Pucci: The Pioneering Italian Fashion Brand
Emilio Pucci Friedman, Vanessa Hardcover, 36 x 36 cm (14.2 x 14.2 in.), 416 pages Price: € 150.00 | Amazon.com Pre-order Price: $126.00 ISBN: 978-3-8365-0736-3 Multilingual Edition: Dutch, English, French, German Images are courtesy of www.taschen.com The Prince of Prints, His Vision and Legacy Emilio Pucci (1914-1992) had a passion for women, a visionary sense of style, and an eye for color and design. With these talents he created a fashion house unlike any other. By the early '50s his boutique on the isle of Capri was catering to wealthy sophisticates, heiresses and movie stars buying his "Capri pants", silk scarves and lightweight separates. By the end of the decade, Jacqueline Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were wearing his dresses, and by the mid-60s the label was synonymous with the gilded lifestyle of an international jetset. Today, the house remains as vibrant as ever-Victoria Beckham, Elizabeth Hurley, and Kylie Minogue are adherents-and recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. The Pucci story is a modern epic with its roots in renaissance Italy: the brand's founder, the Marchese Emilio Pucci di Barsento, was a charismatic aristocrat whose lineage extends back to the 14th century. It is a story of evolution: how a family company grew from one tiny store to an international brand with 50 boutiques worldwide (and a presence in 300 more). And finally, it is a tale of innovation: Pucci was one of the first brands to bear a logo, and a pioneer of diversification into interiors, athletic wear and accessories. It introduced free-moving, lightweight fabrics, pop art prints, and a new color palette into womenswear, and constantly pushed fabric and printing technologies. Featuring hundreds of photographs, drawings, and candid shots from the archive of the Emilio Pucci Foundation, this XL tome captures the breathtaking elegance and drama of a unique brand. Vanessa Friedman's text places Emilio's achievements in the context of fashion history, and provides insight into the remarkable Pucci dynasty. Limited edition of 10.000 copies; each unique copy is bound with one of a selection of recent print fabrics from the Pucci collection. About the Author: Vanessa Friedman is fashion editor of the Financial Times, where she writes a weekly style column and edits the Business of Fashion supplements. Previously, she was the features director of UK In Style, and contributed regularly to The Economist, The New Yorker, Vogue, and Entertainment Weekly. About the Editor: Armando Chitolina worked as a design consultant and art director at Vogue Italia and L'Uomo Vogue, and image consultant for fashion houses Moschino and Mila Schön. His TASCHEN titles include William Claxton's Jazz Seen, Gian Paolo Barbieri's Equator, The Book of Tiki, Naked as a Jaybird and Valentino: A Grand Italian Epic. Source and credits: www.taschen.com

Bottega Veneta, Christian Dior & Chanel

Bottega Veneta I pretty much love everything that Tomas Maier does, he seems to have captured the mood of the moment. His collections have the perfect balance of minimalism and detail, looks fabulously luxurious but effortless at the same time, and are completely wearable...read more	Christian Dior Christian Dior presented their 60's cruise-inspired resort collection in Shanghai, which seems to be very much the norm right now with big luxury brands who are trying to woo the Chinese market. I really like this collection, but it feels more spring summer...read more	Chanel The resort shows seem to be an opportunity for the brands to do something a bit unconventional. Chanel did theirs at Saint-Tropez's famous Sénéquier, and the models arrived by speedboat. The casting was fantastic, the girls all look relaxed and like they were on holiday, exactly what you want from resort...read more

Blumarine - Spring Summer 2010 Full Fashion Show Edited

Emilio Pucci Spring 2010 Fashion Show (full)

Burberry Prorsum Spring Summer 2010 - London - Part 2

Burberry Prorsum Spring Summer 2010 - London - Part 1

Louis Vuitton Spring Summer 2010 - Part 2

Louis Vuitton Spring Summer 2010 - Part 1

Christian Dior Spring Summer 2010 Part 2

Christian Dior Spring Summer 2010 Part 1

Gucci - Spring Summer 2010 Full Fashion Show Part 1 - High Definition

Gucci - Spring Summer 2010 Full Fashion Show Part 2

Gucci Fall Winter 2009/2010 Full Show Part 2

Gucci Fall Winter 2009/10 Womenswear Full Show.

Gucci Fall Winter 2009/2010 ad campaign

Gucci Eyewear Spring/Summer 2010

Gucci Spring Summer 2010 Campaign.

Gucci Spring Summer 2010 Ad Campaign

GUCCI SPRING/SUMMER 2010 AD CAMPAIGN

BCBGMaxazria FALL 2010 RUNWAY HAIR&MAKEUP

SPRING 2010 AD CAMPAIGN

 SPRING 2010 AD CAMPAIGN

Salvatore Ferragamo/ Fall Winter 2010

I love this Salvatore Ferragamo collection, the 70s influence combined with amazing textiles and beautiful tones of brown have resulted in a rich, detailed, and luxurious show. Its all about the effortless dressing, the relaxed “prim” blouses, and the easy separates.
I Love…

that there is at least one designer that can make shorts look good for winter. Especially with the metallic shirt and the brogues.

the 1970's inspired sweater vest, frilly blouse, and check trousers.

fantastic cable knits and a great trench coat.

the suede shirt dress.

the luxury hippy.

Ferragamo's version of the Studio 54 dress. Glamourous and fabulous.

All images from Style.com.

Burberry Prorsum Fall Winter 2010

The Burberry Prorsum Fall Winter 2010 outerwear and accessories were available for pre-purchase online immediately after the show. This is a really interesting way to allow consumers to act on their desires for new collection, even though delivery is several months away. I have no doubt the pre-sales will be good because the collection is fantastic, particularly the outerwear.
I Love…

the fine pleating on this dress, and this amazing sheepskin jacket. The zippers seen throughout the collection add an edge to the pieces, particularly here on the evening wear.

another fantastic sheepskin jacket, this time with a double collar and leather strap closures.

this coat, which looks incredibly warm. I'm also loving the thigh high snakeskin boots.

the simplicity of this beautiful a-line military coat with a perfectly proportioned giant collar.

the brown and rust tones on this ponyskin coat.

the shorter, sexier, and more colourful version of the Fall Winter 2010 Burberry jacket, perfect worn for evening.

I Loathe…

absolutely nothing about this outfit, except the fact that she appears to have forgotten to put her pants on ;)But other than that, the jacket, shirt, and boots look hot.

All images from Style.com.

Dolce & Gabbana Fall Winter 2010

This Dolce & Gabbana collection was all about the classic pieces in which their brand is known for: leopard print dresses, sexy tailoring, and corsetry influences.
I Love…

the classic suit worn with a suggestive bustier.

everything about this dress: the striking red, the jeweled waist, the draping, and the lingerie straps. It is very Dolce & Gabbana and very Sicilian.

leopard print and lace. Those words spell Dolce & Gabbana.

the layering of the black lace over the sunshine yellow satin.

tailored suits made from knits.

I Loathe…

tailored jackets worn without pants. But those cami-knickers do look beautiful.

dangerously short hemlines that look strange.

a catwalk full of pantless women.

All images from Style.com.

Where do Fashion Trends Come From?

A Spring Summer 2010 trend feature from online retailer Asos.com.

I’d like to do a Fashion 101 post about fashion trends and forecasting, since it’s an area that I work in, and find quite fascinating. In fact, I am going to write two posts on fashion trends, the first one will focus on how trends come about, and the second one about how magazines present trends. I feel bad for being so mean to the magazines, and revealing their dirty tricks, but in this day of absolute transparency (thanks to the internet), I think its only fair that the readers know how things work. But first, let’s talk about where fashion trends come from.
One of the questions I often get asked is “Why do designers have the same ideas at the same time?” and by answering this, I am sort of answering the question “Where do trends come from?”

A Spring Summer 2010 trend feature from luxury online retailer Net-A-Porter.com.

Designers don’t all have the same ideas at the same time, as we saw on the Fall Winter 2010 catwalks, not everyone was doing the same thing. But there were certainly a few things that repeated: there were a lot more curvy, feminine silhouettes, lots of designers were reviving 90’s minimalism, and there was a lot of sheepskin. So how does this happen? Do they all have a chat and decide what they are going to do? No, in fact its the opposite, designers are very secretive about what they do, until after their catwalk show. They have the same ideas at the same time because they are exposed to similar influences and they are looking for inspiration at the same time.

A Spring Summer 2010 trend feature from Topshop.com.

The fashion industry is small, and whether you are living in Paris, London, or New York, you are going to be exposed to similar inspirational influences as other designers. Firstly, everyone starts their research process after the shows, so in March while most of us were digesting the Fall Winter shows and wondering what we were going to buy come September when the collections were arriving in store, designers are off researching their Spring Summer 2011 collections. They will be looking at similar things, like art exhibitions, new creative work (design, architecture, fine art), new bands or other performance artists, interesting films, new books that have come out (and I don’t mean paperbacks, I mean visual books with creative work, like retrospective books or photography books), etc… Some designers will go off to foreign countries to get inspired, but they may have also been inspired by their last holiday, which was probably to some trendy holiday hotspot that many other designers went to as well. Everyone is exposed to similar ideas, and because designers have often been trained in the same ways, they just tend to move in the same directions. They “feel” things at the same time.

The images from the book Vacant inspired collections by Luella (punk styling), Sonia Rykiel (studs on shoes and knitwear), and Emanuel Ungaro (punk-style clothing.)

I hope this isn’t to vague, but I can give some examples. When I was in Paris in 2000, a book called Vacant: A Diary of the Punk Years 1976-1979 came out. It was full of photos from the punk years, and I remember quite a lot of designers bought it. At the time, studs weren’t that commonplace in fashion (not like today) but there were quite a few designers who were influenced by this book. At Sonia Rykiel, we added these fantastic studded shoes to our collection, inspired by the book. We also stuck studs to our knitwear. At Emanuel Ungaro, they featured punk and rockabilly looks on their catwalk, and blasted Billy Idol during the show. Luella named her collection “Daddy, who were The Clash.” So that punk trend was probably kicked started by the fact that everyone bought that same book.
The next step would be for the magazines to pick up on the “punk” inspiration, and they present it to their readers as the newest trend. I’ll explain more about that part of the process in the next Fashion 101.

Babyshambles and other London indie rock bands inspired Dior Homme.

Was it a coincidence that Sonia Rykiel and Emanuel Ungaro had similar inspirations, when in fact the design teams were friends? No. There is no doubt in my mind that the sharing of ideas between different designers contributes to the fact that there are similarities between collections, even if it is completely unintentional. I remember one season at Sonia Rykiel when we had put a very bright, brash yellow into our collection. we we were worried the the colour was bordering on tacky. Three days before the show, one of our fabric suppliers accidentally delivered a role of fabric to us, which was meant to be going to Louis Vuitton (whose design team, at the time, were very friendly with the designers over at Sonia Rykiel.) Louis Vuitton’s fabric was in the exact shade of yellow that we had put into our collection. The fabric suppliers begged us to return it immediately and not breathe a word about it, which we did. But we also breathed a huge sigh of relief that we weren’t off the mark with our bizarre yellow, because if Louis Vuitton were doing it, then it was definitely going to be cool.

To the left, Sonia Rykiel, other images, Louis Vuitton. All Spring Summer 2000. The yellow looked a lot more garish in real life, in these photos it looks a lot milder.

It is really interesting to track trends through fashion, because you can usually tie trends to something visually exciting that impacted the designers at the time of their research: The Memoirs of a Geisha film came out before Dior did their spectacular Spring Summer 2007 couture show, which was heavily inspired by traditional Japanese kimonos. Chloe’s 2001 horses collection came out shortly after the publication of a book called Rodeo Girl, which featured photographs of cowgirls. In 2005, Hedi Slimane was inspired by the sleazy indie rock bands of Camden Town, like Pete Dogherty and Babyshambles, for his Dior Homme collections.

The Rodeo Girl book inspired this Chloe collection, with images of horses.

So that’s why I tell people who are interested in getting into trend forecasting to be on the ball about…everything. Especially things that are visually interesting. You never know who or what is going to inspire the next major fashion trend.

Memoirs of a Geisha inspired Christian Dior Haute Couture.

Roberto Cavalli Fall Winter 2010

                       Roberto Cavalli's nouveau gypsy girl.      The mix of textures, the brocade pants, and the          soft  layering.

The textiles patterns mixed together. The red brocade, and the animal print on the fur and legging look amazing and this fantastic hippy dress.

Roberto Cavalli closed the annual AFF 2010 with his fall/winter 2010 collection. ANIMAL PRINTS. FUR. FEATHERS. GLADIATORS. SEQUINS. BLING BLING BLING