How Do Men Actually See Fashion?

Menswear is one of the biggest industries in fashion. Many men today are more interested in fashion than before. The freedom of expression that has been spread for years also gives impact in men’s fashion. From hat to shoes, from beard to tattoo, there are already a lot of new inspirations these days. Back then, we can define a good looking man by looking at their coats, pipes, and shoes; the formal things. But now we can define a good one by looking at many aspects, even beard and tattoos.

It’s quite funny knowing the fact that these days’ styles for men are inspired by the past. How men now wear jeans as something casual and stylist, but back then the only people that wear jeans were the workers. And in the past many men defined ‘fashion’ or ‘style’ as something classy, something that could not be afforded by the lower caste of their social life. Today every element of social life can enjoy fashion. Men standing and waiting for a cab in the corner of the street, men lighting a cigarette in front of a restaurant, or even the most random place we’ve been into, like a grocery store or even train stations, we always find stylist men.
Then here they come the spreading rumors, the judgment that fashion for men is like a glam culture; it’s for gays. I couldn’t help but wonder, since when this rumor started? I understand that a lot of men who like fashion have a different sexual orientation but generalizing men who like fashion is like racism. In today’s life, we cannot refuse the fact that we all have our own preference, whether it’s about fashion or about sexuality. Feminism maybe one of the elements in men’s fashion that cause close-minded people to mock it, while if we see it further, there are some important and professional elements in fashion that need feminism like androgyny models.
Time keeps changing about people’s opinion on fashion, especially fashion for men. In the past, maybe a lot of men consider fashion as something that’s too woman-y, it’s way too different from now. Now ever hetero guy can actually enjoy fashion without realizing it. Fashion for men has become the definition of a modern caste system; it defines the wealth, character, and also it defines about how you respect people that you meet. Celebrities are usually the ones that take too many risks.
We can take an example from Justin Bieber. To be honest, he has his own style and there’s nothing wrong with having your own character. But there’s one moment when I couldn’t tolerate, when he took off his clothes at a fashion event. A lot of elements in fashion are all about statement. The show, the story behind the catwalk, the theme of the collection, they all represent important statements in fashion. And taking off clothes, in my opinion, is a form of disrespect.
Defining fashion for men for today is too wide, we can see it from different aspects like the type of it, how it can be used by men, and things that actually influence it. In today’s era where people are really free to express themselves, men should realize about the right proportions of the clothes that they wear.

Karl Brings the Outside Inside

Boulevard Chanel that was held a few days ago was shocking, because the concept of the show that actually brought the outside inside. If you see some pictures or videos from Instagram you might think that it was actually held outside, but no, it was held inside of a building. 

Recently Chanel held breathtaking shows and we all know who the man behind all of these creativities is: Mr. Karl Lagerfeld. Even before this Boulevard-themed show, Chanel held another shocking show with the theme of a supermarket. It’s amazing to realize that after all of these years, the famous timeless Chanel outfits can actually fit with today’s culture, the culture of a strong-themed show. Alexander McQueen when he worked with Givenchy also had these kinds of concept; he always pushed everything to the boundaries. And now I’m starting to see that kind of spirit, the way Karl expresses every theme of the collection is a little bit different, and I’d say unusual. The difference between them is that Lee was more artsy and Karl is more elegant with a taste of a feminist.
I know that Karl doesn’t want to be the same. He didn’t even reduce the elegance and class of the collection. Coco herself was a classy lady and she wanted to create a collection that could make women realize about their elegance. And why did I mention about feminist before? The show itself had a concept of a group of women (and a man) who did a protest. It gave us the details about women’s empowerment, that they have voice and thoughts too, and they have every rights to express. "I don't ask myself political  questions at that level," he said, while acknowledging that the "Divorce for All" placard poked fun at critics of France's gay marriage law, which passed last year. "Fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce, so forget it!" he said.
In shows culture, things are starting to change. Remember when a show was all about plain runways and the models just walked around without doing anything? Now we rarely see that. Designers do want to express their core idea so that the audience can actually enjoy the whole concept, including when and where they can wear the collection. When we hardly understood the artistic performance of Lee McQueen’s show, we can more enjoy shows that have concept of daily basis like Chanel Boulevard. In the future it’s not possible to see more labels like Versace holds a show with this kind of bold concept.

Emporio Armani at Plaza Indonesia Men's Fashion Week

I always wait for this event because it's only held once a year, usually around September (this year Men's Fashion Week was held from September 23 until September 27, 2014). I attended wearing a very simple outfit; flannel, jeans, and sneakers because basically I had so many things to do on that week. Anyway, Emporio Armani show was not actually my favorite, but it's worth it. The collection is obviously formal wear and it's classy.

It Was popular, Now It Is Pop

Something crazy happened a while ago when Jeremy Scott decided to hold a Moschino show; It's ripped Chanel. It's McDonald's. It's Spongebob. It's pop.

'Fast-food fashion' by Moschino

The word pop itself is from the word 'popular.' Like popular music and popular art. This genre was discovered because of the same opinion among people, where something is extremely popular and a lot of people love it. I would say that this Moschino collection it's crazy, but far from McQueen or Warhol crazy, it's more like fun-crazy. It's not heavy. When I saw some of those ripped Chanel that was re-colored with McD's accent that says Moschino instead of the original McD's, I thought that it was a mess. But after I saw some sweaters from the collection, I finally got it: it's a total pop collection. With a really strong colors like yellow and red, Moschino tried to reinvent the popular culture of the past, the Warhol culture, pop. And they took a smart move by taking inspirations from several aspects like elegance and fun. Pop is something popular, not only because of Andy Warhol but also because of other aspects like music. Moschino tried to make everything popular again by using popular stuff from different aspects. It's a smart move, but in the contrary, are we able to see the original idea of Mr. Scott here?
Personally, this collection is not amazing, but it's interesting. The way Moschino mixed high fashion with some junk food brand is pretty unique and it's able to create something interesting like how they mixed Chanel with bright red color. This could be another inspiration about how we can take inspiration from a lot of things that once happened to be popular in the past, put a little creativity in it, and it could become something 'new' and interesting. I don't know if Jeremy Scott deliberately didn't want to bring this style into pop-art level, but for me it's like a halfway idea. It's different from Prada SS14 that was inspired by art or even Rodnik Band that has pure pop-art inspired collections.
Picasso* once said, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." Does this apply to Moschino? You know you have the answer.

*The saying was originally quoted by Steve Jobs on his interview in the 90's. I couldn't find any legitimate proof that Pablo Picasso actually said that.

Getting Back To The Old Method, Polaroid

In this digital era, taking pictures is very easy. You can easily take it not only with your phones, but also with other unusual things like tablets, watches, and even glasses. Some may say that it’s creepy, knowing that some people may disturb your privacy by using the semi-paparazzi method, sneaking to some places and taking your pictures without realizing it. Then I wonder, what happened to the original function of those tiny cameras?

Polaroid photo

We may say that cameras are originally used as the easiest way to capture or record our memories. But in some aspects in this life, like fashion, cameras are one of the most important element in the industry. Photographers, people who have important job to recreate their classy imagination into reality, take a big responsibility to introduce those classy images to the fashion enthusiasts. Not to name the famous ones like Nick Knight, Patrick Demarchelier, Steven Klein and also the famous photographer couple Inez Van Lamswerde and Vinoodh Matadin, they all have their own bold character while capturing fashion images. Back in the 90’s, photographers like Inez and Vinoodh used a little bit different method from now. They used polaroid to take the picture of the models and icons (you can check their Instagram, it’s full of Polaroid-esque photos).

"The fact that everything is shot digitally now has freed up a lot of possibilities. Before we were shooting digitally, you were relying on Polaroids to see whether it was going okay, whether the light was correct. Now you see it right away on the screen, and you can react really fast. This speed of reaction now infuses the day, which is really exciting. I am personally not nostalgic about the loss of film. I feel the benefits of digital shooting are so great and the fact that there is an immediate result is so rewarding. Photography has, especially now with things like Tumblr and Instagram, become so democratic and I love that about it. When Vinoodh and I started out, it was much harder to get your work seen. On the other hand, the idea of the underground has completely gone away. Everyone is right away mainstream. I sometimes feel that younger photographers get thrown into working without really having the chance to discover who they are as an artist," explains Inez on her interview with TIME.



Polaroid was the thing, because it has its own way to process the image like the colors of it. It’s really simple because you can directly see the photo after taking it. It has its own ‘art’ if you want to produce a really good image. And recently, I’m into polaroid again. I realized how good the character that polaroid cameras have, the character that today’s kids don’t understand. Maybe we can find new products of polaroid cameras, but to be fair, 80’s and 90’s people have the true feeling of using it. Now grab your phone and process those image with certain apps and upload it to Instagram, or you can grab a polaroid camera, capture your moments,  be narcissistic and you can feel how it can give you a unique feel of the old times.

Tip: If you want to feel polaroid on your smartphone, there’s an universal app called Lo-Mob (for iOS and Windows Phone). It’s not free, but it’s worth it.

The Hair, The Freedom, And The Factory

Some people are really easy to be defined by their hairstyle. I personally find myself easy to recognize my friends from their back, by looking at their hairstyle. The thing that quite bothers me is the fact that some people just can't accept others' style; dreads for white people, straight hair for black people (racism much?), or even bald women.
I have this  little story about hair. Last year I got my internship at an IT company under the Ministry of Telecommunication. It was a good place with a good (geek) people. But there's one thing that I found weird. When I went home from the office, I found out that a lot of people who walked together with me at the sidewalk had almost the same hairstyle. I bet it was hard to recognize someone from their back. I mean, today's companies are like a factory, a soy sauce factory not Warhol factory, they try to create people look the same. It felt like school all over again. I realized that it was pretty weird feeling for me because college life is much more free than that (despite the fact that some people in my faculty were so judgmental); there was barely no rules. We could have any hairstyle that we want, even we could wear flip-flops like Mark Zuckerberg to the class. I'm not suggesting that all companies should be like that (imagine if Vogue has an employee who wears flip-flops in their office, duh), I guess my point is that each company should let their employee to have sense of freedom; a bold identity that can help them to build their characters. And one of those things that I suggest is to let their employee have a free hairstyle. It shouldn't matter if men have long hair as long as they still consider about fashion rules.

Andy and the crew of The Factory, NYC.

I hope I could see more things like The Warhol Factory in some companies. It's super creative and everything is unique in its own way. And I also hope that 'school rules' would be stopped so people can have their own strong character. Freedom in hair is a must.

Esquire Indonesia, 87th Editon (May 2014)

Esquire Indonesia 87th edition. Cover courtesy of Esquire.

Review
Jose Mourinho as the cover story is a wise and perfect choice because we already feel the atmosphere of the biggest soccer event. As we all know that in June 2014, FIFA World Cup will start and choosing one of the best soccer coaches as the cover story is a perfect choice. Plus the news about FIFA World Cup itself on page 152-153 is good, because it’s necessary to write about it on May issue, a month before it starts.

I’m quite entertained by the Short Story (Cerpen) section; it is a light reading that can boost the mood of the readers. The story itself includes traditional dancing and culture from Java, Indonesia that have their own meanings so we can obviously learn something from that.

The Style Runway section explains the exact amount of information that the readers need to know. For me the essence of a lifestyle magazine is to spread different information and knowledge in exact amount, and people want or need to know about that. Writing about Versace and Dolce & Gabbana Summer collection is also a wise choice because those brands have a lot of customers worldwide, and also they inspire another brand to create a collection like them (they have influence in the fashion industry). Even Dolce & Gabbana is currently facing a problem about tax; we can’t deny that their formal menswear is one of the bests.

Style Runway section featuring Versace and Dolce & Gabbana. Courtesy of Esquire.

The Esq. Style section on page 118-125 is perfect and since it’s taken from the U.S. Esquire April 2014 edition it has a different atmosphere or theme from the second shoot that is placed on page 126-133. The second section of Esq. Style, anyway, has great shots. They could be more interesting by adding a little artsy inspiration to the images so they could become equal with the first section of the shoots.

Flaws
Even though the magazine is perfect, I found a few flaws inside that are quite disturbing. First thing that I figure out is the mistyped page number. In the table of contents the cover story is written on page 114. But actually, the cover story is placed on page 144. It’s a small flaw, but it’s quite important since it’s the reader’s guide to find the cover story.

Second thing that I recognize is the placement of watches in Style Watches section, page 72-73. We all can see that the half-up of the pages have so much empty space. Maybe it could be fixed by rearranging the position of the watches, or by adding some props to cover the empty space.

Overall

Esq. Style section. Courtesy of Esquire.

This is a good issue. Beside things that I explain above, we can still get a lot of tips; from how to wash your jeans properly until knowing the importance of wearing perfume, plus how to choose the right one.  Introducing traditional culture to today’s society is one of the strong points. Esquire is still one of the best lifestyle magazines for men and this issue proves it.

In Vogue: The Editor's Eye

I know I’m late but in fact I just finished watching this documentary. It tells us about the fashion editors of Vogue that produce amazing images in Vogue magazine. Before I watched this documentary I only knew Grace Coddington and Tonne Goodman. But after watching it, I got amazed by flawless images that Vogue has produced under previous fashion editors. They knew exactly about the way to get the exact images that could represent the statement of fashion on their era. And as one of the most successful magazine in the world, Vogue shows us about their professionalism not only in the quantity of the pages, but also the quality of the contents and the images.

The Editors
 My favorites are Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele and Phyllis Posnick. Reasons: Carlyne is a unique and has a strong character, in her life and her ideas of producing fashion images. I agree with her about her statement saying that “It is all about the attitude” and her statement saying that she adores streets. Her famous Vogue cover, the Lacroix Couture t-shirt combined with a pair of jeans, still got me and I think it’s brilliant. I think no one ever had a thought of wearing a couture collection in the street and combine it with a pair of blue jeans, without makeup and hair done.

Phyllis is my favorite too because she has a bold statement when it comes to fashion images. In my opinion she’s able to give artistic yet disturbing interpretations about fashion images, so that the readers could stop from flipping pages after seeing her shot. And I also think that that is one of the most important things when it comes to fashion images, when it is able to provoke you in so many ways.

The Photo Shoots
Steven Klein has been my favorite fashion photographer because he is able to express his character into his images. Everybody knows that an image was shot by Steven Klein on the first time they see it. For me he represents darkness and the different color tone in the picture. And in this documentary, Tonne Goodman and Steven Klein once worked together and produced an amazing fashion image that I adore.

As you can see in the picture above, Steven Klein put his bold character into the image, and Tonne Goodman also put her character into the set, and the model that represents an American girl. And for the final words, I cannot forget about what Anna Wintour said in the documentary:

"You have to do something that’s gonna really make people stood up and think, and be shocked, and confused, and angry, and ‘What is Vogue doing?’, and cancelling their subscription."

Related: Catastro-Vogue

Reasons Why Donatella Versace Is Still Relevant As the Queen of Fashion

Donatella Versace

I remember the first time I’m completely in love with Versace, it was men’s SS12. I was shocked with the spirit of freedom and creativity Versace had in that time: the underwear, sunglasses, and even gladiator shoes. Since then I always look forward to Versace shows, especially their menswear collection and their Atelier. And now, celebrating Donatella’s 59th birthday I made a list about how Donatella is still relevant as the queen of fashion.

1. She Carries The Legacy of Versace

Versace Logo

After the horrible homicide of Gianni Versace in 1997, Donatella continues to manage Versace. It was a hard time for her because it’s hard to lose her own brother. She had to learn everything Gianni did with Versace. She owns 20% of total Versace’s market share. Donatella carries the name of the brand as her surname; she carries the legacy of Versace, replacing its original founder Giovanni. As we know brands that are on par with Versace like Alexander McQueen and Coco Chanel haven’t been maintained by their own original founder or people that have a close relation to the brands. Versace still has Donatella, Gianni’s sister.

2. Limitless Creativity

Versus Versace, a collab with J.W. Anderson

Versace is now famous because of its own trademark in fashion world. Their womenswear collection, their menswear collection, and their Atelier collection bring their own spirit every time their show held. Donatella takes a big part of every decision taken in those collections. Her creativity became the unique character of Versace collections. A lot of collaborations especially with J.W. Anderson for Versus Versace (the collection and show I like the most) also makes Versace look super creative by expanding their collection by doing collaborations.

"(Fashion) It’s not intellectual; it's not art or science - it's about giving people pleasure, making them feel gorgeous. That is what people react to."

3. Trademark Style

Blonde, leather, and heels: Donatella

Inevitably Donatella has her own unique style. Leather is one of her trademark, proved by her showing up in several shows and events wearing leather dress. We also can’t deny her original hairstyle that once became really famous, her straight-blonde hair. Donatella carries the uniqueness of an Italian woman especially with her accent. Once in an interview she said “I can give up anything, but not my high heels.”

4. Ability To Choose Perfect Muses

Lady Gaga for Versace Campaign

You name it – MIA, Nolan Funk, and even Lady Gaga – they’re so perfect wearing Versace collections. Versace x MIA once became viral with their collection for youth, the different motifs for different clothes made the collection unique. Nolan Funk and Lady Gaga became the muse for almost the same time, while Nolan is the icon for their menswear collection. It’s quite different with Lady Gaga where reportedly Gaga is able to boost Versace sales by keep wearing their collections; wearing legendary silk shirts on the streets and her music video, and also wearing Gianni’s last collection in her music video The Edge of Glory.

5. Survival of Her Own Depression

Ups and downs - a strong woman

If the music industry has Lady Gaga and Demi Lovato as the icon of ‘bullying survival’, in fashion world we have Donatella. After the shocking death of her brother Gianni in 1997 Donatella suffered from depression. She started using drugs, cocaine, and pills to make her stay sober. In 2004 Donatella flew to rehab on the night of her daughter’s 18th birthday. "I had the best time of my life. You just feel more awake, more aware. Unfortunately, it doesn't continue like that. So I just kept doing it, every time I was in New York, in Los Angeles, mostly at parties." Then she realized that using drugs led her to a breakdown and became incoherent.

Based on these 5 quick facts, I still consider Donatella Versace as the queen of fashion. She holds the legacy of her family name, and she has a strong mental to struggle in this business. Happy birthday, Donatella.

Catastro-Vogue

For decades, Vogue magazine has been the bible for some fashion lovers. Even its first edition uses the picture of Gibson Girls, which shows the beauty of women of that time. Then Anna Wintour came as its Editor In-Chief and changed a lot of things. The cover, for example, Wintour was the one who came up with the idea of using celebrity as the cover of a fashion magazine. There is also Grace Coddington, the fahion editor of Vogue who came up with ideas of the photoshoots. For some years I’ve known Vogue magazine but honestly it’s not my kind of bible, because it’s actually for women or people who interested in women’s fashion. I know the history of it and how it impacts women in my country. And like everyone, the latest American Vogue cover bothers me.

The cover of American Vogue

The cover is an okay, but I’m not quite sure why Anna came up with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. I’ve been thinking that Vogue is for the true fashion, and actually when I discovered Vogue with Hillary as the cover I still understand that and it’s not only about political reasons. Now I’m still wondering why they chose KimYe. It’s not like I see them as the main problem. They also put the word ‘selfie’ and a hashtag (that is known for Twitter) on the cover. On Twitter there are some people who already stated that they’re going to stop their subscription including celebrity Sarah Michelle Gellar. Then I was curious and tried to search hashtag ‘#annawintour’ on Intagram. The result surprised me. There are a lot of people posted the old ‘Save Anna’ logo with red cross above it. It’s a mess. There’s also an Instagram account called ‘WintourIsOver’ and they posted several photos and spreading the hashtag ‘#wintourisover’, and hey, they actually also have a website named wintourisover.com.

An Instagram account spreading rumor about Anna

I don’t hate Anna or Grace, actually they’re my inspiration and also the reason why I’m still into fashion. I just don’t understand. There’s a possibility that the team came up with a fresh idea about including today’s trends in social media and including people who are talked about. But honestly Vogue has a different level and they could choose better people and better words for the headlines. Compared to the British and France, which have a good choice on the cover, the American one is the worst. The French still has Cameron Russel and the British has Nigella Lawson on the cover.

The cover of Bitish Vogue

The cover of France Vogue

I hope they didn’t jump into business-strategy crap and just tried to sell more copies. It’s truly not a classy way to do that. I hope we can see the end of this catastro-Vogue.

The Glam-Rock Culture

“Glam culture is ultimately rooted in obsession, and those of us who are truly devoted and loyal to the lifestyle of glamour are masters of its history. Or, to put it more elegantly, we are librarians.”  - Lady Gaga

That evening, March 31, I was reading a lot of stuff. Fashion stuff. I was thirsty of the new culture in fashion. For me, fashion is not only about expensive clothes or judging people who have a collection sold at Walmart, it is also about culture, things that have been going around life. Then I was wondering, what is the root of fashion? How was the feeling when people realize for the very first time that fashion defined their caste?
Then I found an interesting article about The Glam Culture on Rolling Stone. They interviewed Lady Gaga, the queen of controversy. The Glam Culture itself was miss-understood as the movement of gay people, long before the LGBT rights were discussed seriously. The discrimination of seeing the culture with another style in fashion world was clearly declared. But Lady Gaga, with her unique character in her style (that was influenced by the pop and rock culture), broke the wrong interpretation. She stands out with her Glam-Rock Culture.

Gaga with a very-New-York rocker style

Long before Gaga, there were Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, and Elton John with their Glam-Rock character. But then again, we need to highlight the word 'long before'. There is nearly no singer who actually brings this style back to live. "Everything from vintage books and magazine I found at the Strand on 12th Street to my dad's old Bowie posters to metal records from my best friend Lady Starlight to Aunt Merle's hand-me-down emerald-green designer pumps were sprawled all over the floor about two feet from my bathroom and four inches from my George Foreman Grill," explains Gaga clearly in the interview. She stated that she's influenced by the old metal records and another Glam-Rock stuff. She actually experienced it. The pop singer recently made another controversy by performing one of her songs while being thrown up by the vomit artist, Millie Brown. At the SXSW keynote speech event she explained that as an artist, everybody should have the freedom to express, not to say yes to everything the management says.

Gaga being thrown up on a swine rodeo

For me, that is the spirit of the true Glam-Rock Culture. In this 2014, I must say that the culture is not always related with the gay movement. It's about freedom to express and freedom to experience the soul of the culture. The root itself was actually from the experience of having the freedom in the past, breaking any rules just to have the moment where we can be who we truly are. The Glam-Rock Culture is the way to experience it. The way to be free.

Sources:
The Twisted Tale of Glam Rock
Lady Gaga Declares Herself 'Librarian of Glam Culture' (Rolling Stone)

Do Men Have Icons?

David Beckham, the main icon for men

There’s a story when I went to barbershop. The barber asked to the customer what kind of hair that he’d like to have. He said that he wanted a style like David Beckham. Then I couldn’t help but wonder do men only have one icon, only for their hair?
It’s different from women. They have Kate Moss, Princess Diana, or Anna Wintour. Black women have Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama who always dress perfectly from head to toe. Even fashion freaks have Isabella Blow and Daphne Guiness. They have someone to look up to when they dress.
On the other side, men are more experimental. People that they (fashion lovers) look up to constantly change, and they always look for items that are trends. I personally never look up to someone. One time I really wanna look like Johnny Depp (yeah, freak), the next day I wanna look like Nolan Funk (which is, you know, cool). One of my friends is also influenced by different things especially Asian style. He tries different combinations of hair, tees, and pants. He experiments. So I got into this conclusion that men generally only have an icon for their hair.
Maybe someday when men’s fashion is equal to women’s, we will hear something like, “Hey Johnny Depp is my fashion icon and I wanna look like him!” from men.

Changing Something When You Are… Something

Some things don’t need to be changed. But in fashion, if you are a powerful or influential person in the business, what would you change?

A campaign to save Anna Wintour, just because she's powerful.

Mine is to create the exact boundaries between men fashion and feminism, because the line is getting Blurry. Not to mention big brands like J.W. Anderson that always make the collection for men that has feminism side. It’s one of the powerful characters in men fashion, knowing that a lot of men already have the feminism style. But for me, it really needs the exact boundary. Remember when Burberry styled their models in quite feminist style in their AW14 show? Even though they really want to put that in their collection, maybe they can more style their models like Versace (which had a bolder concept) and it should really different from J.W. Anderson which basically has a feminism from the first time. I was actually inspired by the risk that Anna Wintour took earlier in her career. She risked herself because she wanted to change the concept of Vogue’s cover. But she was right and Vogue is now one of the biggest magazines in the business.
Changing something is not quite necessary when you are someone in the field. You can develop what does already exist. But changing something can put you into the list of people that must be considered, just like Anna.

The Fashion Industry

1920's. A bold statement from women's fashion

In hundreds of years, fashion has been the important part of this life. Not to mention legends that tried to change the face of the world through fashion like Coco Chanel and Lee McQueen. Today some people still think that fashion is all about look, only. Meanwhile out there, without our consciousness, fashion deals with a lot of aspects in our life.
Fashion industry is all about look. But not only that, it has a big part in our lives. In fashion we have the designers and councils that decide trends for the next season; they always move one step forward. In another aspect, there are magazines, journalists, and fashion bloggers that also take a big part in spreading the style and the trends. People in the fashion business need to reconsider about every move; otherwise they will collapse. Like in Italy, maybe some of you already realize that the last Men’s Fashion Week (AW14) in Milan has a basic collection. Versace tried to recall their silk shirt collection, and Dolce & Gabbana had a pretty standard formalwear. The keyword for all of the brands in Milan is ‘formalwear’ which means they have a big target, the employee, to buy their products. They need to boost the sales. That’s why the collection was quite different with the collection from London Fashion Week, like Alexander McQueen and Burberry AW14.

Vogue, one of the biggest fashion magazines, became the bible of fashion for some people.

Fashion industry never dies of collapses, it‘s because everybody needs to buy clothes. Social life sometimes pushes people to have a good look to define their wealth, luxury, or even to describe their characters. Councils like CFDA is working very hard not only to discover new talented designers (which doubled from the number 250 members to 450 members) but also to target some designers, based on regions, to be successful. For example, in 2014 CFDA rumored targets NY designers to be as successful as Paris or Milan designers.
The (fashion) industry is so big, and without people realize, it becomes one part of our lives that can’t be separated. Every aspect includes fashion; the taste, the look, the trends, and the business.

Versace Menswear AW14, The Statement of 'The Real' Freedom

Versace – a brand that was found by Gianni Versace in 1978 is a famous for its luxury and (elegant) freedom. On their latest menswear show, AW14, Versace spoke up about what’s happening around the world: civil rights and love. Donatella herself said that the show and the collection were about liberating men and “an expression of freedom. I think it’s really important today with what’s going on in the world with civil rights and love.”

Some of the strong statements are about gay rights, where Donatella put some accessories to address about it. Some accessories are like handkerchiefs, silk shirts (which is one of the most iconic Versace wardrobe), and leather pants where you can see through the underwear.

Compared to another shows like London Collections: Men that was held earlier, Milan Fashion Week has bolder statement. Dolce & Gabbana had a real (overrated?) concept about royals, and now Versace has their own statement to say ‘f*** off’ to countries that don’t support gays.
To be really honest about this Versace’s AW14 collection, this reminds me about why I love Versace. The luxury, the statement during the show, the details of the fabrics, and the iconic silk shirts and leathers, those are all why I love them. So different from McQueen’s AW14 that took concept about patterns on their coats, trousers, and soft sweaters, Versace chose to take a quite risky move by giving a strong statement to the whole world about the real freedom that the world needs to have. Not artistic freedom, but freedom to love and freedom to have rights.

London Collections: Men A/W 2014

LCM is done. Now I need to announce that Alexander McQueen set the bar high with bold patterns in their collection. Actually I was excited about Burberry because their AW12 collection was one of my faves, it was iconic. But I don't quite get their AW14 collection, using leather for the coat and they painted it? (I heard you can customize with your name on it) But seriously, there is nothing iconic with their AW14. Another brand that got my attention is Katie Eary with their 'different' show; it's quite far from the elegance but actually some of their clothes can do well as long as you can combine it right. To be honest, I expected something more shocking from J.W. Anderson because since they did a collab with Versus Versace (which is one of my faves of all time), I thought they could do better than their J.W. Anderson X Versus Versace collection with their gender-bending stuff; I'm only impressed by their coat. Overall, LCM AW14 already told their statement, that patterns and art are the key points of this season. McQueen men's AW14 show gave us hints about the best patterns that we could wear for sweaters and coats, Burberry showed us about the art. Now Milan Fashion Week is around the corner. Big brands like Versace and Dolce&Gabbana are going to show their AW 2014-2015 collection and we'll see if patterns and art are really the trends.

Alexander McQueen AW14

Burberry AW14

Katie Eary AW14

J. W. Anderson AW14