Vintage Selection

For four days Florence went crazy about Vintage thanks to the 17th edition of Vintage Selection! More than 50 exhibitors brought their best vintage findings at Stazione Leopolda and the place looked like a Costumes Museum with all these beauties laying around!

Attention people! This post is going to be picture heavy as my camera went crazy with the Chanel's, Prada's and Ferragamo's it spotted!
Vintage Selection had the best selection of Retro pieces. From shoes, to dresses, to corsets, to scarves, to bags, to hats, to sunglasses, to bathing suits...even to Vintage Vogue magazines and Pattern designs!

Fairs like this make you realize that we are still able to buy these pieces thanks to their good quality. Now think about what will be the Vintage of the 00's in the future and who will be willing to buy the clothes that we are wearing today... It's just a thought!

Animal Instinct

I met Spiros Halaris through a dear common friend of ours, just 3 days before I moved to Florence! Having just ended his placement at Alexander McQueen and with various projects still on the run, he promised to stay in touch and send me a mail with all his news soon! Today was the day that he decided to share something exclusive and exciting with me and of course with all of you, too: The first look of his promo photoshoot for the Animal Instinct tshirt.

The t-shirt above is the second of the two tees he designed for Your Eyes Lie** and Topshop and you can find it (and buy it) online now here ! Today I see that it is available only in XS online but I was informed that the form is quite loose so it should fit you perfectly even if you're a S!

Another thing worth mentioning is that Spiros will present among others his personal illustrative work at "The Art of Fashion" exhibition, at the London pop-up concept store FashionCapital during the London Fashion Week (16-23 February, more info here). If you happen to be in London those days don't forget to go and salute him!

photo credits:

photo/ edit: Nykolas Andreou

makeup: Kate Rina

styling : Cara D. Grapsa

Mani...

Just found out about a great exhibition that is taking place these days in Milan. It is called "The Master Hands" and from the images above you can guess that it's all about black and white photographs of hands. Hands working, playing, loving, eating- hands that are captured while doing everyday normal activities...

What does this exhibition have to do with fashion? Well, it is organized by Italian brand Fratelli Rossetti in their gallery on Piazza San Carlo 2 and it is an amazing-according to me- way to be inspired by hands and "worship" all the handmade products!...and the Fratelli Rossetti shoes are handmade 100%!

pic source: Fratelli Rossetti

It's time to sing a song!

Finally I have internet at home so I found the time to change the festive header and check all my emails without having to worry if the Italian waiter will grab my cappuccino cup from the table in the next 10 minutes! My Google reader still counts more than "1000 still unread posts" and I have to say that being updated on the latest fashion news was not my main priority these days (except from the Emmanuelle Alt-editor in chief of Vogue Paris new of course).

Another thing is that my master courses started this week and I spend more than half of the day at the university! Today though was a fun day as we went at the Pitti Bimbo trade fair dedicated especially to clothing and accessories for children. Lot's of tiny little clothes. Lot's of fun and cute installations and ways to present the new collections for A/W 2011/12! Too bad that once again no pictures of the collections were allowed because I'm sure you would wish to be a kid again only to wear these clothes!

Pitti Uomo A/W 2011/12 /Streetstyle

...and the last Pitti post is of course specially dedicated to the streetstyle. Pitti Uomo was the place to be these days and it was the first time that I saw so many elegant men from all around the world gathered in one place! No wonder why Sartorialist and Jak & Jil were there everyday!

I actually had the chance to talk to Scott Schuman (surreal) and during the last Pitti day I also bumped into Angelos Bratis that currently lives in Rome!

Pitti W A/W 2011/12

Just a few metres away of the Fortezza da Basso, at the Dogana building took place the Pitti W specially dedicated to womenswear! Once more, limited pictures were allowed, but I got the chance to meet some very interesting new designers and eco brands!
Giuseppe Fanelli presented his first personal collection Unravel 19022010 during Pitti W. He previously worked, among others, with: Sophia Kokosalaki, Antonio Marras, Kenzo, Alberta Ferretti and I was really impressed with his collection. The pics don't do justice to his work as the light in the space was rather dim but as long as I find images of this collection online, I promise to post them! By far the best collection of clothes I saw during Pitti W.
Another really impressive collection -this time of bags- was the one of Thomas Blakk. Black was the dominant color and all bags had a rock touch with the studs and metal details.
Polimoda Institute of Design and Marketing presented a special project under the title "Totem- Reflections on the Future of Fashion" that basically was "a Video-photography exhibition of fashion concepts and creations produced by the Polimoda students in the Fashion Design and Fashion Marketing departments." (source)
The Kartell and Moschino shoes will be mine as soon as I find them in stores! The only thing I haven't decided yet is the color!

Vintage for Pitti W was a space dedicated to Italian and International brands with a eco-green touch!
Heidi Ritsch produces handmade belts and bags in Rimini re-using parts of old bicycles.
...while Sai Sei (from Bologna) re-used old fabrics and leather in order to create brand new bags! I especially loved the brooches!

all pics courtesy of SoHo Symposium. If used please credit with link

Pitti Uomo A/W 2011-12 - My Factory/ New Beat(s)

One of the most interesting exhibition spaces around Pitti was The Factory, curated by Oliviero Baldini were new and emerging brands and designers from Italy and other countries could be found! I mean the place was full of stylish young faces, the music was coming from a jukebox and in the first floor New Beat(s) hosted some of the most talented newcomers as picked by the Pitti team.
Giuro che Domani Smetto is a brand that comes from Napoli. Walter D'Aprile, one third of the design team also runs the streetstyle blog of Naples! Check it out here!
The walls were full of black and white stickers with images of Florence, Rome and skyscrapers and issues of Vice magazine were placed in amazing paper boxes that I was really tempted to take home!
Another brand that caught my eye was Mua Mua! The Mua Mua collection consists of cute knitwear, tshirts and of course the Mua Mua dolls! The designing team definitely has humor as among the dolls, I found the Karl Lagerfeld Mua Mua, the Mua-ccia Prada and even the Alexander McQueen Mua Mua!

all pics courtesy of The SoHo Symposium. If used please credit with link

Pitti Uomo A/W 2011-12

The 79th Pitti Immagine Uomo Fiera is taking place these days at the Fortezza da Basso, Florence and I was lucky enough to have a press pass and discover it for the very first time! Pitti is the place to be right now and everyone around town is talking about it. Everything revolving menswear for the season A/W 2011/12 can be found here. From shirts to coats to ties to buttons to shoe laces! So as you can understand, photos of the actual collections and clothes were not allowed, as the clothes are not out yet and Pitti is mainly buyers oriented! In general Pitti Uomo this year hosts 1010 collections of menswear and 80 collections of womenswear and it's estimated that more than 30.000 visitors, among them 23,360 buyers, are visiting Fortezza da Basso these days!

Pitti ends tomorrow and I've been there for 3 days in a row as the place is enormous and no one manages to view all collections in one day! Everyone was dressed up in their best way and of course Streetstyle photographers were there to capture some of the best looks...Sartorialist and JakandJil included! =)

all pics courtesy of SoHo Symposium. If used please credit with link

Firenze4Ever Dinner Party

The Firenze4Ever 2nd Edition event ended yesterday night with an amazing dinner party at LuisaViaRoma's terrace floor! Girls and boys dressed up in ther most stylish (and sometimes extravagant) way and wandered around with prosecco and shampagne in their glasses. The party was mainly held for the fashion bloggers that were invited from all over the world so almost everyone carried around a camera! Luckily, I was invited as well and I snapped pics from some of the most known fashion bloggers around just for your pleasure!
Betty wearing an enormous black bow and her boyfriend and Italian Fashion-a-Porter blogger dressed head-to-toe in Lanvin for H&M on the right!
Andy from Style Scrapbook (the girl is seriously TALL!) and Chiara from the Blonde Salad and Fashion Squad and me on the right!

All girls were super friendly and talkative!
Super Duper Hats designers Veronica and Ilaria that are based in Florence! I loved their hats and style and I promised to visit their studio soon!On the right, another stylish Italian girl that wore the -bloggers approved and adored- YSL ring!
Even the DJ's were styled up for the event with wigs and black and white tshirts!
Betty, Wendy from Nitrolicious and Garan from This Yellow Boy blog! Paris,NY and London all in one pic!
Wendy wore an H&M dress from the Spring/Summer 2011 collection with Lanvin for H&M necklace and YSL punk pumps that deserved a closeup!
Last but not least, Caroline chatting with a fellow blogger!
On our way out, these LuisaViaRoma tshirts caught my eye! Luisa ti ama!


all pics courtesy of SoHo Symposium. If used please credit with link