Black Out in New York

Karl Lagerfeld in His Own Words

Photos of the Moment | Alexander McQueen

By Sofia Sanchez and Mauro Mongiello, from The Moment blog

Photos of the Moment | Karl Lagerfeld

By Sofia Sanchez and Mauro Mongiello, from The Moment blog

A Movie Reveals a Lot by Eliminating the Fashion

By GUY TREBAY

Published: September 14, 2009

Circus nerves, double-dealing, lies, roiling emotions, risible politics and backstage murder are all in a fashion day’s work. (Well, maybe not the murder part.) And part of the appeal of “Rage,” a new film by the British director Sally Potter, best known for the 1992 film “Orlando,” is the way it manages to convey the tense minimalist theater of a fashion show without ever depicting one.

Made on a shoestring budget and starring an array of above-the-title actors, “Rage” (the title truncates “all the rage,” a phrase no one in fashion is likely to have uttered since the 1920s) may ultimately be less interesting for its cast than for its formal conceits and its distribution plan.

Ms. Potter shot “Rage” herself, as if on a cellphone, framing the actors against a green screen in a series of monologues featuring Jude Law (in drag as a female model named Minx); Judi Dench (as a fashion critic who smokes a spliff: as if!); Eddie Izzard; John Leguizamo; Steve Buscemi; and the real-life catwalk star Lily Cole (in a turn as a fictitious model called, of all things, Lettuce Leaf).

The movie’s release comes just after the close of New York Fashion Week, as the fashion carnival moves on to London, Milan and Paris. It will be released first on mobile applications, via the Web video service Babelgum, beginning on Sept. 21, before arriving in theaters soon after.

“I don’t believe Sally conceived of this film as something that would be seen on a mobile phone or online,” said Karol Martesko-Fenster, who oversees film content for Babelgum (which has a business agreement with The New York Times Company to run Times video content on Babelgum’s site). It just happened, he added, that she made a film adapted perfectly to the changing ways that “people are consuming narrative.”

Shot as if backstage at a fashion show, over a week of interviews, “Rage” centers on the death of two models under mysterious circumstances and renders a critique of fashion neatly synopsized in the Variety review: “The point seems to be that fashion wrecks lives, if not by actually killing anyone, then by inducing body dysmorphia, exploiting textile workers and turning everyone else in the biz into twisted, shallow idiots.”

The most curious thing about “Rage” and, for that matter, most movies with fashion as their subject, is its reflexive distaste for the industry. Plenty of filmmakers have taken a whack at parodying fashion. Some have scored humorous points off its silliness. (The more often one watches the comedy “Zoolander,” the more it seems like documentary.)

Fashion has no corner on the market in twisted, shallow idiots, as the banking crisis made clear. But with the possible exception of Matt Tyrnauer’s fine documentary, “Valentino: The Last Emperor,” few films have managed to penetrate its surface, preferring to “expose” the superficiality of fashion with a superior sneer.

The article continues at nytimes.com

Fashion Photography by Malik Sidibe

Shot of Malik Sadibe's photos in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine

Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine featured a unique fashion editorial done by famed Malian photographer Malik Sidibe. Sidibe offers a fresh perspective on the Spring 2009 collections by having his extended family, which includes his 17 sons and daughters, modeling clothing by designers like Dries van Noten, Christian Lacroix and Marc Jacobs. The way in which the lively prints and African-inspired clothing, worn by the everyday people in the portrait-style photographs, come to life, speaks to the relevance of Sidibe's style, which has remained virutally unchanged for the past several decades. In fact, his influence can be seen in the Suno Spring/Summer 2009 collection, shot by Tina Tyrell.

Photo: Malik Sidibe

Photo: Malik Sidibe

Photo: Malik Sidibe

Suno shot by Tina Tyrell

Suno, a cool new label with roots in Africa

By ERIC WILSON

NEW collection called Suno landed on the selling floor at Opening Ceremony this week, not from the runways in Bryant Park but from a factory in Nairobi, Kenya, where the apparel industry was all but decimated decades ago.

The clothes — cotton skirts, tops and shift dresses in vibrant prints — were made by Max Osterweis, a new designer who has already been flagged by Women’s Wear Daily and Style.com without even having had a show, largely because his designs are so captivating. Mr. Osterweis, a 34-year-old screenwriter and film director from San Francisco, began collecting traditional East African kangas more than a decade ago after his mother built a house on Lamu Island in Kenya.

On vacation there last year and concerned about the country’s turmoil, he decided to start Suno (named after his mother) to bring work to local factories. He commissioned about 1,000 pieces, chopping up fabrics from his textile collection so that each piece would be original, made from one or two kangas, which are similar in shape to a sarong. The factories specialized in hotel uniforms, so it took some coaxing to make the styles more contemporary.

“I felt like I wanted to do something in Kenya to help,” Mr. Osterweis said. “Ultimately I’d like to have a full collection, if we can give people jobs and raise the skill level there.”

At Opening Ceremony, his designs cost from $95 for a bikini to about $595 for a tailored jacket or dress. The prices are partly determined by the originality or rarity of the print. Some are quite traditional, with naturalistic leaf prints or paisley patterns; others more modern, like one, made into a shirtdress, that shows a blue and yellow print of cellphones and feathers.

Many of the prints are also printed with Swahili aphorisms that were originally worn to send messages to fellow villagers, like one that loosely translates as: “Watch your roosters, there’s a new hen in town.” Others are a little harder to understand, usually, Mr. Osterweis said, because they come from more modern kangas, which were made in China, where something is perhaps lost in translation.

Just imagine walking around in a skirt that says, “The day a monkey is destined to die, all trees get slippery.”

DVF Misses the Mark

African Fashion Collective/Arise Magazine Fashion Show

'Obama Effect' hits New York Fashion Week

Obama dress by designer Lola Faturoti
By Hilary Alexander, New York Times

The event's tented village in mid-town Bryant Park was the setting for the first African Fashion Collective, 2009, starring the singer, Grace Jones, and featuring the collections of four designers,: Xuly Bet from Mali; Nkhensani Nkosi who designs Stoned Cherrie, the South African label; and Fati Asibelua of Momo, and Tiffany Amber, both from Nigeria.

The show opened with the voice of Jones intoning 'Man-Eating Machine', as a giant, black and white video of the singer – digitally-distorted and manipulated in the manner of 'The Terminator' – unfolded on a screen at the back of the stage.

The designs were modelled by a United Nations roll-call of girls from more than a dozen countries, including Ethiopia, Namibia, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Russia, China and the Netherlands, along with Tyson Beckford, the most celebrated black American male model, and the black catwalk superstars, Alek Wek, from Sudan, and Chanel Iman.

Xuly Bet showed contemporary sportswear in denim and corduroy and T-shirt dresses printed with President Obama's face.

Tiffany Amber's collection featured silk shantung and traditional 'Ankara' fabrics, with intricate shell and bead embroidery.

Alek Wek closed Nkosi's Stoned Cherrie collection in a shadow-dyed, burnt orange-to-earth toned, silk chiffon gown with an elaborate, jewelled collar. Zebra, leopard, giraffe and snake patterns, printed on hand-woven taffeta, cashmere and metallic silk, in shades of pewter and gold, were the feature of Asibelua's Momo collection.

The African Fashion Collective was jointly sponsored by ThisDay, one of Africa's largest daily news outlets, and Arise, the glossy style magazine devoted to African global achievement. It was timed to mark the election of Barack Obama as President, and First Lady, Michelle Obama's championing of young, culturally diverse designers.

Although Michelle Obama has not attended any shows, her fashion spirit was evident in the collection shown earlier by one of her favourites, Jason Wu, 26, the Taiwan-born designer who created her inaugurall ballgown and the dress she wears on the cover of American Vogue's March issue.