new york street style

a recent bout of street style! next week i'll be back home in houston, texas (helping my mom clean out my room and attending numerous doctors appointments). so expect an update from there. it'll be nice to relax at home with my mommy and our rather old and cantankerous daschund named bon bon.

charlie, a model


the illustrious moya


a lovely girl outside of opening ceremony. her dress is from pixie market and her shoes are jeffrey campbell

mayle pop up store

Visiting the uptown Sigerson Morrison store for a second time with Moya, Most of the pieces had been recieved and, to my eyes, a lace romper had sold out. The shoes still haven't been received yet, however we heard there were going to be three different styles, all fall booties.
We spied 3 different coats, leather shorts and pants, two different styles of tops, two dresses with different color and fabric variations, one dress had a drop waist style in a mayle esque print of black and white, another dress looked very seventies with a necktie, blouse and a-line skirt combo.
the dresses were mayle esque but slightly more of a departure than we've seen before. they felt more bohemian, and a throw back to the mid-seventies in style, which is something we've seen jane reference before, however not this strongly. that being said, the colors/prints were beautiful looking and the shape was well structured.
Moya in the Lala dress (the tie front one)



my obsessions were the accessories- the leather bags and belts. i think, out of everything designed, these were the swan song. jane has always done really well with leather goods and this time around, she didn't disappoint. the bags were beautiful and covetable. the JM tote came in a variety of colors, such as pebble (suede white with black dots), a suede leather combo with green and black. the big billies and little billies came in khaki, wine and black. there was a new billie with smaller handles that sits on the shoulder that came in the previous mentioned colors, but was a suede leather combo.
there was a smaller bag that came in brocade that Moya quite liked.
the belts were amazing and the henri belt (at $295) was a think gold belt with apple bead decoration that sits on the high waist, is something that i put my name down for. i am obsessed with it.



i hope this is a sign that mayle will be producing more things in the near future. bc i almost bought my third billie but i had to remind myself...that i already own two :)

new york fashion week street style and backstage at anna sui

Some of the odds and ends and personal favorites that I shot over New York Fashion Week

I love the amount of color in his outfit, very restrained and yet, it pops just so. The headphones make the outfit.


Beautiful coat


Grace Coddington's hair


Anna Sui







and me.

chictopia summit

right smack dab in the middle of fashion week, was the chictopia media summit that i attended.

what was it like?
well i took a lot of photos, met some interesting folks and literally, sat and listened to people talk (some who were incredibly intelligent and well spoken, others who clearly had no idea why they were on a particular panel). the conference (yeah i'm getting fancy) lasted about 6 hours. including lunch. i skipped out early after the talks were over b/c i didn't feel like attending a small fashion show when i wanted to go see "mon oncle" at film forum instead. (does cinema nerd trump fashion nerd? sometimes they battle it out)

what did i think of it?
to be quite and totally honest here, some of it was worthwhile and some of it was a complete and utter waste of time. but to be upfront, i had very specific expectations of what to expect. since the topic was media and social technology, i assumed it would be something of a lecture style where everybody already has a background in what is going on, so we could get into some intense talking with facts and graphs and want not, which i'm not sure why i thought this since chictopia was throwing it. what i mean by that is i expected a college level lecture on a very specific subject, however with the event being thrown by a social networking site that emphasizes user interaction about clothing and sites itself as a democratization of fashion, why would i assume an incredibly specific lecture? i really shouldn't have.
i do, however, wish chictopia had been more upfront about the possible panel themes and the time frame.
the whole lecture consisted upon virtual and online marketing (only for a second though), how to market your blog and is the fashion industry becoming more exclusive.

what i learned was or rather what i gleaned was:
you need to figure out your brand (for instance ceos of keds and kmart came to speak) and figure out how online and user specific sites relate to your brand. saks, who's main customer is older women with sizable incomes, shouldn't have a twitter that operates the same way urban outfitters does. however, a brand marketing to a younger demographic does need a youtube page, twitter feed and facebook page.
a cool idea that was brought up was how much it cost to market online and is it worth it? a company could be spend thousands online but only receive directly some thousands. however, every person following you on twitter or on facebook gets daily updates on your product and your brand. that brand loyalty really cannot be matched. so maybe they didn't buy something today but the fact that they are receiving information, by choice, about your brand, is something that will lead to them becoming a regular consumer of your product/brand. at least that is the hope, but that is a logical conclusion to make.
so that was interesting.
when it came to talking about your blog, i kind of tuned out. i already know what it takes to make your blog well known, i wrote a paper on it. chictopia stressed content, content, content. what i felt like they should've stresses were these things: timing (most famous bloggers started their blogs in 2006 or 2007, they are famous bc they were there first), content, and numbers (there are so many blogs out there right now, the odds of your blog becoming well known are pretty slim). essentially, now it's really hit or miss.
a better topic would've been how to differentiate your blog from someone else's. liebmarlene, for instance, is from georgia and that sets her apart. tavi is from chicago, jane aldridge is from dallas. they are girls who live in a more relatable america, b/c it's not new york city or LA and yet, even with less abundance of clothing brand availability, they are well known. i think their location helps with that, it adds an interesting detail but also proves the theory that fashion and style can be attained if you just innately have it, regardless of location, money, ect.

my favorite panel: has fashion gotten more exclusive?
on each panel, there was 1 blogger. so there were 4 bloggers in totally out of the 16 panelists (four panelists per panel). dino-ray ramos, a journalist and professor from san francisco, said that it wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the fashion world became more exclusive. he used the analogy of hearing his friends who are doctors talk about medical things and how he didn't understand but didn't need to, however he prefaced that was a bad analogy. ramos mentioned a better one is that you have you have people watching project runway and assuming they know everything about fashion, which isn't true. the blogger on the panel who works for chictopia said that she, like, thought it wasn't exclusive anymore cos, like, she went to six shows and had no idea who she was seeing. WHICH HORRIFIED ME. seriously, little lady, just google the people you are seeing. you are being paid to go to fashion week and write about it, do your homework. sigh. but in all fairness, this girl did say the beauty of the internet and blogging is that people can see an outfit on her, and she isn't a model, and that can help with the diffusion and selling of the outfit. okay, so great statement, however that doesn't have a lot to do with the exclusivity of blogging. just b/c you aren't a size 4, that doesn't mean you have the knowledge or tools to write about fashion. to simply say hey i like this current season is a valid point but there's more. what did you like? the use of chiffon, crepe de chine, ect? the tonal palette used? the departure from previous works? write about it like you are writing critically about art. i spoke to ramos after his panel and we talked about how that is the fear of the fashion world, that bloggers are uninformed and would be replacing people that have studied the history of fashion and fashion design and have the proper vocabulary to diffuse the shows that are seen. i mean, the fashion world is still exclusive, you still have a limited number of people seeing the collections first, but you have a much wider number of people taking that journalism and further diffusing it for a greater audience. that is what blogging does.

essentially, the summit was okay and i met some awesome people. but i honestly was surprised that nobody mentioned what i thought was the obvious elephant in the room: we all paid to be here, you are getting us to tweet about being here so our twitters appear on this huge screen, chictopia received TONS of free advertising from us. well this is the perfect example of how social media works as advertising. b/c 100 plus people paid to be there and then wrote about it. on twitter, fbook and now blogger.

so, those are my two cents. will i do it next year? probably not.
ta ta,
c

photos from chictopia media summit.




cate corcoran, of WWD, one of the speakers

been a la bella gets my vote for best hair

a sequin dress at breakfast blogger has a dress that i just want to steal.

new york street style, outside of rodarte, lincoln center and the meatpacking district

The updates continue of street style shots captured during fashion week. Do I sometimes feel vaguely like the fashion paparazzi? Sometimes yes but I felt that mainly outside of Rodarte, perhaps because some of the press were shooting peoples names. However, mostly I feel like a documentarian, quietly observing the ever delightful and highly rare birds of color in Papa New Guinea. Street style photographing is more about the likes of the photographer and really less about who is stylish. Everyone I shoot is stylish and fashion forward in my book, but most people that I photograph won't end up on the Sartorialist because of how different our likes and dislikes are and, honestly, that's rather fine with me. I think he tends to confuse beauty and wealth with style. He tends to shoot a lot of very, very attractive women in rather simple but obviously designer outfits. While they look great, I tend to find that very boring, however it's something that works very well for him. I think fashion should be never be boring, but, again, my style. In that vein, more street style shots.

Lynn Yeager and my friend Monique Valentine Garofalo outside of Lincoln Center


As I was wondering around the Meatpacking Disctrict, I saw this woman out of the corner of my eye. I followed her for a block before I got up the courage to ask for her photograph. I think her taste is impeccable and I, being a glasses wearer, am always fascinated by sunglasses and glasses that look so organic upon the wearer and with their outfits. If something looks like a piece and it doesn't belong, that always throws me off. But this woman was perfect in my book, very chic, very fashion word but vaguely eccentric in that way that only people with great style have.


This woman was one of the nicest and most personable people I have ever photographed. I noticed her balenciaga flats and how well they complimented her unique skirt and top. She spent a couple minutes chatting with me about my lipstick and complimented, which was rather nice of her.


I just love the prints and colors that this woman was wearing.


until later,
C

new york fashion week street style, outside of rodarte

New York street style shot outside of Rodarte

Susie Bubble


Tavi


Anna Dello Russo


Anna Dello Russo, Carine Roitfeld, and a pretty photographer


Kate Lanphear


A woman in an amazing scarf



Celine shoes and wonderful sunglasses



Kanye West


Rachel Zoe



I'll be posting more street style in on Friday or Thursday.

TTFN,
C

new york fashion week street style

some photos during fashion week








the amazing emerald

lorick s/s 2011, new york fashion week

Lorick spring summer 2011 fashion show was not only a breath of fresh air but one of the best collections I've seen from Abigail Lorick. Her past collections, which should be noted are the ghost designed collections of Eleanor Waldorf on "Gossip Girl," are incredibly constructed dresses and pencil skirts made from raw silks and luxurious prints that harken from yester-year. Her clothes often remind me of vintage dresses fit for a debutante that summers in Martha's Vineyard and spends September to May in a lovely college somewhere below the Mason Dixon line. Think silks, pearls, full skirts.
This new collection was a complete departure from that.

While it features Lorick's innate sense of detail and tailoring, she starts to take basic pieces and complete turn them around. That, in my mind, is what designers do. Lorick's older collections featured beautiful dresses but there wasn't much innovation. This collection was innovative!
See-thru silk shorts, reversible dresses, long gingham skirts that become see thru beyond the mid thighs (such a throw back to Comme des Garcon's gingham collections from the mid-90s), but the collection with it's soft colors, dusty pinks, blushes and a few pops of bright blue silks and chiffons ultimately references the 1930's.
my favorite photos of the collection









but this was what i found most breathtaking




Backless dresses, close up of a pocket knife tied to a belt- this attention to eccentric detail is a great direction for Lorick to head in. It's like Iris Appel or Little Edie but for a younger audience. I find myself lusting after the pocket knife, but I'd a bit of fur to it.





anywho, i was rather obsessed with it.
adieu for now,
c