Fashion Czar: Winter Woes

Fashion Czar is a comment from the Editor, Alexa Pizzi.

It's the start to a new semester. With the terrible sub zero weather Syracuse has been seeing lately, a temperature of 32 degrees today was refreshing! It practically felt like Spring. Okay not really. But honestly, 32 is better than nothing. Walking in the winter weather is not conducive to dressing chic, but at Syracuse we try our best.

How is everyone staying stylish in the snow? When many stores and designers are debuting their Spring lines, Syracuse is still shopping for Winter.

We've been seeing a lot of over-the-knee leather boots and combat boots even in the snow! I've sadly been trudging around the slush in my Hunter rain boots and my chestnut Ugg's. Although my choice of footwear is practical it is not ideal. I would love to be wearing leather boots but I know the salt would get the best of them.

Fur is everywhere. Fur coats, fur hats, fur collars, and most popular... fur vests. Fur is stylish and even better, warm. From Chanel to Jean Paul Gaultier, the best of 2010 were showing off the classic revival.

Jean Paul Gaultier Fall 2010

Velvet has been popping up a lot lately. I spotted black velvet leggings on a girl at the Warehouse Tuesday. They looked so warm and much edgier than your basic leggings. Banana Republic showed off a velvet suit on the Fall 2010 runway. Target sells an affordable Velour pair for nearly $7!Target

Banana Republic Fall 2010

Syracuse, don't let Winter get the best of your style. Get your closets ready for Spring and stay tuned for the best of the RTW 2011.

-Alexa Pizzi

Fashion Czar: Spring Break!

Fashion Czar is a comment from the Editor, Phillip Crook.

We're hard-working, exam-taking students...so when we get a break from school, you better believe we're going to enjoy it! This week is Spring Break, which means we'll be back to regular posting next Monday. See you then!

Fashion Czar: Remembering Alexander McQueen

Fashion Czar is a comment from the Editor, Phillip Crook.

So, most of you've heard by now: we lost Alexander McQueen today. The British designer committed suicide in his home by reportedly hanging himself. McQueen's office confirmed the reports this morning saying, "It is a tragic loss. We are not making a comment at this time out of respect for the McQueen family."

 

Photo: modelmanagement.com

McQueen was perhaps the most inspiring talent in the fashion world. Many spoke of him, and undoubtedly will continue to, as a genius. His RTW spring 2010 show in Paris last October was a collage of all that makes fashion exciting: imagination, innovation, whimsy and glamour.

Vogue Editor Anna Wintour released a statement saying, "We are devastated to learn of the death of Alexander McQueen, one of the greatest talents of his generation. He brought a uniquely British sense of daring and aesthetic fearlessness to the global stage of fashion. In such a short career, Alexander McQueen’s influence was astonishing — from street style, to music culture and the world’s museums. His passing marks an insurmountable loss."

New York Magazine's fashion blog, The Cut, already created a retrospective gallery of McQueen's work dating from 2001. With New York Fashion Week already underway, the designer is certainly on everyone's mind. As the community moves to London, Milan and Paris in the coming month, this may likely unfold as the season to remember McQueen.

Fashion Czar: General Interest Meeting!

Fashion Czar is a weekly comment from the Editor, Phillip Crook.

We're holding our spring semester general interest meeting, and of course we want you there. On Tuesday, January 26 at 8pm, come to Newhouse 1 Room 409 (that's up the stairs and to the left).

 

We'll be answering any questions you have about getting involved, discussing a new assistant editor position and planning fresh content for the spring. Haven't blogged before? Worry not, because all levels of experience are welcome!

See you next week!

- Phillip Crook

Fashion Czar: And so the semester ends

Fashion Czar is a weekly comment from the Editor, Phillip Crook.

The dreaded exam period has begun at Syracuse Univerity, so we are saying goodbye until next semester. Thank you for following us this fall/winter, and we look forward to a spring full of fashion. See you in January!

Fashion Czar: Dressing the American woman

Fashion Czar is a weekly comment from the Editor, Phillip Crook.  

Jaunt over to your local department store’s menswear section and you’ll enter a wonderland of professional male dressing, with fitted lavender button-downs, blue patterned ties and gray pinstripe suits by label Geoffrey Beene.

Tragically, what you will never see amidst the accountants’ uniforms is any reference to the innovative couture womenswear that made Geoffrey Beene a revolutionary American designer in the 1960s.  

Make an additional outing to SU’s Fashion Design department, and the only Geoffrey Beene suits you’ll find are ones that come with skirts.

Pulling nine pieces from the Sue Ann Genet Costume Collection, the department created a small retrospective of Beene’s womenswear to keep his work alive in the minds of its design students. The exhibit is on display in the Leon Genet Gallery on the seventh floor of The Warehouse until Jan. 7, 2010. 

Smartly juxtaposed with the industrial white walls and concrete columns of the gallery, the collection displays Beene’s use of fabrics, from a stiff lace to an airy cotton to a minute silk weave. 

Contrasting further still with the blank canvas-like room, Beene’s range in color includes electric pink, black, peach and a daring plaid combining orange and green. 

But material and dye are merely the perch from which Beene’s genius takes flight.  

What the exhibit effectively captures more than any other aspect of Beene’s 40-year career is the way he understood shape. In a matter of four mannequins, you’ll see a décolleté V-neckline, a pleated A-line skirt, a sleeveless sheath tiered with lace ruffles and an enormous collar folded over and coming to a point at the back of an evening coat. In the last case, imagine Dracula as a woman in the `60s dressed for a night at the opera, and you’ll know how playful Beene could be.  

Through such detailed and evocative pieces, the small collection swiftly delivers its message: here was a designer whose taste made the case for American couture when Europe ruled the runway.


- by Phillip Crook

Fashion Czar: Dear Tyra...

Fashion Czar is a weekly comment from the Editor, Phillip Crook.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, and for the fashion reality show addicts among us that means we'll be tuning in to the CW at 8pm for America's Next Top Model.

But, before we do, consider this important point about our dear ANTM: it's gotten so bad!

At the helm of the America's Next Top Model shipwreck: Tyra Banks.  

Now in its thirteenth cycle and with 170 contestants under its belt, the pioneering show is a gaudy impersonation of its former self. We miss the old ANTM. So, it’s time for an intervention.

Since premiering in 2003, ANTM has grown into a global phenomenon with spin-offs in forty countries, popping out Bolivian, Finnish and Korean top models each season.

But what's made the show so successful isn’t really about modeling. The early cycles launched the show into fame because, ultimately, the episodes were about the models’ personal struggles.

Certainly, we all loved the crazy gargoyle, roller-disco and samurai-themed photo shoots. But away from set, we saw Banks acting as older sister, therapist and coach to the contestants as they dealt with failed relationships, eating disorders and low self-esteem. Banks simply spent time with the models and invested in their challenges.

And so, we did too. It was a dynamic combination of glitter and grit.

Cycle 13 contestant Nicole Fox's final photo from last week's shoot in Hawaii. 

But in recent cycles, the reality got less real as Banks became less herself and more of a campy character on camera. 

In one episode of the current cycle, Banks played “Super Smize,” the supermodel superhero whose power is to smile with her eyes.

Um, really?

Millions of viewers have tuned in every Wednesday night not to see ridiculous scenes of artificial interest, but to see what’s truly interesting: beautiful people who hurt just as we do.

Amidst the makeup challenges and petty infighting, this is what rooted the show in meaningful realism.

Sure, Banks taught models and viewers alike how to find the light and optimize their bone structure in a photo. But she was also aware that her show reaches a target audience of teenage girls, a demographic in critical need of reminding that it matters how we treat others and ourselves.

Is “Super Smize” going to teach anyone that?

It’s understandable that Banks wants to rethink and re-energize the ANTM canon after so many seasons, but she has to do it without sacrificing what audiences love about the show. 

We want the glamour and the pain.

[For a more in-depth analysis of ANTM gone wrong, see www.thenewshouse.com/blog/send-antm-rehab-tyra-drunk-craziness] 

Fashion Czar: She dares to kiss Jesus

Fashion Czar is a weekly comment from the Editor, Phillip Crook.

Yes, we LOVE Lady Gaga. But shall we reflect for just a moment on the original mistress of reinvention?

Ok, let's.

In her most recent evolution, Madonna shed her usual abrasiveness and served up a more refined – though still appropriately punchy – Queen of Pop.

This is a Madonna with finesse, but without sensationalized sex or in-your-face Kabbalah bracelets.

Madonna's greatest hits album, Celebration.

To commemorate her greatest hits album, out last month, the Queen debuted two new songs. The title track, Celebration, effectively condenses the many evolutions of her career into one simple lyric: "If it makes you feel good, then I say do it."

What more appropriate maxim is there for a performer who invades political comfort zones, pushes sexual boundaries, challenges religion and does it all while dancing in a pair of 6-inch heels?

The song’s video goes even farther in bringing us the best of Madonna. Here we see icon, mother, dancer and fashion-forward femme converge.

A series of quick cuts and sped-up shots of Madonna & Co. dancing to exhaustion, the Jonas Akerlund-directed video is the visual equivalent of raving on some disorienting drug.

And swallowing the Madonna pill has never been so much fun.



Dressed for her party in a studded leather mini-dress and black knee-high Louboutin boots, the Queen meets her usual standards of fabulousness and displays the age-defying body that has helped keep her famous.

Never one to totally shy from controversy, Madonna infused the video with buzz by including a cameo from her post-divorce boy toy, Jesus Luz, who acts as the party’s DJ. Luz made waves by appearing nude in Madonna’s March, 2009 shoot for W.

Apparently, we are to conclude Jesus is well sculpted and musical.

The song is ready made for gay dance clubs, as is the case with almost every Madonna track, but with her greatest hits video Madonna delivers what we’ve come to love most about her: full-body pelvic thrusts, a fierce aesthetic and a little water cooler conversation.

 

Posting starts next week!

October 26, 1959: for the first time, the world sees the far side of the Moon.

Sure, that was exciting, but it can't really compare to the RE-LAUNCH OF OUR BLOG! Posts begin this Monday, Oct. 26. See you all then.

Photo: orangemoongiftshop.com