Top ten shoes for F/W 09-10

So I thought, I'll make a top ten list of my favorite shoes for F/W 09/10, how hard can it be? Frazzle, overload...too many gorgeous, breathtaking, heart stopping, stunning shoes. I must show them all:

Raphael Young

Pierre Hardy


Omelle

LouLoux


LouLou


Juan Antonio Lopez


Johnathan Kelsey


Jean-Michel Cazabat


J.B Martin


Gracienne


Gian Marco Lorenzi


Diego Dolcini


Chrissie Morris


Charlotte Olympia


Cesare Paciotti


Camilla Skovgaard


Beatrix Ong

That doesn't even include the major house's shoes! I'll get to those later this week.

Top Ten for S/S 2010

Zac Posen
Valentino
Givenchy
Duro Olowu
Dennis Basso
Chado Ralph Rucci
Carolina Herrera
Trussardi 1911
Mary Katrantzou
Marchesa
Hussein Chalayan

"But Seth", you say, "that's 11?" Hmmm, well the 1st Sin always was my favorite.

A dangerously disrespectful fashion choice

On three seperate occasions in the past few months I have seen young civilian women wearing United States Marine Corps dress "blues" jackets . When I was a kid I used to think it was cool to wear military surplus, so I do understand what the thought process is and why they do choose to don those and other military garments. But as the wise saying goes, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Ladies and gentleman we are at war. Every hour of every day young men and women are being maimed and killed, because they are wearing the uniforms of the U.S military. Every piece of fashion is a symbol. Clothing has the power of representation; representation of ideals, beliefs, cultures. Some choices are light on meaning, some are laden with power. Wearing the uniform of a military in a time of war when you are not a member, have not made the commitments, the sacrifices, and shared the risks is disrespectful and ignorant.

My newest designer interview- Carla Braccialini

My latest fashion designer interview with legendary handbag designer Carla Braccialini has been published here; http://whatshaute.com/?p=3734

Seth F.

Do young designers know who it is they are designing for?

You're a fashion designer, quick what is your job? Not the title but the meat of it, your primary objective, the thing that ultimately legitimately determines if you are a success or failure? The answer is; do your clothes sell. I realize that answer my surprise some of my regular readers who know how much bitter disdain I hurl at the commercial side of what to me is an art form. The key fact to mark in your mind is that the pursuit of a razor honed artistic aesthetic and making a living from it are the furthest thing from mutually exclusive.

Permit me to synthesize, as I've discussed before if a designer doesn't believe that there exist clients who will purchase and wear their clothing they should quit. No designer has ever been able to survive without having their clothes purchased and worn. However that stone fact in no way narrows the field of opportunity regardless of what your aesthetic is. That's a critical distinction so I'm going to repeat it; it doesn't matter what your aesthetic is if you believe that their are clients for it. You can be a successful designer selling to circuses. Nothing else matters, as long as people like your art form enough to buy it.

The discovery, cultivation, and continuation of relationships with your client base becomes the touchstone for your art. Once you've discovered exactly who your clients are you can begin to explore the dynamic between your artistic expression and why they buy your designs. This is rich and fertile ground and a creative person won't be able to exhaust all of the possibilities it contains before they retire from designing. So you have your art and you have your clients, throw in a little publicity and a great work ethic and you should be golden, yes? No, because at this time and place in the world of fashion there exists one hyper critical element in this discussion that I haven't spoken of yet, it can make or break a designer. It's a person, can you guess what type of person?

So you've been working as a struggling independent designer for about 6 seasons now, (that's three years for non-fashion people), you've proven to yourself that you can sell clothes. Your website produces revenue, you've been written up by some press. A few of your friends boutiques carry your clothing and they sell well enough. You're pretty happy right? What if I told you this was the end? That your life will stay exactly like that for the next 20 years, would you still be happy? Then what if I told you that the people who could change all that may have wandered through your racks at your friends boutiques? They don't leave their cards and they tend not to introduce themselves because when they do they get hounded. Who are they, have you guessed yet?

That's right, they are buyers for multiple stores and bigger retailers. In my opinion a serious buyer is the most important person in the fashion industry. It doesn't matter what level of retail you covet, unless you are a pure couturier they are the next step after you figure out who your clients are. How does one go about identifying and contacting these elusive queens & kings of the fashion forest?

Major buyers rarely have a way to contact them directly and to do so without previous permission would likely backfire. 95% of emerging designers don't have money for a showroom or to hire a P.R agent but they do likely have a small amount of money to spend on promotion. The three best avenues are to participate in trade shows, show at metro area runway events near you and work with stylists and art directors to get featured in editorial spreads in magazines. Those three things will get you the most bang for your buck.

Make sure you have your manufacturing, promotional materials, and website 100% together before you begin to go down those three avenues however. Otherwise you risk being denied for reasons other than the quality of you work and that would be truly tragic.

Here's a new one, "Dear fashion photographers..."

I apologize to my non industry readers but I have to talk about this. Feel free to message me if this post leaves you unsure as to what I am talking about.

The question that I get asked by photographers more often than any other is, "Who can you pull?" If you ask a stylist that question you are revealing that you are an inexperienced fashion photographer. What designers I can get to work with me on a project is determined mostly by the photographer! If Steve Klein asked me to work with him on a shoot, there isn't a designer in the whole blessed world who is going to say no. Additionally if I contact Givenchy and I introduce myself as a stylist who has a letter of "spec" or commission from Purple, Numero or Vogue they will open their doors wide despite the fact that they have never heard of me before. Do you understand that? Is it really that difficult to grasp?

I have probably around four dozen designers in NYC and elsewhere who would work with me on my word alone. But I won't ask them to give me their work unless I'm convinced that I or we are going to have a shot to get them published. The health of my relationships with designers matters more than cash or a shoot. If I lose my relationships with designers, my career is over. The ones who I call friends, well that's priceless. I'd rather die penniless than friendless any day.

So please fashion photographers don't ask experienced stylists who they can pull. Certainly don't ask them who they can pull for tests, if they are any good at their jobs the answer should be "nobody". Why would they ask designers to loan them clothes when the designer is going to get nothing out of it? Do you have any idea how damaging the simple act of asking that can be to a stylist-designer relationship?

If you're testing for photographic technique, book or concepts you don't really need designer clothes anyway. Why test at all? Why not submit? If all you do is test then you and your team are playing at being in fashion like little kids play at being adults.

A call to young designers, be distinctive and innovative or fade away in a few years.

So I've finally finished catching up on every single fashion show that was anywhere around N.Y.C just before, during, and just after N.Y Fashion Week. I realized that this past season has marked a turning point in my still relatively young career in this industry. I know this due to a few rites of passage I have undergone. The particular one I want to discuss here is what it means that to have seen several designers close up shop and go out of business, pruned away by the economy.
The one characteristic that all of them shared was an inability to compete with the blandly monolithic low priced chains that have spread like locusts across the fashion landscape. The customers that had shopped at their stores or purchased their designs were obviously not concerned with quality so they purchased pieces that they perceived as similar at those retailers. The designers I know personally that have survived and even mildly thrived during this devastating downturn also share something in common; there is no way on God's green earth that you can find their designs anywhere else but through them. They have such a unique and distinctive point of view and style that it protects them. That is the lesson, be daring and distinctive. Fearlessness and determination create a harder road in the short run but it is safer and more prosperous over the long haul. Fortes fortuna adiuvat!

Seth F.

Just do you

Yesterday I was vexed. I wandered around the deepest sections of the lower east side of Manhattan looking for the future. There is a new aesthetic just around the corner and I know that it's a big part of what God's purpose is for me. After about two hours of this I came to sit on a bench near the bottom of Orchard street. As I sat I realized that God doesn't want me to find a new anything...he wants me to just express what's already in me. Just do what I find powerful, beautiful, sexy, elegant or what ever is called for. I am unique and what I create will be unique as long as it is honest. I and each of us are our own revolution. It was a very freeing realization and I get to start putting it to work tomorrow.

Seth F.

A lesson for designers: Words are more powerful than fashion

Let me say at the very top of this piece that I am in no way saying that designers should let criticism change an atom in their designs. Reviewers are going to write what they think and feel about your designs, you have no control over what they say and you must be okay with that. All you must do is execute your visions to the best of your ability and be rigorously honest in doing so. However one other thing that you really should do is learn how to present yourself to the media.

How to define the fashion media? From the basement of 14 year old high school bloggers up to the penthouse of interviewers, reviewers, and directors at Vogue, Vanity Fair, or the New York Times the fashion media is an omnipresent Cheshire hydra. It can be so venomous as to actually damage your career or it can be so lyrical it can elevate your status overnight. The one thing you must always remember is this, They can and will say whatever they want about your work, but you do not want them to be negative about YOU. The press sees and hears everything around the shows. They turn their magnifying lenses on designers at maximum power during the fashion weeks. While you are editing your collection be sure to edit yourself...at all times.

Don't be nasty to other people back stage, don't let even a drop of diva come from your pores. Be supportive of your staff and the models. Be gracious towards the other designers and the event personnel. Give the press access and be available to photographers and interviewers. Remember even though you are backstage or even off stage, when the press is around you are on stage. To deepen your understanding of the warning let me further remind you that its not just what they write that matters. What they say to each other and to others in the business may be of even more impact than what the public reads.

I barely consider myself a member of the fashion media. I'm more of a stylist and an art director who has a passion for interviewing designers. Yet even operating under those self limiting conditions I get asked all the time about designers and industry people. Bear in mind I am not being asked about their work, I am being asked about them as human beings. By way of example I did some work recently with a designer. I had a very bad experience with that designer and with in one month after my experience four people had asked me my opinion of this person. Unsolicited they asked me about the person...not the designs. What was I supposed to say? I told the truth about my experiences including the fact that I did think that they were talented but... Now I know for a fact that those four people have now decided not to work with that designer because of what I said. The designer paid a cost that they will never know about, that happens all the time at all levels.

The best way to deal with the media is to be polite and gracious to everybody and to allow access to yourself when asked. Think whatever you want about anybody, but keep your mouth shut. Here is an example from the New York Times, tell me what do you think about the designer after you read the piece?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/fashion/20diary.html?ref=fashion

One of the finest days in recent NY fashion week history

The sheer volume of amazing designs and the astounding level of talent that were on display yesterday were a sight to behold. My readers know how much I love words but this time the only word that is appropriate is, look:

Do we understand referencing?

As any good semiotician will tell you words are signs which refer to a specific thing or concept, they are not blindly interchangeable. Differences in meaning are not insignificant little bits of grease that allow you to slide frictionlessly between terms. The wall between terms is inviolable no matter how thin it may appear. So we come to two words...Invoke and Evoke. Watching the Spring Summer 2010 fashions I am getting the sense that many designers and the industry as a whole don't understand the difference between these two words.

Evoke: to call up or produce (memories, feelings, etc.)

Invoke: to cause, call forth, or bring about

Once again this season many of the designers and the media that cover them are referring back to the 1970s. To my thinking and tastes to evoke the '70s is fine the invoke the '70s is copying. As I've said repeatedly in the past, retro happens when artists run out of ideas.

It's natural and wonderful for designers to be inspired by the past, many, many masterpieces both stunning and subtle have come out of a fashion designer viewing fashions of the past. Where it goes awry is when the designer does not run it through the "you filter". That is to say that the designer does not spend sufficient time creating a piece that reflects their take on someone else's work. If you do not do that you have gotten lazy and you are copying.

Of course the best way to avoid this is to reference something else besides fashion when you design your collection. But if you honestly feel the passionate pull of a previous era, be sure to make that which was someone else's work yours before you let it see the lights.

Seth F.

This one...you just won't believe!

So I'm looking through the collections from the first two days of N.Y Fashion week on Style.com when I notice this link button to the right of the pictures called "shop the look" I'm looking at Helmut Lang's collection specifically and I adore his work so I click on it to see what else of his might be for sale that might have that look. It links me to a shopping page that doesn't contain a single piece of Helmut Lang but instead features competing designers to his marque that offer similar styles!

Are you freaking kidding me?????

On a review of a designer's collection you tell people to spend money on somebody else??? Ladies and Gentleman, designers of all ages and from all places. Vogue/Style.com/Conde Nast is not your friend! Just the latest example of why we need to blow up the fashion media and start over.

Seth F.

On the eve of Fashion Fortnight.

So it's time for S/S 2010 Fashion Week. For the record my fashion week starts tonight and runs to the 20th so it's considerably more than a week. It's an exciting time for me, I'm definitely improving in my abilities as a stylist, my ability to pull "name" designers is growing and I'm working with great photographers these days. Most exciting to me however is all of my successes are bringing me closer to being in a position to affect the changes that I feel the fashion community needs. The more seriously I personally am taken the more potent my voice becomes. I'm looking forward to campaigning hard in a number of areas that matter deeply to me. I want to increase the recognition of the need for financial and professional support in the incubating of young designers. I want to break the grip of the media in influencing public opinion regarding fashion. Lastly I desire to help change the way individuals approach fashion in their daily lives.

I understand that is a massive battlefront, but I passionately believe that it is the fight that I was meant to fight. Make no mistake, when someone discovers the cause they are here for they become very dangerous to the status quo; do not underestimate me.

Seth F.

Dear Designers part ?

I've had to use the "dear designers" title so many times that it's threatening to turn into a series. Once again though based on my recent experiences I am forced to question either the desire or thinking of many people that I encounter in my work. This time the issue is a lack of thinking by designers regarding participation in editorial work.

By and large if polled designers would say that being included or featured in editorial spreads is good for your career. It involves little effort and can gain thousands of fans and potential clients. To sum up designers desire to be in editorial spreads and or fashion videos. Why, oh why then do they not think through what is required to get selected to be in the fashion media? You want to be picked to be in a magazine or web magazine piece? Do the following:

1. Post your collections online or print them in a look book as early as you can. Editors start casting about for seasonal preview material 3 to 4 months before the season arrives.

2. Oh designers...what size are most models????? If you answered 2-4 then you win, unless you don't have any size 2-4 available to be pulled, then you lose; big time. The same goes for shoes if you want to be in the fashion media, you best keep size tens available, or the stylist or art director is going to move on.

3. Be professional in all of your business dealings. Not answering a pull request, even if the answer is no, is not acceptable. When somebody contacts you, the fact that you don't know them is meaningless. Treat every single person who contacts you exactly the same and you will avoid angering someone who could help you.

4. Please, please, please start doing the three things above!

Seth F.

Designers and Representation

Before I became enamored with the editorial and designer side of the fashion industry the designer P.R representative was a wholly unknown animal to me. These are women & men who get paid $1,000 and up per month to promote a designer's brand and deal with press, photographers, stylists and the like. Based on my experiences I long ago started warning my emerging designer friends to steer clear of the great majority of them. Quite frankly many of them really don't seem to grasp what it is they need to do. Some gems from the recent past:

I was speaking with a designer about what they wanted their P.R to accomplish, the following was said as if it was logical and perfectly acceptable;

"Many of our P.R actions don't result in sales."

Um, what exactly do you pay them for, so you can be well known starving, homeless artists?

I contacted a designer's P.R rep with a request to see the collection so the photographer I was working with could decide whether or not he wanted to use it;

"Thanks for your email. You can view her collection online at....
Just let me know if you would like to pull any pieces."

So we can't actually get a good look at the clothes but we are welcome to use them, provided we select them on faith?

This next one comes from when I inquired if a company was still functioning because the images on their website were two seasons old;

"We are very excited about ....'s most recent collection, the images on ....... site will be updated soon. You are welcome to visit the designer's showroom to see his most recent work."

You're right letting the rest of the human race see his work isn't a high priority at all. The designer lives in Austin and is "showroomed" there. Let me just drop a few hundred to fly to Texas and have a look see...

I was inquiring after using a shoe designer's work for a shoot I was producing and received the following reply;

"........'s most recent collection has won rave reviews and despite her recent personal and professional setbacks, she is confident that her shoes will soon be well known."

Great, I'm sure she will love that you told me that her personal life is in a shambles, and she and you consider her work to be obscure, can I use the shoes or not?

In short, don't hire a P.R person unless they can provide you concrete examples of how they have already successfully dealt with people in the industry. Also for the first few months, retain editorial control over all of their outgoing communication, so you can make sure they don't make you look like an idiot.

Seth F.

The day before a shoot

This is an unusually personal post but the mood has struck. Today is what we refer to in the business as a pull day. "Pull" is when the stylist or art director, (in this case I am functioning as both), goes running around the city pulling clothes and accessories for a shoot. The day before a shoot is always nerve wracking. People haven't confirmed, people drop out, showrooms aren't getting back to you and it all feels as if it is in danger of imploding. But I've learned two very important lessons regarding today; it always feels like that & it always works out. So the next few hours are very critical as I work the phones and the internet to try to make sure that it all comes together. It's when the seas are roughest that a sailor has to be at their best. I have always and will always rise to the occasion.

Seth F.