Where Angels Tread: Alexander McQueen Fall 2010. Look 7.

"He was looking at the Dark Ages, but finding light and beauty in it."
Sarah Burton on Alexander McQueen's last collection for Fall 2010.

McQueen had ordered fabric with complex digitally transferred photographs of paintings of church angels and Hieronymous Bosch demons into hand-loomed costly silk jacquards.

"He was coming in every day, draping and cutting pieces on the stand.  He wanted to go back to the handcraft he loved and the things that are being lost in the making of fashion."

Sarah Burton on Alexander McQueen's last collection for Fall 2010.

I am quietly honored to have received this Alexander McQueen fall 2010, look 7,  jacket with its golden angels soaring in couture tailored folds.  It is a reflection of the world Alexander McQueen inhabited: dark, romantic, beautiful, historical, futuristic and fiercely individual.

Alexander McQueen Fall 2010 collection 'Angel' jacket available at RARE vintage

This piece can be purchased here.

love, kisses and missing Alexander McQueen, Juliana

On the Collectibility of Nicolas Ghesquiere for Balenciaga

"he was the source of a true renaissance, possibly the greatest talent we have ever had." Olivier Saillard

Let's not be too past tense about Nicolas Ghesquiere - he is still alive after all.  But we can mourn his passing at the house of Balenciaga.  His creativity on the runway may have interfered with the  commercial aspects that the owners of Balenciaga were more focused on.  

In an interview in System magazine, excerpted on the Buisness of Fashion,  Ghesquiere said "The strongest pieces that we made for the catwalk got ignored by the business people.  They forgot that in order to get to that easily sellable biker jacket, it had to go via  a technically mastered piece that had been shown on the catwalk.  I started to become unhappy when I realized that there was no esteem, interest, or recognition for the research I had done; they only cared about what the merchandisable result would look like.  This accelerated desire meant they ignored the fact that all of the pieces that remain the most popular today are from collections we made ten years ago.  They have become classics and will carry on being so."

It seems those comments have gotten Ghesquiere into trouble with the powers that be at his former company and they are suing him.  Where there is fashion, there is drama.  

The fashion drama I love at RARE vintage is seeing an actual runway piece by Ghesquiere for Balenciaga.  Now that is some major drama!  The runway pieces were like couture - beautifully and amazingly crafted - technically intricate - and you really do see the research and how Ghesquiere challenged himself to create something that was fashion in its purest form.  I am going to drop the A word here: Art.  Fashion is an art form but instead of hanging it on a wall we hang it on our bodies.

Fashion for collectors.  Nicolas Ghesquiere for Balenciaga.  Fall 2007.  I wish everyone could see how crazy beautiful this piece is.  The work is astonishing and it really makes you gasp.  Available now at RARE vintage...

The bright yellow mink is detachable on the collar and the cuffs but I don't know why you would detach it because it is so fabulous with it on.

You can't really tell from the photos but this is a quilted silk appliqué on the back of the jacket:

This One is for Catherine Baba

This Yves Saint Laurent rive gauche turquoise oversized jacket with a rolled and padded collar and hem is not for everyone.

I was not even certain it was for me when I was first shown it.  But then I thought about how Saint Laurent revisited the Chinese style jacket throughout his career and that was irresistible.

It is a good collector's piece - and it is wearable for the right person.  Someone who loves Saint Laurent, someone with a strong personal style, someone who would wear it with Guerlain's Geisha red lipstick, whose home would smell like Cire Trudon's Ernesto leather and tobacco candle, and someone who loves Paris.  Someone like Catherine Baba.

Photo by Tommy Ton

Catherine Baba true facts are from here.

Interior detail of our YSL:

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When Adam and Eve met Jean Paul Gaultier

I am sure you know Jean Paul Gaultier is having a much deserved major fashion moment right now: First there was The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.  And then the show The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk opened at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.  And then in a major pop cultural art moment he designed Diet Coke bottles.

In Spring Summer 1991 Gaultier wanted to shake up the garden of Adam and Eve.  He reimagined them as modern day Rastafarians.  He wanted to reassemble men and women, masculine and feminine together.  This rare and beautiful midnight blue silk jacket is from that 1991 collection.  The front is cut out and completely wired with appliqués of pleated leaves.  The jacket nips in at the waist and the hips are curvaceous and reminiscent of Christian Dior's iconic "Bar' suit.

I am feeling much like Eve... very, very tempted!

1991 Jean Paul Gaultier Adam and Eve collection silk cut-out jacket

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Issey Miyake "The Dream"

Issey Miyake was inspired by Henri Rousseau's The Dream:

to create "Rhythm Pleats".  

In 1988 there was an exhibition, ISSEY MIYAKE A-UN, at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris which focused on Miyake's pursuit of cutting edge technology and traditional Japanese techniques in cloth and clothing.

After this exhibition Miyake experimented with pleating fabric by sandwiching it between two layers of washi paper and heating it.  He continued experimenting and improving the pleats.  He developed a technique called 'the twist'.  Two or three people held the ends of the fabric, it was pulled tight and then twisted and then tied with a string and then heated.   In 1993 the line PLEATS PLEASE ISSEY MIYAKE debuted.  PLEATS PLEASE was a dream of Miyake to create an industrial product for everyday clothing. 

What I think is really fascinating is how much creativity and handcraft went into the creation of an 'industrial product'.

I believe that this really fabulous Issey Miyake pleated coat dates from between 1989 and before the debut of Pleats Please in 1993.  It fits like a cardigan with a softly draped shawl collar 

but then on the back of this industrially made jacket is the work of a "couturier" (I know it is a title Miyake rebelled against in the 1960s after assisting at Guy Laroche and Givenchy) but it is the detail of slicing open the back and stitching it by hand leaving open space that makes it very couture - not to mention, A Dream.

The Basics: A Chanel Jacket

Here is a great basic jacket in a longer length from Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel.  It comes with two Chanel flower pins which it can be worn with or without.  

Maybe you will want to wear it with the large Chanel brooch will be posting next. 

Maybe you will want to wear it belted.  Maybe you will want to wear it with the Chanel belt we will be posting today.  Maybe you will want to wear it as a dress.  So many maybes in one multi tasking jacket!

1998 Chanel black jacket.  Size 38.

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