Jeremy Laing

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Sep 102007
 

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NEW YORK, September 07, 2007 – Which front-row guests at Jeremy Laing’s spring show had the media lining up to interview them? Not celebrities and not magazine editors, but Laing’s parents, Robert and Theresia.

It was the first of their son’s shows they’d been to since the rising Canadian star’s graduation presentation at Ryerson College in Toronto. His mother wore a silk dress from Laing’s fall collection. “It’s one of the perks,” she said. His father joked, “I keep telling him to make me something!”

It’s a wonder that more starlets (actress and fellow Canadian Sarah Polley is a fan) haven’t caught on to Laing’s line, which only improves each season and always offers truly original, cool dresses, like spring’s colorful silk frocks (with firework prints made by Laing’s friend the artist Karen Azoulay), which any young woman looking to stand out would covet. When those girls do take more notice, Laing’s parents may have some competition for the spotlight at next season’s show.

Photo: Patrick McMullan

Source: www.style.com

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Preen

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Sep 102007
 

Preen

NEW YORK, September 07, 2007 – What were Preen designers Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi thinking ten minutes before their first-ever show in New York?

“A million thing panic!” said Bregazzi, half joking. “We’re just so filled with nervous excitement and so, so happy to be here.”

Until now, the duo has always shown their line in London, which would explain the runway presence of big-time British models like Agyness Deyn and Lily Donaldson, and maybe also why the show started an hour late Manhattan is unfamiliar territory, after all. The truth is that very few fashion followers are willing to wait that long for showtime (unless it’s for Marc Jacobs), but everyone did, which says a lot.

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And besides, inside the tent at the Soho Grand there was plenty of people-watching to do. Socials Byrdie Bell, Derek Blasberg, and Ferebee Bishop Taube, who confided that her most recent Preen purchases took place in Athens, were all sitting front row. So were the MisShapes, looking as clubby-cool as ever. Vogue contributor Lynn Yaeger, carrying a customized Goyard bag forget the monogramming; she’s got a cartoon miniature of herself painted on the front of hers—spoke of the Preen skirt she’s owned for almost two years. “It’s green velvet with a pocket attached, like a circus animal skirt, which is what I look for in clothes,” Yaeger said with her usual charm. It was whispered that actress Kate Bosworth will wear hot-pink Preen to the premiere of her new film, The Girl in the Park, in Toronto tomorrow night.

And in the midst of it all, funny enough, plastic bottles of Budweiser were perched atop each and every seat in the house. It got us all wondering if beer like Preen was on the verge of a major American fashion moment.

Photos: Bryan Bedder / Getty

Source: www.style.com

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Thakoon

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Sep 102007
 

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NEW YORK, September 08, 2007 – Kirna Zabe’s Beth Buccini and Sarah Easley were in complete agreement. “It was the best show we’ve seen so far,” they raved while waiting in line to congratulate Thakoon Panichgul.

What made it stand out? The clothes, no doubt. Full-skirted day dresses, preppy tie-dyes, painterly prints (again!), and slouchy parka jacket it was all beautiful and concise. But there was more to it than that.

At Eyebeam, a massive gallery space in west Chelsea, the runway was laid out so that the models could weave through the crowd. Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” was the only song that played. It all had a fairly hypnotic effect. “I was trying to tell a story with this collection about a girl with a lot of color who escapes her everyday routine,” said Panichgul backstage. “It’s more than just travel and leisure. It’s about a real transformation.”

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Backstage Beauty Note: As one of six young designers to pair with Aveda during Fashion Week, Thakoon embraced the beauty company’s “Three Steps to a Greener Fashion Week” campaign backstage. In addition to swearing off fur in his spring collection, the designer abstained from offering bottled water, and gifted each model, hairstylist, and volunteer with her own sleek and refillable aluminum thermos. There was also an organic, locally sourced buffet with gourmet chicken burritos, fig and goat cheese baguettes, and fresh fruit that demanded no sacrifices in the way of flavor. “I’m loving this food,” declared hairstylist Eugene Souleiman, who let down each models’ tightly wound updo just moments before the show to reveal a cascade of soft, loose waves. “The hair should look as if it’s floating as the girls walk down the runway,” he said.

“It’s hot in here,” wailed a beleaguered publicist to no one in particular of the sweltering backstage area. Certainly the arrival of actress Kate Bosworth, wearing a clingy, electric pink sheath and sky-high Prada pumps on her way to greet the designer, had something to do with the sizzle.

Photos: Dimitrios Kambouris / WireImage.com

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J. Mendel

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Sep 102007
 

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NEW YORK, September 08, 2007 – Helen Lee Schifter already has one favorite J. Mendel fur. So her front-row perch along with Dr. Lisa Airan, Mary J. Blige, and Rachel Roy at the French furrier’s show was a good place to look for her next. She adores her J. Mendel shrunken bolero in sable. “It is that good dark brown Russian sable, too,” she said. “Not that, you know, yucky one with the gold tinge.”

Showing fur for spring seems like it could be a challenge, but for Schifter at least there’s nothing better than a summer-weight skin like the tissue-thin white goatskin coat she finds just as versatile as a trench.

So what might she be looking for come next year? How about the belted honey mink with the eyelet lacing? Or a lightweight gray Astrakhan coat? Or even some of the non-fur pieces, like any one of the mousseline dresses with their air of early eighties disco diva, a look amplified quite literally by the big, bouncing, blown-out hair of the models. That era was also heard on the preshow soundtrack, including an aural appearance by The Smiths. No need to point out how incongruous that was.

Photo: JP Yim / WireImage.com

Source: www.style.com

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Behnaz Sarafpour

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Sep 102007
 

NEW YORK, September 08, 2007 – Hairstylist Ashley Javier took a break from grooming front-row fixtures like Plum Sykes, Chlo Sevigny, and Rachel Weisz this week to prep models backstage at Behnaz Sarafpour’s spring 2008 show (the designer is one of his clients, after all). Taking a cue from her island-chic collection of rattan weave dresses, turquoise-embroidered skirts, and stretch cotton shorts, Javier created relaxed, feminine waves from the ears to the ends. “It’s easy, a little bit undone,” he said.

“Grab that model!” cried makeup artist and Lan me artistic director Gucci Westman from across the room, waving one hand in the air as she transformed mannequin Solange Wilvert into a sixties beach babe with peach-toned blush and shiny apricot lip gloss. Lan me influenced Sarafpour’s collection in more ways than one: When the cosmetics house model and eco-activist Elettra Rossellini sat down with the designer earlier this year to discuss the use of environmentally sustainable fabrics in her clothing, Sarafpour took note: organic cotton sourced from Japan, vibrant nontoxic dyes created from crushed marigolds, and embroidery made of responsibly harvested coral appear in her new collection.

Photo: Duffy-Marie Arnoult / WireImage.com

Behnaz Sarafpour

Source: Style.com

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