Fashion News

Lotta Volkova, one of fashion’s most coveted stylists, is having trouble keeping a straight face long enough to have her picture taken. Crossing her arms, she shoots the photographer the kind of impassive look familiar to fans of her Instagram feed, but repeatedly collapses into fits of giggles between poses.
In less than five minutes, the session is over, with Volkova opining that the first image was the best. The session was fast, fun and instinctive, an insight into the working process of the 32-year-old Russian stylist who is instrumental to cult label Vetements and new-look Balenciaga.
Volkova is part of a cadre of creative types from Eastern Europe that has taken the fashion world by storm with a raw, underground aesthetic shaped by the experience of growing up after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Alongside Demna Gvasalia, the Georgian designer who heads both Vetements and Balenciaga, and Russian streetwear star Gosha Rubchinskiy, she is championing a lo-fi aesthetic marked by oversize volumes, garish color and a fluid approach to gender. It’s a group that thrives on a collaborative approach and a postmodern take on references borrowed from Nineties sportswear, uniforms and subcultures. Collectively, they are revolutionizing luxury fashion.
“I just feel like

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Lenzing Fibers has created a technical brochure in conjunction with Spanish textile finishing specialist Jeanologia detailing the advantages when using the latest laser-laundry technologies in conjunction with Tencel fabrics and garments.
The laundry of apparel and fabrics in the manufacturing process has long been a low-tech industry driven by manual labor and poor environmental standards, but the industry is starting to turn to technology to reduce labor costs and drive product development and environmental thinking.
Under the banner of “Light Sensitive,” Lenzing and Jeanologia have conducted a study to demonstrate the advantages of laser technology when using Tencel fabrics.
“Effective laser marking requires quick and effective dye removal, clear image definition, sharp image outline and smooth gray-scale transition,” said Begoña García, senior technologist at Jeanologia. “Fabrics that contain Tencel have the desired characteristics and are the perfect fabrics to work with laser.”
Jeanologia works with many textile and apparel companies focusing on industrial solutions in garment finishing, developing under sound principles of ecology, efficiency and ethics.
“The relationship between Tencel and Jeanologia dates back to 1994 and between then and now we have participated in many different projects together,” said Michael Kininmonth, project manager at Lenzing. “The relationship is such that they now are highly

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It was a small touch but sent a clear message.

Waight Keller has been creative director for six years.

And yes, he looks better than you.

CAVIAR AND DIAMONDS: “Fawaz, Fawaz!” The calls for attention from the De Grisogono founder and chief executive Fawaz Gruosi rang out as soon as the dessert was cleared at Caviar Kaspia and guests could extract themselves from the cramped tables and mingle.
Georgina Brandolini had organized the dinner during couture week, gathering a mix of clients, friends and socials.
When a full glass of red wine drenched his caviar potato, and his lap, Cerruti creative director Jason Basmajian looked on the bright side. “Now I can have two,” he said with a wink.
Becca Cason Thrash was heading to Venice the next morning to organize a charity event for Venetian Heritage that she is twinning with her popular Liaisons au Louvre fundraiser.
Gruosi said he’s sanguine about the business despite multiple challenges, and noted the high-end business continues to sparkle the most.

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PARIS — Clare Waight Keller will leave Chloé after showing her fall-winter collection for the Paris-based fashion house on March 2, the company said Monday.
WWD first reported on Dec. 15 that Chloé had held discussions with Natacha Ramsay-Levi, a key associate of Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton. Since then, speculation had been rife that Waight Keller would not renew her contract, which officially expires on March 31.
Ramsay-Levi started her fashion career at Balenciaga in 2002 and rose through the design ranks to become Ghesquière’s top design deputy. When the Frenchman exited Balenciaga in 2013, she went on to consult for several brands, including Hermès and Acne Studios, before rejoining Ghesquière at Vuitton, according to a Paris source. Chloé would not comment on the likelihood of her appointment.
Waight Keller, an alum of Pringle of Scotland and Gucci, joined Chloé in 2011 and has brought a sure and steady hand to the house, rejuvenating its ready-to-wear and accessories business and winning largely positive reviews for her collections.
Chloé plans to celebrate the designer, who followed in the footsteps of Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo, with an after-party on the evening of her last show.
“Clare has been a remarkable partner at Chloé

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PARIS — For Rick Owens, making a hardcore music video with self-described drag terrorist Christeene Vale isn’t just about shock value. It’s about tolerance, kindness and balancing out what the designer sees as rising bigotry and cruelty in society.
At a party during the most recent Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, Owens and Vale premiered the video, titled “Butt Muscle,” which opens with a scene depicting Vale relieving himself on the designer—- and then gleefully exalts almost every X-rated fetish in the book. Drag artists, dancers and two live horses were among the guests at a party that raged until 6 a.m. at a clandestine club under the city’s ring road.
“There’s a climate right now that is going in a direction I’m uncomfortable with, and I feel an obligation to balance that out,” Owens told WWD in an interview at his Paris headquarters. “If we have extreme self-righteous bigotry on one side, then we need to balance that out with some cheerful degeneracy on the other.”
For Owens, the “underground” may no longer be possible, but the importance of counter-culture is rising. “Sometimes there are social and political climates that people want to react against and this could be one of those moments

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MILAN — In an ever-evolving show calendar, Proenza Schouler on Monday announced it will begin to show its main and pre-collections together twice a year in July and January.
The first show in  this new format will be held in Paris in July during the haute couture schedule and present the spring-summer 2018 season. The fall-winter 2017 show will take place in New York on Feb. 13, as planned.
The move to Paris, said the company, is in line with its strategy to have a “more pronounced international presence,” and preparatory to the global launch of the Proenza Schouler fragrance in collaboration with L’Oréal Luxe in 2018.
It will also be an “aid in achieving the company’s short and long-term goals, and enable the organization to function in a way that is more aligned with the demands of the industry today.”
Emphasizing how “a large percentage of the brand’s sales are placed during the pre-collection market with the smaller balance going to the runway delivery, which, in truth, is the heart and soul of the Proenza Schouler brand,” the company believes that the change “will ensure that Proenza Schouler’s runway collection, including both ready-to-wear and accessories, will be the focus of buys and

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There’s a homespun heart to Molly Goddard’s off-kilter collections, and even to the pieces that hang in her closet, like the tablecloth she once wore to a British Fashion Council awards nominees dinner at Soho House in 2015. “I’m surprised I still fit in it,” said the designer of her long, doilylike white skirt, a piece from her B.A. show at Central Saint Martins, where she graduated with a degree in knitwear.
Wearing a tablecloth to a fancy dinner may sound like a London fashion cliché, but everyday objects — be they from the kitchen table, the home closet or the baby’s bedroom — are rich fodder for Goddard’s galloping imagination — and the industry is paying heed. The 28-year-old redhead is one of London’s breakthrough designers and the winner in the Emerging Talent category at Britain’s 2016 Fashion Awards.
She’s making a name with skirts and dresses that have volume and flourish, thanks to generous layers of tulle and the hours Goddard clocks ruching, smocking, shearing. Her collections are inspired by old knitwear patterns and children’s wear, including the gingham and frilly outfits her mother and grandmother made for her when she was a child.
She loves skewed proportions and puts a

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