Here are my favorite tweets from the last day of NY fashion week!
@katebets: love the way Isaac Mizrah's runway is propped like a casting call on a studio lot complete with lights, rain machine. the fashion drama
@rzrachelzoe: Had to leave a fab Calvin dinner with such great people at The Standard..too sick had to abort and go home .sad end to NYFW 4 me :(
@womensweardaily: Kathy Griffin was brimming with excitement when she found out she was the biggest star in Mizrahi’s front row: http://cli.gs/MizNYFW #nyfw
@fashionpulse: phillip lim was inspired by picasso-he is so darn cute in person! #nyfw
@megross99: Norma Kamali announces #iPhone app and hard core #Skype love. #Skype announces first touch screen videophone. Big day. Big day. Heart #NYFW
@Stylerumor: Classic American collection at Tommy Hilfiger Spring Summer 2010 show #nyfw watch the final walk video: http://twitvid.com/B0304
@eonline: RT @redcarpet TAYLOR SWIFT IS IN THE HOUSE at Tommy Hilfiger #fashionweek #nyfw #taylorswift
If it wasn't enough that I went to Vivienne's fashion show in the tents, being on the list for her after-party was a dream. I never write long stories on Coquette but this was such a funny story in itself I thought I must. Through all this, I got a chance to meet Vivienne Tam herself and I told her what an inspiration she was to this Chinese girl from SF!
My friend Leigh and I promptly hailed a cab right after the show at the tents to go to Vivienne Tam boutique in Soho where the after-party was held. After standing and walking in heels for most of the evening, not to mention the last 3 days in NY, we were not happy to be greeted with a standing line that was formed around the store. Thankfully, we weren't that far behind. As we waited we watched inside the store as they were still setting up for the party. Both Leigh and I were eyeing the three leather stools inside. THE ONLY SEATS IN THE STORE. Our plan was simple. Leigh was to get inside and grab a leather stool, one of three that we saw sit prominently in the center of the store. My task was to get the champagne.
By this time, the stools were all occupied by myself and Leigh, and two other gals. We were soon joined by Vivienne's longtime friend Shelly Bromfield (who used to work for DKNY). Here she is with her blinged out iPhone.
There comes a point in one's life where the pain of fashion (aka our feet), takes over the idea of actually standing and partying. Yes, there were fabulous people around, supermodels, designers, the Asian A list, they were all eyeing our seats. I had two glam ladies clad in their Christian Louboutons smile at me. Shelly looked at them, bent over and touched my hand and said, "Never give up the seat!" The other 2 gals who occupied the other stool was Danielle Yuen and Hannah Park, pictured above. We all knew we had something special going on at the party.
We turned out to be in the center of everything. We were there for Vivienne's grand entrance. Thanks to Shelly who was greeted so warmly by Vivienne, I was able to talk to her and snap a photo. We watched the PR gals dress up the naked mannequins into the Spring outfits. We saw the new HP clutch dash across the room before our eyes. People even started to dance in front of us. Now, we did make our turns around the room, only we did it while the other was saving that precious seat. You could see the pain in each woman's eye as the night went on. They knew those seats were like gold and as the store got more and more crowded, we definitely weren't giving them up!
The PR team were starting to dress up the mannequins into the outfits from the spring collection. We had a front row seat watching Vivienne float by and see that her outfit wasn't properly put together. With HP clutch in one hand, she takes control to have the outfit shine.
Later in the evening, the DJ was on fire so everyone started dancing, including Vivienne herself. It was so fun!
Here's Leigh at the end of the night, still resting on one of those leather stools.
You can see more shots from the evening in my Flickr slideshow.
"Butterfly Lovers" was the theme of Vivienne Tam's Spring 2010 Collection. If you don't know it's the Chinese "Romeo and Juliet" where in the story the star-crossed lovers transform into butterflies to live happily ever after together.
From colorful close up prints of butterflies to dresses that had cut outs alluding to the shape of a butterfly, to one of my favorites (at the bottom) a sequined jacket filled with a butterfly's spectrum of colors, Vivienne created a collection that carried on the butterfly theme unlike anything I have seen before. Outfits were also with these fabulous large fringed bags which gave the show a very hippie chic kind of look and attitude. And to remind of us of Vivienne's strong role in technology, models were seen holding her new HP clutch while the whole fashion show was the first to be broadcast live over the web. I'm sure the video will be up on the viviennetam.com site in the near future.
Here's Leigh and I in our seats at the Vivienne Tam show. I'm wearing my Karen Millen dress (posted about here. too bad i am slouching down a bit for this photo). See more photos in my Flickr set.
Here's a short clip of the runway show taken from my iPhone.
It's all about Twitter during Fashion Week and I've found myself glued to my twitter app on my desktop and phone finding out what's the latest fashion scoop. Who has time to read a whole blog post? Who needs crisp photos? Give it to me the second it's on the runway! Yes, I'm that obsessed. So since I'm constantly online, I though I'd share some of my favorite tweets in the fashion world today. I'll try to do this daily for the next few days till Fashion Week ends. If the Paris folks keep it up, I'll keep it going.
Favorite Fashion Week Tweets: Tuesday 9/15:
@womensweardaily: Audrey Tautou's friend just whipped out a can of hairspray and fixed her coif in the middle of the bar. Bartender: "Cool move." [ Coco Avant Chanel after-party at Monkey Bar ]
@mrjoezee: The most common feeling/emotion during FW is CONFLICTED. Do I like that? Or hate it? Should I go here? Or there? Feeling like that now.
@SydneSummer: New York makes me feel fat. These girls are like twigs. Twigs with really hot shoes.
@modelina: Linda Evangelista looking breathtaking @ the Ron Arad event @ MoMA #nyfw
@cutblog: Models are dancing and drinking pink champagne @ Betsey. Just another reason we wish we were models. Sigh. #nyfw
@bagsnob: Waiting for table at Gramercy Tavern and charging phone in bathroom. Kelly is concerned about my Twitter habit but I don't know how to stop
With a love for fashion and technology, it just didn't get any better than Saturday night in NY when I attended the Vivienne Tam Spring 2010 fashion show and after party. More on those later today (with lots of photos I promise!). For now, please drool with me over the new Vivienne Tam HP digital Clutch. This new model (last year's is here) boasts a larger screen (11.6") and a thinner body. Perfect to tote around in your handbag, I say!
The laptop was front and center at the show, here with one of my favorite outfits, a sequined jacket paired over a mint green flowy shirt and skinny black pants. Leigh and I pretty much sat next to this outfit at the after party.
Vivienne working on the designs for her Butterfly Lovers inspired collection.
Here's the Vivienne Tam HP Clutch close up at the Vivienne Tam after party. I want one!
Since last Wednesday, I got a little glimpse of life as a fashion editor in NY. Here's me at the tents before my first in-person fashion show, Ports 1961. I'm wearing a fitted Max Studio black dress I got from Bloomingdales, black DYNY tights, Elisabeth and James pumps (wrote about those here), Marc Jacobs handbag, and a leather trench coat I got from The Limited 9 years ago. Before I dive in, a huge thank you to everyone at Coach for making the trip possible for me in the first place. It's going to take me another day to get my photos organized and uploaded so here's a few highlights of my trip. xoxo
Coach + Fashion's NIght Out: Coach invited a few select fashion bloggers to spend some time to get to know them as well as each other. In addition to a fantastic dinner the night before, we previewed their new fall collection, made our own DIY Coach clutch, took an exclusive tour of the Highline with the co-founder, and noshed on lunch at Pastis. That Thursday night was Fashion's Night out at the Coach store on Madison Ave where all of us got our totes illustrated by illustrator Kiersten Essenpreis. I had a design of a gal as a bunny shepard with bunches of bunnies at her feet. You can't go wrong with bunnies, I say. Looking forward to toting it around, especially at a future craft event.
I bought these aubrie boots at the Coach event to wear the next day since it was raining in NY. They totally held up in the rain! I know I'll be wearing these a lot here in SF. They are perfect for going casual with jeans or wearing with a dress and tights.
My first fashion show at the tents was for Ports 1961. Emily from Cupcakes and Cashmere and I went together and met up with her friend (who I now absolutely adore), Melisa from the lil bee. We had standing tickets but we didn't care. Melisa is 8 months preggers so you'd think someone would have offered her a seat but in fashion, it's every one for themselves. I don't blame them. I took off my heels to stand. It was too much to bear already being in line with them on. It was fun to just be there and revel in the amazement of being inside the tents for a show. You could hear the camera shutters go off each time a model posed and stopped at the end of the runway for her close-up. Emily and I got snapped by the paparazzi outside so I had a woman photographer take a picture of us with my camera to document the wildly fun moment of us together.
It's been a whirlwind here in NY that I haven't had time to blog on Coquette -- only tweeting (follow me @coquette). I'm off soon to the Glam Publishers' Party and then to the Vivenne Tam show and after-party. I leave for SF early tomorrow morning and will have all my photos and runway reviews up when I'm back! xoxo
