Italian phenomenon Anna Dello Russo is like a glittery, studded, crystal-encrusted, mini-skirted one-woman fashion version of Brangelina. Wherever she goes, a trail of photographers follow. She’s also kind of like a prettier version of Karl Lagerfeld, with a reputation for giving the same did-she-really-just-say-that? soundbites that make you wish all fashion types were so candid. The editor-at-large of Vogue Japan reveals her fashion month strategy.

Plan (way) ahead
“Outfits are my job. I plan them one season ahead. By May, I have my September wish list. By the time the September shows arrive, I’ve come back from holiday and don’t want to cover up! I want to show off my tan and sun kissed hair. Fashion isn’t relaxed, but New York is the most urban. There you focus on a statement piece. There’s no mix and match. Milan is total freedom as I have access to my wardrobe and Paris is the place to be fashionable to the highest degree. It’s over the top and you can really push yourself. You are expected to put on an eccentric show. Walk around Place Vendome in Paris in haute couture and you’ll feel fantastic.”

‘Talk to the sharks’
“I wasn’t used to the attention at first. I’ve been around for 20 years. And for the first 10, nobody noticed me. And I promise you, I wore beautiful clothes then. Photographers, paparazzi, bloggers — they just ‘happened’. Why they didn’t follow me when I was younger, I don’t know! I used to be terrified of having my picture taken but now, I get mad if I don’t. I’m like, ‘Oh la la … they don’t like my outfit?!’ When you step out and there are all these people — Mamma Mia! — it’s like walking toward a sea of sharks. I relax, take it easy and play with them… you must talk to the sharks.”

Act like you do in church
“Fiddling with your phone is just rude. Being at a fashion show is a bit like being in church; you have to be there and listen. I love it most when I’m seated next to Carine [Roitfeld]. She’s so funny. Whenever I’m seated next to her, I’m like, ‘Allez!’”

Go for the highest first
“My all-time best front row moment was getting a seat at Balenciaga. Few people get invited and the impact of the show is so much stronger from the front row as you actually get to see the silhouettes.”

Exercise fashionable restraint
“I don’t carry a big bag to the shows, just a clutch. In it I carry my lipstick, my phone and a little notebook in case I need to remember something. I also carry water and almonds so that I can nibble without getting dirty. I don’t really have last minute beauty fixes because when I go out, I’m perfect and leave it at that. I don’t brush my hair or wear too much make up or perfume.”

Give the ultimate fashion face
“Working in fashion you learn to lie. You’re an actress and must remain impassable whether you love the collection or not. Out of respect and politeness we behave like wax works from Madame Tussauds, devoid of expression or emotion. Who cares what I like? It should be about the evolution of the designer, nothing more.”

-as told to Romina McGuinness
photo by Tamu McPherson, All the Pretty Birds

In the reality show The City, Olivia Palermo is the pretty mean girl you love to hate. In real life, she’s a master of the fashion week front row photo-op. She tells us how she does it.



Getting dressed
“The great thing about Fashion Week is that everyone is experimenting with their style and looks amazing. I get so inspired all the time just by seeing girls on the street. My style is constantly changing and I have really colorful inspiration boards up on my wall to track my mood shifts. When I pack for a Fashion Week, I try to keep the individual city’s weather and style in mind. I keep an umbrella on me because it has rained, without fail, these past show weeks in New York! When I’m in London, I’ll make sure to have a pair of leather pants, ballet flats and a good blazer. And a good powder is essential. That’s so I don’t look like a light bulb if someone takes my picture.”

Killing time
“When I’m waiting for a show to start, I always acknowledge the two people sitting next to me, catch up with friends and check my email. But if I’m not particularly fond of the person I’m seated next to, I stay kind and gracious. There’s no reason to be rude. I don’t believe in bad front row experiences.”

To text or not to text
“Whenever I’m front row, I have to have my Blackberry. If I don’t have a pad and pen on me, I’ll use it to take notes about the shows I saw. Though I try hard not to use the Blackberry during the actual show because I don’t want to get too distracted. I want to focus on the clothes.”

Quick changes
“I’ve never under­stood fashion rules. If I want to wear my leather pants 50 times in a row, than so be it. But I don’t like to leave the house unless I’m pretty pulled together. Some people change outfits between shows but I don’t really have time to do that. So my trick is to switch a shirt or reverse a sweater to make it seem different. I do try and wear the clothes from the designer’s collection to support them as much as I can, though.”

-as told to Romina McGuinness

Since its original conception in the 1890s, the runway show has evolved in a number of ways, from the people who attend through to the length of the performance. However, the original purpose of the show has, in some respects, survived and that is the necessity to sell garments. To understand more about the history of the fashion show, we spoke to Caroline Evans, a professor of fashion history and theory at the University of Arts London, and author of the upcoming book, Modeling Modernity.

1890s / 1900
“Most people think that the first person to turn modeling into something much more theatrical, was Lady Duff Gordon aka Lucile. She designed for the stage in the 1890s and later opened her own shop in New York in 1910. Her models were famous for sporting theatrical haughty poses.”

1907
“I think you started to get mixed audiences at the shows quite early on. There were artists and playwrights. There are pictures of Henry James and Edith Wharton at the opening of the fashion theater in 1907. [The fashion show] was never not mainstream.”



Post 1918
“They let journalists into the shows after the First World War but they didn’t treat them very well. After the war, they started [having] really spectacular evening parties and the journalists would be treated much more politely and respectfully.”

1920s
“[The fashion show] gradually became a bit more social and less segregated in the 1920s. This was due to men and women such as the well-known photographer Adolph De Meyer. He and his wife went back to Paris in the early twenties and he had this regular column, where he’d talk about dropping in to see Mademoiselle Chanel and how she told him this and that. It was very much about making his reader feel on familiar terms with the society element of the fashion shows. Later, Jean Patou in 1923 started having previews, a press night before his show.”

1930s
“[The fashion show] develops more in the ’30s after the First World War, which was important because that had a huge effect on loosening class boundaries. After the Russian revolution you got a lot of Russian aristocrats coming to Paris.”

1950s
“Mary Quant showed in the 1950s at the trade show in Europe and Continental Europe; she kind of knew that she couldn’t compete with that European elegance. So she started using pop music and she got photographic models… to strike these really dramatic poses. So she showed a collection in much quicker time than anyone had ever thought of doing before her.”

1960s /1970s
Yves Saint Laurent revolutionized the runway show by turning it into a more glamorous affair. “Suddenly ready-to-wear stops being like the poor relation of fashion.”

-Richard Peckett

From Cathy Horyn’s blog, On the Runway:

Burberry plans to offer customers a substantial portion of its Prorsum spring 2011 runway collection — to be shown Sept. 21 in London — for immediate online sale, with delivery in six to eight weeks.

…Burberry has moved quickly to be a digital leader in the fashion industry, and certainly no other luxury-goods player has taken this kind of step with e-commerce — a step that appeals to a generation of consumers interested in novel design as much as accessibility. Burberry declined to reveal sales results from the February online offer (the company also made products available at its June men’s show), but Ms. Manley said the site experienced “huge spikes” in traffic. “We saw it as an opportunity to bring more awareness to the brand,” she said.

This isn’t surprising news. As Cathy mentioned in her blog entry, Burberry offered a selection of its aviator jackets for order during and immediately after the a/w ‘10 runway show. Still, to see such a big house making its collection immediately available for purchase feels like a definitive step towards fashion evolving into a see-now-buy-now industry. Finally, fashion is catching up with technology. People the world over see the collections as soon as they hit the runways through online streaming, Style.com and unending blog coverage. By the time the clothes actually hit the stores, many of those key runway pieces feel tired and overexposed. Fashion has always capitalized on The New, so it would only make sense that companies sell the clothes when they look their freshest. Granted, it will probably take some time before this idea hits its tipping point. Many fashion houses can barely meet their shipping deadlines as it is. But for the brands that can afford to make the changes necessary to sell directly from the runway, this seems like a much-needed step towards the future.

Last week’s blog entry about autumn’s upcoming fashion book releases* turned into a slightly different and bigger story that ran in our papers. When one of our editors, Aleksander Korab, read it, he sent me this hilarious spoof of a reading list that he drafted up for us, which re-imagines some of the great literary classics as fashion tragicomedies. Here are a few highlights from his list.

The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan
A classic adventure about girls in high heels, jammed with action, violence and suspense.

The Trial, by Franz Kafka
The enigmatic tale of H&M fitting rooms.

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
The unauthorized biography of lady Gaga.

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland , by Lewis Carroll
Never-before-seen, previously unpublished fashion week diaries.

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
An anthology of memoirs collected from beleaguered boyfriends everywhere: “If I’m supposed to say, ‘Yes, honey, you are right’ to my girlfriend all the time. How do I handle it when she complains about her jeans making her look fat?”

The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
The authorized biography of lady Gaga.

*While we’re talking about reading: Another Isabella Blow book is coming down the pike. Unlike the first one, which is a biography authored by her husband, this one is more of a tribute piece, by her former PA Martina Rink, who compiled recollections of Isabella from fashion creatives such as Philip Treacy, Mario Testino, Hussein Chalayan and Jürgen Teller. It hits stores on September 13.

If you’ve been lusting after the American duo Vena Cava’s collection of sophisticated feminine pieces with a dark edge from afar, but afraid of the steep runway prices, fear no more! Design duo Sophie Buhai and Lisa Mayock created a capsule collection for Aqua, the juniors ready-to-wear line at Bloomingdale’s. The downside: It’s only available in the States. (What’s up with the no-international-shipping-policy Bloomie’s?) “It’s sort of a greatest hits of Vena Cava collection,” says Mayock of the 19-piece line which features the designers’ signature hand-drawn prints on flirty separates in silk, velvet and lace. The collection ranges from $98-$198 and hits all Bloomingdale’s stores and Bloomingdales.com on September 1st.

-Tina Chadha