Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
Clothing, Prabal Gurung; Earrings, Linn Lomo; Hat, Heather Huey
Meet The Block’s cover model, 20-year-old Ashley Smith. She’s a gaptoothed ingenue who’s quickly risen to the top of the modeling business over the last two years, walking in shows for Balenciaga and Prada, appearing in campaigns for everyone from Diesel to Alexander Wang, and posing for Terry Richardson. We took a moment to ask the music-loving Texas beauty about her life outside modeling, what it’s like being compared to Lara Stone, and what’s inside her makeup bag.
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Friday, September 30th, 2011
TOPMAN S/S 2012 (image credit: catwalking.com)
In England, the High Street is personified by Topshop and TOPMAN, and it’s not surprising that both of their presentations at London Fashion Week were some of the most celebrity filled and anticipated shows in London. This year, TOPMAN was a success all around as design director Gordon Richardson struck a winning combination of “intense exotics versus stately home,” pairing slate coloured, immaculately fitted, double-breasted cotton suits with eastern influenced paisley prints. The collection also included colourfully striped sweaters, silk short-shorts, Moroccan and jacquard printed shirting, tasseled loafers, satin pyjama pants and even man-clutches, all styled to infer the rebellious and decadent young gentleman that is a TOPMAN. TOPMAN’s youthful and progressive approach to fashion provides young men continued exposure to the varying and ever-evolving possibilities for a new masculinity.
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Friday, September 23rd, 2011
Taylor Tomasi Hill in Miu Miu
Red was all over the runways this season — on lips, shifts, slacks and furs. But on the streets and style blogs, Taylor Tomasi Hill’s red has been trending for years. That scorching scarlet coif is the first thing you notice about the Marie Claire Style and Accessories Director when scrolling through The Sartorialist or Jak & Jil, but it’s not the last. While she’ll be snapped wearing the same Alexander McQueen bustier or Comme des Garçons trousers more than once, her chameleonic way of dressing ensures they’ll never be worn the same way twice. We queried her, hoping to crack her unconventional style code.
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Friday, September 23rd, 2011
Sweater, Stella McCartney
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Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
Candela S/S 2012 (photo: Fairchild Archive)
On one of the hotter days of fashion week, designer Gabriela Perezutti brought the jungle to Lincoln Center with a tropical installation for Candela NYC’s spring ready-to-wear show. And even though bottles of water were being passed out to those guests with beads of sweat dripping down their faces and fans were on high speed, the heat did not seem to dissipate. Full of lush, fecund plants, the installation hosted still, mannequin-like models bedecked in the designer’s spring collection.
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Monday, September 19th, 2011
Baartmans and Siegel S/S 2012
Since their very recent graduation from London College of Fashion, Wouter Baartmans and Amber Siegel have skipped right to the top of the distribution chain, amassed an enormous amount of credibility and been one the most highly anticipated new menswear labels to emerge in the last two years. Their Spring/Summer 2012 collection, titled “Dust Drifters,” is a rare collection that invokes a true curiosity about the stories that have laced themselves into the fabrics that you see, the ideas that have been woven into the silhouettes before you, the expanse of reference that is the sum of its components.
The duo occupy that popular oxymoronic playground of modern-traditionalism, but so does everyone. However, Baartmans and Siegel entertain this tension between the modern and the traditional differently. They approach it with a narrative, thematic philosophy in mind. They combine their formative and conceptual experience at Viktor & Rolf, the wisdom of the British tradition of menswear enshrined on Savile Row, and their own unique interpretation of culture, cinema, and landscape to create highly visceral pieces that embody a potent and romantic, if somewhat atypical modern man.
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Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
Barilá S/S 2012 (photographed by Jimmy Hamelin)
Montreal Fashion Week rolled back into its usual digs at the Marche Bonsecours for three full days and nights of Canadiana style. The Block made its way down the cobblestoned streets of Vieux Montreal (in heels, no less!) to bear witness to the display of local talent. Check out our thoughts on three of the Montreal-designed collections we caught during the week.
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Friday, September 9th, 2011
On the last day of August 2011, the steps of Montreal’s ornate Église de Saint Jean-Baptiste were draped with throngs of sartorially-daring fashion devotees who smoked, scowled, and generally flaunted their expertise in the art of being charmingly blasé. Despite the external cool emanating from the crowd, however, an electric current of excitement and anticipation was palpable—after all, this was no ordinary day at church. Up and coming Montreal designers Natasha Thomas and Christian L’Enfant Roi were set to debut their much awaited S/S 2012 collections in this unique location, and the crowd was ready to worship at the atelier.
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Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
There are some articles of clothing which inspire the wearer to channel a whole new persona. For instance, I imagine that by simply pulling on a pair of these gorgeous Cobra Society boots, suddenly I’d become the kind of girl who boldly tromps though dusty desert bad lands, impervious to the slithering critters and suffocating heat which would surely send my usual, city-girl self, scuttling to the first place I could find with wi-fi and a decent iced mocha.
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Thursday, September 1st, 2011
Last year when Carine Roitfeld officially resigned from Paris Vogue people reacted in such a dramatic manner, one would’ve thought that she had died. Text messages were being sent around that read: “Carine? Noooo!!!!!!!” or “End of an era (insert sad face).” Thankfully, Roitfeld is alive and well and posing with her children for Barneys fall campaign. Not being at the helm of Paris Vogue has given her time to pen (or put some pictures together) Carine Roitfeld: Irreverent , a visual history of her entire career thus far, set for release on October 18.
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THE BLOCK MIXTAPE
by Young Empires
Mixtape: Young Empires
Toronto's Young Empires send us straight to the dancefloor with this mixtape for The Block.
www.myspace.com/youngempires
01. Sabali (Vitalic Remix) - Amadou & Miriam
02. Lies (Herve Remix) - Fenech-Soler
03. Hour of the Wolf (Lifelike Remix) - Adam Kesher
04. Dance the Way I Feel (Armand Van Helden Remix) - Ou Est Le Swimming Pool
05. Snake Charmer - Bag Raiders
06. Wait & See - Holy Ghost!
07. All Night (Azari & III Remix) - Voltage
08. You Know I Know It - Tensnake
09. La Mezcla - Michel Cleis
10. Rain of Gold (French Horn Rebellion Remix) - Young Empires
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