'Dancing With the Stars' TV Recap: Who Danced It Best?
With the uneven number of male and female stars, this meant Meryl and Danica did their sambas as one. P.S. No viewer may be more disappointed about … Carrie Ann says Danica hit every shape. Len thinks it took a while to get started, but he loved it …
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This Week at BHS: Bemidji inducts five new members to Hall of Fame
"I'm looking forward to seeing them again." NESTLE GRIMES. Wrestling was a constant in the Grimes household back in the 1970s and the workouts at home kept Nestle Grimes in shape and ready for each season. … Small in stature, Grimes discovered that …
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Yigal Azrouël recently created ballet costumes for choreographer Emery LeCrone, which debuted at the Guggenheim as part of the museum’s Works & Process series. The cultural collaboration found Azrouël contemplating the human form and complementing the dancers’ fluid movements. The designer’s new Cut25 collection reflects a different approach to the female physique. Instead of tracing the figure, Azrouël focused on covering it with sharp, sculptural silhouettes. Still, he managed to keep the overall look sexy and consistent with the DNA of his brand.

Azrouël opened his Fall lookbook with a structured bomber coat that merged panels of regular tweed and “reflective glass finished tweed.” He also incorporated bonded neoprene treatments into sporty sweatshirt dresses, and played up exaggerated volumes with enveloping outerwear items such as a draped, funnel-neck topper cut from a textured bouclé jacquard. Elsewhere, Azrouël reinterpreted his linear preoccupations in more streamlined ways, featuring a graphic brushstroke print on soft crepe de chine separates and showing slim sheaths with asymmetric cutouts. Meanwhile, a cocoonish, blanket stripe wrap teamed with coordinating, relaxed trousers was a definite standout, as was a cozy, color-blocked cardigan styled with herringbone denim stovepipes. Overall, there was a lot going on in the conceptual mix, but it ultimately came together and felt like a considerable step forward for Azrouël’s diffusion line.
—Brittany Adams
Runway Feed

Victor Alfaro was a designer on the rise in the nineties. He picked up the Swarovksi Award for Womenswear (then called the Perry Ellis Award) in 1994, but eventually experienced business setbacks that forced him to shutter his company in 2003. In between then and now, he designed a lifestyle collection for the Bon-Ton department store chain. Last year he relaunched his signature label, selling it to ten specialty boutiques for Spring 2014. The new Fall collection, handbags included, has been picked up by Barneys. Alfaro learned a lot of valuable lessons working in the hinterlands, keeping costs down being chief among them. He reports that he devoted a lot of energy to finding Italian factories that could deliver his products at the prices he wanted. In his new venture, he’s opted out of runway shows entirely, preferring to hone the retail viability of his clothes. He’s mainly addressing professional women’s working wardrobe needs, and he’s built a lot of versatility into the Fall pieces, both in terms of the collection’s mostly neutral color palette and the many layering possibilities. There’s an emphasis on leather, and the key shape is slightly sack-backed—chic but not constricting, and super-easy to wear. A pair of bold, abstract prints based on the designer’s own paintings gave the lineup its energy; the green version in particular looked striking on a silk cady sheath dress.

Alfaro is thinking big: He says he’s planning on adding a contemporary-priced collection within the year and a menswear line not long after that.
—Nicole Phelps
Runway Feed

Rie Yamagata emphasizes wearability above all with her relatively straightforward collections, but introduces elements of her own quirky personality with thoughtful details that make the clothes feel special. At a Fall preview, the Rhié designer explained that this season was partially inspired by fragmented memories from her formative middle school years spent in California. A flashback to the shiny bathroom from her childhood home, for example, steered Yamagata toward a python-embossed lamé that she featured on a pleated midi skirt as well as a crafty pullover that mixed together a variety of materials. But those two silver items were about as flashy as this lineup got. Elsewhere, Yamagata focused on honing her tailoring skills, which was evident in relaxed, double-breasted suits and jumpsuits, as well as a variety of menswear-inspired topcoats (that will retail for less than $ 1,000), including a standout style in bright grass green. As usual, there were subtle references to school uniforms, with preppy plaid pieces and crisp shirting dresses. All in all, this well-considered range should appeal to girls both buttoned-down and eccentric.
—Brittany Adams
Runway Feed

While Electric Feathers designer Leana Zuniga made no concessions where her usual billowing shapes were concerned, her Fall offering was notably more lissome than collections past. Perhaps that’s owed in part to a couple of heavyweight influences. When presenting the pieces, Zuniga name-dropped Yohji Yamamoto (circa the eighties) and Isadora Duncan, both of who represent different sorts of lightness. Yamamoto could be spotted in a boxy, utilitarian, funnel-neck jacket and tool-belt-like vest, both in indigo-and-cream-checked raw silk (the latter tricked out with black plastic snap buckles that felt improbably charming). Duncan, meanwhile, came through in diaphanous numbers, like Electric Feathers’ signature Infinite Rope dress, which stunned in a blush double georgette. There was plenty of gossamer silk lamé, too. A gorgeous swingy ivory coat with poet sleeves and a chunky, striped silk belt was a true standout, and bore hints of the Ballets Russes around the edges.

Even at its most dialed-back, the label is going to be a hard sell for some women—for the body-conscious, for those who’d rather their clothing show off weeks’ worth of Pilates rather than double as an ensemble in which to do Pilates. But Zuniga comes by her aesthetic quirks so naturally, it’s hard to escape their pull. Fall boasts some of her most impressive fare yet, and with a boutique on Williamsburg’s South Side just opened? Things look bright for the brand.
—Kristin Anderson
Runway Feed

Hot Bikini Body

Image by Butz.2013

Actress says she doesn't have a bikini body
Shruti said, "I feel that one must understand her own body and dress up accordingly. If one doesn't do that there is a possibility that the person will make a fool of herself. I don't have a bikini body to flaunt. Therefore I shall not wear a bikini …
Read more on Times of India

Ashanti shares poolside pictures of her impressive bikini body
But the 33-year-old recording artist decided to prove it when she posted flattering pictured of herself in a revealing two-piece bikini on Sunday. The chart-topping star looked fantastic in the shots, which will no doubt delight fans of the US star …
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Thursday marked exactly one year to the day since Nicola Formichetti took over at Diesel, and that was all the excuse Renzo Rosso, who founded the brand thirty-five years ago, needed to throw a party. He flew three hundred people from all over the world to Venice. “My town, the most beautiful place in the world,” Rosso enthused. After an Aperol-fueled gondola ride down the Grand Canal, only a churl could disagree with him.

But before the party—and the after-party at the Palazzo Grassi, which saw the hardiest revelers reeling into a gray Venetian dawn this morning—there was a huge fashion show to clarify how far Diesel has come under Formichetti…and where it might be going. The denim, the leather, the military/utility looks have been pillars of the Diesel aesthetic for decades. “But what makes it unique,” Formichetti said before the show, “is that it’s not street, it’s not luxury, it’s a hybrid, a new breed of alternative-spirited brand.” Which kind of describes Formichetti’s own work over the years, first as a stylist for magazines, then as a creative director for the likes of Uniqlo, Mugler, and Lady Gaga.

The many facets of Formichetti were all over the Diesel show. “Any crazy idea I come up with, Renzo says, ‘You can do better than that,'” the designer said with his insanely infectious giggle. So we saw power pop looks; digital backdrops by longtime collaborator Nick Knight; Brooke Candy on the catwalk; a Tumblr-enabled model casting; clothes customized and glamorized to individual taste; and an overall feeling of inclusiveness, which is something the designer has deliberately cultivated with his social media presence. “There’s no difference between the digital and physical world for these kids,” Formichetti mused. “They’re a new species, indigo children. I find them through Tumblr. They’re everywhere, but they don’t know about each other till I connect them. That’s what I am, a connector.”

His connections have inevitably led to some social/political subtexts in his work—LGBT models, a Pussy Riot-inspired finale—but that only makes Formichetti a better match for Rosso, who’s no stranger to controversy himself. Last night was more than a mutual admiration society, it was a virtual lovefest. “I want to be just like Renzo when I’m older,” said Formichetti. And Rosso is going to make it easy for him. “He said he’s giving me the keys to the kingdom for the next thirty-five years,” the designer added.
—Tim Blanks
Runway Feed