London Fashion Week: Fly for Less

London Fashion Week has teamed up with British Airways to offer special fares international guests. As London Fashion Week approaches, more information will be provided on the official site, including the password needed for booking a discounted fare (the password currently shown is for the Feburary 2006 London Fashion Week). Detailed information about the fare discount and its terms will also be provided through British Airways.

Check here for future updates.

London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2007

The London Spring/Summer 2007 Fashion Week will be held from September 18-22, 2006 at the Natural History Museum (Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD).

Catwalk shows: September 18-22, 2006.
The Exhibition @ London Fashion Week: 19-22, 2006.

What is The Exhibition @ London Fashion Week? The Exhibition at London Fashion Week, in an elegant easy to navigate tent at The Natural History Museum, houses the static displays from a whole range of designers from ready-to-wear to jewellery and accessories. Here buyers sign up their budgets on the new season’s looks that will fly out of the shops and into the wardrobes of style leaders worldwide.

San Francisco Fashion Week: August 23-27, 2006

Mark you calendars ! San Francisco Fashion Weekâ„¢ returns for a third year of high style!

This year’s San Francisco Fashion Weekâ„¢ is set for August 23 throught August 27, 2006, and will be held at a new venue, The Galleria at the San Francisco Design Center, located at 101 Henry Adams Street.

Unlike other invitation-only fashion weeks typically open to industry insiders and celebrities, San Francisco Fashion Weekâ„¢ is accessible to the public and primarily features local design talent. Past designer participants have included Colleen Queen, Christina Hurvis, Lily Samii and Saffon Rare Threads.

“We created San Francisco Fashion Week to provide an opportunity for amazing talent to gain more exposure and boost San Francisco’s image for the fashion force that it is becoming,” said Erika Gessin, president of Mystery Girl Productions and producer/founder of San Francisco Fashion Week. “Our city has many designers who could be based in New York, Paris or Milan, but they choose to call San Francisco home.”

L’Oréal Fashion Week Spring 2007

L’Oréal Fashion Week for the Spring 2007 Collection will be held in Tornoto from October 16-21, 2006.

L’Oréal Fashion Week, (formerly known as Toronto Fashion Week), is Canada’s most recognized fashion event, attracting Canadian designers from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Through an elaborate series of fashion shows and installations, L’Oréal Fashion Week showcases the rich, talented and diverse fabric of Canadian design while facilitating a runway to the global marketplace. This internationally recognized event draws industry representatives from around the globe, uniting media and buyers with more than 100 up-and-coming and established Canadian fashion designers.

Milan Fashion Week S/S 2007 Moda Uomo Schedule

Sunday 25/6-2006

10:00 JIL SANDER VIA VENTURA, 15
11:00 MISSONI VIA SOLFERINO, 9
12:00 COSTUME NATIONAL HOMME VIA TORTONA, 58
13:00 DOLCE & GABBANA VIALE PIAVE, 24
14:00 ROCCO BAROCCO VIA TURATI, 34
15:00 VIVIENNE WESTWOOD SEDE DA COMUNICARE
16:00 BURBERRY PRORSUM CORSOVENEZIA, 16
17:00 OZWALD BOATENG SEDE DA COMUNICARE
18:00 GIANNI VERSACE PIAZZA AFFARI, 6
19:00 GIANNI VERSACE PIAZZA AFFARI, 6
21:00 GAS VIA VALTELLINA, 21

Monday 26/6-2006

09:30 BOTTEGA VENETA VIALE PICENO, 15/17
10:30 ANTONIO MARRAS VIALE ALEMAGNA, 6
11:30 FRANKIE MORELLO VIA PALERMO, 10
12:30 GIANFRANCO FERRÉ VIA PONTACCIO, 21
13:30 CARLO PIGNATELLI OUTSIDE SEDE DA COMUNICARE
14:30 EMPORIO ARMANI VIA BERGOGNONE, 59
15:30 NEIL BARRETT VIA TORTONA, 27
16:30 BYBLOS SEDE DA COMUNICARE
17:30 PRADA VIA FOGAZZARO, 36
18:30 J.LINDEBERG SEDE DA COMUNICARE
19:30 ALEXANDER MCQUEEN SEDE DA COMUNICARE

Tuesday 27/6-2006

09:30 DSQUARED2 SEDE DA COMUNICARE
10:30 GAETANO NAVARRA SEDE DA COMUNICARE
11:30 DIRK BIKKEMBERGS SEDE DA COMUNICARE
12:30 ALESSANDRO DELL’ACQUA SEDE DA COMUNICARE
13:30 BIAGIOTTI VIA RIVOLI, 6
14:30 JOHN RICHMOND GIARDINI DI PORTA VENEZIA - INGR. VIA PALESTRO
15:30 JASPER CONRAN VIALE ALEMAGNA, 6
16:30 DAKS P.ZA DELLA REPUBBLICA, 17
17:30 GUCCI PIAZZA OBERDAN, 2/B
18:30 MIHARAYASUHIRO VIA TURATI, 34
19:30 GAZZARRINI P.ZA DELLA REPUBBLICA, 17

Wednesday 28/6-2006

09:30 MENICHETTI SEDE DA COMUNICARE
10:30 ICEBERG VIA PALERMO, 10
11:30 TRUSSARDI PIAZZA SCALA, 5
12:30 VALENTINO VIA TURATI, 34
13:30 D&G VIALE PIAVE, 24
14:30 CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION VIALE UMBRIA, 37
15:30 MOSCHINO VIA BEZZECCA, 5
16:30 FENDI VIA SCIESA, 3
17:30 GIULIANO FUJIWARA VIA ANTONIO DOSSI, 7
18:30 LES HOMMES VIA TORTONA, 27

Thursday 29/6-2006

09:30 ENRICO COVERI SEDE DA COMUNICARE
10:30 MIU MIU SEDE DA COMUNICARE
11:30 ETRO SEDE DA COMUNICARE
12:30 ETRO VIA TORTONA, 27
13:30 M+F GIRBAUD VIA TORTONA, 27
14:30 MIU MIU SEDE DA COMUNICARE

Information via: cameramoda.it.

More on Haute Couture

Haute Couture was invented there at the end of the 19th century and has felt most at home there ever since. Paris, whose influence in the world of fashion may even go as far back as the court of Louis XIV, still ranks as the capital of haute couture, with its crafts and its almost legendary fashion houses of international renown, its extravagances and its unique savoir faire. As the proving ground for design and research, Paris continues to inspire and attract talents from all over the world. Generation after generation, it breathes new life into haute couture, this luxurious and ephemeral art which, undoubtedly, must go on evolving if it is to survive.

For more than a century, couture has been emblematic of the triumph of costume and fashion. It represents the fusion of fashion—the modern entity that combines novelty and synergy with personal and social needs—and costume—the arts of dressmaking, tailoring, and crafts constituent to apparel and accessories. Founded in the crucible of modernism’s invention in the middle years of the nineteenth century in Paris, with the expanded patronage cultivated by the House of Worth, but still dependent upon the considerable support of Empress Eugénie, couture has long stood as the modern equilibrium between the garment as exquisite aggregate and the burgeoning notions of fashion as a system.

The persistence of the haute couture is as roundly questioned and doubted and debated as the survival of painting or the supposed death of Broadway. Some may have doubted that the couture would survive its founder, the entrepreneurial Charles Frederick Worth. In the early years of the twentieth century, Paul Poiret took couture into an admittedly dangerous path of change, responding to Orientalist and social sirens, but even more to the beckoning of commerce and the use of the couture as a generating engine for fashion and fragrance broadly disseminated. Ironically, the couture flourished in the postwar period, beginning with the immense popular appeal of Christian Dior’s “New Look” in 1947. This supposed fashion novelty was so successful in part because it knew acutely its history and reconvened the finest skills to the couture.

The couture house is customarily composed of two parts, one devoted to dressmaking (flou), the other devoted to tailoring (tailleur) of suits and coats. Skilled workers in each area practice the arts apposite to the area. Embellishments and accessories are added incrementally as applied decoration, often from sources outside the couture house. However, with regard to the unembellished garment, the modern couture house is a completely autonomous workroom of dedicated ateliers. In fact, surprisingly, in view of the elegant locations of most couture houses, the creation of the garments occurs in the maisons particulières of the house, thus under the daily surveillance of the designer as well as in intimate connection with the vendeuses. Depending upon the designer, the design process might begin either with sketches or with a muslin or toile, draped and cut. Fit, both in its tailored form and in its dressmaking variant, is inevitably part of the value of the couture. A designer or trusted fitter will conduct the client through a series of fittings to determine the minute adjustments of the garment to the individual’s size and sense of comfort.

The couture’s offering of distinction in design and technique remains a compelling force, one even more potent when much other quality has atrophied. It remains a discipline of ultimate imagination, unaccountable to cost, with the paradox of being the fashion most cognizant of its ideal clients. It is, as it began, a dream of quality in an era of industry and its succession. The haute couture persists in providing us with a paragon of the most beautiful clothing that can be envisioned and made in any time.

Fashion Design Terminology

What types of collections are seen at Fashion Week? Why do the clothes shown in during Fashion Week differ from what one then finds once the new season hits the stores?

What we see during Fashion Week is considered to be Haute Couture. Haute couture is not only made-to-order for a specific customer, it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finish, often using time-consuming hand-executed techniques.

In France, the designation “haute couture” is protected by law. A certain number of formal criteria (number of employees, participation in fashion shows…) must be met for a fashion house to use the label; a list of eligible houses is made official every year by the French Ministry of Industry. The haute couture houses belong to the professional union, the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

What you then seen in the stores, therefore, is considered “ready-to-wear”. The French term for ready-to-wear (not custom fitted) fashion is prêt-à-porter. Every haute couture house also markets prêt-à-porter collections, which typically deliver a higher return on investment than their custom clothing. In fact, much of the haute couture displayed at fashion shows today is never sold; it is created to enhance the good name of the house. Falling revenues have forced a few couture houses to abandon their less profitable couture division and concentrate solely on the less prestigious prêt-à-porter. These houses are no longer considered haute couture.

<-- context links -->