For Resort 2018, Dior’s artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri went to the archives, where she came across the house founder’s Lascaux collection of 1951, inspired by the ancient cave paintings discovered in southwestern France a decade earlier. “For me, I found it close to L.A.,” she said of Monsieur Dior’s designs. “You think L.A. and you think Hollywood, Oscars, the red carpet, but honestly I feel people love this place because you feel in contact with the natural elements.” The collection was presented May 11th in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve in Calabasas California.

Chiuri reproduced the Lascaux sketches as a silk and raffia jacquard used on New Look skirts and ponchos, as a print on a softer cotton shirtwaist dress, and as fur intarsias. She conjured more than just spirit animals. Chief among her other interests this season were a Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition she saw at the Brooklyn Museum and a collaboration with Vicki Noble, the creator of the Motherpeace feminist tarot deck.

From her start at Dior, Chiuri has linked magic with femininity and feminism. Here, she went direct to the source, printing T-shirts with Noble’s tarot illustrations or painting them on the back of leather Perfectos. That human touch is the charm of Chiuri’s Dior. And, of course, Monsieur Dior was a lover of the tarot. As for O’Keeffe, milliner Stephen Jones’s parson’s hats were dead ringers for the topper the artist wore, and a double-face cashmere coat in black with white arabesques evoked her famous ram’s head paintings. Coats in the waisted, midi-length silhouette so associated with O’Keeffe were among the show’s subtlest and chicest pieces. Bead-embroidered easy denim looks numbered among the other highlights, along with several embellished ethereal prairie dresses.

With the color and pattern and the spectacular sunset, the show had a beautiful backdrop that only mother nature could deliver. In an interview, Chiuri stressed the importance of forward momentum and lightness: “If you feel too much of the history, you get stuck in a box.”

Images & Info Getty & Vogue

Tags: Designer, dior, Dresses, Georgia O'Keeffe, LA, Lascaux, Los Angeles, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Resort 2018, Stephen Jones, Style

Linda Fargo’s Grey Gardens

“Going grey never looked so glamorous,” read the invitation to Linda Fargo’s Grey Gardens–themed birthday party held March 31st in New York City. Inspired by the Maysles brothers’ 1975 cult classic documentary, Hayward House was transformed into the Beales’ dilapidated East Hamptons compound. Cohosted by Marin Hopper and John Goldstone, the occasion called for decadent attire that followed suit. “In the spirit of Edie Beale, this is all DIY,” Fargo said of fashioning a black turtleneck into a turban and a mink fur coat around her waist like a ball skirt. “I think that’s what everyone remembers about Little Edie—how she took her old finery and recycled it. And brooches with everything.” Fargo made the look her own with custom mink earrings: “These are Ranjana Khan, and speaking of, here are Ranjana and Naeem Khan now,” she said just as the designer husband and wife walked through the door.

Upon arrival, a pair of drag performers masquerading as Big Edie and Little Edie greeted guests. Little Edie took turns reading horoscopes, while Big Edie pointed out table assignments that had been given such names as Mother Darling and Cat Land. Past the replica of Big Edie’s rickety twin bed (where several lifelike kittens and cats slept, naturally) waiters carried trays of sesame tuna tartare lined with East Hampton Star newspapers that read “The Mistresses of Grey Gardens Evade Eviction—Again!” among other sensational headlines of the era. Bartenders disguised as gas station attendants poured cocktails: The Grey Garden was served with edible flowers and The Little Edie came complete with miniature American flags for stirrers. Meanwhile, guests admired the impressive department of memorabilia on display, sourced from Eclectic/Encore Properties (Fargo’s favorite). The walls themselves were covered in framed black-and-white movie stills superimposed with Fargo’s face in place of Little Edie’s.

“I’ve always been a practical joker and I love to get a rise out of people,” Fargo admitted. “People tell me, ‘Oh, you always look so elegant,’ but I’m also very tongue in cheek.” A sense of humor would no doubt prove essential once it was time for dinner to be served in the adjacent room. There, among mismatched china and vintage flatware, Putnam & Putnam created centerpieces made of dead arrangements that were withered beyond recognition. In fact, Fargo requested that the florist save all of their day-old stems for two weeks’ time in order to bring the Grey Gardens unkempt landscape to life.

“The theme let me tap into my history as a display artist,” Fargo said, who, during her 11-year tenure as the senior vice president of Bergdorf Goodman, has seen her fair share of store and window displays. The occasion also seemed to showcase her theatrical side. Once the Côtes de Provence, or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s personal brand of rosé, was flowing, a ring of the doorbell brought out a line of “delivery guys” armed with A&P brown paper grocery bags. “I’ll pay you next week,” joked Fargo, apparently in character as Little Edie.

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Tags: birthday, Grey Gardens, Linda Fargo, theme

Stephen Jones – Saint Louis Art Museum

Opening April 21st 2017 at the Saint Louis Art Museum The Hats of Stephen Jones will present a selection of eight hats designed by contemporary British master milliner Stephen Jones. Interspersed throughout the Museum’s collection, the installation will reveal a novel approach to connecting art and contemporary fashion.

Installed in galleries ranging from Impressionism to 19th-century decorative arts to African art, Jones’s hats are displayed in dialogue with select works in the collection to create provocative conversations across time. The fascinating range of hats includes designs made from a wide variety of materials, such as plumes, artificial flowers, and silks. The installation also complements the main exhibition Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade.
Sunday, April 23rd at 2 pm in Farrell Auditorium, Jones will discuss the inspiration for his own work and its connections to the history of hats and art. $25 ($20 Members) Register Here Advanced tickets recommended

The hats of contemporary milliner Stephen Jones have been worn by some of the world’s biggest stars and fashion icons. Jones will discuss the inspiration for his own work and its connections to the history of hats and art.

A conversation with milliner Jennifer Ouellette will follow.

Overflow seating for live telecast in the Education Center $5 General/Free for Members (ticket required). Priority ticketing for Members begins April 4. General ticketing begins April 6.

Recent collaborations include Thom Browne SS17:

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Tags: Art, Fashion, Millinery, Saint Louis Art Museum, SLAM, Stephen Jones

Stella McCartney – Spring 2017

The nine Adidas by Stella McCartney lookbooks on Vogue Runway all feature models in motion; some of them are dancing, some are practicing yoga, and others are jumping through the air. These are clothes you’re going to sweat in, after all, so it wouldn’t make sense to show them on a model standing still. Last November, Adidas and McCartney took their longtime collaboration a step further with an immersive experience in a massive Los Angeles show space, where models ran on treadmills, cycled, swam in a small pool, and even tried a drumming-inspired workout. “I wanted to show the clothes working,” McCartney explained at the time.

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Tags: footwear

Aki Inomata | Girls Girls Girls

Born in Tokyo in 1983, the Japanese artist Aki Inomata studied at MFA Inter Media Art, Tokyo University of Art. Her artistic project explore different concepts : adaptation, change, protection and architecture; all of them are inspired by natural resources.

She is fascinated by the capacity of animals to use the environment to produce wonderful creations in order to protect themselves. The “Girls Girls Girls” project was a long process as it is based on the interaction between living things – female bagworms- and pieces of cloth. Aki Inomata cut in little pieces a series of women’s clothes, she gave them to the female bagworms and let them built with that fabrics their protective case.

As Aki Inomata explains “Male bagworms leave their protective cases when they become adults, and become moths. However female bagworms remain in their protective cases for their whole lives and wait for the male bagworms. This reminded me of my own experience of being approached by hundreds of men, whilst the few men that I was interested in often didn’t even glance at me.Though the gender issue is meant to have changed in our generation, why is it that women still make much more effort than men concerning their appearances, and always wait for the men to approach them? I spent two years raising the bagworms and making this piece.

I made it to be premiered in an exhibit at a department store, which sells lots of women’s fashion goods, as a kind of commentary on clothes and women’s fashion.”