November at a glance: prepping for the holidays

·The 5 things to remember about November         

•      Karl Lagerfeld has contracts for life, no renewal and he is free to come and go. I know it's random and you may (or not) have known of it, but on the aftermath of the unexpected departures of Raf Simons and Alber Elbaz from Christian Dior and Lanvin, how appropriate is it? 

•         Man of the moment Alessandro Michele is the recipient of the International Designer Award by the British Fashion Council. Tim Blanks defined him as “the new punk” and somehow it’s the most brilliant description. I considered him more as the Lorenzo de’ Medici of Gucci’s Renaissance. It may sound very nerdy and damn Italian, but punks were the revolutionaries as well as the Medici, just on the other side of the spectrum.

Congratulations with a hefty dose of pride are in order. And, do we want to talk about the gilded bee accessorizing the famous red-green-red Web? By the way, pre-spring show is moving to London, swell move. 

• ·          November is made to prepare for the holidays … yes, and if you live in Miami they begin with infamous Art Basel Miami Beach frenzy. Forget about Thanksgiving, lately I have noticed more subdued outfits for the most celebrated holiday of the year and I suspect  it's because efforts are reserved for 'art baseling'. 

Events, openings, presentations, cocktails kick off the season the first week of December and from there it’s all an escalation. In true Miami Beach style, the tradition of go big or go home has never been taken more seriously. When we were kids, I remember some dates through the year when people would spruce up their best assets: the opening of La Scala opera season was the fur coat, Palm Sunday and Easter were for the first white and pastel outfits from the spring collections, New Year’s Eve for buying red underwear for the night under the auspices of good luck for the year. The kermesse that Art Basel and the satellite fairs bring to town serve for catalysts of shopping, splurging and showing (off) in a healthy (most of the times) competition. 

Some take it as seriously as a debutante ball and for a reason: it's the only chance in this city to be noticed by international press, bloggers, magazine editors, designers, PR mavens, TV honchos and the likes. 

•      Mary Kate Olsen got married to Olivier Sarkozy it was all a secret, all we know is that she is the sister-in-law of Carla Bruni. Life's circles.  

•      Kate Moss and Grace Coddingtons cogitations on Instagram: one only does what she wants when she wants (nothing new) in incognito and the other one thinks it's the most stupid social network ...

 

IN CONCLUSION

November came and went, I moved to a wonderful, spacious new apartment that looks suspended on a secluded Miami historic bay and faces three small natural islands that were wrapped by artist Christo in the late 80s. I have started a new phase of Miami living that it's truest than true. 

The process of honing, decluttering, cleansing you go through before and while packing is deep and intense and it may be helpful to anyone, come along with me to It's a Fashion Life  and join the convo. Have you ever played a minimalism game? 

October at a glance: in which creativity and money clash

Photo by Juergen Teller for System magazine 

In October we usually suffer post-Fashion Month depression, we can’t wait to wear what we have chosen to buy for the current season, alas, deep inside, we would want to wear already what we have seen walking down the runways that will only be available in months from now.

DISCLAIMER: far it be from me mocking the actual psychological condition that afflicts women after delivery or comparing babies with clothing.

These are the most salient happenings in the world of fashion, in which time and creativity struggle with power and money.  

FASHION SCENARIO N.1 Is the system really falling apart?

Raf Simons left his post as a creative director of Christian Dior, one of the most powerful maisons in the world [of fashion]. He announced it with a heartfelt statement, media went berserk, we were all shocked, spent a period of denial that varied from 10 seconds to couple of days, and then we all dove into theories. Boy, how much do we love digging into people’s personal lives and making up stories?

The most striking of all the articles was his exclusive interview with revered journalist Cathy Horyn for System magazine. 2 days after what became his last Christian Dior majestic show, he knew he was going to quit and gave us smoke signs.

“I have no problem with the continuous creative process, because it’s the reason I’m in this world” Simon confessed Ms. Horyn, what he’s not agreeing with is the absence of time, incubation and eventually rejection.

Creative ideas come, pass by you like thunders, the moment you love them and you get excited by them it’s also when you realize they may be ose’, risky, innovative, outrageous, but they are damn good, so you decide to sleep on them. During the night, some other maybe even more outrageous idea might pass by, like a fairy, and in the morning you decide to reject the first and embrace the latter.

Raf Simons didn’t appreciate that

“… there’s no more thinking time. I don’t want to do collections when I am not thinking”.

By the way, digressing here, this theory about ideas coming at you and you accepting or refusing them, comes from a best seller book I bought at the airport on my way to Boston when I realized I had forgotten all my reading material on the table while booking Uber. The book is The Big Magic by big magic sister Elizabeth Gilbert. Without any monetary interest in what I am about to say, I think this book should be read, now and continuously re-read in moments of vivid production, by everybody as a form of companionship, that shoulder to lean on.

More so, it should be read to children, who are the virgin recipients, the vessels of the biggest creative ideas and often compressed to fit in a standardized school system or confined as the black sheep nerdy ones in short sighted families instead of encouraged to experiment and produce breakthrough results.

Thought n.1

I admire Raf as a designer and cherish that little time I have worked in the Milan’s showroom during his tenure at Jil Sander. I gather inspiration from his stand. He knows he is a performer, a hard worker, one that brings results, a perfectionist if you will. Loving and owning the results of your creative (hard) work means passion. He had no more time to savor the fruits of his creative process, as if he were an estranged father to children that would fleet away.

Though n.2

Imagine what he could have delighted us with had he had time on his side?

FASHION SCENARIO N.2 or when do you say, enough is enough?

Photo: Indigital from The Business of Fashion

Alber Elbaz was ousted.

For those of you who are not familiar, he is the tender, talented, timid and triumphant creative director of the house of Lanvin. He resuscitated the fashion house after decades of being dormant, like the Phoenix.

What do you do when your best friend get expelled from school?

This was another unexpected happening, after 14 years of continuous and relentless performance. The situation got sticky, le owner of the empire, madame Wang, seem to be the culprit of the disagreement, considering that not only the entire world (er … all of us outraged by the event) but all Lanvin employees stood up asking for his reinstatement.

Thought n.1

Without comments but just Elbaz’s statement on hand, the scenario here is different: creativity, sensibility, genius have been punished, shut down, with no gratitude or sense of grace.

Bad.

Thought n.2

Time will tell and now the question that lingers in the corridors of showrooms, newspapers, media empires and my little studio is, will he be hired at Dior?

FASHION SCENARIO N.3 or ‘meanwhile, back at the villa’

Photo from The Business of Fashion

Who Is On Next, a designer competition organized by Franca Sozzani EIC of Vogue Italia, in October was held in Dubai where “there’s a lot of energy” according to Sozzani.

Apparently population is composed in majority by Millennials who are eager to accomplish, own, create, produce and show they can. The contest has a purpose, besides just the money that the winner receives in a form of a grant. Talent is rewarded with connections, people that will help them be recognized, investors that will believe in them and trust them with a store or funding for e-commerce.

Thought n.1 

Is Dubai the new land of opportunities like America was for generation X?

Thought n.2

If the system of Fashion is burnt out, will this one give the new generation of creatives the means to grow?

FINAL SCENARIO or ‘are we heading at a congestion point or the revolution has started already?’

 

NYFW in one minute

New York fashion Week is the first of a 28-day marathon I like calling the fashion caravan. From there we go to London, Milan and grand finale in Paris.

Aaaaaaall the bloggers, IT girls, influencers arrive and eeeeeeeeverything is faaaaabulous.

Last season I was invited to attend the Carolina Herrera fall show, February 2015, my first NYC fashion week in ass-freezing temperatures. Also, first fashion week in the social media era for me, all my past ones in Milan, Paris and Florence not even cell phones were around.  Yes as jurassic as I am. It was kind of funky: a surreal behind-the-scenes of the white fenced surrogate reality you see on social media feeds.

Before I bore myself already, read HERE all my confabulations about it and continue.  

All you need to know from the Spring Summer 2016 from the city that never sleeps. 

A few worthy notes

Givenchy: bold move to come and show in NYC on 9/11. Leave it to Riccardo Tisci to make quite the show, an italian at the helm of a French maison in New York. And I am not talking about the KKlan that came in flocks like the invasion of the grasshoppers, I am referring to the homage to love directed artistically by Marina Abramovic. A strong and powerful collection, chapeau.

Oscar de la Renta: it's almost a year we have lost the divine man that will always hold a small tiny little piece in my heart and never know it. This was the third collection designed by Peter Coppng and the first one that screams Oscar. 

Josep Font of Delpozo is a fine couturier.

Proenza Schouler did up their game last season with a twist and this season they did it again. 

DISCLAIMER: some of the comments may be off-putting, but it's me being me, the following are the collections worth remembering. 

Oscar de la Renta

Delpozo: for my dream life, when I will be dressed by a couturier 

Proenza Schouler: I chose a backstage image because I needed the details of yet another incredible collection.

Ralph Lauren: this look doesn't even need a caption, such a classic

Marc Jacobs: because I have always dreamed of a black swan up my sleeve. No seriously the collection is the bomb.

Givenchy jaw dropping

As for the trends, onto another post. 

which ones were your favorites? 

august in 1 minute

IN FASHION TERMS

• Nathalie Massenet left Net-A-Porter, suddenly and unexpectedly for the most.

Could the merger with Yoox really have been the last drop to fill her bucket? You will thank me and The Business of Fashion for the whole story. 

• Style.com is GONE. It is now called Vogue Runway as it was incorporated by Venus-fly-trap US Vogue. I am not a reader, fan nor follower of the Wintour-ed brand and I enter the new era with quite a load of scrupulous questions. I will have the answers as early as next week when Fashion month kicks-off in NYC. The moment of truth though will be when the caravan migrates to Milan.

WHAT HAPPENS IN ROME

• Shut down: everyone is on vacation.

I have worked every August 15 as usual and still, after 19 years, it still bugs me that nobody in the US knows what Ferragosto is and nobody in Italy remembers that.

It is what it is, frustration like confetti.

HURRICANE COUTURE

• Scorching hot: 1000% humidity with temperatures in the high 90s is no good. Anybody willing to convince me that this heat is sexy, chic, elegant and acceptable?

B R I N G I T O N

• August 24 is my friend Fernanda's b'day and the anniversary of the most devastating hurricane that recent history remembers in the Southern Riviera.

That doesn’t make Fernanda a natural disaster, but right up that alley, first week back-to-school we went though the first hurricane scare.  We all bought water, supplies, food, wine, champagne (I don’t drink beer) that will last until Thanksgiving when we will end up donating to Miami Rescue Mission. Trying to make us all look good here.

Note: alcoholic beverages will not make it there, as, some of you may already know it, I have been inducted to the “wining mothers” Hall of Fame.

But this is another story.

• Remember that switching wardrobes every 6 months business? Get ready ‘cause it’s around the corner   

July recap #chicFBapproved

July is a lethargic month in Miami, it took me years to get to terms with it. Back home July is the best of the summer months. It's hot and burning, yet it offers the best of both worlds: beach vibes, the smell of the belle di notte with cicadas, breezy al fresco dinners and chicness. Hence my hashtag for the month #bringmyMediterraneansummerback

It happened in Miami

Swim Week

July also rhymes with swimwear in Miami, the only fashion (trade) show only dedicated to beach wear and a lot of flesh. Check it out here in Italian and here in English.

Meanwhile in Rome

The second week of July is #coutureweek. Called couture, it used to happen in Paris, because of la Chambre, the history we know it. Alas Valentino chartered all buyers, editors and what-nots to admire Mirabilia Romae , the marvels of Rome. It was mesmerizing and it generated the only standing ovation of Couture Week.  Need I say more? When you have a villa Medici o la libreria Casanatense can you expect less than impeccable workmanship and magic?

Wedding of the year – ROYAL ALERT

Pierre Casiraghi and Beatrice Borromeo, nuff said. Patrician meets royal and you have a fairy tale guaranteed for us suckers of the princess life. A link from Vogue Italia showcases the love story, how to dress as a guest, how to be you if you are a gorgeous photogenic blue-blooded off-spring . Warning: gorgeousness displayed.

Into the wild

2 episodes touched ME and several millions around the globe.

·   #CeciltheLion was killed

·   Jane Birkin found out some naughty wrongdoings Hermes is accused of with the very same crocodiles they kill to make her eponymous bag. She doesn’t want her name associated with the company anymore.

It’s a mess.

To infinity and beyond

Pluto Fly By

I have never been so drawn to scientific matters until I met Pluto, the dwarf and youngest of planets. Numbers never sparked my imagination, they bore me. But now looking at humble and magnificent Pluto sending us a picture of his best side, a heart-shaped birth-mark, I am in love. The guy is young, 9 years far away from Earth, made of mountains of ice that doesn’t melt because there is no climate change, GMOs, fracking, Donald Trump. He shows off un-godly below human survival temperature. Peace and tranquility in the hottest July I ever experienced in the Southern Riviera.

Let me move there, alone.

Is there anything I forgot?  * Head over to the COMMENTS and ditch away 

from Steven Meisel to Kate Betts: a hot june in miami

A June with a bang in Miami, a promising season.

Go figure, normally summer is the low season here and yes it took me years to get acquainted with the idea that, while I grew up where summer is the epitome of the high season, I live in the same hemisphere yet this is the time of the year when either you leave and go to … Europe or you stay put until better times come.

ROLE PLAY

The first Monday of the month was sealed with a cocktail at the Moore Building in the Design District celebrating the opening of ‘Role Play’ the Steven Meisel traveling exhibition sponsored by Loewe and Phillips Auctions. Nice groove, pleasant conversations and engaging networking.

Is it Miami up to something that I am missing?Tthis looks like Milan before everyone leaves for the beach: keep up the great job.   

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MY LITTLE PARIS

It continued in Bal Harbour. 

From Vogue to EIC at Harper's Bazaar, Kate Betts, the fashion journalist born under the wings of Mr. John B. Fairchild turned author, drew Miami's crème de la crème of style to Bal Harbour for a lavish luncheon at Makoto hosted by Lara Shriftman and Sarah Harrelson. A reading of her recently launched book ‘My Little Paris’ followed suit at Books & Books which is becoming the new fashion salon literaire in Miami. 

Bal Harbour stepped up its game from when I was working there, starting with the activities around The Fashion Project curated by Cathy Leff. 

#GucciCruiseNYC

This didn't happen in Miami, it was Chelsea, NYC but it marked the calendars as the re-birth of the Gucci legacy.

Cruise was the first collection that Alessandro Michele, th new man at the helm of the Florentine heritage brand, was able to design with enough margin of time. He blocked off a whole City block to have the models strut across a street in Chelsea and walk the catwalk: the cement floor of an art gallery covered in Persian carpets.

Michele’s new Gucci has been called weirdo, nerdy, deliberately grannified, a rag-bag parade of vintage, a fantastical story and a mismatched patchwork of everything. 

In reality the core of the Gucci brand had been long hidden under the carpets like dust, relegated to the closets, stuffed in the attics as a reliquiam of a time gone that we were supposed to forget. 

Michele's sensibility brought it back by digging in those same armoires, those same that one's grandmother has with a romantic and urban feel. 

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credit @angelicahicks on Instagram 

The connection? Fashion, with the capital F

I am kinda breaking the rules by putting together the two fashion conglomerates of Bal Harbor and Miami Design District, that are in an unspoken battle of opposite pulling forces, but I agree with anything they are doing, because they unveiling a new existence of Fashion in Miami. 

7 reasons why you should forget everything you know about New York fashion week

Should George Orwell have assisted the Fall Winter 2015 New York Fashion Week, he would have opened the book like this:

'It was a bright cold day in [February], and the clocks were striking [ten] [when the temperatures dropped to one]'.

When your first time at New York Fashion Week is because you got invited to attend a Carolina Herrera runway show at Lincoln Center, it's Valentine's Day, it will be the coldest NYC winter weekend in twenty years and "50 Shade of Grey" opens in theaters: it's like an apocalyptic version of '1984'. 

There's life before and after a #NYFW

My first fashion job was at Pitti Donna (I know right? other generation, decades ago), then I graduated to Milan Fashion Week, traveled to Paris a couple of times for Paris Fashion Week. New York only matrialized in my itineraries in 2015. 

I would be dishonest to dismiss the excitement, despite the almost half a century of anagraphic years on my shoulders, I felt like Eloise at the Plaza. Actually I was. 

The collection really walks down the runway

The real Karlie Kloss opened and closed the show and it's a statement: nothing more magical, she owns the crowd, the catwalk with the power of her smile (body, legs, stature,posture,walk). You must come to terms that it's no livestream, you are standing there, you end up breathing in every second through your pores. It's the smell of fresh plastic lined up on the pristine catwalk, a vague mix of blowdried hair and make-up. 

Carolina Herrera is the undiscussed Queen of New York Fashion Week and all you can expect was delivered.

Professionalisms from the way A-listers are seated to the grace and elegance of her appearance on the catwalk wearing her signature impeccably pressed white blouse.

What happened in between was flawless fashion by the book, where traditional sophistication meets digital prints while following and mimicking the waves that the water makes. Curvaceous lines were the fil rouge that tied the looks as they were appearing on the catwalk. 

The massive use of flats all throughout the presentation was a regreshing and modern statement, a very #theItalianway one: you don't need heels to feel elegant or make a look so. 

You expect creativity, not a potlock of the best of in a huge meatloaf. 

Inspiration, attention to detail, luxury are all ingredients that weren't spared. 

Bravo!

It feels like winter

• The prohibitive (inhumane)  temperatures shock your flesh, at least those segments of flesh exposed when the doors open to the street, and it's exhilarating, refreshing (baad pun) and invigorating. You are ready to make it. 
• The Nivea handcream in the compact round blue and white tin is your life saviour.
• How about when 'smoke' comes out of your nose and mouth even if you don't speak? It reminded me of when we were kids and pretent to mimick our parents smoking, it puts a smile on my face: I was in a pretent world like when I was a child. 
• I dreamed for this to happen, I went through years of FOMO, actually only the Missing Out part of the acronym. I wanted to attent a a gashion week fall edition because I wanted to proof to everyone and reassure myself that I am not a #thatssoMiami pal clueless of what winter is. 

The real numbers

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• 11 years without seeing snow falling. DONE
• 5 pairs of shoes brought for three days, a record of editing
• 3 layers of legwear worn contemporarily, never happened to me before (at the time of press, before living in Miami, I lived in Milan, Florence, London, Manchester, Grenoble, visited Venice, Paris, Brighton, New York several times in the winter, so I am not really an islander)
• 4 hot chocolates unregretfully drank in one afternoon
• Can we have brunch at 10 and lunch at 1? because we did, regardless the strict fasting rules of fashion week
• the times I thought I had the perfect outfit and I didn't? countless
• The times I was able to fix the wrong look? this calls for arctic polar expedition on heels survival manual and equals the above

What should a fashion week NOT be about but goes viral

This is my Edna Mode corner of stating the facts. 

All opinions are mine and I encourage you to dispute, discuss, rant and disagree with me: GO!

• constructed, manipulated, sponsored street style: must say New York and Milan are infested by it and you must stay away from them like the weed or you end up getting caught in the net of the "bananas", "amazing", "fabulous", ohh and ahh 
• scams: this video and this video show the unfair amount of insolence, ignorance, pretense and clueless presumption we are surrounded by. How many do you know who may very well be in awe of Betsy Ross stars and stripes theme? 
• stylists/rappers/reality TV starlettes improvised designers. Ever stopped for a second to wonder what do  Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Oscar de la Renta have in common? Studying, appreticeship, practice, talent, genius, patience, inspiration, dedication, passion, elegance, style, determination. A real, full, complete, hefty, mesmerizing collection comes down the runway fathered by hard work, technical knowledge, expertise, research, history, legacy. Then stylists help put it together for someone else to wear. In other words, a spaceship cannot be lauched by someone who went to Cape Canaveral on a field trip.  
• was it a New York Fashion Weak to say it with my fellow Italian compat Angelo Flaccavento at Business of Fashion? For as much as I am grateful and forever humbled by having had the chance to be at New York Fashion Week, there are very few moments worth chills or standing ovations. Fashion is not sameness, copy-cat, mocking, aspirational, fast, approximate, DYI. Fashion is not what people see from the outside: a bunch of crazy outfits, people being photographed in the streets and outside Lincoln Center 

I am one of the lucky ones to have had the honor to attend one a few of the real exceptions: i am proud of it as a passionate of all-things fashion and a fashion writer. 

Thank you for letting me tell you my version of it.