Talk about a fashion transformation!

AnnaLynne McCord outdid herself today at Variety’s Power of Women luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The 90210 starlet replaced…

Heidi Klum has clipped her wings.

After 13 years of strutting her lingerie-clad stuff down the catwalk and striking come-hither poses in catalogs for Victoria’s Secret, the…

Calling all couture cops—it’s YOU Write ‘Em Up time!

The Perp: Nicole Richie, leaving her hotel room in New York City

Nicole’s come a long way style-wise, but…

Miami is all about the beach, sun and minimal clothes. But this rapper took her bikini to a local nightclub! She forgot to wear a shirt—and it seems that she forgot to wear undies as well…

UPDATE:

Annielicious Says: “Darkwing Duck?”

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Calling all couture cops—it’s YOU write ‘em up time!

The Perp:  Jada…

Our review will be posted shortly. In the meantime, please enjoy these pictures.

He may have no time for minimalism, but Roberto Cavalli is a great fan of the barely there—and a grand master of the power of suggestion. You always feel like you’ve seen a lot more naked supermodel than you actually did. (It’s a neat trick if you can pull it off—remember the way Bob Mackie seemingly denuded Cher on network television week after week without ever really showing anything?) Mind you, today’s show, marking a startling 40 years in business for Cavalli, did a mighty efficient job of creating a spectacle out of the bare necessities as Roberto saw them: a tiny jacket in croc or snake, a suede bib, a pair of pants laced to the legs, a sheer chiffon bias-cut gown, some webby crochet, a few buckets of beads and sequins, a concealing/revealing torrent of fringe, a palette bleached by indolent days spent lounging in the sun. And seldom has so much been done with so little.

It was all in the workmanship. Using the artisanal workshops of his native Florence, Cavalli has been producing spectacular skins for decades, but he pulled out the stops for his 40th, with the whipstitching, lacing, and patchworking reaching new heights. Croc and python jackets were left unhemmed, the integrity of the skin preserved. Cavalli also rose to international fame on the back of his prints, which turned jet-set dolls into tawny-maned tigresses. Here, he steered clear of the big cats in favor of snake, rendered so accurately that it looked like the real thing in second-skin pants (less so in a floating gown on Karolina Kurkova). Layered over everything were sequins, beads, and crystals, painstakingly applied by hand in Cavalli’s workshops.

The backdrop—a jungle of huge flowers, fronds, and phallic peppers—suggested a hothouse island setting from a late-night B movie. When Cavalli’s models stalked out at the finale, they could have been the cast of such a production. Who wouldn’t be up for Ultravixens of Glamazonia? If the show struck just one chord and held it, it was still an appropriate testament to a singular vision that has weathered bouquets and brickbats for decades. When Cavalli took his bow, he was as usual with wife and right hand, Eva. And in that setting, surrounded by beauty, you could imagine he was in his own private Eden.
—Tim Blanks

The first look out, a crystal-encrusted sweater and hot-pant set, suggested we were in for a vampy romp in the style of Dean and Dan Caten’s last show—none too subtle and without much in common with what the brothers sell so successfully in stores. This time, though, the opening was not a sign of things to come. While the temptation to turn up the sizzle on the runway must be hard for these showmen to resist, resist it they did. Instead, they struck a balance, serving up preppy tailoring with a winking sex appeal rather than a full-on assault.

The flat oxfords were a big surprise, especially after Fall’s “spinal cord” heels, but they worked with the show’s pantsuits as well as winning basics like boxy khakis and plaid bermuda shorts (teamed with a denim and a white cotton poplin button-down, respectively). The straw hats and oversize glasses, in contrast, were silly; the collection’s boyish vibe would’ve come across without them.

Upping the ante for after dark—and no one would begrudge them that—the designers sent out a daringly bare white waistcoat worn with black satin short shorts and a backless minidress, alongside more covered-up pieces like a tuxedo shirtdress, a Le Smoking, and a trompe l’oeil evening coat-cum-cape. Even a tomboy likes to let her hair down once in a while.
—Nicole Phelps

Giorgio Armani‘s secret weapon is focus. He’ll take one idea and elaborate on it over the course of a collection. Today’s focal point was the night sky over the Sahara: warm, velvety blue, scattered with stars. It’s also the sky he’d be familiar with from his second home on the island of Pantelleria, halfway to North Africa. That emotional connection was responsible for the kind of single-minded but strong collection that yielded a vintage Armani moment.

Everything was navy shading toward midnight. As the show moved toward evening, sprinklings of crystal and sequins appeared to echo the heavens at night, as in the glittering long skirt and tank that offered a sporty option for red carpets. The Saharan subtext was explicit in the Tuareg head wraps and tribal jewelry, but otherwise, Armani offered multiple variations on city-smart jackets, from tailored and basket-weave leather to peplumed and slash-backed crepe. These were invariably paired with narrow, pleated pants, which created a long, slim silhouette, even with one of the designer’s now-signature eccentric interventions. Namely, he layered a skirt under the jacket, over the pants. In Emporio the other day, that skirt was stretch tulle, which looked wrong a lot of the time. Here, Armani got it right—the skirt, even when it was fluted, added something chic and streamlined to the outfit. At a stretch, it echoed the tribal layering of desert nomads, especially in a ribbed, gauzy knit that could have been a Tuareg blanket.

But more than that, it reaffirmed that Armani refuses to be boxed in as Mr. Greige. Sometimes his contrariness works against him. Not today. And never forget that no less an authority than Diana Vreeland insisted that refusal is elegance.
—Tim Blanks

Paolo Gerani and his new design team have traded in Hitchcock blondes for muses a little closer to home—Lauren Hutton, Faye Dunaway, and Farrah Fawcett, all of whom starred in the ad campaigns Oliviero Toscani lensed for Iceberg in the late seventies. That meant there was a pretty big disconnect between last season and this one, but it landed the label smack-dab in the middle of things in Milan, which is never a bad place to be.

What was good: the fact that Gerani and company’s take on fashion’s favorite decade was more impressionistic than literal. Oversize men’s blazers with pushed-up sleeves, a sea blue cotton jumpsuit with embroidered straps, silk button-downs tucked into A-line skirts—we’ve seen enough of this sort of thing lately for it to have shed its retro associations. But with so many labels all over the price spectrum doing the seventies, which elements provided a compelling reason for shoppers to seek out Iceberg next spring? Not the beaded and feathered macramé tanks and scarf tops. Simpler was better here, and there was nothing simpler or better in this collection than a faded denim elastic-waist dress.
—Nicole Phelps