Chocolate for Fall

I started to make a styling without a particular theme in mind and I realized that there are lots of chocolate brown clothes this season. I didn't feel like lowering down the intensity of this brown with neutrals, so I chose to contrast it with bright colors.

I love how it turned out, because this season clothes are super comfy and relaxed, well tailored but easy to live in and by any means sacrifices good design.

First: Reed Krakoff blazer, Chloé skirt and Davidelfin tights and heels.
Second: Haider Ackerman jacket, Balenciaga drees and heels.
Third: Burberry Prorsum jacket, Halston dress, Margiela boots.
Forth: Kenzo coat, Bottega Venetta blouse, Guccci trousers and shoes (the pants really are brown, but the lighting makes them purpleish).
Fifth: Balmain coat, Yves Saint Laurent dress, Dior boots.

Every blog that's worthy, has a post about men in heels.

So women have much more clothes that are just reserved for them, the way a smoking was traditionally for men before Yves or ties or cuffs or flannel shirts. Well, actually women have nowadays the power of wearing anything in the mens department without any kind of prejudice, sometimes becomes a powerfull trend and it's even encouraged, like the "boyfriend jeans" or spacey shirts or oxford shoes.

Men have narrow items they got to stick to and anything outside that it's considered to be gay. Cause you know all gay population in the world wants to be girls and wear girls clothes. Sometimes few garments manage to become popular in the men mainstream like those super big skirts for men in the 90's that were styled with Doc Martens or colorful jeans.

Much of what has expanded our vision towards menswear dressing is rock, as in Rock n' Roll. The most masculine example of a man one could think of, besides firefighters and lumberjacks are rock stars, and they by pursuing a more complete show, had dare to wear things only left for women, thights, heels, makeup, and people wouldn't dare to question their manhood.

This post specifically, is about guys who wear heels, but not just dragqueens or rockstars who do them for the show, but normal guys who love fashion and enjoy wearing them on a daily basis. Guys whose styles I respect a lot and are a great influence in my personal way of dressing, but also have open my opinion towards heels for men. At the end is only a matter of personal opinion and a shape you gotta get used to before starting to like it.

Charles Guislain

Igor Dewe

Jean Paul Paula

On top a collage of heels I would wear: Ann Demeulemeester, Nina Ricci, Rick Owens and both from the bottom Balenciaga.

The Charles Guislain and Jean Paul Paula pictures are from Jak and Jil by Tommy Ton, correct me if I'm wrong.

The Post About Menswear

I'm terribly sorry, the lack of posts lately has been unacceptable but I had to leave to Guadalajara and well it has been kind of a vacation. I'm back to regular posting mode now and there are tons of things I want to share, a lot has hapened in fashion since I last wrote about it. Menswear Spring 2011 and Fall 2010 Couture collections were presented.

Let's start with menswear and since I don't really care that much about it I'll just write about my favorite collections; Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten and Comme des Garcons.

Rick Owens inspired in nuns for Fall and the result was as good as usual, his aesthethic is so appealing to me that I could wear every single piece. It's weird how he manages to make thing that could look feminine so rough and masculine.

Ann Demeulemeester had the best idea for her show. The whole collection was presented in white, thight pants, intricate jackets and rubber boots, then when once thought the show was over, the same utfits came again in black one after the other, replacin cotton for leather.

Dries Van Noten create basics that are just cool and effortless, this time the clothes got their edge by appearing paint dripped or chlorine stained. There were pants, jackets, or coats in peach or salmon that looked awesome with denim.

Comme des Garcons presented skirts, cropped trousers, drop crotch bermudas and overall a great range. It was almost all printed with skulls, checkers or this creatures that reminded me of the forest ghosts in Princess Mononoke.

All the runway pics are from Style.com and the backgrounds are screencaps of: "Esa mujer", "Take On Me" A-ha video, a random youtube video, and "Princes Mononoke".

New Vogue on the Block pt.2

This is the second part of why I liked Vogue Nippon so much, if you happened to miss the first just scroll down or follow this link. I'll start by saying that the last post I wrote about how the magazine shows you the garmets on a bigger scale so you can really see it closely, here's an example.

For the May issue there was a blogger's article, featuring Yvan Rodic, Bryanboy, Jane Aldridge and Tavi, Tavi is even bigger in Japan, she had her own article as well about her trip to Tokyo.

There was also this rad fashion network thing which I could more or less understand because you get to see photos of which person is connected with whom, it's fun. I only wish I knew japanese.

And at the end, horoscopes which have also a nice illustration and changes every month.

In June the McQueen tribute was published with photos from his last collection.

There was this very cool editorial-buy section, where the model was a doll and the designer outfits were done in her size to fit her...

a page which recommended what to wear for different types of wedding and a funeral.

And the last and favorite was this glorious day-by-day journal of every outfit that Anna dello Russo wore during fashion week, my favorite part ever.

Every issue is also featured with critic, review and illustrations from the great Sarah Mower, her drawings are cute.

As you can see Vogue Nippon is the most interactive Vogue, and the editorials are no less impressive I will just post one image and the link on the bottom for you to see them if interested, cause they are all over in the internet, it made no sense to scan them and upload them again.

From May 2010, here's the rest.

From May 2010, here's the rest.

From June 2010, here's the rest.

From June 2010 here's the rest.

Uniforms

My best friend Yuriko gave me the idea of designing a school uniform. I'm no designer and the intention of the blog has never been show to show my doodles, I don't think I have anything worthy of sharing with you in the design department yet. However, this was an incredible idea for a styling, specially since there are so many collections for Fall who look a little 50's, 60's and have that schoolish aesthetic all over them.

As I remember, from my school years, elementary and middle high, we wore uniform. For girls, skirts shouldn't be much higher than the knee and a white blouse and the school sweater complimentes the outfit. I tryed to mantain school rules as much as I could, since they are well, grown-ups clothes some might look like the classroom teacher.

First: Miu Miu blouse, skirt and shoes Louis Vuitton
Second: Celine coat, Missoni skirt, Chloe shoes.
Third: Dolce jacket (that will be closed), Dries Van Noten skirt, Burberry Prorsum boots.
Forth: Chanel jacket, YSL skirt, Calvin Klein boots.
Fith: Proenza Schouler sweater and blouse and purse, Rochas pants and heels.

New Vogue on the Block pt.1

I'll start today with a post I divided in two, so stay tuned for the other part wich I'll try to post at the end of the week.

What may be the main reason for regular people like you and me to not read/buy a fashion magazine? I had give this a serious thought, and a few reasons occured to me. The first may be that not knowing anything about the industry makes less apealing to eagerly know, which model graces a certain cover or what photographer took which photos. Second, we can't buy the gorgeous fashion they are selling because it's way too expensive for our budgets. Finally and most important is that fashion magazines are not really aimed to youth, without Nylon or Teen Vogue, magazines are not that approachable to a younger audience, which happens to care and know about fashion without really caring about surrogacy pregnancy, hormones in fish or the latest non-surgical anti-age procedure.

Teen fashion magazines are often frustrating, since they are so caught up with aiming to regular teenagers that you almost never see real fashion in it's pages. Clothes are usually the same all year round and it's just such a playful approach that just very few times we get interesting photos or editorials in its pages.

Angel my best friend just received from a friend who was studying abroad two issues of Vogue Nippon, and after seeing them and discussing them with him I thought it would be really interesting to share them with you. I was insecure about Vogue Nippon because the covers on the internet seemed a little boring and the same white background from Inez and Vinoodh had got me already tired.

It's a whole different deal once you see it live, the colors are brighter, and the magazine itself it's bigger, heavier and made with really nice paper. The content it's fresh and definitely young, but here the differenece is that the magazine is not trying to teach you about fashion or telling you how you should get dress, instead the magazine assumes that you already know how to and just presents itself. Every section feels a lot lighter and fresh, there's more illustration a thing that I personally miss from fashion and in the buy suggestions clothes are not being modeled by anyone and the photos have bigger size which lets you focus more in the garment. In general, Vogue Nippon has sense of humour and is really fun to read but at the same time is creating beautiful images and presenting photographers riskier work.

Click on each image to see them bigger.

The magazines came with three supplements: Brides, Gioiello and Kids. First two had nice covers.

This are the two covers, May and June. Each issue has a tittle this one where: Street Angels and Country Girl.

A behind-the-scenes article of the May cover.

The directory, I don't get how the editor who is doing such a wonderful job doesn't get as much press coverage as their Vogue colleagues.

This are May and June indexes, they have each a different computer-made motiff.

Here are the beautiful letters from the editor Mitsuko Watanabe featuring illustrations from Yukari Miyagi, cute way of personalizing each. May and June.

This section is great, each month they make a summary of what other editions of Vogue have published around the world, the highlights. In my opinion, it also makes a statement, saying that most of your content is original.

Resort B

So besides my personal opinions, the schedule and the collections are settled and the calendar keeps moving forward, there's nothing better to do than just go with it and keep apreciating what it's been done. If you don't know what I'm talking about the post is for Resort a mid-collection and I wrote about this before here.

There are other collections that I have been liking a lot and I though I would share with you, there's not much to say but just that at the brightside of this mid-seasons is that you get the chance to see more work from your favorite designers or fashion houses, and that it definitely set a preview tone or inspiration for Spring.

Missoni

The Row

Stella McCartney

Versace

Haider Ackermann.