his independence and passion for discreet luxury. catherine lardeur, the former editor and chief of french marie claire in the 1980s stated in an interview to crowd magazine that
'fashion is dead. designers nowadays do not create anything, they only make clothes so people and the press would talk about them. the real money for designers lie within perfumes and handbags. it is all about image. alaia remains the king. he is smart enough to not only care about having people talk about him. he only holds fashion shows when he has something to show, on his own time frame.'
alaïa was honored with a solo exhibition at the groninger museum in the netherlands in 1998, which debuted at the guggenheim museum in new york in 2000.
the renaissance period started about 1450 in italy and ended about 1600. the word renaissance came from the Italian word "renascrere" meaning to be re-born. many would say it was the age in which intellectual and creative energy was re-born. in the 15th century fashion was re-born and beauty of the human body was discovered once again.
renaissance dress makers considered the human form in two parts - hips and shoulders. the clothing was made to fit the wearer, yet on the outside it was padded to show the body in a completely different form than the natural one. a person's wealth was shown in the jewels sewn in the cloth, fabric, and layers of clothing.
toward the later renaissance, fashion began to reflect mannerism. sumptuary laws decreed that commoners only to wear clothing of one color. in order to circumvent the sumptuary laws, men and women cut open the outer surfaces of their clothes to expose the contrasting color beneath, which was called slashing.
during the early renaissance, the necklines varied in cut and height. little changes in necklines, waistlines, sleeves and such help identify the dress to the different time periods and different rulers. with the change of rulers came a change in what was considered fashionable depending on what the queen or king wore.
women's undergarments were also important in the renaissance when it came to being fashionable and distinguishing status and social class as with other, more visible fashions, such as outer dresses, head dress and footwear.
the main women's undergarments was the chemise, or as it was also called, camicia or underobe. the role of the chemise was to form the shape of the dress and in the later years was shown at the neckline and sleeves of the dress, and therefore had to be decorated and fashionable. fashions of the renaissance were very complicated and elaborate and undergarments, even though rarely seen, were no exception.
women's hair and head dresses were the most elaborate, ever-changing and time consuming parts of women's fashions in the renaissance. women spent hours plucking hair from their foreheads and side of their face to achieve a high forehead, which was considered fashionable during the Renaissance. They pulled the remaining hair into a tight bun or braid and then covered their heads with some kind of head dress, depending on what was fashionable, which went from to turbans to veils and was always elaborately decorated with jewels, embroidery and rich fabrics.
in the later renaissance, venetian women would arrange their hair into twin buns that resembled horns at the front of their head. sometimes these horns would be up to half a foot, and with the combined height of hair and shoes, women could appear to be up to a foot and a half taller than they really were. what was considered fashionable for women's hair and head dress changed considerably many times throughout the renaissance.
close to the turn of the century, women wore what was called the gable or kennel headdress. these were very elaborate head dresses, consisting of many different parts to complete the style. the hair was center parted, and fell loosely down the back, and a white under cap was worn directly over the hair and was tied under the chin. pinned to the under cap was a stiffened tight fitting cap, or coif, with the front and the lappets, or loose flaps, were covered with black material. the front edge of the coif was decorated and rigid with use of metal. pinned to the coif was placed a semi-circular black hood, decorated around the front, that was like a veil, covering the top of the chest and back. women's hair and head dress during the renaissance most likely were as influential in determining status and social class and being fashionable as the outer dress. thus women spent a lot of time doing up their hair and arranging their head dress and most probably took great joy in creating their elaborate styles.
the shoes were very extravagant as was the rest of the outfit. the platform could add height to the wearer and came in a height of up to thirteen inches and jeweled ornaments adorned the leather. although very fashionable, these high shoes were never actually seen in public, as they were covered by the long skirts the women wore. during this period the gracefully curved heel became known as the french or louis XV heel.
the change from platforms to heels changed the whole idea of shoemaking. walking became considered an art with wearing heeled shoes and a hoop skirt moving forward and backward. hemlines were hiked up to the ankles and thus the costly foot attire was shown off to the public.
the renaissance period caused fashion to change forever. it was a period that set the stage for years to come. elaborate details, along with colorful fabrics and expensive jewels were just a few elements of the renaissance fashion. people went to any length to outdo each other in their garments. as the period went on the decorative details got more and more elaborate leading up to the elizabethan age. the italian renaissance influenced all the countries around them. many countries copied the renaissance "look", because of the elegance and beauty of the clothing. the fashions of the italian renaissance were so influential that, when italy was conquered by spain, france, and austria, the fashions in europe changed and were never the same. the fashions of the renaissance period were truly in a league of their own.
