Goat-rearing Afghan nomads inspire U.S. designer

KABUL, May 20 (Reuters Life!) - On the face of it, the Kuchi nomads of Afghanistan, a tribal people accustomed to rearing goats, are not a straight-forward fit for high-end fashion.

But their intricate embroidery, jewellery and clothing, with pieces of metal or coins sewn into the fabric, are designed to catch the eye -- and that's exactly what they've done for American accessories and clothes designer Elizabeth Muir.

Muir has spent much of the past year in Afghanistan, trawling the bazaars, leather workshops and artisan markets of Kabul, drawing inspiration for a fresh collection.

And during those hours of exploration, what drew her the most were the colors and vibrancy of the nomads' clothing.

"I just love the Kuchis," she says enthusiastically.

"They're like the gypsies of Afghanistan. I love their jewellery and their textiles. When I was going to the bazaars and artisan shops, the stuff I really gravitated towards was the fabric and embroidery of the Kuchis."

Along with other influences, including traditional Afghan wedding clothes with their highly detailed embroidery, and the purity and simplicity of Afghan cotton, Muir started sketching designs and putting together a collection.

While a successful accessories designer in the United States -- her glitzy, eye-catching belt buckles are worn by rock stars and country singers -- clothing was a new departure for Muir.

With long experience in central Asia, her day job in Afghanistan is as a consultant on international development for an American company, and so design was an after-hours pursuit.

Still, she pulled together the fabrics and designs, found a factory run by an Afghan woman employing Afghan war widows to stitch the clothing, and slowly the collection took shape.

"It took time. They didn't always get it the way I wanted first time, but we worked together and in the end it was great," says Muir, 39, a Washington, DC native.

MIAMI FASHION

In October last year, she showed her first pieces on the catwalk at Fashion Fights Poverty, a U.N.-sponsored event in Washington. The reception was good and she was invited to show a fuller collection at Miami Fashion Week, held last month.

Returning to Kabul she really got down to work, coordinating with leather workers and other artisans to source the materials and craft more designs. All went to plan until she flew from Kabul to the United States with the collection in her luggage.

"I was in New York and my luggage was lost somewhere in Dubai," she says, grimacing at the memory.

She flew to Miami anyway and somehow the airline managed to ship the undamaged collection to her hotel with hours to spare.

Miami was again well received and she's now looking at showing a collection in Milan and getting the designs into boutiques in Los Angeles, across Europe and Dubai.

"I feel like Dubai is really the place where it's going to take off, not necessarily because it's in the Middle East, but because Dubai is just really booming. I think from a fashion and a business point of view, it's going to be huge."

Back in Kabul once again, Muir is focusing on leather and on incorporating Afghan stones into her next designs.

"It's easy to get ideas and be inspired here," she says. "My dream would be to expand it so that it becomes an alternative livelihood for the people, and the artisans really benefit."

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Calvin Klein Resort: Python Pleats Look Pleasing

New York - Reptiles - and more specifically, pythons - were the inspiration that Francisco Costa cited for his Resort 2009 collection for Calvin Klein shown on May 19, 2008 at the Calvin Klein showroom in New York.

Calvin Klein (and Costa) fan Ashley Olsen attended the Monday morning show and scoped out a one-shoulder gown with tiny pleats and snakeskin print pattern to possibly wear to the upcoming CFDA awards on June 2, for which Costa is nominated in the "Designer of the Year" category. Like other resort collections this season - Christian Dior and Oscar de la Renta - the one-shoulder dress is shaping up to be a key trend for Resort eveningwear.

Costa proved once again with his intelligent take on this pre-spring season why he is one of the most formidable design talents working in the industry today. With nods to Fortuny and Issey Miyake, both known for their technical and innovative use of pleats, Costa made delicate pleating that was deliberately pressed, wrinkled and shaped in geometric patterns that replicated reptilian skin in a manner that was both precise and organic. It was math class-meets-biology.

In some instances, python prints on pleated silk georgette made the snakeskin reference quite literal, as with a python embossed trench in white. But Costa also interpreted the texture of snakeskin with impressive techniques like laser cut taffeta that looked like sharp scales and fractal-like three-dimensional pleating that draped around the body like a snake coiled around a tree.

Short bolero jackets with loose flaps, sharply pleated trousers with tapered legs, shingled sheath dresses resembling a forest of bamboo, asymmetrically folds and crinkled trench coats, kimono sleeves and sexy high-backed strappy stiletto sandals rounded out the collection.

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Madonna's Bon Voyage

Is Madonna going to get swept away again?A source at the Cannes Film Festival says that famed wrap-dress fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg is hosting an exclusive VIP luncheon tomorrow to toast the Cannes screening of I Am Because We Are, Madonna's documentary about Malawi AIDS orphans.

The fete will take place aboard EOS, the $200 million 300-foot yacht owned by Von Furstenberg's husband Barry Diller. And guests shouldn't be late. "Launches will be waiting at 1:30 p.m. SHARP," the invite reads.

The following night, Madonna joins Sharon Stone as cohost of the annual fundraising fete for AIDS organization amfAR.

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Gen Art Styles Names Winners of 2008 Competition

New York - Now in its tenth year, the 2008 Gen Art Styles competition presented the next crop of emerging fashion talent at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on Monday night, May 19, before a panel of judges that included fashion designers Victoria Bartlett and Marc Ecko among others, Sak's Fifth Avenue Fashion Director Michael Fink and Designer & Agent's founder Barbara Kramer.

Narrowed down from an international pool of over 800 entries, 25 designers competed in 5 categories for a $5,000 grand prize in each category. A runway competition, a video presentation and an exhibition of fashion sketches formed the basis of the various categories for judging, with results tallied up live, in the midst of the show.

An entertaining and irreverent Robert Verdi, host of E!'s "Fashion Police," emceed the show. His running gag all night long at the Botox-sponsored event was a slight modification to the titles of each design award category: "And the Nicole Kidman Botox Design Vision Award for Ready to Wear goes to..." Verdi joked.

Winners included Yujin Song in the women's "Ready to Wear" category for her futurist silk dresses with neon Photoshop prints, Timothy Franklin in the "Menswear" category for easy casual-meets-dressy grey, white and black fall/winter basics, Ninaki in the "Accessories" category for sculptural gold rings, Marie Potesta in "Avant Garde" for a her innovative and chic black and white intarsia knitwear and leggings and Louisa Parris in "Eveningwear" for diaphanous color block gowns.

A sixth award, the Tone Skincare Fashion Vision Award for Radiance, a $10,000 prize given to the designer best interpreting the Tone brand's theme, "Radiance," through sketches and text, was awarded to Jolibe.

Gen Art is well-known for launching the careers of some of fashion's best rising talents today, including Rodarte, Peter Som, Cloak, Loden Dager, Duckie Browne and Sari Gueron.

by Yahoo News

FiFi Awards Honor Vera Wang, Name Top Fragrances

New York - The Oscars of the fragrance industry - the FiFi Awards - honored the top fragrances and the people behind them on Tuesday, May 20 at their 36th annual celebration in New York.


Daisy by Marc Jacobs, a Coty Prestige fragrance, won Fragrance of the Year in the women's luxury category, while Dolce & Gabanna Light Blue Pour Homme (P & G Prestige Products, Inc.) took home the same award in the men's category. A women's and men's "Nouveau Niche" award was given to Prada Infusion d'Iris (Puig Beauty and Fashion Group) and Armani Prive Vetiver Babylone (Giorgio Armani Beauty), respectively.

Designer Vera Wang was honored with a Hall of Fame award, presented by New York Ranger Sean Avery and current Vogue intern, where Wang was once a fashion editor. Did Avery think hockey or fashion was more vicious? "That's an interesting question," laughed Avery. "I would definitely say hockey. I think fashion is certainly tough and competitive, but it's definitely not as physically dangerous as hockey."

Wang was humbled to be receiving the award.

"It's something beyond my dreams," Wang said. "My mother adored fragrance, she educated me in fragrance. We lived in Paris a great deal throughout my life, so fragrance has been a part of my upbringing. But to somehow win an award for fragrance - a Hall of Fame award - is inconceivable to me."

As for Wang's own future fragrance plans - currently she has four fragrances for women and one eau de toilette for men - she'd like to do a line of essential oils, "where price is not an issue at all and it's just a totally luxurious product," she said.

Scent, and particular perfumes, are often the basis for some of the most powerful memories. Actress Bernadette Peters recalled her first fragrance memory.

"My earliest fragrance memory was of my mother's," said Peters. "She wore Arpege, so when I look at a Lanvin purse, I look for that little lady that they sometimes hang from a medallion, because I remember that used to be on the bottle. She always wore perfume. There was something called Sen-Sen that you put under your tongue. It's another fragrance that you put in your mouth, and then your breath smells sweet. Sometimes when she was out of Sen-Sen she'd put perfume in her mouth!"

Designer Zac Posen, who will release his first fragrance for women in December and is also working on a fragrance for men, remembered certain packaging first and foremost - something often more interesting than the smell of fragrances themselves.

"I remember an Elsa Peretti bottle, I think she designed it for Halston, it was a really cool shape," he said. "Then I went through a stage of collecting great, really kitsch perfume bottles of Avon."

"The first fragrance I purchased was probably Obsession," continued Posen. "That's a young, undiscovered gay boy's idea of sexuality or sensuality."

Tradition goes hand-in-hand with fragrance, whether you're a young girl surrounded by great Parisian fragrances, like Wang was, or a New York kid like Posen making his first discoveries of the nature of sensuousness.

"Patou, Chanel, Balmain, Dior, Guerlain - they were legacies!" said Wang. "They influenced generations of women. Their grandmother wore them, their mother wore them, their daughters wear it. I think it's a bit of that tradition of fragrance that I really got to enjoy, and that's what I enjoy so much about doing fragrance."