Marni for H&M is latest designer collaboration

H&M has announced its next designer collaboration will be with Italian fashion house Marni.

The Swedish high street retailer caused global hysteria earlier this month when the Versace for H&M line went on sale, and its earlier collaborations with high-end brands such as Lanvin and Sonia Rykiel have been similarly successful.
Rumors had been suggesting the next H&M collaboration could be with Tom Ford, after H&M's creative adviser Margareta van den Bosch described him as "a very interesting name."
However, the brand revealed in a press release Tuesday, November 29 that its Spring 2012 designer partnership will be with Marni.
The label's founder and creative director Consuelo Castiglioni has created the  clothing and accessories line inspired by Marni's original prints, which is for both men and women.
It will be available in 260 stores worldwide and online as of March 8, 2012.
 "I wanted to create a true Marni wardrobe by revisiting all our favorite pieces in signature fabrics and prints. As always, I love juxtaposing prints and colors, mixing modern tribal with Bauhaus graphic adding sporty utilitarian elements," explained Castiglioni.
2012 will also see the release of a second round of designs from Versace creative director Donatella, whose Fall 2012 sold out in just half an hour in some stores.
Last week a spokesperson for H&M confirmed Donatella's Spring pre-collection will be available January 19, although only in countries where H&M has an e-commerce site such as the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Bing: Gucci is most searched for fashion brand

Gucci has been named the most searched for fashion brand on Microsoft’s Search Engine, Bing, in 2011, marking its second year at the top.

Similarly to Google’s Zeitgeist list, which will soon be announced, Bing.com compiles an annual search trends list to capture key American movements of the year.

Italian luxury brand Gucci, which also offers more affordable mass market items such as keychains and wallets, has beaten the likes of Louis Vuitton and Burberry to the top spot in the most searched for brands category.
French fashion house Chanel was last year’s number two in the compilation, although it has dropped to fifth position for 2011. Ralph Lauren now occupies the second most searched spot, having notably made the headlines this month after Vogue magazine published a spread on the brand’s heir David Lauren’s wedding to model and designer Lauren Bush.
Other appearances clearly linked to media reports include that of John Galliano at number nine; the creator made news for all the wrong reasons in 2011 after being found guilty of racist and anti-Semitic abuse following his arrest at a Paris bar in February.
Notably absent from the top ten are Versace and Missoni, who have both enjoyed mainstream success in 2011 with affordable lines at H&M and US department store Target respectively.
Meanwhile, Chanel’s founder and namesake Coco Chanel made number eight, despite the label’s ubiquitous creative director Karl Lagerfeld not making an appearance.
Other brands featuring in the top ten include sportswear label Y-3 and casualwear retailer J. Crew.
Top Searched Fashion Brands On Bing.com in 2011 (via The Wall Street Journal):
1. Gucci
2. Ralph Lauren
3. Y-3
4. Louis Vuitton
5. Chanel
6. Guess
7. J. Crew
8. Coco Chanel
9. John Galliano
10. Burberry

Mondrian dress snapped up ahead of YSL anniversary

A Mondrian dress by iconic French designer Yves Saint Laurent was snapped up on Thursday, star lot of a vintage sale held half a century after his fashion house was founded.

Sold for 30,000 pounds (35,000 euros, 47,000 dollars) the dress was part of a capsule collection of nine Saint Laurent pieces, dating from 1962 to 1970, at a Christie's clothing sale stretching from the 18th century to the 1980s.
Patricia Frost, director of Christie's textile department, described the dress, inspired by the work of Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian, as "a magic carpet piece, it takes you right back to 1966."
The London sale came just ahead of the 50-year anniversary of the founding of Saint Laurent's fashion house, on December 4, 1961. The couture house closed in 2002 when the designer stood down.
Since his death in 2008, the mystique of Saint Laurent's name has sent prices flying at a string of record-smashing auctions of art and belongings accumulated by the designer and his partner Pierre Berge over the decades.
Christie's intended the sale in part as a retrospective of Saint Laurent's early career, at Dior from 1957 then striking out on his own aged 25.
"Saint Laurent lives on everywhere you look," said Berge, now 81, who co-founded his fashion house and helped run it for 40 years. "The most important are perhaps those you notice less," he told AFP.
"Saint Laurent completely defined his era. Everyone has a Saint Laurent -- although they often don't realise it," said Berge, who today runs a foundation created in Saint Laurent's memory.
"He invented an entire masculine world that he fitted to women's bodies: tuxedos, sahara jackets, the sailor's jacket."
Berge's foundation has also sent travelling exhibitions of his work around the world, from Paris last year, to Madrid at the moment, and Denver, Colorado a few weeks from now.
From theatre to dance and cinema, Saint Laurent cultivated close ties with the arts, creating tribute collections from Matisse to Cocteau, Van Gogh or Picasso, as well as his Mondrian and pop art dresses.
Other pieces in the Christie's sale included an Indian-inspired green brocade coat, from Saint Laurent's first own-name catwalk show in January 1962, that was snapped on the cover of Elle magazine that year, and sold for 2,000 pounds.
"Saint Laurent's clothes happen to make people look wonderful but they also have more depth to them," Frost said. "They should be looked at more as works of art. They are not really for wearing, they are more for museums."

Francois Lesage, master embroiderer, dies aged 82

Francois Lesage, a master embroiderer who for decades crafted exquisite pieces for haute couture giants from Chanel to Yves Saint Laurent, has died aged 82, his workshop said on Thursday.

The doyen of French embroidery, a central figure in the fashion world, died in a hospital near his home in Versailles outside Paris on Wednesday night following a long illness, the Lesage workshop told AFP.
Lesage took over his father's firm aged just 20. In an interview last year, he told AFP how he met Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix -- his godson -- "when they were just beginners".
In recent years Lesage could be spotted at Chanel or Lacroix shows, sharing insights with his front-row neighbours on the craftsmanship in the clothes.
"Our role is to be chameleons," Lesage explained to AFP. "With Karl, I am Karl. With Christian, I am Christian... We receive a sketch and it is up to us to interpret. The couturier is the architect, we are the decorators."
Last week Lesage was awarded the title of "art master" by the French culture ministry, giving him a chance to "say goodbye", said a spokeswoman for his workshop, which was acquired by Chanel in 2002.
Born to an embroiderer father and fashion colorist mother, Lesage joked that he was "born on a mound of pearls and glitter".
"It never occurred to me to do anything else," he told AFP. "I still sleep in the bedroom where I was born."
Lesage's workshop described him as a "passionate figure, full of colour and humour".
Contacted by AFP, Lagerfeld said he was "deeply saddened" at the loss of a unique artist and "bon viveur". "He astonished us more than once," he said.
In 1992 Lesage founded an embroidery school close to his Paris workshop to pass on the craft to the next generation. His work has been exhibited from New York to Tokyo.

Elizabeth Taylor jewelry goes on view before sale

The legendary jewelry and fashion collections of Elizabeth Taylor, the so-called "Crown Jewels of Hollywood," went on glittering display Thursday in New York ahead of a hotly anticipated auction.

The actress, who died in March at the age of 79, had seven husbands during her glamorous life, countless admirers and a passion for jewelry.
The exhibition at Christie's auction house in Manhattan is the last stop on a world tour highlighting Taylor's treasures -- and the first and last time that the entire collection will be gathered in one place.
Thousands of people have already bought tickets to the 10-day public viewing, which only starts Saturday.
The auction will then run from December 13-16, offering pieces like the 33.19 carat "Elizabeth Taylor Diamond" given to her by husband Richard Burton in 1968, and estimated to sell for between $2.5-3.5 million.
Running concurrently with the live auction at Christie's will be an Internet-only sale of nearly 1,000 items such as jewelry and accessories like designer handbags. Christie's estimates total sales of between $30 million and $50 million.
Another gift from Burton, who was twice married to Taylor, was the famous "La Peregrina" pearl from the 16th century, once worn by several queens of Austria, England and Spain. It is estimated at $2-3 million.
Hundreds of haute couture dresses from Chanel, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Valentino, Versace or Yves Saint Laurent, jackets, caftans, handbags and other accessories are on sale and they tell both the story of the star and also the changes in fashion during her eventful career.
The dress Taylor wore to her first marriage is predicted to go for between $40,000 and $60,000.
"It is by far the greatest jewelry collection to be offered in a century," said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie's Americas. "There is such a depth of quality."
Additional showstoppers include the Prince of Wales diamond brooch, estimated at between $400,000 and half a million dollars, and a ruby and diamond ring by Van Cleef & Arpels and an emerald and diamond Bulgari necklace both estimated at between $1 million and $1.5 million.
There's even a tiara, also encrusted with diamonds, and estimated to go for between $60,000-$80,000.
The scale of the auction is itself unusual. Meredith Etherington-Smith, curator for the fashion side, said she had "never seen so many clothes racks in my life and nothing was in order."
She described the dresses and other pieces representing "60 years of fashion and it is the very best of the best."
"I would have loved to have met her. She was so glamorous," Etherington-Smith said.

The Saturday interview: Vivienne Westwood

When Vivienne Westwood was four or five, she had an epiphany. "When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like – full of cruelty and hypocrisy." At the time she was living in the Pennine village of Tintwistle, where her father worked in the Wall's sausage factory and her mother was an assistant at the local greengrocer's. "I thought they'd been lying to me by telling me only about the baby Jesus, rather than what happened to him."
We're sitting at a table teeming with glue, scissors and drawings in her fourth-floor office at the Westwood empire HQ in Battersea. She's wearing a beautifully cut pin-striped suit, as well as dangly earrings and more makeup than usual for the benefit, she says, of the photographer. "I'll tell you what I was like as a child," says Westwood. "I was a good person. I was high-spirited but I was a big reader. What I remember as a child is that other kids didn't care about suffering. I always did."

Victoria Beckham triumphs at 'fashion Oscars'

Former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham's elevation into the fashion industry's elite was confirmed Monday when she was awarded a major prize at Britain's most prestigious design awards.

The singer, wife of iconic footballer David Beckham, won the Best Designer Brand prize at the British Fashion Awards ceremony held in central London's exclusive Savoy Hotel.

Wearing a black halter-neck gown, Beckham claimed the 'fashion Oscar' after beating off competition from industry giants Stella McCartney, Tom Ford and Burberry.
Alexander McQueen's Sarah Burton, who designed the Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress and her sister Pippa Middleton's bridesmaid outfit, walked off with the evening's top prize, Designer of the Year.
Other winners included model Stella Tennant and TV presenter turned catwalk star Alexa Chung.
Among the guests were supermodel Kate Moss, Oscar winning actor Colin Firth and Samantha Cameron, wife of British Prime Minister David Cameron.