Worldwide Fashion with a dash of hocus-pocus

Women’s Wear Daily has pictures from fashion shows all around the world, while Chic.tv has fashion shows and interviews with fashion experts, including this one about shoe designer Joy Chen.

NBC10’s Lilliana Vazquez fills us in on what to do in case of an ‘oops’ moment, what dresses cover the most occasions – a classic from Diane Von Furstenberg, of course, and more stockings!  These stockings don’t look too professional to us, but could definitely work for after five.

Philly.com’s SnapGlow.TV has up pictures from Philadelphia’s Fashion week that focus on a Russian designer, while Clutch has Halloween makeup ideas.

Philadelphia Fashion Week: Friday

I mentioned last week that I thought it was slightly fishy that all the out-of-town designers scheduled to show at this new Philadelphia Fashion Week thing (and more than half the designers are not from Philly) seemed to be stocked by Matthew Izzo and no other boutiques in Philly that I could find, which seems like less of a coincidence when you note that the creative director of Philly Fashion Week is also Matthew Izzo’s head buyer.

In any event, I only had time to do a rundown of the first night, so in the interest of completeness, I’ll do a brief guide to the designers showing on Friday and Saturday nights as well. Friday today, Saturday (which looks to have far more legit Philly-based designers) tomorrow…

FRIDAY

DESIGNER: Street Star Custom Clothing

BASED IN: South Philly! 12th and Snyder, specifically

DOES: Mostly men’s tattoo-inspired t-shirts with Swarkovski crystals glued on, several of which have catchy slogans like “Satisfaction guaranteed” or “Wanna take a ride on my disco stick!” …except they’re $140.

ALSO: $140 is on sale. And I’m pretty sure this is going to get me furious emails from this guy or his publicist being all “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU PHILISTINE” but christ, Ed Hardy.

DESIGNER: GAR-DE

BASED IN: Manhattan

DOES: Androgynous womenswear

PHILADELPHIA CONNECTION: Sold at Matthew Izzo

ALSO: I keep wanting to tag the syllable “SIL” onto the end of their name.

DESIGNER: Nine Days

BASED IN: New York, as far as I can tell (their site is one page); at least, designer Donwan Harrell’s other lines, PRPS and Akademics, are based there, and it seems that Nine Days is a less-expensive sub-line of Akademics.

DOES: Fancy denim

PHILADELPHIA CONNECTION: Sold at Matthew Izzo, cites Diplo buddies M.I.A. and Santigold as inspiration

ALSO: According to Harell, the main inspiration for Nine Days is the story of Little George:

In 1730 George Scott in the sloop, Little George, sailed from the Guinea Coast with a cargo of 96 captives, 35 of whom were men. Days later the captives slipped out of their shackles and chaines, and at 4:30 in th emorning, attacked the ship and crew, successfully overpowering and imprisoning them in the cabins below deck. The men took control of the ship and guided it back to Sierra Leone coast in NINE DAYS. Where, after exchanging the freedom of the 96 slaves for the freedom of the captain and crew, they abandoned the ship.

Those nine days were about successfully rebelling against a system intent on keeping others in a box… we will never allow ourselves to be slaves. Slaves to stereotypes, labels, and limitations… This nine days is about celebrating you and other like-minded individuals who revolt against the machine. I shout to the world, “I am ruled by no one!”

Really? Is drawing a direct line between “being a slave to fashion” and “being a literal slave on a slave ship in the 1700s” really that tasteful an idea? This goes doubly if your other denim label is marketed as luxury and ultra-exclusive and starts at $250 a pair.

DESIGNER: S.Love

BASED IN: New York

DOES: Men’s and women’s clothing, scarves

PHILADELPHIA CONNECTION: I actually can’t figure this one out; S.Love doesn’t list any stockists in Philadelphia and google’s habit of seeing “S.Love” as “S. Love” makes it very difficult to turn up much but results about LOVE Park and the With Love, Philadelphia campaign.

ALSO: Made and hand-painted in New York.

DESIGNER: Triple 5 Soul

BASED IN: Williamsburg

DOES: A LOT of neat streetwear for men and women.

PHILADELPHIA CONNECTION: This one is sold in a bunch of places, as it’s a legitimately large wholesaler (so much so that they don’t list all their stockists); their T5S footwear line is based in Philly.

ALSO: We like.

Philly Fashion Week: Connect the Dots

Frankly, I haven’t been super psyched about covering the new, much-hyped Philly Fashion Week because of stuff like this, which Phashionista puts very well:

We have to admit, we were a little surprised to learn about the money part since typical “Fashion Weeks” are a free, invite-only event for media, retailers and fashion influencers, but in Philly, the idea is to “invite residents and visitors to celebrate the vibrant fashion, food, and arts and culture scene in Philadelphia,” said Kristie Bergey, executive director of PFW.

“Student” One-Day Passes are $35 each, with 3-Day Passes, $100, “Red Carpet” (though they don’t tell us what this means or includes) One-Day Passes are $75 each with a 3-Day being $150. And they also offer “VIP” tickets starting at a staggering $1500.

On the one hand, it does seem a little blatantly “give me money!” even for fashion; on the other hand, it is the first time an adequately funded group of people look like they might get this thing off the ground, so I feel like I should be supportive.

On the other other hand, more than half of the designers (not counting the student shows from Moore, the Art Institute and Philadelphia University, which are scheduled earlier in the evenings) aren’t even from Philly. But if they’re from out of town, what brings them all to Philadelphia Fashion Week?

Let’s break it down by night and see if we can’t find a common thread:

THURSDAY

DESIGNER: Brooklyn Royalty

BASED IN: Williamsburg

DOES: What appears to be mostly screenprinted t-shirt-type streetwear for men and women

PHILLY CONNECTION: Yes! From their About page:

Though always a Brooklynite at heart, brand director and founder Bob Bland is delighted to have recently purchased a new home in West Philadelphia. A longtime fan of Philly, she has scouted everywhere from Northern Liberties to Clark Park for several years, and is looking forward to moving her garment production and printing operations to the City of Brotherly Love. In her spare time, Bob also designs for another Philadelphia favorite, independent menswear label Duke & Winston.

Another connection: their stuff is sold at Philly boutique Matthew Izzo, at 151 N. 3rd St.

ALSO: Wait, didn’t they already show their Spring 2010 collection? In Brooklyn?

DESIGNER: Wrath Arcane

BASED IN: Cleveland

DOES: Men’s streetwear

PHILLY CONNECTION: Just had trunk show at Matthew Izzo, otherwise not obvious

ALSO: We like.

DESIGNER: Love Brigade

BASED IN: Williamsburg

DOES: Men’s and women’s streetwear

PHILLY CONNECTION: Line available at Matthew Izzo, Dave P played the afterparty for their Spring 2010 collection.

ALSO: OK, so they also showed in Brooklyn already.

DESIGNER: Palmieri Jeans

BASED IN: Philly! In Germantown, near the Awbury Arboretum

DOES: Men’s and women’s jeans

ALSO: Who doesn’t love a good Swarkovski crystal, although I am wondering how comfortable some of these are to sit in.

DESIGNER: Delicious Corsets

BASED IN: Philly! Storefront in the Piazza

DOES: RTW and custom corsets

ALSO: Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if you poke around on Delicious’ website long enough you’re going to happen upon some semi-nude pictures and BDSM terminology that may set off your workplace’s “internet porn!” alarms. So visit with caution if you’re at work.

DESIGNER: Kill City

BASED IN: L.A.

PHILLY CONNECTION: Doesn’t list Philly on its listing of the places it’s sold (those being, nonspecifically, Amsterdamn Antwerpen Barcelona China – Towns Florence LA London NYC Paris Roadtrip Rockshow Silverlake Tokyo Vegas Venice), but it is sold at Matthew Izzo… wait, I’m starting to see a pattern.

Anybody else find it a little off-putting that every single out-of-town designer on the first night has a connection to Matthew Izzo but no other boutiques (as far as I can tell, I looked) in Philadelphia? What say you, Philadelphia Fashion Week?

“Philadelphia Fashion Week is committed to supporting designers sold in our city,” said Michael Anderer, creative director of Philadelphia Fashion Week, partner of CMK Entertainment and head buyer for Matthew Izzo. “There will be runway shows of local designers like Commonwealth Proper, but because we wanted this event to be accessible for everyone—designers and guests—we opened up the criteria to any designer based or sold in our city.”

Sold in our city? Or sold at his store?

OK, I guess since Anderer is the sole creative director of this thing, he may have tapped his business contacts to wrangle up three nights’ worth of shows, what with this being the first year and all. But if you’re going to promote your event as a big local thing and a legit Fashion Week, you probably should keep an eye on making it an opportunity for local designers to show the world what they do (kind of the point of a Fashion Week) rather than an expensive party celebrating your boutique’s selections.

Eh, whatever. I’ll do the rundowns of Friday and Saturday nights tomorrow, and perhaps their lineups will be a bit more exciting/local, but for now I assume you all have attention spans. Sorry I’m such a Negative Nancy, but I may have mentioned that PR annoys the hell out of me.

Fashion’s Night Out… in the Philly suburbs?

King of Prussia Mall, from above

OK, we are indeed a Philadelphia style blog, so I would be remiss not to mention the fact that tonight is the Fashion’s Night Out in King of Prussia. There’s events and trunk shows, all of which you can check out on their website.

However, I’ve (obviously) always kind of disliked the type of fashion stuff in which Philly just tries to parrot New York, because it always seems so completely false. By attempting to do fashion the way New York, the richest, most ridiculous city in the world, does, Philly pretty much ensures that the best it will ever accomplish will be tagging along and nurturing a permanent inferiority complex.

(This is why I haven’t written a ton about the nascent Philly Fashion Week, which will happen October 10-12; rather, that plus the fact that they haven’t been super specific about a lot of things yet, it may become more interesting as more information is posted.)

But the Fashion’s Night Out thing at King of Prussia is exactly what I dislike about this thing with Philly grasping at New York’s coattails. It’s something that started up with Vogue and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and even then the whole thing is pretty much a desperate “Please! Consume our products! Oh god, we’re dying here!”

I can kind of understand why they feel the need to guilt consumers into injecting liquidity into the fashion industry of New York: it’s a huge business there, and New York is the source of a ton of fashion innovation. But when it ends up at the department stores of an enormous, town-sized mall in the Philadelphia suburbs, it just starts to seem… kind of embarrassing. Come hang out at the mall! It’ll be open until 11 p.m.! The wince-worthy copy doesn’t help:

With all this fun, you won’t want to show up solo. Teens can get down at their own party space featuring rockin’ live entertainment.

And neither does the fact that one of the attractions they’re offering is custom Uggs embellishments, christ.

I’ll be doing a post about Philly Fashion Week as it gets closer, so perhaps I can articulate my feelings on this a bit better. But… yeah, I probably won’t be heading out to King of Prussia anytime soon.