Franca Sozzani Is ‘Really Tired of Writing
About Fashion Shows’
"Fashion weeks, long waiting times and then the reviews," Franca Sozzani for Vogue Italia.
I’m really tired of writing about fashion shows. Fashion weeks, long waiting times and then the reviews. Yes, I must admit that writing about clothes bores me. I like looking at them, wearing them, but reviewing them is the less fun part.
However, on the second last day of fashion shows there is a consideration I have to make, at the cost of sounding "old-fashioned". Elegance is the new avant-garde. I’m fed up with extravagant clothes, that are synonymous with tastelessness, and also with badly crafted garments. I find them passé, garments a second-rank actress would wear in one of those out-of-money, small-town theatres where the costumes where badly made using unappealing fabrics.
Declaring that elegance is beautiful is like calling ourselves bourgeois, and not even that enlightened. Those who believe they are avant-garde designers offer us unsightly garments, ugly and cheap.
But who cares: elegance is the new avant-garde. Full stop. Make your comments, but with tangible evidence. The collection by Valentino (and who cares if it’s an Italian house) designed by Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri was a celebration of elegance, of refinement and also of eccentricity. The flawless craftsmanship and the simple and sumptuous embroidery were extremely elegant and made women look beautiful.
But why on earth should we spend money on the rags that a few fashion victims call "divine"? And to go where, besides? And with whom? Valentino was chic... We should not be appalled by so much refinement, but, instead, be glad there is still someone who designs for women who want to look good and be liked: not by runway photographers, but by friends, fiancés, lovers!
I’ll say it again: being truly avant-garde means being elegant when all the others look as if they’ve just stepped out of a circus.
Also Chanel decided to go back to pearls, to elegance, to old-style white collars and signature Chanel fabrics for the suits. It doesn’t mean being conformist, it’s a longing to leave behind the homologation of a ridiculous and, let’s say it, ugly style.
Let’s be subversive, let’s learn how to dress well again... Each one of us in our own way, without prefixed codes, but with elegance.
Nicolas Ghesquière Addresses Fashion’s
“Size Issue”
Picture credit: GoRunway
BALENCIAGA creative director Nicolas Ghesquière has addressed fashion's "size issue", stating that his attitudes towards the subject have evolved since he first started at the influential fashion label 15 years ago.
"We started very skinny, it's true," he said. "Strangely...we didn't have fit models at all to begin with...just to give you an idea of the size of the company. So we did fittings on the girls at the studio and they were often quite petite. I had a tendency to think good cut and small size was best suited...but a good cut should come in PLUS sizes too. That's what I want to focus on...it's the cut...not the sizing and if people see that they can wear something in a PLUS size...then I did my job."
His approach to cut isn't the only thing that the designer has re-evaluated in terms of the brand's aesthetic.
"When I started, my clothes were heavier...but now it has to be very light and it's a big technical challenge," he told The Sunday Times. "The idea of Balenciaga is suspended compact clothes. There is an idea of floating...let's say. So the challenge is to have this idea...but for today."
Why the Over-50 Crowd is Conquering Fashion
The fashion industry is all about trends...and that extends to the models as well as the clothes. One month it’s all about gap-tooth smiles, and the next it’s about curvy bods and boobs. Still, there seems to be a general ‘type’ in fashion lately. So, it goes without saying that there hasn’t been much of a place for models over the age of 60 in the industry. That is, until recently.
Earlier this month, American Apparel cast a 61-year-old in their ads, and then just two weeks ago, Lanvin’s fall 2012 campaign broke featuring not one but two ladies over the age 60 (62, and 82, respectively). And, most recently Bulgari released its Fall 2012 ads starring 60-year-old Isabella Rossellini.
Fashion, it seems, has found a new model muse and she’s over the age of 50.
A little ole blog could be responsible for this trend towards embracing senior models. Advanced Style, begun by Ari Seth Cohen in 2008, has been profiling the inspiring street style of every day senior citizens (it’s basically the Sartorialist for the elderly set) and the site’s success–Cohen recently released a book and has a documentary in the works–goes to show that more and more people are beginning to pay attention to this older demographic. In fact, it was Cohen who helped cast Lanvin’s campaign.
“I have definitely noticed an increase in the visibility of older models since I started Advanced Style four years ago,” Cohen said. Patty Sicular, a model manager who has worked with the ‘Legends Division’ (that’s the group that represents older models) at Trump Models since the late ’80s, agrees.
“In 1987, I started working with ‘older models,’ which back then, meant models in their late 20′s,” Sicular said.
“Then, years later, when we got a great booking for a model age in her 30′s, then, we started getting demands for models in her 40s, then 50s, and now, the sky is the limit.”
Why It’s Happening
While fashion’s sudden interest in the over-sixty set seems surprising, it makes a lot of sense when you consider that the Baby Boom generation–the most sizable population group in the United States–is now between the ages of 48 and 66. And, at the risk of stating the obvious: They’re only growing older.
Because the average life expectancy keeps growing older, we can expect these numbers to swell.
“Older people make up the largest part of the population and they are tired of being ignored,”
Advanced Style’s Cohen says “Media either tends to ignore the senior set, or casts aging in a negative light.
But with the internet and blogger boom images outside of the fashion industry have become very influential.
Now, brands have taken notice and are realizing that they have to market towards ‘real’ people.” And increasingly, ‘real’–as in ‘average’–means older.
What’s more, being ‘elderly’ doesn’t mean what it used to. The over 50s in developed economies are the fittest and most active in history, thanks to healthy and plentiful eating, good medical care and an active lifestyle.
Because of these lifestyle and attitude changes, being over 50 is no longer considered being "over the hill".
Of course, brands aren’t just reaching out to seniors for the sake of inclusion. They’re doing it because there’s lots of money to be made. One of the most interesting trends is that elderly consumers these days are more inclined to spend their money. The preconception of older consumers is that they tend to be more set in their ways than their younger counterparts, more frugal and less hedonistic, and more likely to save than spend freely.
However, while this is not untrue, as attitudes to ageing have changed, a growing number of over 60s are increasingly drawing equity on their houses or taking on debt rather than leaving their assets to offspring.
How Brands Are Targeting The Senior Citizen Demographic
Such talents as Carol Alt, Carmen Dell’Orefice and Beverly Johnson...are women who scream high fashion not adult diapers. These classic supermodels, now in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, are no less beautiful–or captivating–than when they began their careers.
This financial and lifestyle shift among seniors brings with it both opportunities and challenges for apparel retailers.
While some companies–like American Apparel are beginning to target the mature demographic, brands that have always marketed to the over-50 crowd have to try different strategies to talk to this ‘new’ senior citizen.
The elderly today are not just white-haired grandmas and grandpas: They’re vibrant, empowered individuals with a life and style all their own.
Older people want to see someone they can relate to and can be inspired by. Slowly but surely, the way seniors are being targeted in ads is beginning to change–and that’s creating more and more opportunity for older models.
Such talents as Carol Alt, Carmen Dell’Orefice and Beverly Johnson...are women who scream high fashion not adult diapers. These classic supermodels, now in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, are no less beautiful–or captivating–than when they began their careers.
“The approach has been to build up the Legends division to mirror the younger division, letting the clients see how beautiful these women are, demanding similar pay structures, demanding the respect they deserve and placing these models in the most prestigious magazines, campaigns, television commercials and catalogs” Sicular says.
In turn, these stunning older models have given regular senior folk a high fashion image to aspire to and they’re helping to smash preconceived notions about what it means to age.
Going Forward: Is This Just Another Trend?
Right now, it seems like older models are definitely having a moment. But fashion is a fickle place. So, will the over-65 set continue to conquer the fashion industry–or will this trend merely die out?
Right now, it seems like older models are definitely having a moment. But fashion is a fickle place. So, will the over-65 set continue to conquer the fashion industry–or will this trend merely die out?
All the experts we spoke with agreed it’s probably the former. Considering demographic trends...an aging population, longer life expectancy, bigger spending habits and the greater awareness the internet has brought to senior citizens’ full (and stylish) lives, it seems the fashion industry will continue to embrace seniors.
Only don’t expect fashion to do a complete 180.
The primary difference between younger and older consumers in terms of apparel shopping is a difference in priority of value over volume. For older consumers, items are intended to last and not change from season to season.
However this attitude presents an opportunity to clothing companies to create higher-quality garments that still cater to trends and charge a high premium for it.
So it follows that the one place that probably won’t start catering to the senior set is the fast fashion industry.
However...given the long-term changes to demographics and the eventual influence these will have on the apparel market, it would be short-sighted of major apparel retailers not to at least consider branching out and enhancing their offerings for the older consumer as a possibility for future development.
I think older ladies are awesome–and I’m excited we’re getting to see more of them these days.
Anonymous Retoucher Says ’100 percent’ of Fashion Images Have Been Altered!
Photo: iStock
But how much retouching actually gets done, on any given photo? And what is a retoucher’s most requested touch up? BuzzFeed Shift spoke to an actual retoucher–who wished to remain anonymous–to get the answers. Here’s what we learned.
Beauty ads are, as we suspected, basically all fake:
“I do work on a lot of cosmetics images, too, and the mascara ads are just ridiculous. They wear false eyelashes...of course...in the photoshoot and we completely draw the lashes in one by one so it’s just like a forest of eyelashes. That’s like the biggest lie of all...you can’t achieve that.”
Putting a disclaimer on all retouched images is probably not going to work…because every image has been fiddled with:
There’s just no way an image would be released without any retouching at all so every single ad would have that disclaimer on it. And absolutely 100 percent of what’s in fashion magazines is retouched… You can never have no retouching across the board...because some of it you just have to do if something’s really distracting in a picture.
Models’ bodies don’t get retouched as much as you might think:
With fashion work, I don’t do a lot of distortion of women’s bodies, which I think is terrible. I have been asked to slim down a waist or make the legs a little skinnier, but not anything too crazy…Sometimes people don’t realize that models choose that career and they succeed for a reason. They have been genetically blessed with a fantastic physique and beauty.
Sometimes it’s the clothes–not the models–that need the most help.
With fashion itself...sometimes the clothes are not fitting the way they’re supposed to. They’re always pinned in the back...for example...and then the wrinkles are taken out with retouching. So the clothes are kind of a lie, too. Nothing is going to fit that perfectly when you try it on.
Models look slim–and yet somehow not sickly or boney–with the help of photoshop.
I have smoothed boniness before...like when models have bones sticking out of their chest, they want that subdued. That’s somewhat common.
It’s skin that gets the biggest overhaul.
We completely remove veins and freckles and moles and bags under the eyes all the time. We often remove body hair...subdue wrinkles...whiten teeth...pop the eyes. We also smooth kneecaps and veins in the hands and things like that ...anything that’s distracting that takes away from the product being featured.
Frankensteining, as we like to call it, is pretty run of the mill.
All in all...what you see...is NOT what you get....Don't believe the hype...But retouchers do things like cut out a head from one photo and put it on the body from another. I do that kind of stuff all the time. Let’s say they do a photoshoot with a model and the body comes out well...but she’s got a wonky look on her face. They might want to put this head on that body. Or they want to put an arm from one photo on the body of another...that’s common.