The house of the Medusa decided to suspend its activities in Japan. The two boutiques in Tokyo and the one in Osaka, shut down and according to Giangiacomo Ferraris, managing director in Gianni Versace S.p.A. “the Versace boutiques in Japan no longer represented the brand image and it was felt to be more advantageous for the company to close them and start with a clean slate”. However the Asian region remains as one of the most important for the house of fashion and counts 27 boutiques in China and flagship store in New Delhi, Dubai, Macao and Kuala Lumpur.  It is worth mentioning  the fact that Donatella Versace has just opened a boutique in Las Vegas and in her future plans she intends to open another in the city of gambling.

Baci e Abbraci

Ele

Donatella and dear friend Elton make quite the entrance. Both are presumably clad in Gianni’s designs.

versace’s pre-fall collection hosts cherry blossom prints & clean lines. donatella knows what looks great on women & how to preserve youth through fashion design. the collection keeps the style signature of the versace name intact. i love this collection, completely.

imagesource | coutorture

The Milan Fashion Week would not be memorable without the runway show of Donatella Versace for her Versace itself. She is a person of unusual vision of things and skills to personify her entire creations.
Her Spring/Summer collection 2010 was inspired by Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

I loved the idea of that fantasy land,” said Donatella.

She created her own pieces to make fashion aficionados look younger. Donatella shows her own opinion of how young people should look like. These are not only to showcase short skirts and sheer materials but also to bring the usefulness of these fashion ensembles. Versace was able to make something new and interesting for modern youngsters – something stylish, innovative, and classy yet very feminine. The collection looks fresh and sumptuous for its vivid pastels, geometric prints, baroque curlicues, super-short skirts, diverse materials and elaborate combination of fabrics.

The collection includes not only clothes for our daily wear but also for evening occasions. Floor-sweeping airy gowns with high slits are nice for semi-casual events; they look elegant and attractive.

And another thing…

I spent my entire life being a thin guy. I’ve been called everything from Doogie Howser to Skinny Minnie to Toothpick to Human Coatrack. I also spent most of my life trying to gain weight, crying over muscle magazines and searching for clothes that fit.

Now that I’m older and more into (wearing) fashion, I find myself feeling more secure with my body type especially when XS is now a more available option.

I like being thin! It’s just who I am and I can’t change this. I’ve since gained some weight from working out but not too much. I realized that I don’t want to gain any more weight. I can’t wear Neil Bartlett or rock and roll stuff if I bulk up. I am pretty confident as a waif. Thanks to Hedi Slimane and the hipster scene, thin will always be in. And I hope I’ll be thin until I’m well into my sixties. That’s when I’ll start not caring since I’ll be wearing big topcoats, sweaters and great suits. I look forward to living my early bird special years with the body of Bugs Bunny.There will come a time when I will definitely let myself go. No one to fucking impress anymore.

From the looks of W Magazine, Demi Moore has still got someone to impress (and it ain’t necessarily that That’s 70’s Show douche). Courtesy of Boing Boing, here is the latest cover disaster:

Notice how she’s missing a whole wedge out of her left leg.

I get it, you want cover models to be thin. I get it, thin is hot. I get it, certain clothes look extra good and sleek on a certain body proportion. But it’s not the Photochopping that I’m the most concerned with when I first saw this, it’s the rest of her body. I always considered Demi Moore to be a Madonna kind of fit. She always seemed super strong and solid to me. Not husky or Drew Barrymore-ish but strong. Good posture, great skin and smooth. Like a modern day Wonder Woman. Stoic like an army figurine.

But here, she looks gaunt and fried. She makes Donatella Versace look like Bar Refaeli.

Does W Magazine think this is attractive or are they conditioned by the beauty agenda? Who are they trying to attract? Who are they trying to appease even? NO ONE wants to look like this, do they? At least, no one without mental health issues. Did Demi approve this? Was Ralph Lauren asked to be a guest Art Director for the shoot?

I know it’s cliché but someone please call Naomi Wolf (Or Mary Brown’s)!

Um amor os fantoches de dedo que a Liberty está vendendo! São 4 opções de conjunto com 5 fantoches “celebridades”. Cada bonequinho representa um personagem conhecido no mundo da moda e os conjuntinhos com 5 estão separados por Nova York, Paris, Londres e Milão.

Tem Zac Posen, Karl Lagerfeld, Alber Elbaz, Vivienne Westwood, Donatella Versace e muito mais.

Um luxo! Agora é só escolher a sua capital da moda favorita e se jogar nas passarelas.

1. Uniqlo restocked stores with their Jil Sander collab, +J. And to think all those people lined the blocks in the cold. [Sample Sally]

2. The Must-Have for this fall is the scarf+hood=snood. I have one. You should get one. Enough said. [WSJ]

3. Finally! Photos of Rodarte’s highly anticipated Target diffusion! The hype for this collection seems to rival the hype for James Cameron’s ‘Avatar.’ [Racked]

4. Luella Bartley closes its doors for good. Another label falls victim to the recession’s gun. [WWD]

5. Versace’s internal turmoil, namely Donatella Versace’s extravagant lifestyle, is crippling the brand. She’s a woman of tradition and pride – no matter the cost. [Newsweek]

6. Rumor spreads like wildfire and we’re not going to be responsible for putting it out. Thakoon may launch menswear in the next year. [WWD]

7. Nicole Richie’s ‘Winter Kate’ collection is unveiled. It’s not all that bad, although the level of excitement for the collection hasn’t elevated. [Nicole Richie/Celebuzz]

8. Surprisingly, there is an overwhelming market for unwearable shoes – namely McQueen is overwhelmed by calls demanding his S/S 2010 10-inch shoes. But too bad. They’re not for sale. Although rumor has it that they may be auctioned off. [Grazia]

News on the street is that Donatella is planning to leave her family brand Versace. Many feel with members of the family around that the brand is not able to fulfil it potential.

Check out the a quote from the Newsweek article below:

Many in the fashion industry believe it’s time for the brand to continue without Versace family involvement—and some suggest that the family is starting to accept this idea too. Last year, Santo was elected to the Italian Parliament. Allegra has been attending Brown University and has said her dream is to become an actress. And will Donatella remain at the helm? “Maybe,” says the former Versace executive. “Then again, maybe not.” Which, after a decade of turmoil, may be the best thing for the company after all. [SOURCE]

Coca-Cola light y 8 de los mejores diseñadores de moda se unen para crear una espectacular edición en las botellas del producto, con la finalidad de recaudar dinero para las victicmas del terremoto en Abruzzo ocurrido a principios de este año en Italia.

Las diseñadoras de moda italianas Donatella Versace, Alberta Ferretti, Anna Molinari for Blumarine, Veronica Etro, Silvia Venturini for Fendi, Consuelo Castiglioni for Marni, Angela Missoni y Rossella Jardini for Moschino, fue el equipo que se unió para crear esta fabulosa colección.

Estas famosas diseñadoras “vistieron” con diseños llenos de fantasia y color las botellas de Coca Cola light  y las han puesto a la venta durante el evento “Tributo a la Moda” realizado en Milan. Las diseñadoras de moda realizaron un gran trabajo en las botellas de Coca Cola, porque cada empaque refleja la fuerte personalidad y representa a la perfeccion los valores de la marca como son la felicidad y diversion por la vida, porsupuesto siempre de una manera  chic y exclusiva.

Mara*

Not that this is a rare sight, but I was walking down the street this morning and passed a 65 year old teenager.  By that I mean her face looked like it was simultaneously being pulled in eight different directions and in a perpetual state of surprise.  She had her hair in a high-ponytail as if to drive the point home further that she was young and perky and was wearing a cute pink Juicy jumpsuit – not the type of outfit you would expect to see on a seasoned woman aging with dignity.  My initial visceral reaction however was not one of judgment or scoff but sadness.  We see it everywhere.  It is now commonplace for women to start taking ‘corrective’ measures against nature.  When I see surgically-altered women so desperately chasing the youth that is fleeing us, it comes off as one embarrassingly, undignified apology.  Why does she feel the need to keep running from herself, running from nature? Which ills of society is she expressing and reflecting back to us? The answer is not splitting the atom.  Our youth-obsessed culture and marginalization of elders has brainwashed those who are especially prone to people-pleasing or self-esteem built on externals. 

Societal sicknesses always seem to stem from an excessive amount of attention or value to a false god of some sort.  Hopefully, we are beginning to banish the money god southward down our totem pole of priorities as deifying the green to the exclusion of higher principles has turned around and bitten us in the ass.  A shift has definitely begun and we are having a cultural awakening in this regard.  Almost as firmly entrenched in our collective unconsciousness is the absurd fixation on beauty and youth… and it’s getting worse. 

It began innocently enough; the wealthy woman scorned, left by her husband of 25 years for his much younger, nubile secretary.   As a society, as women, we saw this as a rampant problem to solve. In the middle of problems we are forced to adapt and evolve.  In an effort to stay relevant, women began to try to compete with their adolescent counterparts.  Mistake Number One.  Cosmetic surgery became nothing more than preemptive strikes against their husbands and against society’s obsession with youth.  Women began to come from a place of reactivity rather than proactivity which grossly disempowered them.  Soon a facelift turned into an eyelift, a nose job, a boob job.  This of course posed unforeseen problems: the 60 year old woman walking down the street with three perfectly perky body parts, but sagging knees.  The travesty!  Back to Dr. Silverstein for that knee lift! The damage to psyche done by this kind of running from nature and the cycle of life is dire.  In essence, women are not only reacting to these challenges in fear, but they are making unnecessary apologies every minute of the day.  I’m sorry I am aging.  I’m sorry I am not young.  I’m sorry I am not as valuable to you as I was when I was 25.  If anything, we are reaffirming society’s choices and beliefs rather than exposing the illusions. 

Most disturbing is the lack of respect we pay to our elders in this MTV-saturated, reality TV-drenched culture.  Where do they belong?  We push them to the side and get them a time-share in a 250-bedroom home with nurses milling about.  The prevalence of nursing homes in the US has great implications surrounding the extent to which we value senior citizens, even if covert.  In Russia, sending grandma away to an assisted living home where she is completely isolated from friends and family while nurses take care of her is unheard of.  Grandma moves in with the family.  She is family.  She is not abandoned.  Her ‘market value’ in the family does not decrease with age.  If anything, it appreciates.  Is it any wonder that women are stampeding Dr.’s offices to avoid the tragedy that is getting old?   So many are buying into it.  They are reacting to societal ills rather than stepping back and saying:  Something is wrong with this picture.  More people need to take control of their own decisions by saying: “My husband’s philandering is not an effect of my fading beauty, but a cause of his own insecurity and fear of death.  Therefore, I will not punish myself by slicing my stomach open with a knife for a harmless little nip-tuck.”  Invasive surgery and disgfigurement is not the answer.  How many times have we looked at African women with saucers in their lips and thought, “Whoa.  Now that is just crazy!”  We think that they would be so much more beautiful without the saucers, if they just brought forth their beauty, as-is with no apologies.  This is me, take me or leave me.  Well, the legions of women going to Dr. Rosenfeld’s office for a makeover two seconds after the ink has dried on their divorce papers is no less crazy.  

Even more disturbing is how this culture has been accepted with open arms by the youth,  the very model and ideal we are chasing after has now decided that they too need to be fixed, but absolutely nothing is broken.  Several years ago when I was in college I was at a weekend training conference put on by Christian Dior.  The girl who shared a room with me was telling me about her high school graduation gifts.  She was a very sweet, attractive blond girl from an upper-middle class family and she knew just what she wanted from her parents to mark the end of her high school career and her entry into the real world.  She asked them for a boob job.  I’m not sure if it was more disturbing that she asked her parents to buy her a boob job or that they agreed and gave her one  as a high school graduation gift.  This is sick.  Again, it’s not a judgment against those who choose this path - but a legitimate concern and question, which  is:  Why does this girl feels she needs to do this?  Why is what she is not enough?  How is altering the shell going to make her life any more fulfilling?  It’s not.  If anything it will make her more restless as every minor challenge she faces in her life drives her to falsely blame herself or the image she is projecting to the world.  One of the most common arguments for cosmetic surgery is “Well, if it makes someone feel better about themselves, then they should do it. No harm, no foul.”  This is a dangerous notion.  The paradox is each surgery takes us deeper into the illusion that we can escape death, that we will finally love ourselves if our mouth looks like a platypus, that chasing a youth that no longer exists will solve all of our problems, that our philandering husband will see the error of his ways and come back to his wrinkle-less wife.  

The true position of power really does lie internally.  It is the take me or leave me mentality.  It is having the elegance and dignity to age with grace with no apologies.  It is Sophia Loren.  It is Lauren Hutton. It is embracing the cycles of life with good humor and positive expectation.  It is a shift in values and a refusal to participate in societal sickness and to set the example of genuine self-love and self-respect.  At the end of the day, this is the type of beauty that will radiate outward and be self-sustaining, not the acquiescing type of beauty that fixes, reverses, apologizes.  Society can dictate a certain standard, but we don’t have to be raped by it.  It is up to us to search our souls and decide whether we will accept or reject.

“Ivanka Trump Leverages Her Nearly Half-Million Strong Twitter Following” (MediaPost)

Ivanka Trump reached a quarter of a million followers on Twitter in less than three months during a promotion for her latest venture. Halogen Network created a microsite and Twitter campaign for the Donald Trump-scion to promote her Trump SoHo, a luxury hotel scheduled to open in February.

“Restructuring Luxury at Versace” (NY Times)

“I AM a survivor,” the designer Donatella Versace said matter-of-factly during a recent blitz of New York, a visit that made it appear little had changed in the world of the occupationally fabulous. But her composure, like her company’s Medusa logo, was a mask.

“Tag Heuer Luxury Watch Plays Real Safe” (Financial Chronicle)

Watch retailer Ethos has tied up with Oriental Insurance to provide insurance cover on the entire range of luxury watch, Tag Heuer, to its niche segment of customers. Ethos will share the costs of insurance with Tag Heuer. This facility is available on these watches only at the Ethos stores.

“Top Industry Leaders Address Retail’s New Reality” (WWD)

There’s one way to manage through “the new normal” — restructure. That’s the call from leading industry figures, notably Allen Questrom, who believes retailers must start selling “real people,” think casual and less skinny when it comes to merchandising, and take a lesson on providing value from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., where he sits on the board and sees revenues eventually topping $1 trillion.

“Retailers Bet on Warm and Fuzzy Holiday Themes” (WWD)

Nostalgia and other emotions — visions of sugar plums, softly falling snow, reindeer and Santa — will be plentiful in holiday marketing campaigns but may not be enough to shake most American consumers out of their sleepy spending ways.

Vivid pastels, geometric prints, baroque curlicues, short-short skirts, and slinky, sexy chain mail: Where else could this be but Versace? For Spring, Donatella Versace was telling everyone who went backstage that she’d been inspired by Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (which comes out next March). “I loved the idea of that fantasyland,” she said. Donatella might have spent the last few seasons concentrating on making her collection look grown-up, but now that so many others are making the most of thigh-skimming lengths, busy prints, and glittery glamour, it’s an opportune moment to drop all that and show them how it’s done her way.

Ultra feminine and chic with no ’80s influence . . . Donatella’s got my vote for best Spring 2010 collection. The following are some of the show-stopping pieces that I could only dream of rockin’.

Today is the first Sunday of November, so I did browse through my pictures of October and selected 25 of them that I consider the best or the most interesting.

Alessandra Ambrosio

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Asia Argento

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Blake Lively

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Ciara

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Diane Krüger

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Tennis players in Dubai

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Evan Rachel Wood

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Jeanette Biedermann

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Jennifer Lopez

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Katherine Jenkins

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Katy Perry and ...well, you know, lol

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Kelly Rowland

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Kylie Minogue

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Audrina and Lo

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Lauren Conrad

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Marisa Miller

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Mihalik Enikő

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Miranda Kerr

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Donatella Versace and Mischa Barton

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Nicole Scherzinger

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Pamela Anderson

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Shakira

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Taylor Momsen

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Thalia

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Tyra Banks

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You can download all the pictures in high resolution by clicking here.

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The anniversary week may be over today, but I still have a giveaway for you:

This is a one year subscription of  ”Wonderland” magazine. Just leave a comment to enter

I hope you all had a great weekend!

I was about to post my draft on a dray tip in Tokyo, Japan, with descriptions of Imperial palace, tea-ceremonies, bonsais and so on, when I happened to take a look at the keywords that landed people on my blog.

The top keyword, to my surprise, which brought about 70 % visitors to this blog, is “Donatella Versace”.
I know I have a post or two which mention her name and have her pic, but feel a little guilty because they really provide no info on the actual person.
During my work, I have written about Versace here and also about Donatella—I thought I should provide the links, so interested people can get to the right stuff. I’m not sure this is the sort of info they’re looking for, because usually the searches include the terms “without make-up” and “fake boobs”, but I can’t please everyone, can I ?

Donatella Versace, with her brother Gianni

In other news, I’ve been struggling with a brain in which random scenes and lines keep bubbling up, as if I had a cauldron deep within my sub-conscious brewing up story ideas.

So I think is down to the notebook with me, I’m dying to fill up the new one I bought yesterday. To my writer friends, happy writing, and if any bloggers still read this blog, happy blogging to you all.

And people looking for Donatella Versace? You know what to do.

With halloween coming up (and me getting my alice gear together) I thought it’d be fun to post some pictures of Alice all decked out in high fashion! Here’s a delicious spread from Vogue’s December 2003 issue with photos by Annie Leibovitz.

helmut lang

Yves Saint Laurent (Tom Ford as the Rabbit)

Nicolas Ghesquière for Balenciaga

Dior Haute Couture (John Galliano as the Queen)

Rochas (Olivier Theyskens as Alice author Lewis Carroll)

Marc Jacobs (Marc Jacobs as the caterpillar)

Chanel Haute Couture (Karl Lagerfeld in Chrome Hearts)

Jean Paul Gautier (Jean Paul Gautier as the Cheshire Cat)

Viktor and Rolf (Viktor and Rolf as Tweedledee & Tweedledum)

Christian Lacroix

Atelier Versace (Donatella Versace and Rupert Everett)

]]> http://itskika.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/versace-benhe/ Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:09:03 +0000 Kika http://itskika.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/versace-benhe/

Para prestigiar a Donatella Versace, Carolina Ferraz usa um de seus modelos mais fofos dessa estação!

Fala se não é muuuito gracinha? Aliás, vários modelos dessa coleção estão nessa pegada! 

Versace apostou nos modelos tanto com cores claras, neutras e clássicas, ou aqueles com muuuito brilho, cores fortes, estampas marcantes, longos ou curtos, mas o ponto forte em comum são os cintinhos liindos, para marcar a cintura!

For those who are searching for “donatella versace” at google…. here you have:

Eu há tempos mencionei o nome da senhora aqui nO Blogo, desde então são só pesquisas com o nome da senhora que chegam cá. Então, este é um post dedicado ao pessoal das Américas que busca por ela. E sobre ela só tenho a dizer uma coisa: MEDO, MUITO MEDO!