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Boys to Men
Milan surrendered to Dolce & Gabbana on Saturday night. Six hours after their menswear show for Spring 2011, Domenico and Stefano opened an exhibition celebrating 20 years of men’s collections at the Palazzo Marino, once considered the most beautiful private palace in Milan. Considering the miserable weather, a surprisingly large crowd gathered in the Piazza della Scala to watch red-carpet arrivals like Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Freeman, Juliette Binoche, Monica Bellucci, Rachel Weisz, Eva Herzigova, and Eli Roth. Huge screens guaranteed people on the other side of the Piazza had a clear view of the comings and goings, as well as a sneak preview of images from the three lavish books that have been created to mark the anniversary.
Inside the Palazzo, a room devoted to the book on editorial and advertising images featured a wall of iPads where guests could flick through the pages. A second room showcased the volume on the history of the label. Then, an anteroom where, as a reminder of how and where the story started, there was a tailor sewing a jacket on a revolving platform. And finally, a room of video screens with highlights from two decades of shows—and here rested the last tome, too huge for humankind to move with its comprehensive overview of the 40 collections.
A lot of the talk was about Annie Lennox‘s performance during the runway show. Who knew she was the focus of so many liberating teen dreams? The now-grown dreamers misted up as they remembered. “Annie’s voice is an emotion,” Gabbana rhapsodized. “She is so honest when she sings.” It was Rachel Weisz’s first-ever men’s show. Like many in the crowd, she was struck by Tony Ward. “Who was the man who looked like Jesus?” she wondered. Ward’s been compared to many things in his eventful 47 years. Christ is unlikely to be one of them.
—Tim Blanks Continue reading
Belles de Nuit
When the folks behind the scents at Yves Saint Laurent decided to relaunch an Opium fragrance, this one called Belle d’Opium, they had a lot to live up to: The original Opium’s 1977 New York City launch, held on a ship docked at the South Street Seaport with Truman Capote at the helm, has become the stuff of legend. But Thursday night’s fête had at least one thing the original didn’t: a pre-event Web presence. Whatisyouropium.com choreographed the moments leading up to the bash and will document YSL fans’ secret addictions in the future. As for the party itself? A Chelsea warehouse was draped in darkened velvet for the likes of
Ashley Olsen,
Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Alexis Bledel,
and guest DJs
Alexa Chung and Alexandra Richards (who gave out iTunes gift cards of their Opium mixes).
Upon arrival, handsome men scurried guests to The Experience, a disco-esque white leather banquette that rotated in a room that slowly filled with wafts of the new scent. Images from the campaign were simultaneously projected onto the rounded walls and eventually turned into a hologram of the actress
Mélanie Thierry,
dancing in the dark and then writhing around on the floor of a Tuscan villa. “You feel sort of ridiculous doing that in a dark room, not knowing how it’s going to look at the end,” Thierry said at the party. “But I think it looks great. I can say that, right?” As the night wore on, the temperatures rose, especially in the upstairs VIP area, which was precariously close to the heat-wafting lighting rigs. “Tonight might not have been the night for leather,” Chung, clad in black hide shorts, said from the DJ booth. But there were a few men who would have begged to differ.
—Derek Blasberg Continue reading
Crashing the Boys’ Club
—Matthew Schneier Continue reading
Life in the Fast Lane
To fête its latest perfume, Love, Chloé (coming this fall to a beauty counter near you), the fashion house did not just take over the neo-eighteenth-century mansion that is home to the starred restaurant Apicius. Instead, they refurnished, re-carpeted, and redecorated the place entirely with a retro-seventies vibe and the edible colors—honey, toffee, caramel—seen on the Fall runway. And what better backdrop for Raquel Zimmermann‘s entrance, in a convertible honey-gold Mercedes with Roman Coppola at the wheel?
Zimmermann alighted, looking like a latter-day Lauren Hutton (or was it Faye Dunaway?) and sporting a crocodile Emma bag (sad to note: not launching until November). “She’s like an old-school film star, the way she tosses a cape,” noted Chloé designer Hannah MacGibbon. In Roman Coppola’s first fragrance spot, Zimmermann glides through the streets of Paris in that convertible by day, graces Le Grand Colbert by night, and generally looks like the haute-est Charlie girl ever born. The model, meanwhile, sidestepped the obvious film question, saying, “I love what I’m doing now, but never say never!”
Coppola, meanwhile, is off to the Venice Film Festival in September for the premiere of Somewhere, written and directed by his sister Sofia. (Roman was a producer.) In the garden, a brochette of young French starlets (Géraldine Pailhas, Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu, Marina Foïs, Zoé Félix, Hafsia Herzi) clinked glasses with fashion types like Alexis Mabille, Tom Pecheux, and Joseph Altuzarra before retreating to chef Jean-Pierre Vigato’s kitchen for a few quick sandwiches. Even glamour girls, it seems, can’t live on pink Champagne alone.
—Tina Isaac Continue reading