ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories: Behind The Scenes

Thursday, 30 August 2012

Salvatore Ferragamo FW 2012/13 | Behind The Scenes

Peasant skirts and chantilly lace embodied the fairy tale painted by Ferragamo Creative Director, Massimiliano Giornetti on the Fall/Winter 2012 runway in Milan. In a crescendo of paisley patterns, embroidery and golden glints, fluidly soft chiffon dresses recreate the decorative flavor of a tsarina’s wardrobe.

Backstage at the Ferragamo Fall/Winter 2012 runway show, models exuded the enchanted mythos of the collection designed by Creative Director, Massimiliano Giornetti. With gilded gossamer gowns, mesmerizing zodiac jewelry, and hand embroidered velvet bags rich with the innovative craftsmanship of Ferragamo's legacy, the Fall/Winter collection has already become a front row favorite for the jet setting fashionista.

Giornetti explored “the idea of craftsmanship,” exemplified by the house since Salvatore himself began creating exquisite footwear in the 1920s, in the lavish, scrolling wool embroideries, subtly traced in tone-on-tone on an ebony velvet topcoat or riding boot, and in the thick frogging details embellishing roll-neck sweaters. Pencil skirts and shapely tops were seemingly composed of horizontal bands of vari-textured ribbons, and some of those airy Gitane skirts had insertions of delicate, pale-gold lace at the hem, or sprinklings of fine bead embroidery picking out the boteh motifs. The charm was in the details; in the exquisite nineteenth-century-looking jewelry including cameo necklaces, and pendants attached to velvet ribbon chokers; the lattice-laced sandals tied with dainty tassels; and the evening minaudière shaped and embellished like a Fabergé egg.

View last additions to the Salvatore Ferragamo Autumn/Winter 2012/13

Advertising Campaign shot by Mikael Jansson

The location is intriguing and mysterious: the Russian Embassy in Berlin, with its regal atmosphere and the precious, refined rooms. There, Salvatore Ferragamo stages the two souls of the idea of woman he has created for the FW 2012/13 season: rigorous and sensual, accompanied by a sophisticated and cosmopolitan man.

The campaign evokes an intense role play: on the one hand we have the femininity of Kate Moss, a contemporary Tzarina slumped on a dormeuse and almost wrapped by tapestries and arrases, on the other we have a cryptic beauty, Karmen Pedaru, and then the magnetic charm of Sean O'Pry.

This August Salvatore Ferragamo launched their Fall/Winter 2012 Women’s Runway online trunk show. Style your own Ferragamo fantasy: www.trunkshow.Ferragamo.com

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories

Photo Credits/Source: The House of © Salvatore Ferragamo

Collection and review

Friday, 18 May 2012

Behind The Scenes Of CHANEL Cruise 2012/13

Karl Lagerfeld was exultant. Twelve months of planning for Chanel's 2013 Cruise presentation and, the week before the big day, current events conspired to completely recontextualize the show, injecting a delicious layer of irony into the time and place. His succinct summation, "Versailles in a Socialist France", said it all. Up until last week's election, which restored a left-wing government to power, Lagerfeld's collection was a gleeful mash-up of hip-hop edge à la his favorite Azealia Banks or M.I.A. and Louis Quatorze's eighteenth-century court at Versailles, the focal point of a period that history recognizes as France's last Golden Age, with Louis the Sun King at its pinnacle. Soundmeister Michel Gaubert dubbed the hybrid "Ghetto royale." He obliged Karl with an M.I.A. track whose refrain, "Live fast, die young/Bad girls do it well," might have been Marie Antoinette's musical signature if she'd lived a couple centuries later. She might even have joined Alice Dellal and Karl Lagerfeld, who played an exuberantly retro-punk set at the post-show cocktail.

Enjoy CHANEL Cruise 2012/13 Fashion Show at the end of this post!

LoL, Andrea

Lagerfeld has proved himself a master of this high-low hybrid in recent times. Here, formal eighteenth-century details, like panniers and fichus, were re-created in casual twenty-first-century fabrics chambray, tech denims, even plastics-dressed up with frothy lace ruffles and cuffs, and dressed down with gold platform trainers and short shorts. Occasionally awkward though it may have been, the lightness, the girlishness, of the clothes had a balletic quality, reflective perhaps of Louis' own love of dance. Lagerfeld said he wanted something floating and frivolous. "Frivolity is a healthy attitude," he said after the show. "I know people who were saved by frivolity."

The show took place around three of the furiously spouting fountains for which Versailles is famous. Guests then trained through the grounds to the cocktail at the Bosquet des Rocailles, where Louis staged theatrical productions. (Could it be true that Marie Antoinette's "farm," the private playpen where she'd go to play-act ordinary folks, was just through the trellised fence?) Speaking of imperial whim, look no further than the gall of the guy who persisted with plans for a ginormous outdoor spectacle while the heavens were blessing Paris with six weeks of nonstop rain. Guess what? Glorious Sol came out on cue. So who's the Sun King now?

But the levity of that declaration was lent some provocative weight by the election. Clearly equating President-elect François Hollande's incoming government with a general shriveling of the French jeu d'esprit (although that is, in itself, something of a myth), Lagerfeld went on to say, "I don't want the rest of the world to think of France as a sad, gloomy country. They won't come to buy our products." A worrying prospect for someone who never fails to crowd his catwalk with an overabundance of clothing and accessories. "Too many ideas," wailed Inès de la Fressange jokily as she leaned in to bestow a congratulatory kiss. "Too creative." Lagerfeld glazed one tweed in gold, sequined another in pale blue, embroidered a tiny sundress with gold bullion, and applied the most delicate floral beading to snowy white handkerchief linen. Watercolor florals suggested Watteau maidens; male models Brad Kroenig and Jon Kortajarena were dressed in britches as their swains. "It's nothing that literal," Lagerfeld insisted, but the Rococo echoes added some charm.