The Fashion Informer

TFI on Rue La La: Dinner with Nima

A few weeks back I had dinner with the always delightful Nima Taherzadeh at Corsino Cantina for Rue La La's Behind the Keyhole blog. I got the lowdown on his summer plans (let's just say the guy didn't spend much time at home, what with all his coast-to-coast pop-up selling days at stores across America)—along with an idea of what we can expect for spring 2012. 

TFI is Taking a Break

The Fashion Informer will be on hiatus for the rest of the summer and will return for New York Fashion Week in September. See you at the shows!


illustration by Lana Frankel for The Fashion Informer

Happy Friday!

photo © The Fashion Informer/Lauren David Peden

 

Informed Obsession: Ruben Toledo's Fashion Almanac

 
I've been a fan of Ruben Toledo's fashion illustrations since his work first began appearing in the pages of Details back in the Eighties (this was in the Annie Flanders days, when Details was still a hip downtown NYC mag featuring the work of newcomers like Bill Cunningham, Anito Sarko, Patrick McMullan and Stephen Saban). Ruben's illustrations were like nothing I'd ever seen before: whimsical, fabulous, funny and full of pointed social commentary that often seemed to skewer the very subjects—and styles—that he was illustrating so beautifully. I've followed his work ever since, avidly collecting his books (Style Dictionary, Sweetie: Tantalizing Tips from a Furry Fashionista,  his illustrated Penguin Classics Deluxe editions of The Scarlet Letter, Pride and Prejudice, Dracula, etc., and happily reserving my copy of Ruben Toledo: Fashionation back in 2009, which Steidl still has yet to publish). 

So it was with true joy that I received a copy of Ruben Toledo's Fashion Almanac as a gift from my very thoughtful sister. The book chronicles Ruben's 10-year collaboration with Nordstrom (those are his illustrations you see in Nordstrom's ads) and is dubbed an Almanac because fashion, like the seasons, "change, morph and transition continuously," as Ruben writes in his intro. And, "like the endless cycle of nature, an Almanac documents and links the past with the present, building the bridge to the future." Which is exactly what this book does, in glorious illustration after glorious illustration. Along with cheerful spreads that pay tribute to the four seasons and include fun facts about each ("Optimists are born in the spring," "Snow is not white, but clear or transparent, and behaves like a prism reflecting colors"), this Almanac offers a glimpse at a decade's worth of style from designers both emerging (Jenni Kayne, Sinha-Stanic, Y & Kei, Gryphon) and established (Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, Marc Jacobs, YSL, Alexander McQueen). There's also an intro by Anna Wintour and a history of the Seattle-based retailer, along with a "Nordstrom Fashion Wheel" that allows the reader to spin two discs to match (or mismatch, as is one's wont) the top and bottom halves of a dozen different outfits as illustrated by the uber-talented Mr. Toledo. 

Throughout, I was continuously amazed and in awe of the author's creativity, wit and wonderfully idiosyncratic take on the wild and woolly world of style. The book opens with the following disclaimer: "This fashion almanac is a work of the imagination of Ruben Toledo and is not to be believed and not intended to be taken literally." But truth be told, his is a chic and cheeky paradise in which I would gladly spend the remainder of my days.







illustrations courtesy Ruben Toledo/Nordstrom; photo of Ruben Toledo at home courtesy The Selby

Random Questions For…Roksanda Ilincic

Belgrade-born designer Roksanda Ilincic is not yet a household name here in the States, but she is becoming just that in Europe, thanks to the embellished ladylike collection that bears her hard to pronounce and harder to forget moniker. (For the record, it's said "Rock-SAN-da Ill-IN-chick.")

Ilincic founded her eponymous label in 2003 after studying at Central Saint Martins (prior to which she studied architecture and applied arts in her native Serbia). She quickly gained a following among celebs such as Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Margherita Missoni, Tilda Swinton, Kate Hudson and Thandie Newton for her colorful, elegantly feminine demi-couture creations and, in 2006, was nominated for a Swarovski Fashion Enterprise award and named New Designer of the Year by the British Fashion Council.

The 34-year-old designer debuted her first capsule collection for UK retailer Whistles in 2009 (the same year Mattel released her collection of 50 limited edition Barbie dolls at Colette and Dover Street Market), launched a swimwear range in 2010, presented her latest Resort collection in New York this past spring, and saw her profile get an immeasurable boost last month when Kate Middleton (or Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge for you protocol sticklers) wore a Roksanda Ilincic dress when disembarking from the plane during the royal newlyweds' recent visit to Los Angeles. First ladies Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron are also fans.

So when she first know she wanted to be a fashion designer?  "When I started making dresses for my dolls as a child," replied Ilincic, whose fall 2011 collection was inspired by birds. And as for why fashion versus another form of creative expression: "I don't t have a rational answer to this question," she said. "It is more something I followed intuitively."

The London-based beauty—and mother of daughter Efimia, who turns one this month—recently took a few minutes on the eve of her New York debut to talk to The Fashion Informer's Lauren David Peden about a few of her favorite (and not so favorite) things.

So, Roksanda...

What's your favorite getaway spot?
My bedroom.

Ocean or mountains.
Ocean.


How often do you get back to Belgrade, and how has it changed since you lived there?
I go back twice a year. It has changed a lot but the amazing, uplifting spirit and positive energy of the city is still the same.

What's your favorite street in the world?
The streets in Malá Strana in Prague.


What's the biggest difference between designing swimwear and ready-to-wear?
With swimwear you are more confined with regards to the shape and materials. Having those limits is a wonderful challenge for design, though. I hope that with both collections I design pieces that make women feel confident and beautiful.


What part of your job do you like the best?  Least?
Most: Creating collections and collaborating with interesting people. Least: Having to meet the tight deadlines and not getting enough sleep.

Historian Elyssa Dimant Takes on Minimalism and Fashion

Say the word "minimalism" and most fashion lovers immediately conjure images of Jil Sander, Calvin Klein & co. But the minimalist movement harkens back to the Swinging Sixties, when it was ushered in by André Courreges, Rudi Gernreich and Paco Rabanne in reaction to the overwrought, overtly frilly styles that came before.

In her intelligently written, exhaustively researched book, Minimalism and Fashion: Reduction in the Postmodern Era, Elyssa Dimant traces the history of fashion's pared-down style from its Go-Go Era genesis to the present, as filtered through the prism of art, design and architecture.

"In many ways, minimalism transitioned from a 1960s high art movement to a persisting presence in contemporary artistic vernacular due to its appropriation within the field of fashion, and to the many fashion designers who have equated reduction and abstraction with beauty and progress," says Dimant, a fashion historian and former research associate at the Costume Institute the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Loosely organized by decade, the book opens with "Primary Structures," which examines key minimalist artists in New York (Barbara Ross, Frank Stella, Donald Judd) and the corresponding styles from Courreges, Balenciaga and Cardin. This exploration continues in "Ready Made" (focusing on the commercial implications of minimalism as championed by the pop art movement) before segueing to the post-minimalism of the late 1960s and 1970s (Halston, Yves Saint Laurent, etc.). This gives way to the work of Geoffrey Beene, Giorgio Armani, Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto a decade later (in "The Minimal Body"), followed by Calvin Klein, Helmut Lang, Azzedine Alaia, Miuccia Prada and Donna Karan in the 1990s, in the chapter titled "Building 'Basics.'"

"Real-ism: Designing the White Cube," meanwhile, centers around key photographers who helped introduce minimalism to the masses (Nan Goldin, Juergen Teller, Deborah Turbeville, Corinne Day, David Sims) and the final chapter, "The New Minimalism" gives props to the 21st century purveyors of the trend in fashion, art and beyond (think: Francisco Costa, Yeohlee Teng, Raf Simons and Hussein Chalayan, along with artists and architects such as Damien Hirst, Richard Serra, John Pawson and Zaha Hadid).

While the tone occasionally veers into overly scholarly/textbook territory, Minimalism and Fashion is a thought-provoking and insightful look at one of fashion's most fascinating genres.


images courtesy "Minimalism and Fashion" (Collins Design)

TFI on Rue La La: Paris Couture Roundup

In case you didn't get enough couture action last month, you can find my wrap-up of the Paris shows over on Rue La La.