"Fashion Week Preview: The Faces" by Cathy Horyn

Fronm the New York Times

Fashion Week Preview: The Faces
By CATHY HORYN
New Faces on the runways for New York Fashion Week. Clockwise from top left: Fei Fei Sun, Daphne Groeneveld, Melodie, Bambi Northwood-Blyth, Iris Egbers and Ilva Heitmann.
Now that we’re practically on a first-name basis with Doutzen, Lakshmi and Anja, it’s time we meet Bambi, Fei Fei and Kat. They are some of the new and almost-like-new faces we’ll be seeing next week at the New York fashion shows.

This is crunch time for casting directors, with meetings over the weekend, as more new models arrive in town and people start making decisions about whom they want on their runways. On Thursday, after I spoke in the morning with the casting director Ashley Brokaw, whose New York clients include Narciso Rodriguez, Proenza Schouler and Rag & Bone, she reported in an e-mail message: “Just saw a girl Jessica Clarke @DNA. VERY excited about her. Classic supermodel material from New Zealand.”

It’s all about the “girls.”

There are many casting directors working between New York and Europe, but among the top ones are Ms. Brokaw, Michelle Lee of the public relations and production firm KCD and Maida Gregori-Boina, whose clients include Calvin Klein and Jil Sander. They agreed on some — but not all — of the new models, and they had some thoughts about what differences to look for this season.

High on Ms. Brokaw’s list are Bambi Northwood-Blyth, Melodie at Wilhelmina, Caroline Brasch Neilsen, Fei Fei Sun and Julia Nobis. She elaborated: “Fei Fei doesn’t look like anyone else. She’s an exceptional beauty. Caroline is the full package. She’s got a great body for the shows, a beautiful face, she’s smart. You can check every box. All these girls have great personality and manners. They’re impressive in person.”

Of Ms. Nobis, who is a bit of a tomboy, she said, “You can picture her leaving a casting and jumping on her skateboard.”

Ms. Brokaw and Ms. Gregori-Boina say that clients want models with sensuality plus personality. “I think people are looking for muses, for more than a face and a body,” Ms. Brokaw said. Recalling a meeting recently with the Proenza designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, she said they told her they wanted to see girls with some life experience; maybe they’ve had a boyfriend or traveled a bit. “Things are steering away from the army casting we’ve seen in recent years.”

Meaning the militias of blank-faced models.

Not that models won’t be skinny, but there is a trend toward pouty lips, thick eyebrows, curves and, with some models, a bit of a pale androgynous look. Indeed, some of the girls recall the casting of early Raf Simons men’s shows. Ms. Gregori-Boina says clients are referring to the casting of Helmut Lang, Prada and Jil Sander shows in the ’90s. Among the new faces that she thinks will have a big season are Daphne Groeneveld, Iris Egbers and Hailey Clauson.

Ms. Lee of KCD suggests we might see two distinct model types this season: pouty Lolita, which certainly covers Lindsey Wixson, Barbara Palvin and Ms. Sun; and a somewhat androgynous girl, with linear proportions and striking features; maybe some freckles. Keep an eye on Chloe Memisevic, Ilva Heitmann and Kat Hessen.

032c preview: Natasa Vojnovic, ph: Danko Steiner

As seen on the New York Times:


photo of the magazine by Patricia Wall, original photo by Danko Steiner

Celebrating the New World, Bravely

By CATHY HORYN

Scarlett Johansson is a very good actress, but since we don’t need any more articles about the brand kitten’s style, let’s enjoy a big gulp of the contemporary culture provided by 032c, the Berlin-based magazine that is published twice a year. The latest issue, the 19th, is just out.
I adore 032c. Many of us are feeling a little discouraged by the bombardment of stuff on the Web that doesn’t inform or surprise, and 032c is an antidote for that. It sort of destroys the notion that printed journals don’t have the quickness or relevance of blogs. No, they just have to be serious about what they do.

The magazine is operated by Joerg Koch, its editor, and Sandra von Mayer-Myrtenhain, its managing editor, and many of the big fashion brands — Dior, Prada, Tom Ford, YSL — advertise there.

The lineup for the current issue includes a look at the impact of a 1960 article about Cy Twombly, with photos by Horst, that ran in American Vogue and that was rediscovered in 2003 by the interiors magazine Nest. As Mr. Koch wrote, it’s a “story on the story on the story.” Despite Vogue’s solid name and Horst’s gorgeous images of Mr. Twombly’s house in Rome, the original article, “Roman Classic Surprise,” may have compromised the artist’s career. At that time artists were not supposed to be part of a chichi world. The 032c piece is an unusual way to consider views from the past in the context of current assumptions.

There is also a group of articles and photographs about the American writer William T. Vollmann — or, I should say, a rare published dialogue with him (based on a correspondence by mail) and extracts from his books. The standard of the choices of ideas and images, which include a fair amount from the fashion front, always feel a bit higher at 032c. Anyway, I plan to dig in this weekend between the mowing and mulching in the garden.

Of the new issue, Mr. Koch wrote: “In a time such as ours, when all forms of cultural expression seem to occur simultaneously — as if ‘contemporary’ were essentially just a byline for the past, present and future combined — stories like these become rough blueprints for the new creative aesthetic proposed within the pages of 032c.”

Balenciaga Fall 2009 Show

Balenciaga Fall 2009 Show
Time: March 5, 2009 at 10:00 am
Location: Hotel de Crillon, 10, place de la Concorde 75008 Paris - France
Designer: Nicolas Ghesquiere
Casting Director: Ashley Brokaw

Kasia Struss


Olga Sherer


Natasha Poly


March 5, 2009, 6:17 am — Updated: 6:41 am -->
Balenciaga: Paris Under the Skin
By Cathy Horyn

It sort of adds up: the whispering tingle of Serge Gainsbourg on the soundtrack, the smart-looking shoulders, the mix of Persian blue and kelly green, the draped satin dress in a blend of colors. Today’s Balenciaga show was all about Yves.

Even the setting, in a salon room at the Crillon Hotel, seemed a nod to Yves Saint Laurent, who used to present his haute couture collections at a nearby hotel. And yet, considering how many designers have been influenced by Saint Laurent, this was a very good show on its own merits, an interpretation by a pro who understands the connections between one designer and another, between one generation and the next. Nicolas Ghesquiere has always looked to the women around him; his early collections at Balenciaga captured a style he saw on the street, and Saint Laurent himself was similarly influenced.

A virtue of this collection — certainly from the perspective of sales — is that the overall look is softer and more frankly feminine than Ghesquiere’s recent collections. The main event is the draped skirt or (even better) the draped trousers in dark satin; they ripple softly over the hips and taper down the leg. One pair was shown with a tailored jacket in black wool with black satin draped on the lower half. Another black blazer, showed with a black lace bandeau top, came out with dark gray striped pants. In a sense, Ghesquiere made his mark with trousers, and it’s great to see him again make a statement with them.

The other news was the draped coat dress, in black wool but predominantly in spotty, splashy prints, which Ghesquiere said after the show were inspired by the Balenciaga archive. Suede heels came in a blend of colors, typically with a swag of satin at one side.

One wonders if Ghesquiere has long harbored an itch to interpret Saint Laurent. He bided his time, and chose his motifs carefully. Still, this is a modern Balenciaga collection through and through.

Balenciaga Spring 2009

Paris: At Balenciaga, Light Play
By Cathy Horyn
A super-thoughtful and technically interesting Balenciaga show this morning from Nicolas Ghesquière: very light, luminous and leaning again toward the futuristic. He opened with beige-pink jersey stretched and gathered over a kind of heart-shaped form on the bodices of mini dresses, followed by a more complex use of second-skin tops and matching tights for under many of the looks. Slim pants and tunic tops — in pink shades of beige and light gray — had quilting, almost like a moto-cross detail but more polished and delicate like couture.
Metallic fabrics that looked like leather were in fact silk, and silver and gold finale dresses — some with fringe and the beige-pink leotard idea — were made of tiny pieces of ribbon. The tights pulled over the shoes, with apparently an opening for the sole. Very interesting effect: it blanked out the shoes, or the talk of shoes. Ghesquière said the show was about absorbing and reflecting light. It was certainly absorbing and, at the same time, difficult to describe. By the way, he had a passage of male models in the show, in stiff dark suits without lapels and flicker of gold at the nearly closed neckline.

BALENCIAGA SS 09: CONSISTENCY OF LINE WITH COMPLEXITY
Submitted by Wayne

A thousand opinions will bubble up around Balenciaga SS09. Whether you found it good or bad it retained all the codes that makes Ghesquiere's Balenciaga such a compelling proposal. At the precise time he could have chosen to feed the machine the familiar, Ghesquiere distorted the familiar into something uncomfortable. Which is great. The cake and the cake eaten too. The collection looked like a past Balenciaga collection thrown up against a fun house mirror, rippling and warping before your very eyes. The torqued fabric, an idea reflected in the extended gloves and the stockings over the shoes...a familiar styling trick yes, (see mid 90's Margiela) ...the shimmering palette the odd conjunction of textures...it was a intelligent way to mirror your expected themes.As for the menswear...I'd get into it, literally because it is so cult. "Not for everybody"...from a brand the scale of Balenciaga can seem like such an unfriendly position to take but you have to admire the honesty of that.

Natasha Poly



Shannan Click


Kasia Struss


Iselin Steiro


Laragh McCann

Rick Owens Spring 2009

Paris: Rock of Ages

By Cathy Horyn

Rick Owens was quite interesting: much more stripped down, nearly all in black and gray, with these flappy, floppy boots ....The key look was a kind of jumpsuit that suggested a tank dress with openings at the side and back. There were also black cotton jackets that were fitted and closed at the front with a knot of fabric.

Mariacarla Boscono


Kasia Struss


Kasia Struss


Mariacarla Boscono

Closing Music from Jil Sander

The closing music for Jil Sander spring 2009 was “Camille’s Theme” from the film “Le Mepris.”