Fashion Designer Michael Kors Exhibit His Works

Museum opened in late February the first exhibition on the work of American fashion designer Michael Kors. The display will be up through Feb. 7, 2010.

Known for his role as a judge in the critically acclaimed television show "Project Runway," Michael Kors is recognized as one of America's preeminent sportswear designers and entrepreneurs.

The collection presented in the exhibition also is part of the legacy of Wendy Zuckerwise Ritter, said Dr. Anne Bissonnette, curator for the Kent State University Museum.

"It looks very put together because it's all from the wardrobe of one woman," Bissonnette said. "All of these are very businesslike. You aren't being flamboyant, you are a billboard for your company."

Bissonnette said that Ritter and Kors met when Kors was presenting trunk shows at Bergdorf Goodman, at the time when Ritter headed the Donna Karan boutique. When the Michael Kors flagship store opened on Madison Avenue in 2000, the recently married Wendy was asked to consider commuting between her new home in Dayton and Manhattan.

"She had developed an impressive clientele," Bissonnette said. "She had a knack for knowing just what her clients wanted. Michael asked her to come to New York, with her client list, when he started his store."

Between 2000 and her death in 2008, she commuted between Dayton and New York, according to information provided by the museum.

In 2010, when the exhibit will end, Michael Kors will celebrate 30 years in business, Bissonnette said. His namesake company, established in 1981, currently produces a range of products through his multiple labels and includes women's and men's ready-to-wear, women's accessories as well as fragrance and beauty products. In addition to his own labels, he designed for the French fashion house Celine between 1997 and January 2004, Bissonnette added. The 14 ensembles featured in the exhibition include garments produced for both his labels and for Celine.

"He makes things that are minimal, very simple but very well-made," Bissonnette said. "They are also very comfortable and chic. It's interesting for us to show this to our fashion students, who sometimes want to create these over-the-top garments that throw everything in. He pays attention to what people want. This is a business, and Michael has been in the business for about 30 years. He's not only a talented designer, but he's a good entrepreneur."

Bissonnette said that Kors described himself as "the oldest young designer in New York City."

According to information provided by the museum, Kors still participates in trunk shows where he spends time on the selling floor with customers, sales associates and merchants.

"I can make something beautiful, but if it doesn't work in real life, then to me it's a disaster," Kors stated in a media release. He stated his design and marketing strategies are not unlike those of Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, whose shoulders he stands on. Even with his success, Kors remains cautious: "The minute you think you're there, you're done for."

Source: Aurora Advocate

Paris Warms To YSL's Art Show

CHRISTIE'S three-day auction of French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and businessman Pierre Berge's collection, which starts tonight in Paris, has been valued at $400-600 million.

It has been described as one of the most significant private collection sales in art-auction history. It is also becoming a political hot potato.

On Friday, a group of Chinese lawyers filed a motion in a French court to stop Christie's from auctioning off two antique bronze animal sculptures in the collection.

This follows recent comments by the Chinese Government that the Qing dynasty works had been stolen from Beijing's old imperial summer palace during the second Opium War with the French and British armies in 1860.

Christie's maintains Saint Laurent acquired the items legally. The court is expected to make its decision today, hours before the auction is due to start.

Saint Laurent died last June, aged 71. Berge, his long-time business and personal partner, decided to sell the contents of their Rue de Babylon apartment to fund the Pierre Berge-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation, established in 2002, to preserve 5000 YSL haute couture outfits and 15,000 accessories, sketches and other items.

Berge has said he will also donate money to several charities, including AIDS research.

Several Australian collectors are believed to be interested in certain lots,although the Australian dollar's performance against a strong euro may deter some.

According to Ronan Sulich, Christie's representative in Australia, a number have purchased the boxed set of five catalogues.

"Because this is such a milestone in auction history, it's understandable a number of people in Australia will be interested," Mr Sulich told The Australian yesterday.

This weekend, an estimated 30,000 people braved chilly weather to queue outside Paris's Grand Palais exhibition centre to view the collection.

It was the first time the works had been seen publicly and many visitors waited up to four hours for the chance to view them.

The collection reflects the eclectic tastes of its owners. It includes statues from ancient Rome, 16th- and 17th-century German silverware, 19th-century tapestries, Impressionist oil paintings and early 20th-century decorative arts.

Saint Laurent and Berge were passionate 20th-century art collectors with a particular interest in the late-Impressionist and Modernist movements. Paintings by Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Edvard Munch, Piet Mondrian, Henri Matisse, Fernand Leger and Pablo Picasso will also go under the hammer over the next three days.

Berge was always considered the financial brain behind Saint Laurent's fashion genius. But he, too, was a man of exceptional taste. Their collection, built over more than 40 years, is a tribute to both men's connoisseurship.

When he announced the auction last November, Berge, who first met Saint Laurent in 1958, told journalists the collection had come to the end of its life.

"I wanted this sale," Berge, 78, told them. "This collection could only have two destinies - end up in a museum, which would have been too onerous, or on the auction block.

"I chose the sale because I felt the collection would not be truly complete until the hammer fell on the last lot."

He added: "This sale is like a separation. You can continue to love, even after the divorce is final.

Source: The Australian

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NY Fashion Week - George Chakra

After years indulging in high couture, Lebanese designer Georges Chakra has debuted his new line in New York in stunning fashion.

In marked contrast to the vibe at the New York Fashion Week enveloped in a cloud of economic austerity, Chakra -- who dressed British actress Helen Mirren at the Oscars awards last year -- kicked off his show Saturday with a bang.

"It's incredibly beautiful, over the top. This is a red carpet must have," according to hip celebrity fashion commentator Esther Nash.

Always respectful of the feminine silhouette, Chakra's skin-tight, glossy dresses in futuristic colors range from red to jet black and silver to hot pink.

"There was life to the garment. This is very young, something you would wear," commented Nash.

Throwing out the somber mood that was tangible at the show's start Friday, with designers toning down their events to fit the financial pinch, Chakra's line, with its taffeta coat dress and wildly over-the-top neon garb, caught everyone's attention.

The designer received a standing ovation for his show.

"I would buy the little black dress with the plastic butterflies if I could afford it," said Nash.

Just before Chakra, French fashion house Lacoste, which is very active on the American market where it is competing against Ralph Lauren, did not show significant new designs.

But its collection was marked by warmth and soft colors like periwinkle blue and yellow sand.

Very few stripes were displayed this season by the artistic director of the brand, Christophe Lemaire, who wanted to make his mark with a soft hooded duffel coat.

Without revealing many details, officials of Lacoste announced during lunch that they are finalizing a project with the World Bank aimed at preservation of crocodiles threatened with extinction.

Jason Wu, a 26-year-old New York designer of Taiwanese origin, acquired instant celebrity status when First Lady Michelle Obama wore one of his dresses at an inaugural ball, at which she appeared with her husband on January 20.

Crowds gathered to view his presentation, but photographers waited in vain for the appearance of the first lady.

New York's Fashion Week, which opened Friday amid an economic recession, will showcase the collections of some 75 designers and is considered one of the most important fashion shows in the world.

On Saturday, the habitual catwalk displays were accompanied by a tribute to Barbie, the doll that celebrates in 2009 its 50th year.

Source: AFP

Inside Report On Couture

"Cost is not an issue.” I am sitting in the Plaza Athénée hotel in Paris, talking to three South American couture customers in the hope that I might uncover some of the mysteries of the world of high fashion. Who buys? How much? Is the credit crunch biting? “You mean you pay whatever?” I ask. The ladies look at each other and smile. “You realise,” the youngest says, “buying couture is not like buying other clothes. You don’t buy, wear for a season, then throw away.”

“Oh, no,” her friend interjects. “At couture, you buy for life. Some seasons you buy a lot, others nothing.” “A lot?” I query. “Maybe three or four evening gowns, say from Lacroix or Elie Saab. A silk undercoat from Chanel. Couture is made to last. I send things back to be altered as the fashion moves and my figure changes.”

“So, how much do you pay?” Laughter. “You are an English gentleman. You cannot ask a lady that!” “Would your husband tell me?” More laughter. “He would hit you on the nose!” And that’s as far as I got. But there are ways of working out probable costs. When, for example, a couture evening dress is sent out to be photographed by a magazine, the insurance is usually about £100,000.

So, what about the customer base — and are more clothes being ordered? I asked Daphne Guinness, one of the few British women who regularly buys at this level. “It depends,” she says. “Last season, I bought nothing. This time, there are some things at Chanel that I like. I always look to fill holes in my wardrobe. I love Dior.” The Dior show cost £2m to put on. “Rich people haven’t all gone into hiding, you know.

W “Anyhow,” Guinness continues, “the big corporations have kept young designers like Gareth Pugh out for far too long. Maybe they can get a look-in now. And of course couture will survive. The world needs to be filled with romance and otherworldly dreams.”

So, who is buying? Chanel’s fashion president, Bruno Pavlovsky, tells me that, since 2007, demand for couture at Chanel has increased so much that a new atelier has opened; they now have 200 couture specialists. “We are putting a lot of resources behind this current collection,” he says. “We sense a great need for couture at this moment. We expect good sales worldwide.”

It’s important to remember, though, that sales of the showstoppers in any house are usually confined to no more than three per continent. The purpose of couture is publicity, which stimulates the market for less stratospherically priced clothes ranges, beauty and make-up, all bearing the company name.

Middle East sales are static. Surprisingly, all houses report keen interest from America. Russia is wobbling. Asian interest is not high. But it is the French who buy couture in serious numbers, often from the smaller couturiers such as Dominique Sirop, Stéphane Rolland and Franck Sorbier, who, along with Elie Saab, have healthy sales because they give sophisticated working women individual clothes at prices their high salaries can cope with, and which fit their lifestyles.

In terms of quality of fashion, it was a better couture week than most. The most dramatic statement was at Dior, where John Galliano continued along his tactful path of using Christian Dior’s thinking as the basis for his own statement. The mood was a continuation of 1950s Dior (though there was a spectacular new take on Bar, the iconic black-and-white suit in Dior’s first collection in 1947), all flouncy full skirts and needle-thin elegance. And, like the maestro, Galliano focused on corsets and the underpinnings of couture.

At Chanel, Lagerfeld gave us refinement, delicacy and a monochrome palette. It was very Chanel, personifying her comment that “as a woman advances in years, she should wear white . . . White smooths out everything”. At Gaultier, things looked up after a few lacklustre seasons. This was high-camp high fashion of the sort Paris does best. Razor-sharp tailoring, straight-cut shoulders and Gaultier’s trademark lingerie looks — very 1980s. More delicate but just as consummate, Christian Lacroix referenced the theatre, circus, corrida and a whore’s parlour in a gloriously colourful collection.

Of the others, Versace Atelier was a virtuoso performance of brilliant cutting and fabulous colour; Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy presented a beautifully feminine parade of brilliant shapes and cutting in a preponderance of beige tones. The same soft shades were clearly up the street of the customers at Elie Saab, which is why it is the only fashion house in Paris with seriously substantial sales at this level.

To quote Chanel from the 1920s: “The poetry of couture was responsible for cocktails, balls, dinner parties. The champagne flowed . . . we walked on a floor strewn with orchids.” Let’s hope couture can pull it off again to brighten these cash-strapped times.

CAN LUXURY SURVIVE THE CREDIT CRUNCH?

In his new book, The Luxury Strategy (Kogan Page £30), the marketing expert Jean-Noël Kapferer says brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Cartier, whose core profits come from their high-end goods, should come through the credit crunch unscathed. Those who rely heavily on sales of handbags, make-up and cheaper accessories will be harder hit.

“The luxury brand is the ordinary of extraordinary people and the extraordinary of ordinary people. Slashing prices makes you more for ordinary people. And that’s the beginning of the end.” Eek. “Luxury is about timelessness,” he goes on, saying it’s no coincidence that some of the most successful brands are family-run. “Cartier will tell you they’ve been through two world wars, one economic depression, three slumps . . . They take the long-term view.”

His advice: don’t panic. And employ counterintuitive strategies. “Raise your prices. Don’t pander to your customers’ wishes. Make it more difficult for your clients to buy. And don’t compare yourself with others. Gauguin did not compare himself with Renoir.”

Then he quotes a high-up executive at Mercedes-Benz: “ ’Our job is to make people dream of new products. As soon as they have money, they will buy. Life goes on.’ ”

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