Kenem Bijoux Blog – Metal Clays and Art

By Jane Herman

NEW YORK, September 07, 2007 – What were Preen designers Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi thinking ten minutes before their first-ever show in New York?

“A million thing panic!” said Bregazzi, half joking. “We’re just so filled with nervous excitement and so, so happy to be here.”

Until now, the duo has always shown their line in London, which would explain the runway presence of big-time British models like Agyness Deyn and Lily Donaldson, and maybe also why the show started an hour late Manhattan is unfamiliar territory, after all. The truth is that very few fashion followers are willing to wait that long for showtime (unless it’s for Marc Jacobs), but everyone did, which says a lot.

And besides, inside the tent at the Soho Grand there was plenty of people-watching to do. Socials Byrdie Bell, Derek Blasberg, and Ferebee Bishop Taube, who confided that her most recent Preen purchases took place in Athens, were all sitting front row. So were the MisShapes, looking as clubby-cool as ever. Vogue contributor Lynn Yaeger, carrying a customized Goyard bag forget the monogramming; she’s got a cartoon miniature of herself painted on the front of hers—spoke of the Preen skirt she’s owned for almost two years. “It’s green velvet with a pocket attached, like a circus animal skirt, which is what I look for in clothes,” Yaeger said with her usual charm. It was whispered that actress Kate Bosworth will wear hot-pink Preen to the premiere of her new film, The Girl in the Park, in Toronto tomorrow night.

And in the midst of it all, funny enough, plastic bottles of Budweiser were perched atop each and every seat in the house. It got us all wondering if beer like Preen was on the verge of a major American fashion moment.

Photos: Bryan Bedder / Getty

Source: www.style.com

By Mark Holgate

NEW YORK, September 08, 2007 – Helen Lee Schifter already has one favorite J. Mendel fur. So her front-row perch along with Dr. Lisa Airan, Mary J. Blige, and Rachel Roy at the French furrier’s show was a good place to look for her next. She adores her J. Mendel shrunken bolero in sable. “It is that good dark brown Russian sable, too,” she said. “Not that, you know, yucky one with the gold tinge.”

Showing fur for spring seems like it could be a challenge, but for Schifter at least there’s nothing better than a summer-weight skin like the tissue-thin white goatskin coat she finds just as versatile as a trench.

So what might she be looking for come next year? How about the belted honey mink with the eyelet lacing? Or a lightweight gray Astrakhan coat? Or even some of the non-fur pieces, like any one of the mousseline dresses with their air of early eighties disco diva, a look amplified quite literally by the big, bouncing, blown-out hair of the models. That era was also heard on the preshow soundtrack, including an aural appearance by The Smiths. No need to point out how incongruous that was.

Photo: JP Yim / WireImage.com

Source: www.style.com

NEW YORK, September 08, 2007 – Swish, swish, swish went the makeshift fans. The credits sheets that sat on every chair at Rodarte were being put to good use because it was beyond hot in the Chelsea venue Dia thanks to there being no air-conditioning. (Having the Human League’s “Being Boiled” as part of the soundtrack was, however, pretty funny.) Or maybe everyone was feeling the heat because of a welling excitement at what they were seeing on the runway.

Sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy were in their finest form ever: fluid, voluminous jackets and pleated skirts in pretty, watery pastel shades. And for all the light and airy inventiveness of the Mulleavys, what they do looks great off the runway and on real woman. A point evidenced by the presence of the Rodarte-wearing Dr. Lisa Airan (an ivory gazar pouf jacket and pencil skirt) and Liz Goldwyn (a hot pink tiered dress).

Even the French, who know a thing or two about fashion’s fancier forms of expression, looked impressed. “Rodarte brings a touch of haute couture to New York,” said Virginie Mouzat, the fashion critic of French newspaper Le Figaro. “What Kate and Laura do is so rare, so precious.”

Backstage Beauty Note: It’s shaping up to be all about contrast this spring, and nowhere was there a better example than at Rodarte. The clothes were fashioned in frothy, sheer layers of pale blue, pink, and lavender that would befit a ballerina, but the hair and makeup took a punky turn—as did the spiked and strappy zippered stilettos specially made by Christian Louboutin.

In a season where there hasn’t been much breaking news in terms of hair, the Mulleavy sisters collaborated with Parisian coiffeuse Odile Gilbert to send something truly refreshing—edgy and softly pretty at once down the runway: sleek, super-high ponytails with bright pink, blue, and red ends. Hand-dyed by Gilbert in her Paris atelier, the colored extensions (coordinated to compliment the palette of the clothes) made the otherwise demure ponies look as though they’d been absentmindedly dipped in color at the ends. “They wanted a very straight, high ponytail that looked like it had a touch of paint,” said Gilbert. “It’s very rock ‘n’ roll.”

Raven-haired dermatologist Dr. Lisa Airan loved the hair so much she begged Gilbert for a pony-to-go. She gamely slipped her a pink one. Airan tucked it into her fuchsia alligator Herm Birkin bag with a smile on her face.

The concept for the stark, graphic faces came to M.A.C makeup artist James Kaliardos in a dream. “I woke up the day of the makeup test and remembered that I had dreamt of floating lines,” he said. On show day, that translated to powder blue lids with a double stroke of black liner—one line was catlike and extending slightly from the upper lid, and another was floating above and arching even further outward.

Photo: JP Yim / WireImage.com