HEAT

The main word of the season. Half of the news is dedicated only to the HEAT. Because of the HEAT weather forecast was moved from the shameful line, parallel to the announcer's words "Thank you for your attention! Have a good evening! And right after the News there will be a premiere of another never-ending TV-show starring Yegor Beroev (sorry, bro), the one that your grand-mother will tell you a lot of times about", - to the very beginning! Who cares how many children were kissed by and how many calves were fed by Putin or Medvedev, when it's +35 C and it's super HOT?!

It seems that they have promised a little pause to us, but the meteorologist was so unhappy while saying that, maybe he was threatened. At the same time he was showing some tornado-looking lines and points on the map. So, the heat is still a topical problem and that means we should fight against it! But only wish fashion methods!

1. Drink more water!

Paul Smith created a limited version of Evian bottle. The bottle is decorated with his classical stripes (if somebody asks Paul Smith to style te Earth he will take an enormous paint roller, dip it adroitly in paint in a way that there will be stripes on it and then he will paint the planet with these stripes from one Pole to another). This bottle contains 750 mL of water. The creators also propose to collect the lids. But it's not clear what for. There is only one defect - the bottle is really heavy, but after being drained it can be used as a nice vase.
To learn more about the collaboration between the designer and Danone (yes-yes, Evian brand is owned by Danone) you can go to the official site. But we recommend to just watch this video.

Highlights: "Life is about living young, being useful and enjoying yourself every day, because every day is important"
"My whole life is about being childlike... not childish but childlike"
"Yesterday's newspapers nobody wants"
If you liked his positive mood and if you want to know more about Paul Smith, welcome to his personal blog (Warning: he loves bicycles... sometimes too much)

2. Go to the beach!

Moreover, on the beach you can find not only sand and sun, but also some interesting events. On July 10-11th the was Old-Fashioned Weekend in Saint-Petersburg. All the guests of "Air" beach (Krestovskiy island) could rest by the pool or on the sand beach, and also see the clothes and accesories made by young designers. Great idea... But the execution left much to be desired:
- not enough space for the clothes
- shades and parasols didn't protect from the sun
- how people were supposed to try clothes with this heat? (and in these cubicles???)
- all the event looked more like an exhibition and not like a fair/market - consumers - in one part of the pool, designers - in the other part.
However, we didn't leave without a purchase !

3. A fan!

A few elegant moves and there is no more problem! The point is to find an extraordinary fan. Follow examples of famous fashionistas: Mila Jovovich at Schumacher by Dorothee Schumacher (Berlin Fashion Week 2010)

4. Wear hats!


5. Go shopping!
Sometimes shops are provided with the best ventilation systems! We are sure that it will be fresh here:

While you're pave the shortest way to the shop, because you want to be the first buyers and maybe the lucky ones and receive some bonuses (like at the openning of the first store of 'Hennes & Mauritz' in Mega Mall) we show you the new campaign with Daria Werbowy:


See you soon!

D & P

August issue

You're right dear friends... The heat was too much not only for you - we suffered badly. Kilos of ice-cream and hours passed under the shade of parks (and as for somebody - within four walls of an office) were not for nothing, but brought us tons of ideas! So it's time to recover from summer anabiosis and to prepare for the new season. September issues are already approaching stealthily to the news-stands. We can do nothing else but catch up with the leaders (don't be upset: Germany don't hurry to show Vogue's September cover to the world, too). Even if Karl Lagerfeld said after the Chanel Haute Couture show that "Fashion is about going ahead, not about the memory", we won't listen to him and we will look back - to the present - because let's be honest with each other, August is only starting!

1. Australia: Cameron Diaz by Regan Cameron (Remember that Australia is theoretically ruled by the British Queen. Maybe that explains almost exact reprinting of British Vogue's July cover. But what can explain the exact reprinting of Italian Vanity Fair's July cover???
You can see the whole photoshoot, for example, here

2. Great Britain: beautiful Freja Beha Erichsen (by Josh Olins) wearing the scandalous Miu Miu dress. Scandalous because it appeared at the same time on British Elle's and W's covers. Oooooooh! Bloggers talked over it for a week and then calmed down. So what? It happens.
The magical dress can be seen here

3. Germany: 23 years' old Australian model Abbey Lee Kershaw (by Alexi Lubomirski) appeared on the German Vogue's cover wearing a Balmain dress. But we do know that the most beautiful Vogue's cover with Abbey Lee Kershaw was the one of Russian Vogue March issue. And there is nothing to discuss here!



5. Greece: Yulia Mizhui (by Costas Avgoulis).
6. India: Yes-yes-yes! India used to be a British colony... And it is not far from Australia... With all due respect to Cameron Diaz... Brrrrrrrr!
7. Spain: It is good that Russian models exist, isn't it? Otherwise Cameron would have conquered all the August covers. Anna Selezneva (by Maciek Kobielski).
8. Mexico: But this is insane! It seems that Cameron has already surpassed Brain and conquered our world. So, let's rather look at the July cover - Shannan Click by David Roemer.
9. Portugal: as for Portugal, it's small but independent. No reprints! At least, this month! Actress Daniela Ruah (by Marcin Tyszka)

10. Korea: Korean Vogue celebrates its 14th Birthday in a right way - not only accepts presents but also gives them: the most important present - the wonderful cover with Natalia Vodyanova (by Paolo Roversi). Don't stop on the cover, watch behind-the-scenes video to learn that Natalia's favourite Vogue's cover is this one (Vogue UK, May 2008, by Mario Testino; Style: Lucinda Chambers):


11. China: a non-risk variant - Karlie Kloss by Peter Lindberg
12. Taiwan: it was Vivian Hsu who was responsible for the national honour.
13. Japan: Anna Dello Russo styles one photomasterpiece after another (spoiler: September issue cover is very good). Our old friend Abbey Lee Kershaw.

14. Brazil: the magazine is true to itself - a Brazilian Renata Kuerten.
15. Turkey: Victoria Beckham decided to resist to Cameron Diaz's monopoly (by Ellen von Unwerth).

And finally, G-4 (or G-3+1))))

16. Italy: charming cover with Kristen McMenamy by Steven Meisel. And if you don't read Franca Sozzani's blog you should be ashamed :)

17. France: superstylish Freja (by Mario Testino)

18. USA: Gwyneth Paltrow (by Mario Testino, it seems to be that Testino lives in American Vogue's office). We'll talk about this issue later.

19. RUSSIA: in the nearest future it will become a rarity - one of the last issues, created by Alyona Doletskaya. Leticia Casta by Matt Irwin.

This is the glossy August. In general, the calm before the main event of the season - September issues. We'll talk about them later!

D & P

fashion-cupcakes!

Hi! This is us again! And this time we're not empty-handed! We have... something delicious!

It is very easy to make such cupcakes at home on your own!

RECIPE:
The source (with american dry and liquid measures)
Ingredients:
for preparing cupcakes
- 450 g all purpose flour
- 265 g sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 100 g shortening (can be replaced by margarine)
- 120 mL milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 large eggs
If you use the initial american recipe, then you may need a table of measurement equivalents

for preparing icing (the type of icing is glace-icing
- 185 g icing sugar
- 1 teaspoon unsalted softened butter
- 8 teaspoons milk

Let's prepare cupcakes
1. Flour + sugar + baking powder + salt
2. Mix the blend with a fork
3. Add: margarine (softened; or shortening, if you can find it) + milk + vanilla
4. Beat the mixture on medium speed (1-2 minutes) until it becomes smooth.
WARNING: DON'T PULL THE MIXER OUT OF THE MIXTURE UNTIL FULL STOP! Otherwise all your kitchen will be covered by pastry, and this is not funny at all! :[
5. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F)
6. Add eggs (one by one; after each egg beat the mixture for 1 minute)
7. Beat the mixture for 1,5 minutes more.
8. Spoon the batter (the mixture is rather thick) into paper liners. There should be 7-10 mm between the surface of the mixture and the liner's edge. The quantity of cupcakes straightly depends on the liner's size.
9. Place carefully all the liners on a baking tray (you don't have to spread the tray with anything). The bigger are liners, the bigger should be the space between them!!! If you don't choose the right space the cupcakes will disturb each other and will become square.
10. Put the cupcakes in the oven (as a matter of fact, the ancients were saying not MEMENTO MORI, but MEMENTO BAKING GLOVE! Don't forget about the baking glove! It can revenge itself by leaving burns on your hands and it's very unpleasant).
11. Now you can praise yourself and have a rest for 5 minutes. Well, the cupcakes will be preparing for about 20-25 minutes (it depends on the oven and the disposition of planets in the Solar system).

Let's prepare icing
1. Sift the icing sugar (very boring but very useful!)
2. Add butter and milk.
3. Mix it in a smooth blend (imagine that you're making a purée)
4. Now it's possible to colour the blend if you have food colours.
5. The most difficult stage in preparing icing is the heating of mixture on a water bath. You'll need a dipper and a stew-pan (bigger than the dipper). Put some water in the stew-pan. Heat it until boiling and place the dipper with mixture above the boiling water. Stir slightly the mixture until it becomes thick. It is important that the icing sugar dissolve and couldn't be distinguished from the blend. The whole procedure will take no more than 5 minutes.

Don't forget about the cupcakes in the oven! Check them every 10 minutes with a toothpick. If after 20-25 minutes of baking the toothpick is clean, you can open a champagne bottle - the cupcakes are ready.
Take them out of the oven and don't disturb them for 5 minutes, they have to get cold and to understand how to live in this crazy world.

Meanwhile don't forget about the icing. It doesn't love to be alone and becomes too thick.

Cover the cupcakes with a dense layer of icing and decorate them with sprinkles and stuff like that!

THE MOST FASHION DESERT OF 2010 IS READY!

At first, we wanted to send these pretty things to Karl Lagerfeld but they were too delicious!

D & P

From the archives: Leonid Alexeev

On 18 May 2010 in the frames of Aurora Fashion Week in Bookvoed book-club there was a meeting with designer Leonid Alexeev. We have selected the main quotes from that meeting.

The importance of the presentation:
"Besides having sewn this long-awaited piece of clothes, you must present it competently. Your portfolio, your photos have to reflect the idea of your whole process , as your clothes do [...] At school, where I teach, we teach
first and foremost to complete your idea, bring it to people's notice in a presentation form so that it will be clear [...] because people who look at the designer's work, at these images of yours, they don't understand a thing about it. It's impossible to explain to them that these lines are important. That's why you have to get an image which like a magazine's page tells more".

Tendencies:
"The trend of 00's decade - the influence of youth culture. Youth and sport is in fashion now. [...] The influence of sports casual on fashion (yoga clothes, zouaves) was dictated by sports clothes, comfort and ease. At the moment we're passing to the next decade, but let's talk about it in 10 years".

The clothes that you produce must have a commercial success, they have to be sold, they must have a purpose

Haute Couture:
"Haute Couture is the clothes presented by the designer in order to show what he can make, to show his craftsmanship. These clothes are always very creative, very difficult to sew. Nobody buys haute couture pieces. It is impossible to come to the showroom and say: "I want this dress". They will sew another one for you, the same but fitted specially for you".

Textiles:
"All the biggest, even medium companies, like ours, we order textiles at the exhibitions. We have dealers, who come to our office, bring textile's collections. We look at the collection and make the palette or an idea of what we would like to show to you in a show in six months. That means we have only 6 months to order all the materials. How to do it? It is possible to use your own intuition. But if you work for a big company and you want to be sure, or you are a very responsible person and you want to hit the right trends you ask help from special companies - fashion-prediction companies . They publish lookbooks with selections of textiles which will be interesting and actual next season. If you don't have enough money to get access to these lookbooks, these companies can offer you a beta-version.

Some curious publications:
"International Textiles"
"Knitting international"
"Experimental Textiles"
"Hot Textile"

It's impossible to make a shop from confetti, the shop should be formed with clothes that anyone will wear every day. But if you forget about bright and unusual designer clothes, your collection won't be interesting

Runway collections
"The main thing on the runway is good-looking photos. The runway collection works for the company's image and doesn't work for sales because it's too difficult to sell those clothes - they are a bit exaggerated, complicated... the concept brought to its limit. There are also capsule collections where one can find basic things which are always needed and don't change from season to season (bestsellers). Every designer has created some pieces that are successful commercially, nobody throws them away after the season - they are just no longer shown on the runway but they are repeated in different colours or materials. The most difficult thing in design is to create pieces which will be successful in a commercial way.


The turnover of a small fashion-house is 11 mln rubles now. So, if you want to start your own business you will need 100% of this sum.

"A strong financial base is needed. Brands which were created with investor's money (Alena Akhmadullina, DENIS SIMACHEV) are not effective at the moment. Sponsor's money are over and it turns out that such brands can't survive without millions of dollars of new investment. Now everything changes, the management changes. Some companies that were producing cheap jackets and coats started to make attention to fashion trends, they want to be not only cheap but they want designers. I think that in Russia a young desigher should work for a commercial company in the beginning of his career and try not to loose his creativity. He has to understand how the business works.


D & P

flower power )))

- I was walking down the street the other day...
- We need to say something intelligent) Can I tell about Capucci? Can I? I feel that I can! In my opinion, this cool woman is his follower. Colours, pleatings, especially colours, something madly Florentine or rather insane and Florentine:


Roberto Capucci

- On the whole, all this beauty was walking on Nevskiy avenue on 29 May, on Saint-Petersburg's day. I guess, I'll express everyone's opinion: a very audacious choice! But we totally support!

Very soon Leonid Alexeev will answer to all (almost all) of your questions! Right here! So, don't forget to check back later!

D & P

- Hi!
- Imagine, it works! Have you anything to say to people?))
- Yes, heaps of things. We keep laughing but there are something very important to say... some serious things!
- Let's start, P)) Usually we discuss these important things, drink coffee and everybody in the café overhears us, because serious stuff is always interesting! So, we decided to... scale up the overhearing) Thus, don't say that you haven't heard, begin P!
- OK, first thing: from now on we're open! "We" - is a fashion blog "That's not a joke!". Hence we'll try to write regularly and interestingly about all the events in different spheres, such as fashion and style, cinema, exhibitions... to cut a long story short, about everything that happens in our life, because...
- MY TURN!))) Because fashion is a consequence of everything that happens in our life)
- In short, we stop boring you! :) The main thing: we're here for a very long time! Stay tuned!

D & P