Fur realz - Fall/Winter 2011/2012

The European Fall/Winter 2011/2012 menswear season is off and running in Milan. After a day of shows, what are the early trends? Military detailing, velvet, drop-crotch trousers and a surprising amount of colour for a winter season. Of note, Burberry's tangerine and cyclamen pink pea coats, duffle and puffa jackets and Jil Sander's skinny knits, parkas and colour-blocked suiting in an eye-popping palette, which creative director Raf Simons looks to have carried over from his womens' spring 2011 show. Not to mention fur. This time last year we noted a preponderance of shaggy glam rock mens' coats in various fabrications. And although this season, Dolce e Gabbana used faux fur and Roberto Cavalli's patchwork fur coat had almost a vintage vibe, the luxury ante was definitely upped by Burberry, which showed a number of rabbit, lambskin and patchwork Finnish mink jackets, including one spectacular two-tone mink for a cool US$27,000. 

The biggest name in the mens modelling business right now, Serbian Australian Andrej Pejic - who debuted at number 40 on models.com's Top 50 Male Models list last month and then suddenly jumped to number 17 in the past week - was conspicuous by his absence.

Although Pejic briefly touched down in Milan last week to attend some early castings and is so far only confirmed for Tuesday's Neil Barrett show, a "money job" in London saw him up stumps and head to the UK for several days. He is due to arrive back in Milan today.


Images:
1, 2, 3, 4: burberry/getty via daylife
5, 6: dolce e gabbana/dolce e gabbana
7: roberto cavalli/ap via daylife

Jefferson Hack isn't the only big fashion name heading downunder in 2011

purple diary

Last night the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival announced more details of the lineup for its 2011 event, which will run from 14-20 March under a new creative director, Condé Nast's former mens fashion director Grant Pearce. Now in its 14th year, LMFF is a consumer-focussed event of in-season fashion parades and exhibitions that are open to the public. But ironically, it’s the industry-focussed Business Seminar that is arguably its hottest ticket, with a stellar lineup of speakers that has previously included former Selfridges ceo Vittorio Radice, Philippe Starck, Agent Provocateur’s Joe Corre and Serena Rees, Vivienne Westwood and last year, LMFF's first really big fashion kahuna, Calvin Klein Collection womenswear director Francisco Costa. In March, Jefferson Hack, editorial director of London’s Dazed Group, will join ACNE Studios ceo Mikael Schiller and Havas Worldwide ceo David Jones, in addition to 2011 Festival face, New York-based Australian actor Melissa George. George is a Perth native, but will nevertheless inject some Hollywood glamour into the event. 

Hack will inject the cool factor. 

A multimedia svengali who is hardwired into the indie fashion zeitgeist, Hack is now a front row fixture at every major international fashion show alongside fashion establishment stalwarts such as Anna Wintour. Even The Guardian recently asked its readers, could he be the coolest man in Britain? 

The co-founder of hipster bible Dazed & Confused in 1992 at age 19, Hack's empire now embraces Dazed Digital, AnOther Magazine and AnOther Man. Being Kate Moss' babydaddy hasn’t hurt his profile. 

Here is a taste of what the LMFF 2011 Business Seminar audience can expect: an interview Hack did earlier this year with The Business of Fashion’s Imran Amed, as part of BOF's 'Fashion Pioneers' series: 




 
There are more LMFF announcements to be made but one of them, frockwriter understands, will not be that Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey is joining the 2011 lineup. Bailey has been courted by the event for several years. 

But that’s not to say that we don’t be seeing him downunder next year. 

In April, Burberry is due to unveil a massive new 7000 square foot boutique at 343 George Street in Sydney, one of its biggest flagships in the Asia Pacific region. We hear that Bailey may be heading down to cut that ribbon.

If so, that will make April a busy month for fashion bigwigs in Sydney.

Sources at Diane von Furstenberg report that the queen of the wrap dress is heading our way in April, no doubt to officially christen her first Australian boutique that has just opened within Westfield Sydney. 

More Boutiques.com: You can also shop their looks for less

 
Yesterday frockwriter revealed the name of Google’s new fashion e-tail venture Boutiques.com, which is launching tomorrow in New York. It was in fact a world scoop........by about 40 minutes (WWD had a page one story in yesterday’s edition). Today we can add some more info. The site, we understand, is moving very rapidly towards the unveil and its offer now embraces boutiques curated either by - or around - 76 celebrities, 27 retailers, 55 designers and 12 bloggers. But the list of designers simply reflects those names who have thus far, apparently, agreed to participate in the venture. A designer directory lists over 200 designer names (including Australians Bassike, Willow, Thurley, sass & bide, Lover and Ksubi). But even that doesn’t embrace the full scope of the Boutiques.com offer, because products from a raft other brands and outlets that are not, it seems, officially involved, are also featured. They include US-based fast fashion chain Forever 21, the bête noir of the US fashion industry, which has been the target of numerous trademark/copyright infringement lawsuits initiated by US designers - including participating Boutiques.com designers Diane von Furstenberg and Anna Sui. 

How are these non partner brands involved? 

From our understanding, by recommendations - from, for instance, the bloggers and notably, via Google’s own in-house curation using the image-matching technology it acquired from Like.com in August. 

Like the $1365 Alexander Mcqueen dress with trompe l’oeil jewelled bodice recommended by The Cherry Blossom Girl? Adjacent to that image, Boutiques.com throws up an array of what it is calling “visually similar” garments at varying price points, which click through to the plethora of online retail partners that are paying a fee to Google to be featured (plus, one assumes, a commission). As we noted yesterday, these include Shopbop, Nêt-à-Porter, Nordstrom, Selfridges, Bluefly and, yes, evidently also Forever 21.

Beyond mere trend matching, frockwriter will be curious to see if Google plans to moderate any direct copies of its designer partners' products that might pop up in the search fields. 

The Boutiques.com launch coincides with the possible imminent implementation of some rather groundbreaking new federal IP legislation in the United States: the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act. The first statutory protection specific to fashion designs, the bill was introduced in August, reportedly has bipartisan support and may be passed by the year's end.

If passed, the legislation would provide designers with three year copyright protection on all fashion, accessory and eyewear items from the moment they are first promoted in public and it is fully supported by the Council of Fashion Designers of America, of which von Furstenberg is current president. 
  

composite: frockwriter