The Fendi fall 2010 ready to wear collection was a mixture of the fabulous and the truly awful. On the fabulous end was a parade of some of the most gorgeous black cocktail and day dresses we've seen in a long time. Paired with sophisticated navy accents and shoes, the dresses also had fabulous black swing coats. (The section of black clothing starts at around the 5:39 mark)
On the truly awful end was Karl Lagerfeld's collection of patchwork (real) fur coats. They were truly hideous. The separates were a 1940's/1970s/1980s hybrid with lots of unflattering dirndl and circle skirts, layered with belts and sweaters. It would be difficult to find a more unflattering skirt shape than the dirndl. It's guaranteed to add twenty pounds to your hips in an instant. The trapeze shape and the A-line dominated.
Here's the entire collection: this video is without sound.
In a new interview with the German magazine Freundin Karl Lagerfeld dismisses the idea that he is ready to retire from Chanel anytime soon. According to Handbag.com Karl isn't going anywhere. As for his weight, Karl says that elastic waists are the enemy of thinness.
The 76-year-old designer has swatted away persistent rumours that he is set to stand down from his position as the helm of Chanel, insisting, "The world can count on me for a long time."
"Retirement is not one of the topics with which I deal. Why should I?" he says. "I still have so many projects that I sometimes don't know where to begin. Chanel will still need some clothes when I'm 89."
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Lagerfeld, who famously shed 42kg in order to fit into the slim silhouette championed by Hedi Slimane at Dior Homme, counters that he's fighting fit. His secret to maintaining a healthy diet? Step away from the jogging pants.
"Those things are dangerous because they have an elastic band," he told Freundin, a glossy based in his native Germany. "It stretches and then you don't know when you put on weight. I hate it when you let yourself go! I'm always looking the way you see me now."
Karl designs for Chanel, his own label and for Fendi. He also is a photographer and runs his own publishing house. It has been rumored that Alber Elbaz of Lanvin will take over at Chanel when Karl steps down, but Elbaz has dismissed those rumors.
We're not really used to seeing a kinder, gentler Karl Lagerfeld. But that is the Karl that Milan saw when he sent his feminine, light, romantic collection for Fendi down the runway. The models all wore six inch heels that featured lucite platforms and ribbon ties. The girls could barely walk, so that gave the audience more time to look at each piece. The palette was mostly pastels, with gauzy, billowing skirts, shirts and dresses and an occasional pop of color. Karl called it the "soutien gorgeous" look, making up a new term which is a play on the French term for brassiere, soutien gorge. There were quite a few peek-a-boo bras in the collection, which means that the lingerie look is back. The black and white pieces were especially pretty.
The frayed end trend -- which also showed up at Prada -- was in full evidence. Karl explained the unfinished, raw edges thusly: "It's about new clothes, but taken apart again." It's sheer nonsense, of course, but that's Karl. Sometimes we wonder if he pushes things far enough just to see what he can by with. He does have a wicked sense of humor and can sell anything to anyone, as he has admitted in past interviews. Ripped, shredded and frayed will be a definite, yet mercifully short-lived, trend next spring. Take a look:
Recession Causes Upscale Stores to Drop the Haughty Attitude
The recession is changing the way upscale boutiques approach customers. Service that used to be haughty is now downright friendly -- even if the customer is wearing jeans and a t-shirt and doesn't seem like she could afford the store's wares.
As the luxury goods industry suffers a massive slump in sales - many sales clerks at designer stores who were famously haughty and patronizing suddenly have changed their styles. In the boom times, the aloof service was part of the exclusive aura cultivated by some brands, sending a message that only the coolest or richest customers were worthy of a purchase. Now, "that arrogant and snobby attitude of feeling people should be grateful to buy at their temple is a dinosaur mentality that is going extinct," says Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a consumer-research firm. "Now those brands have to be grateful for a customer."
Retailers generally don't want to discuss the shift in service. Bottega Veneta and Paul Stuart declined to comment and Chanel and Fendi did not respond to requests for comment. But some do acknowledge that they've instructed their sales clerks to be less abrupt, spend more time with customers and refrain from being pushy.
At Neiman Marcus, sales associates are being encouraged to be "more patient" with customers. "We have seen that customers are more anxious and there is some concern out there," says Ginger Reeder, a spokeswoman for Neiman Marcus. "So it behooves all of us to remember to be a little more patient."
The whole snooty service thing is ridiculous anyway. There are many stories of sales clerks turning away young rap stars, only to find out that the young man in a t-shirt and baggy jeans could have bought the entire inventory of the store with his American Express black card. In any event, politeness is a good thing.
There is another side to the new friendliness: many customers feel harassed by sales clerks who are too attentive, making the customer feel stalked. Apparently, it's hard to find a happy medium.
LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton is pulling the plug on its just relaunched Fendi fragrance business. The line has only one fragrance on the market, which is being discontinued.
The company will stop selling its Fendi Palazzo women's fragrance, which it introduced in 2007, due to sales that "while encouraging, didn't meet expectations” in 2008, stated Gabriella Scarpa, country general manager for LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics in Italy. At the time of its introduction, industry sources estimated Palazzo would ring up $50 million in global retail revenues during its first year on counter.
An LVMH spokesman in Italy declined further comment, but market sources believe that despite the setback, Fendi will forge ahead with a fragrance business at a later date.
Palazzo was Fendi's first major fragrance launch in collaboration with the company's distribution partner, Christian Dior Perfumes and Cosmetics. Unveiled at a major press event in Rome in summer 2007, Palazzo was Fendi's first scent to be introduced since the mid-Eighties. Its rectangular bottle with a graphic black sketch of a building was meant to resemble Fendi's headquarters. Karl Lagerfeld shot images for Palazzo's ad and also for a storybook, called Palazzo, to accompany the scent's launch.
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"Perhaps their expectations were too big," said Antonella Mandelli, general manager of Mazzolari, one of Milan's leading perfumeries. "It's a very strong signal they are sending out, as they realized it wasn't performing how they wanted it to. Other companies should have the courage to do the same thing."
Essentially the entire project didn't pan out, so LVMH cut its losses. Right now all divisions are under a microscope and those that aren't profitable face a dim future.
Our obsession with large sunglasses shows no signs of abating any time soon, especially after we saw these darling Fendi Zucca large plastic sunglasses with the signature Zucca logo on the arms. They come in either black or brown and are available at Bloomingdales, where they retail for $200.
Mercifully, the trend of gigantic handbags continues throughout fall and winter. We do love those giant handbags, and don't care what the men around us say about our Jurassic-sized tote bags. This new Fendi
Selleria Zucca Linda Bag caught our eye at Eluxury.com. The classic Zucca jacquard fabric is banded with brown Selleria leather and retails for $1,360.00. The dimensions are 13.5" x 10.5" x 4.5", so you can't really call it gigantic. But it will do for now.
Time magazine has an interesting article in the March 28th issue called, "If You've Got it, Flaunt It" which discusses major designers' plans to thwart consumers copying their looks on the cheap.
Karl Lagerfeld is used to being imitated. "Chanel called it flattery," he shrugs. "For me, it's good because it pushes me to things they can't copy." By Chanel, he means Coco, the founder of the label Lagerfeld has headed for 22 years. "They" are spry fashion chains such as Zara and H&M, whose skill at reproducing luxury looks at affordable prices is driving designers to more-difficult-to-emulate extravagance in their ready-to-wear collections. At the recent shows in Milan and Paris, even the most jaded front-row fashionistas leaned forward for a closer look at the swaths of excess. On Chanel's runway, there were tweeds that on closer inspection proved to be feather-light embroidery on tulle; at Dior, there was a flight jacket, loosely inspired by The Aviator, in ruby-red mink trimmed with crocodile, and a trench coat mixing the same exotic materials. "Will we sell the crocodile?" asks Sydney Toledano, Dior's CEO. "Of course. If you are competing based on production and cost, it's tough. If you go with a more unique position, then you can lead. You need to watch the top line, not only the bottom line."
The article goes on to state that the high-end luxury lines are booming, as are the inexpensive lines; it's the middle-priced lines that are in trouble in today's retail economy. For example, the new $4,825 velvet-and-tulle Fendi Spy bag for fall 2005 already has a 100+ strong waitlist.
LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton is 
Our obsession with large sunglasses shows no signs of abating any time soon, especially after we saw these darling Fendi Zucca large plastic sunglasses with the signature Zucca logo on the arms. They come in either black or brown and are available at 
Mercifully, the trend of gigantic handbags continues throughout fall and winter. We do love those giant handbags, and don't care what the men around us say about our Jurassic-sized tote bags. This new Fendi
Selleria Zucca Linda Bag caught our eye at Eluxury.com. The classic Zucca jacquard fabric is banded with brown Selleria leather and retails for $1,360.00. The dimensions are 13.5" x 10.5" x 4.5", so you can't really call it gigantic. But it will do for now.
