Haute Couture Expo Coming to Quebec City
Evening dress, Pierre Balmain, 1950
Oui les amis! Quebec City will have the honor of hosting a special exhibition of Haute Couture, true Haute Couture that is. Titled the “Golden Age of Couture : Paris and London, 1947-1957″, the exhibit will feature more than 250 unique pieces from well-known French couture houses such as Dior, Givenchy, Balenciaga and Balmain (the original).
It will be held at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec from Feb 4 to April 25, 2010.
The website already has a lovely preview of some of the pieces. Simply divine! Now that’s what I call true couture fashion.
I feel fortunate that Montreal and Quebec are recipients for some of the loveliest couture exhibitions. First Repetto’s 60th anniversary, then YSL’s Retrospective Expo, and now this.
Vive la mode!
Image credit: MNBQ
Las Vegas: Never Trust The Weather Channel
Having heard news that there were chances of thunderstorm in Las Vegas, I was prepared to spend my stay in dreary rainy weather. But no. What kind of meteorologist says that it’ll rain…in the desert. Take no heed to anyone who says it’ll rain in Las Vegas. Today I baked and toasted under the hot desert heat like an omelette on a grill.
I arrived yesterday to our modest but rather very large hotel 15 mins off the strip at South Point Hotel Casino & Spa. The rooms are large and comfortable, very clean, huge plasma screen and a great view over the hotel’s pool.
But enough about hotel and comfort talk, let’s talk fashion and shopping in Las Vegas.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Las Vegas is building CityCenter on the Vegas Strip right next to the Bellagio Hotel. It’s slated to open in 2009 and construction has already been underway and had progressed much faster than I had anticipated. This patch of land already has the infrastructure to a near completion, a few of the buildings are already halfway through putting on the glistening silvery windows. CityCenter will definitely stand out in the Strip as I noticed many other buildings may be flashy with lights, but many are covered in gold mirror like windows. CityCenter will be all silver mirrored.
A Fashion Book for Smart People
This book should be a lesson to everyone. In fact, I think it should be mandatory for anyone with a serious interest in fashion to read this amazing book that I gobbled up in a mere 3 days.
“The End of Fashion,” written by veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Teri Agins, feels like the equivalent of 100 NY Times or Wall Street Journal articles. Journeying through several examples of popular fashion designers, she shows an evolution in the business of fashion up until the very end of the 1990s. From the flamboyant Isaac Mizrahi to the brutally honest persona of Zoran, she details in great lengths of the struggles of fashion businesses throughout the last 20 years.
Establishing a fashion brand is more than crafting designs. In today’s standards, you have to be as much as a savvy salesman with great marketing skills in order to break even in the industry. Fashion magazines will rarely give you a look of the other side of the moon. Should you wish to further expand your knowledge on fashion, pay attention to the business section of your newspaper, you might find some interesting tidbits.
What I loved about this book are some of the spectacular failures and shortcomings of powerhouses who thought they would be unstoppable.
