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PIERRE BALMAIN
Born in St Jean de Maurienne,
Savoie in 1914. He owed his early training to the two greatest
designers of the time - Molyneux and Lucien Lelong
.
He opened his own
Haute Couture house immediately following the war, in the autumn of
1945, on the Rue François 1er in Paris.
Clients quickly flocked to Balmain,
and were thrilled to discover the new image he had created for women.

The Balmain woman had shed the last vestiges of wartime
hardship with abundant insouciance and charm, and heralded a return
to opulence in richly embroidered gowns and ensembles.
American author Gertrude Stein, a close friend of
Balmain's, saluted the advent of this "New French Style"
in her writing. This image of an active, irrepressible, perfectly
groomed, elegant woman with a touch of independence in her nature
took root and was embodied in the "Jolie Madame",
emblematic of the nineteen-fifties.
He gave up architectural
studies to become a designer in 1934. He worked briefly with Christian Dior, who
became his rival after World War II. Balmain's designs, particularly for evening
wear, were characterized by superb quality and a combination of femininity and
imposing elegance; his clients included film stars and royalty. He later opened
branches in New York City and Caracas and expanded into perfume and accessories. The 1960s were years of renewal for Pierre Balmain,
who used fabrics scupturally for the creation of uncluttered designs
accenting pure structure and contrasts of cut and style. This was
also a richly productive period in the field of costuming for stage
and screen. In addition, Balmain designed personal wardrobes for
numerous international stars, including Brigitte Bardot, Marlene
Dietrich, and Katherine Hepburn - to name just a few. This period
also marked Balmain's first meeting with Her Majesty Queen Sirikit
of Thailand, who chose him to be her personal couturier.
The name Pierre Balmain stands for a unique
concept of elegance, a clientele of royalty and film stars, and a
fashion hallmark recognized throughout the world. The ready-to-wear
division, founded in the 1970s, has gradually made an impact on the
market and is now registering significantly satisfying results, with
some 220 licenses worldwide.

With the disappearance of Pierre Balmain in 1982,
the torch was passed to Erik Mortensen - his personal assistant
since 1951 and his closest colaborator - who maintained the House's
traditions while developing and updating styles and designs in the
spirit of its founder. In recognition of this achievement, Mortensen
won tne France Haute Couture Golden Thimble Awards for his Automn-Winter
1983/1984 collection. Erik Mortensen then went onto his second
French Haute Couture Golden Thimble Award, presented at the Palais
Galliéra on 31 July 1987, for his Autumn-Winter 1987/1988
collection.
When Erik Mortensen left the House of Balmain in
July 1990, he was replaced by youthful Hervé-Pierre, who served as
designer from 1990 through 1993 for both the Haute Couture and
ready-to-wear collections.
In january 1993, internationally renowned American
designer Oscar de la Renta signed his first Haute Couture collection
for Pierre Balmain and has now rejuvinated the line while respecting
the colours, the fluidity and elegance of the "Jolie Madame" esprit
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Did you recently bought a leather jacket and
don’t know how to wear it?
I’m sure planning to
invest in one as soon as possible.

But it seems
that the fashion elite have developed a sort of
a uniform: a casual look with skinny jeans and
white/grey tees or a more feminine style by
teaming the leather jacket with shift dresses.
It
looks OK but kind of boring. Either they choose
to play it safe or they listen to the same
stylist (although some of them swear they don’t
need one).

YVES SAINT LAURENT Fall 08: They
looked like an army of futuristic female automata, marching out in identical
black-bowl wigs and black lipstick, some with their eyes blanked out by narrow
slivers of wraparound sunglasses. The clothes they wore were equally
uncompromising: stark planes of tweed, felt, and flocked fabric,
precision-sliced into geometric angles and unfamiliar volumes.

It made one of the season’s most
joltingly dramatic contributions to the current dialogues about tailoring and
austerity. If there were elements of the eighties or Italian futurism in
there—like the banana-shaped high-waist pants or the curviform layers of
scroll-like volumes in skirts—it wasn’t Stefano Pilati’s intention to be
referential. “I just wanted it to be about cut, about looking at the clothes,”
he said. “I don’t think you want to go out advertising a brand anymore. You just
want to feel proud walking down the street.”
DRIES VAN NOTEN

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EMANUEL
UNGARO
In 1968, he
created his first
Prêt-à-Porter
collection, Parallèle and opened a store at 2
avenue Montaigne in Paris. During the next 30 years,
the Emanuel Ungaro House expanded to include stores
and licensing agreements worldwide.
Ungaro launched his first
menswear collection, Ungaro Uomo, in 1973, and his
first
perfume,
Diva, 10 years later in 1983. Later followed
the perfumes Senso (1987), Ungaro
(1991) and Emanuel Ungaro For Men (1991).
In 1996, he
formed a partnership with
Salvatore Ferragamo.
In 1997, Emanuel Ungaro, Salvatore Ferragamo and
Bulgari
created a new company: Emanuel Ungaro Parfums. The
new perfumes to follow was Fleur de Diva
(1997), Desnuda (2001) and Apparition
(2004).


Claudia Schiffer - Claudia Schiffer won't work with designers who
are nasty to her model friends. The German supermodel rose to fame
in the 90s and became such good pals with many of her contemporaries
she was, and still is, as concerned about their careers as her own.
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Capable of the most daring innovations in a
superbly classic style. What is surprising is that this Spaniard
became the leading French fashion designer.
His story began something like a legend :
born in 1895 in Guetaria, a small fishing village on the
Spanish Basque coast, Cristobal BALENCIAGA was still very
young when it became apparent that he was destinated for
Couture.

At the age of thirteen, he astounded the
Marquise of CASA TORRES with his comments on her elegance.
Realising his interest in Couture and his aesthetic potential,
she allowed him to make a copy of the Haute Couture clothing
she was wearing.
Trembling, he did his work so well that she awarded him by
wearing it.
The following year he travelled to Paris. In a daze, he
devoured the collections of
DOUCET, WORTH, DRECOLL and others.
Upon his return and at the age of sixteen, he opened his first
Couture workshop in San Sebastian, where he adapted the
Parisian Style for Spanish women.
In 1915, the first fashion house was opened
in San Sebastian under the name BALENCIAGA.
In 1920, the second house opened in Madrid.
He left Spain when the civil war broke out and established
himself in Paris, where, in August 1937, he opened his
showrooms at 10 avenue George V.
From the start, a style was created which lived up to its
expectations for thirty glorious years. BALENCIAGA himself
sums it as follows :
« a Couturier must be an architect for design, a sculptor for
shape, a painter for color, a musician for harmony, and a
philosopher for temperance ».
Year after year, the one they call « the
couturier of couturiers » created astonishment with his
collections and the mastery of his cuts. He changed women's
silhouettes.
1945 : close-fitting waistlines, square shoulders.
1951 : open necks, wide shoulders, looser waistlines.
All these features created « the BALENCIAGA revolution ».
He also left his imprint on various periods
:
coasts with wide collars, tunic dresses, sack dresses in the
50's.
He also turned his flair to the creation of prestigious
perfumes. This man, whose exceptional talent never tired in
its quest to achieve even greater harmony between the body and
clothing, always knew that the true sign of elegance, the
ultimate refining touch, lay in the subtle, delicate notes of
a fragrance.
In 1947, he created his first perfume : LE DIX from the famous
couturier's address at 10, avenue George V.
Both a dandy and a recluse, he watched his collections
displayed from behind a white curtain, becoming a mythical
figure who only a privileged few ever had the pleasure to
know. And not out of snobbery or affectation. Such man cares
little for the world. Rather the world comes to him, and only
the finest at that.
His most faithful clients included : the Queen of Spain, the
Queen of Belgium, the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of
Monaco, all regularly recognized in the press as the
best-dressed women in the world.
On May 12, 1958, he is made « Chevalier de
la Legion d'Honneur ». In the late 60's : at 74, after
working in Paris for 30 years, he decided to retire and closed
his fashion houses in Paris, Barcelona and Madrid, one after
the other.
His last public appearance in Paris was for the funeral of
Coco Chanel, who once said that « BALENCIAGA is the only
couturier able to design, cut, assemble and sew a dress
together entirely by himself ».
On March 24, 1972, the undisputed Master of all the great
couturiers - the man who inspired GIVENCHY, UNGARO, SCHERRER,
COURREGES and many others - passed away in Valencia
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Academy of Art
College [San Francisco CA] |
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Auburn University (AU) [AL]
Textile Engineering Dept
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Barbizon School of Modeling [many cities across
the USA] |
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Baylor University [Waco TX]
Dept of Family & Consumer
Sciences: Fashion Design, Fashion Merchandising, General Family & Consumer
Sciences, & Interior Design
a fashion
merchandising major won 1st place in the 1996 Retail Competition
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Buffalo State College SUNY (BSC) [Buffalo NY]
Fashion Technology (Consumer & Family
Affairs) |
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California Institute of
Fashion & Technology (CiFT) offering an AA degree in designing & pattern
making technology |
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Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM)
[Los Angeles CA] |
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Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) [GA]
School of Textile & Fiber
Engineering
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Indiana University (IU) [IN]
Apparel Merchandising & Interior Design
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Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) [PA]
College of Health & Human Services Fashion
Merchandising, Interior Design/Housing |
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Kent State University (KSU) [OH]
School of Fashion Design & Merchandising
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North Carolina State University (NCSU) [NC]
College of Textiles
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Oregon State University (OSU) [OR]
Dept of Apparel, Interiors,
Housing, & Merchandising (AIHM) |
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Parsons School of Design [New York NY & Paris
France] Fashion Design Interior Design Advertising & Graphic Design |
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Rice University School of Architecture [Houston
TX] |
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Seattle Pacific University (SPU) [Seattle WA]
College of Arts & Sciences -
Family Consumer Science
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Syracuse University (SU) [Syracuse NY]
College for Human Development (CHD)
Dept of Environmental Arts, Consumer Studies
& Retailing (ECR)
Consumer Studies,
Environmental Design/Interiors,
Fashion Design,
Retailing,
Textile Design,
Graduate Studies in Environmental Arts,
Fashion & Textile Design
Special Programs & Services Spring
Fashion Show, Genet Lectures, etc.
SU View Book
Students (see Arts/Fashion)
Digital Art Experience - Fashion
Design College of Visual & Performing Arts' a DigitalJourney Theme |
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Texas Woman's University (TWU) [Denton Dallas Houston]
Department of Fashion & Textiles
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University of Cincinnati (UC) [Cincinnati OH]
College of Design, Architecture, Art, & Planning
(DAAP) |
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Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) [VA]
Department of Fashion
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Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
(VT) [VA]
Clothing & Textiles
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If anyone should
understand sophisticated American style it should be Adam Lippes, an
alumnus of both
Ralph Lauren and
Oscar de la Renta, right? One of
the strongest looks was an ombré mohair wool coat that blended in
with the mural of trees on the runway’s backdrop. Unfortunately,
nothing seemed truly signature or unique, the proceedings were a bit
repetitive, and Lippes got rather lost in the woods

Dark , mysterous
- the tone is set for Fall 08.
Check out these pieces from the
Christian Lacroix Fashion Week RTW
Fall 2008 Paris Runway

"Gn’s dark,
sophisticated new palette aligned nicely with the Paris season. So,
too, did his now more understated embellishments, like the
basket-weave detailing at the collar and cuffs of a cashmere
redingote, the hand-finished organza yoke of a high-necked silk
blouse, and the braided waistband of a satin cocktail dress.The real
question, of course, is whether or not the designer’s high-flying
fan club will take to the edgier, less overtly feminine look.”

FASHION
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DRIES VAN NOTEN
(1958-) is a
Belgian fashion
designer and an eponymous fashion brand. In 2005, the
New York Times
described him "one of fashion's most cerebral designers"
[1].
His style is said to be "eccentric", and fell out of favor during the long
period of
minimalistic fashion
in the early 1990s, only to make a come back towards the mid 2000s
[1][2],
culminating with Van Noten's winning of the International Award of the
Council of Fashion Designers of America
in 2008. On the same year, he dressed
actress
Cate Blanchett for
the
Academy Awards.

Haute Couture on the runway:
Christian LaCroix
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