Monday, 4 October 2010
Mary Katranzhou (Best of show part 1)
THE Audi gala dinner last Tuesday was a great night for the young talents taking part in Asia Fashion Exchange's Star Creation competition. It was the night they got to walk the catwalk, show off their work to the fashion-conscious public - and have the opportunity to witness the beauty of Mary Katrantzou's designs up close. This article was first published in The Business Times.
Indeed, there is much they can learn from the enterprising Greek designer.
Like the Star Creation participants, Katrantzou is young - 27 - but she already has more than 60 stockists worldwide following the success of a collection launched straight after finishing an MA at London's Central Saint Martins in 2008.
'It was crazy,' she recalls.
'I was taking orders on the back of my press releases because I hadn't prepared an order form. I didn't expect to be selling my first collection.'
But she did, and to stockists such as Colette in Paris, Browns in London and Joyce in Hong Kong at that. Many supported her from the get-go; in Singapore, multi-label boutique Pois picked up Katrantzou's eponymous label when she was into her second season. 'I knew then that my work was commercially viable and I started to see it as a real business,' she says.
One only has to look at the work that she sent down the runway last Tuesday to understand why the label is so popular: Katrantzou's creations are breathakingly beautiful. Her prints - the designer's trademark - are so eye-catching and unique that they have become her handwriting, which is something few young designers possess.
Of her design process, she explains: 'What I do is take an item of luxury and turn it into prints. The first season was oversized jewellery, the second was perfume bottles and the third was blown glasses.' For her latest collection, the designer was 'inspired by the clothes that people wore in 18th century portraitures'.
Having a distinct design practice is very important for a young designer because it helps him or her to stay focused when coming up with new collections and at the same time renders the work recognisable, explains Katrantzou.
Indeed, a strong brand identity has helped the young woman stand out from her peers, but it's her clothes that are probably her biggest selling point. At Tuesday's show, for example, guests were so awed by the stunning dresses sent down the runway that a good number made a beeline to her private trunk show at Pois the next day to order them.
Then there was the capsule T-shirt collection that she designed for Topshop, which sold out right after it launched at the High Street label's flagship store on London's Oxford Street in February. 'Working on the T-shirt collection with Topshop really made a difference - it allowed people who can't afford my main line the opportunity to have one of my designs, and it allowed us to reach out to a new market,' she says. 'It also helped us to get an idea of whether T-shirts would sell well or not. While the idea had crossed our minds before, we had never made T-shirts because we thought the production might end up being too much for us to handle. So this collaboration opened the door a little for us, in that sense.'
Moving forward, Katrantzou's challenge - and she knows it - is in proving to the fashion world that she's not just a print-perfect one-trick pony. 'Every season I try to push myself a bit further, to develop the label more,' she says. 'For example, I don't have a signature pair of trousers or coat yet; that's something I need to work on. But at the same time, I don't think of trends. While everyone was focusing on minimalist clothing for Autumn/Winter 2010, I made mine more ornate, more over the top.
'I think that in order to stand out, you need to think beyond trends. I firmly believe in that.'
Ek Thongprasert (best of show part 5)
Ek Thongprasert
ONE of the biggest problems facing many young talents is that they tend to favour form over function, which inevitably leads to a lack of commercial viability.
Luckily for rising Thai designer Ek Thongprasert, he has managed to find that elusive balance between the two, thanks to his educational grounding - architecture in Thailand followed by a fashion degree from the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp.
'When I was training as an architect, it was all about being functional,' says Thongprasert. 'I mix that with the conceptual skills that I picked up in Belgium in order to make my designs more saleable.'
Keeping this design philosophy firmly in mind would stand Thongprasert in good stead, especially as he develops his eponymous high-end main line and a second more commercial line called Curated by Ek Thongprasert that was set up six months ago. Both were exhibited at Asia Fashion Exchange's Blueprint trade fair. The former is a high-end label specialising in menswear and women's jewellery, while Curated is a more affordable alternative mixing contemporary art and fashion.
'Every year I produce four collections for Curated and for each collection I choose an artist, study his philosophy and then I translate that into fashion,' he explains.
There are two key reasons why Thongprasert stands out. The first is how commercially viable his designs are - though highly conceptual in nature, they're not only wearable but look comfortable as well. The second is how he has managed to use his designs to convey social messages.
He cites the jacket he wore for the photo shoot: 'When you look at it from the front, it looks simple, but once I turn around, you are surprised by the outstanding details on the back. This jacket was from a Curated collection that was based on the work of Nick Vessel, a photographer who uses X-ray imagery to showcase the idea of inner beauty. I translated that into my work.'
Armed with such intelligence, it is little wonder that this young talent is on the road to success. One can only hope that he manages to stay right on track.
This article was first published in The Business Times.
Roberto Cavalli at AFF
THERE comes a point in every man's life (even if he is not an everyman) when he feels a change may do him good.
And in the case of Roberto Cavalli, that moment came as he was designing his Spring-Summer 2010 collection.
Instead of adding to the vast repertoire of glitzy, sex-bombshell looks that the Cavalli name is synonymous with, the Italian designer produced girly, frilly pieces that were not like anything he'd stamped his name on before.
The collection was good for his bank account because it sold out in stores, but it didn't do the same for his soul.
'It was a mistake,' Cavalli tells BT frankly in his thick Italian accent, during an interview last week when he was here for the Audi Fashion Festival.
'I realised that I have my style and I cannot change my style. Because when I create a collection, I have to love it, do you understand? And at the end of my summer collection, at that show, I was not happy. I don't care what other people think or say; I am the first, biggest judge of myself.'
That audacious attitude is what has sustained the man who calls himself 'a strange person on the fashion planet'.
Now into his 40th year as a designer, Cavalli is going strong and has expanded the brand's reach into wine, vodka, clubs - all of which he intends to bring into Singapore in future - and more in the past few years.
But back to his core business. On the tail of this year's unfulfilling Spring-Summer creations, the designer produced an Autumn-Winter collection whose main design philosophy was 'to be different from the collection before', he says.
And how! At his show in Singapore on Sunday, which was the AFF's closing event, Cavalli showed the audience a stunning series of nomadic-themed looks from his AW2010 collection that ranged from floaty silk harem pants to shaggy fur chubbies; a luxe tribal-bohemian aesthetic awash with animal prints and other inspirations from nature that was carried down the runway by models against a breathtakingly beautiful desert landscape that pictured bare, rocky cliffs against azure skies. (The extra-strong air conditioning, which swirled the models' skirts around their ankles and whipped through the furry jackets and satchels, also helped make this believable.)
Then the panoramic backdrop was replaced by the house's gold logo, and Cavalli sent out a sort of 'Greatest Hits' showcase comprising the brand's bestsellers in its history, which included a leopard-print corset and a dazzling figure-hugging floor-length gown covered in gold sequins.
There were one too many beaded flapper-type mini dresses, perhaps, but the overall effect of the show was spectacular, with the designer showing, quite literally, the stuff he was made of.
The event was an emotional, almost poetic one, which earned a standing ovation from the 720-strong audience and spoke more of Cavalli than his individual designs often do from shop windows.
And it offered some insight on the designer as he is behind the flash fashion front: the grandson of a master painter who was brought up to love nature (he spent his free time in Singapore taking photos of the orchids in the Botanic Gardens and the butterflies in Sentosa's Butterfly Park 'for ideas'), and who likes nothing better than to take his helicopter up into the Tuscan skies when he is home.
'I prefer to be in the sky than to be a high flyer here, because when I am in the sky, I am really in the sky,' he says, his voice softening. 'When I fly, I don't need anything - it's just me, the sky, the world. And maybe I love it also because I feel more close to God.'
But the designer's characteristic feistiness returns when the conversation turns to his AW2010 presentation in Milan earlier this year.
Recalls Cavalli: 'Oh my God, that show was fantastic. I remember in the middle of it, I started to cry a little. I said to myself, Roberto, that time we f*** the world!'
And in a world where trend-followers are a dime a dozen and originality is priceless, we can only hope that he continues to do just that.
This article was first published in The Business Times.
Marchesa at AFF
YOU could tell a thing or two about the designers who were showing in the AFF tent by the way each fashion show's attendees were dressed ... and last Friday, it was all about red carpet glamour.
Gowns that had been extravagantly draped, decorated, nipped and tucked (the last two being processes that several wearers had obviously also applied to themselves) were the garb of the day, as were gem-encrusted clutches and other attention-grabbing details.
It was Marchesa night, after all - a night dedicated to celebrating the work of Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig, the British designers who have become famous for their handworked red carpet creations since they started Marchesa (a name inspired by the 19th century eccentric aristocrat Marchesa Casiti) in 2004. And though the women were not present to take their bows after the Samsung-sponsored show last week, their spirit was quite apparent in the looks they sent floating down the runway.
Against an illuminated backdrop that glowed, in turn, lilac, cerulean, turquoise and coral, cherry-lipped models took to the catwalk in current and past-season frocks that had been specially selected for the Singapore show. There were full-length gowns and shorter cocktail looks; particularly memorable were a sweeping, silvery mint-green gown with a frothy chiffon hem and lush floral appliques that crept up the curves of the upper body; and a taffeta knee-length frock over whose bodice purple-and-ivory silk lilies, folded origami-style but looking remarkably realistic, bloomed.
The spectacular, somewhat theatrical style of Marchesa is no surprise when you consider the designers' background - Chapman trained as a costume designer, while Craig was a textile designer before the two women formed their partnership.
According to the duo themselves, however, their design leanings are to be attributed to something a bit simpler. As Ms Craig told The New York Times in an earlier interview: 'We make the kinds of dresses that we want to wear.'
House of Holland
TO use an English expression (because the man we're talking about is as Brit as can be), Henry Holland's got it all a**e over tea kettle. That is to say, the way his label has been developed is upside down, topsy turvy, topple up tail ... you get the picture.
Says the North Manchester-born designer, who is best known for his naughtily-worded T-shirts that poke fun at other fashion personalities (think 'Cause me pain Hedi Slimane' and 'Uhu Gareth Pugh'): 'The way we've grown the business has been the reverse of a lot of fashion companies. They start off with a very high design concept for their first few shows and develop that. Then they do a commercial take on their original ideals, see how it's more saleable, then maybe start a T-shirt line.
'But we did it backwards.
'We started with T-shirts, the most commercial products.'
It wasn't as simple as it sounds, though. Holland started out as a stylist and later branched out into making T-shirts with slogans on them 'because I thought I could do that with the British people'. But it 'didn't go down very well', he admits - until one day, when his friend Pugh, an enfant terrible of British fashion, 'came round to my house for lunch and took the p**s out of my T-shirts and failed business'.
Holland responded by making 25 of the 'Uhu Gareth Pugh' T-shirts and giving them to all his friends, after which 'Gareth wore one at the end of the show, and then it went all around the world', he says.
Last Saturday, it was Singapore's turn to receive a dose of Holland's style as the designer showcased his latest looks at the Audi Fashion Festival. Inspired by a vintage paisley bandana that the designer found in Tokyo as well as street culture and 'how people start to identify themselves within a gang', the show featured ponytailed models jauntily strutting down the runway in stylised punky, punchy outfits.
One ensemble saw a striking purple paisley-printed shin-length dress with cut-out shoulders paired with a candy-pink bandana, while another was a tight black minidress that had bands of shearling dyed turquoise running across it worn with patterned turquoise tights. Then there were those famous statement T-shirts, only this time printed with letters that said, to list two examples, 'F.F.S.' and 'C.T.F.O.' (the rude definitions can be found at www.houseofholland.co.uk).
Holland's style is nu-rave with an 80s touch - he also showed a black and white bandage dress with the words 'House of Holland' running across the strips that was reminiscent of Calvin Klein underwear - and it's not for the faint-hearted (or, for that matter, the sophisticated). But it's fun and full of energy, which is exactly the vibe that the designer's atypical approach is shooting for.
Says Holland: 'The humour in my work and the element of fun contributes to the inclusive sort of atmosphere we have as a brand. I don't want people thinking, 'oh, this is too cool for me'.'
Audi Fashion Festival a gathering of very beautiful people
When you organise a fashion festival, it's never just about the fashion show that everyone is clamouring for a ticket to attend. And to top all that, a very generous sprinkling of the very beautiful people who are fashion plates in themselves, and without which, glamourous fashion festivals just don't have that oomph factor. We spied the usual suspects - Dr Georgia Lee, Dr Frank Cintamani (who is also festival director), tai-tais and society butterflies in their well-manicured hordes. You will see more of them by the way, in our sister site, Plush. We saw for ourselves their impeccable tailoring as models came down the runway in their jacket and suit ensembles. We witnessed their sense of humour that carried throughout the collection as models sported varying quantities of fake blood on their bodies - you know, the horror theme is at work here? Hmm, we also know why Madonna and Britney Spears are fans now. Most importantly, we saw with our own eyes, the twins in person as they came out to receive their accolades from a superlatively appreciative crowd, who cheered even harder upon spying the siblings pop out from behind the stage backdrop to walk down the runway. And that makes for a successful fashion festival.
Beyond the clothes, you will need your big-name it fashion designers; cue hot Italian designing duo, Dan and Dean Caten of cult fashion label DSquared2. Then you require a few of those tall and leggy ethereal beings that are supermodels - Estonian beauty Carmen Kass and hot Korean model Song Kyunga, check. After which, a very popular German pop rock band such as Tokio Hotel would be in order, to attract your screaming teen fans who will erupt into raucous cheers at every single mention of their favourite band in order to generate more after-show excitement since the night is still young yet.
It was a spectacle that made more than just a sartorial statement, as the evening began with the free-flowing bubblies while guests dressed in their fashionable best arrived. Really, the most important thing here is you get to mingle in this rarefied atmosphere of Very Beautiful People.
After which, of course, we turn to the main attraction, without which none of the attendees present at yesterday evening's opening show would have reason to be present, the Men and Women's Fall/Winter 2010 Collection by DSquared2.
The celebrated twins' punk-chic style meets Madame Frankenstein in her house of horrors show off the fun and sexy street attitude that belongs to the designer pair.
Is it any surprise the audience burst into loud cries of joy, seeing that the pair were so gracious to fly all the way from Italy to celebrate Singapore's very own fashion festival with us? Of course, that happened with the very generous help of some very generous sponsors from Audi and Tag Heuer.
But back to the clothes. DSquared2's men's and women's collections were complete gems to behold - the piece-de-resistance in the men's collection was a pair of shimmery jeans which extended all the way to the model's boots. And it helped very much that the super buff male model went completely topless - but that was to put the emphasis of the apparel, we swear.
While in the women's collection, it was the final piece, a long dress that wraps you up completely in black, but surprises with a dramatic back made of "jeweled bones", consisting of an entire column of crystal-studs, designed to look like the vertebrae in your back, with spindly outreaches of more crystals that spreads across the entire back of the dress.
Trip-ups? Those were kept to a thankful minimum. Yes, the show began one hour fashionably behind the stated time of 7pm. Some of the seats (all of which were assigned, by the way) were usurped by those who didn't know where they were supposed to be (and who just pretended not to hear you when you comment that your seat has been taken), and a tent with finishing touches that must have been put on just some twenty minutes prior to guests' arrival, because you are immediately assailed by the smell of superglue as you enter the door to partake of its goodies.
But these would be minor, considering that this is the year that Singapore will be enjoying its very own made-to-measure big-time fashion festival that doesn't have the strait-laced manouevrings of a government agency behind it. That's right, a fashion show by the people, for the people. Make that the Very Beautiful People.
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