Roma, Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera. Chanel is Coming!

Rome, Don't Be a Fool Tonight.

The day is almost here! On December 1st Chanel will stage its Métiers d'Art show at the Cinecitta' studios in Rome. As a proud Roman I'm really happy that once again, after the magnificent Valentino's Haute Couture show in July, the city is back on the fashion map and that the Chanel guests and the entire (online)  world will be able to appreciate its beauty, at the same level of Seoul and New York, where the Cruise 2016 collection and the last Métiers d'Art show were held.

Rome, Don't Be a Fool Tonight. 

I really hope that the city and the Roman people will give their best and that the luxury experience of this event will carry on outside the show venue too; in the streets, in the restaurants and bars, in the hotels or simply having a 'cappuccino e cornetto' for breakfast in one of the thousand excellent coffee bars in town.

Rome, Don't Be a Fool Tonight.

Last but not least, it'll be interesting to see Karl Lagerfeld take on the city historical, cultural and cinematografic heritage and how he'll translate that into the collection. Rome, do your best to cast your spell on the Chanel guests and make them fall in love with you.

Roma, Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera.

Ci siamo quasi! Il 1mo dicembre Chanel mandera' in passerella la collezione Métiers d'Art negli studi di Cinecitta' a Roma. Da romano orgoglioso sono molto contento che nuovamente, dopo la sfilata d'Alta Moda di Valentino a luglio, la citta' sia di nuovo nel circuito della moda e che gli ospiti di Chanel ma anche tutto il mondo intero (online) ne potranno apprezzare la bellezza, allo stesso livello di Seoul e New York, location della Cruise 2016 e della precedente collezione Métiers d'Art.

Roma, Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera

Spero vivamente che la citta' e i romani facciano del loro meglio affinche' la lussuosa esperienza Chanel prosegua anche al di fuori della sfilata; nelle strade, nei ristoranti, negli alberghi ma anche solo nei centinaia di bar con cappuccino e cornetto.

Roma, Nun Fa' la Stupida Stasera.

Infine vedremo come Karl Lagerfeld interepretera' il passato bagaglio storico, culturale e cinematografico della citta' nella collezione. Roma, fai del tuo meglio per affascinare gli invitati di Chanel e falli innamorare di te.

Marni AW 15 AD by Jackie Nickerson

I usually flick through the new season advert campaigns quite quickly and in some cases I do stop and look at the pictures with interest. That's the case of Marni's AW15 campaign that, funnily enough, I discovered following the work of its photographer, Jackie Nickerson, whose African farmers portraits inspired Danielle Romeril SS16 collection Paradise Lost that I wrote about a month ago.

Di solito sfoglio le campagne pubblicitarie della nuova stagione abbastanza velocemente e solo in alcuni casi mi soffermo con interesse sulle immagini. Questo e' il caso della campagna Marni AW15 che, buffamente, ho scoperto seguendo il lavoro della fotogrfa Jackie Nickerson, i cui ritratti dei contadini africani hanno ispirato la collezione SS16 di Danielle Romeril di cui vi ho parlato un mese fa.

Jackie Nickerson's portraits

The adv pictures are the best example of what fashion photography should be; it tells a story and a mood where you look at the person first and then coincidentally this person is wearing the clothes you are advertising. To pick a photographer like Nickerson clearly was the right choice for Marni as the focus of each picture is on the woman, whose face we don't always see and it is up to us to figure out why sh'e on the floor, is sitting on a fallen chair or leaning on a table.

le immagini della campagna sono uno dei milgiori esempi di come dovrebbe essere la fotogrfia di moda; racconta una storia e un mood in cui si fa attenzione prima alla persona e poi, incidentalmente, il soggetto indossa gli abiti e accessori che si vogliono promuovere. Scegliere una fotografa come Jackie Nickerson e' stata chiaramente un'ottima scelta per marni poiche' in ogni foto il focus e' sulla donna, il cui viso spesso non vediamo e sta a noi, osservatori, capire perche' e' stesa a terra, seduta su una sedia caduta o appoggiata ad un tavolo.

Brighton Fashion Week 2015

This is the English translation of my article on BFW 15 that appeared on Fashion News Magazine in Italian a week ago. I'm translating it to make it accessible to my English speaking audience.

All pictures by Malcom Tam

The success of last year's Sustain event, convinced Lizzy Bishop, the founder and creative mind of Brighton Fashion Week, to focus the 2015 edition entirely on sustainable fashion. Not only upcycling workshops in order to create new garments out of old ones, but also debates, networking events and overall fashion shows whose designers used sustainability as part of their production and business model.

If Brighton Fashion Week doesn't attract thousands of journalists, fashion insiders and buyer like London, with the English capital shares a really strong push towards innovation and the right balance between creativity and business. To have thirty 'sustainable' designers on the schedule is not an easy task but the excellent scouting work done by the BFW shows that it is possible to create an event that proves that sustainable fashion can be real, a viable model for the future of this industry.

Even in the wide ranging diversity of the collections, all the brands share some 'good pratices' like using end of the roll fabrics, digital prints, eco-friendly dyeing techniques and the use of  organic materials and chemically treated as less as possible. Finally in order to show that sustainable fashion is a model that works well globally, in this 2015 edition, there were both designers from Brighton - the talented Isaac Raimond and my bias L.O.M - and from Asia - Angus Tsui and Tiffany Pattinson - who showed the best four collections of the event together with the floral menswear suits by KellyDawnRiot, that were a hit with the Brighton audience