Edited by Lester Brathwaite
While New Yorkers will be clamoring over the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s ”Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations,” Londoners can feast their eyes on the 175-year history of Hermès at “Leather Forever.”
Edited by Lester Brathwaite
The Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s annual Costume Institute Gala is tirelessly referred to as the Oscars of fashion and it certainly ranks as the industry’s glitziest and most glamorous night. But unlike the Oscars red carpet, where actresses willfully play it safe for fear of a career-defining performance on the worst dressed list, at the Met Gala the balls are to the haute couture wall. This is Fashion with a capital effin’ F. Sometimes the results are truly stunning and other times they’re…how can I put this gently…god-awful. Let’s take a look back at the Met Gala’s greatest hits and misses.
Edited by Lester Brathwaite
If you’re like this gal, you’ve always wanted/desired/demanded a ticket to the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute Gala. Well get ready for the next best thing as this year’s Gala red carpet will be live streamed.
Edited by Amanda Gabriele
LOOKBOOKS contributor Alex Hahn visits the Demolition Depot in Harlem to step back in time and discover centuries of architectural salvage. Check out his experience and interview with the owner below.
It’s a rare and wonderful thing to feel lost, overwhelmed and inspired. Losing oneself to a vast, sprawling inventory of fragmented history never felt as good as a trip to the Demolition Depot, an architectural salvage company, possibly the largest institution of it’s kind. With a history dating back 41 years and an inventory that proves both intimidating and inspiring, Demolition Depot demands your respect. No one can help but feel inspired by simply wandering around the three stories of stained glass, doors, windows, 18-foot-tall mirrors, furniture from all places and times, carved granite frescos, intricate paving stones made from marble, stone columns, old English telephone booths, door knobs, 8-foot-tall clock faces and mirrored wall panels from some of the most opulent homes imaginable (just to name a small fraction of inventory). All of this can make even the most well-adapted Manhattan apartment dweller long for space to design and meld all of this wonderful old with some new.
Edited by Lester Brathwaite
Way before Takashi Murakami splattered paint all over Louis Vuitton, Salvador Dalí and Elsa Schiaparelli pioneered the artist and designer collaboration.
Edited by Lester Brathwaite
The Elsa Schiaparelli-Miuccia Prada Costume Institute exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is still months away, but why not get the buzz rolling early on? Backstage after her celebrity-filled men’s show in Milan, Prada appeared not too enthused about the upcoming exhibit, saying: ”It’s too formal. They are focused on similarities, comparing feather with feather, ethnic with ethnic, but they are not taking into consideration that we are talking about two different eras, and that [Schiaparelli and I] are total opposite. I told them, but they don’t care.” Now, her namesake label claims these comments were “taken out of context.”
Edited by Jessica Lapidos
You like your jewelry handmade locally. You value the artist and the precious stones and gold as the natural and manifested wonder they are. Sadly much of the metals and jewels harvested for jewelry comes from suspect places. Places that send children into mines and practice unjust businesses have their product widespread. Which is why Donna Distefano is strictly conscious about where she sources her stones and metals. She gets her rubies and sapphires from community run mines Malawi; they are the finest. She found clean artisan diamonds in Botswana. The problem you run into with gold is that mercury naturally leeches gold out of the earth, causing awful effects to biodiversity. Instead, she only uses recycled gold, and she gives a far better price than those guys in the CASH FOR GOLD commercials. She learned the ancient goldsmith methods from her work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and now she makes each piece in the same space she sells her work directly.
Edited by Lester Brathwaite
The Design Museum has nominated the Duchess of Cambridge’s Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen royal wedding dress for its Design of the Year award, along with the 2012 Olympic torch and the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit.
Edited by Lester Brathwaite
‘Twas one hell of a year for fashion, 2011. Alexander McQueen triumphed this year thanks to a pair of well-documented dresses and a bona fide cultural phenomenon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Christian Dior tried to rebound from a potential PR nightmare, to varying degrees of success. Diffusion lines easily out-shined their designer homes. An editrix reinvented herself amidst a sea of rumors without losing a beat. And underaged fashionistas grew up in front of our very eyes. Here are our picks for the 25 most memorable and stylish moments of 2011.
Edited by Lester Brathwaite
Keeping a secret in this day and age is pretty much unheard of, so the fact that the designer of Kate Middleton‘s wedding dress wasn’t revealed until the future Duchess of Cambridge elegantly alighted at Buckingham Palace was somewhat of a small miracle. But the Royal Family doesn’t eff around and had Alexander McQueen‘s creative head, Sarah Burton, sign a confidentiality agreement, meaning she couldn’t even tell her parents about the once in a lifetime opportunity.
