Small brand/designer

Instead of paying interns food and travel expenses, the designer will order expensive take-out for himself every day. The studio will be in a god-forsaken part of Hackney with no transport links to civilisation. Your initial agreement to work 2-3 days a week will quickly turn into 6 days a week, 9 am to 9 pm. Other interns will be dropping off like flies — if you must do a shitty internship to fill your CV, better go somewhere people have actually heard of. The roles of social media guru, graphic designer, courier service and dog poo-picker will be delegated to you at once.

Big brand/designer

For no pay, you and 40 other interns will produce every part of the collection. Your supervisor will expect you to show levels of skill and enthusiasm that would warrant a £70k salary in a normal world. You’ll spend months working until three in the morning without credit or thanks. When sick, you’ll gulp down painkiller cocktails so as not to attract attention. Disillusioned by the brand you loved all your life, misanthropy will consume you. You’ll be tempted to drop everything and become a Buddhist shepherd in the Highlands.

Big publication

The golden rule: the more illustrious the publication, the more menial the tasks assigned to interns.

Editorial internship

An editorial intern is a glorified secretary with the extra burden of transcribing interviews. You’ll be sent on coffee runs and irrelevant errands, bringing back paracetamol and batteries. No one will explain you anything (“Just figure it out”), but all misunderstandings will be your fault. You’ll spend 80% of time on the phone, shielding your boss from PR people whose emails she’s ignored. Said boss won’t trust you with writing a thing. The closest you’ll get to editorial work is what staff writers are too lazy to do: research and fact-checking.

Fashion internship

You’ll be managing the fashion cupboard, a large closet storing the magazine’s inventory of clothes and accessories. You’ll be handling call-ins (pieces that the magazine borrows for shoots) and returns. If something expensive gets lost (i.e. stolen), your boss will scream at you like something out of Greek mythology. You’ll get depressed looking at jewellery that costs more than your combined earnings in the next ten years. Lest you get excited about an upcoming shoot in an exotic location, know that travel is a privilege of the fashion team. You just pack up the luggage.

Independent publication

Your task is whatever your boss deems to be beneath them, which is everything except attending events and interviewing celebrities. You’re there to make her feel like Anna Wintour, a pipe dream obscured by ominous visions of loan sharks and impending bankruptcy. Rotting in a cellar with no windows, you’ll churn out inane articles for the mag’s website that no one reads. As there’s no budget for courier service, you’ll gain “extensive experience” dragging 40 kg suitcases all over London. What do you mean do we pay travel expenses? Don’t you have a monthly pass?

If you've interned for a retailer or fashion PR agency and want to add your story to this article, please get in touch!

The shocking truth about London fashion internships first appeared on Dressful.

As attests his elegant and original footwear, Mr Ferragamo was more than a modest shoemaker. He was a visionary. In 1938, he invented the cork wedge shoe, making it possible for us to look taller without sacrificing comfort (thank you!). This type of shoe is the most beautiful in the exhibition.

The fact that most of the shoes are well worn speaks of their practicality and durability. These were not shoes you bought on a whim, realized they were uncomfortable, put them in your closet and forgot about them. You can tell from the shoes that some decades ago a woman loved wearing them. Even as museum exhibits they are full of life.

Biggest shoe crush ever. Made for Judy Garland in 1938, the rainbow wedge always gets me in a good mood.

1930s scale from the pharmacy in Florence's Via Porta Rossa where Salvatore Ferragamo used to test the lightness of his shoes. The shoe is the famous "invisible sandal" from 1947.

Salvatore Ferragamo museum in Florence first appeared on Dressful.

20 free fashion books to download from The Metropolitan Museum of Art first appeared on Dressful.

To tell you the truth, the perfumes I end up wearing the most are often impulse purchases. A spritz of Atelier Cologne's newest fragrance Pomélo Paradis stole my attention from their more demure Orange Sanguine in a perfume boutique in Trieste. It was a bomb of scintillating joy that surpassed in energy my whole perfume cabinet.

Pomélo Paradis is named after the pomelo fruit, though it's lovers of pink grapefruit who will benefit from it the most. If you're looking to upgrade from The Body Shop Pink Grapefruit to something swanky with more depth, Atelier Cologne is what you're looking for.

This is the only perfume where weak lasting power is an advantage. As you douse yourself in it again and again, an exotic paradise emerges in the air around you. What more could you want?

Top notes: pink grapefruit, calabrian mandarin and blackcurrant
Middle notes: orange blossom, bulgarian rose and mint
Base notes: amber, vetiver and iris

Atelier Cologne Pomélo Paradis: A bomb of scintillating joy first appeared on Dressful.

Feeling good in your skin and presenting your genuine self to the world are wonderful trends to close Paris fashion week. Why should trends be communicated only as colours, lengths, prints and shapes?

Without further ado, here are my good, bad and ugly of Paris Fashion Week:

Alexis Mabille

The styling was all about casually throwing pieces together; effortless without the polish of typical fashion effortlessness (let me stop before I descend into fashionese). Don’t you want to be a bit careless putting on your clothes and still look this good? One of the few Paris collections whose target audience seems to be women younger than 40.

Cédric Charlier

A contemporary winter palette that isn’t all shades of black but all shades of cool.

Chanel

Among the 90+ looks there wasn’t a single one worthy of the Chanel name. All these young girls in frumpy and heavy garb … Thankfully, one’s attention was diverted by the set. It was a paragon of campy kitsch that’s become synonymous with contemporary Chanel. This is why the café was more Allo! Allo! than Brasserie Gabrielle and I loved it.

Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten knows what his clients dream about: wearable, sexy clothes with a generous serving of extraordinary. He succeeds so well at what Phoebe Philo was hired for at Céline: designing sexy clothes that don’t sexualize women. My favourite was the hybrid of a safari jacket and a trench coat finished with a little Mandarin collar. The best of all those worlds.

Hermès

Hermès womenswear is rarely exciting, but it looks a cut above the rest. I think the trick is consistency. Season after season, they deliver good collections. I loved the subtle nods to uniforms that reminded me of builders (overalls) and traffic police officers.

Maison Margiela

When I reviewed Maison Margiela’s first haute couture collection by John Galliano, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Haute couture is an odd starting point to judge a designer. Well, I could’ve trusted my instinct. I ache for the humour and sharp wit of old Margiela. No pics because you’re better off not seeing them.

Jacquemus

This show looked like Simon Porte Jacquemus’s self-staged audition to replace Galliano at Margiela. Face masks — check. Trompe l’oeil — check. Oversized trousers echoing the iconic angularity of Margiela’s Spring 2011 — ugh, my head hurts from this collection pretending to be smarter than it is.

Valentino

The Valentino woman has multiple personality disorder. The varying aesthetic direction and the high number of looks destroyed all hope for a concise collection. A pity, because the clothes are beautiful. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson sashaying down the catwalk to promote Zoolander 2 and create a social media storm was a blow to good taste. I thought Valentino was above this.

Yohji Yamamoto

I feel absolutely humbled by this. No really, this here is a blog dedicated to fashion writing and words fail me. Sombre, mysterious, seductive — standard Yamamoto adjectives that gain power with every repetition.

Aganovich

Here at last someone dared to be sharp. Victorian slash Dracula slash dandy shapes and marvellous tailoring. Compared to other, fluid and soft collections, this is for the Autumn/Winter 2015 season what power dressing was for the 1980s.

All photos c/o Vogue.it

Paris Fashion Week Autumn 2015: The good, the bad and the ugly first appeared on Dressful.

The “no tie” dress code is not Tsipras’ caprice. It’s Syriza’s fashion commandment. The world might watch in disbelief as they do away with conventions of political dress. but the party members know that their relaxed style played a key part in their electoral victory. Greeks associate tailored suits, ties and luxury watches with the former premier Antonis Samaras and the loathed oligarchs. Syriza’s politics are different, so they have to look different too. Who would believe them otherwise?

Tsipras’ finance minister Yanis Varoufakis visited his British counterpart George Osborne last month. At Downing Street, he elevated Syriza trends to the next level and unnerved the British public. His biker boots, an electric blue shirt and a jacket that — in the words of The Guardian fashion editor Imogen Fox — made him look like a 1990s drug dealer. Still, he emanated determination and confidence. Osborne paled in comparison, looking confused and stiff.

Varoufakis, who holds a PhD in economics and left behind a venerable academic career, is a master of strategic decision making. We can safely assume that his choice of dress is not random nor unimportant. The jacket, the most outrageous element of his Downing Street outfit, turned out to be Barbour. The brand is a favourite of British aristocracy. A quick Google Image search reveals such Barbour fans as princess Diana, prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II, prince William and princess Kate.

A few days after stealing the show at Downing Street, Varoufakis appeared at a summit wearing a Burberry scarf. On Twitter, a man chastised him for wearing a €500 scarf while people back home have to penny-pinch. It was as if Varoufakis had been waiting for such a provocation. He immediately retorted that the scarf was a gift from his wife 12 years ago. Once again, he established himself as a man of the people.

Burberric accusations. pic.twitter.com/ouB9biR4gE

— Nein. (@NeinQuarterly) February 12, 2015

It’s important to Greeks that their politicians look like them. But how do unbuttoned collars fare in Europe? Will they restore Greece’s prosperity? People are skeptic. The salvation of Greece is a Herculean feat and Syriza is not in a position of power. It seems logical that its representatives should dress to impress at meetings with Europe’s big shot politicians. Instead, we’re witnessing an open refusal of protocol and no desire to pander to the old boys’ club.

How are we to understand Syriza’s unusual fashion expression? Perhaps it’s a premature stubbornness that will do Greece more harm than good. But maybe Tsipras’ and Varoufakis’ assertive nonchalance is a sign that they know something we don’t. If you wear your cuffs unbuttoned, there’s just enough space to slip an ace up your sleeve.

Syriza Style: New politics, new fashion trends first appeared on Dressful.

Marchesa Luisa Casati was an exaggerator, a liar, a living work of art. The exhibition at the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice captures her spirit in that it’s just as elusive.

If you’re wondering why there’s never been an exhibition dedicated to the Marchesa before, it’s because doing a proper exhibition about her is impossible.

In 1930, when after thirty years of living in exorbitant luxury she racked up a debt of $25 million, her possessions were auctioned off. Marchesa Casati lived another 27 years, but whatever she had owned in her poverty period vanished in private collections. There are none of her personal artefacts left to exhibit.

The exhibition is shy to say it aloud, but the only objects that seem to actually have belonged to the Marchesa are her love letters.

Because of the lack of physical remnants of Luisa Casati’s life, the exhibition also features artworks from her time that are otherwise unrelated to her. While they are interesting to look at, they do feel out of context amidst her portraits and photos.

Except for the two Boldini paintings, the curators Fabio Benzi and Gioia Mori obtained all the famous artworks depicting the Marchesa. The lush, vibrant portrait by Augustus John is the centrepiece of the exhibition. It illuminates the hall like a mischievous Mona Lisa.

The exhibition opens with a bang — a magnificent gown from Dior’s haute couture Spring 1998 collection by John Galliano. This collection was inspired by the Marchesa and one of her legendary costume parties in Paris.

My ascent to the first floor via steep and narrow stairs was rewarded with three more Dior haute couture looks. A gossamer pink travel outfit stands next to a rich evening ensemble and a cheetah, the animal Luisa Casati had kept as a pet.

There is something heartbreaking about the supple, quiet elegance of the travel outfit. A feeling that only haute couture can instil, I suppose.

A Dior kimono with a fur collar and a warrior-like silver dress from the Chanel Cruise 2010 collection by Karl Lagerfeld (also inspired by the Marchesa) complete the fashion section of the exhibition.

I continue to yearn for the day when a team of curators magically locates the Marchesa’s lost clothes and jewellery. The curators then unite them in a reverie of an exhibition staged in the most stunning Venetian palazzo overlooking the Grand Canal.

But here, even though I feel no closer to the Marchesa, I loved the message of the artworks. The Marchesa inspired artists in her lifetime, she inspires them today and she lives on, immortal. The most beautiful legacy for a woman who dedicated her life to being a living work of art.

Photos by Igor Domijan

The Divine Marchesa Casati exhibition in Venice first appeared on Dressful.

1. Assist a fashion VIP

Offer to assist an editor, stylist, buyer or journalist during fashion week. Get in touch with them on Twitter or email them. At least 50% of your message should be unadulterated flattery.

What exactly will be your job? Mostly using superpowers you never knew you had to maintain your person's schedule. You think the shows are hectic, wait for the dinners and parties and launches.

You'll be doing coffee runs, carrying her handbag and liaising with drivers and cabbies. You will not get paid. But you'll get into the bread and butter of fashion week.

2. Volunteer as a dresser

If you don't have the ambition (or superpowers) to assist a VIP, go dress models. A few days before the show, brands are all over Facebook looking for people to help backstage, so this should be easy. Also, unpaid.

3. Sneak in through backstage

Sometimes you'll stumble upon a backstage entrance unmanned by security. Resist euphoria and high-fiving yourself. Just go straight in before the bouncers return from their lunch break.

If security is there, put on an attitude that would make Anna Wintour shiver. Walk past them like a boss. Confidence is your all-access pass.

In the chaos that is backstage, you don't want to look like you have no idea what you're doing there. Take pictures ("photographer"), stare down at your phone ("VIP") or doodle in a notebook ("journalist"). Don't get in people's way.

If you don't have the gall to do this, make friends with models on social media. You need to plan this well in advance. Don't wait until two days before fashion week. Models won't feel obliged to take you backstage after one tweet.

4. Slip in with a group of legitimate guests

At larger shows you'll see hordes of people trying to get past security or PRs. Squeeze yourself in the middle of the herd and go with the flow.

How to pull this off? Blend with the crowd. Wear a presentable but not showy outfit. Accessorize with big dark sunglasses. Avoid colours that aren't black.

5. Ask to get into standing room

Join the queue and wait till you get face-to-face with the publicist. Tell her that you'd love to see the show but don't have a ticket. For the love of Chanel, don't ask for a seat.

If there are no PR people, only bouncers, forget it.

It's crucial that you exude the right balance of politeness and enthusiasm. If possible, wear something by the designer you want to see. Don't wear anything that Suzy Menkes might describe as "peacocky".

The commoner that you are, the possibility of the publicist refusing you entry is high. But some publicists are nice. They tell you to step aside and wait. You'll be surrounded with a bunch of fashion nerds just like yourself. Right before the show begins, the publicist will usher you in. Any empty seats are yours for the taking. (A few years ago, I did this in Paris at Yohji Yamamoto)

6. Adopt a discarded press pass

Many photographers and TV crews come to fashion week for a day only. They pick up their press passes, do their thing, throw away the press passes and leave.

To secure a press pass, keep your eyes peeled on the floor of the photographers' entrance and its vicinity. Don't shy away from rubbish bin inspection. When you find a press pass, it'll feel much like picking up, well, trash, only with a mission.

If you use a pass that screams "PHOTOGRAPHER", make sure you have a DSLR camera on you.

7. Say you're from Vogue

This one's kind of funny. Publicists don't like to offend VIPs by asking their name and credentials ("Don't you know who I am?"). This means that sometimes they end up giving access to show crashers.

In comparison with a furious VIP hurling abuse, a show crasher is benign. It's not like you'll report them to HR.

If you say you're from Vogue, you absolutely must look like a Vogue employee. Of course, Vogue employees don't always look immaculate. But you don't want to arouse the vigilant publicist's suspicion with your unkemptness.

BONUS FASHION WEEK TIP:
In case of emergency, deploy unadulterated flattery. It always works.

P.S. Being a young gay man will increase your success rate at all of the above by approximately 85%.

7 ways to get into fashion week without a ticket first appeared on Dressful.

With six-figure price tags and clothes sewn by hand to perfection, haute couture is hopelessly detached from the "real" world.

Haute couture is not for you.

It's not for me.

This is the mistake we make when reviewing haute couture collections the same way we review ready-to-wear. Haute couture is not for us.

We’re terribly uninformed. We don’t wear the clothes. We don’t even touch them. We don’t know the suppleness of seams sewn by hand, the exquisite weight of metres of fabric. The prices starting at five figures with no limit on the other end.

Haute couture is for the clients. Sources give varying estimates of their number, between 2,000 and 4,000 globally. These women come from the Middle East, Russia, China, and lately India and Brazil.

Haute couture isn’t about setting trends. It’s about what women want to wear. What they feel beautiful in.

In that sense, it might be restrictive. We like to imagine haute couture as an outlet for the designer’s wildest imagination, fashion as art. Each garment is made to measure and can be altered to the client’s wishes. But if the designer strays too far from the course, the women will buy elsewhere.

It’s pointless to judge haute couture collections on the basis of commercial viability, too. It’s no secret that they never make a profit.

Did you want to say something about wearability? Oh, please.

My favourite aspect of ready-to-wear collections is their relevance to the world at large. Social commentary, references to economy and politics. Couture will offer these connections too. Dior and Chanel did running shoes last year.

Haute couture may refer to the external world all it wants. But with its price tags and clothes sewn by hand to perfection, it’s hopelessly detached from us. A world of its own.

A world that only few have the keys to.

Haute couture is not for you first appeared on Dressful.

Marie Antoinette was the fashion icon of her time. But she didn’t invent her style. The mastermind behind Marie Antoinette’s image was Rose Bertin, the first French fashion designer. In her haute couture salon in Paris she employed thirty workers. She presented new fashions to the queen weekly and earned the moniker “Minister of Fashion”. Designing also for many clients abroad, Rose Bertin established Paris as the first fashion capital in the world.

She was probably the first female fashion tastemaker.

Who is a fashion tastemaker?

The word “tastemaker” signifies a person who determines or strongly influences current trends or styles, particularly in fashion and the arts. Who decides what will be fashionable is the most common question people have about the fashion industry. They imagine a coven of designers plotting world domination by way of cerulean sweaters. In fact, it’s trend forecasters who operate on this level (kind of). Many trends come from fashion bloggers. And some trends develop organically, only to be adopted by the fashion industry (e.g. grunge).

Still, most fashion trends stem from tastemakers. Those are fashion insiders and celebrities. The former influence fashion as it’s becoming fashion (through design, styling, consulting etc.) Celebrities pick up fashion as a finished product. Their influence is about mass appeal. Their fans want to look like them, so they buy whatever the celebrity wears. These “micro trends” sometimes grow into mainstream trends or a whole aesthetic (think Rihanna’s collections for River Island).

Royal tastemakers after Marie Antoinette

France’s Second Empire in the mid-nineteenth century was the period of Napoleon III and his wife, Empress Eugénie. She was famous for wearing extravagant crinolines. People disapproved of the Spanish-born Eugénie because they’d hoped that Napoleon would choose a French bride. To nurture their reputation, the imperial couple cultivated a refined court life where fashion played a vital role. Historian Therese Dolan has written about Eugénie’s belief that the elegant impression of her “political wardrobe” would reflect onto France and stimulate economic growth. Domestic and foreign journals sang paeans to her outfits while middle-class women attempted to emulate Eugénie’s style. Enormous crinolines by couturier Charles Frederick Worth were out of reach for practical and financial reasons, so women copied her hairstyles instead.

Also revered as style icons in Europe were: Princess Louise of Prussia, who sacrificed her health for fashion donning flimsy dresses in the bitter Prussian cold. Empress Sisi of Austria was among the first to abandon the crinoline in favour of a leaner silhouette. In the late nineteenth century, Princess Alexandra of Denmark introduced dog collar necklaces (she wore them to cover a neck scar from a childhood accident). Fashion tastemakers of the past all inhabited the court. Aristocracy alone had the means to treat clothes as a disposable commodity.

For the hoi polloi, clothes became a disposable commodity with the industrial revolution. The invention of the sewing machine made garment production faster and cheaper. For the first time in history, there was a surplus of clothing. The middle classes frequented lavish and seductive department stores that cropped up in Europe and America in the second half of the nineteenth century. As fashion became an industry, employment opportunities grew. In the past, most fashion tastemakers were style icons. Now women in technical professions gained visibility.

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, women constituted the majority of dressmakers in Europe, but they were not influential on a large scale. In her book Women of Fashion: Twentieth-Century Designers, fashion historian Valerie Steele writes that in Charles Frederick Worth’s time “it was widely believed that men were, by nature, creators, while women were merely technicians who performed the necessary but mundane tasks associated with transforming the ideas of the male genius into actual clothes.”

Twentieth century: Designers, editors, models

In early twentieth-century Paris, after Worth’s demise, women designers reclaimed their space in fashion. The period between the world wars has been dubbed “the golden age of the couturière”. Its most influential designers were Alix (later known as Madame Grès), Augustabernard, the Callot Sisters, Coco Chanel, Madame Chéruit, Sonia Delaunay, Nicole Groult, Madame Jenny, Jeanne Lanvin, Louiseboulanger, Jeanne Paquin, Lucile Paray, Madeleine de Rauch, Jane Régny, Nina Ricci, Elsa Schiaparelli and Madeleine Vionnet.

The Second World War ended the golden age of the couturière. Only Coco Chanel and Madame Grès reopened their houses after the war. They competed with a lineup of rising male couturiers: Cristóbal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, Marcel Rochas and Jacques Fath. The tables had turned.

After the couturières came women whose influence continues to flourish today: magazine editors Diana Vreeland, Anna Wintour, Franca Sozzani, designers Miuccia Prada, Vivienne Westwood, Jil Sander and Rei Kawakubo, stylists Grace Coddington, Anna Dello Russo and Carine Roitfeld, photographers Annie Leibovitz and Ellen von Unwerth, businesswomen Natalie Massenet and Angela Ahrendts, Nineties supermodels and all the women who make far-reaching decisions away from our eyes.

What has remained the same about fashion influence throughout history? Royals are still perceived as tastemakers, though their style is a faint echo of the opulence of their predecessors. In Britain, dresses worn by the Duchess of Cambridge are identified in two seconds and sell out countrywide the next day. The Queen tops “best dressed” lists while dresses worn by the late Princess Diana are shrouded in a veil of deep fascination.

Fashion is one of the rare places where women sit in the front row, metaphorically and literally. In this global, multi-billion dollar industry, they thrive in environments from creative to corporate. In the twenty-first century, the legacy of history's tastemakers lives on. Women's influence on our perception of fashion and beauty has never been so powerful.

Tastemakers: Women in fashion first appeared on Dressful.