The Shophound

NEW YORK FASHION WEEK DAY 2: Backstage Secrets- Nautica's Models Eat Delicious Pizza!

Click all images for a larger view in a new window

The Nautica presentation yesterday at Lincoln Center was, surprisingly, what we would call a cluster#@¢¥, (or, as Cee Lo Green would say on SNL, a clusterFORGET). Maybe it's just because the line is popular. Maybe everyone knows that it always has a platoon of the best male models (including their usual all-star team of Brad Kroenig, Clint Mauro, Garrett Neff, Chad White etc.) or maybe everyone heard that last season they served a lavish lunch spread. For whatever reason, it was a madhouse, and tough to photograph even for seasoned pros. Thankfully, the fine folks at Nautica made 93 hi-res images available including an abundance of backstage shots documenting the entire process of pulling the show together. And what do they feed the models for lunch while they are getting primped and styled for the show?
Pizza!
And cookies!
And just to show us how little all those calories affect them, there were a number of shots of the guys getting dressed, and undressed, with their abs still washboardlike. We'd have to hate them if they weren't all so damn beautiful.

Sadly, there was no lunch spread for us this season, which is probably a good thing since the crowd was already pretty pushy. We did, however, leave with a lovely hand rolled cotton pocket square which will look jaunty with a navy blazer when Spring comes (if Spring ever comes).

After the jump, a selection of shots by The Shophound and from Nautica

BEAUTY NEWS: Estée Lauder Broadens Its Scope With Joan Smalls

For years, an Estée Lauder contract was one of the modeling industry's biggest prizes, given to a single model who would typically represent all the company's by herself. In the past decade, however, the brand has multiplied the roster, and announced this week that Puerto Rican born Joan Smalls (pictured left in an official image) will join the brands lineup. This is significant not only because the Lauder contract remains a plum achievement and Smalls is a beauty whose career ignited in 2010, but also because the company has been without a model of color since Liya Kebede's contract expired a few years ago.

Smalls, as well as newcomers to the brand Liu Wen from China and Constance Jablonski from France, joins longtime spokesmodels Carolyn Murphy, Elizabeth Hurley and main face Hilary Rhoda at Lauder. Her addition finally allows the team of models to represent a fuller spectrum of beauty than it ever has —something that the company, which has grown to be an enormous force in the beauty business, has been slow to do in its flagship brand.

Well, better late than never.

Estée Lauder Signs Joan Smalls (WWD)

THIS WEEK'S UNIQLO NEWS: Emily & Agyness Deyn Salute NYC With UT

It's already Tuesday and we haven't written anything about UNIQLO this week, so if you are waiting until May for the chain's Costello Tagliapietra collaboration, model Agyness Deyn and her sister Emily have something to tide you over until then. When UNIQLO approached the famous catwalker for a project, she turned to her sister who has started her own fashion company. The two took Polaroid photos of their favorite New York activities which will decorate a line of T-shirts and tanks for the chain's UT line. The result of their efforts will be available at the store this Friday April 30th.

We have no word whether or not the popular model will be making any appearances to promote the collaboration, but if you stop by the store this Friday, look for the tall, striking bald chick. Aggy has relinquished the bowl cut seen at the right and was recently photographed with her famous locks completely shorn.

Aggy Approved Tanks and Tees (Modelinia)
Previously:
Collaboration Anticipation: Costello Tagliapietra Hits UNIQLO in May

ATTENTION ALL MOTHER-DAUGHTER MODELING TEAMS: Comptoir des Cotonniers Looking For New Faces This Weekend

For all of you who are too old or too young (or too sane) to audition for Tyra Banks' America's Next Top Model, this Sunday, March 28^th, Comptoir des Cotonniers will host its seasonal Mother-Daughter modeling competition in its SoHo boutique for the upcoming Fall 2010 campaign. The French chain (owned by Fast Retailing, parent company of UNIQLO) has long made mothers and daughters a theme in their advertising campaigns. The lucky winners will represent the brand for the season and be whisked to Paris to walk in the Fall Fashion Show on May 31^st. Then they will be flown to whatever exotic location has been chosen to shoot the Fall advertising campaign. Flights, hotels and all expenses are included as well as clothing vouchers to use while shopping in Comptoir des Cotonniers stores.
So practice your signature walks. By next week, you could be a supermodel.
Comptoir des Cotonniers Mother Daughter Model Casting, March 28, 2010 from 2 to 6 PM, 155 Spring Street between Wooster Street & West Broadway, SoHo

Flyer and more information after the jump

Fall 2010 Runway Violence Alert: Dsquared2 Gets Thrashed And Pummeled For Fall

Was it just yesterday that we mentioned that the Men's Fall 2010 collections in Milan were looking dull and gray? Well, they are, but there are a few exceptions. It's been a few years since we got over our obsession with all things Dsquared², but we have still found their runway photos consistently entertaining. Usually, they can be counted on for stellar model casting and styling —creating an always diverting parade of mostly fresh faced, occasionally trashy and often scantily clad hunks.
But not this season.
This time around, they have chosen to style their models to look as if someone took a 2X4 and smacked the shit out of them before they hit the runway.
It's different, no?
Bruised and blood-spattered, that's the look for next Fall, with models sporting all manner of black eyes, bloody noses and various other lacerations. And at the end, the designing Caten twins sported matching surgical gowns featuring little pink triangles and sprayed with blood, like a pair of cheery, little, gay, vivisectionists (Oh, and that's not a lady between them in the picture. It's Tokio Hotel lead singer Bill Kaulitz.). Perhaps they are making some kind of sophisticated intellectual statement, but let's face it, it's Dsquared², and they have never exactly been seen as deep.
There are just so many different kinds of wrong going on here that we can't even begin to list them, as if the studded leather hockey jersey isn't enough to be upset about.
Definitely not dull and gray though.
It's probably good that they didn't invite Rihanna this year.
Dsquared² and other Men's Fall 2010 collections can be viewed a GQ.com in new, crisp full-screen mode

Dueling Fashion Exhibitions: Models Uptown VS. Isabel Toledo Downtown

New York has something of an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fashion museums with a continuing roster exhibits not only from The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, but also The Museum at FIT as well as occasional shows from the likes of the Museum of the City of New York and others. We are currently graced with two major shows including the Met's "The Model As Muse" extravaganza and FIT's "Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out". The two shows are so different that it is almost pointless to compare them, except that one succeeds admirably, and the other sadly disappoints.
Isabel Toledo's profile has risen dramatically since Michelle Obama chose the designer's now famous lemongrass wool lace ensemble to wear at her husband's inauguration in January. Curators Valerie Steele and Patricia Mears get that famous outfit out of the way quickly, showcasing it alone in the exhibit's anteroom. Famous as it is, it is not Toledo's most interesting work, although photos showing its creation reveal that the original design was slightly more elaborate.
The show really starts in the museum's cavernous main room. While she has been well known to the public for only a few months, the designer has been admired by fashion insiders since her first show in 1985, and this presentation focuses on her rigorous design philosophy and innovative techniques, not unlike FIT's previous shows on Madame Grès and Ralph Rucci.
Most examples are accompanied by abstract flat sketches of the garments' patterns, illuminating Toledo's ingenious cutting methods. For all the focus on the technical details of dressmaking, the show could run the risk of becoming a dry academic exercise if it weren't for the gorgeous clothes. Toledo's style runs the gamut from puritanical to erotic (sometimes within the same outfit), and her wit and humor comes through in the mysterious alchemy that great designers work with their creations.
Her inventive hand with materials and sculpting garments puts her on a par with Rucci and Azzedine Alaïa, another Obama favorite. The show almost skips over Toledo's brief but promising tenure as the designer for a revived but aborted Anne Klein Collection (the accompanying catalogue goes into greater detail) except for a painstakingly tailored coat in pink wool and a series of silk pongee "Broomstick Librarian" dresses handpainted by the designer's husband and collaborator, Reuben. He also provides a 500 foot paper frieze filled with his inimitable drawings and paintings of his wife's work circling above the exhibition spaces.
It's their collaboration that is at the heart of the show –another strong and thoughtful showing from the team at FIT
And now uptown to the Met.

More about the Costume Institute after the jump as well as videos about both shows from The Met and New York Magazine.

The Right Place At The Right Time: A Model Moment At Barneys

All weather reports suggested that The Shophound should have stayed inside today, but instead we decided that it was as good a day as any to hit the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute exhibit "The Model As Muse" (more on that later). Afterward, we took advantage of a lull in the storm to saunter down Madison Avenue, and found ourselves ducking into Barneys to dodge an impending downpour. We could never have known that we would stumble onto a better Model Moment than anything the Met had to offer: Catherine McNeil in a black Lanvin cocktail dress and feathered headpiece, holding a small falcon and being photographed by none other than Terry Richardson.
It's not unusual to find location shoots all around the city, but we usually don't happen upon them on the main floor of Barneys on a Thursday afternoon.
Naturally, we watched the entire slightly surreal event as the willowy McNeil gamely posed with her bird, unfazed by the growing crowd of onlookers whilst occasionally being adjusted by various stylists and bird wranglers. The budding supermodel demonstrated the significance of her craft far better than a museum exhibition ever could. The whole thing ended with the kind of climactic "Yes! Yes! Gorgeous!" bellowing coming from Richardson that we thought only happened on TV show photo shoots.
Thanks to modern technology, the various onlookers took their own pictures, discreetly at first, and then blatantly like... well, like us.
Now that's worth venturing out in the rain for, no?

Window Report: Bergdorf Goodman Salutes The Met's Model Muses

If you couldn't make it to last night's Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can at least stop by Fifth Avenue to catch a view of Bergdorf Goodman's latest set of windows. This week, they are inspired by the Met's new exhibit, The Model As Muse, and feature clever recreations of famous fashion photographs. There's a nod to Cecil Beaton's deco ballgowns, a mod moment with Twiggy by Bert Stern, Peter Lindbergh's troop of Chanel clad Supermodel biker chicks, and even a recreation of Richard Avedon's iconic "Dovima With Elephants" using a pair of giraffes as stand-ins. We particularly liked the mirror effect created by Steven Meisel's famous shot of a peroxided Linda Evangelista for a Dolce & Gabbana advertisement (though the actual dress in the window is by someone else!).
The windows were just being finished as we write this, so you probably have couple of weeks to see them, and the Costume Institute exhibit runs until August 9th.
As for the Party of the Year, we're still waiting on the pictures from Style.com, but Cathy Horyn's blog for the Times tells us of a last minute kerfuffle with a miffed Azzedine Alaïa, who created several dresses for models to wear to the party, but was not invited himself! As a result Alaïa muses and devotées Naomi Campbell and Stephanie Seymour say they're boycotting the party, which leaves the ranks of actual Supermodels a little thin.
Really, if RuPaul isn't there, then what's the point anyway?
Alaïa Pulls His Dresses From the Met Gala (On The Runway)

Click images for a larger view in a new window.

Multiple Mannequins: Do 9 Models Equal 1 Celebrity?

So Vogue's cover for May 2009 has finally been released.
Those who concern themselves with such things have been speculating for weeks over which models would be chosen for the honor of participating in the magazine's rare foray into non-celebrity covers, styled to coordinate with the Costume Institute's big summer exhibition at the Metroploitan Museum of Art on the Supermodel Era. It must say something unfortunate about the state of fashion magazines that in order to have the latest models on the cover, they have to appear as a team. With the exception of the occasional Linda Evangelita or Christy Turlington cover, hardly any models have been allowed to grace the U.S. Vogue's front by themselves in the last decade. Next month's group of lucky winners feature a mix of veterans and newer girls including Liya Kebede, Anna Jagodzinska and Natalia Vodianova, who cuddle under the logo, and Isabeli Fontana, Lara Stone, Jourdan Dunn, Raquel Zimmerman, Caroline Trentini and Natasha Poly on the fold-out.
It's kind of surprising that even Fashion's most powerful editor, Anna Wintour, is still forced to submit to the tyranny of the celebrity cover, although with every magazine's revenues falling, now would hardly seem a likely time to buck convention.
Or is it? Shouldn't the increasingly freakish looking Nicole Kidman's covers be going to the gorgeous Anna Jagodzinska, all by hersef?
It's almost funny to think that a couple of decades ago, Vogue used to pride itself on launching unkown models by putting them on the cover before anyone else had ever heard of them. Wouldn't it be nice to see a return to that?

Milan Model Update: New York Magazine Counts The Models

Over at New York Magazine's fashion blog The Cut, they have done a comprehensive survey of the racial diversity of Milan's model lineups —kind of like what we did last season, except we were to lazy to go through all that counting again so we can't complain.
Anyway, they came to basically the same conclusion that we did a few days ago which is that Italian designers as a group don't seem to think much of black models.
Out of 29 shows in their breakdowns, they found 8 with all white casts. It's worth mentioning that they classified models as White, Black, Asian and Latina, which complicated things a bit. Categorizing white Brazilian and Spanish born models as Latina did not sit well with most of their commenters. Knowing a models actual nationality and ethnic descent can make things murky. Is blond Brazilian Raquel Zimmerman a Latina in this context?
We don't think so, and, more importantly, we don't think the industry does either. If she reads as white on the runway and in photographs, and she surely does, then white she is for our purposes.
Models are essentially silent, and for all intents and purposes, how they look is what they represent ethnically regardless of where they were born. 90's Supermodel Yasmeen Ghauri was born in Canada, but to the world, she was considered at least part Indian. The Cut considers Bangalore-born Lakshmi Menon Asian, which is technically correct, but she certainly represents a different part of the planet than, say,  Liu Wen or Tao Okamoto —practically singlehandedly, we might add.
Before we sound too race obsessed (and anyone who is so inclined coould probably spend days parsing the various ethnic descents of models), let's reiterate the point here: Milan's record here basically stinks, and thanks to The Cut for giving us the cold (if slightly flawed) statistics.
Why Were Milan’s Runways So Whitewashed? (The Cut)