Art
“Does anyone still wear a hat?” This lyric from Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece musical Company, as crooned out by Elaine Stritch, rung in my head as I found out that master milliner Stephen Jones’s show Hats: An Anthology would travel across the pond from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to th
Art
In the 1960s, Paco Rabanne subverted traditional dressmaking techniques in his fashions, eschewing the needle and thread for pliers and wire and replacing fabric with metallic discs and panels. The so-called “space age” dresses constructed solely of inflexible paillettes revolutionized how women cou
Opinion
Vogue Nippon (Japanese Vogue) Editor-at-Large Anna Dello Russo delivers a new perspective on Orientalism in her latest shoot with model Crystal Renn. Outfitted in standard high fashion looks by Dolce & Gabbana, Renn’s eyes are epicanthicized with the use of good old-fashioned household tape.
Interview
Among the cringe-worthy capitalizing on alternative lifestyles and incessant branding that permeates the fashion industry, it’s difficult to carve out a public forum to discuss the cultural, political and intellectual importance of what we wear. But the director and chief curator of the Museum at FI
Art
Have some designers gone a little too far slapping their high profile names and logos on things? Do we really live in a world where designer bicycles are the must-have of the season? Let's take a look at some innocent objects that were perfectly good without a designer name that now we have the unco
Opinion
The artist t-shirt is a development we’ve known here at Hyperallergic for some time, but we thought it’d be good to let our readers explore it further. The blurry line demarcating art and fashion is obfuscated when artists have a hand in designing clothes. Is it just a cheap ploy to stock the gift s
Art
Few designers would be inspired when a fire nearly incinerates the archives containing their entire œuvre. But Helmut Lang, the Austrian-born designer who’s always been somewhat of an anomaly, didn’t waste the opportunity when his imagination was set ablaze.
Art
The boys had their turn traipsing down the runways of Paris and Milan last month for the major fashion houses’ offerings at the Spring 2012 Menswear collections. And the more one looks at the clothes, the more they can be seen in relation to another medium: sculpture.
Opinion
At Pitti Immagine, one of the largest fashion trade shows in Florence, Dame Vivienne Westwood debuted her second Ethical Fashion Africa Collection in partnership with the International Trade Centre. The first, back in February, was a small offering of three tote bags, but for her sophomore effort sh
Opinion
Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld recently took a break from carving a chocolate effigy of his lover to expand his design skills in a new medium.
Art
So Alexander McQueen was honored with a retrospective at the Met’s Costume Institute, but the real question is, who’s next? We may end up finding our answer in an obituary, but for now let’s look at some retrospective-worthy designs and designers.
Art
What becomes a legend most? How are those cultural superstars chosen, the ones whose very names invoke awe, wonder, or at least a gasp? Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, the comprehensive retrospective of the late designer’s ravishing raiment now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art certainly p