Alexander Wang…………………….Carolina Herrera………………Prabal Gurung FW 2010

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Could not help but notice:

Effeti Kitchen……………………………Dior Haute Couture 2010

Motivo-Ceaserstone ……………Mickey Rourke Golden Globes 2010

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I haven’t disappeared, I’ve just been undercover or it feels like it.

Let me explain. Now having a Twitter account, @kimbrotoo, I have gotten onto what seems like a virtual merry go round, and I like it. You gotta use some skill to both jump on and jump off. Once on though you can play all kinds of games to keep yourself from getting bored (and dizzy) by just going around in circles (heard of Foursquare?).

Don’t know that that justifies the telling of the experience or not. I interact with people I follow and who follow me to make things more interesting, plus there’s soooo much info to take in. And I’m on a platform, Tweetdeck, that allows me to see both my facebook and my LinkedIn status at the same time I’m keeping track of my Twitter stream. That said,

What I’ve learned:

1) Technology is changing at an even more alarming rate: Google is declaring all out war on every other tech company regardless of what it is or produces and looks to be winning
2) Twitter is declaring all out war on Facebook: outcome TBD
3) Conan O’Brien may be a reflection of the movie character Conan and be able to bring down NBC, Jay Leno and the Tonight Show with one fell letter.
4) $10M has been raised through Twitter for Haiti and shows once again how Twitter can be a driving force when there is something overwhelming happening in the world. And as a side note, I am now following @redcross (thinking forward to 2012….)
5) Some say blogs are dead, Seth Godin says libraries are dead and how we get info has changed forever, so better keep blogging (I’m in that camp) some say facebook will get gobbled up, some say Twitter will die, some think the laptop will be replaced by the smartphone (I am one of those), and many don’t agree with Pantone’s color of the year this year, torquoise (I am also one of those).

Whoa. Jumping off… gotta get my breath….so, see why I love the merry go round? For someone who needs to keep up on all kinds of information to observe patterns that speak to trends, there’s nothing like Twitter. Did I mention the interesting people you meet on there too?

And, it lets me multitask…at the same time I am collecting info, I am also giving my own brand of info out AND, and this is a big AND, I was able to announce the launch of my new company, for my bff, an eco friendly Made In the USA pet bed manufacturing company housed right here in St. Louis.

for my bff, saving the planet one pet bed at a time.

I connected to the people who are making the ingredient that makes the foam some 10-20% soy based, Cargill’s BiOH polyol, also on Twitter, who helped me announce for my bff’s launch and I was also able to announce on both LinkedIn and Twitter at the same time the feature the local news station did on the pet shop where for my bff got into and we got some local news love at the same time: Go Green: Owning Pets.

What you are witnessing is a convert to the social media medium for communications…..it’s fast, it’s cheap, and the more you work at it, the better it works for you.

But, this year I do resolve to manage my time on it better…..

I’ll be back with links to the info above so you can understand more of the details of above, if you want to, or link to me and you’ll see what I’m seeing….@kimbrotoo.

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For some very luscious rooms done in pink, head on over to Style Rumors.

It’s hard to say which take on it is my favorite, but I’m loving this soft pink made even softer with the dove grey, and that retro look–very cool.

Great post all about pink!

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Alexander McQueen delivered his SS 2010 collection today with evolution as its theme and he picked snakes to get his point across. I don’t have the full inside scoop on that particular detail, but he certainly represented fashion, snakes and the process of evolution flawlessly.

And if that weren’t enough, he really made (air) waves by going direct to the cyberspace fashion collective by tweeting about his video of the collection done in conjunction with fashion photog Nick Knight. Just prior to the runway show, Nick Knight did an up close interview with McQueen sitting at a kitchen table drinking from a very proper cup of tea and truly I felt as if I were right there, sitting with Mr. McQueen himself listening to him explain some of his thinking behind fashion, the internet, and his own visions.

Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous stuff. If you ever wanted to know the definition of engagement (that thing all marketers are looking for when they combine mediums to reach their targets), this would be it.

The only hitch was that they had so many visitors to the site, (Lady Gaga tweeted the event) not everyone got on, and so were left disappointed. No worries…bright minds like that leave it on line for everyone who didn’t get to see it the first time. Check here at ShowStudio Alexander McQueen SS2010 Live.

Today marked a shift in fashion history by Alexander McQueen creating a presentation for the world direct to them, not just for that select group of editors and buyers and celebs. Not only was there an evolution in Mr. McQueen’s work, there was an evolution in how a luxury fashion designer presents his runway collection to market.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens after this.

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An economy shot to hell, colors on the Paris runways for fall/winter 09 (with exceptions of course…there are always exceptions) reflected the mood and were largely black, black and black…..but with texture.

The fabric of the day? Leather. Not just the supple buttery kind, but leather like you’ve never seen leather before. My guess is that you’ll be buying some variation of black leather sometime this year, but if you want something besides leather in black, well there’s that too.

Prada Waders (Milan, not Paris….still leather)

Hermes

Dries Van Noten:

Honorable Mention for color (beyond leather):

Haider Ackermann

Miu Miu

Disclaimer: I select only some pieces to support my collective theories but these examples are by no means exhaustive. We are fortunate to have such a bevy of talented designers not only in the United States but around the world who had excellent collections despite this bleak economic forecast. Sadly there is genuinely not enough money currently nor appetite to support the abundance of talent that is out there.

The question remains how much of our consumption will come back or how much is on a temporary hiatus or how much will never (hopefully) return, as in maxed out credit cards for $3,000.00 “IT” bags?

Gone. Vanished…..just like the Madoff billions. Which begs another question, how much did the fashion industry benefit by the Madoff Ponzi scheme and its victims, (in addition to Wall Street’s addiction to derivatives) helping to create an economy that was in fact based on a House of Cards?

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Click on image for video

It’s a brilliant marketing campaign to say the least. But what makes it so brilliant (besides being launched during New York’s Fashion Week) is that it functions on all cylinders (why not continue the metaphor–taxis, cars….cylinders, get it?).

For one
A variation on the yellow theme by Narciso Rodriguez FW 09.

they’ve used a color, yellow, that exemplifies optimism in a time that screams for it (so did designer Isabel Toledo in the design she made for Michelle Obama to wear on Inauguration Day, although Mrs. Obama’s dress color was a variation on yellow and called lemongrass).

For two, Pantone proclaimed mimosa yellow the color of the year. Thirdly, VIPPS Yellow Taxi reveres one of this country’s greatest and more memorable assets, New York City Taxi Cabs, in style and in their video that borders on perfection and finally the collection itself is an ingeniously crafted modern take on a classic and timeless design.

What’s not to like, love, crave and/or admire? Heck, I even feel better just blogging about it.

VIPP’s Limited Edition Yellow Taxi can be found at The Conran Shop and Giggle in New York as well as many others around not only the United States but also around the world ( check VIPP’s website for the shops in the country you live in).

I will also say, as a final tribute to an incredibly well thought out marketing campaign, VIPP is an excellent example of marketing on a global basis. Their website works easily and for all countries (product found in all countries) but this campaign actually speaks to a region they are hoping to build upon and in, the USA, that will no doubt appeal to other countries just by virtue of its nostalgia relating to the iconic New York City Taxi Cab.

Wish I’d thought of it! (I’ve written more about Yellow Taxi on 2modern’s design talk blog too).

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As soon as I knew the dress was made by Isabel Toledo it had my vote. Seconds before I knew who the designer was though, I was puzzled. Mainly because Michelle Obama has been more contemporary in dress choice for the most part than this silhouette seemed to be, but this was a special day so it called for another kind of statement and fashionista per se wasn’t one, nor was being Jackie O the Second. She set herself apart for sure, from everyone without alienating anyone (unlike the election night red and black dress which created a real uproar both pro and con).

So, mission accomplished. Isabel Toledo understands women and their moments so I wholeheartedly signed on for the choice.
That said, the color, while both a brilliant and unusual choice, is also the kind of color that gives photographers and printers headaches and nightmares.

AP Images notes in their image base that the color of Michelle Obama’s dress seemed to change during the day making it difficult to know what to call the color. After doing searches on the web to see what others were saying, I also understood the variations on how it looked based on how it got printed. I’d say not only did people not know what to call the color but they didn’t know what the color was. This was a good day to snag a swatch to go with the dress.

When I saw the St. Louis Post Dispatch cover, I was impressed. By Doug Mills, I thought the image captured the relationship of President and Mrs. Obama well, their genuine look of happiness, and the essence of Michelle’s dress: sunny, different, and comfortable though chic. She appeared confident which made it all the better. But I don’t know that the dress fared that well under all paper or magazine printings.

AP Photo/Elise Amendola

It was a toughie to be sure to reproduce correctly and the color of the gloves and shoes didn’t help. Where to set the dials and for what to begin the print? The greens (of the dress, the shoes and the gloves) were each a different color and not necessarily in the same family. Then there was the lighting and whether or not the shot bleached out the color of the dress or darkened the gloves so much you couldn’t tell what color they were.

And I haven’t even begun to cover what different computers do to color. So, bottom line, it was a color that did her justice…and set her apart. Albeit a printer’s nightmare.

So next time do you pick something that is easier to photograph but still does the same thing, sets one apart, makes a specific mood statement as Isabel Toledo said her choice of color for the dress was meant to do which was to create a sort of sunny attitude…bright and hopeful (our futures?) or not consider the uniformity of color printing and let variations come through that weren’t the real color, thus not the real message being sent out?

I’d have the designer working directly with Michelle Obama instead of through this shop Ikram Goldram in Chicago because I think designers know a thing or two about what they are doing and they know how to work with a subject especially the kind of designers Michelle Obama is using. They may not have had household recognition until now, but they are certainly capable and talented designers who if they had a visit directly with Michelle, may have been better able to anticipate some of the issues that come up in the process of wearing clothing for certain events.

Disclaimer: the above top Associated Press Image is by Jae Hong, which was closest to the Doug Mills image I found on the St. Louis Dispatch cover edition…..the St. Louis Post Dispatch is selling packages of their covers so the image is not available to me for reproducing.

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On Christmas Day I wrote a blog post on 2modern’s design blog about Typography, ’cause, if you haven’t already noticed, it’s (typography) design’s new darling…..

Then Voila! there’s December’s British Vogue titled Fantastic Fashion Fantasy with all kinds of my favorite things all wrapped up in one issue. “Through the generations there are visionaries who conjure fabulous creations that go beyond the boundaries of the imagination.” And this is an understatement. It was, in my estimation, British Vogue’s Christmas present to me. All for a mere $10.99.

And if per chance you didn’t catch the issue, call them to get a copy (I know for my British friends, this is last year’s news and more than a few of you didn’t care for Kate Moss on the cover, again, but my love of this issue has to do with the typography as well as pulling some of the decade’s most creative fashions together in a crazy wonderful photo montage among other things). Besides creating these incredibly creative, and imaginative pages ( Unbelieveable Fashion, photographed by Nick Knight, above, Where the Wild Things Are photographed by Patrick Demarchelier, below), you can catch Nick Knight’s video of his shoot, Fantasia, at Showtimestudio.com. From the credits it looks as if Epilogue Imaging did the digital artwork for the magazine issue, which I take means that oh so cool typography.

There’s more in there, much more….it was all just so delish I couldn’t help but give the issue some space on my blog. For someone like me who craves visual creativity, this has been my double chocolate mousse cheesecake with chocolate cookie crust and white chocolate and whipped creme on top (in case you are wondering, I had that too during my holidays….my holidays were great by the way, how were yours?).

I loved the editor’s letter too: “Forget the It-bag, the serviceable coat, the investment buy; this is all about how extraordinary things can be–a celebration of the unusual.” Given the times, Ms. Alexander Shulman (British Vogue’s editor), this seems like a wise course of action.

As a final note, as if all of the above weren’t enough, Karl Lagerfield chimed in with Karl Lagerfield’s Secret Ball (above). I did not have to be at a glam mystery ball to get the best of what this might be about, Lagerfield’s paintings were enough for me!

I think this one’s a keeper. What do you think?

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Analyzying the Google data on Trendbites dashboard was an interesting exercise this morning. I wanted to know what was on people’s minds not just for the month but for the whole year and then their patterns throughout the year. Of course you have to take different things into consideration but let’s use some lists to cut to the chase.

Top Searched subjects for 2008 on the Trendbites blog:

1) Tattoos
2) Eco friendly water bottles.
3) Sarah Palin’s Wardrobe, designers and where can get it
4) Suzanis
5) Fretwork

Each one of these search terms can be elaborated upon because people used various terms to find info on these subject matters plus I would say that there were related items that fell into a sidebar of those topics, such as in fretwork also came Asian ornamintation….cloisone, champleve, etc., and they searched Benjamin Crutzfeldt’s name or his porcelain which is based on 18th century Chinese porcelain techniques but modernized.

As well several of these were either spiked by the news media, i.e., Palin’s wardrobe and this summer’s newsworthy research on the chemical in plastic water bottles being unsafe for people.

The very interesting one is that the tattoo subject is pretty consistent (throughout the year) as is fretwork, and suzanis…..a more recent though I expect timely for several reasons is the new Spring pattern for Pfaltzgraff’s dinnerware, Fruit Bounty. The Macys/Rwanda Project is also a big search item for December.

The remaining five of the top ten had to do more with star power, i.e., angelina jolie (who had more searches than Brad Pitt, fyi) but most of those searches came when they were getting ready to have their twins.

Then there was Heidi Klum’s red dress by John Galliano for the American Heart Association and Coke Sweepstakes promotion during the Oscars….again news timing.

And lots of searches for different industry color trends, a few in general trends for 2009-2010, BTS/BTC Dorm info searches, and finally named designer searches i.e., Oscar del la Renta, Dior, Moschino, Ralph Lauren and Nau (menswear for 2009 and the color of orange was searched specifically). I had a few for the timourous beasties wall paper and Scott Hill furnishings, the wallpaper or even furnishings from the movie Lucky #Slevin, and a few for the artists Damien Hirst and Richard Prince.

These searches can all be qualified by #1, I write about these items, #2, these are the things on people’s minds either professionally or because the news has spiked interest (TREND), or, and this one is special just because I went through the same thing, #3, very little otherwise is written about them such as Mumenshance the mime troupe from Switzerland. So they are one of the top five consistent trends but I know that that is a very special interest topic, not a trend per se.

Those top five as I listed them above are worth your consideration. My own bottom line is that if I wanted to make this a blog just about color trends and color per se in many industry categories, I would do very well with the blog….but hey all you out there I do write trends about color in depth and that info can be gotten in a much more specific manner, i.e., I use acutal pantone numbers by industry or even can create palettes!

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