Our favorite subversive jewelry designer — designing jewelry such as human hair earrings, ear tips and gun pendants — Jules Kim of Bijules is having a trunk sale at Eva NYC this Thursday, so if your accessory repertoire is missing a snake nail ring, then this event’s a must-attend!

Bijules Nail Ring

Bijules Curved Bar Ring

And if you can’t attend, check out the Bijules website.

Savage Beauty, the Alexander McQueen exhibition, kicks off May 2nd at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with a fantastical gala hosted by none other than Anna Wintour. Vogue Mexico reports that:

This will be an opportunity to remember the talent, emotion and the tragic romance that marked the work of those who many consider one of the great artists of the last five decades. The exhibition, curated by Andrew Bolton and produced by Sam Gainsbury and Joseph Bennett, the duo responsible for the production of the vast majority of parades McQueen, includes approximately 170 pieces, including clothing and accessories from the archives of the brand in London and the house Givenchy in Paris.

The museum will be divided according to the ideas and concepts that inspired McQueen fashion. Romantic Gothic , for example, show his passion for history, the Victorian Gothic fascination with opposites like life and death or light and darkness. Romantic Nationalism reflect his interest in British and Scottish history; Romantic Exoticism that had influenced the designer cultures and faraway places as India and Japan, and Romantic Naturalism interest in wild nature, so evident in his latest collections of shoes “lobster” or printed fabrics with natural motifs and water.

The exhibition will open to the public on May 4, 2011, and run through July 31.

[Via Vogue Mexico]

“We all get dressed for Bill,” says Vogue editrix Anna Wintour. The “Bill” in question is 80+ New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham. For decades, this Schwinn-riding cultural anthropologist has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high society charity soirées for the Times Style section in his columns “On the Street” and “Evening Hours.” Documenting uptown fixtures (Wintour, Tom Wolfe, Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller—who all appear in the film out of their love for Bill), downtown eccentrics and everyone in between, Cunningham’s enormous body of work is more reliable than any catwalk as an expression of time, place and individual flair. In turn, Bill Cunningham New York is a delicate, funny and often poignant portrait of a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own humanity and unassuming grace.

Photo Credit: First Thought Films / Zeitgeist Films

Follow Bill Cunningham New York on Twitter and Facebook to new more about the film and additional playdates.
 
Find out much more about Bill and about the film at http://www.billcunninghamnewyork.com. 

WATCH THE TRAILER: http://zeitgeistfilms.com/billcunninghamnewyork/trailer.html

STARTS APRIL 28

SAN DIEGO DEETS:

Ken Cinema
4061 Adams Avenue
San Diego, CA 92116

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW: http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/sandiego/sandiego_frameset.htm

Here’s your chance to rub sartorial shoulders with Tim and Heidi, gain national prominence and possibly have your collection (propped up by 100K in seed money) show at New York Fashion Week! Deadline: April 15th.

THREAD, our favorite traveling indie designer showcase is back this Sunday at the Horton Event Space from 11am to 6pm, and this time, with MORE fab giveaways, art, a nail and massage lounge and a blogger style off. Your truly will be competing with four other bloggers by styling models on model blocks with designer swag from participating designers, so if you’re in S.D., come by and say hi! (And shop! Check out the illustrious list of designers here.)

RSVP here.

Yeah, sooooo, we didn’t exactly cover Paris Fashion Week, so why not just enjoy this Style.com highlights video? Shots of fashion shows, interviews with insiders, with no pesky airfare to Paris, no annoying invites to champagne-fueled celeb parties (you were busy anyway) – all in a tidy four minutes.

M. Dot Design Studio is presenting its spring/summer 2011 collection at the Se Hotel’s Siren Lounge next Saturday, March 19th.

Sold at The Basement Boutique, Cecilia Boutique, Bcatthreads.com, Etsy, Make Good and Just Love, M. Dot’s been making waves due to the meticulous handsewn genius of Michelle Aquino. And from the sneak peeks we’ve seen, we can look forward to the characteristic mix of textures, color, prints and florals.

Hello! Yes, we just skipped coverage of Milan Fashion Week. Not our fault: That damn John Galliano had to go and be all anti-Semitic and whatnot, distracting from the actual shows! Geez. We’ll still go back and summarize our fave looks, so please take your heads out of your ovens. Fashion Makes Me Horny will never let you kittens down!

Anywhoo, some Vogue editors already got some previews of Rochas and Dries Van Noten before their respective shows! Not fair to the rest of us vaunted fashion editors, but that’s a subject for another post. For now, enjoy a few images from two of the most anticipated designers who show at Paris Fashion Week, before the goods hit the runway.

Rochas

Rochas

Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten

 [via Vogue]

AT WWDMagic last week in Las Vegas, we chatted up Daniel Saynt, former editor-in-chief of FashionIndie.com and current CMO of Rebecca Minkoff, who was there as part of a Teen Vogue discussion panel on  blogger influence. Known for being one of the first “crossover” bloggers who went from the blog-side to the executive side of fashion, he’s engineered social media marketing programs like a Polyvore contest to style the Rebecca Minkoff show at NYFW and using crowdsourcing to actually design a Rebecca Minkoff bag. Because of Daniel, you, too, can design a bag or style a major NYFW fashion show!

Photo credit: Whitney Benjamin

Q: Tell me about the Polyvore contest to style looks at the Rebecca Minkoff show. How did that come about?
A: A big part about Rebecca Minkoff and the brand is embracing technology and not just settling for traditional social media like Facebook and Twitter. We’re expanding our horizons and Polyvore was a natural selection for us, so when we were working with them we wanted to do something individual and unique, something that would incorporate their members and showcase how well they style, which is something that they’re doing on Polyvore anyway. We selected our favorite one, the winner had a huge amount of votes from the readers.

Q: How many?
A: Close to 20,000 votes. So we flew them out, they helped style the show, picked out key pieces that we wanted to incorporate – with accessories and jewelry, shoes, etc. – and they put together the looks that we had in the show.

Q: Do you think that this type of crowdsourcing is the future of fashion marketing, and do you think other brands will follow suit?
A: Crowdsourcing’s going to become a major part of what we launch and programs we introduce. I think it is the age of crowdsourcing in fashion with so many people contributing to the fashion conversation, sharing their style, sharing what they’re doing, having blogs and we don’t want to miss that. We want to talk to our consumers and find out what they want, so that we can make the stuff that they actually want to buy.

Q: What do you think about crowdsourcing and the Gap logo fiasco?
A: I think we found out that just because a company has an amazing name and have been in the industry for so long and are established doesn’t mean that just because you pay someone 100K to design something for you doesn’t mean that they’re going to do a good job. I think Gap would have been smart after that happened, if they would’ve announced that they were going to use crowdsourcing for a new logo, instead of changing it, then changing it back.

Q: Tell me about the Dee bag that Rebecca Minkoff did using crowdsourcing.
A: Dee clutch, not Dee bag! (Laughs) We decided against Dee bag.

Q: That begs the question: Why would someone want a bag designed by their neighbor or Starbucks barista rather than a designer? People like to think they’re getting the expertise and artistic vision of real designer, no? Isn’t there a disconnect there?
A: We did it for one specific bag for one specific collection and we had guidelines established that they could work from, The bag doesn’t alienate itself from the collection, it actually fits really nicely into it. If you were to do crowdsourcing freely and without any control, you’re going to have a mess, and the majority of people probably don’t like they things you’d want to present. As long as you have guidelines. You’re leading the customer to what they want based on what you already offer.

Q: What’s next in the democratization of fashion?
A: I think what we’re going to see is these individuals coming from online, bloggers who’ve just started in blogging five years ago, started when they were 17 are building brands for themselves. They’re going to start taking a larger role in overall fashion. You’re going to see them in more executive positions, you’re going to see them in more editorial positions, you’re going to see them become more and more models in the industry. People are going to pursue that [blogging] rather than an editorial position at Vogue. More people are heading out of NYU Journalism School or Parsons are heading out with a blog in hand, then going into something else.

Q: Do you think that this will make big-time editors a little relevant?
A: No, not at all. We’re also seeing great collaborations between Conde Nast, who are saying that we realize the bloggers are there, we’re not ignoring them anymore, we want to embrace them and connect the to what we’re developing. It’s just another form of media. We’re at the point now that magazines are smarter with what’s happening online, in the same way that Teen Vogue is collaborating with bloggers, and Glamour and Lucky. You’re going to see more of that. I don’t think they see them as a threat anymore, they see them as a way to continue communicating about what’s happening in fashion.

Hello! We know that it’s Milan Fashion Week, that Paris Fashion Week will be starting, and hey, we’re still not over New York Fashion Week. Also, didn’t we posted stuff about San Diego trunk shows in between all of this? Well, fashion is an international language, and we’re self-styled style ambassadors (try saying that ten times fast).

Don’t fret: Just enjoy this video of highlights from London Fashion Week, including interview clips with insiders like Style.com’s Tim Blanks and celebs like M.I.A.) — all set to a hip beat! Dare we say, our fashion friends across the pond like to have more fun with fashion than we do, as evidenced by some of the daring pieces that made their way down the catwalk.