triple show weekend

Hi all,

I had a triple show weekend. Yes, I’m probably insane for signing up for all those, I can’t really quite decipher how all that happened either. Check out my facebook page to see the photos. Photos from Thursday’s Project Ethos show are up, photos and video from F3 and the Foxtails Brigade CD Release party coming soon.

I have 2 more events coming up on April 29th and May 27th. Then the July 15th F3 and then SF Fashion Week in August. Hope to be in the studio making stuff in between those dates.

Hope this finds you well. I’m trying to find an intern so I can blog more.

xo,

VC

party party party

Celebrate in Style

San Francisco Fashion Week

with The 615 Project, Hangar One, and farmerbrown

Tuesday, August 14, 8-11pm

farmerbrown, 25 Mason St. @ Market

$5 Hangar One specialty cocktails

Farm-fresh soul food small bites

P.S. Hell yeah, I’m gonna be there! It’s my girl, Jeanne!

final dress pics

Here are a couple of photos of the finished dress, taken backstage at the Gen Art Shop Miami event.

A weird thing happened to me at the event.

I actually impressed myself. This is a first for me. The photos actually don’t do the dress justice. When Dashil, my model, pounded down the runway, I was actually impressed with the way the look turned out. Doubly weird, considering I was so insecure about how it turned out until Dashil put it on and started walking. The silk flowed and shimmied perfectly, the pleats fanned out just so, the skirts floated and danced around her just like I wanted.  Everything sparkled just the right amount.  Mark the day, folks.  July 27, 2006, the day Zoe impressed herself.

(I’m going to try to get the video taken of the runway show as soon as possible.)

carnivale de couture #4

The best thing about the Carnivale is finding out about new blogs! So the host this week is i am pretty nyc’s Kim Weinstein. Miz Kim blogs about fashion, but mainly about beauty and make-up. She recently did a show and the girls look lovely! No high concept deathbed crap that was all over the catwalks this season–just pretty pretty girls. Nice.Without further ado, the question is:

What was your most/least favorite part/garment/party/celebrity sighting of The Week and, as a result, are you looking forward to the upcoming season with anticipation or trepidation?

My favorites:

• Lots of black. Love black. Slimming, sexy, black is the new black. *snort* Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
• The fact that 2006 really isn’t about the new minimalism. I was pretty sure 2006 would be more about dressing more womanly, tailored, restrained and sophisticated instead and it’s nice to be right. Okay, now I’m being dumb and smug. Sue me. ;P
• The blogosphere! I looooove clicking through all the blogs and reading what y’all think. As a designer, I’m much more interested in what consumers (especially consumers with an avid interest in high fashion but wear all across the price board, like a lot of the bloggers) have to say than what the media has to say. The best thing about blogging is there are no politics involved; people really say what they think. Honest opinions on the direction of fashion is invaluable to me, so if you’re a fellow fashion blogger, thanks!

My least favorites:

• Too much black and neutrals. It’s wonderful and all, but if I have to resort to clicking through a Jeremy Scott collection just so my eyes can adjust to looking in RGB again, it gets me cranky.
• Too many conceptual designs. This is not creativity. This is wannabe-art. It’s not even wearable art because it lacks the wearable part. Dear fellow designers, please remember that women want to look good and that is our umbrella goal. Having a few high-concept pieces that are truly avant-garde is great. I encourage it, but quite frankly, I admire the designers who are able to create high-concept dresses that are still wearable. Not wearable to the office, per se, but still wearable. Ugly is not wearable. When the bulk of your collection is more concept than product, I wonder if you’re in the right industry. Key word here is “industry”. We make stuff for other people to *use*. Thank you.
• The lack of brides. Where are the finale brides? They used to be my favorite part of the shows.
• A lot of collections are starting to resemble each other. A united fashion front or a bunch or copyists? You tell me.

I always look forward to the next round of shows, because even if the general direction of fashion is not going where I’d like it go, there’s lots to be learned about why fashion is headed where it’s headed. It’s never boring and that’s why I stay, I guess, despite the craziness. An ex used to always say to me, “Good or bad, as long as it’s interesting.”

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the worst thing about fashion week

So, you’re checking out the shows on the web, you click on a designer’s name, you watch the slideshow, and at the end of it, all you can think is, “I’d kill to have the last 5 minutes of my life back.”

Gah!

fashion forecasting

Here’s the follow up to the Balenciaga post I had promised. For the purposes of this format, I am keeping things as short and simple as possible.

Five years ago, I had the opportunity to go to London and take some summer courses at Central Saint Martins, one of the best fashion colleges in the world, where I had the privilege of taking a design course with the amazing Jessica Ogden, among other courses. I took a fashion forecasting class and the big project was to compile a lookbook of your own fashion forecast for what was to happen five years in the future.

(Jessica Ogden Spring 06)
The project was called “It’s a disease, baby”; I was calling for sexiness without it being in your face. Basically, I was forecasting that five years from the date of the project, fashion was going to move in a direction that was less sexually explicit. Obviousness would be out, simmering under the surface would be in. Color would be less important, form and lines would be the focus. A more masculine approach, if you will. (Historically, in art, form and line were considered more masculine traits, while focus on color was more feminine.)

In the pitch I presented back then, clothes had menswear elements, tailoring. Neutrals won, allowing only controlled splashes of color. Prints were not as important as tonal design details, brocades, lace. Clothes were more covered up. Looks hearkened back to more conservative eras–the forties, the turn of the 20th century Victorian and Edwardian, or they went in the direction of eras where the looks were more stark–the sixties, the age of neoclassicism.

Sound familiar? You know it’s a major shift when a house like Versace presents a spring collection that is more covered up, less colorful, and less skin-tight than it has been in ages, and the edges of Chloe dip in the masculine.

So what does any of this have to do with Balenciaga?

I’ve been a fan of Nicolas Ghesquire for a few seasons. I won’t lie and say I’ve been a fan since he started at Balenciaga–it took some convincing for me. The current spring 2006 collection of his, however, just blew my mind and cinched the deal. It wasn’t until I saw this collection that I remembered that old project of mine again.

His collection was the embodiment of all the ideas I had tossed into that little book of images. I’m not saying I designed that collection five years ago; I’m not saying I even have the potential to design such a beautiful collection ever, I’m saying my forecast was correct, nothing more, nothing less. People need signs that the work they’re doing is good, that it’s on the right path, and this season’s developments (along with some prior forecasting projects) has shown me that I have potential. It’s an interesting thing, to be proven right. I won’t lie: it feels damn good. Not necessarily in the smug “I’m right, you’re wrong” sort of way, but in the “whoa, I wasn’t as clueless as I thought I was after all” sense. I just hope that I can keep this up.

yummy spring collections

Just a few yummy Spring 06 collections you guys should take a peek at.

Akris.

Underrated. Takes some classic looks, spins them with the Spring 06 twist, creating light, gorgeous, feminine looks. Not girlie; all woman.
Viktor & Rolf.

Spring 06 was a show in reverse, with the guys taking a bow first. The clothes were upside down and askew and what not, which reminds me of a denim project I did at school. Of course, they do it a hundred times better. Fun, and still hot. Couture meets mentally-inbalanced Belgian meets Japanese street aesthetic. Gotta love it. Hate the hair, though.

Kenzo.

Not exactly sure if it’s the “spirit of Kenzo”, but it’s fun, eccentric, and better if you have no hips, which I don’t so I’m liking how a lot of the silhouettes will give me some hippage. Inadvertent or not, I’m glad not everyone is only designed for pear-shaped women.

balenciaga

The spring 06 shows are over and I’ll be putting in my reviews over time, but in the meanwhile, I absolutely insist you take a look at the Balenciaga collection.

 You’ll thank me in the morning.