Wear What When

Jason Wu x Target

A few look book images have been released, and a few area Target stores have confirmed that they’ll have the line on opening day, February 5.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Jan 10, 2012 at 07:15AM 4 Comments

Style.com announced some more information regarding the upcoming Jason Wu x Target collaboration yesterday; notably, they posted a few look book images. A full set of looks has yet to be released, but what’s out so far is textbook Wu; feminine, classic, and if not good girl-gone-bad, well, then, good girl-taking-bad-under-consideration.

The images here are the ones style.com has; they report that the collection will consist of 53 items—that’s 350 shy of the giant mass of specially designed Missoni gear that hit Target in September.

Wu told the style site,"The focus isn’t just getting Jason Wu at a lower price point, it was about creating an entirely new collection that I think my regular customers will enjoy, too.”

Regular customers and bargain hunters alike can trek to the West Seattle, Southcenter, Kent, and Everett Target stores on the first Sunday in February to check it out. If I were intent on getting into the low-price lace tee-shirts and short skirts, I’d trek outside of the metropolitan area and hit up a store in the ’burbs.

I’m not saying they don’t know who Wu is in, say, Snohomish County, but I’m betting the lines won’t be quite as long. Then again, will the selection be as good?

Wu’s Target looks may well be at other target shops across the state; you should call around in the direction of your choice and check. The initial customer service reps at the aforementioned stores didn’t have a sliver of a clue what I was talking about when I first called, but upon explanation (“it’s like the Missoni collection, W-U.”) they were able to investigate and report back. The Northgate number, btw, just rang and rang and rang and rang …

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Tags: Seattle Style News, Seattle Style Headlines, Designer Collaboration

Headlines: Jason Wu x Target

Will you camp out at the Northgate Target again when the Wu collection hits town?

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Oct 07, 2011 at 07:00AM 0 Comments

Jason Wu is Target’s next collaborator.

What were you doing on the morning of September 13?

If you were standing in a Target store neck deep in Missoni I’m especially interested in your reaction to the October 3 news that the mega-retailers next collaborator is Jason Wu.

WWD reported it first; subsequent stories from outlets like Elle all mused similarly; the Missoni thing all but threw Target on it’s backside (headlines read: Shoppers furious with Target), but it doesn’t feel like Wu will have the same affect.

Past capsule collaborators include Rodarte, Zac Posen, Thakoon, Richard Chai, and Rogan Gregory. The ferociously artful and hugely collectible Mulleavy sisters didn’t totally upset the apple cart; it’s hard to believe that Wu will.

Typically categorized as super feminine and classically elegant, the young New York-–based designer just doesn’t have the fanatic street appeal or the icon factor that makes collaborations like these reach fever pitch. But, it’s worth noting that style.com fashion writer Nicole Phelps began her review of his recent Spring 2012 collection by asking, rhetorically, “Jason Wu, edgy?” It was a little more something-something. And who knows how the Obama factor will, well, factor in.

And hey, it’ll be easier on all of us if servers and shoppers don’t crash.

Here’s what Wu told WWD: “The exciting thing about this limited edition collection of affordable women’s wear and accessories is that it allows me to reach a wider audience and bring my designs to people who may not have been able to purchase them before,” said Wu. “My collection for Target is chic and wearable. I think women everywhere will enjoy it.”

There is no word yet on the Wu x Target shelf date, and while we’re just going to assume for now that Seattle shops will get it, we have nothing concrete to confirm that either.

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Tags: Seattle Style News, Seattle Style Headlines, Designer Collaboration

Model Behavior: Heffner Takes Manhattan

Seattle Met’s spring ’11 model and a local drummer make headlines on style.com.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Sep 15, 2011 at 08:00AM 1 Comments

Photo: Ryan McVay

SLIDESHOW: Local models take Manhattan. Here, Maja Hansen in Seattle Met’s Spring ’11 fashion spread. The Seattleite was just short-listed by a top fashion casting director and pictured on style.com. To see Hansen and fellow Heffner model Miles Frank in action during New York Fashion Week, click the slideshow link.

View Slideshow » Photo: Ryan McVay

SLIDESHOW: Local models take Manhattan. Here, Maja Hansen in Seattle Met’s Spring ’11 fashion spread. The Seattleite was just short-listed by a top fashion casting director and pictured on style.com. To see Hansen and fellow Heffner model Miles Frank in action during New York Fashion Week, click the slideshow link.

View Slideshow » Photo: Style.com St. John

Maja Hansen the recent St. John show in New York. I’ve observed that walking the runway isn’t exactly Hansen’s strong suit. If you were at Nordstrom’s Designer Preview, you observed the same thing. But that face! So it’s interesting that she was cast for a live mannequin-style show.

View Slideshow » Photo: Style.com Richard Chai Love

Miles Frank for Richard Chai’s Love line. Fellows, note that striped jacket.

View Slideshow » Photo: Style.com Timo Weiland

And Frank for Timo Weiland. The Kirkland-based model certainly has the disaffected thing down.

To review: I do get pretty psyched when Seattle is in the national style news.

On a recent stroll through style.com I came upon a blog post that named Seattleite Maja Hansen among notable casting director Andrew Weir’s top three up-and-coming faces in the New York fashion scene. Um, not too shabby.

Hansen was a dream when she starred in our spring ‘11 fashion story, High Rise Sublime; I knew when i met her among a dozen or so other girls at a Heffner Management casting call that she was The One. I’m a sucker for short hair, and I loved her classic-but-not Christy Turlington vibe. Looks like New York is loving it, too. Not only did she get that style.com shout out, but she was cast in St. John’s mannequin-style show earlier this week (or, you know, earlier this fashion week). Check the slideshow to see her in “action.”

And then, I noticed another Heffner face, Miles Frank, in the Richard Chai Love show—and then in the Timo Weiland show, and then in a spotlight post on the style.com blog. Hmm, now let me check in with something here: Other models that have been the sole subject of blog posts on style.com? Kate, Agyness, Coco… Not too shabby at all, Frank. The Kirkland-based drummer and his band even played a NYFW party hosted by his east coast agency, Root Management.

What’s up, Seattle? You are looking F-I-N-E. Check out your townspeople in the slideshow here.

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Tags: Seattle Menswear, Model Behavior, Seattle Style News, New York Fashion Week 2011

What’s Your Take On… Grunge Girls?

Style.com says Seattle girls circa Soundgarden and Cyclops are It.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Sep 06, 2011 at 02:00PM 3 Comments

Was Bridget Fonda’s character in Singles a style icon for you back in the day? Is she now?

Although not overtly Seattle- or Northwest-centric, there’s no way style.com could have thrown Beauty Icon: The Girls of Grunge up over the weekend without this landscape or our scene.

Yes, of course Courtney Love is in it, as is Bridget Fonda’s character in Singles. Portland gets a couple of mentions, as does, ahem, Portlandia. But what to make of the larger idea that the early ‘90s—when, as style.com reminds us, "of Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten,"—keep creeping up in the realm of fashion and style?

Is it just me or does everyone except Seattle want to glorify, romanticize, and generally bite the style of Old School Seattle?

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Tags: Seattle Style, What's Your Take On..., Seattle Style News

Hedi Slimane x Frances Bean Cobain

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Aug 08, 2011 at 12:00PM 1 Comments

Photo: Hedi Slimane

One of the recently published photographs of Frances Bean Cobain by fashion icon Hedi Slimane.

If you had any sort of personal investment in the music and fashion scene in Seattle in the 90s, you’ve had at least one middle-of-the-night panicked thought for Frances Bean Cobain.

The images that just popped on up the blog of French fashion designer, photographer, and all-around icon Hedi Slimane don’t necessarily put any fears to rest, but neither will they keep you from falling asleep tonight.

You will see both Kurt and Courtney in the images of their not quite 20 year-old daughter, but moreover, you will see stark beauty and a very pinpointed approximation of the Nevermind years.

Moreover, you will find it pretty difficult to look away.

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Tags: Seattle Style, Photography, Nirvana, Seattle Style News, Grunge

What’s Your Take On … Seattle in Vogue?

Do you recognize yourself as Karlie Kloss in Tevas and designer wool tied around her waist?

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Jun 14, 2011 at 11:00AM 3 Comments

Photo: Vogue

This is what Vogue magazine thinks you look like.

And that’s what I get for not reading American Vogue on any kind of regular basis. (I won’t pretend to prefer ‘reading’ the Parisian or Italian version, but when I do pick them up, it’s the British edition.)

Melissa at the Seattle-based fashion and lifestyle site Jenesequa pointed out that Seattle is in the glossies yet again. The June issue of Vogue has Lynn Yaeger and Craig McDean hanging out in our backyards for the North by Northwest installment of the mag’s “America the Beautiful” series. (Only you can tell no one actually came here; they place the Four Seasons five minutes away from SAM; you’d have to take the long route, like through Green Lake, to spend more than 30 seconds getting from one to the other.)

I don’t have any problem with them referring to us as “sophisticated but disarmingly down-to-earth,” but it’s a bummer that they’re still buying into the Teva cliche (with Balenciaga?? I mean, c’mon). And really? The Nevermind cover again? Aren’t the Fleet Foxes big enough to name drop? Or is that a Portland band now?

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Tags: What's Your Take On..., Seattle Style News

Seattle Style News: Jeweler Gina Pankowski in W Magazine

January Jones gets a little bit of Seattle around her neck.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Jun 09, 2011 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Ignore the hair, the shoes, and the long, long legs. Check out the necklace; it’s a piece by Seattle designer Gina Pankowski.

Oh, Seattle, you’ve done it again. And this time I didn’t even notice.

Last week when I mentioned that W magazine was singling out one of Julep’s ocean-colored polishes, I was kind of missing the bigger news.

In the she-glam main feature wherein January Jones trades Mad Men for something like Mad Max, the fiercest accessory in the spread came from a Seattle designer, Gina Pankowski of Lattis Design. A friend of the jeweler’s knew Lori Goldstein, the stylist on the shoot, so she had seen Pankowski’s work took a liking to this particular piece.

Pankowski works primarily in 18- and 22-karat gold, and her styles are rarely quiet or demure. They’re more like cyclone fences for your wrists.

Looking to best the last few Halloweens’ Mad Men getups? You could go as Jones in W; Lattis Design pieces are sold locally at the Bellevue Art Museum Store.

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Tags: Accessories, Seattle Designer, Seattle Style News

Seattle Style News: Julep and W Magazine

Local nail polish company’s “Amy” is a hit with big time beauty editors.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Jun 02, 2011 at 12:35PM 0 Comments

Blue polish by Seattle’s Julep looks good in this month’s W

Seattle, you’re looking good these days. Earlier this week you showed up on Style.com, and last night I found you in the pages of W magazine—their beauty issue no less.

On page 28 of the current issue, associate editor Christina Han picks “Amy,” a sort of Caribbean-vacation blue, by Julep, one of two Seattle nail concerns that consistently gets love in the national press.

No, to be clear: the mention is on a page meant to hype the mag’s online content, but I spent a fair chunk of my morning trying to find it, and … it wasn’t there. The text directs you to wmagazine.com/beautypicks, but that url gave me an error notice. Maybe by the time you read this, the page will be fixed. At any rate, that’s not the important part.

The important part is that beauty readers all over the globe are going to be searching for ‘Julep’ and ‘Amy’ and finding Seattle. The other good news is that you can just walk to one of the company’s four locations and buy it, or get it expertly applied to your fingers and toes.

I called to check: all the brand’s parlors have “Amy” at the ready.

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Tags: Health and Beauty, Seattle Style News, Julep

Sasquatch on Style.com

The fashion world’s CNN hosts a slideshow of Northwest style images by local photographer Kyle Johnson.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on May 31, 2011 at 01:00PM 0 Comments

Photo: Kyle Johnson for Style.com

Style.com declares the Northwest sartorially relevant with a slideshow of style images by Kyle Johnson from last weekend’s Sasquatch festival. See the whole slideshow on style.com.

I’m used to running into slideshows of concert-goers as ‘street’ stylers on style.com—Coachella is sort of the new Tuileries, no?

It’s good that the same site that glorifies fashion editors in Prada should nod it’s head at indie rockers in high-waisted denim and vintage. After all, collections like Marc by Marc Jacobs are influenced equally by both.

So I was psyched to hear that the online style center had assigned a photographer to cover Sasquatch. As you know, I’m hugely in favor of fashion and media outlets cluing into the fact that the Northwest is sartorially relevant and design savvy.

But I was double psyched that it was frequent Seattle Met and Seattle Met Bride & Groom shooter Kyle Johnson who had been sent to capture the ankle boots and grandpa hats.

And then, well, triple-psyched when Johnson sent me a note this morning to let me know that style.com had launched their slideshow of his shots. Guess this officially makes him the Tommy Ton of Eastern Washington. And the intro text on the style.com’s page makes our fest the new best.

Congrats, Kyle, and congrats to the Northwest.

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Tags: Seattle Street Style, Seattle Style News

Little Italy

A look at an Italian sportswear company’s Seattle-based ad campaign.

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Jan 07, 2011 at 08:30AM 5 Comments

Photo: replay

SLIDESHOW This is what we look like to them: Italian sportswear company Replay uses Seattle (here, the Comet Tavern) as a backdrop for thigh-high socks and elbow patches.

View Slideshow » Photo: replay

SLIDESHOW This is what we look like to them: Italian sportswear company Replay uses Seattle (here, the Comet Tavern) as a backdrop for thigh-high socks and elbow patches.

View Slideshow » Photo: replay

The Ballard Ave shot I saw in 10 magazine

View Slideshow » Photo: replay

Well c’mon, you didn’t expect them to come all this way and not take the ubiquitous Kerry Park shot did you?

There I was minding my own business, making my way through the omnipresent half-read stack of expensive foreign fashion magazines, when I paused and then paused some more on a glossy full-page ad inside the London-based fashion mag, 10.

I really can’t say what it was that stopped me. I was not drawn to the clothing, and the image wasn’t particularly striking, but there was a sense of familiarity that I couldn’t name, define, or page past.

For a minute I tried to get inside the image … What do these people in their copiously patchworked denim and extra-long socks want me to feel?

At this point I hadn’t even noted who the advertiser was, though if pressed I might have said something like American Eagle – that’s how aggressively rumpled, American, and well, average, the look was. At that point my eye darted to the upper right hand corner where daylight just barely blurred a street sign that read, ‘Ballard Ave.’ From there I scanned down the cobblestone-y street, past fingerless knit gloves and a denim miniskirt, to the bottom of the page where I saw, ‘Replay,’ and then, ‘October 2 Saturday, 2p.m. Ballard Avenue Seattle.’

The magazine was ejected, the laptop was retrieved, and a minute later I was on Replay.it clicking on a prominent link labeled, ‘Fall Winter 2010 Advertising Campaign,’ where I discovered that an entire set of images shot by Chad Pitman, a New York-based photographer, in and around Seattle made up the Italian sportswear line’s most recent advertising initiative. The site even includes a map of the shoot locations, should, say, residents of Rome be inspired to book passage to the New World to see just what this .. how you say … Ballard Avenue is all about.

Did everyone know this but me? I Googled every combo of ‘photo shoot,’ ‘ad campaign,’ ‘Seattle,’ and ‘Replay’ that I could think of but couldn’t uncover anyone making any noise about it – although I did find local production company the Production Foundry’s behind the scenes video of the shoot on Vimeo.

It’s not that I expected an archived King 5 news segment – or even a spot on one of those townsy afternoon women’s shows. I would expect – demand – that if Karl Lagerfeld showed up in Greenlake to snap images for the next season of Chanel ads.

But here’s the thing, and I’m sorry if this makes me kind of emo, but the notion of Italian – or at least New York – art directors picking our town as a backdrop does stir up a decidedly prideful kind of something or other in me. It’s worth noting, non? And I can’t help but wonder: Where did the crew stay? Where did the models eat? Did they shop while they were here? What did they buy? How do you say, in Italian, ‘Oh this? Just something I picked up when I was in Seattle.’

So okay, okay, noted. Just in the nick of time, here in the netherland of not fall/winter 10 and not spring/summer 11. If you missed the ads, a couple of the shots are in the slideshow here, and for now at least (what’s next? spring/summer in Council Bluffs, Iowa?) they’re all on Replay’s site – where, you’ll note the sun is almost always shining here in Seattle, even if ‘we’ are just a little bit moody and pensive.

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Tags: Seattle Style News