FAD Profile: Stylist Katherine Lande

One of the most creatively challenging parts of fashion is styling. Creating new looks again and again, for varying circumstances requires an unlimited supply of vision. Meet Katherine Lande. Katherine works as Fashion Editor for Palm Beach Illustrated and on assignment as a stylist and consultant for many projects with her company KL Style Inc. She was also the photo stylist for Rizzoli's Palm Beach Entertaining, with all proceeds benefitting the Children's Home Society. Katherine took time to respond to some questions about the heart of fashion styling.

Palm Beach Illustrated

How did you become a stylist?

In a strange sense I think one is born with a sense of style. Yes, certain things can be taught and learned, and certain elements of it are picked up along the way, but I truly feel like either one has the eye for it or they don't. With that, I got lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and worked very, very hard. I also believe having the outlook that styling is a practice that evolves over time has been instrumental.

Palm Beach Illustrated

How do you see styling as collaborative?

Styling on a photo shoot or with a client is a complete collaboration, and one of the many reason's why I love it. I often say that producing a photo shoot is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. The stylist is just one piece of the overall vision that everyone on the crew, from the photographer, to the model, and hair and makeup artists are all creating together.  

see more behind the scenes at Katherine's Instagram

How do you see styling as guided by an artistic vision? As an art form?

When you deconstruct a particular style or look, its really all about layering, color and texture combinations, balance and overall composition. Every look can speak its own language once its styled. And I've always loved the idea of being part of creating a beautiful picture that speaks a certain message or inspiration. Whether its reality or fantasy, the idea that creating something visual through the art of clothes has always been intriguing to me.

Elle McPhereson for You for The Daily Mail

What are some of the challenges of your work?

When I'm in the position of having to act as producer and stylist on a shoot, balancing the art of business vs creative can get a bit tricky. Plus trying to figure out how to be in two places at one time is always a challenge. Another challenge is being based in a smaller resort town. I try to travel as often as I can which is always extremely helpful with staying inspired and on the cutting edge of what's happening in the fashion industry. 

above and below for Palm Beach Charity Register

If you had an unlimited budget and any photographer, what would be this dream shoot?

Right now I'm really being inspired by the work of Guy Bourdin. The budget wouldn't matter… just anything with him!

Instagram Inspiration from The Deux Luxe

Katherine is ever present with social media. She has new website, The Deux Luxe which chronicles her inspirations. She can also be found at Instagram and Twitter. Below, Katherine at Villa de Rothschild in Cap Ferrat.

Thank you Katherine!

FAD Profile: Jody Stephenson on African Fashion and Benefaction

Mali born Seydou Keïta photographed mid century African women and men and contributed to sense of African style

Speaking of fashion, we typically mean Western fashion. But style is universal. For this FAD profile, I interviewed entrepreneur and philanthropist for Africa, Jody Stephenson, who has been traveling to and working in Malawi, Africa for over a decade. She recently started an initiative, Twice Upon a Dress, to take the extra dresses in your closet and send them to Africa to be sold and support young scholars. The focus is on bridal, bridesmaid and formal gowns that are more rare and prized in Africa. Here are her thoughts on Africa, fashion and benefaction.

The 2011 book looked at the new tendencies in African style, more here

What is the typical fashion for women in Malawi, Africa?

Fashion varies depending if you are in a village or an urban area, but what I love most about both is that Malawian women wear colorful patterns- and they wear them well.

In a village, a chitenje wrap made from color material from the region is worn often over another skirt or dress.  Length is important.  It is expected that young women of 12-13 years of age and older wear skirts which reach near their ankles.  The shape of a woman’s thighs is never revealed in her clothing.  In addition, the women often wear a piece of colorful cloth on their head.  Yet another pattern of cloth is often used as a sling to carry a young child.

Jody's photo of a woman in Mtsiliza Village in Malawi

In urban areas, you will see women wearing skirts, dresses and many more wearing trousers (“pants” being underwear in British-English).  The spread of trousers has largely occurred in the past 15 to 20 years.  As recent as the 1990s, a woman could be put in jail for wearing trousers in public.

Nigerian born Duro Olowu has been internationally recognized and now shows in London

Do you perceive an African awareness of American fashion, in terms of its media dominance, styles and labels? With increasing connectivity has come greater exposure, including exposure to Western media sources. Flat screen televisions now hang in a number of small fast-food restaurants and bars in urban areas, revealing the latest and greatest of fashion in Western hip hop. It is shocking how quickly the exposure to certain American fashions has spread through the vast youth population.  In any culture, youth are often first-adopters and uniform in their adoption of “individuality.”  Half of the world’s population is under 25 (that’s 3 billion people) and 87% of them live in developing countries, like Malawi. The outcome in Malawi: saggy jeans, jerseys and flat-billed hats for men and tight, revealing clothing for women.

Elle South Africa featured what was praised as more authentic editorials starting in January 2013 above

Fashion and luxury and bridal dresses seem to be a privilege of the first world. How did you come to the realization to take excess luxury and put it to use in Africa? I come from a family of hard-working Germans who do not waste anything.  We used, reused, handed down, over, across, patched, hemmed, re-hemmed every piece of clothing until it could not, or perhaps, should not be worn again. Still, my family’s established culture of waste-not, want-not was challenged by the creative resourcefulness of the Malawians I met my first year living in Africa.  Torn plastic bags became soccer balls, plastic bottles were reused to sell cooking oil, old tires were made into shoe polish.  The list goes on.  After a year living in Chiwengo Village, I was a convert.  You can imagine my dismay when I heard about a new American wedding photo op referred to as “trash the dress,” where a bride and groom are typically professionally photographed soaking, burning or otherwise destroying a wedding dress after the ceremony.

Jody's photo of an engagement party in Malawi with a tradition of covering the bride

You are requesting American bridal, bridesmaid and formal dresses be sent to be sold in Africa. Is there interest in these styles? Anyone who has the privilege to attend a celebration, wedding or a weekly church service in Malawi knows that men, women and children alike come dressed to define “Sunday best.”  Most American bridesmaid dresses would be completely appropriate for the occasion- even for simply attending the wedding or event.  American dresses are different from Malawian “traditional wear,” for sure.  They are more about shimmer and lace than color and shape.   In the end, it’s about feeling beautiful, and Malawian women don’t hesitate to wear what makes them feel beautiful.

Have you attended a wedding in Africa? What is a typical wedding dress for Malawi? 

I have not only had the honor of attending several Malawian weddings, I have had the honor of being in a Malawian wedding for my dear friends Kabass and Fiskiani Agbermodji.  Like many American weddings, the wedding dress is the main event.  Think African princess – bright white dress, big skirt, tiara, gloves and sparkle. 

A Malawi wedding

What can one person's donated dress really do? How does it work?

What you wear can be an expression of who you are or who you want others to believe you are, but an education can actually help you become who you were created to be.  Donating a dress literally enables a young girl or boy to become more fully the person they were made to be. 

You may have one spare dress in your closet. You simply have to send it to Jody and will change a life forever. Email her at twiceuponadressglobal@gmail.com.

FAD Profile: Artist Sarah Ashley Longshore

Today's FAD profile is artist Sarah Ashley Longshore. She takes on the fashion world as her subject matter. Her work resembles mid century fashion illustration but as she explains below she is more fascinated by colorfully expressing the strength of bold personalities.

Your subject matter is always fashionable. What is your process for selecting your subjects? I really like to paint things that inspire me. I travel a lot so as far as fashion goes, I am inspired by the way someone wears a particular item. Who is wearing it? What kind of person are they? I love pop culture and I love watching people "peacock"!!! I love being in New York and watching people swagger. 

How do you see the intersection of fashion and art? Well they certainly inspire each other in my genre of art. I can be inspired by the color combination in a Louis Vuitton ad or the glitter in a Jimmy Choo flat. I love the shade of Hermes orange! I love color and the idea that it can elevate and move the human spirit. For example...I love wearing black everyday and letting my art in my studio be the colorful accessory. But when I travel on inspiration trips in the Caribbean or Maui I wear bold silk Caftans everyday. I surround myself in sheets of color when its time to paint. 

How do you see the intersection of fashion and power? This all goes back to my "peacock" theory. People are birds....we have sparrows, blue birds, cardinals, eagles and then there is the PEACOCK, and THE BIRDS OF PARADISE...who are the MOST outrageous and beautiful of all to look like. We gasp in awe at their dance and glory.......HELLO.....go to Cipriani downtown for dinner and you will be in a room full of peacocks. 

Do you perceive your work as a celebration of fashion's decadence or a critique? Its a celebration of the different roles we play in society and how we present ourselves to the world everyday. 

Does fashion illustration inspire you? Its beautiful....I think I am MOSTLY inspired by the BOLDNESS and Tactile energy of the actual products. I find fashion illustration to be very soft and lovely. I prefer BOLD and Daring and BIG.

What are you other inspirations? I love nature and music. I cant stop listening to LCD Soundsystem. I am addicted. I am really inspired by beauty. Beautiful people, beautiful products, a funny story, a funny joke...people laughing......clever ideas.....Karl Lagerfeld said in an interview when asked about his inspiration that he was like a giant skyscraper with an antenna on top..... I am like KARL. hahahah.

FAD Profile: Riccardo Tisci

Normally FAD Profiles are exclusive interviews. This is an original profile first written by me in 2011 for Plum Magazine. Fascination for Tisci peaked in 2012, and like my post last week, we can feel this is not as relevant but I thought I would bring this back out for the start of Paris fashion week.

YSL at the cusp of the 70s. Versace in the 90s. If we name designers in their glory there is one name for the present - Riccardo Tisci. Tisci (pronounced Tishee) is a modest man from an Italian village who was appointed to the golden throne at Givenchy in 2005. He has since taken the polite French label in a bold and unexpected direction, resulting in revived creativity at LVMH. Combining an ancient sense of holiness with a progressive sense of gender, his rock solid luxury designs have breathed life back into couture.

Riccardo Tisci and Rooney Mara, photo Normal Jean Roy, Vogue, September 2012

Art Advisor Miller Gaffney

Fabulous Sotheby's Institute grad, art advisor, appraiser and host of PBS' Market Warriors, Miller Gaffney is featured over at my personal blog today responding to questions on beauty. Read it here. 

Miller on set with Market Warriors

"To see rare treasures and superb pieces of art and to share the history and craftsmanship, and to preserve art for future generations defines arts great gift," Miller Gaffney

FAD Profile: Joey Wolffer and The Styleliner

At FAD, we love well curated selections. The Styleliner is a mobile curated luxury boutique. It was started by Joey Wolffer above, who took entrepreneurial inspiration from her great-great-grandfather who started Marks and Spencer, and her father whose legacy remains in Wolffer Estate vineyard and stable. Beginning in 2009, she brought her own experience as a jewelry designer with Meems LTD and Trend Director with Jones Apparel to the road. She now travels the world finding limited edition pieces which she brings to major cities throughout the United States. Exceptionally delivered, personalized style to your doorstep! Joey was gracious enough to comment on her growing project. 

A mobile curated style boutique seems so right for our moment. Can you tell us when and how it began and how it has grown?

I founded the Styleliner in June 2010. I traveled a lot for my different positions at the Jones Group and realized there were some incredible global designers out there who weren’t represented in the US. I wanted to create a space to show them but I couldn’t see myself opening a conventional retail shop. With the craze of food trucks and social media becoming integral in business, I felt a boutique on wheels was the way to go. Since its creation in 2010, Sara Droz has joined me as my business partner as well as the marketing director and business development manager. When I founded the Styleliner, we were focused on the Hamptons and NYC. We are now expanding to a west coast truck that will travel around LA as well as franchised DC truck. We are also creating a small capsule of our own Styleliner accessories which will include jewelry and other accessories inspired by my travels.

You bring style to so many locations. What regional differences have you noticed in the responses to fashion and trend?

Each area brings a different clientele however our customer is always one that is curious about the world and willing to wear something different.

Do you have an intuitive guide to your curating?

I react to what I feel emotionally inspired by. When I enter a market or a trade show, I buy what I feel is right and fits in with the overall feeling of the brand. I don't follow trends.

Venna necklace

Laura B bag

In some ways you are “grass roots fashion,” proving one person outside the traditional fashion system can connect to and influence aesthetics. Do you look to the streets for inspiration and can you see your own influence?

I am constantly inspired by what’s around me whether it be street style, nature, a museum exhibit, a vintage fair or a junk shop. I am comfortable in my personal style and not afraid to mix unexpected pieces. Walking around NYC, you can see that many people explore their own personal style and that is inspirational in itself.

vintage ketoh bracelet

vintage leather bracelet with turquoise 

How would you describe your personal style?

My style is a mixture of bohemian meets street. I am constantly combining modern silhouettes with more colorful, free flowing ones. I love layering vintage with new, mixing prints and piling on necklaces.

A dream unlimited budget Styleliner, just for you, would contain what 5 priceless items?

A Dassios embellished jean jacket from Athens, Greece

A Vintage Navajo Ketoh bracelet form Santa Fe

An over the top statement necklace from Venna from Hong Kong

A Laura B metal mesh cross body bag from Spain

A Figue hand embellished tux shirt from NYC

You can follow Styleliner at the website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

FAD Profile: Not Vogue

At FAD, we often feature Vogue, but are also mindful of mass media framing. In Fall 2010, Carine Roitfeld explained her editing technique for Vogue Paris as “YOU ARE VOGUE, OR NOT VOGUE.” In 2011, an anonymous figure under the name "Steve Oklyn" launched a blog with the idea of NOT VOGUE. In the past two years, Steve has been bringing the fashion system into full light. Here is an brief interview with Fashion Art Daily.

“NOT VOGUE” is a name from contrast. So to begin, how would you describe “Vogue”? The magazine presents a perfected dream world, a forever aspirational decadence in which power collides with bohemian seduction, all in a way that is relevant to the now…but how?

I would describe the current globalized VOGUE brand as a network for consumer control. A fashion network built with one operative purpose: addictive consumption. How it ensures control is through a tightly guarded series of rules referred to as style and a tightly organized hierarchy of rewards for obeying and promoting the guardians [Newhouse's-Arnault's-Pinault's...] ironclad control of those rules and hierarchies. I believe repressive is the clearest description of the editorial consequence when referring to VOGUE. That is also a definition of Anna Wintour's role and source of her contrived influence.

Following Guy Debord, “what appears is good,” Vogue appears good to most. It is the ultimate fashion authority, always already exempt from critique. You magically expose the fault lines. What are they?

As long as the guardians are operating at full strength which they have been since 2000. They have built a global system of fashion mythology that they, and only they control. The guardians are fully aware of the current lack of relevance of these myths. These myths protect their artificial system of good taste. Their secret society of definitions and histories is written by the guardians and so far can only be altered by the guardians.

The system of review is not truly built for critique but for product endorsement and consumer control. The world of trends is a completely false construct that is there for one reason propaganda for the sake of an endless cycle of irrelevant consumerism. "IT" products are just a cover for a fashion addicts one fleeting moment of painful pleasure. A hit that endlessly but with diminishing returns has to be satisfied over and over again.

The fault lines are a purchased sense of power [advertising budgets-event sponsorships-artist collaborations and global ambassadors] plus the guardians false sense that they are the guiding leadership of societal power. Pay to play is not power but if that is the only sanctioned fashion industry process then it becomes power. Currently the weakest of fault line narratives is the young tastemaker. The guardians are baby boomers and
older. They have begun to use their children and grandchildren to retain their false sense of eternal youth and influence. To extend this fabricated influence their progeny are repackaged as tastemakers. Acting as global agents of irrelevant consumerism. Remember rule number one: they own and control the media to own and control the message. A question. Who would Andy Warhol be besties with The Kardashians or The Roitfelds? Just posing this question exposes a major fault line.

If Vogue is a dream, is Not Vogue a dystopia?

I view VOGUE as a dystopia and NOT VOGUE as a possible way out of the intellectual dead end offered by VOGUE. NOT VOGUE believes in the creative and regenerative power of the individual and in the right of informed free speech. That seems from the current controlled state of dialog called SOCIAL 2.0 like a dream. Dystopia is really a world of consensus as is fashion. A world where we are all reduced to LIKE or HATER. A world of BEING IN and MUST-HAVES.  Speaking one's mind in many situations is now social and professional suicide.

You profile fashion’s power players. Are they consciously playing?

In no way are fashion's power player's consciously playing NOT VOGUE. What they are doing is living as if the world is Karl Lagerfeld's beloved 18th century saloniste filled society. They are so sure of their power and superiority which includes artistic superiority-intellectual superiority-social superiority and control of the history and creation of the history of society and good taste that they are living within a bubble of their own creation. Being outside of their bubble NOT VOGUE can review the rules, the hierarchies and history past-present and future. By reviewing I mean opening up the conversation and introducing new points-of-view including new historical readings and relationships which hopefully allow for a deeper understanding of current fashion events. Subsequently each of us can decide what is relevant to us and not what is deemed relevant by the guardians. The fashion-art-society media has a single purpose which is product propaganda and societal enchantment. Not since John Fairchild's days at WWD has real critique of fashion and fashion society existed. Many of today's fashion reports are composed by fifth columnists. That realization was the beginning of the NOT VOGUE project.

You have exceptional visual talent for selecting images. You write haiku critical commentary. Who are the artists and thinkers that have influenced your method?

NOT VOGUE algorithm: James Brady [created PAGE SIX & W Magazine [plus] John Fairchild [created IN and OUT + "fashion victim" at WWD and his alias for Countess Louise J. Esterhazy [foretelling the demise of high society] [plus] Truman Capotes's LA COTE BASQUE [plus] a private formula of post-WWII intellectual anarchists and artistic insurrectionists.

If you were approached to edit Vogue, for a radical rebrand of course, would you? Be honest.

It would be amazing to redesign the brand dna of VOGUE but in a sense that has already happened it is called NOT VOGUE.

If you were approached to reveal your identity in Vogue, would you? Be honest.

I would never reveal Steve Oklyn's identity in VOGUE. Who he-she or they are is not relevant. Anonymity is more powerful and interesting intellectually than visibility.

I love that you are anti-establishment, so Daumier. But isn’t critique also love?

Critique is a love for the free exchange of ideas and opinions without any fear of penalty or reprisal.

You do not have advertisers and you refer to yourself as a freelance outlaw. What is hoped to be gained by counter-culture blogging?

Are you referring to all counter-culture blogging? If so I cannot answer that question. If you are asking what is to be gained by the NOT VOGUE project than the answer is to reveal how truly outmoded the people-the strategies-processes and rewards which comprise the core of VOGUE's source of power are and at best exist as trivial entertainment. There are enormous financial consequences for both the guardians and for their globalized consumers. by opening up the myths to democratic review. NOT VOGUE represents counterculture. Hence no advertisers VOGUE represents over-the-counter culture.

What is the ultimate goal of a power critique?
In a democracy, power needs to be questioned and critiqued continuously or it becomes a dictatorship. NOT VOGUE's logo design states what its editorial stance is in clear visual terms.

Doesn’t fashion swallow all its critique by embracing every point of view, while simultaneously having moved on to the next one?  It balances caring with not caring at all. You seem to care.

Very true regarding the fashion industry taking possession of any and all moments of creativity and moving on. If the current fashion world mythology begins with Diana Vreeland authoring in 1963 the narrative she titled YOUTHQUAKE which just celebrated it's 50th birthday then the VOGUE narrative of ever renewable youth is the key storyline they endlessly use for consumer control. Since 2000 I have been searching for the first narrative of the 21st century pertaining to style and I have not found one convincing enough. The past 13 years have been a cycle of repetitive nostalgia.

NOT VOGUE was created from a sense of boredom, frustration and disbelief that VOGUE could still keep going month to month on strategies and myths that have been devoid of any meaning since the last model walked down the runway at Marc Jacobs "grunge" collection for PERRY ELLIS in 1992. Hedi Slimane please note and also the PR office at SAINT LAURENT Paris that grunge is a Seattle attitude and not a Los Angeles expression. There truly is nothing called California grunge. That is exactly the delusional force of the fashion guardians and their armies. Seattle becomes Los Angeles to support Hedi Slimane's grand fashion meta-narrative. In the end history is just a tool of control whether it is the history of fashion or the history of the world.

Fashion cares to be taken seriously and does not care to be told that in it's current state of decline it has no lasting cultural impact.

I care that the street retain its originality and power over brands. The exact opposite of what the current global consumer has been lead to believe which is that brands have supernatural powers.

When an original idea loses all meaning then it becomes fashion. Steve Oklyn