Vionnet Waltzes Anew Down the Red Carpet ...

The red-carpet scorecard boasts a few new players this awards season, one with perhaps the most storied history of any A-list label: the House of Vionnet. We've seen sprinkles of its presence here and there - Carey Mulligan at last fall's London Film Festival premiere of An Education, Rachel McAdams at a Sherlock Holmes premiere in December - but Ginnifer Goodwin's appearance at this month's Golden Globes, left, put the label on a televised world stage. With the Oscar noms set for announcement at 8:38 am EST this Tuesday, you can expect stylists' phones to be ringing at 8:39 am, and surely more than a few Vionnets will find their way onto consideration racks throughout Los Angeles. Here are some notes to keep in mind when viewing the divine, drapey designs that might saunter into the Kodak Theater on March 7th.

- These days the press gets whipped into a frenzy over designers who mount full-blown shows at ever-more-youthful ages, such as Zac Posen (who launched his label at age 21) or Esteban Cortazar (who boasted Madonna in his front row when he was 17 and was named designer of Ungaro at 23), but Madeleine Vionnet was 36 when she founded her Paris atelier in 1912. Not unlike her compatriot Coco Chanel, Vionnet rose from virtual poverty to become one of the most influential women of the early 20th century.

- Vionnet forever altered fashion history with her use of the bias cut: In the 1920s she revolutionized the idea of eschewing structure (and corsets) in favor of cutting fabric on the bias so it would drape seductively on the body. The term "goddess gown," now so ubiquitous on runways and red carpets, is due to Vionnet's influence. During the house's 1930s heyday, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich were just a few of the boldfaced names in bias-cut gowns.

- At its height, the House of Vionnet employed 1,200 seamstresses in its atelier at 50 Avenue Montaigne in Paris; Vionnet also was ahead of her time in fighting for copyright laws in fashion and fair labor practices, including maternity leave and daycare - all in the 1930s.

- The house closed in 1939 just prior to the outbreak of World War II; Vionnet retired and never reopened the house, eventually passing away in Paris in 1975 at age 98. (If you happen to be in Paris, a Vionnet exhibition concludes in mere seconds at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, with featured pieces including this 1936 evening coat, above; details about the exhibit here http://tinyurl.com/ya446md and a PDF of the exhibition's user's guide here http://tinyurl.com/ylhdo5w.)

- Ownership of the Vionnet label ultimately passed through several hands, and in 1996 the decision was made to relaunch the house. After years of speculation and indecision, Sophia Kokosalaki was named creative director, and the first Vionnet collection in 67 years debuted in December 2006. The results were met with mixed reviews, and the relaunch never really picked up steam.

- In February 2009, Matteo Marzotto, formerly general manager and president of Valentino and the scion of a wealthy Italian textile family, purchased the Vionnet label and moved it to Milan. It is now designed by Rodolpho Paglialunga, whose previous stints include 13 years as a womenswear designer at Prada.

It is roundly agreed that thus far Paglialunga is doing a masterful job at modernizing the label while maintaining the essence first visualized by Vionnet almost a century ago (Goodwin's dress was from his Spring 2010 collection, only his second for the house). Come March 7th, it will be interesting to note whether a bias-cut gown's appearance on a red carpet will be accessorized with such a wealth of fashion history.

In the pink (and red) ...

With the Spring/Summer 2010 haute-couture presentations kicking off today, I thought it appropriate to pen a love letter to my favorite couture-inspired color combo: pink and red. Such a pairing still draws askance expressions from the unitiated, those unhip to the fact that these days we're far more open to fashion's quirkier color palettes. Carolina Herrera, Matthew Williamson and Diane von Furstenberg are just a few who have employed the duo in recent seasons. And who doesn't love a pink Louboutin with its signature glossy red sole? For Spring, CL's Alta Spritney open-toe slingback comes in pink suede, satiating fans of the color combo and the designer alike.

There's a long tradition of the pink/red pairing in haute couture: Elsa Schiaparelli favored the coupling in her adventurous and often controversial designs, while more recently Christian Lacroix likewise used it to great effect in both solids and the luscious floral prints we'll all surely be missing with his absence from this season's couture runways.

With bold colors key to Spring/Summer 2010, I wanted to give a shoutout to two favorite must-haves now arriving in stores: Lanvin's Pompon PM Cabas Tote, seen above and now available at Barneys.com; "cabas" has its origins in the idea of a lady's workbasket, and I love the idea of this piece evoking the image of a woman walking through the Paris flower market, filling her cabas with peonies. And here, from Chanel's Spring/Summer 2010 preview, the house's iconic two-tone pump, tricked out in red and pink with a chrome-like platform, a chic update to the classic camel and black.

Pink and red? Separate or together, always a choice that is equal parts fresh, pretty and modern - and guaranteed to add some Spring to your step.

Magic Marchesa ...

Jennifer Lopez, Anne Hathaway, Sienna Miller, Cameron Diaz: For the past few years A-list actresses have turned Marchesa into a red-carpet staple precisely because of its combination of glam factor and romantic details, from sculpted bodices to feathers to overtly lush beading. The results sometimes can be polarizing: Witness Kate Hudson’s white Golden Globes gown, which seems to be eliciting more outrage than why the heck(!) The Hangover scored Best Comedy over 500 Days of Summer. With awards-show season in full swing, now’s the time to know a little background about the label on everyone’s lips:

-- Marchesa was co-founded in 2004 by Brit BFF’s Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig, who met at age 17 while attending London’s Chelsea College of Art and Design.

-- The name is based on the duo’s mutual love of Marchesa Luisa Casati, a noted Italian style icon of the early 20th century.

-- Casati (pictured below) lived an extraordinary life even by today’s standards; she was photographed by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton, wore the designs of Paul Poiret and Erte and was the direct inspiration for Cartier’s iconic Panther designs.

-- Her biography, Infinite Variety (available on Amazon.com) details Casati's notorious lifestyle, from walking her pet leopard on a diamond leash to throwing wild parties in her Venetian palazzo, complete with gilded naked servants.

-- Casati once brought a boa constrictor to the Ritz Hotel in Paris – and promptly allowed it to escape.

-- In 1999 Craig read Infinite Variety and gave Chapman a copy; they fell in love with the idea of Casati as the muse and essence of their label.

-- Chapman (aka Mrs. Harvey Weinstein) is both the designer and the face of the label (she appeared as herself on an ep of Gossip Girl last year), while Craig works more behind the scenes, focusing on textile design.

-- Marchesa scored its first red-carpet success when Cate Blanchett fell in love with only the second dress ever designed by the label.

-- The duo was sharing a tiny London studio when Neiman Marcus asked them to create a collection of 30 dresses the retailer was interested in putting in 20 stores. With six weeks to complete the collection, they moved to New York, borrowed a studio space, hired seamstresses and never looked back.

-- In 2006, the label was named one of the ten finalists of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund.

With Hudson's gown drawing both admiration and ire, it seems the time-honored fashion adage has never been more accurate: There's a dress for every girl, and a girl for every dress.

Globes v. Oscars: The (fashion) politics of the two-party system ...

Tonight's 67th-annual Golden Globes ceremony offers the potential for more surprises than the March 7th Oscars - at least in a sartorial sense. Oh, sure, the reasons all those A-Listers will gather around Moet-laden tables at the Beverly Hilton are all but assured: funny-yet-heartfelt speeches from Streep, Cameron and Scorsese (I'm still on the fence about Bridges v. Clooney, as much as the Hollywood Foreign Press seems to adore the latter). But from a fashion point of view, the Globes offer a terrific opportunity to think outside the box in both label and style.


Let's face it, the Academy Awards are the senior prom, where everyone turns it out in "important" gowns and jewelry. But the Globes? This is the pre-party at the cool kid's house, where the gang has fun getting a little tipsy before heading off to the Big Event. Shouldn't the clothes match this attitude?


I'm sure we'll see all the requisite players tonight: Monique Lhuillier, Marchesa, Versace, Reem Acra; Marion Cotillard most assuredly will wear Dior, while Vera Farmiga has been showing up on red carpets in Dolce & Gabbana. Might someone change it up a bit? I love the casual elegance of the Lanvin above, but with no Hilary Swank in sight, will Alber Elbaz be shown any love this evening? Will Naeem Khan's highly publicized gown for Michelle Obama translate to some Hollywood adoration? Stylists and celeb reps alike enthusiastically phoned Khan in the days after that State Dinner, but that moment occurred waaaay back in November, and the West Coast has a famously short attention span in such matters.

Indeed, make no mistake: Red-carpet looks are highly debated in the weeks, days and moments before the actress steps into the limo, with who she's wearing as much an issue as what she's wearing. Is Alexander Wang enough of a name outside fashion circles to warrant his dress as a choice? I love pretty much everything Giambattista Valli sends down a runway - including this Globe-friendly look from Spring - but he's not on the mainstream radar as much as a Chanel or Herrera. The politics of fashion are difficult to define - they evolve as rapidly as trends, tastes and a designer's hip quotient change - and yet they undeniably exist. A few actresses can be counted on to think outside the box: Chloe Sevigny at September's Emmys, wearing polka-dotted Isaac Mizrahi, springs to mind; but as big as Big Love may be, her fashion sense always will be tied to her indie cred, and I for one am glad about this.


I'm hoping tonight offers a few surprises, especially as it's roundly agreed that award-show red carpets have grown far too safe in recent years. Designers likewise will be surprised, as it's a now-notorious fact that they cannot count on a choice as confirmed until they see it on TV with their own eyes like everyone else. Too many anecdotes have been shared in recent years about a designer being told, "Yes, she's wearing your dress," only to watch that starlet hit the red carpet wearing someone else. And so designers are gun-shy about offering exclusives and instead have spent the past few weeks blanketing Southern California with their Resort, Spring and Pre-Fall collections. One designer's rep told me Friday that four actresses had their gowns out for "final consideration," with the rep hoping two make the cut: "Two's the perfect number - one on a very big name, and then another on a younger, up-and-coming starlet."


All of which is to say, the politics of the red carpet are very much a two-party system, and a two-way street.