La Vie En Rose

Chloe's Own

All the cynics assuming Chloe Sevigny is just lending her name and style sense to the spring collection she’s doing for Opening Ceremony can go focus their disdain elsewhere. She really is designing it all by herself.

Word the acting fashion plate has jumped onto the New York fashion week schedule with her very own collection has put many an editor and the lot into a state of frenzied speculation—specifically, that it will invariably be a bunch of vintage-sourced, one-offs.
But wait? Surely, they must be confusing it with Imitation of Christ, the line she once acted as creative director on during its halcyon, headline-grabbing inception. Just what’s on Chloe’s mind these days will be revealed when the co-branded line for Opening Ceremony goes on show at the Manhattan boutique on Sept. 10, between noon and 6 p.m. But I can tell you it’s not what you might expect…

The news comes just a week after her old partner Tara Subkoff announced she’d sold off the Imitation name to Josh Sparks, former ceo of Aussie label Sass & Bide. He’s enlisted Kasia Bilinski, a New York designer whose CV includes ThreeAsFour, Tse and Richard Chai, to oversee the all-new contemporary (spells affordable as in $110-$380) line which will roll out in stores as a capsule group this fall. Subkoff, who’s still settling into her new house in Silverlake, still owns the IOC name and will focus on it alone. “I just want to design,” she told me recently on a gift-shop stop at A+R. “The whole business side of fashion is such drama.”

The Goon Squad Cometh

Sooner or later, everyone gets into the act. The music industry is floundering so it's turning to fashion for salvation. And in the face of mind-numbing conformity in an over-saturated marketplace, fashion brands continue to struggle for credibility and cool to define themselves by globbing on to anything with a loud guitar and a razor-edge haircut. Just skip through Thursday's Grammy-timed Music Issue of Women's Wear Daily. Being that it is the apparel industry paper, the coverage focuses on the synergy between fashion and music. In this annual installment, it's the partnership between Levi's Aussie division and Melbourne marketing firm Rodriguez in the launch of Levity, a record label divined to "mentor new bands for six to 12 months, providing funding for the release of an EP, promotion and distribution within Australia and New Zealand before letting them move on to bigger music labels." Then there's the confounding Grammy fashion brand. That's right. Despite (or because of) faltering ratings, the music awards show has decided to go into the rag trade with what it's billing as a "high-end" 70-piece collection created with various brands (leather jackets from 3J Workshop, jewelry with Madeline Beth, shoes by Salpy). The range starts at $50 for a T-shirt and hits $7,000 for diamond-encrusted eyewear.

Why expect rock fans to shell out for something that might be confused for a branded give-away? Recording Academy flak Evan Greene tells WWD: "It's really about the way music makes us feel." Just when the overwhelming feeling of nausea starts up, this other feel-good factoid fights to counter it: 20 percent of a portion of proceeds from sales benefit the Grammy Foundation, which promotes music and arts education, and MusiCares, helping musicians in need. A portion? Of proceeds? Can they slice the fraction any more? Read the fine print, kids. Better yet, skip the blingy eyewear and write a check for the seven G's in the name of the music program at your local school.

Chloe Sevigny Does Rehab

Made you look. So by now you may have already dug into your fat September copy of Harper's Bazaar Fall Fashion issue. Just like to take a moment to toot my feature, "They Tried to Make Me Go to Rehab." It's the one with the 12 pages of Chloe Sevigny, acting her way through a series of the kind of scenarios we've all become too familiar with seeing or hearing about this last year.
My story examines the culture of rehab that has manifested of late, where the very act of seeking out recovery from alcohol and drug abuse has become a public relations opp. Consider the

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Image Parties Like it's 1912

Seven months of hard work launching the Los Angeles Times new style section IMAGE came to a riotous halt Thursday night as the crew and members of the city's fashion community came together to celebrate its very existence. After all, fashion is among the state's top three industries, and certainly among its prime exports. Yet it took a while for the powers at the paper to finally get behind a dedicated section. They have, and complete with billboards, theater trailers and, yes, a bash at the Beverly Hills Hotel's newest lounge, Nineteen12 (so named after the year the Pink Palace opened). Among the 500 or so who came out--including designers Gregory Parkinson, J.C. Obando, Tarina Tarantino, Magda Berliner, Henry Duarte, Corey Lynn Calter, etal--to shoot back tubes of a frothy pink margarita and gelatin martini shots that resembled eyeballs were rececnt Image cover stars Milo Ventimiglia of NBC's "Heroes" (Image's Adam Tschorn penned that great feature in June), and
Lauren Conrad of MTV's "The Hills" (I wrote about our adventure in Santee Alley in last Sunday's paper. She's actually quite likeable.). The night was also about welcoming the team's newest members: Monica Corcoran (formerly of Variety) and Emili Vesilind (ex-WWD), as well as toasting the official naming of uber fashion critic Booth Moore to the editor helm of IMAGE.

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California Design Biennial 2007

For what is really at the forefront of L.A. fashion, beeline it to the Pasadena Museum of California Art CaDesign07. This wide-reaching show, exhibiting the latest in homegrown design, from cars to cooking tongs and in its third year, focuses an especially bright spotlight this time on fashion design.
No doubt the presence of Lisa Love, the influential west coast editor for Vogue who’s championed Rodarte, Rick Owens, Libertine and Trovata to her even more influential boss, is part of the reason. The show, which opened this weekend and runs through September 30, underscores that there’s a whole lot more going on here than fast-fashion and surf wear (important as they are to the cultural fabric and the economy). There is also a whole wave of thoughtful, energetic designers who are following in the footsteps of L.A. predecessors such as James Galanos, Rudi Gernreich and Richard Tyler, striving to craft clothes and accessories that are cleverly imagined and carefully constructed.
Represented in this year’s biennial are ...

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Buzzcocks Rock.Period

If the apotheosis of style is substance, true and through, then The Buzzcocks proved they’re about as stylish as a rock band can come.
In Silverlake for this weekend’s Sunset Junction fest, they did a bonus warm-up gig Friday night at Spaceland and proved they’re as insanely amazing as I remember the first time I saw them 100 years ago.
Original members Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle didn’t disappoint, even down to their signature wacked shirts. Bassist Tony Barber trumped them both in his Vivienne Westwood tee featuring the naked cowboys butting cocks. Front and center, Andy and I and, frankly, much of the sold-out house beared out even an old bunch of geezers like us can still slam. Ok, so I clocked the bony shoulder in front of me with my face and ended up the next day with a shiner. But since then it’s been a colorful opener when I retell the experience of the show to friends and customers at A+R. Even got a yellow “Orgasmatic” shirt.
Opening the show was local mod-power-punk-pop act The Adored who could fit right into a playlist with The Who, The Jam, The Ramones and, ya, The Buzzcocks, who they opened for on a recent UK tour. Pete Shelley came onstage to lead the band, which now included a chic chick at the keyboard who also appeared out of nowhere, in a rousing rendition of “Homosapien,” that obviously turned the house inside out. We hadn’t seen The Adored before but will definitely make a point of catching them live again.

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Muse Chanel

Had to share this stunning work by Johan Creten, part of the collection of contemporary works showcased in thew newly overhauled Chanel flagship on Rodeo Drive. As part of my feature on the new door running in this Sunday's L.A. Times Image (so I won't give away everything here), I was first in line yesterday to preview the four-floor, 14,700-square-foot marvel. At this point, I'm admittedly jaded when it comes to grand retail palaces, even those, like this one, by starchitect Peter Marino. But Marino's efforts here deserve a visit--even if you don't care about the clothes. In the fine jewelry salon, find this delicately rendered torso, covered in hand-pressed, Sevres bisque carnelias. The Flemish Creten, here for the install, enthusiastically nudged me where to stand, at varying angles, to get the full effect. "There's a lot of movement to the piece, actually. I'm happy to be a part of this, because these kinds of details--the art--will make your experience here more than about shopping," he told me. Artist Jean-Michel Othoniel was there, too, and his 105-foot-long "necklace" strung from fist-size Murano glass beads lined in gold leaf is breathtaking. (It hangs in the second floor window of the ready-to-wear salon.) For that matter, so are the leather banquettes woven to resemble CC's signature tweed, the coffee tables (including a Fredrickson/Stallard glass box stuffed with white feathers) and even the walls textured in a mixture of gel, gold leaf and art.

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Nylon Goes Urban

I love Nylon because it’s consistently kept its focus, including a kind of Technicolor wonder and excitement over whatever the latest batch of teens are doing next. It’s also been fascinating watching founding ed Marvin Scott Jarrett’s next move in expanding the brand. There was the recent music issue totally tied to MySpace. Then yesterday, the mag announced it’s diving into retail with its very own “shop” inside 113 Urban Outfitters stores. Stacks of the latest issue and branded Tees are among the offerings, of course. But there’s also a full collection of fashion, and jewelry, housewares and toys such as a Zune MP3 player in the offing by holiday. Cha-ching, cha-ching.
The Plastiscines--who couldn’t be more tailored for the Nylon aesthetic, from their neo-new wave sound to the cute edginess of the four French members—kick off the collaboration between the mag and retail giant with a concert at the SoHo Urban Outfitters Sept. 6. They also proved perfect poster girls to model looks from the new partnership, as snapped by Jarrett himself.

Duarte is a Rolling Stone

He's patched leather jeans for Robert Plant, Lenny Kravitz and Steven Tyler, and now L.A. designer Henry Duarte is sharing his sense of luxe rock wear as the new creative director of Trunk Ltd., a brand that already boasts licenses with more than 60 artists, bands and their estates, including The Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, The Beatles and Janis Joplin. In fact, Trunk founder Brad Beckerman left the building in late spring once his interest was acquired by Live Nation, the concert promotion and venue company. At a recent party, Henry seemed particularly giddy about coming on aboard--even if it does mean putting his signature collection on hold while he focuses on the spring '08 collection, which buyers and editors will finally preview at the Project Show in Vegas next month. It might finally be a relief, too. Duarte's got an amazing sense of rock style and vintage music history, but a career of rotten partnerships and other challenges hasn't exactly made for a smooth biz. As for the Trunk venture, don't expect any leather just yet. Through next summer, the emphasis remains those bread-and-butter hoodies and Ts, although Henry's already messing around with the collars, fabrics and cuts.

Lagerfeld Gallery

Leave it to Karl Lagerfeld to teach his fans a thing or two about what they must know right this minute in art. With the re-opening next week of the 90210 flagship, Chanel announced it's adding two more rising stars to an already stellar showcase of contemporary artists, which counts Peter Dayton, Jean-Michel Othoniel and Francois-Xavier Lalanne. The Rodeo Drive temple, newly designed by Peter Marino to resemble a No. 5 Perfume box, will also house the work of Y.Z. Kami, the Iranian-born artist who offers a fin de siecle eeriness with his juxtaposition of paintings and photographs. Also worth a visit to the new store is an up-close look at the sumptuous photographs of Alec Soth, the lauded Minneapolis lensman who just happened to shoot the most haunting pics of the Grand Palais space and guests surrounding a Chanel presentation, as well a portrait of Lagerfeld for his turn on Magnum's latest installment of Fashion Magazine, aptly called "Paris Minnesota." A million-dollar "art party" officially marking the grand opening is in the planning stages for September.

A+R Goes West

It’s official: We’ve signed the lease on an amazing space on Abbot Kinney in the Cali town of Venice! We’re aiming to open this Westside outpost by October, which is the second anniversary of our first A+R shop, on Silverlake Boulevard. At 450 square feet, it’s also twice the size of the east side store.
We’re particularly excited about the location. Not only is the Abbot Kinney culture the closest to Silverlake’s, the owner and architect of the brand-new, award-winning building is Michael Sant of Sant Architects, whose office is just up the block. He’s taken extreme care in selecting the tenants of the commercial space downstairs and the glass-walled lofts above to reflect the architectural aesthetic and public-private mission of the project. A+R will sit between the new luxe beauty shop Vert, owned by H’wood makeup artist Renata Helfman, and chef Hans Röckenwagner’s yummy 3 Square Bakey + Café. Stay tuned for more…

Melrose Gets Moss

The 1938 Steinway baby grand piano, artfully charred by Dutch designer Maarten Baas made it. As did the stunning block column crystal chandeliers surrounding it by Georg Baldele. Yet not everything planned for showcase in the brand-spanking new Moss store on Melrose Avenue made it for the opening party last night, and that was probably a godsend considering the endless line of acolytes come to see what, and who, many design junkies consider is the grand poobah of their affliction.
It’s such a weird night,” Murray Moss told me in that impish, intimate way he has, as if he’s known you since kindergarten. “As you get closer to the night of an opening, you imagine what it will be like when the doors finally open, the theater of it all. Yet you wonder if anyone will come. Then the moment happens.”

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