Yearly Review of the Fashion World 2012

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HAY THUR. Long time no see. What with my trusty old MacBook being taken away to get replaced with a new flashier bigger hard disk and begging my little sis to finally borrow hers for a few precious hours, I had little time to blog (thankfully I have been quite productive in my time off the blog by watching The Hobbit, which was pretty good and Les Mis, which was utterly fantastic in every way except for Amanda Seyfried but the combined forces of Hugh, Anne, Samantha and Eddie more than break it even and THANK YOU Tom Hooper for not letting me down after The King's Speech). I am not sure what most fashion blogs do in terms of an end of the year post (mayhaps a recap of their best outfits of the year? LOL) but here is a list plus my thoughts on what happened in the fashion world this year in no particular order, ranging from the mundane to the important:

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Let's start off with the more boring news shall we, with Karlie Kloss's new haircut. Go ahead and judge for even writing about this considering how banal it is, but you see, KARLIE IS EVERYWHERE, so this does make news since you will be seeing her "lob" everywhere whether you like it or not minus extensions. Usually I love it when someone makes a bold experimental move, and I am glad that Karlie graduated from her usual model hair, however keep in mind that by now every other person by now has this hair post Arizona Muse's own trendsetting bob. Karlie's new hair doesn't look too different from Freida's hair of yore to add? Also I am extremely hypocritical by getting a similar hair cut incidentally the other day, except that my hair is straight and my bangs are side swept.

Fashion Industry Confessions. I found this thanks to Pascal of Fashion Bits and Bobs and it is perhaps THE MOST ENTERTAINING INTERNET FIND OF THE YEAR. I don't give a crap about model anorexia rumours (what do you expect when you get paid to look good?!) but I do find true insider industry stuff really interesting. Some of the stuff is rather dumb and makes you go 'duhhh-who-doesn't-know-about-this' but there are genuine juicy gems to be found there. It's not that I truly give a damn as to what goes in the fashion industry but what can I say, I lost a whole afternoon on this site.

Greg Chait winning this year's CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. In the past while I have seldom been 100% familiar with the winners before they win the Fund, I usually have some inkling of their work before they do. Greg Chait winning the Fund came to me totally out of the blue and I have to admit, I have never heard of The Elder Statesman beforehand. It's probably my fault since I have been preoccupied with a lot of other non-fashion-related stuff IRL though you can hardly blame me, with the lack of publicity from his front. Since then, I have checked his collection out and it's rather, for a lack of a better word, nice. I guess I can be more descriptive: simple and pleasant are other words I would use. It's a collection of garments that I could definitely see my tomboy self wearing.

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Schiaparelli and Prada 'Impossible Conversations' Exhibition at the Met. Pissed at not being able to make last year's 'Savage Beauty' exhibition on the work of the amazing late Alexander McQueen *tear*, I was more than determined to go to this year's. It did not disappoint (minus the fact that I couldn't take photos to show it to you guys!). Since I do volunteer and work closely with museums, I am familiar with the process of curating. Thus, I can tell you that curators at the Costume Institute (who I am sure are world class staff but still) paid painstaking attention to detail in pairing the right accessories from Prada to the Schiaparelli from way back when, to the different displays and themes and of course the video of the actual impossible conversations between the two designers located at the start of the exhibit. I can now truly understand why people would make the effort to travel all the way to the Big Apple from around the world just to see the Costume Institute exhibits every year. It should be noted that the annual gala that celebrates the opening of each exhibition are a great fashion spectacle too in itself.

HBO's documentary on Vogue, 'In Vogue: The Editor's Eye'. I can understand perfectly why people bring up Anna's name when talking about American Vogue, especially after being immortalized in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), or Grace post-The September Issue, although all too often, other people who makes the magazine run as smoothly and as well as it does goes rather under-appreciated. It's kind of a shame really since they do SUCH good stuff. I'll save most of my commentary for my review of it later, but I am glad that these fashion editors get the recognition they so deserved. The particular editors that stood out to me personally are Babs Simpson, Polly Mellen and Tonne Goodman, though that is not to say that the others aren't awesome characters themselves or not as equally noteworthy.

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Hedi Slimane's rebranding YSL to Saint Laurent Paris. I don't really have an opinion on this. I really don't. I did like the old logo and YSL the name itself, but I can get why Slimane did what he did in "updating" the brand. I liked how he changed the stuffier sounding "Christian Dior Monsieur" to the much cooler short but sweet "Dior Homme." I don't understand why some are frothing at the mouth over this as it's not nearly as bad as the rebranding fail Gap tried to pull two yeas ago if you put it all into perspective, as only the name of the clothing line has changed. I just hope they retrain their PR team. 

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The alleged rivalry between Raf Simons (Dior) and Hedi Slimane (YSL Saint Laurent Paris LOL). I suppose comparions are inevitable when two young hot shot designers are hired to head two big fashion power houses at more or less the same time, with their collections debuting together in the same fashion week. What do I make of it? It's SO DUMB. Really, are people that easily bored and petty nowadays? I believe they have a lot of work to do settling down at their respective houses and get cranking than sit around gossiping. PEOPLE! *insert joke stereotyping sassy gay men* On a more serious note, I did like Raf Simons's collection (on its own) and found Slimane's inaugural collection to be frankly, super underwhelming.

McNairy's 'Manifest Destiny' debacle. This is not a menswear blog so I would understand if you've never heard about this, but earlier this year, Gap had a huge collaboration with some of the best new menswear designers in the US to date. McNairy totally deserved to be chosen, what with his impressive body of work at J. Press back in 2005 and at Woolrich Woolen Mills (I happen to own this issue of Inventory). The controversy stems from his 'Manifest Destiny' t-shirt as seen above. If you know your American history (clearly McNairy and his team didn't), the Manifest Destiny is the 19th century American belief that the new European (mostly protestant) settlers' divine right to expand across the continent, which of course includes the massacre of countless native indigenous people and the pillaging of their land in the process. I doubt that he was being intentionally racist/imperialistic, however I am appalled by the utter lack of sensitivity from both the Gap AND McNairy staff. You know shit like this won't fly well with the public. Just do your homework and save yourself time, money and the embarrassment from the fall out.

A-Wang tapped as new creative director at Balenciaga. First of all, I should note that I am beyond SUPER BUMMED that Nicolas Ghesquière is no longer at Balenciaga. I made a post just on his collection alone this season for Pete's sake. He has been doing some amazing stuff for the house during his 17 year long career there. PPR better reward him with his own label or so help me. Alexander Wang was a bold choice (my face when I found out = o.O), and while I can kinda see him there, he needs to REALLY up his game. NYC fashion scene < Paris BIG TIME. Let's see if this fish can learn to swim in the big pond now. It's either sink or swim, amirite?

Braaavo! You've made it all the way to the end of the post. I hope it was an informative and most importantly, entertaining (because in the end isn't this all that counts?), read. I miss writing here as much as I used to. Let me know what you thought was the big fashion news item for you this year? I had a great eventful year this year and I really look forward to another wonderful and productive one in 2013! All the best to my dearest blogger friends and readers!!!