Mother's Day Gifts: For grandmama

Sunday is Mother's Day, and all week we've been giving you ideas to inspire your gift-giving:

Getting older sometimes means needing a little help. What came easily at 30 or 40 might be a little harder when you double the decades. But who says you have to give up being chic?

A shot of design panache gives the utilitarian magnifier and walking stick some serious attitude, making them flauntable. Inspired by Scandinavian style, Omhu Canes are crafted of hand-oiled birch with an aluminum shaft finished in colorful bicycle paint. Fashion meets function in the handle’s gripper strips and the patented high-performance tip with athletic shoe-style cushioning, traction and support. $135 in six colors at www.omhu.com; also at Plastica and A+R Store.

And, let’s face it, reading glasses or a magnifier make the lives of many a woman of a certain age that much easier; in fact, it’s nearly impossible to order dinner without one. So why not go for bold with these Maison Martin Margiela Magnifying Glasses that look equally fabulous accessorizing a desk or a face. In sync with the line’s clever deconstructive style, an individual right or left magnifier is based on each temple of a classic Clark Kent-style eyeglass frame. One smart optical illusion. And feast your eyes on the adorable case. $78 for right or left glass, at A+R Store.

--Ingrid Schmidt

Photos: Omhu canes in bright colors, from Omhu. Maison Martin Margiela magnifier, from Maison Martin Margiela.

Gifts inspired by the Oscars: 'Black Swan'

In the week leading up to Sunday's Academy Awards, we're giving you some gift ideas inspired by Oscar nominees.

 
Controversy over costume designer Amy Westcott and local fashion label Rodarte’s design credits aside, any film that stars Natalie Portman as a goth-meets-glam prima ballerina and contains a Swan Lake number is sure to set the fashion flock’s collective heart aflutter.

Exhibit A: Chanel’s spring collection. Pointe taken. Plumes of all sorts have been capturing our fancy. While we’ll pass on painful toe shoes, we’ll gladly swap in these Manolo Blahnik Catalinasli sandals ($765 at Nordstrom.com).

  And forget the tutu when you have a necklace that’s too-too! Yes, Anita Ko’s envy-inspiring Double Wing pave-encrusted pendant necklace, part of her Good vs. Evil collection, costs a whopping $15,000. (In 18-karat white gold with 3.5 carats of diamonds, also in yellow and rose gold, at Maxfields [(310) 274-8800]. Talk about earning your wings. 

Or try feathering your nest with these high-low pens that could have been plucked straight from Portman’s "good swan" costume. Leave it to Martin Margiela to take the lowly ballpoint to a luxe new level with genuine ostrich and goose feathers. (Pens from $50 each, at Maison Martin Margiela, 310-284-8093, or at aplusrstore.com). One would make a perfect gift for writers or graduates set to take flight or to add flourish to family and friends’ forever-celebrated moments, such as signing guest books, wedding certificates, birth certificates … heck maybe even divorce papers. Exit stage right.

-- Ingrid Schmidt

Photo: Top, Natalie Portman in "Black Swan." Credit: Niko Tavernise / Fox Searchlight

Thursday: "127 Hours" 

Paris Fashion Week: The best of the rest from the men's runway

Since Paris Fashion Week served up more noteworthy menswear collections than we had time to discuss in depth, and the Haute Couture shows are now on the fashion world's center stage (soon to be followed by New York Fashion Week), here's  a notebook-clearing laundry list of the ones that got away:

Lanvin

The Lanvin collection telegraphed its duality with a soundtrack that abruptly cut between '70s-era country music and futuristic thumping techno beats. So too the runway was filled with both extremes: skinny-legged pants interspersed with generously cut trousers, technical outerwear pieces such as puffer jackets and bombers followed by double-breasted jackets, and other pieces that combined the best of both ends of the spectrum. But there was one constant -- many looks were topped off with the wide-brimmed hat that had become one of the "it" accessories of the men's fall and winter 2011 shows.

Yves Saint Laurent

"Take me back to England" were the first words we could make out from the soundtrack accompanying

Maison Martin Margiela designs a shirt for World AIDS Day

Beginning with its fall/winter 1994 collection, Maison Martin Margiela has for years been designing a shirt to benefit AIDS research -- each with a thought-provoking line of text printed on it.

This year's quote, "There is more action to be done to fight AIDS than wear this T-shirt, but it's a good start," is emblazoned across the top of a V-neck white T-shirt — though most of the text is on the inside of the shirt, which was intentionally done to spark conversation.

A percentage of the sales of the T-shirts are donated to Aides, a French organization dedicated to the fight against AIDS/HIV. Over the years, 170,000 T-shirts have been sold, raising more than $975,000 for the charity.

This year, Maison Martin Margiela is kicking off another initiative -- tweaking the design of the shirt to include the message in various languages, in homage to World AIDS Day.

The first language chosen was Japanese, and it's no wonder. The artful black script looks more refined than English ever could.

The $120 tee will be available on Dec. 1 (World AIDS Day) at all Maison Martin Margiela stores.

-- Emili Vesilind

Photo: Maison Martin Margiela's first World AIDS Day T-shirt.

Slouchy Chic: The boyfriend cardigan rears its grunge-y head

When it came to cardigans, a new silhouette reigned on fall's runways — a roomy deep V-neck grandpa sweater we're coining the "boyfriend" cardigan.

The oversize cover-up, which boasts a slouchy fit and a hem that hits well below the hip, takes a page from both 1920s flappers and the grunge-y 1990s (remember Kurt Cobain's addiction to thrift-store cardigans?) 

Brands including Stella McCartney, Clements Ribeiro and Maison Martin Margiela rolled out louche boyfriend cardis that were alternately dressy and dressed-down.

Bejeweled pockets made the slinky versions at Clements Ribeiro feel decidedly noir, while Margiela showed a roomy black cardigan belted at the waist that one could imagine wearing with, oh, just about everything.

But Stella McCartney designed what's becoming the prototype for the look — a camel-colored cable-knit number that was worn pants-less by a model, no doubt to punctuate its distinctiveness (see Natalia Vodianova wearing it sans any distractions, above.)

Fortunately, the greatest thing about this trend is that it doesn't necessitate a heavy investment — just a bit of shopping know-how.

Doppelgangers of the Stella McCartney cardigan can be successfully foraged for at local thrift stores (or in gramps' closet). And while mass retailers have yet to spin out a bazillion versions of the boyfriend cardi, we recommend shopping in the guys' section of stores such as H&M, Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters to achieve an authentic garçon look.

--Emili Vesilind

Photo: Stella McCartney's sexy boyfriend cardigan. Credit: Stella McCartney

Paris Fashion Week: Maison Martin Margiela's quirky take on the masculine / feminine trend

Maison Martin Margiela -- now operating without its namesake designer -- took on the masculine/ feminine theme, showing a balance of quirky pieces and classics with a twist.

First, the wacky: man-tailored pants and skirts with stand away hoop waists that defeminized the models by banishing their curves; gargantuan fur hats that swallowed them up; and metal belts resembling a man's watch bracelet that kept them in check. Interesting ideas, but they didn't have as much wit as those from Margiela himself.

The tweaked classics showed more promise -- trousers slit up the backs of the legs, and superbly tailored overcoats with oversized sleeves flattened like wings.

-- Booth Moore, reporting from Paris

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More photos from Maison Martin Margiela's fall 2010 collection

More reviews from Paris Fashion Week

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Photos: Maison Martin Margiela's fall 2010 runway in Paris. Credit: Peter Stigter and Jonas Gustavsson / For The Times

Vintage Maison Martin Margiela sale on 1stdibs.com

Mad for Maison Martin Margiela? Then you won't want to miss a sale of more than 1,000 vintage and one-of-a-kind pieces from the avant-garde house -- set to unfurl at Resurrection Vintage Clothing in New York and Los Angeles on Feb. 13, with select pieces featured for sale on design auction website 1stdibs.com.

The sale, "Resurrection's 20 Years of Martin Margiela: The Marcia Berger Collection," will showcase more than 1,000 pieces of Martin Margiela amassed by the late private collector and Los Angeles resident Marcia Berger, who collected pieces from the house's inception in the late 1980s through 2008. 1stdibs.com will be posting a catalog featuring about 300 of the items online.

Many of the clothes have never been worn -- and some are still in their original garment bags.

The collection includes more than 40 one-of-a-kind pieces, including a vintage top made from sewn-together kid gloves (2001), a vintage jacket made from various belts (2007) and a vintage military sock-assembled sweater (1991).

One hundred pairs of Margiela shoes and boots that have never been worn (including several pairs of his signature Tabi split-toe shoes) will also be available, and accessories include leather belts, gloves, bracelets made of shoe soles and an array of bags and purses made from hand gloves, white crocodile and Margiela's signature white muslin. There are also rare pieces of jewelry made from whacky materials including soda tabs, belt buckles, resin and hair. 

--Emili Vesilind

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Photo: A Maison Martin Margiela coat that will be up for sale. Credit: Resurrection Vintage Clothing

Fall 2009: Margiela’s after-party with 'The Usual Suspects'

The Maison Martin Margiela label has always liked to salt its offerings with trompe l’oeil details, but for Fall 2009, the sartorial sleight-of-hand has a light touch that, as with the tailored trickery at Viktor & Rolf Monsieur, makes the collection a lot of fun.

Using a variety of oily sprays, resins and printing, the shoulders of jackets and shirts and the tops of shoes have been treated to look as if they'd just been rained on (which, I imagine would be slightly more noticeable, not to mention funny, in a rain-deprived city like Los Angeles versus some place like, say, Seattle). Denim is sanded to look as if it’s pilling, and pinstriped suits are cut so that the stripes appear to move  continuously from lapel to jacket body and on down through the trousers.

But the best visual punchlines in the collection can be found in the  “after party” collection -- a series of shoes, shirts and suits that look as if they’d been worn through one of those legendary party-hearty evenings. You know the kind: It starts as a mellow wine-pairing dinner with a few friends and ends 17 1/2 hours, a case of Rioja and two bottles of absinthe later when you’re arrested with 12 college buddies trying to chase a squirrel through a municipal fountain. Indeed, one of those kinds of parties must have been the back story for the presentation of the collection behind a glass in a witness identification line-up a la “The Usual Suspects.” (What I would have given for one brave model to step forward and say: “Flip you. Flip ya for real,” but alas, it wasn't to be.)

White shoes bear scratches and scuffs, jackets and pants sport worn, shiny areas on the shoulders and legs look as if worn while propping yourself up against a wall all night, and a white dress shirt bears a circular red wine stain just above the belt line.

Since we don't have any business partying like that in these times of economic strife, it's nice to know our wardrobe can.

-Adam Tschorn

Photo: Faux rain, with a touch of dissipation, from Maison Martin Margiela.

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