|
|
Very few girls would ever dream of wearing their mother’s prom dress to their prom, simply because the odds that mom’s dress are still in style would be pretty slim. Yet when their date arrives to pick them up he is often wearing a suit, that while tailored recently, has almost everything in common with the one his dad wore before he was born. Sure the double breast and vest are out, the pants probably aren’t pleated or cuffed anymore but the last drastic change in the western style suit came in the seventies with the leisure suit and fortunately left shortly thereafter. While men may not be as demanding when it comes to change the ladies on their arms haven’t been shy at all, with each year seeing an increase in trends such as girl’s matching their date’s tie or cumber bun to their dress. At some point a designer was bound to step in and help the ladies find a better way to distinguish between their guys, and so enter Dior Homme.
The collection which was first released in 2001 just completed their Spring 2012 Ready To Wear runway show highlighting the ongoing inspirational work of Belgian designer Kris Van Assche who continues to celebrate what he calls “the art of tailoring.” Tapered linen trousers lined in lambskin, billowing trenches, narrow lapels, tunic style jackets clasped at the neck and even a breath of fresh air for the old double breast all spoke to a changing of the guard for formal menswear. While it will be a while before some of these styles gain the following to become mainstream it is obvious that their dates aren’t the only one trying to update the formal wear that many young men find themselves wearing. Good news for the ladies, the designers are listening and your dates will soon be joining you in 21st century style.
Over the weekend a changing of the guards of sorts was held at New York’s IAC building with current spokesperson Naomi Watts handing over the reigns to Eva Mendes who is now the official Angel for Thierry Mugler’s new Angel Eau de Toilette and the classic Eau de Parfum. Mr. Mugler himself was in attendance to thank Watts for her faithful stewardship of the brand and to welcome Mendes into her new role. “I have a great memory from Angel, having spent a long passage of time with these people” Watts told assembled media “The fragrance is strong, gives you confidence, and it’s not overpowering.”
The Eau de Toilette ad campaign will begin in earnest this fall and will feature Mendes singing Noel Harrison’s The Windmills of Your Mind backed by a 30 piece orchestra. Though Mendes has a great deal of experience as an actress she is not known for her voice, however those who’ve had the opportunity to take a sneak peak at the Eau de Toilette campaign seem confident that all might change soon. Asked to comment on what it was like crooning for Mugler’s fragrances Mendes was quoted as saying “I had a blast.” Mendes is scheduled to use her pipes again soon, this time on the silver screen where she will reportedly be starring in a film about the life of opera legend Maria Callas.
Less than two weeks prior Eau de Toilette released images of the first series of photos for the campaign, featuring Mendes looking absolutely stunning in a custom made Mugler dress. The only question left now is if Angel Eua de Toilette will be able to rise to the same level as the deeply loved classics whose family it is now joining.
Mila Kunis is no stranger to the spotlight, in fact she’s been rubbing elbows with the red carpet crowd for over a decade now. However for most of her career as a television comedy star and now as a Hollywood leading lady the brunette beauty has played it safe, if a little boring when it comes to style, choosing classic yet uninspired gowns and conservative dresses that were not terribly exciting. Long considered just a supporting actress, Kunis’ breakout role came in 2008 with the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall which allowed the young Hollywood veteran to prove she could carrying the leading female role. It has been said that style is an extension of spirit and perhaps all Mila needed was a little confidence to let both shine through.
Since ’08 Kunis has found leading and supporting roles in many films including last years haunting masterpiece Black Swan and with her rise in fame has come a refreshing re-invention of her personal style. Though Forgetting Sarah Marshall may have been her breakout film moment, the 2011 Oscars saw Kunis have a breakout fashion moment in a stunning pale lavender chiffon and lace gown by Ellie Saab that not only turned heads up and down the red carpet but complimented the actresses classic Hollywood femininity.
Ever since that night Kunis has begun to take more risks in allowing her own tastes and not current trends to dictate her unique style. The White House Correspondents dinner this year saw Kunis in a glamorous black Versace gown that again spoke to old-school Hollywood with a touch of youthful uniqueness. More recently Mila has let her inner animal show through with a Givenchy armadillo print blouse and skirt combo that she wore to last week’s premier of her newest film Friends With Benefits.
While she may not be bound for the cover of Vogue like Emma Watson whose meteoric rise as a fashion icon we’ve already touched on, it would not surprise us in the least to see Mila stealing the spotlight on many red carpets to come. What is the most inspiring about Mila’s budding relationship with high fashion is how boldly she has been coming into her own, proving that confidence never goes out of style.
It’s a gift fit for a king, or a duke in this case, but the twist is that the Duke and his new Duchess are the ones doing the giving. Before Prince William married Kate Middleton this past spring the couple set up the Royal Wedding Charitable Gift Fund so that any well wishers who wanted to give the royal couple a wedding gift could show their support by donating to various charities instead.
Buckingham Palace recently announced that the donations to the fund had exceeded 1 million pounds or roughly 1.7 million US dollars. The money will be distributed through the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry to 26 deserving charities that the foundation separated into the following categories: Changing Lives through Arts and Sport; Children Fulfilling Their Potential; Help and Care at Home; Support for Service Personnel and Their Families; and Conservation for Future Generations.
The couple also released a statement through the foundation thanking “everyone who donated and contributed so generously to the charitable fund and for all the kindness and support shown to [us] throughout the wedding period.”
Price William (though now officially the Duke of Cambridge) and his brother Price Harry have long talked of following in the footsteps of their mother the late princess Diana who was loved a celebrated throughout the world for using her clout and position within the British Royal Family to draw attention to serious social issues on a global scale. Di contributed to worldwide programs to help relocate and provide medical care to refugees, to assist impoverished families and most notably brought world-wide attention to the need to clear war-torn countries of abandoned minefields which claim the lives of dozens of innocent farmers and children ever year and leave hundreds more maimed.
While it would seem that her son’s efforts are starting in earnest more on the home front then in foreign war-torn lands his actions would no doubt make his mother proud.
Here’s a helpful tip for any aspiring actress: when your boss is the guy who sweat blood to produce Schindler’s List, you may want to avoid making any off hand comments comparing your director to Adolf Hitler; that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t sit well.
Megan Fox who made headlines this month when it was announced she was being replaced on the set of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, apparently compared director Micheal Bay to Hitler in an interview with MTV News and when that little piece of information made it back to producer Steven Spielberg is precisely when she found herself out of a job. In the interview with MTV, Fox is quoted as saying “I’m not trying to be provocative” which is something any good publicist will tell their client to say right before dropping a verbal bomb-shell. This behavior has helped raise some eyebrows in the film industry regarding her true motives when comparing anyone to Hitler, since she just signed on to Sascha Baron Cohen’s newest film foray Dictator.
According to Bay, who spoke to CNN recently about the incident, Spielberg’s reaction to Fox’s comment was to tell Bay to “fire her right now” but it was not the only problem the production staff had with the actress. Asked to elaborate on the tensions between himself and Fox, Bay had the following words to offer her, “I’m sorry I make you work twelve hours. I’m sorry that I’m making you show up on time. Movies are not always warm and fuzzy.” He also added that the actress was in “a different world, on her BlackBerry… You gotta stay focused.”
While everyone’s story on these kinds of things is going to be different, and no one is going to paint themselves as a villain, perhaps it is worth watching both Bay and Fox in the coming months to see whose ego strikes next.
It’s an image that everyone can picture in their mind because it has become so iconic; a brief and for its time very risque, scene from “The Seven-Year Itch” showing Marilyn Monroe standing on a subway grate and holding down the front hem of an ivory gown as a train passing below does its best to blow her skirt up over her head. Considered inappropriate by many the first time they saw it in Billy Wilder’s 1955 film, the shot has gone on to become the most recognized image of Marilyn Monroe with copies, reproductions and references to it appearing everywhere in American culture. Now that simple acetate and rayon gown that Monroe helped make so famous has achieved some fame of its own.
Last weekend at an auction house in Beverly Hills Marilyn’s “subway” dress sold for $5.6 million dollars to an unidentified bidder, making it the most expensive dress ever sold! Now we here at Promgirl News know all about the “diamond web” dress that Scott Henshall made for Samantha Mumba to wear to the ’04 premier of Spiderman II which he claimed cost far more than the $5.6 million dollar price tag for Marilyn’s dress. However until Scott or Samantha come forward with a receipt that figure is theoretical and the folks over at Guinness aren’t buying it.
The iconic dress, along with other costumes from Monroe’s movies, one of Charlie Chaplin’s signature bowler hats, a pair of Judy Garland’s ruby slippers and much more were part of a collection assembled over the past 50 years by singer, actress and dancer Debbie Reynolds. Apparently Reynolds had hoped for these items to all find their way into a museum, but sadly do to the size of the collection and the toll its upkeep is taking on the 79 year old celebrity she was forced to auction much of it instead.
She graced the cover of Elle at 15 years of age and was the first black woman on the cover of Vogue Paris; throughout a career that has spanned three decades in the industry Naomi Campbell has become a true contemporary fashion icon. Earlier this month Naomi sat down for an interview with Italian Vogue in which she touched on everything from her tips on working with photographers to the experiences she had coming up with the likes of Alexander McQueen, Marc Jacobs and Azzedine Alaïa to how she has maintained the iconic figure that set her apart from the crowd (if you were hoping for a secret short-cut you are going to be disappointed). Here are some of the more interesting pieces of information and advice Naomi shared:
Her advice for working with photographers.
“The most important thing to me, really, is I trust the photographers that I work with, and I trust that they’re going to transform me into something else.” Naomi went on to say that this “metamorphosis” that she undergoes with each photographer is one of the things she loves the most about her career. Though it should be noted that with names like Peter Lindbergh, Mario Testino and Paolo Roversi behind the lens, trust should be pretty easy to come by.
Her personal feeling for some of fashion’s finest.
“Everyone knows I’m very close to Azzedine Alaïa, someone who took me into his home when I was 16. I’m very close to Gianni (Versace). I always treasure Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Marc Jacobs. The part that I love is that I got to be there when they were just going; I got to be there, I lived with them as they grew. It was amazing. It was great to be part of that.”
Her trick to staying fit.
“I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t eat meat, I work out 90 minutes minimum a day.”
Clearly it takes work to stay at the top of your game for so many years, you didn’t think that ‘beauty is pain’ was just an expression did you?
For those that like their vampires to come with a little more bite than the teens in Twilight, the wait is almost over. This Sunday will be the season 4 premier of HBO’s smash success series True Blood and last night the stars traded in their blood stained fangs for high fashion and the red carpet outside of Hollywood’s ArcLight Cinemas. Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skargard (better know to the show’s viewers as vampires Bill Compton and Eric Northman) looked as dapper and debonaire as their on screen alter egos last night. However Anna Paquin, the actress behind the show’s star Sookie Stackhouse and Moyer’s real life wife, left a little to be desired in a sleek black dress with an oddly colorful cut-out.
Fortunately the rest of the ladies of True Blood looked ravishing on the red carpet. Deborah Ann Woll, who plays Jessica the baby vampire of the bunch looked anything but childish in a slender, strapless dress made of an elegant black lace laid over nude satin. Rutina Wesley, better known as Sookie’s troubled friend Tara went with a beautifully beaded short silk dress and proved that she definitely knows how to accessories with shoes, earrings and a clutch that all came together to form the perfect compliment to her dress.
So now that the flash bulbs have all gone off and everyone has taken a walk down the red carpet the only thing left for True Blood fans to do is count the hours until this Sunday when all of their favorite vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters and now witches return for what is sure to be another successful season.
As we reported at the beginning of the week Miss Tennessee Ashley Durham was the first runner up in this year’s Miss USA pageant, being narrowly edged out by Miss California Alyssa Campanella whose mature and thoughtful response to the judge’s questions, including one about her opinion on the legalization of marijuana, helped earn her the Miss USA tiara. Now it would seem that her answer is not the only one that had a profound effect on the judges and their final decision between her and Miss Tennessee.
Penn Jillette, the more outspoken half of the illusionist duo Penn and Teller and one of this years guest judges recently took to twitter with his thoughts on Miss Tennessee’s answer to a similarly complex question. The question asked of Miss Tennessee was whether or not she thought burning religious items, such as a copy of the Koran, should be afforded the same constitutional protection as flag burning. Her response was that burning religious items “crossed a line” and should not be protected by the constitution, this apparently did not sit well with Jillette, an outspoken supporter of first amendment rights, who tweeted “I ‘judged’ Miss USA. ‘Miss’ TN was asked about burning the Koran and she negated the whole First Amendment. F–k her. Glad to help her lose.”
Miss Tennessee obviously felt the sting of Jillette exercising his first amendment rights saying in a statement released yesterday that she’s disappointed with his comments and that it was uncalled for that he would delight in shooting down her dreams. However by the time her statement was released Jillette had already moved on to a series of combative tweets he has since been exchanging with those who support Miss Tennessee instead of his viewpoint on the first amendment.
Whichever side of this particular battle you happen to come down on, I think it is safe to say we can all agree that future contestants in the Miss USA pageant better be ready for some serious political and philosophical debate!
For the past week New York City has been host to Full-Figured Fashion Week (FFW), a new fashion show aimed at what its participants and organizers feel is a disenchanted and disenfranchised section of the fashion world that is steadily growing. The Saturday night finale brought together over a thousand potential buyers who were treated to plus sized visions by a host of designers, from the usual suspects like Fashion Bug and Lane Bryant to dozens of small mom and pop operations that started up specifically to fill this long ignored niche in the industry.
While many mainstream designers firmly believe that there is no niche to fill because full-figured and fashion are mutually exclusive, Gwen DeVoe, the executive producer of FFW offers another theory. “They say we don’t spend money on clothes? That’s bananas,” DeVoe was quoted as saying in an interview with CNN “We don’t buy [their] magazines because we don’t see ourselves in them. We don’t go to their shows because we aren’t invited.” DeVoe admits that her own frustration with this lack of attention and misinterpretation of what voluptuous women are looking for in fashion is what drove her to help create FFW. While designers like Jean Paul Gautier have said that runways are a place where one tries to create a fantasy and “nobody fantasizes about being fat” DeVoe says that all she and many women like her want is to look good in the clothes they wear.
According the the Center for Disease Control the average American woman is 5 feet 3 1/2 inches in height and weights 164.7 pounds which would place her at either a size 14 or size 16 depending on the designer, yet many mainstream designers and even some department stores consider 14 a plus size. So while it may not attract the elite of the Paris, Milan and Tokyo fashion circles Full-Figured Fashion Week clearly has plenty of consumers who will be interested.
|
|
