Ferragamo, the Shoemaker

Shoemaker to Fashion Empire.

The Story.

Known as the "shoemaker to the stars," Salvatore Ferragamo is renowned first and foremost for its footwear. In the early 1920's, Ferragamo, a Naples native who apprenticed with a shoemaker as a teenager, set up the Hollywood Boot Shop after moving to California. Soon he was crafting boots and shoes for movie stars' on-screen looks. Enamored of his designs, actors from Douglas Fairbanks to Mary Pickford enlisted him to custom-fit their feet off-screen as well.

After moving his company back to Florence in the late twenties, Ferragamo achieved worldwide success in the next few decades as he pioneered such innovative designs as the "invisible" sandal, wedge heels, and the all-important steel-reinforced stiletto, popularized by Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.

In 1959, a year before his death, Ferragamo's daughter Giovanna introduced the label's first clothing collection. Accessories soon followed. Today, the ready-to-wear collection, shown in Milan, focuses on Italian sportswear.

From 2003 to 2007, Graeme Black, a Giorgio Armani alumnus, oversaw the label, offering mostly ladylike looks in a neutral palette. In 2007, Cristina Ortiz, formerly of Brioni and Lanvin, assumed the post of creative director. While her first collection met with mixed reviews for its flashy vibe, which was out of sync with the house's traditional aesthetic, hopes are high that she will forge a distinct image for Ferragamo rather than let the clothes be a backdrop for the accessories.

While shoes and that famous fit remain the focus of the house (certain sizes come in six different widths), Ferragamo today also includes eyewear, watches, and fragrances. In early 2008, the house celebrated its 80th anniversary with a blowout party in Shanghai.

The Cat That Ate The Canary

# 2010 Best Trend

Miu Miu's Spring Prints

Everybody's cold black heart should slowly turning red for these flighty friends. Whimsical bird prints were seen all over Miu Miu’s Spring runway and if Prada’s doing it, that’s enough reason to overcome ornithophobia. Incorporating bird prints and charms into Spring outfits takes it to soaring new heights.

Alber Elbaz, Dress Whisperer

# 2010 BEST DESIGNER

In the eight years that Elbaz has been designing for Lanvin, the oldest surviving French fashion house, he has transformed it from a dusty artifact of the past into something influential and prominent. His vision has also started to trickle down to the mass market. {Who doesn't love Lanvin for H&M?}

Who the hell is Alber Elbaz?

Elbaz worries constantly and openly, and there seems to be something fundamental about him in need of comforting. If he is melancholy and heavy, his clothes are joyful and weightless. He often describes his work as “classic with a twist.”

Elbaz was born in Morocco. When he was eight months old, his family, like many other Sephardic Jews at the time, moved to Israel. He left home in 1985 and moved to New York to pursue a career in fashion. Geoffrey Beene hired him as an assistant designer and served as his mentor for seven years.

In 1997, Elbaz moved to Paris to become head designer at Guy Laroche. After Elbaz had spent just over a decade in the business, Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé, recruited him to be head of ready-to-wear for Y.S.L. In November 1999, the Gucci Group, headed by Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole, bought Y.S.L. Two months later, Elbaz was dismissed and Ford was installed as head designer. Elbaz was devastated. Ford both reflected and shaped the culture of the nineties. He made it cool to flaunt. But in our current moment Tom Ford, with his cufflinks that cost as much as a car and his naked-men-on-bearskin-rugs aesthetic, seems distant and comical. Elbaz doesn’t want to define trends. He wants his designs to be timeless.

Elbaz and his dreams: Lanvin

Like Elbaz, Jeanne Lanvin sought to design fashion that transcended seasonal fads. She found founded her label in 1889, starting out as a milliner and later dressing Paris’s upper class. The company built a name with ultrafeminine clothing, marked by elaborate trimmings like embroidery and beading, as well as its popular fragrances.

After a period of decline at the end of the twentieth century, Lanvin found new financial and critical success with the 2001 arrival of designer Alber Elbaz, who is frequently lauded for his technical skill and innate sense of what women want to wear. The Israeli designer has made Lanvin one of fashion's most coveted labels.

Today, it’s the oldest French fashion house in operation. And while it encompasses menswear, it is best loved among editors and celebs for exquisitely made womenswear. Duchesse satin, cocktail-length frocks (often with one shoulder), dressed-up cigarette pants, and volume experimentation are signatures.

Pictures via The New Yorker

Behind the Seams of a Birkin

Hermès Birkin handbags are hand-built by experienced craftsmen, one of the primary factors contributing to the high price of all Hermès handbags. The production of each bag may take up to 48 work hours, translating into weeks. They are distributed worldwide to Hermès boutiques on intentionally unpredictable schedules and in even fewer reliable quantities, creating a sense of scarcity and exclusivity around the product.

The exterior of the bag can be made of a variety of leathers. One of the most expensive variations of the bag is made of saltwater crocodile skin. The price of these bags depends on the size of the scales. Bags with smaller scales cost much more than those with larger scales.

Typically, a Birkin bag's lining is made of goat skin and its color will match the bag's exterior color. The bags can also be special-ordered with custom leathers and colors, but order privileges are granted only to certain established Hermès clients, and again, on an unpredictable basis.

Orders are reportedly submitted to Paris twice a year, with "special-order" bags coming back anywhere from a year to two years later. Occasionally, special orders may never arrive, as Hermès is notorious for discontinuing certain leathers or colors without notice, frequently making the arrival and "pick-up" of a special order Birkin a cause for some fun fanfare both for the client, and occasionally even for boutique staff.

The metallic hardware on a Birkin bag (the lock, keys, buckle hardware and feet studs) are typically plated with gold or other precious metals, such as palladium, which, unlike silver, will not tarnish. The metal lock may be covered with leather as an option when custom ordering. Certain notable Hermès clients have paved buckle hardware with diamonds, notoriously resulting in one black crocodile skin Birkin which notably sold for close to $65,000 at auction in 2005.

Birkin lock keys are enclosed in a type of leather lanyard known as a "clochette" which is typically, but not necessarily, carried by looping it through one of a Birkin's handles. The Birkin bag may be locked by closing the bag's top flaps over all buckle loops, wrapping the buckle straps, and closing the lock on the front hardware. Locks and keys are number-coded.

Lauder Legacy

Aerin Lauder would hate the term Park Avenue Princess, but that's what she is: The granddaughter of the legendary Estée Lauder, founder of the half-century-old $3.5 billion global cosmetics empire, and daughter of Ronald Lauder, the 57-year-old chairman of Clinique and former United States ambassador to Austria.

The long, thin, swan's neck supports a finely sculptured head. The patrician features, regal chin, confident glare and radiant complexion scream Park Avenue. The tall, cigarette-thin figure, emphasized by four-inch stiletto heels, is suggestive of a typical svelte Park Avenue Princess.

But, she is unassuming, unpretentious, very real. Very down to earth. There isn't a trace of arrogance or hauteur about her and it's not an accident. She has been raised to despise arrogance, even as a pose. One of a new breed of trust-fund tycoons - who actually work although they're born wealthy - she had the beauty business in her blood.

In her 20s, sporting Manolo Blahniks with Michael Kors or Oscar de la Renta wherever she went, she was regularly featured on magazine best-dressed lists alongside Hollywood stars and rock divas.

Now, at 30, Aerin is director of creative marketing of Estée Lauder, a senior executive in the family business. She brings her grandmother's implacable zeal and - at least as important - her instinct, to duties that include trawling Paris and Milan for next season's fashion and color trends.

"When people ask me, 'Why do you work?' I find that almost rude," she says. "Everybody has to work. You've got to work hard at whatever you do. You've got to do something that stimulates your mind, otherwise life becomes very petty and you have too much time to worry about nonsense. Even if you don't work in an office and you want to be at home with your children, then work at something you think is important. Do something!"

As well as her demanding business schedule, Aerin also has a dizzying social life. She is regularly featured in Avenue, Quest, W and Vogue as a guest at this garden party or that. In 1996, she married her college-days sweetheart, investment banker Eric Zinterhofer, son of a New Jersey pathologist, in a Hamptons wedding. They have one son.

Pictures via Harper's Bazaar

Balenciaga, Behind the Scene

Founded in 1918 by the Basque designer Cristobal Balenciaga, the house emerged as one of the great design establishments in the early decades of the twentieth century, and re-emerged around the turn of the new millennium as one of the greats of the twenty-first. Championed alike by actual queens (of Spain and Belgium) and the queens of café society and Hollywood (Babe Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marlene Dietrich), Balenciaga did nothing less than redefine the female silhouette.

Throughout the mid-century years, he introduced forms that at first looked awkward or simply unattractive, but, as the eye adjusted, became the latest word in chic: the sack, the baby doll, the balloon skirt, the bracelet sleeve (a 7/8 length that hit just shy of the wrist).

Balenciaga was the son of a seamstress from a small fishing village. At the urging of a prominent patron, he attended tailoring school in Madrid, and soon opened boutiques in the country. The Spanish Civil War forced him to relocate to Paris in 1937—a tragic turn of events that had a silver lining: The greater stage of Paris gave him a chance to expland his clientele and solidify his reputation as the "couturier of couturiers."

The operation, then exclusively couture, closed in 1968, an event that caused Countess Mona von Bismarck to lock herself indoors for three days. Balenciaga died in 1972.

In 1987, the name was revived as a prêt-à-porter label, but it wasn't until 1997, when the youthful French designer Nicolas Ghesquière came onboard as creative director, that the house began to regain its former prominence. Giving concepts from the rich Balenciaga archives an intriguing rethink, the instinctively progressive Ghesquière was dubbed a new messiah by the press.

In 2001, the Gucci Group added Balenciaga to its stable of luxury brands. These days, tabloid images of the princesses of Hollywood wearing—and carrying—Balenciaga keep the knockoff factories churning.

Coco Mademoiselle

Coco Mademoiselle is a women's perfume in the Chanel collection that was introduced in 2001 for the younger Chanel fans. The fragrance was created by Jacques Polge, the nose of Chanel since 1978.

Spokesmodels
Famous spokesmodels for the fragrance have included Belgian model Anouck Lepere, Kate Moss, Nicole Kidman, and Keira Knightley (current). In 2008 various gossip websites and tabloids reported a rumor that actress Emma Watson was to replace Knightly for a three million pound contract; however, Chanel representatives clarified in a statement that the rumour was false.

Marc Jacobs, King of Cool

Marc Jacobs' coveted clothes, cutting-edge ads and celeb-packed front rows ensure this style pioneer's hold on the throne while he takes a break in his Soho, New York, Studio.

Marc Jacobs was only sixteen when he started working as a stock boy at the influential Upper West Side boutique Charivari. It was there that he first met Perry Ellis—the designer who, Jacobs says, encouraged him to apply to Parsons the New School for Design and mentored him while he was a student. Eight years later, Jacobs produced his infamous grunge collection for the Perry Ellis label.

It was also at Charivari that Jacobs sold his first pieces, a collection of oversize, hand-knit sweaters that he designed while at Parsons (his grandmother made the original samples), the popularity of which he still refers to as "kind of my first big break."

Today Jacobs is one of the most well-known and closely watched designers in the world, helming his own signature label, a diffusion line, and the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton. But he shies away from offering explicit advice to anyone looking to duplicate his success: "I hate the word advice," he explains. "It's not a mathematical situation. I'm happy to share my experience, but everybody has a different path."

And where do the ideas come from in the first place?
Marc Jacobs: Everywhere. Everywhere and anywhere. They come from other people, they come from me, they come from people I see on the streets. Sometimes they come from a movie I saw the night before, and sometimes it's as simple as wanting a big, soft sweater because I'm cold that day.

Moschino Cheap and Chic

Hi dearest fashionistas,

I am the sister line to Moschino that was launched in 1988 and ascribes to the main line's sense of fun and playfulness.

Designed by Rossella Jardini, my collection is about celebration of color, with an uplifting palette of greens, pinks, and yellows. Jardini is all about the details, so expect to find acrylic brooches, circle paillettes and cascading ruffles.

I'm sure you'll find yourself in love with me in an instance!

xoxo,
Moschino Cheap and Chic

31, rue Cambon

More than understanding the iconography of Chanel, a house that first opened its doors at 31, rue Cambon in 1921, Karl knows what the name means in the history of Paris. Unlike many other houses that have disappeared behind corporate facades or disappeared altogether, Chanel still sits like a white-gloved lady on the Rue Cambon.

Probably to a great many young tourists who come to take pictures of its famous entrance and the Cassandre-designed logo, the Rue Cambon is Chanel.

Hermes d'Orange

Hermes was the first.
When orange was chosen to adorn packages, boxes, bags, papers and items for the home; no one else was using it.

Orange was not at all representative of 1940s France. Surprisingly enough, but not without reason, orange did not exist in the West for a long time. It didn't even have a name.

It was a product of blends ordained by the Inquisition, it is a sub-color, like purple and brown. Seen as vulgar, flashy and inferior, it is usually the last in line when it comes to favorite colors in France.

It was a daring move: Orange disturbs conventional people because it wraps them in a warm embrace. It shocked conformists because it denotes spark. It puzzles people set in their ways because it's new.

Hermes was a pioneer. Long before the days of flower power and the craze for psychedelic tone, before fashion altogether, when it was all about showing one's unique and precious character and being in line with certain tradition (The Muses' dresses in Greek mythology were orange)...

One shade alone was right for the job: orange! The color of fruits bursting with vitamins, the color of all the promises of dawn and the splendorous of fire, the color of warmth.

Think outside the box today!

Pictures via Hermes