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Dutch duo put Lady Gaga 'in chains' for Telephone video

The Dutch design duo, Viktor & Rolf, whose outrageous fashion installations and conceptual approach to the catwalk can make the avant-garde brigade seem quite run-of-the-mill, are the two men Lady Gaga turned to when she wanted a style statement for her controversial ‘Telephone’ video, featuring lesbian-prison-sex and mass-murder, and also starring Beyoncé.
Said Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, founders of the Amsterdam-based fashion house:” “Lady Gaga asked us to design a prisoner’s outfit. This is how we imagined Gaga if she would be incarcerated. She inspired us and her bodysuit was included in our brand new “glamour factory”

collection. It is styled with a huge pile of exaggerated metal chain necklaces.”

The bodysuit is strapless, in a dark-grey leopard-print, and features a studded bodice.
Viktor & Rolf’s ‘Glamour Factory’ was shown during the recent Paris prêt-à-porter collections, starring the veteran model, Kristen McMenamy, who emerged wearing 10 outfits, was gradually divested of them all, down to a corset, and was then re-dressed, in another 14 outfits, one on top of the other.
It is not the first time Viktor & Rolf have been inspired by the chain-gang. An early haute couture collection in Paris, in 2001, featured models emerging from a gloomy cavern of dry ice, struggling to walk and weighed down with heavy metal chains, decorated with cow-bells that tolled an eerie counterpoint to the clanging and rattling of the monstrous chains on the concrete floor.

What does Chloé have in common with the three 'Queens of Clean'?

There are three young, thirty-something women at the head of the new, clean-minimalism movement that has taken hold of Paris fashion: Stella McCartney, 38, Phoebe Philo, 35, and Hannah MacGibbon, 39. They all have one thing in common, apart from all being blonde, British, graduates of Central Saint Martins, and sharing a fondness for neutral colours and a clean, modern silhouette - and that is the brand, Chloé.
Stella McCartney, Beatles daughter, and mother of three, was appointed Chloé’s creative director in 1997, two years after she had graduated from Central Saint Martins, and imbued the French label with her signature of Savile Row-inspired tailoring mixed with vintage lingerie.

Deep Sea Devotion: Alexander McQueen’s ‘Manta’ Designs

The vivid dresses feature digitally-enhanced, mirror-image-style prints, resembling giant manta rays, sea-serpents and other strange or imagined denizens of the deep, inspired by McQueen’s scuba-diving trip in The Maldives, last year.

Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, and Annabelle Neilson, McQueen’s muse and dearest friend, formed a ‘Manta Trio’ at the end of the Campbell’s ‘Fashion for Relief’ charity event at Somerset House, during London Fashion Week in February. This stunning visual tribute to McQueen, the brightest fashion star of his generation, echoed the supermodel homage at the end of the similar event in aid of Haiti, which Campbell had organised during New York Fashion Week, a few days after the designer’s tragic death by suicide, had been announced.

Most recently, the actress, Selma Hayek, who is married to Francois-Henri Pinault, the chairman and CEO of PPR SA, which has a 51% stake in the Alexander McQueen label, through its ownership of Gucci Group, wore one of the dresses to the Vanity Fair and the Sir Elton John Aids Foundation ‘Oscars’ parties in Hollywood.

The designer’s great friend, Daphne Guinness, was one of the first to go manta-mode, in November, soon after McQueen’s ‘Plato’s Atlantis’ spring/summer collection in Paris. A few days later, Noor Seear chose one for ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon” premiere, in Los Angeles. Lily Cole wore a ‘Manta’ dress for the premiere of ‘The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus’, in Tokyo, on January 14th, and, a couple of weeks later, so did Anna Paquin, for the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, in Los Angeles.

The ‘Manta’ dresses have now sold out in London, despite their price tag in excess of £2,800.

But the McQueen D-Manta clutch-bag, which offers a tantalising, trenchant glimpse of how the late designer's fascination with Darwin’s theory of evolution could be translated into a pattern so evocative of his bizarre and beautiful imagination.

Available in a selection of colours, from £295,

HALF HAND GLOVES

Dr Martens celebrates 50th anniversary

Tough-looking, hardworking work boots have been the default off-duty footwear for the hip, young, Agyness Deyn set for the past few seasons, and none more so than the iconic Dr Martens, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
The daddy of all work boots, “DMs” were first developed in Germany by Klaus Martens, and made in Northampton, in the UK, in 1960.

They took on a more fashionable, anarchic edge in the Seventies and Eighties, finding favour with punks, skinheads and New Wavers, who wore them with biker jackets, jeans - and signature sneer.
Today, Docs are cult fashion must-haves. Agyness Deyn owes several pairs, including one in red, as does the the punky model, Alice Dellal, and Madonna’s ever on-the-pulse daughter, Lourdes Ciccone Leon, has been spotted wearing them stylishly unlaced.
To toast the boots' continuing popularity, the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery will hold an exhibition, Dr Martens at 50: The Making of an Icon.
Says spokeswoman Josephine Hickin: “Over the past 50 years, DMs have been work-wear and school shoes, worn by policemen and punks, skinheads and political activists. They have simultaneously represented both fashion and anti-fashion. There is no other shoe brand that has made such a vast contribution to British culture and their story is fascinating.”
Dr Martens at 50: The Making of an Icon, 20 March - 16 May, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery; northampton.gov.uk/museums

More “Telephone” Promo Photos

Even more photos of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé on set of their new music video for “Telephone” have just been released.

Chanel goes 'green'

Karl Lagerfeld, the multitasking photographer, art collector, linguist, writer, and the designer behind the powerful French brand, Chanel, added another title to his cv at the Paris prêt-à-porter season: the chic environmentalist.
The one-man fashion “storm”, had the Chanel invitations printed with his own sketch of the endangered polar bear; created an Arctic landscape from 240 tons of ice in the Grand Palais – and, then, filled the collection with fake fur.

“It’s so good now, technical advances are so perfect you can hardly tell fake fur from the real thing,” he said backstage. “Fake is not chic – we have got a new Chanel tweed to stop copies – but fake fur is.”
“It’s not global warming, it’s global-cooling!”
The audience, shivering in the Alaskan conditions of the Grand Palais, with Vanessa Paradis and Lindsay Lohan, among the front-row celebrities, would have readily agreed.
The models strolled through a North Pole wilderness of icebergs - sculpted by the team who created the world’s largest hotel made of ice and snow, in the Swedish village of Jukkasjä - wearing shaggy, fake-fur coats, and fake-fur-trimmed tweeds.
They splashed through icy waters, left by the melting ‘bergs, in fake-fur yeti boots, and “Chanel”, two-tone shoes, covered with plastic galoshes, some of which came loose and were left floating behind, like detritus from a polar expedition.
The fake-fur flurry included woolly mammoth-look trousers, for both men and women; Inuit-style knits; and evening-wear in fake-fox, mixed with cream lace and tweed, and accessorised with ice-crystal jewellery.

Lady Gaga Planning A 3D Concert, DVD

Lady Gaga is currently in the midst of her massive Monster Ball tour and, as you probably know by now, she’s also putting the finishing touches on the much-anticipated “Telephone” video, too.
But neither of those things are standing in the way of yet another ambitious endeavor, a planned 3D concert and subsequent DVD.
On Monday, MTV News spoke to a rep for her label, Interscope Records, who told us that “there are talks about a 3D concert and DVD in the near future.” No other information was available at press time.
Read more: MTV.com

New “Telephone” Promo Photo

Milan Fashion Week: The round-up

The skirts were short, as they inevitably are in Milan – and there was an element of corsetry, cleavage and Sixties/Seventies nostalgia. But the big story from the Italian fashion capital’s truncated season (pruned to four days) was the great wrap-up.
Whether in plaid, fur (and there was lots of that), tweed, canvas, exotic knits, cashmere, or a combination of all of these, the key to next season was how to cover up what lies beneath (which is vital in winter; you could die of hypothermia in a Pucci dress).

Setareh Mohtarez

For more views on Setareh Mohtarez's Brightness Dawn Collection, visit setarehmohtarez.com or send her your love on her Twitter!

New “Telephone” Promo Photo

Supermodel Daria Werbowy stars as Maria Felix in the latest issue of V Magazine

The Polish-born, Ukranian-Canadian supermodel, Daria Werbowy, stars in a colourful tribute to the exotic Mexican actress, Maria Felix, in the latest issue of V Magazine, V64.
Photographed by Mario Testino, the 10-page spread captures the sexual allure and dramatic fashion sense of the actress known as “La Doña,” regarded as the last Diva of Mexican cinema.

Dressed in traditional, striped serapes, black bustiers, skintight jeans and boots, accessorised with serpent and crocodile necklaces, Werbowy smoulders under a black sombrero, as hot as the cigar she brandishes.
Maria Felix appeared in some 47 movies, including Luis Buñuel’s Fever Mounts at El Pao, seven of them shot in France. She was renowned as much for her tumultuous love-life (she married four times) and extravagant wardrobe, as her screen career.
Named among the best-dressed women in the world, she wore designs by the great couturiers of her time, including Jean Dessès, Christian Dior, Chanel, Valentino, Givenchy, Balenciaga and Hermès, and commissioned her favourite serpent and crocodile jewellery from Cartier. According to reports, there was never a hat too big or a diamond too large for Maria Felix.
She was born on April 8, 1914, and died on exactly the same day, in 2002. A hotel and museum has been built on the site of the house where she was born, Casa Maria Felix Museum & Inn, in the 17th century pueblo of Alamos, Mexico.
Werbowy and Testino’s “Ave Maria”, styled by Sarajane Hoare, appears in the latest edition of V Magazine, on news-stands, March 4.

Lace for spring

Love it or loathe it, lace is here to stay. Thanks to its versatility, it has enjoyed a recurring lead role on the catwalk, reaching staple-like status this spring.
Early adopters of the fabric might have cautiously dipped a toe in the trend as far back as two winters ago, when Miuccia Prada devoted her autumn/winter 2008 collection to it. It is most likely you succumbed last year, though – perhaps with a little black lace dress or sleeveless bodysuit for the party season.

“Telephone” Music Video Premiere Date

“Telephone” featuring Beyoncé will be released on Monday, March 8!

Kate Moss starts latest fashion fad with her 'C.R.A.F.T' jeans

C.R.A.F.T Hells Angels biker jeans, size 25- 31, £225, available from Harvey Nichols and www.matchesfashion.com