Face Value

-

 


As you all know by now, I'm fascinated by any sort of head or face covering. At his season's Couture they were ubiquitous. Whether they alluded to the Middle East both present and past, The Arabian Nights! or the Western mid-century modern ('30s, '40s, '50s) ideals of femininity and beauty, the result was the same, the exotic allure of the part-concealed and part-revealed female face. 


Armani Privé by Sarah Mower on vogue.com 
Towards the finale, he sent out graceful dresses in black velvet and midnight-blue sequin, on models whose heads were veiled in crystal-edged face-coverings—a vaguely Arabian Nights counterpoint to the fifties netting seen in other Paris collections this week.





 






Christian Dior by Tim Blanks on style.com
Past and future met again in an evening ensemble that matched the athletic ease of a citron silk knit to the grandeur of a floor-sweeping silk skirt. And the veils that Stephen Jones contributed to the finale may have been from Paris in the 1930's, but there is timeless allure in that look.









Maison Martin Margiela by Nicole Phelps on style.com

The models went incognito behind masks (another old Margiela trope) embroidered with hundreds of crystals. There was no shortage of beads or lace either, but nonetheless the presentation acted as an avant-garde (and eco-friendlier) antidote to the shows that preceded it this week.







Giambattista Valli by Hamish Bowles on vogue.com
Real butterfly specimens kissed the veiled lips of Valli’s mannequins or lit up in their hair, whilst gilded ones perched on the twisting branches that formed the waist-cinching belts or collars created by jeweler Luigi Scialanga.

photographed by Kevin Tachman









If you are also interested in veils, masks, head scarves ...
Net.Net
Mecca Stars
Head Start

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Streisand Effect

-
Image
It's not that Barbra Streisand had actually gone away anywhere but she had been kind of quiet in recent years. All that changed recently. First, in the September 2010 issue of Harper's Bazaar an editorial story entitled, "A Star is Re-Born" featured Jennifer Aniston in an homage to the mega-star shot by Mark Seliger. This photo reminds me of a very similar pose struck by Isabella Rossellini, made up to look like Barbra by the late, great Kevyn Aucoin. My Dec/Jan copy of House Beautiful arrives with a feature on Streisand's first-ever book, My Passion for Design in which she "shares the intimate story behind her obsession with home" plus the cover of the August 1974 edition of the magazine which included a feature about her Hollywood home. As if this wasn't enough to convince me that Streisand's star was back in the firmament, along comes another magazine, another story on Streisand's home. This time, December's Harper's Bazaar, photog
Read more

The apple of My i

-
Image
Japanese ad for iMac, 1998 iMac in 5 colors 1999 My obsession with Apple began in 1999 when I bought my first i-Mac. I don't mind admitting that the main reason I bought it was because of the way it looked.The ergonomic shape was both futuristic yet comforting and who could resist those fresh and juicy colors? Mine was blueberry but you could also have strawberry, lime, tangerine and grape. It was a eureka moment for me, that first realization that computers and electronics don't have to be beige and boring or worse still frightening and hard to use. It's quaint to think about it now but my hesitation about buying it was based on the fact that it was a hard drive and monitor "all-in-one". Based on the comments of the few computer buffs I knew back then, this could prove to be a problem later on if the hard drive broke down but the monitor was still good or vice versa. Well form won out over possible malfunction, I bought my first Apple product and I have never l
Read more

The Divine Decadence of Helmut Newton

-
Image
As I mentioned recently, the current fascination amongst certain runway designers and celebrities with racy lingerie looks often brings to mind Helmut Newton 's style of photography. If only he were still alive, what a moment he'd be having. Unfortunately he died in a macabre accident when his car hit a wall in the driveway of Chateau Marmont which had for several years served as his L.A. residence. It has been speculated that Newton suffered a heart attack in the moments before the collision. Newton favorite Nadja Auermann appeared in many of his portraits including these photos taken for American Vogue in 1994. Newton was born in Berlin in 1920. The 1972 movie Cabaret based on a novel written by British author Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin evokes the air of danger and desperation prevalent during the years of the Weimar Republic as Hitler rose to power and Jews were increasingly discriminated against. Seemingly the spirit of smoke-filled, pre-WW2 German night-clu
Read more