MARCHESA PRESENTS JAW-DROPPINGLY GORGEOUS DRESSES MADE FOR THE OSCARS RED CARPET

One only hopes that the hushed crowd inside Marchesa's packed fall 2016 runway show was full of celebrity stylists still shopping for clients attending the Oscars in 10 days. On Wednesday evening, designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig presented a collection full of jaw-droppingly gorgeous dresses that were practically made for E!'s GlamCam360.


At the show, my view was constantly obscured by one iPhone or another because enthusiastic show-goers couldn't resist snapping photos and capturing slow-mo video of the dresses moving past — and I couldn't blame them. I found myself falling for the ornate dresses inspired by Edwardian painter John Singer Sargent. Some looks, like a gown with gold embroidered tulle flutter sleeves and high neck embellishments, recalled an early "Downton Abby" Lady Mary, if she wanted to devour all the men at the ball and piss off Lady Edith even more than usual. The silhouettes veered into other decades, too, including a gunmetal beaded flapper fringed dress with a sumptuously bejeweled layered neckline, and a '30s-style gold liquid lamé number with beaded lace sleeves. The ballgowns were exquisite in detail: cascading silk organza, flouncy fringe and feathering, hand-beaded 3-D florals and near-blinding jewel embellishments on the front and back of the dress. Definitely 360-degree camera ready.

The next step, of course, is imagining which starlet you'll be seeing in each gown at the coming award shows. Click through the slideshow below for the full collection.

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

While some might sniff that Victoria’s Secret is to lingerie what Gap  GPS 0.34%  is to haute couture, the Fashion Show remains a cultural touchstone (though a shrinking one: last year 9.1 million people watched the show, down from 9.7 million a year earlier.)



But despite the audience dip, Victoria’s Secret sales are growing. The brand last year generated $836 per square foot at its U.S. stores, a performance worthy of a luxury brand (as a point of comparison, J.Crew’s sales per square foot was $588 in the last year, according to eMarketer), even as it continues to open stores.

The event, which once broke the Internet after millions tried to watch the show online (for fashion tips, no doubt), will again feature the famous Angels strutting around in outrageous lingerie (diamond-encrusted brassieres, anyone?) to the music of the hottest pop stars of the day. (Everyone from Nicki Minaj to Taylor Swift to Maroon 5 have performed at the Fashion Show.)

The show—which was filmed last month at New York’s Lexington Avenue Armory and featured performers Selena Gomez and The Weeknd, as well as Kendall Jenner and Gigi Haddid on the runway—is an important part of L Brands’  LB -1.23%  efforts to keep its Victoria’s Secret brand at the center of pop culture.

YouTube's golden girl Tanya Burr suffers a fashion fail

She made her millions by becoming one of the globe’s biggest vloggers, dishing advice on all things beauty and fashion as well as general musings on life to keen twentysomethings.



But as the creme de la creme of the fashion world united at the London Coliseum on Monday for the British Fashion Awards, Tanya Burr made quite an impression in her questionable style choice.

Accompanied by her husband Jim Chapman, the 26-year-old YouTube star stood out in bold ensemble, consisting of a black sheer pleated skirt and knitted grey blouse.
She happily drew attention to her toned curves in the dramatic flowing number, which allowed her to show off her limbs, elongated in a pair of chic Christian Louboutin heels.

With her luscious locks left loose in glamorous waves, Tanya plumped up her pout with rich slick of matted burgundy lipstick and emphasised her gorgeous eyes with several coats of jet-black mascara.

And that’s exactly what went through Tanya Burr’s mind as she got ready for the BFA’s with this gorgeous cotton-mesh and pleated gown by Barbara Casasola.
Whether the risk paid off is a matter of a opinion, but we reckon Tanya looks elegant in this semi sheer dress which features a see-through black skirt.


Barbara Casasola draws inspiration from the raw nature and rich modernist tradition of her native Brazil when it comes to her designs, and this dress really is the picture of contemporary style.

'Project Runway' winner shatters the fashion industry's status quo

On Sept. 11, six Project Runway finalists showed collections at Skylight at Moynihan Station for the reality series' annual New York Fashion Week show. The designs of one contestant — whose identity was kept secret at the time to avoid spoilers — made a particular splash.



And on Thursday night, the designer behind that line — Ashley Nell Tipton — was crowned the winner of Season 14. Tipton was the first Project Runway contestant to show a completely plus-size collection at fashion week; now she's the first winner to specialize in full-figure fashion.

Even before participating in the series, Tipton created and sold clothing that went against the plus-size industry status quo. Her garments were full of bright colors and patterns.

"My mission is to represent for full-figured women and to enable them to have options to express their style and individuality through fashion as women who wear 'standard' sizes," Tipton states on her website.

Tipton, who has a store launching soon, hopes to set an example for future plus-size designers.

"I feel happier than I have ever felt in my life — not just to have won Project Runway, but more so that the world will get to see my voice and my heart through my designs," Tipton tells Mashable. "I can wait to shine a light in the fashion world for plus-sized women everywhere."

H & M’s Ongoing High-Fashion Experiment

H& M launched its first-ever designer collaboration, with the Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld, eleven years ago, in November of 2004. My wife, a fashion illustrator, was sure something historic was in the offing, and she convinced me to go with her to check it out. We arrived at H & M’s flagship store, on Fifth Avenue, shortly before the doors opened, at 9 A.M. A line of men and women, ranging from twentysomethings to senior citizens, and dressed in everything from jeans to luxury labels, snaked down Fifth and around the block. Inside, they fought their way through the crowds, garments heaped over their arms; they stripped to their underwear in the aisles to try things on. In the melee, I managed to grab and try on a black military-style wool-and-cashmere overcoat. Cut long and slim, it elongated my frame, narrowed it, lent it a subtle drama that touched off fantasies of myself as a windswept Byronic wanderer (as opposed to a middle-aged deskbound writer). The price: a hundred and forty-nine dollars. A Lagerfeld original would have cost a thousand dollars. I bought two. I still wear that coat, and strangers still stop me in the street to ask where I got it. The backup, tags intact, is stuffed at the back of my closet, ready to be called into service when the original starts to look shabby.



Donald Schneider, who is now the creative director of H & M, came up with the idea of that first collaboration with Lagerfeld. At the time, Schneider ran a fashion-consulting firm hired by H & M to review its advertising campaigns, and he had worked for eight years as the art director of Vogue Paris. A soft-spoken German now in his mid-fifties, with glinting gray stubble and a bald head, he continues to dream up, and oversee, the collaborations today. When I met with him in June, at a photo shoot for the Balmain launch, I admitted that I had been among the hoards who lined up for the Lagerfeld début, and that I scored the black military-style overcoat. He nodded vigorously and said, “a fantastic piece,” adding that he is still wearing the suit jacket from that collection, and still gets compliments on it. Up to that point, he said, anyone who mentioned an H & M ad campaign would talk primarily about the models. “I wondered, could we do a campaign where people talked about the fashion?”

Short Wedding Dresses We Fell For During Bridal Fashion Week

Don't get us wrong, we love traditional wedding gowns with their sweeping ground-grazing skirts. Yet, there's something so irresistibly charming about a shorter dress. Case in point: When Keira Knightley tied the knot with her beau James Righton, she wore an airy tulle Chanel dress that she accented with a tweed jacket, delicate floral crown, and ballet flats.



And now that the trend in bridal is skewing more casual, with a rise in City Hall ceremonies followed by a reception, wearing knee-length or shin-grazing wedding dresses is no longer seen as unconventional.



"My friend got married in City Hall last year, and she wore a short Marchesa cocktail dress with a little veil, and it was adorable," Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman told us at the brand's bridal fall 2016 presentation. "I say, whatever works for you, go for it."


Below, we rounded up fall 2016 short wedding dresses from Bridal Fashion Week that we'd happily say 'I do' to.

Jeremy Scott at New York fashion week: 60s pop culture through an 80s prism

The designer proves ‘plastic is fantastic’ as he melded his signature pop-art aesthetic with bright, outrageous prints and dresses made with acrylic panels
“Plastic is fantastic” was Jeremy’s Scott’s summation of the mood of his spring/summer 2016 show at New York fashion week on Monday afternoon.



Alexander Wang at New York fashion week: a return to urban roots

Looking at the collection, this wasn’t just a pithy sound bite for the crowds of press backstage. It was a pretty neat description of clothes that combined bright colours, vibrant prints and, yes, plastic in shiny jewellery and dresses made from panels of Perspex. It was all worn by models in wigs that unapologetically resembled cartoon hair like that last seen in the 60s futuristic cartoon series, The Jetsons.

Since he launched his label in the late 90s, Scott has excelled at anything with a pop-art bent – and his references for this are seemingly endless. The designer, who has also worked as creative director for Moschino since 2013, has previously drawn inspiration from fast food to Barbie, telephone wires and the Flintstones.

This time around, it was “the cool girls in the Lower East Side in the 80s, and how they loved John Waters movies, Russ Meyer movies, as well as Startrek. It was about future babes”.

The feeling of mismatched things coming together – 60s pop culture seen through the prism of the 80s – was there from the start of this show. The B-52’s Planet Claire kicked off the soundtrack, and there were nods to Deee-Lite’s Lady Miss Kier (with daisy patterns and op-art) and Tim Burton’s sci-fi spoof, Mars Attacks!