My apologies for not updating in a while. I’ve encountered writer’s block for the past week. While I try to find my words in fashion, I wanted to share with you an artist I’ve grown to love ever since I saw his exhibition in Vienna last year.

Alfons Mucha was a Czech decorative artist and illustrator and believe it or not, his illustrations were often used for job advertising such as the image above. I always found his style depicting women in their splendour with expressive lines and gorgeous hair, almost anime-like. They also have a somewhat realistic quality to them when it comes to the face. You can google his name and see the many wonderful images he’s created.

I found Garance Doré’s work to remind me in some ways of Mucha’s work with the expressive feminine lines in her drawings. Though she is much more minimalistic with her lines.

Enjoy!

When I ventured over to the Lincoln Center today, it was rainy, windy with few people around, probably because most of them were attending shows and the only people loitering around the grounds were the paparazzi, security guards and tourists.

As I observerd, I saw the paparazzi photograph nearly anyone that was slim, had big nerdy glasses, 5 inch platform heels, or had the look of a model. Bryan Boy made a speech at the Independing Fashion Bloggers Conference last Thursday about how all style blogs these days are starting to look the same and the “fashionable people” are starting to look the same. In some sense, I can see why he’s right about the latter. I see some pretty crazy outfits, and then I just see long legs strapped into super high heels. The styles really ranged from either chic-ly relaxed or over-the-top a la Lady Gaga. Few women on the grounds were well manicured, tailored and sharp, I suppose the classic look is not “en vogue”.

I only had to spend about 20 mins on the grounds watching people go by and getting photographed to realize that this is so passé and déjà vu. It’s strange saying this, because fashion blogging and street styling are still relatively new, like it’s been going on for 3-4 years now. But there’s an over saturation of street style I find and I’m just ready for something fresh.You can take thousands of photos of stylish people, but so what? There are thousands more popping up on the net every single day.

Just to demonstrate a small sample, here’s a stylish woman walking down Lincoln Center while taking off her coat (below). Not a minute later, she was asked to stop and pose for the photographers. We have 4 photographers here. So we’re going to see this photo at least 4 times on the internet, make that 5 if you count me, but I was a bystander photographing other photographers.

When I say Street Style is over, I meant for fashion blogs and fashion publications. Street style will still continue to perpetuate no matter what, and that’s great, but I mean in the end, for people who absorb fashion and look through these blogs on a regular basis, wouldn’t it be enough to just have people style themselves as they see fit? Or do people actually copy what is being styled on these street style photos? I personally find that I commend a lot of people for their personal styles but would rarely apply their style to my own wardrobe.

There was a slight complaint on the Fashion Spot about Garance Doré‘s blog that had once photographed normal people that were fashionable and unique lose its original appeal. Rather the blog now sports the ultra fashionable model-like (or literal models) photos that normal fashion photographers would pick for photoshoots instead of non-fashionable people. It’s a mixed bag, since I hadn’t discovered Garance until she had emerged as a superstar fashion blogger and illustrator.

The disadvantage of the internet is that it can easily become a place of saturation and that the hunt for newer, cooler, fresher things will always be right around the corner.

Personally, I’m already on the hunt for the next take on fashion and technology. I just haven’t quite figured out the future of fashion bloggers yet.

No one could really tell or advise you how to handle Fashion’s Night Out in New York, especially since this was only the second year and radically different from last year’s inaugural celebration.

The event certainly dwarfed any of the fashion events I attended, including the Fashion & Design Festival in Montreal. Practically the entire city of New York, visitors and residence alike were decked out in their most fashionable outfits, high heels galore and people crowding the streets to attend more than 100 locations around the city.

My first stop was to go to Jil Sander’s new bridge line “Jil Sander Navy” with special guest appearance by French illustrator Garance Doré, who had shot the campaigns for the line. The Navy line will replace the one from Uniqlo in order to cater to middle class consumers. The collection mainly consisted of near pure CMYK intensity of Magenta, Cyan, White, and Bright Orange. This season’s collection was more sporty with a few shift dresses, and sports jackets with adjustable ties. Some of the white shorts had some interesting textures, thus not your typical run of the mill pieces, it was a nice breezy collection for spring. I loved the store layout at Jil Sander, with pure white walls and floors, and featureless white mannequins, they really made the clothes pop out.

When Garance finally arrived, with her fellow fashion beau – Scott Schuman, she was totally glammed up and was much more beautiful in person than I had anticipated. I was actually expecting that cool laid back French look, but was greeted with a more sleeked back look and stunning red lips. She’s friendly, girly and still is overwhelmed by the attention she gets for her work, so I find her to be very humble. When I asked her about how she approached the shoot for the campaign, she said that because she’s a newcomer to New York (having moved there recently), she was afraid of losing that sense of “lost in the city” approach and wanted to reflect that in her photos. No doubt her photos had a Sartorialist feel to them, the difference being she would catch people in a moment rather than have them pose for the photo.

Scott Schuman was another blogger I had anticipated in meeting, but his aura exhuded professionalism, and I was a little star struck, so I didn’t quite know what to ask him. So I asked something related to Garance, like how she got into photography and he said that he gave her her first camera. That was really sweet! He discussed the busy schedule they had ahead of them and expressed their interest to travel to smaller fashion weeks in other countries, since the bigger ones are sort of a “been there done that”. I found this to be kind of particular since it seems that when you’re a nobody, you want to be the superstar, but when you’re the superstar, you want to go back to being low key. Isn’t it strange?

Overall, I was glad to meet them, but at the same time they had other people to talk to, it wasn’t quite full at Jil Sander, but it was enough to make Garance feel like she did reach out to a few at least. Good for her.

While at Jil Sander I had chatted up with Jason, a fan of Jil Sander and Garance’s work. We had a good friendly chemistry for strangers and ended up hanging out together for the rest of the evening. It was one of those serendipitous New York moments, where a stranger can make you pass the time so much faster. I followed him to Ralph Lauren, where it was the total opposite of Jil Sander, packed halfway into the open street. Vogue’s Editor at Large, Andre Leon Talley made an appearance to introduce Grammy-nominated singer, Janelle Monae (a singer I’ve never heard of). Her opening song, “Sincerely Jane” blew me away. She was referenced by Andre as the “Marlene Dietrich” of our time, with a fitted tuxedo look, a look she said she paid tribute to her parents, people who put on a uniform for a living. Her performance though brief, was electrifying and her dance moves had the crowd going wild.

The party at Chanel in Soho was blocking traffic nearly in all directions, it was virtually impossible to go in. At Reiss, supermodel Coco Rocha posed in front of an English red telephone booth they installed inside the store (Rimmel London was a co-sponsor of the event).

By 10pm I was exhausted. I had been up since 4:30am that day and had been pretty much on the go non-stop. Being in New York gives you tons of energy but at the same time drains you twice as much.

Hollywood has made a biopic of Facebook creator, or so he claims, Mark Zuckerberg, called “The Social Network“. Perhaps not a person of interest for fashion enthusiasts, however…

What IS interesting though is casting into an already bright limelight, a young entrepreneur, a computer engineer as its star. Not exactly your typical run of the mill Hollywood star, Zuckerberg definitely would not make it on the cover of Vogue, but he will make it onto the cover of the New York Times.

I wonder, could Hollywood be the last frontier for fashion bloggers?

Amidst the print, tv and web media, there’s only one place left for fashion bloggers to conquer in the media world: film. It’s a natural progression really. Over the years, the fashion industry has grown accustomed in watching documentary films and bio pics about fashion houses and its designers, but we have yet to see a full blown, glamorous bio pic of a relatively young social media star, plucked out of nowhere, and cultivating a cult following online. True, fashion bloggers have not yet graced the covers of fashion magazines or any other magazine for that matter, but it’s only a matter of time until someone bedazzles the entire online world to the point that big media will have to feature them to sell copies. Could it be possible that having a bio pic made is the ultimate validation of the success of a fashion blogger? I’m scared to think of the possibilities.

What’s particular about The Social Network movie trailer is that it takes an intimate look at Facebook’s creator. The trials and error of a start up company and the painful consequences to success. What fashion bloggers have maintained quite well is their privacy. Sure, they share with everyone what they had for lunch and if they had gum stuck on their shoe, yet there is still a barrier that has not been crossed. Gossip of private relationships of fashion bloggers are rarely discussed, and the budding fashion media companies bought out by bigger corporations are often simply viewed as a routine business transaction. Fashion editors of these sites come and go, often we don’t really know of the politics or agendas behind these moves. Is it worth looking into? It could be interesting.

I would love to see someone creating a documentary about fashion bloggers and showing the public the metrics of how they came to be, what they’re about, and how it has changed the relationship between fashion and media today. No doubt the stars of today’s fashion blogosphere will include Scott Schuman, Garance Doré, Bryan Boy, Susie Bubble, Tommy Ton and Tavi, their legacy has already been written down as the first generation of fashion blogging stars who have broken the barrier to be invited to the front rows of fashion and couture shows as bloggers.

If “The Social Network” proves to be a success, Hollywood probably won’t be trailing to0 far behind for fashion bloggers. It’s only a matter of time until the fashion world discovers their diamond in the rough, a genius that will surely clench a permanent spot for fashion bloggers as a valid media portal into the fashion world.

Thanks to Twitter, Facebook and the numerous blogging engines on the web, fashion bloggers who have applied to Montreal Fashion Week have gone up to 15% of the media being accredited, according to Sensation Mode’s PR rep Sophie des Marais to La Presse. One accredited blogger wasn’t really a blogger, but a Facebook girl with over 1200 friends who loved fashion. This follows hot on the heels of internet sensation Scott Schuman, Bryan Boy, Tommy Ton, and Garance Doré who have had front row seats (and laptops) at the recent Dolce & Gabbana show in Milan.

This past Spring Summer 2010 fashion “month” has seen some of the most remarkable change of attitude towards fashion bloggers and the relationship between fashion and technology as a whole. A handful of shows have streamed their fashion shows live online, most notably Alexander McQueen and Louis Vuitton, as well as the timely release of LuxuryLab’s Digital IQ list of the most technologically competent luxury brands. Fashion 2.0 has never been such a hot commodity than now.

But, fashion bloggers are still languishing below top journalists and fashion editors at reputable publications in terms of recognition, according to UQAM’s Chairman of Public Relations and Communications, Bernard Motulsky. But the fact that fashion bloggers are making their own space at Montreal Fashion Week and to get recognition for it, is a step forward.

As we move further into the online fashion revolution, we can only expect more online innovations and initiatives.Style Coalition, for example is already one of the first to curate events that involve fashion and new media.SHOWStudio collaborates with some major designer brands and fashion forward artists by melding together fashion, art and technology with video, music and projections. It’s only with time will we see who will emerge as the leading voices of the new fashion media frontier.

Image credits: Kurt Geiger, Bryan Boy, Garance Doré