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From the home page
Colleen Nika | Rolling Stone
It was bound to happen: her DNA demanded it. Frances Bean Cobain, who turns 19 today, has traversed the path of other rock star progeny to become a bona fide muse to the fashion world. The scion of 90s music icons Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, she already is one of music history's most famous heirs apparent, and is both the literal and symbolic daughter of grunge. As Cobain turns 19, and the music, fashion, and lifestyle era she was born of turns 20 next month, a new wave of interest surrounds both these personal and musical milestones.
Be it coincidence or fate, Cobain has formally arrived as major part of the cultural dialogue. As confirmation, two of the most admired photographers in fashion ostensibly presaged (and ratified) the occasion this month: both Hedi Slimane and Rocky Schenck have released private (yet instantly publicized) shoots of the girl as she comes of age, leading the image-making industry to happily declare her its latest sensation. But what does fashion really want from Miss Cobain — and what does she want from fashion, if anything? ...
Read more at RollingStone.com
Pushing up on black style
From the home page
Jon Caramanica | The New York Times
The best posts on the style blog Street Etiquette find its principals, Travis Gumbs and Joshua Kissi, in motion. As opposed to the fascistically frozen street-style snaps of The Sartorialist and others, these pictures are styled and plotted fictions but also affecting ones, depicting a pair of young black men taking ownership not just of the body and what goes on it, but also of the environment it moves in. No one ever smiles on Street Etiquette: there’s business to attend to.
Most days, the actual business of Mr. Kissi and Mr. Gumbs takes place in a work-space-cum-clubhouse on Bergen Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. With vintage sweaters hanging from the ceiling and art books lining the walls, this is the nerve center of the Brooklyn Circus, whose flagship store is just a few dozen steps away, and which is a key collaborative partner for Street Etiquette, which began as a basic beautiful-things blog in 2008 but is now one of the foremost online repositories of black style. ...
Read more in The New York Times
SXSW gets fashionable
From the home page
Joah Spearman | The Huffington Post
This March, South by Southwest will introduce Style X (pronounced "By"), an event aimed at showcasing emerging designers from around the country. Over the last few years, SXSW participants have gotten accustomed to fashion brands having a presence in Austin during that eventful week in March. American Apparel is known for its flea market setup in Downtown Austin with bargain basement pricing not available in its retail stores. And other notable brands such as Dickie's, Levi's and Ray Ban have sponsored performances by the likes of Kanye West, The xx and Broken Bells. …
Needless to say, it's pretty obvious that there lies a strong connection between music and style. Considering Austin has long been regarded as one of the best cities in the world for music, especially live music when you can actually see what the musician is wearing, it seems fitting that SXSW is dipping its toe into style as well.
Read Spearman’s full report at The Huffington Post
Islamabad Fashion Week
From the home page
Huma Qureshi, The Guardian
Forget the catwalks of London, Paris, New York and Milan. This year, there's only one fashion week making history: the world's very first Islamabad fashion week.
Pakistan's capital city was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons recently after Salmaan Taseer, governor of the Punjab province, was shot dead three weeks ago outside the Kohsar shopping centre, but Islamabad, or Isloo as it's affectionately called by locals, is determined to put that sad event behind it.
"Islamabad fashion week will change the way people think of Pakistan," says Kamran Sani, one of the directors of Excellent Events & Entertainment, the company behind the four-day extravaganza that starts on Thursday. "There is a bright side to Pakistan, which is modern, secular and upwardly progressive. No one bothers to see that side – they see the Taliban, bomb blasts, floods, poverty. But Pakistan is alive and kicking and the time has come for our fashion industry to go global ...”
Read more at the Guardian
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From the home page
“American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity,” at the Met through Aug. 15, 2010, spans decades of women’s fashion in America. The universal foundations of American style — an independence of spirit, an adaptability to the mores of the time and a willingness to flout those mores when necessary (or desirable) is evident in a video tour of some of the exhibition’s highlights. Fashions shift from the bustles and corsets of the 1890s to the heady, liberated breeziness of the flappers in the 1920s. Organized by the Met’s Costume Institute, the exhibition looks at how evolving perceptions of the modern American woman have affected both how American women are seen today, and how they see themselves. The fashion reflects a change in the times, and a change in their self-perception. It’s evidence of a process that goes on today. It’s called evolution.
MICHAEL E. ROSS
WWD talks fragrance
with Mary J.
"Over the decades, much has been made of what is in a fragrance bottle — hope or science? For Mary J. Blige, it’s transformation.
“'I wanted my fragrance to be something special for my female fans,' said Blige of her new fragrance with Carol’s Daughter, My Life, named for her landmark 1994 recording of the same name. The album represented a major turning point in Blige’s life and by using it as a reference, she is attempting to encapsulate her decadelong transformation and triumph."
Read the full WWD interview