Couture loses another master?

The fashion world has been given another kick in their stylish pants with the news that Christian Lacroix, the french couture house, has filed for bankruptcy protection today.

The U.S.-owned company has been having major financial issues for years; never making a profit and barely breaking even. Customers have been cancelling or reducing orders and ready-to-wear sales for the fall season were down 35 per cent.

But it's not just Lacroix that's in trouble: Luxury behemoth LVMH just scrapped a plan to open a Louis Vuitton flagship store in Tokyo and earlier this year Chanel laid off 200 temporary employees.

The Times explains the impact of Lacroix's filing:

"The loss of Christian Lacroix to Paris haute couture is immeasurable. Although the designer hopes to hold a small presentation during the July couture season, this was the last house established under the formal couture rules. Even a restructuring would likely have severe implications on his 125-member staff."

But the haute couture market has been on the downturn for a long time; either closing because they didn't make enough of a profit or the great masters have stepped down (or died.)

I wrote an article about the decline of haute couture in Naked Eye magazine and related it to Valentino's retirement. My reason for saying that haute couture was a dying business was because of big business. Couture is not profitable. In fact just putting on an haute couture show can cost millions of dollars which the company will not make back. There are only a handful of people who can afford couture and their numbers are dwindling fast.

So it should be no suprise that Lacroix, renowned for its beautiful couture, is filing for bankruptcy protection. The real money is in accessories and ready-to-wear but even that market is taking a beating since people are realizing that it might be a tad bit insane to spend $1000 on a bag or $3000 on a dress.

The Times says:

"But just as royalty now has less attention than celebrity, so couture has lost its unique prestige, with the word bandied about by any high-end designer. And whereas fragrances produced from the mystique of haute couture once kept the houses afloat, now it is just as likely that a hip jeans brand like Diesel or a celebrity like Jennifer Lopez will have the perfume hit that has stubbornly eluded Lacroix."

So, with Paris Haute Couture week coming quickly in July, will there be one less House showing a collection? A friend of mine thinks that the company will be bailed out but I'm not so sure. Who would want to buy a company that doesn't make money?

But for the sake of fashion, I hope Lacroix will get help and is able to present a collection. We need beautiful clothes to look at now more than ever.

Photos from the Christian Lacroix Spring 2009 Couture show:

Anna Wintour leaving Vogue?

Say it ain't so! What will we do without the Queen B? Page Six is reporting that the Devil herself may be on the outs as her contract expires soon. Their source says:

"Her contract is up soon," an insider said. "She's thinking of retiring. She feels she's done it all and had enough. She has been putting out feelers to intimate friends recommending a possible replacement to S.I. Newhouse. She's so tired out, she just let Men's Vogue close instead of fighting for it."

Vogue will never be the same. But I do see why a change in the magazine would be good.
Consider:

- The horrible cover choices this year (ie. Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Keira Knightley, Gisele and LeBron)

- Ad pages are down

- Anna passed on Project Runway which ended up partnering with Elle magazine whose ad pages are up.

- Men's Vogue has downsized to a point of near death

- Vogue's late-in-the-game reality show, Model.Live wasn't even conceived by Anna.

Rumours have been going around for months that her successor may be a certain European editor but it really could be anybody. I wonder if they will keep it in the Condé Nast family.

Breaking: Facchinetti exiting Valentino

So the rumours are true. WWD is reporting that designer Alessandra Facchinetti is done at Valentino after only two seasons. Her S/S 09 show today will be her last.

Sources tell WWD that longtime Valentino accessories designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli will replace her as head of design.

But rumours also said that Giambattista Valli, who gave a stand-out collection yesterday, is still in consideration for being the company's creative director. The board of directors has to approve the creative director still so is time for another shake-up.

I do wish that Facchinetti was given more time to establish herself within the company rather than be given the boot so quickly. Her haute couture show was a great success and I thought she created beautiful clothes that were perfect for the Valentino woman.
I hope that the company won't suffer as a result of this.

Don't call me 'baby'

Poor Kelly Rutherford's baby. The Gossip Girl mom to Serena named her son Hermes Gustaf Daniel Giersch, after the luxury label, Hermes, because their bags are fabulous. That poor child will have some explaining to do when he grows up. Hopefully he will like bags.

Here are some more appropriate designer baby names that Kelly could have named her child:

- Louis. It's a real name and you could always say you wanted to name your kid after a king who got beheaded. Show off your history knowledge.

- Balenciaga. It's exotic and rolls off the tongue nicely.

- Chloé. You could say you named it after this cool blogger you know.

- Miu Miu. Because you can't stop repeating it. Miu Miu. Miu Miu.

Model no longer anonymous

On Saturday afternoon, a 20-year-old Russian model named Ruslana Korshunova jumped from the balcony of her ninth floor apartment in New York City. Immediately the media jumped on the story, knowing how well the story of a beautiful girl who kills herself would do on an otherwise slow news day. The media called her many things; "the 5'5 head-turner," "green-eyed blonde beauty" and some even mistakenly called her a supermodel even though no one has ever heard of her. Well now everyone knows who she is.

It seemed that Korshunova was working her way up the ranks, like so many other Eastern European models, to become the next Natalia Vodianova or Sasha Pivovarova. Maybe she wouldn't be like those others flaxen blonde beauties who are hot one season and ceremoniously forgotten the next. But her story followed the same plot as all of those forgotten girls. She left home at a young age to send money back to her parents who lived in Kazakhstan.
Korshunova worked for Marc Jacobs, Blumarine, Vera Wang, Paul Smith, DKNY and Moschino; she also starred in a Nina Ricci perfume ad. She shot with Patrick Demarchelier and Paolo Roversi. She had covers for European editions of Vogue and Elle, she had pictures inside American, Japanese, and Italian Vogue. The girl was getting jobs but no one outside of fashion's inner-inner circle knew who she was. To the rest of us, she was just another doll in the fashion parade. It seems that her death has turned her into a "supermodel" although that term is used by the press very loosely.

And even though the world may think she was this glamorous superstar, I'm sure her friends will think of her as the woman they loved. I'm sure they are wondering what possessed her to kill herself just four days before her 21st birthday.
Modeling is a tough and dirty job. Most models are very young and alone when they work. They have to work excruciatingly long hours in sometimes harsh conditions and for not much pay. You have to realize that there are only a handful of models who have "made it" and can command millions for their work. Most toil under anonymity without ever getting a beauty or fashion campaign, or opening a show or being a favorite of Anna Wintour.
Korshunova told UK Elle, of her worst professional experience, "We were in the Alps shooting, high up in the snow, and I was wearing a tiny dress. We were so very cold and it was snowing so hard — we couldn't see a thing. I thought I would not live to see another day."
Perhaps she realized that her dream job was going nowhere. Maybe she was lonely. Clearly, being a model can take a toll, and it finally caught up to her.

Highlights of Sean Avery's diary for Vogue

Sean Avery, in case you didn't know, is an American hockey player who is interning at Vogue. Instead of fetching coffee, unpublished Harry Potter manuscripts and laundry, he gets to sit in on senior editor meetings, help style photoshoots and interview famous people. You know, the real dirty work. So what does the job a million girls would kill for include? Here is a snippet from his blog on MensVogue.com

He loves fashion! And hockey players make fun of him!

Some people question whether I'm straight; others give me compliments. Some women find it a turn-on. My teammates are very supportive and cool about my interest in fashion — sometimes they even ask for my advice on what to wear. But I'd be lying to you if I said that I don't take some verbal abuse from opposing players for the clothes I wear, or for my interest in something — "fashion" — that I think sounds a little frightening to narrow-minded blockheads. I also realize that this isn't necessarily their fault — they think it's what they're supposed to think.

He is super important because he sits in on meetings

I jumped right in. First up was a creative meeting attended by the magazine's senior staff, which gave me a broad look at upcoming shoots, potential covers, and which writers, editors, and photographers were covering which stories. The whole thing is impossible to explain, really — let's just say it was a 4,000-part overview of where the magazine is going and what needed to get done to light up women's faces across America — and, yes, the occasional hockey player.


He has trouble balancing lunch trays

And then it was lunchtime. The cafeteria in the Condé Nast building — which houses Vogue and Men's Vogue and Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and about every other magazine you've ever heard of aside from The Hockey News — is filled with some of the best-looking and best-dressed women in New York. Even aside from that distraction, my first attempt at getting lunch didn't go so well. You see, I needed two trays to hold my plates of beef stroganoff and my salad (which alone could probably feed four) and my two bottles of water and my Jello for dessert. To have two full trays in the Condé Nast cafeteria is like seeing a hockey player wearing skinny jeans — it just doesn't happen. And while my stick-handling on the ice keeps getting better and better, my tray-handling leaves a bit to be desired. I still can't find the girl who fled the cafeteria with beef stroganoff spilled all over her, but just in case she's reading this: You can find me on the twelfth floor, and I owe you a new outfit. I now limit myself to one tray at a time.

He loves clothes and he thinks celebrities are assholes

Two weeks into the job I flew to L.A. to help out on two more, photo shoots, the first for Vogue and the second for the Fashion Rocks supplement, which covers the influence of music on fashion and vice versa — something I pay a lot of attention to. On the first day, I was assigned to a film crew we had shooting B-roll for Vogue.com: My job was to somehow get the B-roll team inside the main photo shoot and secure 20 minutes of shoot time and a quick interview.

Some people might think that pro athletes can be difficult. Generally speaking, this isn't really true. Celebrities are difficult. We waited from noon to 4:30 P.M. and didn't get a minute of film.

Thank God for Day Two and Shoot Two. The photographer was shooting a pop band in a studio. The production lasted for hours and hours, but I had a smile plastered on me all day. This was the first time I was able to have real input into something I love — yes, clothes.

Nina Garcia: What happened

It looks like Nina was let go as fashion director at Elle but was offered the smaller role of editor-at-large. If she accepts, she will still be a judge on the next season of Project Runway, but if she doesn't...well, nothing is clear on that. And all that talk about crying interns and boxes strewn across the floor was false. Too bad. I like the idea of high drama at a fashion magazine, but this is Elle we're talking about, not Vogue. Oooohhhh, I so went there.
I think that Nina is replaceable at the magazine and on the show. Her column didn't interest me and anyone can be a judge on a reality TV show (paging Twiggy!) But I am interested to see whether she will choose to leave the magazine for good or if she can swallow her pride and accept the smaller role. (Photo: Boston.com)

Fashion news roundup

Posh gets dumped...by stores

Victoria's dvb line has been dropped by fancy-dancy U.S. stores Fred Segal and Kitson after poor denim sales and complaints that Posh hasn't done enough promotional work. I guess that means she won't be coming up to Holt Renfrew anytime soon.

Nina Garcia also dumped...by Elle

The fashion director and the magazine have parted ways. Rumour has it that Garcia and creative director Joe Zee have been knocking heads since Zee's arrival. Perhaps Garcia didn't want to share column space.

The Hills is going across the pond

The reality (hehe) show is casting for a British version. Maybe instead of working in fashion and PR, the new girls will try to make it in the pub scene. I know this show will be awesome because Spencer Pratt won't be in it.

Karl Lagerfeld making video game debut

That's right! Uncle Karl is playing a radio DJ for Grand Theft Auto 4 on the Liberty City station K109 The Studio. Apparently, "DJ Karl" picked all of the tracks. Maybe he used his ipod nanny to help him out.