MSHOP UPDATE

We've helped you start your fashion business, we've provided our expert advice on every topic from patternmaking to getting write-ups in magazines. Now we're taking the PR reigns. Coming Soon, MShop will add a list of marketing and PR services to help you get your name from the storefront to the front covers of your favorite glossies.

Look our for our PR services Debut!

for more info check out: www.mshopnyc.com

OMG

Remember back in the 90's, when everyone wore CK One and uniformity seemed as daring and controversial a fashion statement as Kate Moss flaunting anorexia on Times Square billboards? There seems to be nostalgia in the air. Not only are No Doubt reuniting for one last tour, but The Gap is making a comeback.

The original fast fashion pioneer went on a roadshow to London Fashion Week to market their product not only to US customers, but to the world as a worthy adversary to H&M, Uniqlo, and others who stole their business model and ran with it.

The American retail matriarch, cousin to Banana Republic, grandmother to Old Navy, has successfully focused on bridging the gap (sorry, couldn't help it) between accessible price point and desirable design. This is thanks to lead Creative Patrick Robinson, who perhaps figured it out while designing a line for Target. Whatever the case, we're thankful. Walking back into the Gap will feel like a high school reunion. Time to break out the plaid and the Nirvana albums. but wait, didnt Dave Grohl make a comeback too?

http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/F2009RTW-GAP

OMG

After the LV show in paris this season, marc jacobs told a reporter from style.com that his next, most pressing venture would be to "sleep," something the fashion boy wonder is notorious for lacking. What's more shocking is that he never hinted at flocking to a more permanent nest with his long time partner, ad exec Lorenzo Martone.Their engagement was only announced minutes ago on WWD. We don't know what's more exciting, this news or the little fuschia and tulle skirts he put out on the runway.

Congrats to the happy couple!!
(Click OMG headline for the WWD article)

OMG

Recessionistas, make room on your Amexes. Yesterday, M Shop designer favorite Jil Sander announced an upcoming collaboration with Japanese fast-fashion brand Uniqlo.

Jil Sander, in the face of an economy declining faster than a mudslide, has made several successful choices recently in an effort to re-energize and re-connect its brand with old and new customers. Their fall '09 show split the collection in two, the first parade an homage to classic Jil Sander suits, the second a display of how they're signature focus on impeccable tailoring is applied to modern, contemporary styles. This was an excellent way to communicate with Jil Sander followers that they have not abandoned their brand image, and to teach newcomers and young fashionistas what the brand is all about.

"While at a fast-fashion price point, Uniqlo’s aesthetic mirrors Sander’s signature minimalism," reports WWD. we couldn't agree more. Making this bold assertion about their perspective at a lowered price point will justify purchases of their higher priced items to younger generations.

Get on this M Shoppers! Well, after your visit to the TopShop opening of course...

Click here for the WWD article

UPDATE

THEYSKENS AND NINA RICCI PART WAYS
(click above to view article)

If you remember our previous commentary on Nina Ricci's recent Paris showing, we are not surprised.

OMG

CNN.com's front page posted a link to footage of a massive stampede at the America's Next Top Model audition yesterday. A car with smoking tires drove up onto a curb nearby the highheel and micromini wearing mob, which turned into a dangerous game of telephone. What more could you expect from a pack of primadonnas with a flair for the dramatic?! By the time news reached the front of the line the lincoln towncar turned into a renegade terrorist vehicle transporting bombs.


"After the stampede, clothing and shoes littered the street outside the hotel," the London Telegraph reports. Three arrests and more than six injuries were reported.

We have two words: fashion roadkill.

for the london telegraph article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4997187/Stampede-at-Americas-Next-Top-Model-audition.html

Up and Coming

When one door closes, another always opens. The closing of several mags this year paves the way for newcomers to publish using bolder, more innovative concepts to captivate readers and solidify a circulation.

One such publication is Eye Candy the Volumes, a montreal-based magazine who considers itself less a disposable fashion flipthrough and more an art book, a substantial compilation of theme-focused fashion photography from by the industry's best. Every dollar counts these days, so we want to invest in something that is going to last us longer than a train ride uptown. Eye Candy satisfies that craving. The content is highly selective and rich in production quality. Definitely one for the coffee table, or a vast improvement over the flimsy stacks of W decorating the ottoman tray.

Eye Candy distributes in the states next month. We'll be sure to stalk the newstands until we catch a glimpse of it!

for more info, check out: www.eyecandythevolumes.tv

You Better Work

Okay, so the Marc Jacob's show clearly pointed to an 80's theme emerging for fall eveningwear, but we're curious what Nina Ricci was thinking. The collection was a group of highly structured gowns more suitable for a debutante from outerspace. Unless we're talking about Sofia Loren at the Oscars, we're not sure we'll see anyone braving these garments on any red carpet.

That said, their construction is beautiful, impeccable. There is something to be said for architectural design that, even if you wont risk it in public, tempts you at least to try it on. In fact, with the exaggerated platforms and puffed up shoulders, Olivier Theyskens' procession reminded us of the way little girls (and future dandies) strut back and forth in front of their mothers' mirrors in what appears to be grandiose party dresses on such small frames, hoping someday to have enough reason to flaunt themselves in chiffon. Theyskens' creations may not be entirely plausible for any setting other than a catwalk, but you can't blame a girl for dreaming right?

Work it, Ricci Girls, but be careful in those shoes! we wouldnt want another Naomi Campbell-Vivienne Westwood incident! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHFSzgh1YQ0)

for more of the Nina Ricci Collection: http://www.fashionweekdaily.com/news/fullstory.sps?inewsid=6628469

Up and Coming

Each year we anticipate the arrival of the next “It Bag” to the shelves of our favorite department store. We scan runway slideshows on style.com in search of it, we join waiting lists, bribe our sales associates to bump us up that same list, all to be the first to parade these pochettes and satchels with an air of authority and avant garde. We’ll shell out the $1500 + it costs just to be ahead of the curve, but do most of us really understand why?

Husbands, friends, accountants, the rest of society who don’t consider having fashion as important as a pulse, would deem this purchase wildly unnecessary, borderline irresponsible. We might respond it has to do with classic shape and timeless style, but there’s a bigger reason a Birkin is a Birkin. Park Avenue gossip girls went gaga over Chloe’s first version of the Paddington primarily because of its buttery soft texture and natural distressing. In other words, it’s all about the leather.

MShop recently visited an exhibit to showcase a select group of vegetable tanned leather factories in Tuscany, Italy. Ridges, grooves and pleats popped out of the raw skins against the smooth white surfaces of the Open House Gallery, an all white venue on Mulberry Street, to showcase the uniqueness of every piece of textile purchased. Skins of all colors were bunched into plexiglass cases, or draped gratuitously over podiums, each display inviting touch and inspiring desire. Every skin we passed we envisioned pinned with gemmed hardware or stamped with grommets and dangling from our arm by a sturdy, statement-making handle.

In all its simplicity, the exhibit was a successful lesson in custom and carefully made leather goods. The 26 tanneries who comprise the Italian Vegetable-Tanned Leather Consortium employ old traditions of leather tanning to manufacture a more organic, unique product, and Open House’s raw space served as the perfect venue to illuminate every mark of originality. Bravo to the collaboration. Anything that puts us in the mood to shop is worth checking out.

For more exhibitions and information about the Open House Gallery, check out: http://www.openhousegallery.org/

You Better Work

With a much anticipated world tour kicking off tuesday in New Orleans, we're happy to see Britney Spears doing the Madonna-style renaissance right this time. Trust us, we wouldnt call it a comeback unless she had the wardrobe to back it up.

The house of Dsquared has designed a collection of costumes for Britney and her Circus Tour performers. The bold get-ups are less Barnum and Bailey and a little more Seussical S&M, a combination of whimsy and sex appeal as only a pair of twin brothers from the ingenious Milano (and we're not talking about the cookie) could accomplish.

With details like a lion and feather headress, tailored ringmaster jackets, clownsuit jumpers detailed with dogchains, tophats covered in a tower of tulle and plenty of bedazzled brassiere and corset sets, it will definitely be all eyes on Britney in the center of the ring. In our opinion, the best costume collaboration news since Beyonce and Thierry Mugler. Work it Brit!

for the WWD scoop and a slideshow: http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/britney-spears-links-with-dsquared-2045551?justin=2045551#/