The Syrian opposition somehow got hold of emails detailing her extensive purchases – such as handmade furniture, expensive jewelry, ornate candlesticks, a pair of Christian Louboutin patent-leather pumps with towering heels for $1,230, a custom dining-room table with seating for eight.
After 12 previous rounds of sanctions, these purchases persuaded the European Union and Turkey to finally get tough. “It is perhaps this that persuaded us to toughen the sanctions,” said French foreign minister Alain Juppe.
Her credit cards, and those of the other womenfolk in the Assad family, have been blocked in the EU and they, with the exception of Asma, are barred from traveling there.
Asma, British-born but of Syrian descent, is a British citizen and can still travel there, however. She just can’t spend any money. A look at her purchases indicated that this might be a real hardship.
The Guardian posted online some of her shopping trophies. Not that she was totally profligate. She boasted of her agent getting a 15 percent discount on a $3,445 glowing red Ming Luce vase. Just what one needs, along with a silver fondue set and a gold-leaf mirror decorated with butterflies, to ride out a revolution.
Only twice do her purchases indicate any sense of danger – a bulletproof twill blazer and bulletproof barn coat for her husband.
The woman is no dummy. Born in England, her father was a London cardiologist. She graduated from a prestigious college with a degree in computer science and went on to a successful career as an investment banker.
She married Bashir in December 2000, and the couple have three children. But her husband’s tight cocoon of family members and fellow Alawite tribesmen, plus that unlimited expense account, seems to have divorced the entire Assad clan from what was happening in the Arab street.
According to an email obtained by The Guardian, she sought a friend’s opinion of a pair of $4,900 shoes with crystal-encrusted 6-l/4-inch heels. The friend replied, perhaps presciently, “I don’t think they’re going 2 B useful anytime soon unfortunately.”
May we suggest a good pair of running shoes instead? Better for beating the mob to the airport.
2012年3月31日星期六
2012年3月30日星期五
Woman at the revolution
The Arab Spring appears to have produced its own Marie Antoinette ― brighter and better educated than the original and with a much tougher husband, but with the same acquisitive tastes.
She is Asma al-Assad, 36, wife of Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad, and all through the yearlong uprising that has left more than 9,000 of her countrymen dead in the indiscriminate shelling of neighborhoods, whole cities even, Asma has been ordering tens of thousands of dollars' worth of luxury goods from Europe.
The Syrian opposition somehow got hold of emails detailing her extensive purchases ― such as handmade furniture, expensive jewelry, ornate candlesticks, a pair of Christian Louboutin patent-leather pumps with towering heels for $1,230, a custom dining-room table with seating for eight.
After 12 previous rounds of sanctions, these purchases persuaded the European Union and Turkey to finally get tough. "It is perhaps this that persuaded us to toughen the sanctions," said French foreign minister Alain Juppe.
Her credit cards, and those of the other womenfolk in the Assad family, have been blocked in the EU and they, with the exception of Asma, are barred from traveling there.
Asma, British-born but of Syrian descent, is a British citizen and can still travel there, however. She just can't spend any money. A look at her purchases indicated that this might be a real hardship.
The Guardian posted online some of her shopping trophies. Not that she was totally profligate. She boasted of her agent getting a 15 percent discount on a $3,445 glowing red Ming Luce vase. Just what one needs, along with a silver fondue set and a gold-leaf mirror decorated with butterflies, to ride out a revolution.
Only twice do her purchases indicate any sense of danger ― a bulletproof twill blazer and bulletproof barn coat for her husband.
The woman is no dummy. Born in England, her father was a London cardiologist. She graduated from a prestigious college with a degree in computer science and went on to a successful career as an investment banker.
She married Bashir in December 2000, and the couple have three children. But her husband's tight cocoon of family members and fellow Alawite tribesmen, plus that unlimited expense account, seems to have divorced the entire Assad clan from what was happening in the Arab street.
According to an email obtained by the Guardian, she sought a friend's opinion of a pair of $4,900 shoes with crystal-encrusted 6-l/4-inch heels. The friend replied, perhaps presciently, "I don't think they're going 2 B useful anytime soon unfortunately."
May we suggest a good pair of running shoes instead? Better for beating the mob to the airport.
She is Asma al-Assad, 36, wife of Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad, and all through the yearlong uprising that has left more than 9,000 of her countrymen dead in the indiscriminate shelling of neighborhoods, whole cities even, Asma has been ordering tens of thousands of dollars' worth of luxury goods from Europe.
The Syrian opposition somehow got hold of emails detailing her extensive purchases ― such as handmade furniture, expensive jewelry, ornate candlesticks, a pair of Christian Louboutin patent-leather pumps with towering heels for $1,230, a custom dining-room table with seating for eight.
After 12 previous rounds of sanctions, these purchases persuaded the European Union and Turkey to finally get tough. "It is perhaps this that persuaded us to toughen the sanctions," said French foreign minister Alain Juppe.
Her credit cards, and those of the other womenfolk in the Assad family, have been blocked in the EU and they, with the exception of Asma, are barred from traveling there.
Asma, British-born but of Syrian descent, is a British citizen and can still travel there, however. She just can't spend any money. A look at her purchases indicated that this might be a real hardship.
The Guardian posted online some of her shopping trophies. Not that she was totally profligate. She boasted of her agent getting a 15 percent discount on a $3,445 glowing red Ming Luce vase. Just what one needs, along with a silver fondue set and a gold-leaf mirror decorated with butterflies, to ride out a revolution.
Only twice do her purchases indicate any sense of danger ― a bulletproof twill blazer and bulletproof barn coat for her husband.
The woman is no dummy. Born in England, her father was a London cardiologist. She graduated from a prestigious college with a degree in computer science and went on to a successful career as an investment banker.
She married Bashir in December 2000, and the couple have three children. But her husband's tight cocoon of family members and fellow Alawite tribesmen, plus that unlimited expense account, seems to have divorced the entire Assad clan from what was happening in the Arab street.
According to an email obtained by the Guardian, she sought a friend's opinion of a pair of $4,900 shoes with crystal-encrusted 6-l/4-inch heels. The friend replied, perhaps presciently, "I don't think they're going 2 B useful anytime soon unfortunately."
May we suggest a good pair of running shoes instead? Better for beating the mob to the airport.
Titanic exhibit explores historic ship’s story, local connections
It has been nearly 100 years since Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, claiming more than 1,500 lives.
The ship, touted as “practically unsinkable,” left port at Southampton, England, April 10, 1912. It stopped in France and Ireland before it set off on its maiden voyage to New York City. The White Star Line, which owned Titanic, knew that the sheer size of the ship wouldn’t make it one of the fastest passenger ships, so they settled for making it the most opulent. Cruising on Titanic meant spending a week in luxury, especially for first-class passengers.
The ship was traveling at top speed through waters the crew had heard were especially icy. The ship hit an iceberg at 11:39 p.m. April 14. It sunk at 2:20 a.m. April 15, 1912.
In observance of the disaster, the Spokane Valley Heritage Museum has created an exhibit chronicling the ill-fated vessel and some of the lives lost.
The event captured the imagination of the world. There have been movies, Broadway plays and books about what could have happened that night. Those of a certain age may remember a time when no one knew where the wreckage lay at the bottom of the ocean. Explorers didn’t find it until 1985.
This year James Cameron is re-releasing his Oscar-winning movie, “Titanic,” in 3-D. One cruise ship company is offering a Titanic Memorial Cruise that will stop in each port and offer lectures about the disaster and a memorial service at 2:20 a.m. April 15 over the site of the wreckage.
Volunteer Jeff Danner, who sort of looks like Capt. Edward Smith who went down with his ship, has been researching Titanic for six or seven months.
“Day by day by day, I was just amazed,” he said of what he learned.
Titanic was one of three Olympic-class ships – with Britanic and Olympic – built around the same time. More than 3,000 people worked for four years to build Titanic – the size of the ship was unlike anything anyone had seen before.
“Nothing had ever approached something like this,” Danner said.
But there are local connections to Titanic.
John Bertram Brady, 41, was traveling in first class when the ship went down. He was from Pomeroy, Wash., and his body was never recovered.
The ship, touted as “practically unsinkable,” left port at Southampton, England, April 10, 1912. It stopped in France and Ireland before it set off on its maiden voyage to New York City. The White Star Line, which owned Titanic, knew that the sheer size of the ship wouldn’t make it one of the fastest passenger ships, so they settled for making it the most opulent. Cruising on Titanic meant spending a week in luxury, especially for first-class passengers.
The ship was traveling at top speed through waters the crew had heard were especially icy. The ship hit an iceberg at 11:39 p.m. April 14. It sunk at 2:20 a.m. April 15, 1912.
In observance of the disaster, the Spokane Valley Heritage Museum has created an exhibit chronicling the ill-fated vessel and some of the lives lost.
The event captured the imagination of the world. There have been movies, Broadway plays and books about what could have happened that night. Those of a certain age may remember a time when no one knew where the wreckage lay at the bottom of the ocean. Explorers didn’t find it until 1985.
This year James Cameron is re-releasing his Oscar-winning movie, “Titanic,” in 3-D. One cruise ship company is offering a Titanic Memorial Cruise that will stop in each port and offer lectures about the disaster and a memorial service at 2:20 a.m. April 15 over the site of the wreckage.
Volunteer Jeff Danner, who sort of looks like Capt. Edward Smith who went down with his ship, has been researching Titanic for six or seven months.
“Day by day by day, I was just amazed,” he said of what he learned.
Titanic was one of three Olympic-class ships – with Britanic and Olympic – built around the same time. More than 3,000 people worked for four years to build Titanic – the size of the ship was unlike anything anyone had seen before.
“Nothing had ever approached something like this,” Danner said.
But there are local connections to Titanic.
John Bertram Brady, 41, was traveling in first class when the ship went down. He was from Pomeroy, Wash., and his body was never recovered.
2012年3月28日星期三
Fakes, fame and films
The world's finest shoe designer talks to Luke Leitch about fakes, fame and the decision to make his home in Somerset.
With a casual flourish of his hands, Manolo Blahnik reveals disturbing news: "In the last few days I did, oh, 350 shoes."
This is a Stakhanovite shoe-output statistic to excite all aficionados of the world's finest footwear designer - and simultaneously terrify their bank managers. What's remarkable, too, is that this productivity level is, for Blahnik, practically languid. Not only is he tired - "exhausted!" - from work trips to Hong Kong (to meet retailers) and Milan (to meet suppliers), but he designs, he says, more slowly these days than he used to.
This is not because of his advancing years - "In a year's time I'll be 70. And it makes me happy that Armani is 80 because I'm not going to be retiring!" - but thanks to a consciously fastidious deceleration. "I do and re-do things that I used to do in a flash, because I want to be more perfectionist about these things. Maybe it sounds pompous and pretentious, but that's the way I feel."
That lasciviously scarlet sole-flasher Christian Louboutin is a high-profile parvenu, and Jimmy Choo (long-divorced from Choo himself) has grown into an impressive beast of a global brand. Yet no other women's shoe designer affects women quite so powerfully as Manolo Blahnik. Madonna compared his shoes to sex - then pronounced the shoes superior. And Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman cited them as proof of a higher power's preference for high heels, saying: "If God had wanted us to wear flats he wouldn't have invented Manolo Blahnik." Sex and the City feels dated already, but the shoes that the programme's fetishising made famous continue to look as classically current - and sell as briskly - as they have since Blahnik started designing 40 years ago.
Despite some megabucks offers over those years, Blahnik has never sold his company, so only grants interviews when he wants to. And because his sister Evangelina and niece Kristina oversee the business from its London headquarters, he is free to live where he wants, too. Since he fell in love with Bath, Somerset, on a trip with Grace Coddington in 1983, Blahnik has lived here, in a grand John Eveleigh townhouse, "beautiful, with columns, in a crescent", that's at present swathed in scaffolding. "We are repairing," he says regretfully to explain why we are meeting over tea today in a hotel on the Royal Crescent where he often dines, and is politely accosted for autographs by star-struck American tourists who, to his great chagrin, often call him "Manilla": "Oh! I hate that! Call me Magnolia, anything - but not Manilla!"
With a casual flourish of his hands, Manolo Blahnik reveals disturbing news: "In the last few days I did, oh, 350 shoes."
This is a Stakhanovite shoe-output statistic to excite all aficionados of the world's finest footwear designer - and simultaneously terrify their bank managers. What's remarkable, too, is that this productivity level is, for Blahnik, practically languid. Not only is he tired - "exhausted!" - from work trips to Hong Kong (to meet retailers) and Milan (to meet suppliers), but he designs, he says, more slowly these days than he used to.
This is not because of his advancing years - "In a year's time I'll be 70. And it makes me happy that Armani is 80 because I'm not going to be retiring!" - but thanks to a consciously fastidious deceleration. "I do and re-do things that I used to do in a flash, because I want to be more perfectionist about these things. Maybe it sounds pompous and pretentious, but that's the way I feel."
That lasciviously scarlet sole-flasher Christian Louboutin is a high-profile parvenu, and Jimmy Choo (long-divorced from Choo himself) has grown into an impressive beast of a global brand. Yet no other women's shoe designer affects women quite so powerfully as Manolo Blahnik. Madonna compared his shoes to sex - then pronounced the shoes superior. And Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman cited them as proof of a higher power's preference for high heels, saying: "If God had wanted us to wear flats he wouldn't have invented Manolo Blahnik." Sex and the City feels dated already, but the shoes that the programme's fetishising made famous continue to look as classically current - and sell as briskly - as they have since Blahnik started designing 40 years ago.
Despite some megabucks offers over those years, Blahnik has never sold his company, so only grants interviews when he wants to. And because his sister Evangelina and niece Kristina oversee the business from its London headquarters, he is free to live where he wants, too. Since he fell in love with Bath, Somerset, on a trip with Grace Coddington in 1983, Blahnik has lived here, in a grand John Eveleigh townhouse, "beautiful, with columns, in a crescent", that's at present swathed in scaffolding. "We are repairing," he says regretfully to explain why we are meeting over tea today in a hotel on the Royal Crescent where he often dines, and is politely accosted for autographs by star-struck American tourists who, to his great chagrin, often call him "Manilla": "Oh! I hate that! Call me Magnolia, anything - but not Manilla!"
2012年3月27日星期二
Magazines' celebrity profiles take exposure to another level
LOS ANGELES - On the cover of the current GQ, a beaming Drake strides confidently toward the reader, fit and fearless in a $3,100 Gucci suit and $1,590 Tom Ford shoes. Inside, the 25-year-old rapper greets the magazine's reporter poolside at his "lady-fantasy" (her words) compound in the San Fernando Valley.
Writer Claire Hoffman gets Drake to reveal cover-worthy morsels about his womanizing (prodigious, now purportedly regretted), his fragile paternal ties and his Internet-fueled entree into the music world. After wine spritzers, dinner and a look at the projection system above his bed, the story ends with the young star asking the journalist: "Are you or are you not sleeping with me?"
The proposition may have been hypothetical, as Hoffman wrote, but it lent a telling zing about Drake's ample feeling of oats. The 1,500-word magazine piece, in fact, gave the star and his interlocutor something of what they both wanted. Drake got the chance to be confirmed as a lord of the pop culture moment, if stumbling a bit on his own swag and swagger. Hoffman got to demonstrate her skill at getting famous people talking and misstepping - as she previously did, more dramatically, with profiles of the boorish "Girls Gone Wild" kingpin Joe Francis coaxing underage girls into his videos, and of the ill-starred singer Amy Winehouse, smoking crack and flirting with the abyss in her London flat.
"Drake Is Living the High Life" represents one of the latest iterations of an apparently unsinkable, occasionally intriguing, media vehicle. The celebrity magazine profile - especially the ones suggesting an intimate view inside a hidden world - survives even as many luminaries seize control of their own stories via blogs and social media, even as uber-controlling publicists parse out less and less time with the stars.
"Whether it's a private meeting, or something like a date, many readers fantasize about going out with a big celebrity. These journalists are still their surrogates," said Meryl Gordon, director of the magazine writing program at NYU. "I don't have trouble with the conceit, as long as you don't take it too far."
Gordon thinks Hoffman's Drake profile got it about right. "She does it with a wink and a nod," Gordon said. "In the end, it just made me smile."
The magazine industry, which has struggled for years with declining newsstand sales, leans heavily on the allure of celebrities. And men's magazines have used the conceit of date-as-interview for at least 30 years, cranking up the lust-meter with each ensuing year. But by many accounts, the stars have gotten more parsimonious about access. And the challenge for writers and editors never wanes: presenting hyper-public figures in a fresh way.
"It's not brain-surgery hard, but it's hard," said Hoffman, previously a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and now a freelancer who has written for GQ, Rolling Stone and other publications. "The conceit is always that you are going to get in there and discover them in some way they haven't been discovered before."
"Drake is a creature of the Internet and social media. He has been blogging since long before he became famous and he tweets pictures of himself," Hoffman said. "He is constantly already exposing himself and the idea is, I am going to expose him anew."
Hoffman's had to make that happen largely based on the 90 minutes she had been granted to visit Aubrey Drake Graham at his home. She stretched that to maybe two hours and mostly let the performer do the telling, and showing - his house, the abundant waterfalls, the pool filled with statues of nude women, all forming a scene, Hoffman wrote, akin to "one of those late-night Lifetime soft-core romance flicks."
Hoffman suggests it is her host who has decided to offer something more than a simple conversation. "He's going to ignore my pen and my tape recorder and my list of questions," she writes, "and open up his soft, emotive heart as if we were on the most amazing first date ever."
When it launched "Esquire Goes on a Date" in the early 1980s, the unusual pretext was all the magazine's idea. The magazine's once and future editor, Lee Eisenberg, wrote the un-bylined stories.
"There would always be this conversation at the beginning of the date," Eisenberg recalled. "Often, the women would say, 'This is not a date, right?' and I would say, 'It's not, because we know it's going to be written up.'" But, Eisenberg added with a laugh: "I would say, 'Can you Method act a little bit and get it in your head this is a bit of a date?'"
The evenings with stars like Susan Sarandon and Charlotte Rampling - a trip to a ball game or a circus or, once, a flight to San Francisco for dinner - would end with, at most, a kiss on the cheek. Men complained the unnamed writer wasn't getting enough action; women found the gentlemanly stance sweet, or so Eisenberg recalled.
Since then, profiles in Esquire and other magazines have been considerably less subtle. A 2006 "Sexiest Woman Alive" piece on Scarlett Johansson by A.J. Jacobs begins with the "scientific study" that found she had the best breasts in Hollywood. In 1999, writer Tom Junod tells Tom Cruise (as noted in Gawker last week) that the actor's then wife, Nicole Kidman, is "right here, in my hotel room. In my bed."
Writer Claire Hoffman gets Drake to reveal cover-worthy morsels about his womanizing (prodigious, now purportedly regretted), his fragile paternal ties and his Internet-fueled entree into the music world. After wine spritzers, dinner and a look at the projection system above his bed, the story ends with the young star asking the journalist: "Are you or are you not sleeping with me?"
The proposition may have been hypothetical, as Hoffman wrote, but it lent a telling zing about Drake's ample feeling of oats. The 1,500-word magazine piece, in fact, gave the star and his interlocutor something of what they both wanted. Drake got the chance to be confirmed as a lord of the pop culture moment, if stumbling a bit on his own swag and swagger. Hoffman got to demonstrate her skill at getting famous people talking and misstepping - as she previously did, more dramatically, with profiles of the boorish "Girls Gone Wild" kingpin Joe Francis coaxing underage girls into his videos, and of the ill-starred singer Amy Winehouse, smoking crack and flirting with the abyss in her London flat.
"Drake Is Living the High Life" represents one of the latest iterations of an apparently unsinkable, occasionally intriguing, media vehicle. The celebrity magazine profile - especially the ones suggesting an intimate view inside a hidden world - survives even as many luminaries seize control of their own stories via blogs and social media, even as uber-controlling publicists parse out less and less time with the stars.
"Whether it's a private meeting, or something like a date, many readers fantasize about going out with a big celebrity. These journalists are still their surrogates," said Meryl Gordon, director of the magazine writing program at NYU. "I don't have trouble with the conceit, as long as you don't take it too far."
Gordon thinks Hoffman's Drake profile got it about right. "She does it with a wink and a nod," Gordon said. "In the end, it just made me smile."
The magazine industry, which has struggled for years with declining newsstand sales, leans heavily on the allure of celebrities. And men's magazines have used the conceit of date-as-interview for at least 30 years, cranking up the lust-meter with each ensuing year. But by many accounts, the stars have gotten more parsimonious about access. And the challenge for writers and editors never wanes: presenting hyper-public figures in a fresh way.
"It's not brain-surgery hard, but it's hard," said Hoffman, previously a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and now a freelancer who has written for GQ, Rolling Stone and other publications. "The conceit is always that you are going to get in there and discover them in some way they haven't been discovered before."
"Drake is a creature of the Internet and social media. He has been blogging since long before he became famous and he tweets pictures of himself," Hoffman said. "He is constantly already exposing himself and the idea is, I am going to expose him anew."
Hoffman's had to make that happen largely based on the 90 minutes she had been granted to visit Aubrey Drake Graham at his home. She stretched that to maybe two hours and mostly let the performer do the telling, and showing - his house, the abundant waterfalls, the pool filled with statues of nude women, all forming a scene, Hoffman wrote, akin to "one of those late-night Lifetime soft-core romance flicks."
Hoffman suggests it is her host who has decided to offer something more than a simple conversation. "He's going to ignore my pen and my tape recorder and my list of questions," she writes, "and open up his soft, emotive heart as if we were on the most amazing first date ever."
When it launched "Esquire Goes on a Date" in the early 1980s, the unusual pretext was all the magazine's idea. The magazine's once and future editor, Lee Eisenberg, wrote the un-bylined stories.
"There would always be this conversation at the beginning of the date," Eisenberg recalled. "Often, the women would say, 'This is not a date, right?' and I would say, 'It's not, because we know it's going to be written up.'" But, Eisenberg added with a laugh: "I would say, 'Can you Method act a little bit and get it in your head this is a bit of a date?'"
The evenings with stars like Susan Sarandon and Charlotte Rampling - a trip to a ball game or a circus or, once, a flight to San Francisco for dinner - would end with, at most, a kiss on the cheek. Men complained the unnamed writer wasn't getting enough action; women found the gentlemanly stance sweet, or so Eisenberg recalled.
Since then, profiles in Esquire and other magazines have been considerably less subtle. A 2006 "Sexiest Woman Alive" piece on Scarlett Johansson by A.J. Jacobs begins with the "scientific study" that found she had the best breasts in Hollywood. In 1999, writer Tom Junod tells Tom Cruise (as noted in Gawker last week) that the actor's then wife, Nicole Kidman, is "right here, in my hotel room. In my bed."
2012年3月26日星期一
Why Are Designer Shoes So Damn Expensive All Of A Sudden?
Any dedicated observer of shoe culture knows that over the last decade or so, something very strange and concerning happened to designer shoes: they got really fucking expensive. In the early 2000s, a pair of Pradas or YSLs could be had at full price for around $400. In this clip from Season 4 of Sex and the City, Carrie laments the loss of a pair of Manolos that cost $485, which is implied to be a staggering sum. At the most recent Barneys Warehouse Sale, many of the sale prices were higher than that. One struggles to name a consumer item whose price has inflated more dramatically in recent years than the designer shoe (and it's not like $400 is "cheap," as baselines go, to begin with). Basic designer pumps now often hit in the $700-$900 range. Even newer designers, like Brian Atwood and Camilla Skovgaard, feel justified in pricing some of their offerings at over $1000. Christian Louboutin's zippered heels will set you back nearly $1600. Anything with embellishment or exotic leather might top $2000. What. The. Fuck?
First of all, no, you're not imagining things.
"The observation is correct, the prices have shot up dramatically," says Daniella Vitale, chief merchant and executive vice president of Barneys New York. "We still open up at $395 in designer ballet flats" — Fendi, FYI — "and Rochas has a loafer at $395, but I would say that those are really becoming the anomaly."
Barneys' average designer shoe price is now $770, a situation even the store admits is "concerning." The C.E.O. of Christian Louboutin claims his company's shoes have risen in price because the cost of raw materials has gone up by "30 to 40 per cent" in the last 18 months. George Malkemus, C.E.O. of Manolo Blahnik, says the price hikes are unwise.
"When a young lady says to me, ‘I went shopping for shoes and the average price point was $900' — $900 used to be a coat," says Malkemus. "I think that people may have taken advantage of the notion that ‘It's all about accessories right now.' When [designer] ready-to-wear priced itself out of the realm of most consumers, shoes and bags were still affordable. Now, what's happened is the shoe people and the bag people sort of lost control of that, and they are scaring off a certain consumer."
First of all, no, you're not imagining things.
"The observation is correct, the prices have shot up dramatically," says Daniella Vitale, chief merchant and executive vice president of Barneys New York. "We still open up at $395 in designer ballet flats" — Fendi, FYI — "and Rochas has a loafer at $395, but I would say that those are really becoming the anomaly."
Barneys' average designer shoe price is now $770, a situation even the store admits is "concerning." The C.E.O. of Christian Louboutin claims his company's shoes have risen in price because the cost of raw materials has gone up by "30 to 40 per cent" in the last 18 months. George Malkemus, C.E.O. of Manolo Blahnik, says the price hikes are unwise.
"When a young lady says to me, ‘I went shopping for shoes and the average price point was $900' — $900 used to be a coat," says Malkemus. "I think that people may have taken advantage of the notion that ‘It's all about accessories right now.' When [designer] ready-to-wear priced itself out of the realm of most consumers, shoes and bags were still affordable. Now, what's happened is the shoe people and the bag people sort of lost control of that, and they are scaring off a certain consumer."
2012年3月25日星期日
All Business: Sharp Suits
It began – as so many things do in fashion – on the Prada catwalk, way back when during the January menswear shows.
Whereas Miuccia Prada's recent seasons have seen her blokes kitted out in technicolor floral bri-nylon, lurex cardigans and stack-soled wedges, this time we saw suits... and suits... and suits. Grey, black, single and double-breasted, some with natty astrakhan collars, some seemingly sans trousers (but with flapping boxers and over-the-calf City Boy socks). It was all about the suit – but they were suits that could be worn anywhere and by just about anybody. Prada wasn't the only one proposing that men be permanently suited and booted for winter: the power of this label is in epitomising what's making fashion tick at any one moment. Hence Italian cohorts Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana proffered a parade of braid-embroidered gabardines, Tomas Maier's Bottega Veneta showed sleek, single-breasted styles and Christopher Bailey at Burberry Prorsum put a new twist on the Sloane Ranger with jewel-toned corduroy and whipcord two-pieces (Mellors flat-cap optional). Even Roberto Cavalli's usually navel-gazing, flesh-flashing catwalk was buttressed with Savile Row quality tailoring, give or take the odd odd chartreuse tux.
Is this really so surprising? The suit, after all, has been the linchpin of the male wardrobe for about two hundred years. What's rare is to see fashion designers embracing that conservatism with quite so much gusto.
The Italians, of course, have a tailoring tradition to rival Savile Row's – although their craftsmen dotted about Rome, Milan and Florence cannot compare with the world's only true "disguisery" (the wonderful plural noun for a group of tailors) on "The Row". But the suit reigned supreme during Paris fashion week too, Lanvin's muscular and full-shouldered, Louis Vuitton's sleek in camel and grey, and leather-bound at Stefano Pilati's final menswear show for Yves Saint Laurent (Raf Simons showed that over in Milan for his penultimate Jil Sander collection, too).
So what does the suit represent in the menswear landscape of today?
Power on the one hand and conservatism on the other. Mere months before The Iron Lady nabbed Meryl Streep an Oscar for her depiction of Margaret Thatcher, it feels as if this could be fashion's return to Wall Street's "Greed is good" Eighties ethos. These suits may be relatively sombre, even staid at times, but they scream "money" in a way a sweatshirt never could. A suit today can be the perfect sartorial palimpsest for rebellion; a language of dress every man understands but which can be utilised to say something revolutionary.
That's the way the American designer Thom Browne has always looked at the suit, using its "rules" to fight against the conventions still evident in male fashion. Browne's suit, less skinny than shrunken, single-breasted with trousers cropped high on the ankle, has dominated male style for the past half-decade. "My goal for my collection is to be provocative and to make people think," says Browne. That's the purported aim of much flamboyant modern menswear, the difference with Browne's work being that the basis for these experiments are classic grey wool suits that could have been worn by bankers in the fifties. Turn a blind eye to the attention-grabbing "skorts", beaded kaftans and tulle puffs Browne often favours: it's the proportions of the suit that are the most controversial and interesting thing.
Browne's combination of an ultra-trad base with subtly radical details finds echoes throughout menswear today. It's there in a poplin men's shirt by young London label Palmer//Harding, tucks and spiral pleats giving it a third dimension; and equally in Lucas Ossendrijver and Alber Elbaz's cross-breeding of a down jacket and officer's greatcoat at Lanvin.
"The mix between tradition and newness is the story of this collection," said Elbaz backstage. And, for many men, raised on Casual Fridays and sportswear as everyday wear, there is a newness in the tradition of the suit, full stop.
The omnipotence of the suit for autumn/winter 2012 is part of fashion's standard flash-in-the-pan seasonal volte-face, but men are universally reclaiming the classic suit as a means of dressing up for the everyday. "What we're seeing more and more of is younger customers buying into suiting," says Adam Kelly, buying manager of men's formalwear at London's Selfridges. "The look is in no way just about workwear or occasionwear any more – I think British guys in particular just have an increasingly vested interest in looking sharp." The cold hard facts back that assertion: at Selfridges, suiting sales to date have increased 28 per cent on last year. "I look for something classic and timeless in dress," says Constantin Bjerke, the dapper founder and CEO of media website Crane.tv, who buys his suits from London's Turnbull & Asser. "A well-cut, beautifully-detailed and constructed suit will last a lifetime and always look stylish."
Nick Lazarus, a treaty underwriter with Hiscox in the City, concurs that in his clothes he seeks "an emphasis on quality and not visual impact. Save the odd unfortunate incident, I have never really been one to stick my head above the parapet on account of an outlandish wardrobe".
Those characteristics – stylish, timeless, quality – are endlessly assigned to suits, especially in the bespoke bracket. The latter is suiting at its most traditional, time-consuming and expensive – ready-to-wear (or, as tailors often disparagingly term it, "off the rack") cannot compare to bespoke, where a pattern is drafted to a customer's individual measurements. Savile Row tailor Richard James describes the bespoke process as "indulgence... time spent considering fabric,working on style, discussing small but important details to devise a unique suit that not only fits you perfectly and makes you feel great, but is also something you helped create". Even made-to-measure is a poor substitute in the eyes of the tailoring trade. "It's not quite the same as having someone actually take a set of measurements and alterations for your figure. You can't improve on the fittings... distilling the pattern down till it actually fits," says Ritchie Charlton, managing director of Hayward of Mount Street. Charlton has been in the tailoring trade for three decades, working at high-profile establishments including Kilgour French Stanbury and the tailoring workrooms of Her Majesty's choice dressmaker, Hartnell, under former Christian Dior designer Marc Bohan in the early 1990s. In short, he knows his stuff – today, his custom-made, four-figure suits clothe dedicated followers of style, rather than fashion, including Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie and perennially pin-neat photographer Nick Knight. When asked about seasonal changes in bespoke, Charlton shrugs his shoulders and responds "there are seasons as far as the weather goes". But he does concede that "bespoke tailoring moves with men's fashion... a young guy who comes into the shop, generally he's going to want a neater, shorter-fitting jacket at the moment than perhaps he would have wanted in 2002."
That's possibly one of the most seductive things about suiting: the subtlety.
Whereas Miuccia Prada's recent seasons have seen her blokes kitted out in technicolor floral bri-nylon, lurex cardigans and stack-soled wedges, this time we saw suits... and suits... and suits. Grey, black, single and double-breasted, some with natty astrakhan collars, some seemingly sans trousers (but with flapping boxers and over-the-calf City Boy socks). It was all about the suit – but they were suits that could be worn anywhere and by just about anybody. Prada wasn't the only one proposing that men be permanently suited and booted for winter: the power of this label is in epitomising what's making fashion tick at any one moment. Hence Italian cohorts Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana proffered a parade of braid-embroidered gabardines, Tomas Maier's Bottega Veneta showed sleek, single-breasted styles and Christopher Bailey at Burberry Prorsum put a new twist on the Sloane Ranger with jewel-toned corduroy and whipcord two-pieces (Mellors flat-cap optional). Even Roberto Cavalli's usually navel-gazing, flesh-flashing catwalk was buttressed with Savile Row quality tailoring, give or take the odd odd chartreuse tux.
Is this really so surprising? The suit, after all, has been the linchpin of the male wardrobe for about two hundred years. What's rare is to see fashion designers embracing that conservatism with quite so much gusto.
The Italians, of course, have a tailoring tradition to rival Savile Row's – although their craftsmen dotted about Rome, Milan and Florence cannot compare with the world's only true "disguisery" (the wonderful plural noun for a group of tailors) on "The Row". But the suit reigned supreme during Paris fashion week too, Lanvin's muscular and full-shouldered, Louis Vuitton's sleek in camel and grey, and leather-bound at Stefano Pilati's final menswear show for Yves Saint Laurent (Raf Simons showed that over in Milan for his penultimate Jil Sander collection, too).
So what does the suit represent in the menswear landscape of today?
Power on the one hand and conservatism on the other. Mere months before The Iron Lady nabbed Meryl Streep an Oscar for her depiction of Margaret Thatcher, it feels as if this could be fashion's return to Wall Street's "Greed is good" Eighties ethos. These suits may be relatively sombre, even staid at times, but they scream "money" in a way a sweatshirt never could. A suit today can be the perfect sartorial palimpsest for rebellion; a language of dress every man understands but which can be utilised to say something revolutionary.
That's the way the American designer Thom Browne has always looked at the suit, using its "rules" to fight against the conventions still evident in male fashion. Browne's suit, less skinny than shrunken, single-breasted with trousers cropped high on the ankle, has dominated male style for the past half-decade. "My goal for my collection is to be provocative and to make people think," says Browne. That's the purported aim of much flamboyant modern menswear, the difference with Browne's work being that the basis for these experiments are classic grey wool suits that could have been worn by bankers in the fifties. Turn a blind eye to the attention-grabbing "skorts", beaded kaftans and tulle puffs Browne often favours: it's the proportions of the suit that are the most controversial and interesting thing.
Browne's combination of an ultra-trad base with subtly radical details finds echoes throughout menswear today. It's there in a poplin men's shirt by young London label Palmer//Harding, tucks and spiral pleats giving it a third dimension; and equally in Lucas Ossendrijver and Alber Elbaz's cross-breeding of a down jacket and officer's greatcoat at Lanvin.
"The mix between tradition and newness is the story of this collection," said Elbaz backstage. And, for many men, raised on Casual Fridays and sportswear as everyday wear, there is a newness in the tradition of the suit, full stop.
The omnipotence of the suit for autumn/winter 2012 is part of fashion's standard flash-in-the-pan seasonal volte-face, but men are universally reclaiming the classic suit as a means of dressing up for the everyday. "What we're seeing more and more of is younger customers buying into suiting," says Adam Kelly, buying manager of men's formalwear at London's Selfridges. "The look is in no way just about workwear or occasionwear any more – I think British guys in particular just have an increasingly vested interest in looking sharp." The cold hard facts back that assertion: at Selfridges, suiting sales to date have increased 28 per cent on last year. "I look for something classic and timeless in dress," says Constantin Bjerke, the dapper founder and CEO of media website Crane.tv, who buys his suits from London's Turnbull & Asser. "A well-cut, beautifully-detailed and constructed suit will last a lifetime and always look stylish."
Nick Lazarus, a treaty underwriter with Hiscox in the City, concurs that in his clothes he seeks "an emphasis on quality and not visual impact. Save the odd unfortunate incident, I have never really been one to stick my head above the parapet on account of an outlandish wardrobe".
Those characteristics – stylish, timeless, quality – are endlessly assigned to suits, especially in the bespoke bracket. The latter is suiting at its most traditional, time-consuming and expensive – ready-to-wear (or, as tailors often disparagingly term it, "off the rack") cannot compare to bespoke, where a pattern is drafted to a customer's individual measurements. Savile Row tailor Richard James describes the bespoke process as "indulgence... time spent considering fabric,working on style, discussing small but important details to devise a unique suit that not only fits you perfectly and makes you feel great, but is also something you helped create". Even made-to-measure is a poor substitute in the eyes of the tailoring trade. "It's not quite the same as having someone actually take a set of measurements and alterations for your figure. You can't improve on the fittings... distilling the pattern down till it actually fits," says Ritchie Charlton, managing director of Hayward of Mount Street. Charlton has been in the tailoring trade for three decades, working at high-profile establishments including Kilgour French Stanbury and the tailoring workrooms of Her Majesty's choice dressmaker, Hartnell, under former Christian Dior designer Marc Bohan in the early 1990s. In short, he knows his stuff – today, his custom-made, four-figure suits clothe dedicated followers of style, rather than fashion, including Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie and perennially pin-neat photographer Nick Knight. When asked about seasonal changes in bespoke, Charlton shrugs his shoulders and responds "there are seasons as far as the weather goes". But he does concede that "bespoke tailoring moves with men's fashion... a young guy who comes into the shop, generally he's going to want a neater, shorter-fitting jacket at the moment than perhaps he would have wanted in 2002."
That's possibly one of the most seductive things about suiting: the subtlety.
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