Category Archives: Fashion Designers

Working Your Way Up

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The biggest and best fashion designers certainly have an enviable job. They get to create any clothing designs that happen to pop into their head, and have the power and influence to be able to use the best materials and manufacturers to create designs for the hottest celebrities. But it normally takes a while to get into this position – or a lot of luck. Most designers have managed to claw their way up from lower positions, and this means that there is at least a chance for everyone that wants to become a designer to give it a shot. There are plenty of useful websites, magazines and books that can teach you not only the practical skills needed to become a successful designer, but also about the business itself and how to make it. Some institutes have also started to offer courses in fashion design, so there are plenty of options!

Personal Styles

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Sometimes when you see a famous celebrity looking amazing, wearing an outfit that you think just looks so fantastic, you cannot help yourself but to try to achieve the style yourself. You immediately start planning to rush out and buy those cute low boots, or those cool looking sunglasses, and you assume that they will look as good on you as they did on the celebrity. But you should always remember that just because the style worked on Kate Beckinsale, it does not necessarily mean that it’s going to work in the same way when you try it. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that celebrities have an innate ability to look more stylish than the rest of us ‘normal’ people. But it is certainly true that they have professional and talented stylists working for them that will pick styles that they know will work. Different styles work differently on different people – it’s entirely possible that something will look great on you, but will make Angelina Jolie look ridiculous!

Costume Design Beginnings

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Today, we seem to take it for granted that movie stars are often going to look very glamorous, with great-looking costumes, designer dresses, amazing shoes, awesome hairstyles and so on. But what most people don’t realise is that this was really not always the case. We are so used to seeing Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw wearing ridiculously expensive designer gowns, or classic movie stars of the past wearing glamorous dresses that we don’t think at all about the very beginnings of the movie industry. In the first few years of the movie business, actors and actresses usually just wore their own clothes. Costume design was non-existent. Although nowadays we take it for granted that the costume designers will have a substantial effect on the ‘look’ of a movie and therefore on the audience’s perception of it, for the first years of films, the concept of costume design did not even exist!

Jennifer Lawrence

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These days there always seems to be some big new movie or movie franchise coming out that is the next big thing, being featured in all of the newspapers, on all of the TV commercials, billboards and so on. Not that I am saying that this is a bad thing – we’ve had things like the Harry Potter franchise and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, both of which I think are definitely worth seeing. The latest movie to be given a huge amount of publicity is The Hunger Games – a dystopian science-fiction movie based on a popular book. One of the stars of this movie is a newish young actress called Jennifer Lawrence who has, like many young actresses nowadays, become something of a fashion icon due to her high profile in movies like this. She obviously has a great sense of fashion, or a brilliant stylist, because she has never put a foot wrong so far.

Positive Association

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One of the best ways that clothing designers and manufacturers have found to sell their clothing products seems to be to find a famous, easily recognisable and popular face to associate with their products. Celebrity endorsements for products are big business, and the most famous and well-loved celebrities can very easily demand big bucks just to be seen wearing a particular fashion item. And this demand goes up even further if the celebrity wears the item to a large-scale public event, where millions of people will see the choice made by the celebrity in question. Many, many things can be endorsed by celebs – from a push up bra to a dress, from hats to shoes – because the designers that produce these products know that whatever we the public see popular public figures wearing, we are likely to rush out and buy ourselves.

Rihanna and Armani

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R&B superstar Rihanna is one of the biggest musicians in the world right now. She has the looks and the voice to become even bigger.  She also has a great sense of style, and has become something of a fashion icon as well as an R&B star. Presumably her high status as a connoisseur of high fashion and great style is why Armani thought her suitable to star in a new advertisement for their jeans products. However, as many people have pointed out, in the advert the jeans themselves are not actually featured particularly prominently – the cameraman seemed to be far more interested in Rihanna’s semi-naked body writhing around on a bed. And to be honest, I don’t think that we can blame him very harshly. I suppose the idea of the commercial is similar to that of a famous deodorant brand – if you see a beautiful woman semi-naked on a bed and associate it with Armani’s jeans, I guess you will be more likely to buy them.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

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So it’s Paris Fashion Week once again. Is it just me or do these fashion weeks take place on a rather too regular time-frame? Don’t get me wrong, I love any kind of fashion festival, and it’s awesome to be able to see the new things that designers have been coming up with, but it really seems like there’s a fashion week happening every couple of weeks in one or another of the big fashion capitals of the world. There’s only a certain number of times you can see the latest boxer shorts or high heel designs. There’s a part of me that thinks that the over-abundance and regularity of these festivals almost degrades the value of them a little bit. I find myself thinking “oh, another fashion week? Of course…”, when I really should be excited and counting down the days until the next one. Things are usually better in moderation – even fashion weeks!

Paid to Attend

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Fashion shows are extremely important for fashion designers, since they really represent the ‘face’ of the company – it’s where the public and the fashion press are usually going to be most exposed to what the designer has been working on and what the new ‘style’ of the company is going to be. It is therefore very important that these fashion shows are a success, since they can affect the popularity of the designer quite substantially. This means that it is quite easy to believe that designers will go to any lengths to guarantee a successful event. A show is always going to be more popular if high-profile celebrities are photographed in attendance, and this is probably why, according to one designer, Nicole Farhi, celebrities are quite often paid to attend these events. Of course, it should be noted that she doesn’t accuse every designer of this, and designers largely deny any such payment, but if it’s true it does give a certain air of dishonesty to these fashion shows.

Sacha Baren Cohen’s Dictator

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So the Oscars have just taken place in California once again, with the stars of Hollywood in attendance. Most of the fashions and styles being exhibited by these stars was pretty typical for this sort of event; the women wearing their expensive designer gowns and high heels, and the men mostly opting for the traditional evening black tie wear. Mostly. Because there was a certain gentleman who turned up to the ceremony in something rather different. I am talking about controversy superstar Sacha Baren Cohen, creator of comedy personas Ali G, Borat and Bruno. And now it seems like he has added another character to the list. Cohen turned up to the red carpet as the “Dictator” – the titular character from his upcoming movie of the same name. Wearing a white military-style uniform and a huge false beard, Cohen caused a substantial amount od disruption, but nothing too extreme.

Liv Tyler

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Liv Tyler is not only very well known for being an extremely beautiful woman and a fantastic actress, with movie credits including Stealing Beauty, Jersey Girl and Armageddon – she is also well known for being the daughter of famous rocker Steve Tyler, the singer from the band Aerosmith. Given this connection, you would think that she would surely let her father know if she was going to be doing any public singing. But when Liv recently demonstrated her vocal talents in a new commercial for Givenchy’s perfume Very Irresistible Givenchy Electric Rose, she apparently did not even tell her family or her dad about her work on this project. I hope that her father was pleased about it once he did actually get to see it, and I am sure he was very impressed with the result.