Giorgio Armani: ‘Anna Wintour Is Unprofessional’
A fashion feud is brewing between Vogue editor Anna Wintour and Armani, and it’s shaping up to be bitter.
The reason? Wintour skipped out on his ready-to-wear show in Milan this week to catch a plane to Paris.
And Armani is furious – and vocal.
He held a press conference at which he denounced Wintour as “unprofessional” for “dumping him” and missing his show, on the final day of Milan Fashion Week.
The problem? Milan overlaps with the start of Paris Fashion Week, and Wintour evidently decided the French capital was more important.
The scheduling of the international fashion shows and their closeness has been bugging designers and editors for years – it creates havoc, means everybody scrambles from city to city, and has now meant a very powerful falling-out.
Armani vented his spleen at the world’s press about being sidelined: “She said she was sending her people. But if you go to see your dentist and he puts you in the hands of his assistant, what’s your reaction?”
He added, ominously, “She is influential and powerful. But, perhaps, I’m influential as well.”
For her part, Wintour chose to give a statement that indicated she was not impressed.
“Anna has the greatest respect for Giorgio Armani and everything he has done for Italy and fashion worldwide. Unfortunately, with the fashion calendar now running for more than a month, there are some shows that Anna is not able to attend,” she said icily, through Conde Nast.
The last time Wintour fell out with a designer, it was Valentino, who chose to appear in The Devil Wears Prada despite its being a film about Wintour’s domineering style. However, they’ve long since patched things up.
With Armani, it looks like Vogue might not be mending those bridges for a while.
Image: Giorgio Armani with Wintour in happier times, courtesy Vogue.
Donna Karan Oscar Dresses Go Missing
It was nearly a caper worthy of the Pink Panther.
Donna Karan’s dresses for the Oscar red carpet got on a plane, but didn’t get off.
The almost-calamity happened on a flight from New York to LAX, where the dresses were supposed to accompany Karan’s PR girl.
The problem? She got off the flight in LA and they didn’t appear – and panic ensued.
The dresses are worth thousands and may possibly have been altered red carpet one-offs, so losing them wouldn’t just have been a disaster, it would have been unfixable.
Fortunately it wasn’t thieves or a heist, it was just a regular airport mix-up.
The dresses, possibly because of their strange shape, didn’t make it out of the airport’s cargo area, where Karan’s very relieved PR found them shortly afterward.
“My mistake,” she tweeted cheerfully at last, “I should have shipped the person with them.”
No word on what dresses stylists have pulled from the Donna Karan Atelier to show to their celeb clients, but tis the season for designers to send their best and brightest pieces to LA for the Oscars next week.
What Donna Karans would you like to see on the red carpet at the Oscars?
Image: Donna Karan A/W 2014, courtesy Vogue.
Expert Advice: How To Get The Perfect Jeans
American jeans-makers Wrangler are all about authenticity – they’ve been producing high quality denim since the 1940s – and they’ve just released their latest collection.
It’s all about dark washes, distressed fits and classic seams. Very James Dean.
So we wanted to know: just how do we find the perfect jeans?
Fortunately their head designer, Marcella Bisset, was on hand to give some expert advice.
“Finding the perfect fitting jean doesn’t have to be so hard,” she says. “The first step is choosing a jean with a nice hand feel and maybe some stretch that you can be comfortable wearing all day, every day.”
Think all denim’s made the same? You thought wrong.
Traditionally, denim is 100% cotton serge, but that has no stretch in it. The really expensive stuff is selvage denim, with a very tight ‘weave’ that won’t unravel, but for stretch, you want denim with 2 or 3% Spandex, for that extra bit of flexibility.
The lighter denim fabrics are generally denim mixed with polyester or other stretchy fabrics, making them easier to wash and stretchier. All of these have different feels and stretch levels, so look around.
Found the denim you love? “Then,” says Marcella, “it’s just about trying on a few different fits, like a Hi Rise, a Low Rise or maybe a relaxed Boyfriend, until you find that perfect fit you can live in every day.”
What’s in right now? “The vintage inspired stretch denims,” she says.
So go rifling through racks in vintage stores and you might just find the denim of your dreams.
Image: Wrangler 2014 campaign.
Sneak Peek: Alessandra Ambrosio’s First Fashion Collection
She’s best known for not wearing very much at all.
However, now Victoria’s Angel Alessandra Ambrosio has decided to venture into designing some more covered-up pieces.
The model, who’s been an Angel for 10 years, has just released her debut collection, Ale, with American retailer Planet Blue.
The style? Boho-hippie beach casual, perfect for an Australian heatwave.
There are floaty maxis, beautiful linen cover-ups and a particularly covetable crop top and short set in whimsical batik prints.
And it’s not just a whim of Ambrosio’s either – she’s told Women’s Wear Daily, the Bible of fashion, that this is a “business transition” for her, although she’s still planning on modelling lingerie.
She won’t be alone. Elle Macpherson is one of the world’s biggest lingerie moguls, and Gisele Bundchen’s line of thongs is hugely popular.
Will you be getting into some Ale pieces for days at the beach?
Image: Ale by Alessandra Ambrosio.