The first ladies of Vogue

Anna Wintour

Personal style: Earlier in her career, she mixed fashionable T-shirts and vests with designer jeans. When she started at Vogue as creative director she switched to Chanel suits with miniskirts. She continued to wear them during both pregnancies, opening the skirts slightly in back and keeping her jacket on to cover up.

According to biographer Jerry Oppenheimer, her ubiquitous sunglasses are actually corrective lenses, since she suffers from deteriorating vision as her father did. A former colleague he interviewed recalls trying on her Wayfarers in her absence and getting dizzy. "I think at this point they've become, you know, really armor", Wintour herself told 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer, explaining that they allow her to keep her reactions to a show private. As she rebounded from the end of her marriage and the turnover in the magazine's editorial staff, a fellow editor and friend noted that "she's not hiding behind her glasses anymore. Now she's having fun again."

Quote: "If you look at any great fashion photograph out of context, it will tell you just as much about what's going on in the world as a headline in The New York Times."

Carine Roitfeld

Personal style: Her preferred jacket styles are edgy, tailored and chic with a strong biker/rock'n'roll element. Roitfeld likes to mix the masculine with the feminine and favours designers such as Balmain, Balenciaga and YSL, who excel at this. At the moment this means embracing the big-shoulder trend.

Jeans are 'for [her] assistants' and holidays, although she's not averse to a denim skirt, providing it tallies with her sharp-tailoring ethos. Think sexy body-con dresses and pencil skirts cut to the knee.

She always wears high heels. Killer stilettos are by far the fashionistas most flattering and feminine choice. Her favourites include the YSL Tribute. Look for something with a hidden platform for added "comfort" and anything with straps, laces or buckles aka 'bondage light'.

Her legs are always bare. Even in winter. They must be tanned, lean and ready for action year-round. If this is not an option then black opaques are the only way to go.

Quote: "You know, I love Tom Ford, and I love what he has done."

Christiane Arp

Personal Style: Classic and minimalistic. She always wears her hair in a bun. Lots of black suits with clean white shirts.

Quote: "For me, shopping is about taking some precious time for myself.

Franca Sozzani

Personal Style: Her personal style is classic and elegant and her signature smile and wavy blond locks are quite stunning. Franca does not like wearing the latest trends. Instead she opts for classic pieces from all kinds of designers.

Quote: "I really don’t care that much about other people’s opinions. Really. You can’t be loved by everyone. It’s impossible."

Sources 1 23 9

Who is your favourite Vogue chief editor?

Wunderkind S/S 11 collection

Inspired by the portugese garden Wolfgang Joop showed big cherry prints,




blossoms on white,


A-line dresses with petticoats paired with blazers and draped foulards,


combinations of navy blue and red,


long, flowing chiffon drapery and print-mix,


babydoll dresses,


material-mix and emphasized shoulders,


style-mixes between serious and playful & business and romantic,


bleached-denim-look jackets to chiffon flower skirts,


lace-chiffon mix along print-mix and


high-waist A-line dresses.

A very playful & feminine collection with emphasized silhouettes and daring mixes of prints and materials.
Copyright: Wunderkind

Wunderkind S/S 11 show coverage

Wunderkind`s spring/summer 2011 show was held at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, october 6th 2010.

It was built for the Paris world fair in 1937. It does not only host the Museum of modern art but it also used as a fashion show location a lot.



The show took place on the first floor...



...in a minimalistic white room with a fancy installation in the center of the ceiling.



German Vogue`s chief-editor Christiane Arp sat front row, dressed very cool in all black, wearing a knee-long leather coat, 7/8 length trousers and biker boots along with retro-sunglasses.



The woman sitting in front of me wore cute cat-ears (with feathers) in her hair.



My view from row 5















Designer Wolfgang Joop looking as fresh & good as ever.



Wunderkind model Luisa Bianchin (in her own clothes) after the show.



Wunderkind model Barbora Dvorakova (in her own clothes) after the show.

Picture sources, other than my own: 1 2

Fashion history: The 80s/90s Yuppie

Yuppie was a 1980s acronym for 'Young Upwardly Mobile Professional Person'. The word was coined by the advertising industry to capture the essence of a particular type of work hard, play hard, ambitious minded city career person.

The hectic lifestyle of a yuppie meant that after long hours of work, rare free time was spent in a self indulgent way frittering away the cash earned on anything, from expensive perfume, to a bottle of fine champagne. Conspicuous wastage was part of the attitude. The term applies to men whose ages range from about 21 to early 40s.

Yuppie-style is always matching and usually upscale. They like to flaunt their good taste. Even if the young professionals are in debt to their ears, they work hard to maintain the image of success. For day they sported wide shouldered jackets and for weekends they wore a Barbour to effect a country aesthetic to assume the appearance of a more advantaged lifestyle.

The ultimate yuppie fashion film is American Psycho. The short clips will give you a more in-depth view of...

...the grooming and vanity



...the importance of conformity and status-symbols



How to dress like a Yuppie

1. Wear business suits. In your free time wear clothes that are considered casual, these are usually khakis and polo shirts. Make sure you see someone else wearing the outfit before - yuppies are conformists.

2. Spend money on an expensive watch and make sure that your sleeves are always rolled up enough for people to see it.

3. Look for outfits in neutral colours like grey, beige and olive. Yuppies do not like to stand out with bold colors. They may end up making an unintentional statement.

4. You should have neat straight hair that doesn't need too much hair product.

5. Carry a sweater with you by draping it over your shoulders and tying the arms loosely around the front. This should look very casual as if you put it there without a lot of though. And the sweater should never fall off or hang crooked.Sources: 1 2 3

I LOOOOOVE the look but what strikes me most is the aspiration to conformity. From today`s perspective its pathetic but it still has more class and effort than today`s fetish for "individuality" - that everybody expresses with THE SAME H&M "vintage" blazer...

What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Secretly attracted to it? ;)

Sarah Burton - a close look at Alexander McQueen`s successor

Back in May 2010, three months after Alexander McQueen's death, it was announced that Sarah Burton would take over as creative director.

Sarah has a clear vision of what the brand should be like because she had been Alexander McQueen’s right hand for 16 years. And it was she who completed the last ever collection by the designer showcased at Paris Fashion Week in March.

She understands the responsibility she has taken and wants to stay close to McQueen’s vision of fashion. She said:

"The creation of modern, beautifully crafted clothes was at the heart of Lee’s vision. I intend to stay true to his legacy.”

As she gears up to unveil her first womenswear collection for the Alexander McQueen label, Sarah Burton has revealed what to expect from her solo debut – and it’s not all angst and darkness.

“I don’t think it has to have as much angst in it. I think it will become softer,” she says. “There will always be this McQueen spirit and essence. But, of course, I’m a woman so maybe more from a woman’s point of view. There’s always got to be some darkness, because otherwise you don’t appreciate what’s light,” she explains. "I’ve had a training in darkness, but I don’t feel that it’s necessarily a personal thing to me. I’m a bit lighter.”

And as for a typically theatrical show? “That was very much Lee’s territory – the spectacular show, in that way, I can’t try and pretend to be Lee. He was such a lovely man, and his mind never switched off. He was so important to me. You just wanted to make him happy, look after him,” she says. “Although I felt that I protected him, now I feel that he protected me.”

Burton’s first "own" collection will be shown in Paris on October 5th.

More facts on her:

- She was born in Cheshire, England, and is one of five children.

- Burton loved clothes early on: "I always drew dresses. I remember loving Richard Avedon's early Versace campaigns. I used to plaster my whole walls with them when I was a kid."

- She attended Central Saint Martins in London and studied print design.

- McQueen hired Burton straight out of school in 1997, and she began working on everything from menswear to accessories to footwear.

- Burton considers herself a workaholic, but in her spare time, loves to attend art exhibitions.

- Most recently, Burton has started doing needlepoint while watching TV.

- She is married to photographer David Burton.

- She has rooms full of Alexander McQueen pieces but dresses more casually in the office.

- She plans on proving that a McQueen piece, though theatrical, can also be wearable: "What saddens me in a way is that Lee had these incredible shows, but always under that there were amazing pieces you could wear, but somehow nobody ever believed it was wearable."

Sources: 1 2 3

Hm...isn`t it sacrilege to aspire to make McQueen "more wearable"? Wasn`t the big show part of the concept? Wasn`t it the show that made McQueen more ART than fashion (which is what made him the legend that he is!)? Seriously, if I want something "wearable" I`ll consult Gucci or YSL. There is more than enough "wearable fashion" out there (and most of it looks like it shouldn`t be worn by anyone).

McQueen was never only "all about darkness and angst". Just think of his successful Atlantis collection or his feather dresses!

I`m a bit disapointed that it all sounds so low-key. Of course, nobody can ever truly continue McQueen`s unique vision (or it would take a soul as tormented as his...) but what she says doesn`t sound as if she really wanted to carry on his legacy.

What do you think?