Kate Moss at the Ritz Paris

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Kate Moss at the Ritz Paris, Vogue USA

The Ritz Paris is set to close for renovations, but before it does, the famed hotel welcomed a photo shoot for Vogue Magazine with model Kate Moss. The extravagant photo spread, shot by British fashion photographer Tim Walker, features the grandeur architecture and design of the establishment while simultaneously highlighting Haute Couture Fashion.

The elaborate outfits against the regal backdrop is reminiscent of old Hollywood and a refined sense of fashion. The glamour, glitz, and elegance feel palpable in this striking photo shoot. More than just clothes, drapes, and wallpaper, the series portrays an elite lifestyle known all too well by those raptured by fame and wealth. In the Vogue US April 2012 issue, celebrities and fashion moguls recount their memories in the renowned five-star hotel, recalling their everyday run-ins with other celebrities and the royal treatment received by the highest quality of service.

 Life Imitates Art

Like the neoclassical crimson satin sofa, a dramatic tiered evening dress (Dior’s finale look) adds a jolt of brilliant color to the hushed palette of an Imperial Suite salon. Dior Haute Couture silk dress.

My Bleu Heaven

A cornflower-blue dress by Sarah Burton, reminiscent of 1950s couture, plays on proportion and contrast: nipped-in waist and voluminous skirt; flat jacquard against exploding lace. Alexander McQueen.

 Cocktail Hour

“I drink the French 76: vodka, sugar, lemon juice topped up with champagne; it’s the best drink ever, but it only tastes like that in the Hemingway Bar,” says Moss, here in L’Espadon.

 Boxed Out

Karl Lagerfeld took over the first-floor-spanning Imperial Suite, seen here, for his 1996 couture collection. Chanel Haute Couture embroidered organza flower coat and pumps.

 Ladies-In-Waiting

Sprigged dresses in the Imperial Suite, inspired by Marie Antoinette frolicking at the bucolic Le Petit Trianon, took up to 1,200 hours to make by hand.

 Room Service

“Gianni’s [Versace] shows were amazing—and sooo convenient. Walk downstairs, go to work: Love that!” says Moss, with housekeepers Khadidja Fakri and Lollie Bacete (standing). Dior

 View From the Top

Giambattista Valli sent out a cinched draped-shoulder goddess dress in “a color so deep, so intense, you can almost smell it—like bougainvillea on the Mediterranean coast.” Giambattista Valli Haute

 Light Show

“When I was with Johnny Depp, he always stayed there. I had an apartment in Paris at the time, but he said, ‘No, we’re staying at the Ritz,’ so he came by and swept me up to the Ritz.

 Sleeping Beauty

For three decades, Coco Chanel called the hotel her home. Here, the bedroom of the suite named for her. Armani Privé sequined embroidered flared bustier dress.

Photographed by Tim Walker

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Macy’s Brings a Taste of Brazil to NYC

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Macy's bring a taste of Brazil to NYC

For two weeks, Brazil’s lush and vibrant influences will take center stage during the annual Macy’s Flower Show with Gardens by Bachman’s. 

This year, Macy’s is taking things outside for its annual Flower Show. Normally, it’s held on the main floor of the department store’s Herald Square flagship, but this time around, it will take up an entire city block on Broadway Plaza.

  The Carnival-inspired windows at Macy’s Flower Show.

 Tropical plants from the rainforest. Colonial gardens. An 8-foot toucan topiary wrapped in starflowers, button flowers and magnolia leaves.

 Design inspiration came from the late Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx.

 Colonial gardens.

 For this year’s show, the local garden center brought in thousands of plants in almost 120 varieties. They include varieties Dale Bachman saw while visiting Brazil, such as ficus rubber plants, bird of paradise flowers, eucalyptuses, mahoganies and even cocoa and coffee trees.

   A storefront window display advertises the annual Macy’s Flower Show with Gardens by Bachman’s.

   Photos By Kyle Ericksen

THE ANUAL MACY’S FLOWER SHOW

March 25, through April 7

Cindy Sherman at Moma – The Queen of the Self-Portrait

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Cindy Sherman at the Moma

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954) is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art. Throughout her career, she has presented a sustained, eloquent, and provocative exploration of the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation, drawn from the unlimited supply of images from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet, and art history. Working as her own model for more than 30 years, Sherman has captured herself in a range of guises and personas which are at turns amusing and disturbing, distasteful and affecting

 Cindy Sherman “Untitled #470” (2008) in a gallery of Ms. Sherman’s society and clown portraits in the Museum of Modern Art’s career survey.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Sherman has selected films from MoMA’s collection, which will be screened in MoMA’s theaters during the course of the exhibition. A major publication will accompany the exhibition.

 Ms. Sherman in a untitled “society portrait” from 2008 that is in the new show, which spans her 35-year career.

To create her photographs, she assumes multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist, and wardrobe mistress. With an arsenal of wigs, costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and props, Sherman has deftly altered her physique and surroundings to create a myriad of intriguing tableaus and characters, from screen siren to clown to aging socialite.

 Ms. Sherman in a fashion commission (2007-8).

 A 1989 photograph that refers to an Old Master painting.

 Her other dark characters include menacing clowns, from 2004.

 

“Untitled #474” (2008), one of Ms. Sherman’s photographic society portraits.

 The show at MoMA will include images new to American audiences in which Ms. Sherman has digitally altered her face. One, from 2011, was superimposed on a landscape that Ms. Sherman shot in Iceland.

 A section of the untitled 2010 Cindy Sherman mural installed outside the Museum of Modern Art exhibition entrance.

 A portrait from 2007-8, based on the idea of fashionistas vying to have their photo taken.

Her 1981 image as a teenager sold for $3.9 million at auction last year.

 The photographer Cindy Sherman, posing as herself, is the subject of a new retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.

Check the videos:

Cindy Sherman: Fashion | “Exclusive” | Art21

Commissioned by French Vogue to create a fashion editorial featuring clothes from the Spanish design house Balenciaga, artist Cindy Sherman discusses the first time she used a digital camera to make pictures, ultimately creating different versions of images for the magazine and for herself.

Cindy Sherman at MoMA | “My Favorite Cindy Sherman”

Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Cindy Sherman
On view at MoMA

 

Cindy Sherman

February 26–June 11, 2012

The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor

 

Credit: Cindy Sherman/Metro Pictures

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier – From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk

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The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier

It’s a big year for Jean Paul Gaultier. In addition to celebrating his 60th birthday, he is the subject of a massive museum retrospective, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, which is currently on tour and arrives in San Francisco’s de Young Museum this month.

 Jean Paul Gaultier knows how he will spend his 60th birthday in April. “I will stay in my bed,” he says, affecting a theatrically glum expression, folding down his bottom lip. “Crying.”

  Photo Collages by Damien Blottiere – Out Magazine

   The ‘‘Boudoir’’ section of the exhibit showcases Madonna’s in famous corsets from the 1990 ‘‘Blond Ambition’’ tour. They are displayed alongside a much-cuddled teddy bear with similar conical protuberances made of rolled newspaper. Mr. Gaultier says he did the breast enhancements on the bear, Nana, at age seven, after a lesson in underpinnings from his grandmother.

On Madona: “I said later, if she hadn’t asked me to make clothes for her, I would’ve killed the one that she did ask.”

          

Here, a mannequin has been digitally embellished with the designer’s own features and is wearing a version of his iconic matelot sweater.

Photo : Jerry Pigeon (Studio JPG)

About the Exhibition

de Young – Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco  http://deyoung.famsf.org/

HERBST SPECIAL EXHIBITION GALLERIES

March 24, 2012 – August 19, 2012

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is the first major exhibition dedicated to celebrated French designer Jean Paul Gaultier. More than 130 iconic haute couture and prêt-a-porter ensembles created between the early 1970s and 2010 will be dramatically displayed in scenic contexts ranging from the boudoir to graffiti streets and the catwalk. Animated mannequins talk and sing in playful and outrageous vignettes, enhancing the artistry and culturally revolutionary work of Gaultier.

Check the video:

Diana Vreeland Dazzling Exhibition in Venice

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Diana Vreeland Exhibition in Venice, WWD

Green and Venice were only two of Diana Vreeland’s “obsessions,” which are retraced in “Diana Vreeland After Diana Vreeland,” an exhibition that opened March 10 and will run through June 25. It is the first major show dedicated to the legendary fashion editor, and one that was not conceived as a retrospective but as a critical snapshot of Vreeland’s work.

In her lifetime, legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland had a passionate love affair with Venice, so it’s only fitting that the first major show devoted to her work would be housed within the lush confines of the city’s Palazzo Fortuny.

 On display at Diana Vreeland After Diana Vreeland  are stunning pieces from luminaries such as Yves Saint Laurent, Missoni, Emilio Pucci, Chanel, Irene Galitzine, Valentino, and Paco Rabanne, some culled from Vreeland’s own closet and some on loan from private collections or the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, where Vreeland was a consultant from 1971 until her death in 1989, as well as books and magazines from the editor’s library and portraits by Christian Bérard and Cecil Beaton.

 During her tenure at the Met, she organized multiple exhibitions and helped shape the course of this acclaimed wing in one of the world’s greatest museums. During her years at Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, Vreeland was instrumental in ushering in a new, more casual era of fashion, discovering influential stars such as Lauren Bacall and Edie Sedgwick.

    Precious green designs by Yves Saint Laurent, Paco Rabanne and Irene Galitzine stand near an 18th-century green corseted gown worn by a mannequin whose head is clad in a green veil, all in a glass cabinet against a backdrop of exquisite fabrics and paintings at the 15th-century Palazzo Fortuny in Venice.

  

 The garments are shown in Italy for the first time, several belonging to Vreeland and others loaned by the Met or private collections and company archives, together with magazines and books curated by Vreeland and portraits of the editor by Cecil Beaton and Christian Bérard.

  Now you can see her handiwork in person as you stroll the marbled floors of the Palazzo Fortuny. Breathe deep:  in honor of Vreeland’s affinity for gorgeous scents, world-famous perfumer Frédéric Malle has created a special sandalwood fragrance that will be sprayed throughout the exhibit.

Diane Vreeland and Andy Warhol in Venice 1973

“I want to die young—at seventy. I want to die young—at eighty. I want to die young—at ninety.”– Diane Vreeland interviewed in the new Diana Vreeland by Lisa Immordino Vreeland

Diana Vreeland After Diana Vreeland

Palazzo Fortuny

Campo San Beneto, Venice 30124

011 39 041 520 90 70

Runs through June 25^th, 2012

Photos: Courtesy of WWD

Street Fashion – They Are Wearing in Paris

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Photos New York Times

FROM THE CLOSET TO THE PAVEMENT

One of the bonuses of the fashion-show season is watching the guests and fans crowd the runway-show venues clad in their finest outfits.

Tommy & Dee Hilfiger Open the Doors to Their Home at The Plaza in NYC.

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The Coveteur

Tommy and Dee Hilfiger are two names synonymous with style and power. Both are successful entrepreneurs in their own right; Tommy with his namesake empire and Dee with her recently launched collection, DEESIGNS for HSN. The duo have translated the very same labour of love and passion of their businesses into their home, which is a carefully curated, museum-like abode at the iconic Plaza in NYC.

 They opened the doors to their lavish Manhattan home for The Coveteur, where they showcased their extensive art collection, including works from Warhol, Basquiat, Keith Haring and Richard Prince. Also on display were Tommy’s expansive collection of Christian Louboutin shoes, which could easily pass for artwork.

The pictures speak for themselves…

 I love wearing these pants! Every time I do, I get tons of compliments. They really are as comfortable as pajamas, which is the best reason to wear them. – Dee Pants, Tommy Hilfiger

 The shoes in the middle were a Christmas present from Tommy. I haven’t worn them yet. The other pairs are both Miu Miu. I love that wall of photographs! Marilyn Monroe, Fred Astair, The Rat Pack, Ray Charles… I love old Hollywood! – Dee

This clutch is Alexander McQueen. I wore it to the Met Ball last year, which honored his works. – Dee

 These boots are Alaïa. I’ve had them for ages! – Dee

 My Christian Louboutins – ‘rock and royalty’ – were a birthday gift from Dee. If she can wear Loubs, so can I. They are my favourite. The doors are Keith Haring originals from his own NYC apartment. – Tommy

 This is a series of Marilyn photos from the last sitting with Bert Stern. They were a gift from Tommy’s ex-wife and I just love them. I am not really obessed with Marilyn. I see her as more of a tragic figure. It must have been torture to live up to that image all the time. – Dee

 These boots are Prada. The painting… well, it is an exceptional example of the genius of Jean-Michel Basquiat. One of our most prized paintings! – Dee

 This Hermès briefcase is another great gift from my amazing wife, Dee. We love the Tracy Emin neon. – Tommy

I collect books and music by The Stones. We sponsored the “No Security” tour in the 90’s and designed some cool stuff for them. – Tommy

Ring, Alexander McQueen

Mickey is a limited edition Diamond Dust Warhol. It looks great at night! – Tommy
Ring, Alexander McQueen

 These are vintage sapphire and ruby cuff links my daughter Ally gave me in 2009. Maxim’s was such a great place in Paris in the 70’s. – Tommy

Cufflinks, Vintage

 This is my office at home. The pieces on the left came from the Duke and the Duchess of Windsor’s estate. The tie is tartan – my favourite and the photo is of our children. My office has an original New York Times sign from the original Times building. – Tommy

 This Louis Vuitton foot stool was a gift. The velvet slippers I’ve worn for years with jeans, as well as with a tux. – Tommy

Shoes, Stubbs & Wootton

 I like walking into my own private boutique. The colour coordination makes it easier to select. Although, it’s easier when my shirts are either white and blue or blue or white! – Tommy

 Disorganization is not an option for me. – Tommy

 This is a Studio 54 VIP Ticket by Andy Warhol. I used to frequent Studio 54 in the late 70’s and early 80’s. – Tommy

 The cuff links on the right are Dior. As for the others, I love hippos. [It was] my nickname in school. – Tommy

 This peacock “race-let” is my favourite Sevan piece! It’s a ring and a bracelet that covers my hand in colourful stones. – Dee

Handpiece, Sevan

Sevan is so incredibly talented. A true artisan. No one else can make rings like that! Wearing these rings reminds me of my Turkish heritage. – Dee

 These are quite heavy, but I must say I feel like blonde Cleopatra wearing them. They once belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. – Dee

 I love Dee in high heel boots… any kind. I also love this color from our recent Fall ’12 Runway. I love the boots because they are sexy yet chic and the colour is awesome. – TommyBoot, Tommy Hilfiger

 This is our master bedroom. I wore this Halston jacket and Stubbs & Wootton slippers to the Met Ball in 2011.

– TommyJacket, Halston; Shoes, Stubbs & Wootton

 Tommy and Dee graciously welcomed us into their residence and spent the morning sharing stories of their careers, family and goods.

Louis Vuitton – Marc Jacobs, Paris Exibition at The Louvre

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LOUIS VUITTON - MARC JACOB EXIBITION, Reuters / BENOIT TESSIER)

Paris Fashion Week ended with a grand party on a stairwell. Or at least that’s what it looked like walking into the Les Arts Décoratifs wing of the Louvre on Wednesday night for the opening of a major exhibition on Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs. The exhibition, is a presentation of two great characters, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, and will highlight their contributions to the world of fashion. It pays tribute to the iconic fashion house’s eponymous designer, who started out his career as a trunk-maker in 1854, and to the work of designer Marc Jacobs who took over the creative reigns at the luxury label Louis Vuitton in 1997.

 A 1892 portrait drawing by the Studio Reutlinger of Louis Vuitton, left, and a photography of fashion designer Marc Jacobs by British fashion photographer John Rankin Waddell, right, are displayed in the entrance of the Louis Vuitton-Marc Jacobs exhibit in the Art Decoratifs Museum in Paris, Thursday, March 8, 2012.

 A display of handbags on the Marc Jacobs floor at the Louis Vuitton exhibit.

 Running from 09 March to 16 September 2012, this exhibition shows how, with over a century between them, both Louis Vuitton, founder of the house of Louis Vuitton in 1854, and Marc Jacobs, its artistic director since 1997 were able to fully discern their specific era and take advantage of all the possibilities offered.

The exhibition space, curated by Pamela Golbin and designed by Gainsbury and Bennett, is spread over two floors, each dedicated to the creators.

 THE PARTY 

Closing out what seemed like an endless month of Fashion Week after Fashion Week, Marc Jacobs partied with his best high-fashion friends on Wednesday night in Paris, feteing the launch of his new exhibition, “Louis Vuitton — Marc Jacobs: The Exhibition.”

  Marc Jacobs & Peter Marino. The fashion the designer showed up in a rather irreverent celebratory outfit: a pink polo dress and pirate-like buckle boots (or are those more pilgrim-y?).

 Jordi Constans, CEO of Louis Vuitton, & Karl Lagerfeld

Natalia Vodianova & Antoine Arnault

 Bianca Brandolini

 Gwen Paltrow

 Catherine Deneuve

 Lee Radziwill

Karlie Kloss

   (Getty photo)

Check the Videos :

Louis Vuitton – Marc Jacobs at Les Arts Décoratifs: Fanclub

Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs Exhibition Opening Event Party Paris

Schiaparelli and Prada – Impossible Conversations

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Photos Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met’s Spring 2012 Costume Institute exhibition, “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations.” Meant to portray the correlations between the two iconic designers — who lived in entirely different eras but explored similar themes in their work — the show will focus on seven specific subjects that both women addressed in their clothing collections. Each subject will be the subject of a fictional “conversation” between the two women, as imagined (and simulated through cinematographic hoodoo) by film director Baz Luhrmann.

Left: George Hoyningen-Huené (Russian, 1900–1968), Portrait of Elsa Schiaparelli, 1932. Hoyningen-Huené/Vogue/Condé Nast Archive. Copyright © Condé Nast.

Right: Guido Harari (Italian, born Cairo, 1952), Portrait of Miuccia Prada, 1999. Guido Harari/Contrasto/Redux.

According to a recent press release from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, these  are the aforementioned subjects:

 “Waist Up/Waist Down” will look at Schiaparelli’s use of decorative detailing as a response to restaurant dressing in the heyday of 1930s café society, while showing Prada’s below-the-waist focus as a symbolic expression of modernity and femininity. An accessories subsection of this gallery called “Neck Up/Knees Down” will showcase Schiaparelli’s hats and Prada’s footwear.

 “Waist Up/Waist Down”

 “Waist Up/Waist Down”

 “Ugly Chic” will reveal how both women subvert ideals of beauty and glamour by playing with good and bad taste through color, prints, and textiles.

 “Naïf Chic” will focus on Schiaparelli and Prada’s adoption of a girlish sensibility to subvert expectations of age-appropriate dressing.

 “The Classical Body,” which also incorporates “The Pagan Body,” explores the designers’ engagement with antiquity through the gaze of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

 “The Exotic Body” will explore the influence of Eastern cultures through fabrics such as lamé, and silhouettes such as saris and sarongs.

 “The Surreal Body” in the final gallery will illustrate how both women affect contemporary images of the female body through Surrealistic practices such as displacement, playing with scale, and blurring the boundaries between reality and illusion as well as the natural and the artificial.

 “The Surreal Body”

The exhibition will showcase approximately ninety designs and thirty accessories by Schiaparelli (1890–1973) from the late 1920s to the early 1950s and by Prada from the late 1980s to the present. Drawn from The Costume Institute’s collection and the Prada Archive, as well as other institutions and private collections, signature objects by both designers will be arranged in seven themed galleries: “Waist Up/Waist Down,” “Ugly Chic,” “Hard Chic,” “Naïf Chic,” “The Classical Body,” “The Exotic Body,” and “The Surreal Body.”

Schiaparelli, who worked in Paris from the 1920s until her house closed in 1954, was closely associated with the Surrealist movement and created such iconic pieces as the “Tear” dress, the “Shoe” hat, and the “Bug” necklace. Prada, who holds a degree in political science, took over her family’s Milan-based business in 1978, and focuses on fashion that reflects the eclectic nature of Postmodernism.

While the Metropolitan Museum of Art prepares for the follow-up to the record breaking Alexander McQueen tribute exhibition Savage Beauty in New York, fashion insiders at Milan Fashion Week have been treated to a preview of the gallery’s upcoming Prada/Schiaparelli exhibition.

The exhibition will open with the fashion industry’s version of  The Oscars – The Costume Institute Gala’s Met Ball – taking place on May 7th, 2012.

The catalogue also offers images of Diana Vreeland and Schiaparelli herself by the likes of Man Ray, André Durst, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, and Horst—which makes the book just as covetable as a ticket to the exhibition. Start lining up now!

Ancient Baths Luxury Open in TriBeCa, NYC

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Ancient Baths New York

A Spanish company is making a splash bringing ancient baths to TriBeCa.

Three stories, 15,000 square-feet, thermal soaking tubs and jet-propelled pools; TriBeCa warmly welcomes AIRE Ancient Baths to Franklin Street.

 Grupo Aire, the Spanish company behind this $10 million project, is well-versed in the luxury wellness industry with Ancient Baths in Barcelona, Seville, and Almeria.  Ignacio Alonso, from Estudio De Arquitectura Alonso Balaguer, was the architect.

  Steam baths intensified with aromatherapy, jet-propelled fountains, and cold, hot, and warm pools. Spa services and fresh organic juices. If you can’t get rejuvenated here, it may be time to lay off the speed.

 Housed in a cast-iron building from 1800′s, the exposed, original bricks and large wooden beams are softly lit by candles setting the mood for the ultimate R&R experience at this oasis.

  Inspired by ancient practices from the Greeks and Romans, you can expect nothing but the best from the services, soaking baths and steam rooms here.

Ancient Baths also offers a variety of soothing massage for face and body, accompanied by a flute of champagne. Pure luxury!

AIRE Ancient Baths

86-88 Franklin Street /             1 212 274 3777

Pictures: Courtesy of AIRE Ancient Baths