Barbie’s Fashion Show on New York Fashion Week 2009

The most loved doll of all time and a true fashion icon in its own doll special way, Barbie is celebrating its 50th Birthday in 2009 with her own Fashion Show. Its parent company Mattel Inc will market Barbie as a fashion brand with a runway show in February 2009 during New York Fashion Week and will feature many designer collaboration to guarantee an unforgettable birthday. Fifty designers will produce life-sized outfits inspired by the doll. Famous designer Vera Wang will create a life-size wedding gown which will include Barbie wearing its own mini version too. Other designers include Jeremy Scott and Diane Von Furstenberg who will also make real life garments that reflect Barbie’s fashion world.

But the collaborations do not stop there as a little further east in Shanghai, the first Barbie Flagship store worldwide, the House of Barbie, will open its doors in 2009. The store is a 3400-square-meter-store and will carry Barbie dolls and all Barbie related products. The new Barbie collection will go on sale there and Mattel says that House of Barbie will encourage women and girls to “nibble on truffles, smear on pink-tinted mud masks and shop for clothes for themselves and their dolls”.

Mattel will also sponsor New York’s IMG organised Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. The senior vice president at IMG Fern Mallis explains, “For many young girls, [Barbie is] their first association with fashion and dressing up and changing clothes.” And what an amazing year for Barbie and all its fans worldwide it will be!

Paris Spring 2009: Jean Paul Gaultier

The cute show started out with a trio of modern dancers who danced on the runway. Gaultier’s favorite girl and one of my favorite models, Coco Rocha, reprised her Riverdance moment from Fall 2007 as she joined in the dance. She then took the stage wearing her dance shoes in a fuchsia dress which turned out to be a leotard. This was a ballet inspired collection featuring fitted suits, shirts tied in the back over high waist jersey pants, and flowing dresses. The hairstyles were really cute as the girls with their pinned up hairs under head wraps in true ballet fashion.

* Jean Paul Gaultier Paris Spring 2009

Spring 2009: The Most Dangerous Shoes

The runways are a scary place especially when it comes to the dangerously high heels, which seem to be more torturous than fashionably beautiful. The shoes can be either way too high or way too uncomfortable and combined with the runway experiments like a sandy runway or the plain extremely slippery ones, we get a horrifying combination of the hazardous runway shows.

This year, many models tripped during the shows of Rodarte, Pucci and who can forget Prada. And many more models stumbled at Dolce & Gabbana and BCBG and many others were petrified during Basso & Brooke, Marni, Gucci, Aminaka Wilmont and Christian Dior but miraculously survived. In any case, I think designers should start paying attention to this much more. It is one thing to bring fantasy and temptatious footwear to the runway, it is another to have models visibly scared, trembling or falling on the runway, there by distracting the audience from the clothes since the audience is merely too worried about the poor girls on the runway.

Below are some of the most horrifying, including the toe-less/sole-less shoes by Aminaka Wilmont, as well as Prada, Rodarte, Marni and Basso & Brooke in that order from left to right!

Victoria Beckham Shocks NY with Heel-Less Boots!

At the Beckhams’ perfume launch this weekend in New York, Victoria shocked all by wearing these PVC thigh-high heel-less boots by Antonio Berardi. A pair of these runs at about $5,600 and are made to order. The English-Italian designer started the heel-less shoe trend in the summer with the heel-less sandals which were actually bought by Uma Thurman, Gwyneth Paltrow and of course Posh Spice. These new made to order boots have already sold around 60 pairs worldwide.

Is this design impossible to wear? After all, heels alone make you feel enormous pain after long hours, then what will no heels do for your high-”heeled” shoes? Well, according to Berardi these shoes do not cause any pain.

“They are perfectly balanced. When the girls come for fittings, they look a bit daunted, but by the end they say it’s just like wearing a regular shoe. They are graceful and there is a ballerina nature about them. Having a heel is really just psychological.” The trick to the heel-less shoes is that they have a bigger platform sole which stretched back further than the ordinary heel shoes and this is what gives the needed support not to fall. However, when you walk you would need to step on your toes first. Medical experts of course disagree warning that if regularly worn, the shoes could cause permanent physical damage. I can see their appeal as they remind of the pointe ballerina shoes. But any ballerina would tell you that she would never wear her shoes unless she had to, no matter how appealing they are.

Would you wear the heel-less shoes? Is this the next dangerous footwear trend that everyone will start obssesing about?

Dangerous Footwear: Models Fall at Prada Show

Well, I guess I wasn’t the only one who could not concentrate on the Prada Spring 2009 show because of the intense fear that the models would permanently injure themselves. Many critics cited the extreme footwear as a “giant distraction from the clothes.” Two models actually fell on the runway and many more stumbled. According to Prada, the hazardous shoes would slippery because the models wore them with socks. Just because of the socks?

One of the models says to Telegraph newspaper, “I was having a panic attack, my hands were shaking. The heels were so high. Some of the girls were crying backstage they were so scared.” Poor models!

But a big applause goes to all of them, especially the ones that fell and then got back on their feet with their heads held high. Below is a short video of one of the girls falling.

* Model falls at Prada Show Spring 2009

Naomi Campbell’s Fashion For Relief Show

Many celebrities walked the runway for Fashion For Relief, a fashion show organized by supermodel Naomi Campbell to raise money for the charity The White Ribbon Alliance fund to promote safe childbirth. The clothes from the runway were later auctioned. The celebrities walking on the runway included designer Vivienne Westwood, model Chanel Iman, hot Tyson Beckford, Elizabeth Jagger, girl group the Sugababes and Miss Naomi Campbell of course.

Vivienne Westwood walked with a big smile down the runway wearing her own design. Naomi Campbell showed her supermodel walk down the runway a couple of times. She opened the show wearing a stunning Zac Posen green dress which raised $50,000 in the auction and then changed into an Yves Saint Laurent black outfit. Naomi also paired with young model Chanel Iman as they both wore the same Azzedine Allaia design dress; Naomi’s in black and Chanel’s in white.

The Fashion For Relief Show was presented during London Fashion Week for Spring 2009 at the National History Museum on September 17, 2008 in London, England. You can watch a short clip from the Fashion Show, although the quality is not very good. For more detailed pictures look below.

Fashion For Relief

New York Spring 2009: Zac Posen

A favourite of the Hollywood stars, Zac Posen presented a collection with a girly glamour 70s chic. The collection was a contrast of cocktail dresses with extreme heavy beading and embroidery with more streamlined looks like peach chiffon dresses. Aside from the glamorous boudoir chic Red Carpet dresses, there was a Victoriana-meets-prairie girl feel to the high neck blouses and linen asymmetrical skirts with handkerchief details. The models had frosted lips as their center piece make-up and oversized dangling earrings.

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