Fall/Winter 2011 Buzz from Dior

Dior has revealed the Fall/Winter 2011 collection in Muse Rodin today. Internet already booming with mixed reviews of the first Dior collection ever made without the lead designer. There are many companies that don’t have a creative lead. It is mostly common in mid market notably brand names Zara, Club Monaco, H&M with some only having guest designers on occasion, it is not something people expect with luxurious brands. House of Dior has always enjoyed prominent, legendary couture chiefs. Founder Christian Dior (1946-1957), Yves Saint Laurent (1957-1960), Marc Bohan (1960-1989), Glanfranco Ferré (1989-1997), John Galliano (1997-2011) collectively brought the company to one of the greatest fashion enterprises in the world. And now, for the fist time a collection is released by a team of designers, by no doubt talented, but not legendary. The collection basically shows depression. The John Galliano scandal is ongoing. The one day trial took place on June 22, 2011. There is no expectation that he will receive any jail time and the maximum fine for the offense is less than 30,000 Euro. But the shame and grim mood will remain on the Dior name for years to come.

Dior is not new to crisis. In 1978 the Boussac Group with House of Dior part of it went bankrupt putting the house at risk of collapse. In fact when Willot Group purchased Boussac Group there were talks that Dior will cease existence. Only brilliant business sense of then CEO Bernard Arnault rebuilt the company in collaboration of then Dior’s chief designer Marc Bohan. Today House of Dior is financially sound, but the grim reputation and signs of struggle were clearly on the way to make yesterday’s collection a success.

Princess Diana Dresses Auction - June 23, 2011

Much buzzed about auction of Princess Diana dresses is coming up. The historic sale of 14 dresses, each with its own story, will take place in Toronto on June 23, 2011 at Waddington's.


Dresses have an estimated price between $150,000 to $475,000. Given there was no recent sales of Diana's dresses lots may create a modern history and sell for over $500,000 each.


Besides the time when dresses were worn by Diana, they made a huge journey after her death. After Diana's death just two months later the People's Princess Charitable Foundation was created by Florida entrepreneur Maureen Rorech Dunkel. Dresses became an inseparable part of foundation fund raising source via the Dresses for Humanity exhibition tour that circled the world showcasing the gowns. The dresses also spent a decade on loan to Kensington Palace, where the Princess lived from 1981 to 1997, as part of its Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection.
Well presented collection educated the viewers on Diana's short, but very active lifestyle as a Princess and also depicted her transformation from 19 year old wife of Prince Charles into an iconic figure of humanity.


By virtue of events, dresses bought prior to Diana's death were meant to help Diana raise money for her charity. Now after many years after, dresses to be sold for profit to raise even more money for charities. It has been reported that proceeds will go Canada's National Ballet School and also to repay Mrs. Dunkel debts that were occurred in the process of recent bankruptcy.

Here are some highlights of the lots:

Est. $800000 / 1000000. Designer - Victor Edelstein	In 1985 Princess Diana wore this dress to a State Dinner at the White House hosted by President & Mrs. Reagan.
Est. $375000 / 425000 Designer – Catherine Walker	Dress was designed for Diana’s State Tour of India in 1992. It possesses the cultural elements of Indian traditional gowns - jewels, silky fabric, long sleeves.
Est. $225000 / 275000 Designer – Catherine Walker	This dress was worn by Diana to the Palace de Versailles for “La Deuxieme Nuit International de L’enfrance” organized by UNESCO, 1994. Also, Diana wore this dress to pose for Vanity Fair magazine in 1997
Est. $250000 / 300000 Designer – Catherine Walker	Originally designed for Diana’s attendance at a royal banquet for the King and Queen of Malaysia in 1993. This dress was also worn by Diana for the Vanity Fair magazine cover in 1997.
Est. $150000 / 200000 Designer - Catherine Walker	Dress was worn to a state occasion in Vienna in 1986 and to a film premiere in 1993

A Guide to Unisex Sunglasses 2011

Ever since Yves Saint Laurent put a Le Smoking suit on a woman in 1966 ladies fashion as we knew it ended. Emancipated woman realized that clothing no longer has to be restrictive to long skirts, high heels and tight waist. She put on men shirt, loose jeans and military inspired jackets. The term "unisex” appeared. Lately term “gender neutral” became popular. Essentially meaning the same thing as “unisex”, “gender neutrality” applies to men striving to feminine elements of fashion just as much as ladies to men.

Eyewear follows fashion quite closely and since 2010 unisex glasses models make over 60% of entire collection. While this number may appear very high, let’s face it only a few models in each brand collection has a heavy decorations that put them to purely woman category. The rest is unisex. Glasses almost reached a point when there are no men models any more, there are just ladies and unisex. Some brand names are more gender neutral than others. For example Prada, Hugo Boss, Gucci, Tom Ford have larger percentage of unisex models than Dior, and Versace. Some are purely ladies such as Tiffany, Blvlgari and Roberto Cavalli. And some make a point to be men only such as Dior Homme or Carrera. Of course lens size is also a clear sign of some glasses meant to be for men – anything over 60 cm in lens width is considered to fit men head that is generally bigger than ladies. On the other hand, there are certain ladies only glasses models that men love for style but they won’t fit due to a smaller lens size.

Unisex became even a bigger phenomenon in 2012 and continues to be in 2013. In fact eyewear companies started to feature both men and woman in the same glasses and also removed gender identification from the catalogs and some websites.

Other than that, check out our selection of 2013 unisex sunglasses :

Plastic Aviators

Dior Homme Black Tie 101	Gucci 1627
Gucci 1026	Prada SPS 01L

Plastic Narrow

Armani E_Armani 9570/S	Gucci 1638	Prada PS 08LS

Metal Narrow

Armani E_Armani 9527/S	Gucci 1894	Prada PS 54LS

Metal Aviators

Gucci 1944	Gucci 1933	Gucci GG1566
Dior Chicago 2 STR	Gucci 1924	Prada PS 52GS

Metal Oversized

Dior 57TH	Dior Striking/S

Plastic Square

Prada PR 25MS	Prada PS 05LS

Plastic Oversized

Dior Black Tie 136	Gucci 3588

L'Amour Fou – Story of Yves Saint Laurent. The Review

L'Amour Fou, a critically acclaimed film that premiered at TIFF (Toronto Film Festival) last year has drawn many nostalgic thoughts about the late fashion genius, but also opened our eyes on his private life.

Many people got to discover a figure of Pierre Bergé for a first time - Yves Saint Laurent lover, friend and a business partner, who was present at the premier.

Movie starts with Chrsitie’s Auction selling off the antique and art collection of the late designer. As the auction carries on, Pierre recollects stories from his past life, life of Yves Saint Laurent, his thoughts about the past and future.

Many can say movie is extremely sad, as we discover how unhappy Yves Saint Laurent was despite incredible business success. He was living in depressive state for many years and had attempts to end his life. He was continuously wishing the past would come back and he could relive certain age phases again. It appears that once he entered the mid life crisis, he was never able to exit it. He was a man who lived the past while creating a future.

Pierre Bergé comes through as a very strong person who is perhaps the main reason Yves Saint Laurent lived as long as he did. He is very philosophical about life and has no regrets of letting the astounding art and antique collection change hands to be enjoyed by someone else.

The movie puts a new prospective on the art collection as there could be a parallel drawn between YSL designs and pieces of art he collected as we find out for the purpose of getting inspirations. Andy Warhol pop art ideas were used to revolutionize fashion in 60s.

Today’s fashion lives in the world created by YSL over the past 50 years. A short 5 year cycle saw YSL inspired safari, ethnic, military, marine and pop styles interchange each other in during 2005 – 2010 period. During his career Yves Saint Laurent brought woman through a transformation making her masculine via scandalous men suits, then feminine via silk silhouettes and then natural via animal inspired dresses.

Yves was born with a natural talent to create art and a nervous condition that gave him mood swings since very early age. He played with paper dolls creating outfits for them and at age of 18 was won a prize at Paris fashion competition sending Karl Lagerfeld to the second place. As his career took off so did media attention, attention that could not stand. He was hired by house of Dior and after Christian Dior passed away was made a chief designer. Once pairing up with Pierre Bergé he left house of Dior and went off to create his own - YSL as we know it today.

During creation of YSL empire and sustaining it Pierre Bergé was a master mind behind all business decisions, publicity campaigns and acted as a chief liaison on behalf of his partner, at times instead of his partner when Yves was undergoing a mood swing. L'Amour Fou is a great tribute to a deceased fashion genius and also to still living Pierre Bergé who can tell us first hand secrets of YSL success and shed light on some mysteries and myths that surrounded his partner.

Best Dressed Designers

"Those who love fashion wear fashion" - Karl Lagerfeld.

Following our selection of worst dressed designers we must give praises to the best dressed designers. These people are as successful as “the worst dressed” and are respected by pubic, media and business partners just as much. But these people do one more thing. They dress as creatively as their run way models during the shows. They truly embrace their own brands and promote their labels by either wearing their own clothing or at least something that goes with it. Interestingly, we found much more pictures of them on the Internet as their counterparts, which also mean these people are more often photographed and covered in the media. Enjoy!

Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel

Vivienne Westwood

Frida Giannini, Gucci

Betsey Johnson

Donatella Versace

Worst Dressed Designers

To become a leading designer one has to finish famous art school, do internship at the famous fashion house, get a lot of connections in the industry, then get a job at one of the leading design houses and work like a dog to stay afloat. If everything goes well one day lucky designer may be able to raise enough money to open his own fashion house. But what one doesn’t have to do to become a leading designer is to dress well. Huh... really? Yes, check this:

Sarah Burton, Alexander McQueen

Alexander Wang

Miuccia Prada, Miu Miu

Tomas Maier, Bottega Veneta

Michael Kors

Michael Kors 2011	Michael Kors 2010	Michael Kors 2009