Logan White, who was one of Dossier’s very first interns, just shot the S/S10 lookbook for Urban Outfitters.
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Yohji demonstrating the walk

With Olivier Zahm at the Purple dinner party during Paris Fashion Week

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André

Caroline Gaimari and Pamela Love

With Pam Love

Victoire de Castellane and Vincent Darré

Jennifer Eymere (Jalouse), André and Olivier Zahm, all with their cameras for their blogs

Caroline Gaimari

Victoire de Castellane

André and Olivier

Caroline and Pam

With Magnus Unnar and Heidi Bivens

The entrance to André’s place

Opening of Vogue Bar at Hotel de Crillon.

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Karl Lagerfeld whispering to Stephen Gan

Robert Koenig, Tom van Dorpe and Julia Restoin-Roitfeld

Karolina Kurkova

Angela Lindvall

Carine Roitfeld in the center of the crowd

Tom van Dorpe and Vanessa Traina

Audrey Marnay and her Blackberry

Elisa Nalin

Eddie Borgo and Pamela Love

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Justin Theroux and Caroline Gaimari

Colette party on March 5 for the opening of Olivier Zahm’s photo expo, Pamela Love’s jewelry installation and The Selby’s human installation in the window.

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Jordan Sullivan and Pamela Love

Dossier Fashion Director Polina Aronova

One of Mr. Zahm’s photos

Keegan Singh in front of The Selby installation

Olivier Zahm kissing Aaron de May’s hand

Trish Goff

Keegan Singh and Marine Braunschvig’s skinny pants

Sebastian Kim with his agent

Caroline Gaimari

Maybe so

Yigal Azrouel

Magnus Unnar

Kate Lanphear and Keegan Singh

Sebastien Andrieux and Lou Doillon

Pamela Love installation

Pete Miszuk in his Surface to Air tee

Dossier associate creative director Alec Friedman co-stars with Rachel Chandler, PJ Ransone, Diane Birch, Elisa Sednaoui, Annabelle Dexter-Jones in the Hogan SS 2010 campaign. Check out the behind the scenes video after the jump.

Lovisa Burfitt, photo by Alec Friedman

The first presentation we went to this morning was for the brand Hope. The brand is designed by Ann Ringstrand and Stefan Söderberg, who showed their first womenswear collection in 2002 and started doing menswear in 2005. The theme of the collection was Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, and the presentation was held in the National Theatre, his old stomping ground. The incredible, frescoed room was set up with breakfast tables, each place set with food from the island of Faro, where the film was shot: smoked whitefish, sheep’s milk cheese and dewberry jam, cured lamb on black rye toast, gute tea.

In keeping with the salon-style setup, the designers came out before the show started and took seats at the front of the room, narrating the collection as each model walked out. They explained their design process from beginning to end, talking about how each piece related back to the film and to the rest of the collection—how the patchwork pattern on a shirt came from the scene of Death playing chess, or how a fisherman’s sweater was something the men in the region would wear. I love hearing anyone talk about something they’re passionate about, and not coming from a background in fashion history, it really helped me understand and appreciate what they were trying to accomplish. I enjoyed it so much that I’m not really able to separate my opinion of the collection from my experience of the show. Everything about the presentation was so thoughtful and impeccably put together, and that’s also the impression that stays with me of the clothes.

Like most of the shows we’ve seen here, Hope had a certain pragmatism to it; it was clothes designed for people to wear, but with such care and reflection. My favorite piece was a crinkled wool coat with a dramatic lambswool collar. It was done in both a men’s and women’s version. Both were beautiful, both were related, and yet they were respectively very masculine and very feminine. It’s a difficult balance to pull off and they did it again and again throughout the collection.

Hope

The Beckman’s School of Design put on their senior show in the Mercedes Benz tent, and there we saw some serious runway fashion (and a lot of fashion that could only exist on a runway). I love student shows. It’s fashion totally unhinged from the imperatives of the market, imaginations gone wild (though it must be said there was a lot of McQueen going on). Some of my personal highlights were jackets and pants covered in shards of broken glass by Alexander Krantz, a braided spine on a leather jacket by Marie Jenjé Lunqvist, and a four person caterpillar, each outfit connected to the next, by Naim Josefi, and a soccer ball purse by Marie Jersild Viltoft.

Marie Jersild Viltoft

Madeleine Vintback, photo by Alec Friedman

Naim Josefi, photo by Alec Friedman

Our night ended with Lovisa Burfitt, this year’s Max Factor Award winner. Paris-based, native Swede Burfitt, who is an illustrator as well as a designer, has been creating collections for ten years, since her graduation from Beckmans. Her show rocked. The collection was inspired by Claude Cahun and Seraphine de Senlis, and it had a romantic, belle-epoque feel. The models, with feathers in their hair and graphic, asymmetrical bangs, sashayed down the runway to Edith Piaf, pausing periodically, hands on hips, to model at the crowds. And the clothes – the clothes were this incredible mix of baroque and hippie and dominatrix – long velvet dresses with leather laces up the back, tight black corsets, long velvet dresses distressed with bleach. Burfitt created such a complete universe that aside from wanting almost every dress in the collection, even more so, I wanted to live in the time and place where I could wear those dresses every day.

Lovisa Burfitt, photo by Alec Friedman

Arriving in Stockholm in the morning for fashion week, seeing all the snow, I wondered what kind of shoes the fashion editors would be wearing to the shows. (Side note: In our cab from the airport, the driver told us that the traffic was so bad because the big commuter train was out of service after hitting a reindeer). The answer to the shoes (not the reindeer) is kind of the same as the overlying aesthetic here: chic but practical, lots of black, slightly androgynous and a little tough. People are armored to face the cold winter. Consequently, there are lots of men’s boots, some studs and heavy jewelry: LA meets goth, with dark pants in avant-garde, tailored shapes—some of the baggy sort that you have to be very tall and slim hipped to wear well (e.g., Swedish). We also noticed a lot of fur coats and big necklaces. Obviously all of it is worn by girls with blonde, blonde hair.

The Dagmar show opened the week. Started five years ago by sisters Kristina Tjäder, Karin Söderlind and Sofia Malm, and inspired by their grandmother, the line has received various accolades, including the Swedish Fashion Council’s Rookie of the Year Award in 2005, Swedish Elle’s pick for Best New Designer of the Year in 2006 and show sponsorship from Gen Art-NY at New York Fashion Week. The brand is known for its prints and knits, and this show was at its best when it focused on these strengths. A long, embellished belted sweater belted stood out, and my guess would be that it was knitted and detailed by hand. The line is clearly focused on craftsmanship, and they get extra points for a commitment to sustainability. Slicked back hair and muted, matte makeup was androgynous, which I thought complemented the femininity of the clothes.

Dagmar

I think that the collection could have been improved by better styling, and also had the feeling—with all the shows I saw today, really—that as much as I would buy these clothes in a store (and many of them I would love to own and wear), they lack some of the fantasy you want to see on a runway. But all of that is completely overwritten by the DIY element of fashion week here, which I found to be such a refreshing contrast to the slickness of Paris or New York. When I’m at a show in New York, I feel the industry pulsing all around me. I spend as much time looking at the crowd, the handlers, and the celebrities as I do at the clothing. At the Dagmar show, I spotted a baby and strangers talking to one another, and the designers came out to take their bow at the end. It really felt like you had just seen something they themselves had made, not manufactured.

Filippa K

The Filippa K show was held in the building that, come May, will house the new photography museum. For the moment it is unfinished, unheated and quite raw. The steps going up to the building were lined with fire pits, and I liked the contrast of the fashionistas huddled around them for warmth, like homeless people did over trash cans when I was a kid in New York. The bonus was the smell of wood smoke in the cold night. The show itself was accompanied by a woman playing a grand piano and singing at the entrance of the runway. We thought at first it might be Cat Power, her voice was that rough and that good, but it was a young Swedish artist named Hajen, who you would have heard of already if she lived in New York. Filippa K is one of the largest fashion labels in Stockholm after H&M, but her show still had that same lack of pretension that I found so enthralling at Dagmar. The clothes were understated and beautiful: menswear fabrics paired with good tailoring and clean, feminine lines. The show was opened and closed by Frida Gustavsson, who I recently had the pleasure of shooting and who can make anything look desirable. However, the long blue dress shown for the finale was amazing, Frida or not. It had the kind of discrete detailing that you can’t put your finger on but that makes a dress hang just so. The menswear felt a little Phillip Lim: sweaters, cozy prints—all eminently wearable but still compelling enough to hold your interest as they went down the runway.

Frida aside, I have not been able to shake how thin so many of the models are here. Runway models are thin no matter where you go, but I saw some girls today whose skinny legs made me cringe.

Cheap Monday

The last show of the day was Cheap Monday. Founded in 2000 as a second-hand clothing store in the suburbs of Stockholm, this denim company has become eponymous with skinny, cheap jeans. Since H&M acquired a 60% stake in the brand in 2006, it seems that they have been trying to step up their game and expand into a proper fashion line. They tapped Ann-Sofie Back as their head designer and this was her second season.

The show was held in a big warehouse and it was a Scene with a capital S. We arrived to a line extending easily two avenue blocks from the door. (Luckily there was a press entrance, or I wouldn’t have very much to tell.) After we entered, they let the crowd in, but held them behind a barricade. When they lifted the barricade it sounded like a gunshot, after which there was a literal stampede to get into the standing room section. Think Walmart the day after Christmas, maybe? I couldn’t believe it at a fashion show.

As for the show, the womenswear was covetable. Lots of jeans (of course), paired with oversized blazers, simple shorts and one hooded sweatshirt that I really wanted to take home with me (and I don’t think I’ve ever said that about a sweatshirt). Very well done. The menswear, however, I didn’t like at all. Especially in contrast to the excellent womenswear, it felt dated—enough with the ’80s already—and disappointing.

Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow…

As a woman, I’m always jealous of classic men’s shoes. The women’s version are always somehow stylized or rethought and never exactly right. My feet are almost – but not quite – big enough to fit men’s sizes, and the whole thing is just really frustrating. Long story short, I went to this party last week that Cole Haan was doing for the launch of their new line. The line is called Cole, Rood and Haan, an homage to the company’s original founders in the 1920′s. Handmade in India, they look and feel like good, old school shoes, the kind that you’ll wear forever and will only get better as they age. And the women’s versions are just as classic as the men’s. They were giving away free shoes at the party, so I was able to try on every style and can tell you that they are also really comfortable (here’s a tip: if you want to throw a really well-attended launch party, give away something nice for free. This party was like the Barney’s Warehouse Sale, at least on the women’s side of the room. For some reason, guys are much better mannered when it comes to these things). Anyway, the shoes were really nice, and there was more than one pair I would have liked to bring home with me. Sadly, I can’t show you a picture of my shoes I finally did pick because they didn’t have my size, but they were nice enough to take down my name and promise to send them to me. I can assure you that I’ve been looking out for them every day since.

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