New judge on America's Next Top Model

Vogue magazine editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley is leaving the "America's Next Top Model" judges' table at the end of the series' current all-star season, and he'll be replaced by fashion diva and reality TV star Kelly Cutrone.

Cutrone confirmed her new job via Twitter on Wednesday: "It's true! I am joining America's Next Top Model'! Cutrone is already well known to fans of fashion-related reality TV.

She's the tell-it-like-it-is founder of fashion industry publicity firm People's Revolution, and has starred on "The Hills" and "The City," where she employed those show's stars, Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port.
She also starred in her own series, "Kell on Earth," last year on Bravo, and she is currently a correspondent on "Dr. Phil."

Talley, meanwhile, became an 'ANTM' judge in 2010, with the show's 14th cycle, the first season that included an Italian Vogue cover photoshoot for the winning model.

Ask me why I love Oscar de la Renta

Well, it’s pretty obvious. With a collection like this, i give my undying love.
Oscar de la Renta appeals to me in every kinda way. Just take a look at this stunning Resort 2012 collection, featuring prints, patchwork, polkadots, quirky hats, chic shift dresses, crisp blazers, everything a girl wants.
The styling is super chic and he offsets the sweetness with edgy shoeboots and interesting cowboyesque hats.
Totally and completely Oscar, totally and completely head over heels in love.

Michael Sontag Spring/Summer 2012

I started Fashion Week this morning with Michael Sontag's show, a designer I've been following since he first presented his work in Berlin. Michael's signature are the flowing cuts, interesting drapes combined with simple shapes and surprising colors. They varied between muddy browns and shiny greys, pure white, muted lime green, gold and, of course (as it seems to be a color Michael appreciates a lot), pure pink. The collection felt like a rainy summer day, just when the sun is about to break through the luminous grey, when you still need to wear something coat-like but can already feel the warmth of the next days. Very optimistic and very Berlin.

Start-up Says: Move Over, Vogue

"I like to track StyleCaster's success based on where we sit during Fashion Week," said Ari Goldberg, the CEO of StyleCaster, a three-year-old fashion media start-up, as he took his front row seat at the Tibi runway show at Lincoln Center.

"In the beginning, we were in the top row," he said, referring to the row farthest from the runway. "The next year, we were in the fourth row. Now I'm in the first. It's ridiculous. The front row has always been reserved for celebrities and fashion editors."

Not anymore. StyleCaster launched in 2009 with the editorial mission of bringing "style to the people." In turn, the media start-up has built a site where users, predominantly women ages 18 to 34, can find fashion advice, build personal profiles, share style tips, and discover new "looks." It produces in-house editorial fashion shoots in its studio space, which resides at the back of its 5,000 square foot Manhattan offices, near the Fashion Institute of Technology. And during Fashion Week, its staff of nearly a dozen editorial writers scramble from show to show to report on everything from celebrity sightings to runway trends.
To help people try to understand what StyleCaster is, Goldberg likes to describe it as "Facebook meets Conde Nast." It's site already boasts 2 million unique visitors a month.

Starting a media company in the the throes of an economic recession that hit magazines, newspapers, and media websites hard was a bold move. But in chaos lies opportunity, Goldberg believes. "As the saying goes, when there's blood in the streets, buy real estate."

And beyond the satisfaction of seeing (and being seen) in the front row, Goldberg believes the migration to the first row symbolizes something much larger: Namely, that young media start-ups and tech savvy entrepreneurs are giving old-school fashion magazines a run for their money, lulling away advertisers that are starting to look for digital platforms that just don't exist within brands like Vogue and Cosmo. And if anything, Fashion Week in New York serves to highlight this trend. A complex ecosystem of small companies have emerged in center stage, from blogs to social media start-ups. Even companies like Tumblr and Instagram are cashing in on the action.

"We’ve built a better mouse trap," says Goldberg, 29, who got his start in the media world as the VP for LeBron James's marketing agency. "We create content like The Huffington Post, but we have the caliber of brand that Conde Nast has built. There was a huge desire for both the reader and the advertiser to move from print to digital, but that experience didn't really exist. At the end of the day, this is a better, faster, cheaper, business."
Although the company does not disclose revenue, StyleCaster has raised $4.25 million in Series A funding from Dan Gilbert (founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers), and plans to be profitable by the end of 2011. Among the site's advertisers are Dove, Starbucks, and Diet Coke, which recently launched a new campaign on a Times Square billboard featuring StyleCaster employees.
"We’re closing campaigns that historically never would have gone to a start-up," says David Goldberg, 27, who is Ari's brother and the president of the company.

And unlike a typical fashion magazine, which conjures images derived from movies like The Devil Wears Prada, StyleCaster is arranged more like a typical tech start-up than, say, is Vogue. There are communal tables, an open floor plan, and graffiti on the walls. It's irreverent, too; Last Thursday, the brothers arranged for a crossdresser to pose as Anna Wintour on Fashion's Night Out. And David's pug, Frankie, is one of the first in the office to greet visitors.
"What rules?" Ari says. "There are no rules."
To be sure, Ari and David are consumate entrepreneurs—not necessarily fashion experts. The brothers grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where their family owned a steel business and a chain of dry cleaners—not exactly glamour industries.

But after moving to New York (and dating one of the founders of Porter Grey, a fashion line) Ari says he began to see the potential within the fashion industry for a new type of digital media company that is both accessible—and glamorous—for women who want to be stylish.

"We’re advertisers, we're marketers, we're sales guys, and we're brand guys," says Goldberg. "'Style to the people' is not only what we believe, but it's a better business model. It's about creating a brand that's inclusive of the reader, rather than exclusive."

He adds, "We're ambitious, and sometimes it bites us in the ass. People get to StyleCaster, and they go, 'Woah, there's a big idea here.' Have we fully capitalized on that? By no means. I think we're just scratching the surface."

NEW FACE OF THE WEEK! RENEE VAN SEGGERN

Betsey Johnson wows the crowd with her finale

NEW YORK (AP) — The highlight of Betsey Johnson's fashion show always comes at the end — and it has nothing to do with the clothes. The 69-year-old designer does her cartwheel on the runway, and it brings down the house.
On Monday at New York Fashion Week, she added a split, which brought huge applause from the crowd that included Nicki Minaj.
"I try to go to the shows of people I respect, and when I respect you, I like you," said Patricia Field, the designer, stylist and, most famously, the costume designer for "Sex and the City," from her front-row perch.
Field said her ties to Johnson go back to 1969. "We came up in this industry together," she said.
Relationships seem to count a lot for Johnson. The first model on her runway was daughter Lulu, if you don't count her granddaughters who entertained the crowd before the lights went down with their pink-streaked hair and little dance numbers on the runway.
At the end of the show, Johnson invites models on stage with balloons and encourages them to smile — normally a no-no for the catwalkers at the Lincoln Center tents at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.
But they were having fun with prodding: Her collection was an eclectic mix of tongue-and-cheek (really, more cheek) prom-ready sequined dresses, lace babydolls and other assorted lingerie-inspired looks, and tough-girl tight outfits with skull and X-ray motifs.
She also willingly shared with her usual younger fans just how long she's been at this. Several of the prints on T-shirts and T-shirt dresses featured Polaroid shots of Johnson in her younger years. One kaftan was covered with her face and the clear date of 1977.

Fashion Week Scheduling NotesFashion Week Scheduling Notes

In the wake of an eleventh-hour hurricane and persistent economic turmoil, this season's Fashion Week calendar has been reshuffled and revised like never before.

Marc Jacobs was the first—and most formidable—to change his time slot, postponing the runway show for his main collection from September 13th to the 15th, to close out Fashion Week. Partner and company president Robert Duffy blamed the delay on Hurricane Irene, claiming to WWD the staff lost precious time preparing the collection. However, with rumors of Jacobs' imminent succession to Dior reaching fever pitch, the last-minute change put industry watchers on high alert.

If Jacobs can do it, then so can Olivier Theyskens. Theory announced it would move the Theyskens show, also originally scheduled for Monday, September 12, to the next afternoon after being held up by the hurricane. 

Meanwhile, both Catherine Malandrino and Isaac Mizrahi are skipping this season altogether, while Vena Cava is scaling back to a closed "friends and family" showing for their spring line.

A Malandrino rep told Page Six that the company “is in a time of transition. We’re refocusing, and we’ll be back in February.” Mizrahi, though he shared the news himself in a video on the brand's blog, was a bit more cryptic in explaining why there would be no show for the spring collection, half-joking that it felt "modern" to them. Vena Cava's camp didn't offer up a hint of insight into their motivation to go private.

The calendar is also missing the GreenShows this September — a note to a fan on the official Facebook page indicates that they will not be holding their semi-annual sustainable-fashion runway shows, but to "stay tuned" for an announcement on their "plans to launch a retail distribution platform for the sustainable fashion movement."

That seems to be the latest, with less than a week until official kick-off. We're still marking our datebooks in pencil.

London catwalk designer to show new collection at Norwich Fashion Week

Fashion label Silk & Sawdust took to the London catwalks earlier this year as one of the hot new brands on the fashion scene. Now, the Norwich fashion designer behind the brand is bringing her new autumn collection to Norwich Fashion Week next month. Emma Harrowing reports.

  The Silk & Sawdust fashion label has been around since October 2009, with an online collection of 1920s to 1970s vintage inspired day dresses, evening dresses and separates.
Then, earlier this year, the label made it to the London catwalk at Pure London’s Next Generation, a national platform for hot new labels to present their original collections on the runway.
For fashion designer and founder of Silk & Sawdust, Claudia Orrell, this was the moment she had been waiting for all her life.
“I was about six-years-old when I made my first frock,” says 36-year-old Claudia as she sits in her modest design studio, otherwise known as the spare room in her flat on Wensum Street. Next to her is her computer with the Silk & Sawdust website on display ready to flick through. A well-used mannequin stands in the corner and some of her designs hang around the room.
“It was in the very early eighties when white was all the rage. I relieved my mother of an old sheet that was a little threadbare in places, snipped away, nipped, tucked, ran over it with her hand-powered sewing machine and hey presto, I had made a cute little straight white dress, finished off with a red ribbon at the waist. Sadly, I don’t think Mummy Orrell could quite get over the idea that it was, in fact a sheet, and was slightly mortified by me wearing it to school.”

Dreams of becoming a fashion designer diminished when on ‘growing up and having to pay the bills’, Claudia began a career in publishing in London and her love of dressmaking became a hobby.
“I used to make prom dresses for my friends in my spare time. It was like having an illicit love affair on the side of my publishing job,” laughs Claudia.
“I made lots of little outfits for mine and my friend’s wardrobe and I knew that this is what I wanted to do full time. I signed up to some short courses in fashion drawing and design at St Martin’s in London. The problem was how to make enough money out of it.”
Like many, Claudia came to a crossroads in her life when she was faced with redundancy from her job in London. With the prospect of yet more spreadsheets and a desk job that would bring in a regular income on one hand and the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy and try something new, Claudia choose the latter and went to work in Bangkok with Voluntary Service Overseas.
It was here that her fashion career began.
“It’s strange to think about it now, but amongst all the humbling scenes I witnessed, I also met some incredible people with so much creativity and dress making skills,” says Claudia.
“They work with stunning fabrics and it wasn’t about fancy modern equipment, it was all about highly-skilled people cutting patterns, pinning fabrics and working with old-fashioned machines.
“Experiencing this magic swung me back into dressmaking.”
Within two months of setting up Silk & Sawdust, the orders came in and the workload meant that Claudia could finally follow her dream. She now spends most of her time working on her fashion designs in Norwich (she moved here from London in April this year) while supplementing her income with freelance publishing work in London.
“The name Silk & Sawdust came from sitting in a pub with a friend who I had made a dress for from silk chiffon,” says Claudia.
“We were trying to come up with a name for the label when my friend dropped her dress on the floor. The floor of the pub had a kind of sawdust mesh on it, so when she picked the dress up it was covered in sawdust shavings. We looked at each other and said ‘silk and sawdust’ and the name was born. It’s been an incredible journey and a huge amount of work, but it continues to be fun.”
Claudia has currently designed four collections for her Silk & Sawdust label. Each piece is inspired by vintage patterns, old fashion books and original vintage dresses, coats and tops; all made from fabric sourced worldwide. Each piece is available in limited quantities and hand tailored by some of the highly-skilled dressmakers in Bangkok who Claudia met while on her travels. Currently, Claudia is working on her fifth range, an autumn collection which was half launched at Pure London and which will be launched in its entirety at Norwich Fashion Week next month.
“The idea behind Silk & Sawdust is simple,” says Claudia. “To bring back the glamorous fashion from years gone by using modern fabrics that will make each item wearable and the wearer feel stylish.”
As she talks with passion about her new designs, a quick glance around her studio reveals a few clues as to what will be in her final collection. A fabulous 1930s dress hangs on the hook on the door and a beige ruffled midi skirt seen on the London catwalk is joined by a 70s-style satin blouse.
A sneak peak inside the makeshift hanging space in her studio reveals other 30s and 60s inspired finds, plus a military style blouse, all very much in keeping with next season’s trends and all made to a high quality and in fabrics and designs you could just fall in love with.
Says Claudia: “Primarily, I make my designs for women over 30 who want a feminine, sexy and stylish look, but with a quirky twist.” And you can see Claudia’s new designs for yourself as Silk & Sawdust’s full autumn collection will be launched at the Open Store event during Norwich Fashion Week. Claudia will open the door to her studio so that you can see, touch and try on her latest designs and perhaps order a piece or two. Says Claudia: “As each item comes in a limited number, there is a good chance you can pick up a dress or top that no one else has. You can own a piece of original fashion, and I might even put together some goodie bags too!”
You can see Claudia’s new collection at her studio at 23a Wensum Street from midday until 8pm on Tuesday, September 27, as part of the Open Store event at Norwich Fashion Week.
Open Store showcases the work of Norfolk fashion designers who will be showcasing their latest designs at Ethika on Timberhill, Verandah on Upper St Giles and at various locations on Wensum Street.
Norwich Fashion Week takes place from Thursday September 22 until Thursday September 29. For more information about Open Store and the other events taking place throughout the week click on the Norwich Fashion Week link at the top right of this page.

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