In the December issue of Vogue, Donna Karan, American doyenne of design, was followed to Haiti, where she’s spent much of 2011. Karan has been working intensively in Haiti to help rebuild the shattered country – through philanthropy and fashion. However, her latest step might have been too far for the fash-pack.
The new Donna Karan 2012 advertisement is actually shot in Haiti – and featured two Haitians in the background. The ad has met with a storm of disapproval.
Karan is accused of glamourising disaster and poverty, benefiting from a calamity, paternalism and pretty much every other crime possible.
She’s particularly under fire for using a non-black model, Adriana Lima, to model the clothes.
It’s been a bad year for fashion and race: Vogue Italia has had more scandals than Rescu. can count. However, Karan’s ad also has its defenders, who say she’s drawing attention to Haiti in her own way. What do you think?
Image: Donna Karan in Haiti 2012.
Got a friend with salty hair and sun-kissed skin under her Prada? Vogue has the perfect Christmas gift – and Rescu. wants at least, oh, four.
The iconic image of a woman in a red cloche which graced the cover of American Vogue back in the 1920s has been made into a beach towel.
The famous cover, by Eduardo Garcia Benito, is one of Vogue’s most-requested prints, and the towel is just in time for Christmas.
It’s for any woman or man who loves their Vogue just as much as they love their breakers.
It’s pricey, at $450, but perhaps true beach glamour is worth the price….
Image: Vogue Exclusive Towel.
When you think of fashion designers who love music, it’s often Karl Lagerfeld who comes to mind.
After all, the man has at least 20 iPods.
However, Armani’s new CD is set to change all that.
Emporio Armani’s latest release, the Caffe 6, is a collection of all the songs which soundtracked the slick, chic Armani collections this year.
Any editor who tapped their feet and hummed along will be dying to get their hands on the 15-track mix tape, which ventures between opera and ‘experimental techno’.
And mere mortals can have the feeling of attending a show too – just close your eyes and imagine.
Live songs at shows have become more de rigeur in the 2000s – see Florence And The Machine at Chanel this year – but the soundtrack will always have a place at fashion’s beating heart.
Image: The original Emporio Armani Caffe CD.
If you’ve been captivated by the lushness of Downton Abbey, you may have wondered – just how do the girls look so fresh-faced?
The series is set in Edwardian times, where make-up on women was regarded as slightly daring and risque.
The glorious costumes are inducing heart palpitations among fashion observers – but it’s their faces that has attention now.
Apparently the solution is – make-up which looks as if it’s not make-up at all. The foundation, either Chanel or Armani, is so light that it’s undetectable on film, and small amounts of colour are used for highlighting.
They’re also completely forbidden from being in the sun.
And then there’s the hair. Michelle Dockery, one of the show’s stars, revealed that they all wear hair-pieces to simulate uncut, trailing hair.
The one no-no? Mascara. It wasn’t invented yet!
Image: Michelle Dockery on Downton Abbey.
