Anna Kendrick and Nikki Reed both opted for Marchesa dresses on the red carpet for the “Twilight Saga: Eclipse” LA Premiere last night.

Anna is the first celeb to wear a look from the recently presented Marchesa Resort 2011 collection.

Her gold pleated fan dress may not be too impressive in a long shot, but up close the dress is embellished with stunning crystal details.

Gold Jimmy Choo ‘Glamour’ heels and a chic updo complete the look.

Nikki Reed opted for more of a show stopping stand out Marchesa look.

Her sky blue Marchesa Fall 2010 chiffon dress with a feather skirt and shoulders had a beautiful embroidered detail on the bodice.

Christian Louboutin peep-toes and a Jenny Packham clutch completed the look.

It’s clear she didn’t want to fade into the background at this premiere.

For some reason Camilla Belle’s “2012″ LA Premiere Alexander McQueen dress immediately sprang to mind when I saw this look.

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Credit: Style.com, Fame Pictures & Getty

Labels from to Norma Kamali to Forever 21 have been experimenting with 3-D techno magic to enhance their brands this year, like when Burberry put on a virtual spectacular of epic proportions in Beijing back in April). At the Spring shows, tastemakers like Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquière and Marc Jacobs performed optical illusions of their own with iridescent cellophane looks that glinted with each step down the runway. Other designers, including Derek Lam, Olivier Theyskens, and Manish Arora, went for a more holographic effect. Lady Gaga (who else?) noticed. The pop supernova borrowed a dress from Arora’s Paco Rabanne debut for a performance at the MTV Europe Music Awards.Here at Style.com, we remain divided about the wearability of these part sci-fi, part psychedelic pieces, but there’s no arguing that stylist and street-style favorite Katie Shillingford’s futuristic Christopher Kane top, spotted on the show circuit, was a hit. CLICK FOR A SLIDESHOW and let us know if you plan on giving your wardrobe a holographic spin.—Brittany Adams

Photo: Yannis Vlamos / GoRunway.com

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“You can’t send ten jumpers down the runway,” said Markus Lupfer last week, while breakfasting on eggs and soldiers at New York’s Cafe Cluny. The German-born designer was explaining that he hasn’t shown in three years, investing the time, energy, and expense that used to go toward the catwalk back into the collection. The result? His business has taken off. His clothes are in 150 stores, including Net-a-Porter, Harvey Nichols, and Shopbop.com, and he has the production capability to do both pre-fall and Resort. “The sales I used to do in a year, I now get three times that in a single season,” he said. But the London designer isn’t forsaking the runway entirely. His long-view plan is actually quite interesting for a small operation: to focus on building sales for five, perhaps up to ten, years and return to showing as a big operation.During this past London fashion week, Lupfer’s alternative for his collection (inspired by the film White Mischief) was a party-slash-presentation hosted by Lydia Hearst, who just happened to show up at his studio for a lookbook casting in August, among other non-heiress models. “At first I didn’t even know who she was, when she came in,” admits Lupfer. “But everything looked great on her, so we decided to throw a party.” They did so in laid-back manner, with Alexa Chung and her boyfriend, Alex Turner, deejaying plus a surprise birthday cake for Hearst. Lupfer’s latest news is his debut men’s collection, exclusive to Harvey Nichols this season. The designer reports it’s doing well among guys and—no surprise—female clients, too. Looking at his slouchy leopard sweatshirt, we can understand why.

—Meenal Mistry

Photos: Courtesy of Markus Lupfer

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Since I was first introduced to MiH Jeans by Emily of Fashion Foie Gras, I haven’t looked back.

Having two pairs, my favourite are the MiH Marrakesh ‘Kick Flare’ Jeans which I wear pretty much everywhere. They are comfortable, they make my legs look even longer than they already are, the medium wash means they work with just about everything and the fact that they are a British brand with a strong, authentic denim heritage helps deepen the love too.

It appears that I’m not alone in my obsession. Everyone from Anne Hathaway, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Sarah Jessica Parker, Katie Holmes, Jessica Alba, January Jones, Ali Larter and most recently Jennifer Lawrence have all fallen in love with MiH jeans.

At the press day in London this week, Founder and Creative Director Chloe Lonsdale shared that she was very excited to see girl-of-the-moment Jennifer Lawrence wearing her jeans, as she has the perfect figure to showcase jeans with her gorgeous curves.

For Fall 2012 we can look forward to more styles of jeans, in a variety of washes, cuts and colours ranging from coffee to forest green.

MiH is built on denim, but they also have a strong ready-to-wear collection featuring stripe tees, denim shirts, printed blouses, sweaters, blazers, Mongolian fur gilets, ponchos, leather jackets with denim sleeves with the hero piece being the silver biker jacket.

MiH jeans are available to purchase from Net-A-Porter.com, my-wardrobe.com, Matches Fashion, Shopbop.com, farfetch.com and their own ecommerce store mih-jeans.com

Check out the Fall 2012 collection below.

Read more…

Designers design. Photographers photograph. Models model. That much—in broad strokes, at least—is clear. But what about the artists, technicians, and industry insiders, often unpublicized and underappreciated, who help to get clothes and accessories made and shown? Call them Behind-the-Scenesters: people who shape our experience of fashion but never take a bow on the catwalk or strike a pose for the camera. Without them—from patternmakers to production designers—the show wouldn’t go on. And in our recurring series, Style.com sits down with a few of these pros to find out, basically, what they do.Maybe the best way to understand the role Nicolas Caito plays in the design process is to think about him as a secret weapon. A coterie of designers come to Caito (left) each season, bearing sketches of their most complex designs, and Caito turns their visions into runway reality. He’s a patternmaker—modeliste, in the jargon. That may sound technical, and it is, but one has only to see the way Caito makes, say, the ruffles on a gown seem as light as a soufflé to comprehend that there’s an art to what he does, as well. Designers such as Prabal Gurung seek him out for a reason. Here, Caito talks to Style.com about the art of the cut, his part in the creative process, and the designer he’s dying to work with.—Maya Singer

So, Nicolas: In one sentence, what do you do?I am basically the hands of the designer. The designer creates the sketch, and I help translate that sketch into reality, into volume. I deal with all the technical problems and create the prototype of a garment. The designer is the architect. I’m his engineer.How did you get into doing what you do?In France, where I’m from, this is the kind of job you start when you’re young. I didn’t. I was studying international trade, and then, I really don’t know how else to say it, one day this work became a calling to me. Maybe it’s in the blood—I’m from a family of tailors and cutters. But I hadn’t been into fashion at all, until then. I went to my uncle, who has a shop in Marseilles that sells luxury men’s goods, and he took me into the back, to train me. He showed me how to sew, how to alter a jacket. Then he sent me to Paris to work with Lanvin. I was to train for three months, and at the end Lanvin offered me an apprenticeship. I was there for eight years. Then I went to Hermès, when it was designed by [Martin] Margiela; I came to New York, to work at Bill Blass, and then returned to Paris to manage the sample room at Rochas, under Olivier Theyskens. Then, about five years ago now, I came back to New York to establish my own studio. When you work with designers, you’re not creating all their samples, are you?No, no. Designers only bring me a few pieces, the ones they think will be the most complicated to create.Do you have a totally free hand in figuring out the construction, or does the designer come to you with a sense of how the garment should be made?Usually, they have some idea of the construction. Not always, and then we discuss it. In either case, I want to know what kind of fabric they would like to use, and we’ll also talk about inspiration—understanding the references helps me to translate the sketch. Then I go back to the studio, and I work with my team to start creating on one half of the mannequin. That’s the half-muslin. We’re looking for the lines, figuring out the construction, balancing the pattern. Then we double the half-muslin, and have the sewer put it together, and that’s the full-muslin. The full-muslin is the first prototype the designer will see of that sketch. I bring it back, and then we have the meeting where the designer says, yes, I like that line; no, I want the neckline different, the hem shorter. For me, that’s the really interesting part of the process.How involved are you in the creative direction? Are you offering feedback about the neckline and the hem? Or just taking notes?At the fitting, I’ll address the technical aspects but I don’t comment on the design. When I’m creating the half-muslin, that’s when I’m involved in the interpretation—shortening a sleeve, for example, to bring in a balance.Aren’t you ever tempted to speak up? I mean, what if something’s really bad?The beauty of having this studio is that I get to work with many designers, many talented people. I am forced to adapt my eye to all of these different visions, and sometimes, of course, I am less inspired than others. But the culture of patternmaking is, essentially, you don’t ever say no. You go through the process, and the designer makes the decision, what’s good or not good.So, you’ve created the full-muslin, the prototype. What happens then?Then we go back and create the flat paper pattern. That’s where we’re translating the volumes into the pattern, which we’ll use to cut the real fabric. Sometimes it happens that the real fabric is so different from the muslin, we have to start again from scratch. More often, there’s some slight adjustment involved. Every fabric has its own way of moving.There are instances where a designer makes a dress, say, in two different fabrics. Is that one pattern, or two?If we’ve draped the original pattern assuming wool, and then the designer decides to make a version in chiffon, it’s a totally new pattern. These things happen, it’s part of the process, but I like to avoid as much redoing as possible, so I ask a lot of questions. Is there a print? Will there be embroideries?Do you also create the patterns used for production of the garments?Yes. We start the standardization of the patterns after fashion week: We take the size zero, from the runway, and bring it up to whatever size the designer works to. As you increase the sizing, the proportions change, which requires additional fittings; if you’re going from a size zero to a size twelve, it’s quite a process, in fact. We have to make sure we’re respecting the design—in the store, you should be seeing the closest thing to the runway sample as possible.How do you decide who to work with?Mainly, it’s a matter of: Can you pay me? [Laughs.] No, but it’s also, I have to make sure the designer and I can communicate, that I understand what he wants. The first season I work with someone, there’s a maximum of three patterns; I don’t want to get stuck in a collaboration that isn’t working.Is there a designer you’d love to work with?Hussein Chalayan. He seems to be very into the craftsmanship—in each collection, he’s bringing a lot of different technical ideas, like dresses that turn into a plane, and so on. It’s very intellectual, but I feel like his ideas come from his hands, if that makes sense, the same way my ideas come from my hands.

Photo: Screengrab courtesy of Vogue.it

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They came, they saw, and some of them conquered. The CFDAs are one of fashion’s big night’s for parading in the best of borrowed finery—even the notoriously uniform-clad can up the night. But who did it best?There were dresses of every stripe on display—and a few suits, too. Dree Hemingway, who can seemingly do no wrong in Calvin Klein Collection (see also: here), looked amazing in white pants on the arm of Calvin Klein’s Italo Zucchelli. Some went for maximum effect (Iman in Giambattista Valli), and some went mini (Liya Kebede in Proenza Schouler). Some stayed on trend: vide Paz de la Huerta in Yigal Azrouël, who wore one of the floor-sweepers that the designer has been helping to popularize of late.The best of the bunch, in my personal opinion? It’s hard to argue with Carmen Kass in Michael Kors (pictured). Jason Wu’s good-luck charm, red-lipped Rachel Weisz, looked stunning in her periwinkle dress, too. Among the gents, Zachary Quinto in Simon Spurr was a standout. But for all-around, there’s no one like the fashion veteran Iris Apfel, in Balenciaga, who came bedecked in Alexis Bittar with the evening’s newly minted Accessory Designer of the Year in tow. She’s living proof that kids don’t have all the fun.Who were your favorites? Take a look through our slideshow and sound off below.

—Matthew Schneier

Photo: Sherly Rabbani and Josephine Solimene

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Whilst drooling over Leighton Meester in Michael Kors I missed Minka Kelly who also attended the LA Premiere of her new movie, “The Roommate” on Sunday in West Hollywood.

Minka opted for a J. Mendel dress.

The pale marble crinkle silk chiffon long sleeve lightly beaded dress with an asymmetrical skirt was paired with nude Salvatore Ferragamo peep-toes and a Calvin Klein clutch.

This maybe too one note for some, but she did add a touch of turquoise via her Jack Vartanian ring.

I love the casual yet chic nature of this look which is styled with a loose side sweeping braid.

Credit: INFPhoto

So much for couture’s supposed stiff upper lip. We usually expect the drama to attend the ready-to-wear collections rather than couture—especially this season, with Christian Lacroix off the schedule—but a note circulating from Mr. Giorgio Armani himself seems to indicate otherwise. His presentation next Monday is being moved from 7:30 to 9 p.m. due to what he deems an “unexpected and unjustifiable” time change on the part of Dior. He goes on to call Dior’s action “indicative of a lack of respect for other people’s time and labor.” We’ve contacted Dior for its side of the story. Stay tuned.

Photo: RD / Dziekan / Retna

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When 2010 became 2011, the real action (sorry, Snooki) was in Vegas, where Jay-Z and Coldplay’s Chris Martin teamed up for a special concert to open the new Marquee at the Cosmopolitan—a concert that drew wives Beyoncé and Gwyneth Paltrow as well as Kanye, Rihanna, Blake Lively, J. Lo, A-Rod, and more. Meanwhile, in Miami, Chloë Sevigny hosted a bash at the Mondrian with Miike Snow’s Andrew Wyatt that brought out Leigh Lezark and Leona Lewis, and Nur Khan partied at Kenmare and Don Hill’s in New York City, where his photographer pal Sante D’Orazio set up Sante’s Inferno. Missed the fun? Click through our slideshow for all the pics.

Photo: Photo: Kevin Mazur / WireImage

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H&M Loves The Glamorous Vintage Couture from Decades Inc.

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Alexander McQueen Fall 2010 Shoes & Bags
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Zac Posen for Target 24 Hour Shopping Party
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How to get red carpet ready by Rachel Zoe
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Tilda Swinton by Glen Luchford | Dazed & Confused May 2010
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Christian Siriano to Release Runway Styles for Payless Again
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Pixie Geldof models H! by Henry Holland for Debenhams
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Carey Mulligan for Interview Magazine
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Jennifer Aniston to Launch Signature Fragrance Lolavie!
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First Look! Mary-Kate and Ashley’s New Collection
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Spring 2011 Bridal Fashion Week
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Fall 2010 Campaign Update: Givenchy, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, and Roberto Cavalli
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Scarlett Johansson’s Dreamy Mango Summer 2010 Campaign
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