Magazines were my obsession as a child- back home there are probably still stacks of 89-94 issues of Vogue and Bazaar under my bed. The shoots and covers that mesmerized me eclectic looking models in extravagant poses wearing the most up to date fashions. Here recently it seems like the industry-meaning beauty, fashion, and designer ads have opted for celebrity as opposed to models. Once upon a time models became the celebrity based on on how many covers or runways they graced. Now you can’t find a model on the traditional high fashion magazine or beauty commercial. There are plenty of models starving (literally) to be picked I’d prefer to buy lip-gloss based on that girl rather than Rhianna or Penelope Cruz. Our celeb obsessed society should welcome back the model or at least that’s what I think….

We’re taking a purely spectator view on this considering we truly know no one at Elle. Seeing as how The New York times blew the lid off of the inner workings of Elle as it is now, we decided to sort of deconstruct what it means in the grand scheme of things; on the periphery, if you will. Elle has been behind Vogue for as long as anyone can remember. It’s also been behind Instyle as well in terms of ad pages. For awhile it seemed as if it was listing along. One person was solely responsible for their photoshoots for the most part and the editorial was neither here nor there. The elephant in the room that no one wanted to talk about seemed to be Gilles Bensimmons. The elephant may be gone and assigned to a lesser role, but that might not be enough. I’ll explain.

I went to a shoe designer’s fall trunk show/preview and met up with an editorial assistant at the time (no telling what she does there now) and she said behind the scenes it was a mess, even then. She also talked about their online efforts and how it left a lot to be desired (I believe the correct word was what a vaccum does to particles). She said that Style’s efforts seemed light years ahead and that was saying something considering Style kinda does the hole vaccuum particle thing too. Hearsay you say? I say, possibly, but to use a clumsy oft-repeated saying, where there is smoke there is fire. The smoke being the dwindling ad and subscription base at the time (they’ve managed to turn it around somewhat recently), the fire being Bensimmons’ pseudo departure.

It left us thinking that someone at Elle’s parent company was in the mood for changes. That turned out to be wrong as the New York Times article said that change mostly came from within. Already Elle for September is trying something different with Lindsay Lohan on the cover. A move that has half of us saying blech… and the other half saying… ok.. controversy.. not-bad.

So the question is, is Elle going down faster than Paris Hilton’s panties at a frat party? Or is a resurgence in the making?

This time last week I was remarking how Michael Vobracht really came into his own at Bill Blass creating a resurgence of sort in the line’s fortunes. I lamented his departure to walk the earth and find himself. His reasoning for leaving was that he wanted to create art and pursue his own work. That was Bill Blass’ loss at the time. The rumblings were going on for awhile now as to who would replace him and the who became Peter Som for the women’s line and Michael Bastion for the men’s line. Vogue UK reported that Peter Som has officially been tapped to head the design efforts at the company.

For his own imprint this Fall, Som showed that he was adept at layering and creating texture while at the same time moving away from the sugary sweet looks that dominated past collections. There is a distinct difference between what you see from Volbracht and Som. I expect this difference to show up at fashion week, quoted from the same Vogue article Som states that

“…My current focus is to evolve and modernise the brand by incorporating my own aesthetic, while staying true to Mr Blass’ vision and legacy.”

Vollbracht seemed less worried about staying in tune with Blass is vision and more with laying a different direction.

Here’s a link to Peter Som’s fall line at Style.com. This could theoretically be a preview of what’s to come at Bill Blass.

Went to the Francois and Marithe’ Girbaud Le Jean debut party last week and still trying to wrangle an interview (should be coming soon…I hope). There were a smattering of great pieces here and there. All in all it was pretty uneventful not because of the designs, they were different. Mostly because of the crowd, and I’ll get into that. The news was basically that Girbaud is moving away from hip-hop and is trying to embrace a wider audience (or he was embracing the wider audience and hip-hop just naturally fell in). You couldn’t tell that completely from seeing the line, but there is definitely a move away from the baggy, pocket-low jeans that you’re used to seeing. Now keep in mind that I said the event was… uneventful.

Until…

David Foxley of The New York Observer posted something on their blog a couple of days later that was DEAD ON. His jist was primarily that although Girbaud is moving away from the hip-hop crowd, he still had a decidely hip-hop audience. It also didn’t help matters that the DJ at the event was spinning…hip-hop.

I can understand his point. There’s nothing wrong with the genre except that when it comes to fashion (and everything else for that matter) they are particularly fickle. Today you’re in, and tomorrow you’re 50 cent. I digress. In this instance, I am inclined to say that Girbaud doth protests too much. If he’s not catering to the crowd, then the crowd would not have shown up. It really was a decidedly hip-hop audience. Well dressed, edgy, in the know hip-hop youth were everywhere. So what did Girbaud tell the Observer? Here’s a quote:

“To be just connected in the hip-hop stuff is other brand; there is people like Russell Simmons or Damon Dash or Puff Daddy or all this kind. I’m not the rap people. Sure, we introduced the baggy jeans, we introduced stonewashed and all this stuff in the 60’s or 70’s, I never target just to be ethnic. It’s stupid.”

-Damn

You can read the full article here.

Yes they are. So a bunch of designers are suing (or have sued) Topshop not the least being Chloe. A bunch of bunch of designers are suing Forever 21 (and with good reason methinks, but I won’t delve deeper as I would hate to get sued). Levis is suing Ralph Lauren for alledgedly copying stitching (highly doubtful), and also suing Abercrombie & Fitch. Some designers are saying eff it and are creating lower end lines to combat the rampant copying.

I don’t see a clear cut solution for the copying problem. I will tell you this, LVMH threw in the towel a long time ago with the whole Chinatown thing. While people still buy the bags, they’d opt for the real thing the first chance they get AND if the prices come down a little bit or alternatives from the same designer are offered, the real ones would clean up.