Through the Decades

Every day this week, starting tomorrow, I am going to do posts on fashion through the years starting with the early 1920s. From flappers to poodle skirts, I will fill you in on the fashion history. So sit back, relax and enjoy reading about the history of trends!

Fashion Illustration

Fashion Illustration is a medium in which creative expression can be given free rein and designers can explore ideas before the realities of budgets, fabrics, or physics intervene.  Fashion designers’ sketches reveal inspiration as well as color and style. When learning to transfer ideas onto paper, designers are taught to find their own style. Each designer should have theier own unique design that sets their designs, or even their drawings, apart from any other designer. Nothing captures a fashion moment or mood quite like a designer’s first drawing for a dress.

Here are a few pictures of distinct fashion illustrations. (I couldn’t find many specific designer sketches.)

 

Dress Patriotic This Week

The ‘We Are One’ concert held on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial was a star-studded event to kick off a weeklong celebration of Obama’s Inauguration on Tuesday, Jan. 20^th. Thousands upon thousands of concert-goers braved the cold to see the biggest names in music and entertainment including performances from Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Sheryl Crow, U2 and Mary J. Blige; as well as speeches from Martin Luther King III, and actors Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks. In celebration of the inauguration week, we should all wear a little red, white and blue! Patriotism is defined as love of and devotion to one’s country.

Ralph Lauren has created many beautiful collections with patriotic colors taking over.

 

Chanel has an overindulgence of patriotic shoes. If you go for this look, please lose the ankle purse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even celebrites are going for a patriotic look!

Fashion Photography

Fashion photography is a type of photography devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items. Fashion photography is most often conducted for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Allure. Over time, fashion photography has developed its own aesthetic in which the clothes and fashions are enhanced by exotic locations and story lines or could be having great models with different vehicles or animals just to be an eye catching effect.

True, Fashion photography is commerce. But it is also art. One problem with today’s fashion photography comes when the photographer forgets to create art. For example, this shot from a February issue of Vogue shot by hotshot photographer, Michael Thompson. These types of fashion photography are as sterile and boring, as prosaic and plodding as a clothing catalog.

Sometimes, fashion photographers tend to forget that they are taking pictures of the clothes, and they focus more on making the photography interesting.

Great fashion photography—like great art in general—doesn’t just “tell about today”; it speaks truths about yesterday and tomorrow. “If you want reality, why don’t you look out of the window?” -Nick Knight

Photographers in the past tended to use models who seemed confident, intelligent, and sophisticated. Lisa Fonssagrives, fashion model and muse of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, epitomized a woman of great strength and dignity. You didn’t just want to wear her clothes; you wanted to be her. (Audrey Hepburn gave off the same vibe.)

 

Today, 30 years into feminism, we have models who look not just weak and unsophisticated, but also dumb and victimized. Academic feminists haven’t complained because the models are supposedly playing a subversive role and subversion is inherently politically correct. Moreover, many of the young photographers are female. But now we’ve moved into “fashion vérité” (fashion truth) and the models still look crude. Is this how women in fashion see themselves?

Fashion Photography has definitely changed throughout the years, like the rest of the fashion industry. Look through magazines and mark what you like to see. Do you like the thin, mistreated looking models in the photos? Or do you perfer the glowing, sophisticated models who make you want to wear the clothes in the photography?

A Little Bit About…Vera Wang

Vera Wang, age 59, is an American fashion designer based in New York. She is known for her wedding gown collection, among other specialties. Vera Wang has not always been the successful bridal designer like she is today.

As a girl, Wang trained as a figure skater, and competed at the 1968 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She was actually featured in Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd in the January 8, 1968 issue. When she failed to make the U.S. Olympic team, she entered the fashion industry.

Wang was a senior fashion editor for Vogue for sixteen years. In 1985, she left Vogue after being turned down for the editor-in-chief position currently filled by Anna Wintour and joined Ralph Lauren as a design director for two years. In 1990, she opened her own design salon in the Carlyle Hotel in New York which featured her trademark bridal gowns. She has designed costumes for figure skaters, including Nancy Kerrigan and Michelle Kwan. She also has made wedding gowns for Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Avril Lavigne, Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Garner, and Sharon Stone among others.

Vera Wang has expanded her brand name through her fragrance, jewelry, eyeware, shoe and houseware collections. She also wrote the book Vera Wang on Weddings which was released by Harper Collins in October, 2001. On May 27, 2006, Wang was awarded the André Leon Talley Lifetime Achievement Award from the Savannah College of Art and Design. In the Sex and the City movie, Vera Wang was featured amongst the many bridal gowns Carrie Bradshaw wore in a Vogue photo shoot.

Today, Vera Wang is one of the most prominent fashion designers in New York City.

Fashion Difference in Just 9 Years

I researched back to the Fashion Week in 2000 and couldn’t believe what I found. In just about 9 years, the fashion has already changed dramatically.

Fashion Week in 2000

A model wears a beaded camisole and flannel pants at a showing of the Ralph Lauren Fall 2000 line in New York. 

 

 

 

 

 A black beaded tie-back fringed top is modeled over black taffeta pants during the showing of Nicole Miller’s Fall 2000 collection in New York on Feb. 8, 2000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fashion Week in 2008

 

This model is wearing a black Reem Acra cocktail dress with a jewel-encrusted (This year’s trend!) collar for New York Fall Fashion Week 2008.

This beautiful white Chanel coat is being shown by a model at the New York City Fall Fashion show in 2008.

Welcome

Hello there, fashion lovers. Welcome to my fashionville. On here, you will see the good and the bad of fashion and trends in our world today. I will talk about the best bargains and where to get the greatest trends of the season.  Now although I have a passion for fashion, I might get off topic and share my thoughts about life. So grab a cup of tea, sit back,  and enjoy.

 

With a stitch of love,

Fashion Fiend