THE FALL IN THE REST OF PORTUGAL
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| Felipe Oliveira Baptista F/W 2012-2013 |
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| Meam by Ricardo Preto F/W 2012-2013 |
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| Story Tailors F/W 2012-2013 |
Portugal is a very special country. Portugal unlike Milan, Paris, London and NY has two separated fashion weeks. The first one gets more press than the second but the second is always better than the first. Why do Portugal has two fashion weeks? It's a mistery I'll never understand. Maybe it's because we have so much talent that we have to split fashion week in two events.
Anyway Portugal Fashion happaned and like I said it is always better than Lisbon fashion week. From the atmosphere to the designers and the clothes... everything is better in Portugal second fashion week. And since I wrote about Lisbon fashion week it is only fair of me to say something about Portugal Fashion. So let's start!
Felipe Oliveira Baptista was amazing. So good! The textures, the shapes, the colours... I can't even start. It's so difficult to write about something you really like. You can't find good enough adjectives! It felt so good to finally see something that really felt like a real collection. This was a collection that would fit just like a glove in London fashion week. There, I said it. Amazing job!
Then, Meam by Ricardo Preto was really cute. Cute was the word. He had a lot of ideas and you could see that in the clothes. There were many different looks walking on the catwalk. It was a little too fresh for winter in my opinion. Some of the looks made me think about H&M. Those are the kind of clothes you go to H&M for.
Finally the Story Tailors had a great show as well. Again, this felt like a real collection from the first to the final look. I liked the helmet but I didn't understand why there was only two or three models with it on. The collection would have looked a lot tougher with all of them using it. It's was not difficult for me to dye for the white dresses. You know, because I'm suffering from a white addiction. The shapes reminded me of corsets mixed with military uniforms. Really cool warriors. Well done.
MDNA
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| Madonna's Girl Gone Wild music video directed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott |
I've waited for Madonna's MDNA to come out so I could have a good listen to it. Before I say somting I have to confess that I like Madonna. I started this wishing for the best but expecting the worst. Sorry Madge.
Musicians have contracts and they have to put records out more frequently than they wish. When I heard Madonna was making a come back I thought it wasn't good. It was all too fast. The movie and all of a sudden a new album? It didn't felt right. So let's go straight to the point. Best thing about Madonna's comeback? The collaboration between her and Mert and Marcus - I was expecting a bit more from the Girl Gone Wild music video. The preview promised more, much more. And then it started to circulate a NSFW version of the video - it's the same, you just see an ass.
The song feels quite old, dated, very 2010's (let's be honest, the song is a total rip off of Sorry from Confessions On A Dancefloor). And don't even get me started about Give Me All Your Luvin'. It feels like it's a song for a teenager singer starting out, not for Madonna who has the biggest career in the industry. I could see Rebecca Black singing this, not Madonna. And you really feel that Nicki Minaj and MIA are there just to make the song longer. It's a catchy song, stays in your head, but I expect more from the queen. I think Madonna got stuck in the Confessions On The Dancefloor era. At that point it felt really new, really fresh at the time. Now, it's just plain blah. Again, all the album feels quite dated.
And all the interviews she gave before the release of the record were really strange. It was like she was channeling old provocative Madonna who is 30 years old defying and daring everything and everyone. Girl, that's past. You've been a bad girl before. You stopped being a bad girl and became a woman. Get your shit together. So now coming back to the bad girl image with the crosses all over her seems a little bit staged and old.
I have to be honest and say that my favorite Madonna songs are the one that you feel she poured her heart and soul in it. Like I Deserve It, Nothing Fails, Easy Ride where you can see the lyrics says it all - and of course all the classics. I mean, when I think about Madonna I think about a legend. It's never easy to keep on going. Doing the next thing after being crown queen so long ago. It's a great responsibility. But sometimes you just need to stop if you don't have nothing new to say. She is in a stage of a career that she should do whatever she wants. And don't tell me that she felt like doing an album right after her movie, that she treasured so much, premiered.
You really feel her need to be young and sexy all the time. It's so annoying. It's too much, we all know you're 50. It's not that 50 years old can't be sexy. They can but not like a 20 years old. Please embrace your age and your long career and do things from your heart. And please embrace your body, stop using so much photoshop. You can see you on the streets, we know what you look like.
Bottom line: Lack of maturity and lack of content.
Favorite songs: Gang Bang and Some Girls.
Bottom line: Lack of maturity and lack of content.
Favorite songs: Gang Bang and Some Girls.
ps: at the end of the Girl Gone Wild music video, Madonna crying was a little Gagaish don't you think?
NEW WINDS
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| Self portrait, Hedi Slimane. Courtesy of Art+Commerce |
BORN TO KILL
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Have you seen this already? Truly amazing. Karl Templer is such a fenomenal stylist/image creator. He is the male Roitfeld for me. I'm so buying Interview magazine this month just because of this editorial. It's from Sarah Burton's interview. And this is what I love about Karl's work. I would never put a gun near this dress but now it's like it's been there all along. They looked like these peaceful underwater creatures but they aren't. They were born to kill.
HAUTE MESS
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| Joan Smalls on the cover of Vogue Italia March 2012 by Steven Meisel |
Another hit from aunt Franca and uncle Steven! Still in awe about the Haute Mess editorial. Such nice work. Franca Sozanni is never afraid to go a little further when it comes to fashion and imagination. Check it out for yourself. It's amazing.
THE FALL IN LISBON
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| Alexandra Moura F/W 2012-2013 |
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| Dino Alves F/W 2012-2013 |
I thought a lot about Lisbon fashion week. Should I say something about it? Should I ignore it? But at the end of the day I just can't stay quiet. I have to say something.
Usually I'm not a huge fan of Lisbon fashion week. Well... It's more: I'm not a fan. But I hate to say that because there are wonderful designers in there showing their work. I'll try not to focus on the bad things of Lisbon fashion week. I guess what I don't like about it happens in all fashion weeks, but because this is my country, my city, my fashion week, I take it a little more personal.
Lisbon fashion week has a blog. I was reading it because they interviewed the designers with some quick questions about their collections. One of the questions was: Are you totally creatively free or do you feel a prisoner of the trends, public opinion and other factors? This was quite a revelation. Almost everyone of the designers presenting in Lisbon fashion week said that they felt prisoners of the trends and public opinion. WHAT? Something wrong is happening in here. You can't be a prisoner. You're a creative person, you have to be free. Trust your instincts and create, create and create! You don't care about anything else. Trends? Really? See this is just ridiculous. This is one of the reason I don't like Lisbon fashion week. Trends? Do trends really exists? Please... Don't get me started on that.
So, of course Alexandra Moura, who is one of my favorite Portuguese fashion designers said she always feels free, and that you must be free do create - obviously. She presented a wonderful collection. It needed some editing. You could feel that it had too many ideas coming from everywhere and it missed the feeling of whole. But it was, without a doubt, the best collection on the fashion week.
Next favorite was Dino Alves. He had some interesting pieces. Nothing fresh, nothing new, just nice. Again, the feeling of lack of editing was present. Really liked the two dresses above. And the trousers with the big gray and yellow pockets felt very girlie and fun. The sweater had a nice pattern. He tried some other things with that pattern but I thought it didn't work out as well.
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| From left to right: Marques Almeida F/W 2012-2013, Maria Gambina F/W 2012-2013 and Valentim Quaresma F/W 2012-2013 |
Other highlights:
Marques Almeida faded neon yellow dress and coat. Very beautiful and fitted the model just like a glove. Made me realize that faded neon is as beautiful as neon itself or even more. Nothing more memorable form the show, just this look. Maria Gambina had a funny hair, kind of a mohawk. I didn't understand why because it had nothing to do with the clothes. It maybe was just an outburst of creativity. The look would look a lot better with slicked hair falling behind her. But that's just me and my humble opinion.
Finally the pieces Valentim Quaresma created were very intriguing. I would have loved to see them in a different space because they didn't fitted in that room, at all. Maybe if it was all white... I don't know. The choices of hair and make up and clothing were a little over the top. The pieces are strong enough, they don't need to be over shadowed by anything else. But they kind of did. He then created huge necklaces (I presume they were necklaces, maybe they were tops) that were very fascinating. Some of them, others were a complete disgrace. The head pieces were the best. That's all folks!
THE FALL IN PARIS
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| From left to right: Nastya Kusakina, Sigrid Agren and Frida Gustavsson @ Alexander McQueen F/W 2012-2012 |
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| From left to right: Yulia Serzhantova, Hanne Gaby Odiele and Kremi Otashliyska @ Balenciaga F/W 2012-2013 |
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| From left to right: Nadja Bender and Julia Frauche @ Balmain F/W 2012-2013 |
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| From left to right: Montana Cox, Julia Nobis and Magda Laguinge @ Chanel F/W 2012-2013 |
Oh Paris (and so you're back/from outer space)! Finally! Let's start right away. So many things to say! This season I got a sense of outer space in all the collections. Maybe I'm just going crazy but that's what I felt. And you can see for yourself that they fit just right in the Death Star picture I put on the background. It was so difficult to chose just one look that I decided to chose more than one, fuck it, it's Paris. I don't care.
Finally McQueen killed it. Finally! I was amazed by Sarah Burton. Thank god. It still is not McQueen, but if you forget about that and focus on Burton you'll love every little piece she created. Flowers! So many beuatiful and deadly flowers she made this season. I really missed this feeling of enthusiast after a McQueen show. I think this collection is Burton's best work to date. It really is. This girls are the garden of the Death Star, with those glasses they look really from space! they are they flowers of Darth Vader - beautiful and lethal.
That aside, the next great thing about Paris was Balenciaga and Balmain. I have to confess, I have a soft spot for Nicolas Ghesquiere. I do not care if you hate it or love it. I just understand and admire his vision. This season the coats were amamamamazing. And how fun was those sweaters? I didn't see that one coming from Balenciaga. That's what I like more about a fashion show - surprises.
At Balmain things started to changed since Christophe Decarni left and now I think it is clear that it was a good choice. Balmain was starting to get boring and predictable. At last Olivier Rousteing amazed me whit this collection. Everything about it was right. The spirit of Balmain was there, but so much lighter and up to date. It reminded me as well a little bit of the Dolce and Gabbana show but in a good way. This is baroque done well. Take notes Stefano and Domenico.
At the end of Paris fashion week uncle Karl took us on a journey to the center of earth. In my head he took me to the Death Star power engines. Those crystals are the main power force of the Death Star. I really liked the fact that it had more colours than usual. I was getting bored of so much gray. Karl never lets me down. He's such a hard worker. He can dissect an idea to the root and then recreate it in a million ways. That's why his Chanel collections are always so big, just like the sets.
Formichetti presented his best collection to date. Let's be honest for a minute and admit that Formichetti does not work alone at Mugler. I hate when I only see his name on reviews. He and Sebastian Peigne presented their best collection to date. I loved all the white. Right now I'm going trough a white obsession so Mugler just felt right. It was very difficult to choose just one look from the show. I picked five and I'm still thinking it wasn't enough. And I loved that the collection was just black and white. But those whites....they were so strong! Totally fits on the Death Star.
Another good surprise was Vikor & Rolf. It's been a while since I felt something about these two. The last thing I can think of them is those jackets with NO and YES on... Oh, and some red faces. They had a nice jacked in that collection as well. Back to the point: their collection is the one that stands out the most of the Death Star, but still, I think we can work something there, some kind of section in the Death Star offices where these looks would fit just right. I loved the colours, I loved the fur and I loved Karlie (and I'm not a follower of Karlie Kloss, I don't suffer from the Kloss effect). She looked amazing.
I have to say something about Louis Vuitton. I'm totally against designers having two brands to design. I think there's no designer, except Karl Lagarfeld, who can work on two or more fashion houses and not mix ideas. Everything is going to look like the same in the end. I just can't stand it. I think there's no one who saw the LV show and didn't see the similarities between LV and Marc Jacobs main line. So the question is: who got the left overs? Marc's or Vuitton's?
I just think it isn't right. There's so many designers that we don't need to have the same person working on two mega fashion houses. I think Marc should dedicate himself to Vuitton and get his life some rest. Can you imagine if Marc gets Dior? He will reign fashion world! And we would see everything look the same! See for example Karl Lagerfeld: he can work on separate ideas at the same time and not mix them together. You can see Chanel and you can see Fendi: there's nothing in common. And the most interesting thing is that he sometimes puts his own brand to rest. Sometimes, Lagarfeld does not show anything. Because he respects his work for Chanel and Fendi more. I just think that's the right thing to do. I'm bored of watching Marc Jacobs shows and then in the of Paris fashion week Vuitton always seems to be the left overs of the other show. Sad, sad, sad. Even with the amazing set budgets and ideas I can't get over the similarities. The same is applicable to Prada and Miu Miu (it does not happen all the time, but sometimes it's just too similar). I know Miu Miu is connected to Prada but I think that's no excuse. And Miu Miu has already its own identity and by that I don't mean that's its the daughter of Prada. It is now equally to Prada in terms of business, so there's no excuse for similarities in two totally different lines.
Other shows I liked were Haider Hackermann, Garet Pugh, Jean Paul Gaultier and Lanvin. And can we do a standing ovattion to Kenzo? This was Humberto Leon and Carol Lim second season as creative directors and Kenzo is officially back in business! I died with the menswear collection and the womenswear was no different. They gave Kenzo a new sense of cool, which had been lost a long time ago. That's all folks!
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| From left to right: Marte Mei van Haaster, Julia Nobis, Alla Kostromicheva, Olivia Thornthon and Andie Arthur @ Mugler F/W 2012-2013 |
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| From left to right: Suzie Bird, Jamie Bochert, Bette Franke and Karlie Kloss @ Viktor & Rolf F/W 2012-2013 |
Another good surprise was Vikor & Rolf. It's been a while since I felt something about these two. The last thing I can think of them is those jackets with NO and YES on... Oh, and some red faces. They had a nice jacked in that collection as well. Back to the point: their collection is the one that stands out the most of the Death Star, but still, I think we can work something there, some kind of section in the Death Star offices where these looks would fit just right. I loved the colours, I loved the fur and I loved Karlie (and I'm not a follower of Karlie Kloss, I don't suffer from the Kloss effect). She looked amazing.
I have to say something about Louis Vuitton. I'm totally against designers having two brands to design. I think there's no designer, except Karl Lagarfeld, who can work on two or more fashion houses and not mix ideas. Everything is going to look like the same in the end. I just can't stand it. I think there's no one who saw the LV show and didn't see the similarities between LV and Marc Jacobs main line. So the question is: who got the left overs? Marc's or Vuitton's?
I just think it isn't right. There's so many designers that we don't need to have the same person working on two mega fashion houses. I think Marc should dedicate himself to Vuitton and get his life some rest. Can you imagine if Marc gets Dior? He will reign fashion world! And we would see everything look the same! See for example Karl Lagerfeld: he can work on separate ideas at the same time and not mix them together. You can see Chanel and you can see Fendi: there's nothing in common. And the most interesting thing is that he sometimes puts his own brand to rest. Sometimes, Lagarfeld does not show anything. Because he respects his work for Chanel and Fendi more. I just think that's the right thing to do. I'm bored of watching Marc Jacobs shows and then in the of Paris fashion week Vuitton always seems to be the left overs of the other show. Sad, sad, sad. Even with the amazing set budgets and ideas I can't get over the similarities. The same is applicable to Prada and Miu Miu (it does not happen all the time, but sometimes it's just too similar). I know Miu Miu is connected to Prada but I think that's no excuse. And Miu Miu has already its own identity and by that I don't mean that's its the daughter of Prada. It is now equally to Prada in terms of business, so there's no excuse for similarities in two totally different lines.
Other shows I liked were Haider Hackermann, Garet Pugh, Jean Paul Gaultier and Lanvin. And can we do a standing ovattion to Kenzo? This was Humberto Leon and Carol Lim second season as creative directors and Kenzo is officially back in business! I died with the menswear collection and the womenswear was no different. They gave Kenzo a new sense of cool, which had been lost a long time ago. That's all folks!
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