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Share these MAKERS Moments…
Diane von Furstenberg on her breakout success, career rebirth, and embracing women’s strengthandfemininity.
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RODARTE X L.A. Philharmonic’s Don Giovanni
Led by Gustavo Dudamel, Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte’s Operatic Costume Debut with Set Design by Architect Frank Gehry, Directed by Christopher Alden, Makeup by James Kaliardos for NARS Cosmetics, and Hair by Odile Gilbert.
Photographed by Autumn de Wilde.
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Amazing tulle dress designed by HUSSEIN CHALAYAN exhibited in the V&A Museum in London
The Victoria and Albert Museum celebrates the opening of the newly renovated Fashion Galleries. For the occasion, an exclusive exhibition presents the best of British design since 1950, covering over 60 years of the most glamourous ballgowns by designers, including HUSSEIN CHALAYAN, Victor Stiebel, Zandra Rhodes, Jonathan Saunders, Alexander McQueen, Giles Deacon, Erdem and Jenny Packham.
Save the date, 13th of July at 19.00h: A creative talk between the designer Hussein Chalayan and the artist Gavin Turk with curator Susanna Greeves will take place organized with the British Council as part of the Cultural Olympiad.
Ballgowns at the V&A until January 6th 2013.
Visit www.vam.ac.uk for more information.
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All-Time 100 Fashion Icons: Tiffany & Co
Long before Marilyn Monroe sang “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” or Audrey Hepburn stared longingly into the window from a deserted Fifth Avenue, Tiffany & Co. was influencing American culture. In September 1837, Charles Lewis Tiffany borrowed $1,000 from his father, and with his school friend John B. Young, opened a stationary and fancy goods store in New York City. Its first day’s sales were $4.98. In the 1840s, Tiffany & Co. began buying diamonds and a decade later the company became one of the word’s leading silversmiths. It supplied the Union Army in the Civil War and in the late 19th century decorated a series of Colt, Winchester and Smith & Wesson handguns. Tiffany & Co. was already a famous institution when Tiffany began selling items in the “Tiffany blue” box. “Tiffany has one thing in stock that you cannot buy of him for as much money as you may offer,” the New York Sun wrote in 1906. “He will only give it to you. And that is one of his boxes.” A visit to the flagship store on Fifth Avenue, established in 1940, has become a rite of passage for young women visiting New York City and grooms-to-be of all ages delivering their proposal and a ring via one of those famous blue boxes. It’s no guarantee of a yes, but it’s not a bad way to start.
By Nate Rowlings for Time Magazine
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Voguepedia: Meet Diane Von Furstenberg!
“Simplicity and sexiness, that’s what people want. At a price that’s not outrageous,”Diane von Furstenberg told Vogue in 1976, the year she landed on the cover of Newsweek. In the accompanying Newsweek article, the designer—photographed by Francesco Scavullo in one of the slinky, printed wrap dresses on which she had built her lightning-fast rise to fame—was declared to be “the most marketable female in fashion since Coco Chanel.”
A francophone like Mademoiselle Chanel, von Furstenberg, née Halfin, was born in Belgium. Raven-haired, with discofied Pre-Raphaelite good looks, she “surely had the most photographed cheekbones of the 1970s,” The New York Times would later write. She had met her prince, Eduard Egon von und zu Furstenberg, in a Geneva nightclub, but it wasn’t until the couple moved to swanky digs on New York’s Park Avenue that she became a sensation. She conquered the town—first with her beauty and then with her fashions, which she would describe as “little dresses that were, you know, not for an old lady and not too expensive.”Von Furstenberg’s most famous design is, of course, the wrap dress, which she introduced in 1972. Its arrival coincided with a new interest in women’s fitness, and it immediately made pantsuits, then the feminist style du jour, look passé. (Fellow Seventh Avenue magnate Bill Blass described DVF, as she came to be known, as the “designer who put dresses back on women.”) Light and made of unwrinkling jersey, the wrap worked at work, traveled brilliantly, and could be gotten into or slipped out of in a minute flat. Almost overnight, it became a sartorial symbol of women’s sexual liberation.
By 1976 the designer was producing 20,000 of these moneymakers a week. The market was soon oversaturated, and von Furstenberg largely dropped out of the game.
But by the late nineties, professional women of the Sex and the City ilk were ready to re-experience the wrap, and to appreciate the hard-driving-but-still-sexy spirit of the designer behind it. Von Furstenberg’s career began to climb to another peak. In 2005, the Council of Fashion Designers of America presented her with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and she was elected the organization’s president the following year.
“Most fashion people attribute Diane’s success to a combination of elements—personal glamour, hard work, dazzling public relations, and good, old-fashioned horse sense,”reported Vogue. Or, as DVF put it to Women’s Wear Daily in 1998, “I’ve gone from wunderkind to pioneer to tycoon to recluse to has-been and now to icon.”
By Vogue.com
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Lady Dior as Seen by Garance Doré
A special guest for the inauguration of the exhibition “Lady Dior as seen by”, blogger Garance Doré set off to discover the capital, bag in hand, to have it customized by Japanese artists. An adventure captured on video.
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It has also been 12 years since the PINK CONCORDE by BUREAU BETAK, Air France & Victoria’s Secret for the amfAR Gala… Let’s get on board again!
12 years ago, Air France Concorde whisked a star-studded ensemble of international supermodels and celebrities at over twice the speed of sound from New York’s JFK International airport to Nice on the French Riviera. These VIPs were headed to Cannes for a Cinema Against AIDS 2000 benefit evening on May 18 2000 hosted by amfAR (the American Foundation for AIDS Research), Miramax Films and Victoria’s Secret, and directed and produced by BUREAU BETAK.
Partnering with Victoria’s Secret, Air France and BUREAU BETAK chose to carry twenty of the world’s top supermodels to the Riviera, including Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Karen Mulder and Daniela Pestova, who took part in the Fifth Annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show at the Palm Beach Club in Cannes, during the Cannes International Film Festival.
It took a year to BUREAU BETAK to persuade Air France to redo the Concorde in pink, from the seats to the menu and the light, and to fly it direct from JFK to Nice, after flying low above the Palais des Festivals steps! Then, all models and celebrities were driven to a entirely pink lit in the Hotel Martinez for the occasion… We are still proud and moved at BUREAU BETAK by this extravagant once in a lifetime experience!!!
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RODARTE’s costumes in “Two Hearts” for the New York City Ballet
“Working with the New York City Ballet on Two Hearts was an extraordinary experience. We are honored to be able to collaborate with such talents as Benjamin Millepied and Nico Muhly.” - Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte
Pictures by Rodarte
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VICTORIA’S SECRET SHOW - AMFAR GALA: 12th ANNIVERSARY!
Now that the 2012 Cannes International Film Festival has started, Bureau Betak takes back the great memories of the Victoria Secret’s Show in Cannes webcast for the AMFAR’s Gala Cinema Against AIDS twelve years ago…
In 2000, Bureau Betak directed and produced the first Victoria Secret live show webcast ever, and more than 2 million viewers worldwide logged onto VictoriasSecret.com causing even a crash on Internet!
The astonishing event broke all the records and became an international phenomenon… Here you have some pictures to remember these magic moments.
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Editor in chief, Rosalie Huang, interviews Alexandre de Betak during FW12 Fashion Week
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Lots of love from Bureau Betak… Forever Donna!
RIP Donna Summer (1948-2012)
Photographed during Tiffany’s night in Beijing by Bureau Betak in 2010
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Lots of love from Bureau Betak… Forever Donna!
RIP Donna Summer (1948-2012)
Video of the Tiffany’s night in Beijing by Bureau Betak in 2010
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ANTHONY VACCARELLO X INTERVIEW MAGAZINE
“I strive for both a kind of sensuality and a control and construction… It’s sexy because the girl is wearing the dress” - Anthony Vaccarello
A graduate of La Cambre —the Belgian design school that’s not the Royal Academy of Fine Arts— 32-year-old, Brussels-born Anthony Vaccarello approaches his craft differently than his countrymen in Antwerp. “When I’m working, I’m making clothes around the body. I’m more about the draping, and finding the right line,” he explains. “Maybe because I’m half-Italian and half-Belgian, I strive for both a kind of sensuality and a control and construction.” Vaccarello focuses on tailoring and shape, saving that oh-so-important element of seduction for the very end. “It’s sexy because the girl is wearing the dress,” he explains. “It’s not my first goal when I’m making the collection.”
Even though Vaccarello may be more body-conscious than those of the Antwerp six or Martin Margiela, he still has a lot of respect for the old guard. He is particularly proud of his student thesis earning the top honor at the 2006 Hyères Festival, when Ann Demeulemeester was among the jurors. It was an all-leather collection that not only won him the award, but a two-year stint designing fur at Fendi as well. At the Rome atelier, Vaccarello began to understand the collaborative nature of running a fashion business, a lesson he quickly applied when he left for Paris in 2008, founding his own label and eventually bringing his longtime boyfriend and fellow designer, Arnaud Michaux, on board. “Arnaud is very technical,” Vaccarello says. “When I have a crazy idea, he finds a way to make it happen.” The pair work and live out of a 19th-century building in the Marais. Their apartment is on the fourth floor, with their studio on the first, and there’s a zipper supplier on the two floors in between. (“Very useful,” jokes Vaccarello.)
It was in Paris, too, that Vaccarello first crossed paths with his multihyphenate muse, Lou Doillon. They met at a dinner party, though Vaccarello didn’t have the courage to speak to her until the end of the night. The next day, the two —along with photographer Julia Champeau— shot Vaccarello’s look book for Fall 2010 in a parking garage near Doillon’s Bastille apartment. The production took 10 minutes, because Doillon had to leave to pick up her son from school, exactly the sort of unpretentious thing Vaccarello admires about his friend. “She’s a Parisian without all the Parisian clichés,” he says.
The same description could be used to describe Vaccarello’s designs, which won him last year’s coveted ANDAM award —France’s equivalent of the CFDA. His Fall 2012 collection offers a barrage of expertly cut pieces: jackets, shirts, sharp suiting, skinny trousers, and his signature hybrids, much of it in monochromatic navy— think part smoking jacket, part dress or jumpsuit, with strategically draped gold bands or shiny green deconstructed bras. “People always think I’m making ‘a little black dress,’ ” says Vaccarello. “Navy was a good opportunity to keep it dark and to focus on the shape and line.” He imagined that cliché black dress at a midnight ball, turning blue as it’s bathed in moonlight. But even though he’s a rising star of Parisian fashion, Vaccarello still relies on the kindness of close connections: When it came to casting his Fall 2012 show in February, his friend Karlie Kloss agreed to sign on soon, calls came from other models asking to join. “I think they knew that models like Karlie were doing the show,” he says, “and googled my name to see what I did.” -
My Dior
Directed by Steven Meisel
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By Ella Alexander for Vogue UK
Karlie Kloss and Jason Wu are teaming up to participate and raise money for the 2012 AIDS Walk in New York today. The pair, who are close friends, will complete the 6.2-mile route with the aim of making $50,000 (£31,362) for AIDS organisations, through their donation site.
“The idea came about at the Met Ball with a mutual friend of ours,” Kloss told us today. “We were in a sea of glamour and we looked at each other and said, ‘what do we do next?’ The AIDS Walk became a perfect opportunity to change our ballgown and black tie for sneakers and work-out clothes. Juicy Couture is even donating a bucket of money for me to wear their clothes for the event which is amazing - it’s fantastic to see my friends in the fashion community getting behind us, come on guys!”
The American model and NY-based designer will head up team Step Forward, a group comprised of their close friends and family. Wu and Kloss were last seen together last week at the Met Ball, with the US beauty wearing a custom-made pink gown of his design. Although naturally sporty with a background in ballet, this is the first time Kloss has undertaken a walk of this nature.
“I have been training for this walk on many catwalks around the world,” she laughed. “I wanted a day to spend with my friends in NY that was healthy and positive and what a better way to do that than in Central Park and raising awareness for a cause that I am passionate about. It’s about raising awareness and making a difference.
“I sat at the Glamour Women Of The Year Awards one year and was inspired by a woman called Elizabeth Glaser and her son Jake and their story. It was through this I became involved in awareness for Paediatric AIDS. My father is a doctor so I understand the fight as well.”
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