Spring/Summer 09 spectacular fashion shows

Fashion sometimes offers unique and spectacular shows. For spring/summer 2009, designers and fashion houses have come up with fantastic and magical fashion shows, pushing their imagination to the wildest limits.

Changes in fashion biz in 2008

Milan invests in Fashion&ICT with a national prize

"Milan hosts the National Prize for Innovation 2008 with a concrete commitment. In fact, the Town Council invests in 3 great infrastructure of research, incubator and projects." that was what the major Letizia Moratti said at the presentation of the final at the department of Design, Arts, Communication and Fashion of Politecnico University of Milan. Particularly, the initiative sustains the best entrepreneurial ideas and research with an high-tech content. Basically, the contest will be developed in Business Cases organized by 42 italian universities to decide which projects are the most interesting.

Subsequently, the major explained the efforts made to improve fashion sector and studies. Firstly, it has been created a consortium among Bocconi, Politecnico, Iulm and Cattolica universities and National Fashion Chamber. For what concerns the City of Taste, the study has been realised by State University and the Tecnological Padan Park. Secondly, it has been constituited a network of incubator of young high-tech enterprises. Thirdly, it comes the projects. One of them is the wi-fi connection in Milan from the downtown to San Siro zone in order to give a range of services to inhabitants like the ones bout security, parking places.

55DSL TemporART opening

Fashion, music and design. Those are the ingredients of the mix that was present on the 6th december in Galleria Corso San Carlo where Diesel opened 55DSL TemporarART Store, a new spacce where the creative team of Andrea Rosso reveals its creativity.

A big party, continued at Magazzini Generali, started this new project where the concept becomes a new experience: divided in 2 sections, one white and one black, 55 DSL TemporART Store has been studied on two parallel levels where the continuum will be the collection 55DSL.

Andrea Rosso, music and design enthusiatic, will give the possibility to a lot of young artists to show their own talent thanks to the personalization of the space that will be an important novity shop window. The first artist was T.O.D.O.S., a spanish collective of Madrid.

55DSL TemporART
Galleria San Carlo

Milan

oh bej, oh bej

photos by Giulia Agostini

The Oh Bej! Oh bej! fair is the traditional outdoor market that takes place each year on the 7th December for one week around Castello Sforzesco in Milan.

It first appeared in 1288 in honour of Saint Ambrogio, but the origins belongs to the arrival of Giannetto Castiglione, Gran Maestro of the order of the Saints Maurizio and Lazzaro. He was in charge under Pope Pio IV to turn on the faith in the city of Milan. When he entered the city walls on the 7th December, he handed out presents to gain the love of the inhabitans, until he reached the Duomo.

From that point on, the market presents each year clothes, old toys and mainly food.

Camerino café+Levi's, Music+Fashion

What happens when music and fashion meet each other? That's what has made up Levi's in collaboration with Camerino Café (Radio 105). Everyday, you can entry the shop in Corso Buenos Aires, Milan, and become the main character of the show.

Yesterday, the project were opened with a live of the emergent and talentous Bugo.

http://www.camerinocafe.com/

Original Levi's store
Corso Buenos Aires 14/A

Diesel 'Liquid Space' Holographic Fashion Show

During the last runways, Diesel wowed the style crowds with an impressive multimedia show. Using CGI technology, projected motion graphics of models and creatures from the deep created the illusion that they were moving together down the runway along with live models.

The show, entitled "Liquid Space," played with concepts of metamorphosis as strange hybrid forms of man, machine and sea creature appeared to float through space. Weaving their way around the actual models, these creatures transformed into animated models wearing the collection and then the clothes dissolved into millions of glittering fishes. The format and style of the traditional fashion show has been played with by many designers, but with this show Diesel moved into a new creative realm, combining fashion and 3D animation technology in front of a live audience.

The grand master of Diesel’s famously attention-grabbing imagery is Creative Director Wilbert Das and special effects were created by the Spanish CGI animation studio Dvein along with Danish multi-media production agency Vizoo.

Gas and Vice party

Another big party for a brand that speaks to youth. Gas Jeans prepared the big happening at Ied Moda Lab on the 29th November in collaboration con Vice Magazine. Everyone met at 6 p.m. in Gas store in Corso di Porta Ticinese but few managed to clutch the invitation.

The charitable, fashionable matrioskas

Matrioskas as models for Cavali, Versace, Prada are now shown in Moscow. This is the last fashion of charity.

The 10th anniversary of Vogue Russia has been the occasion for that social commitment. Particularly, it consists on an auction of tens matrioskas created and dressep up with dyed dresses and accessores, like glasses, by the top luxury maisons. Also Naomi Campbell took part at the event with her new lover, Vladislav Doronin, co-owner of 'Capital Group that gifted her a dool of 23 thousend euros by YSL to celebrate her first pubblic presence in Moscow with him. Surprisinly, the one which has recorded the highest bid was the one of Valentin Iudashkin for 100.000 dollars. The total takings amounts to 1 milior euros.

'08ML: indipendent publishing festival in Milan

Today and tomorrow, indipendent publishing festival 08ML is held in Triennale Bovisa from 4pm to 2 am.

It is a good occasion for your reading curiosity. Not only can you buy book on sale by 42 medium and little firm, but also you can chat and get to know the authors. Among the latest fashions, there is the Verdenero series that will introduce the new book of Lucarelli, Navi a perdere.

The festival wants to double the success of the previous and first edition. Like that one, it will be free and the spaces are three times bigger. Deliciously, the Triennale Bistrot will provide the attedants with a opulent buffet. Moreover, dj sets will be joined by live music, while the children will be delighted by animations inspired by the books'theme. In the exteriors, a videoinstallation will be projected and show quotations from the paperbacks displayed.

Thanks to the association "Spazio aperto servizio", there will be place also for the solidarity.

Eastpak by Eley Kishimoto: party again!!!

Eastpak had to celebrated (another) extraordinary cobranding with Eley Kishimoto with a great music party. On Thursday the 20th of November, Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto landed in Milan to do it. This couple in their private life and design one have already worked for LV, Marc Jabobs, Alexander McQueen, Jil Sander e Cacharel. Here, they are to show their four fruits for Eastpak.

Alberta Ferretti's flagship store in LA

The inauguration of the new flagship shop of Alberta Ferretti in LA wasn't to lose. At te 8626 of Melrose Avenue, all Hollywood was there. In that occasion, friends and devoted to the brand had the possibility to appreaciate the new pap of Alberta Ferretti and Philosophy, as well as the last accessories' line.

The interiors of the boutique show a new concept of the brand. For instance, the architects' studio Sybarite from London has created a spacious, luminous and sophisticated store according to the brand image: 420 m where the white predominates, in contrast with the living colours of the collections that float in the space hanging from magnetic hangers.

Besides the already existent lines, Alberta Ferretti Girls has been launched and it is reserved for girls from 5 to 12 y.o. Moreover, in the next two years, AF plans to open a middle-east network in Doha, Jeddha, Dubai, New Delhi e Beyrouth. AF: another example of italian fashion spreading all over the world!

How a window speaks about current events

India is the star of the holiday windows at the famous label Hermès flasghip store on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. An enchanting display that's a far cry from the latest Mumbai tragic events. Director of decoration Leila Menchari's aim was to captivate passers-by with unique and exclusive pieces.

Save your logo

Nowadays, fashion and nature are closely related. Besides the animalier textures used for the dresses, a crocodile means LaCoste, a puma reminds you of a sweaty T-shirt, a dear of Abercombie&Fitch, for example.

According to this trend, the Global Environment Facility has launched the campaign "Save your logo" in order to stimulate the firms to save the animal which inspires their brands. Fortunately, for the prestige of the enterprise and for the future of those furry animal, some good results have been seen.

Be Frozen

Another example of flash mob: frozen. Thousands of people meets in a square and they stop (froze) for some minutes. Then, their life go on in the same ordinary way.

Here is an example in Milan.

Volemosebbene smart mob

The difference betwwen flash and smart mob is the organisation. That's why smart mobs are more used by advertising agencies than the uncontrollable flash mob.

Behind the scenes of the smart mob in Rome, there's Tim. It took place in Campo de Fiori and everyone had to gift something to others in the previous to S.Valentine's day. Tim offered 1000 wrapped pack and the luckiest 6 won a mobile.

The day was symbolical. Not only do people have to love eachother because of San Valentine's day, but in everyday day of their life.

Flash Mob in Shangai

Flash mob examples

The first recorded use of the term flash mob was in 2003 in a blog entry posted in the aftermath of Wasik's event. The term was inspired by the earlier term smart mob. Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English defines flash mob as “a group of people who organize on the Internet and then quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse.” The press has also used the term flash mob to refer a practice being used in China where groups of shoppers arrange online to meet at a store at the same time in order to drive a collective bargain with the store owner.

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Two are the most notable flash mobs: Pillow fight and Geocaching. Worldwide Pillow Fight Day (or International Pillow Fight Day) was a pillow fight flash mob that took place on March 22, 2008. Over 25 cities around the globe participated in the first "international flash mob", which was the world's largest flash mob to date. According to The Wall Street Journal, over 5,000 participants participated in New York City, overtaking London's 2006 Silent Disco gathering as the largest recorded flash mob. Word spread via social networking sites, including Facebook, Myspace, Wikipedia, private blogs, public forums, and personal websites. Participating cities included Beirut, Boston. Budapest, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dublin, Houston, Innsbruck, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Monterrey, New York City, Paris, Pécs, Shanghai, San Francisco, Stockholm, Sydney, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., Zurich.

The increasingly popular hobby of geocaching developed a twice/year event in 2007 called "World Wide Flash Mob", held in the spring and the fall. Players active in geocaching are encouraged to develop events that produce a quick flash mob complete with an event booth and group photo that instanly disperses after 15 minutes. A unique aspect is that these flash mob events occur simultaneously around the world at the same day and time (1:00-1:15 PM Eastern time and simultaneously in other times zones, i.e. in London it would be held at 6:00-6:15pm, in San Francisco it would be held at 10:00-10:15am, etc.).The next such event is scheduled to happen on November 8, 2008. As an example, four such simultaneous events are planned within the New York Metropolitan Area, in Valhalla, in Babylon, NY, in Edison, NJ, and in London, UK.

A brief history of Flash Mob

A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse.

Flash mobs, to use a terrible pun, were quite literally a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon. Created by a man known only by "Bill" in summer of 2003, they spread globally with rapid pace and died out almost completely by the winter of that same year. In the summer of 2005, flash mobs officially "sold out" so-to-speak, with Ford's "flash concerts" that promoted their latest model, the Fusion. This past March, Harper's magazine reflected upon the flash mob phenomenon and simultaneously revealed its inventor: Bill Wasik, who just happens to be the senior editor at Harper's.

The first attempt was unsuccessful after the targeted retail store was tipped off about the plan for people to gather. Wasik avoided such problems during the second flash mob. To begin the experiment, Wasik sent a simple email on May 27, 2003 to about 60 friends and acquaintances. The email was vague, forwarded to himself by himself from an unused email address. It asked people to synchronize their watches and meet in a given location in New York. To avoid looking staged, he asked people to approach from different directions based on their birth month. Further instructions were to be given at the site by a random person via a slip of paper. The first mob failed due to the police receiving knowledge about it, but the second, which took place in the rug department of Macy's, was a success. About 200 people came into Macy's and informed clerks that they were looking for a love rug for their commune that they all lived in and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. Wired News wrote about it two days later, and the flash mob spread rapidly to other cities. Subsequently, 200 people flooded the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about fifteen seconds, and a shoe boutique in SoHo was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip. The New York Times, in an effort to have a leg up on the story that other newspapers didn't, predicted (correctly) a backlash to the flash mob sensation. Wasik suspected as much, although the Times had impeccable timing on the story.

Wasik revealed that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, an attempt to make fun of hipster culture, and above all a social experiment designed to demonstrate the joining urge of human beings. He planned the lifespan of the flash mob in its entirety, from the first flash mob to its backlash, downfall, and subsequent commercialization. While the content of the flash mobs themselves was apolitical (the ones Wasik organized, at least, although they were definitely transformed into political protest by some), the lifespan of the flash mob speaks volumes about digital networking, the nature of the human herding instinct, and the commercialization of everything.

Get caught in a flashmob!

Sometime you can see a lot of people doing weird things on the streets in Milan. Surprisingly, you might be caught in a flashmob event.

While this mass event started spontaneously, nowadays it has became increasly a new marketing technique to launch new products.