TRUST-WORTHY: Eleven London-based fashion labels have won grants worth 450,000 pounds, or $584,000, from the British Fashion Council’s Fashion Trust charity.
The winners were revealed Wednesday evening during an event at the London home of Megha Mittal, founder patron of the trust and managing director of Escada. They are Edeline Lee, Georgia Hardinge, Isa Arfen, Sharon Wauchob and Teatum Jones. All are all first-time recipients.
They join Eudon Choi, Fyodor Golan, Huishan Zhang, Marques’Almeida, Osman and Rejina Pyo, previous recipients who will continue to receive funding.
The 450,000 pounds is the largest amount given by the charity since it launched in 2011.
The Fashion Trust was formed to help designers fund their businesses. As part of the grant, the designers also receive mentoring in the form of legal advice from Taylor Wessing and sustainability best-practice guidance from Livia Firth and Eco-Age.
The Fashion Trust co-chairs are Tania Fares and Sian Westerman, while the British Fashion Council and the Fashion Trust Advisory committee have long played a supporting role. The Fashion Trust has so far awarded 1.5 million pounds, or $1.9 million, to 33 designers since it was founded. Investor Carmen Busquets is the BFC Fashion Trust benefactor.
“By providing financial as well as mentoring support, the BFC Fashion Trust continues to help secure

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Partnerships have served Brian Kelley well over the course of his life.
First, he teamed with his college buddy Tyler Hubbard in 2010 to create Florida Georgia Line, which became one of the most successful duos in country music history. Their single “Cruise” holds the record as the longest number one on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart and is the best-selling digital country single of all time.
Now Kelley’s partnering with his wife, Brittney, to expand their fledgling apparel collection, which is called Tribe Kelley.
The line of men’s and women’s casualwear is headquartered in Nashville and manufactured in Los Angeles. The collection began life strictly as an e-commerce play, but on Tuesday night made its wholesale debut with an event at Los Angeles’ trend-setting boutique Ron Robinson.
“I’d been coming to Ron Robinson/Fred Segal for a couple of years now,” Brittney said, “and when we launched the line two years ago, I really wanted to land the store as our first wholesale account, but I never thought we’d be honored enough to have it happen. I’ve been dreaming about this opportunity for years.”
“We’re on the moon,” her husband added. “We’re humbled and inspired by the who’s-who who shop there. We were just in the

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ALICE’S ADVENTURES: British designer Alice Temperley is further documenting her creative journey with a second book, “Alice Temperley: English Myths and Legends.” Written by Temperley and published by Rizzoli, the 336-page tome focuses on the designer’s inspirations and methods, and includes more than 250 photographs.
The book, which will launch in September, priced at $60, features Arizona Muse on the cover, wearing the designer’s fall printed dress with a graphic background.
“To build and to have a fashion brand is very real. It’s tactile, emotional and down-to-earth all at the same time — and kind of fantastical. It’s sort of touchable — and dreamy,” the designer said during an interview.
This is Temperley’s second book. Her first, “True British,” was published by Rizzoli in 2011 and focused on the brand’s first 10 years.
Temperley said her first book was about the pain and drama and everything that happened while she built her brand. For this project, she wanted to take things “to the next level, and have a document that showed what the brand is about. This book shows what makes us into a British heritage brand. It has its own identity and its own story.”
Chapters include the Holy Grail, which is all about

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LONDON — “I use his way of looking at things 360-degrees,” said Demna Gvasalia of Cristóbal Balenciaga on the eve of a major show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The show, which takes an intimate look at aspects of Balenciaga’s work, ranging from his signature shapes to his intricate process of constructing garments and his client relationships, runs from May 27 to Feb. 18.
“Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion” is the first major U.K. show dedicated to the Spanish designer who, despite his great talent, was one of fashion’s quiet ones.
“What’s so frustrating about Balenciaga is that his voice is nowhere. He only ever did one interview, so you don’t get him talking about his clothes. Because of that, there’s a lot of mythology around him,” said the show’s curator Cassie Davies-Strodder. She said the designer’s private personality prevented him from promoting himself. It was his work that did the talking. “When you see it closely, you can understand he was a real perfectionist.”
The exhibition is staged at an intimate, smaller space within the museum. “With someone like [Alexanderr] McQueen, we needed a big stage to explore his showmanship. Balenciaga was a far more considered designer. His work is much more about

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GLOBE TROTTER: After Paris and Tokyo, Louis Vuitton is bringing its “Volez, Voguez, Voyagez — Louis Vuitton” showcase to Seoul next month.
The exhibition, curated by Olivier Saillard, will be on show at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza — the spaceship-like landmark designed by Zaha Hadid and Samoo Architects & Engineers — from June 8 through Aug. 27.
It traces the brand’s journey from historic trunk-maker, founded in 1854, to the modern luxury giant it has become. Divided into 10 chapters, with a set design by Robert Carsen, the exhibition will include a room entirely dedicated to South Korea and an expanded section devoted to the brand’s collaborations with artists.

Bags from a collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Robert Wilson in 2002. 
Courtesy/Alain Costa

In a statement, Vuitton noted that its trunks have accompanied travelers to South Korea since the beginning of the 20th century. Early customers included Jean de Pange, historian and author of “In Korea,” and Joseph Hackin, an archeologist who took part in an automobile rally through central Asia in the Thirties.
The show will also feature Korean musical instruments on loan from the Museum of Music at the Philharmonie de Paris, where donated collections from the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris are on display, as well

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