THE PEOPLE ISSUE
Future Stars of Fashion
CARIN RODEBJER
Carin Rodebjer takes a common objective of women’s wear—to offer high fashion with a relaxed, accessible vibe—and succeeds where so many labels fail. The Rodebjer label does not imitate renowned fashion houses or jump on trend bandwagons. She designs for a woman who is comfortable in her own skin—refined, casual and stylish. Born in Sweden, [...]
FYODOR GOLAN
With their hearts firmly placed in the British fashion capital, this designer duo from Latvia (Fyodor Podgorny) and Israel (Golan Frydman) were the proud and well deserved winners of the UK’s prestige Fashion Fringe title. One of the highlights of their career, the exposure has garnered this married couple worldwide recognition. Their Spring/Summer 2012 collection [...]
PETER LOC TAN NGUYEN
Representing androgyny, Peter Loc Tan Nguyen’s collection defines the portrayal of masculinity and femininity brought into several pieces. Effortless, sophisticated, and understated are just a few words to describe the collection. As a recent graduate from Academy of Art University with a degree in both Fashion Design and Knitwear, Nguyen combines the two styles together [...]
LIZETTE AVERINI
Presence is the first attribute that comes to mind upon viewing Lizette Avineri’s clothing. The collection was inspired by a recent trip to Israel, where Avineri experienced a case of the Jerusalem Syndrome: “A mental phenomenon comprising the presence of delusions, obsessions or religiously-themed ideas that are triggered by visiting Jerusalem.” This syndrome creates a [...]
Sruli Recht
Draped, raw and digital – these are the three words describing designer Sruli Recht’s first venture into fashion as we know it, with his debut menswear collection presented in Paris last January. A multi-faceted designer, Recht set up his design studio to work on cross-disciplinary projects. In 2008, he began producing a series of monthly [...]
Ying Gao
Geography, urbanism, distances and the shape of cities – unusual elements to be found in fashion, they form the basis for the work of Chinese-born, Montreal-based designer Ying Gao. But Ying Gao is not just a designer – she is a researcher, an interactive developer of ideas, and, more formally, a professor at the Ecole [...]
Simon Spurr
The one name test is the only certified litmus for major designers. Ralph, check. Donna, check. Karl, check. Oscar, check. Simon, no check (yet). Even though Simon Spurr has not quite permeated into the cultural lexicon, he’s nevertheless a major talent and significant player shaping the vision of American menswear. With Anna Wintour in his [...]
Iris van Herpen
Every artist dreams of making music that destroys boundaries and forces listeners to accept them on their own terms. On his self-titled debut album, James Blake has that and more with a panoramic suite of tunes that demolishes the structures of pop music to build a glittering new edifice on the rubble. Blake made the [...]
Berlin Fashion
Berlin is coming up in the fashion industry. A pubescent youngster when compared to cities like New York and Paris, the Berlin Fashion Week is steadily advancing towards becoming the international fashion community’s unexpected prom-queen. While not there yet, there is a lot of potential in this dynamic city full of independent artists and unconventional [...]
Dawid Tomaszewski
Dawid Tomaszewski: Modern Couture In fashion geography as we know it, nobody ever thinks of Poland as a relevant location. Paris and Milan come to mind for the classic luxurious fashions, Japan and Antwerp for the avant-garde, and a few more cities and countries may be added to the list (Australia, Brazil, Turkey and their [...]
Return To OZ
Australian designers may well be geographically removed from the world’s fashion capitals, but when it comes to constructing quality designs and captivating couture, they’re right on trend. SOMA highlights the designers breathing new life into the global fashion body. Disce Mori > Dead animals and diamonds are an unlikely mix. That is, of course, unless [...]
Elise Gettliffe: Menswear Has Never Been This Fun
Text by Rosa Bertoli Elise Gettliffe has yet to finish her ma at the Royal Academy in Antwerp, but her third-year collection, named “Bing Bang Boum Vlan Paf Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii” has already gained her an international following. The funny, colorful collection won the Fashion Special Prize at its, the Trieste-based contest that showcases the best new [...]
Constructing to New Heights
Alithia Spuri-Zampetti embraces East and West Text by Rosa Bertoli For her dramatic collection, Alithia Spuri-Zampetti studied the contrasts between Asian and Western composition and applied a strong Japanese influence to classic silhouettes and colorblock tailoring. “The two sides of the world speak the same visual language using an opposite alphabet,” is the charming explanation [...]
Modern Romanticism
Robert Geller’s reinterpreted classics Text by Mengly Taing To design for today’s thinking man, Robert Geller looks to the past. Each collection begins with an idea that leads to a time and a place far from the present. “Paris in the 1960s or Berlin in the 1820s,” Geller says. “It gives me a sense of [...]
Daily Dose
Cathy Pill makes couture that’s easy to swallow. Belgian exports usually fall into two categories: fashion and food. Chocolate and waffles aside, general word association between the country and design tends to lead to the wildly successful alumni from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Royal Academy products like Margiela and Dries, a member of [...]
Achtung Baby
German designer Wibke Deertz is on the move and commanding attention with euro hipster classics. Sometimes when you’re flipping through a look book you just want to jump into the pages and join the well-dressed models—or in the case of Joseph Altuzarra’s look book, I wish I could jump into the pages and become Vanessa [...]
Rikke Hubert: Copenhagen-Found Levity
In the fashion world, dichotomies abound. Some say of designing, it’s either sink or swim. For Rikke Hubert, it’s float. “I am only thinking one collection at a time,” says the 28-year-old Dane, whose new work reflects at least one duality in her life. The anticipated release of Hubert’s womenswear collection, only the third since [...]
Maria Louise Suhr: Great Dane
Scandinavia has just kind of dropped in and taken over. From IKEA to H&M to Cheap Monday to Acne, the region has produced its fair share of stylish designers. At one time or another, each of these up-and-comers was dubbed “one to watch.” Well, now here’s another: Maria Louise Suhr. Never heard of her? No [...]
Academy of Art Alumni Cut Free
If you consider the thousands of fashion design students who graduate each year and the collections they produce at the culmination of their education—it’s a wonder that anyone ever gets noticed. These pending alumni put endless amounts of resources, stitches, time and ambition into their designs with the hope that they will create a halo [...]
Cloak Design: Alexandre Plokhov
Text by Allison Bethurem Photograph by Ray Lee Hidden beneath the heavy shoulder throw of Cloak Design lies a mysterious and alluring menswear line flapping its way onto the streets of urban cities around the world. Created by Russian-born designer Alexandre Plokhov, Cloak gives the modern-day man a chance to get in touch with his [...]
Ass-Kicking Jeans from Italy
Written by Robyn Dutra Photograph by Michael Greenberg James Walley has been called “the King of Butt-Flattering Denim Design,” and his coronation has come after only a few short years since founding My Ass jeans in 2004. To say the “sexiest jeans in Europe” are made of premium denim merely hints at the true innovation [...]
CASTING AGENTS
Text by Robyn Dutra It’s a familiar story in the cultural milieu called “downtown New York.” Two guys who “do nothing else professionally” start a fashion line from their digs on the Lower East Side. They begin with T-shirts and sweatshirts, colored and distressed by hand, emblazoned with images that “tell a story of past [...]