"She's growing up," said Ken Downing, the fashion director of Neiman Marcus, and an early advocate of Beckham's designs. "Her knowledge of dressmaking is impressive. She understands how to bring out the best in the female form and that's one reason our clients are drawn to what she does." Good clothes are a necessary part of a life spent basking in the public eye. Beckham has cavorted for the camera in the Mediterranean-style villa in Beverly Hills, Calif., that she shares with her husband, a home filled with art by Damien Hirst, Sam Taylor-Wood and Tracey Emin. She has sashayed from fashion runways to high-profile advertising campaigns and appeared on TV shows, including Ugly Betty and American Idol. Her life - the feverishly documented spending sprees, the star turns on the red carpet, the clamor for her designs - may be enviable, but she wants you to know it has left her unspoiled. "Doing diva," she said in London in June, "that's completely pointless." Insiders powerful enough to score an invitation to her intimate spring 2011 showing this month may well take her at her word. She is a woman aglow in, although not overtly dazzled by, her own success, one who serves as the commentator for her shows - confessing, rather disarmingly, her relative ignorance. "Look, it's a basic way that I am doing this," she said last season. "Technically, it's probably not the right way." Her dresses, once so corseted that they gave off a whiff of kitsch, are loosening up, exuding at times a patrician breeziness.
Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused." Loose leggings were worn under shorts and dresses as the new take on tights, and a silk-poly-metal fabric blend used for jackets and a pair of chic trousers was stiff yet slouchy. Chai also brought back the wide-leg palazzo pant, an easy choice for a warm-weather vacation, often pairing it with an appropriately crinkled jacket or gathered top. This could be a further evolution of the trouser trend that has taken hold among the fashion-forward set for fall. The Vena Cava girls took a tour through the 1980s with inspiration from Memphis, an Italian design movement dating back to the 1980s known for bold colors and geometric shapes. Designers Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai showed a collection heavy on black, red, aquamarine green, rust and bright yellow. Beige culottes were paired with a black zip-up jacket. Netting was used on the back of a beige romper and on a cream cotton dress, tied with a rope belt and worn under a beige blazer. "They are almost like disco silhouettes, some of them. They're clothes that you could just dance all night in, that you feel totally comfortable doing anything in," said Mayock. Some dresses had asymmetrical hemlines: longer on the sides and short in back and front. "We also have a lot of day gowns. We are kind of sick of seeing of the LBDs (little black dresses). We liked the idea of girls wearing floor length things really casually," Buhai said. The former pop idol, celebrity soccer wife and occasional model solidifies her credentials in her latest incarnation as a fashion designer LONDON - Victoria Beckham talks the talk.
Christian Siriano fans know from his "Project Runway" days that he has a flair for the dramatic, but what's winning him praise with the sometimes tough-to-please crowd at New York Fashion Week is his sense of his customer. He successfully juggled the two on Thursday. First out on the runway was a buttery caramel-colored safari jacket with slim-fit white trousers -- an appropriately luxe, chic outfit for women of many ages and many climates -- while the finale gown was a bright-red, one-shoulder tulle gown that looked like a walking bed of roses. Every look was paired with crazy platform shoes with cone-shaped heels that will be offered by the mass-market Payless. Leather looks, especially a cognac wing-sleeve jacket and thick belt worn over a strapless organza pleated gown, were a highlight, and so were his modern treatments of metallic tweed, giraffe-print taffeta and snakelike embossing. A red-print cocktail dress with draped sleeves was a pretty, refreshing alternative to the usual little black dress. Asymmetrical flounces -- reminiscent of a pageant sash -- were less contemporary, though. Jessica Simpson took her seat as guest judge at Thursday's "Project Runway" show at New York Fashion Week in a super-short, sparkly silver minidress, but she had nothing on the models, who wore an extraordinary number of hot pants. Ten aspiring designers showed their collections to Simpson, Heidi Klum, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, although several knew they already didn't make the cut and won't be the Season 8 winner.
But few Chinese customers - if they are not sophisticated fashion industry insiders - are able to tell the difference between the two labels. When they shop in the lavishly decorated, 18th-century French aristocrat style-inspired store, they will likely go the made-in-China pieces that cost less - although still quite expensive. "If we only brought the first line into the market, I'm not sure if it's necessary to open more than one shop or two," Hivelin says. A Balmain flagship store carrying both labels will be launched in Beijing in October. A store for the less-expensive Pierre Balmain line is under construction in the Grand Gateway department store in Xujiahui. The joint venture plans 10 more shops in China next year, in first- and second-tier cities. Besides the deal with Badgley Mischka, Shanghai-based Eve NY also designs, manufacturers and markets high-end clothing and accessories for women under its own Eve NY brand in China. Established in 2001, the company operates more than 200 retail stores in 21 provinces. "Our strong positioning in China will allow us to bring the prestigious brand to more Chinese consumers," says Shen Hong, CEO of Eve NY, adding the company plans to open as many as 170 free-standing stores and shop-in-shop stores for Badgley Mischka in five years. NEW York Fashion Week brought its cutting-edge style uptown on Thursday, opening its spring-collection previews in a new location at Lincoln Center. Gone are the tents at Bryant Park where hundreds of designers had launched runways since 1993.
His six-story studio on Xietu Road in Xuhui District is packed with glamorous outfits that would exhilarate any woman. Customers are asked to choose their favorite, then Zhai and his team follow up with adaptations according to the customers' ideas and needs. A tailored evening gown costs as much as 6,000 yuan (US$820), while a ready-to-wear cocktail dress is about 3,000 yuan. The attractive, stylish designer is also a much-sought-after city hair stylist, whose clients include a long list of celebrities and stars, such as actresses Maggie Cheung and Zhao Wei and Taiwanese girls' band S.H.E. "When I was 19, my dream was to set up my own label and company," Zhai says. "This dream has already come true. My next goal is to build a franchised salon around the country that boasts fashion design, hair dressing, beauty and spa services under one roof." The red carpet blossomed with spring colours as stars donned ladylike gowns for Sunday's Golden Globe Awards, with one glittery exception: Nicole Kidman in a backless, cut-down-to-there gold sequin dress. The "Cold Mountain" star stood out among the pretty pastel dresses and safe black gowns at the 61st annual awards show. Kidman's gold sequin bodice, with a neckline that plunged to her waist, was held together with nude fabric and paired with a flowing, pale chiffon skirt. Her loose curls were held back with a gold headband. "I need a coat, though," Kidman told Joan Rivers on E! Entertainment Television.
Her attentiveness to the fit, construction and marketing of her line has just won her a British Fashion Council nomination as Designer Brand of the Year. But "I'm not claiming to be a master draper," she says. "The bottom line is: Would I wear this?" Her sauciness has endeared her to no less a cultural arbiter than Marc Jacobs, who befriended Beckham and featured her in an advertisement campaign, in which she allowed herself to be photographed upended, her legs projecting from a shopping bag and waving in the air. Jacobs' public embrace went some way toward redeeming her in the eyes of the fashion elite. Yet she is still being held to the coals by some insiders who tagged her from the beginning as an upstart, just another in a long line of pop confections to brand her initials on someone else's frocks. In February New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn dismissed Beckham's fall collection as a succession of "ladylike vamp dresses straight from the movies." The barbs sting, Beckham acknowledged, but not enough to deflect her from her purpose. "I want to build something that's respected," she said Her career, she added, "is about getting things right. I want to make sure I'm in this position in 20 years' time." Zhai Yanxin started out tailoring unique clothes for well-heeled women. Now he's a star with four major brands of men's and women's wear and the beautiful people want him to "do" hair too, writes Michelle Zhang A good tailor may not be a good designer, and vice versa.