Art and shopping in the afternoon with Moschino and Fred Segal Couture

Moschino and Fred Segal Couture hosted an informal luncheon and shopping party on Saturday afternoon to preview the Italian fashion label's fall-winter collection. The event was a benefit for LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division), a nonprofit public art initiative that curates site- and situation-specific contemporary art projects here and beyond.

Appropriately enough, the clothes were presented inside an art installation in the backyard of socialite Normandie Keith’s Hollywood home. Built from the ground-up, the wood structure is titled “The Content is Bleeding Through,” by artist Cole Sternberg. A kind of shrine to information overload, it has spray-painted TV sets assembled into an altar (which made the perfect pedestal for Moschino’s tempting high heels). The floors and walls are covered in headlines about celebrities from tabloids such as Life & Style and PerezHilton.com. 

It's the latest acquisition for Keith, who has been the subject of a fair number of column inches herself. The American beauty moved to London to model in the 1990s and soon became an "it" girl, beauty magazine contributor and one of the city's "most invited" party guests.

Now, she's more interested in art and yoga, having moved to Los Angeles in 2008 after splitting up with her polo-playing husband, Lucas White.

Keith’s young son Finn looks at the backyard art project as the ultimate playhouse. But on Saturday it made a great boutique too. Erika Christensen and Marg Helgenberger were among the guests shopping Moschino’s ladylike fur-trimmed cardigans, metallic tweed coats and rose-print sheath dresses. The only problem? No dressing rooms in this installation. If you wanted to try something on, you had to tiptoe down the cobblestones through the secret garden and past the pool to the main house.

Not that anyone seemed to mind. After all, the interior of Keith’s house is as fun and eclectic as Sternberg’s installation — all-white to show off her contemporary art collection, including photographs by Tierney Gearon.

As models walked around in the latest Moschino looks, guests enjoyed delicious rhubarb martinis, poached salmon, beet, avocado and quinoa salads from FarmShop in Brentwood. And everyone agreed that it was a tough call which was finer, the food or the fashion.

-- Booth Moore 

 

UPDATED 03/31/2011 AT 1:32 p.m. An earlier version of this caption was incorrect. Photos, from top: Erika Christensen; Marg Helgenberger, left, and Wonnie Park-Tagliaferro, co-owner of Fred Segal Couture. Credit: Morena Photography. 

Currently coveting: plastic furniture for the feet

 
Jelly shoes are not going anywhere, not now that every luxury house on the planet (Chanel, Fendi, Givenchy) has figured out that they are such terrific entry price-point products (and they're recession friendly, too).

Of course, the appeal of plastic footwear is something that Melissa Shoes has known for years. The Brazilian-based manufacturer has collaborated with dozens of designers on cool-looking styles, including Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier, as well as architect Zaha Hadid.  

But the best new jelly shoes I've seen in a long time are the BowWow ballet flats from Kartell (above), the Italian design company that specializes in modern plastic furnishings such as the famous Ghost chair designed for the company by Philippe Starck.

Kartell began making plastic shoes a couple of years ago, but this is the first design done in collaboration with Italian fashion brand Moschino. They're $125 here.  And they are 100% recyclable.

-- Booth Moore

Photo: Moschino for Kartell BowWow shoe. Credit: Moschino

Your morning fashion and beauty report: Founding Fathers' facelifts. The plight of the fashion blogger

In honor of the new $100 bill, a look at our Founding Fathers' airbrushing through the years. [Newsweek, via Allure]

This fall's Fashion's Night Out will have the largest runway in New York history. [Huffington Post]

Apparently it is cheaper to shop online. [Daily Mail]

Online fashion critics might have changed the industry, but what's going to happen now that they're getting so much free stuff? [The Daily Beast]

Seven For All Mankind partners with Jonathan Adler. [WWD]

Will men get their own New York Fashion Week? [WWD, subscription required]

Anthropologie launches limited-edition artists line. [StyleList]

L'Oreal buys Essie. [Fashionista]

New Christian Louboutin campaign retails classic fairy tales with shoes. [The Frisky]

Sarah Jessica Parker gives Halston her due diligence, reads the designer's biography. [New York Post]

Will the all-natural celebrity trend ever end? [Huffington Post]

Alessandra Ambrosio is Moschino's girl for fall 2010. [Vogue UK]

-- Whitney Friedlander

Photo: New design of the $100 bill. Credit: Treasury Department

Moschino revamps classic pieces for spring/summer 2010

Italian designer brand Moschino is mining its roots for spring/summer 2010. The label -- a favorite brand of First Lady Michelle Obama's (she wore a Moschino blouse to the Vatican) -- is reproducing a selection of designs created by house founder Franco Moschino as a part of its latest collection. The items will be made with special “Archivio Moschino” labels.

"The past helps us to understand the present and understanding the present gives us the ability to open up our imagination for the future," said creative director Rossella Jardini, who pored through the 26-year-old brand's archives when choosing the iconic pieces to revamp.

"This season especially it felt right to take Moschino’s creative DNA from the past as a point of reference and inspiration and fuse it with our creativity now for the look into the future."

Jardini chose some of the house's most recognizable designs, including a boxy suit trimmed in pearls, a playful black-and-white heart-print dress and skirt, a dress bearing an embroidered peace sign, a white oversized T-shirt emblazoned with the word "Niente" (the Italian word for "nothing") and a biker jacket featuring colored pins.

But none of the homages are direct-from-pattern rehashes. The designer tweaked the fit of each item to modern proportions. The collection will be available at Fred Segal and Saks Fifth Avenue in L.A. But it's safe to assume we'll see it on the first lady first.

--Emili Vesilind

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Photo: A pearl-trimmed suit jacket from the Archivio Moschino collection. Credit: Moschino.

Fall 2009: Rare Escapist Fare from Etro and Moschino

Most designers showing at fashion week in Milan have bent over backward to show they're in touch with the reality of dwindling disposable income, and their collections have all been linked by their efforts to evoke, nostalgia, comfort, familiarity and connectedness. It makes for good PR and OK copy, but how much fun is the party when everyone's behaving themselves?

There's a place in the world for escapist fare &mdash books, movies, and yes, clothing — that takes our mind off the bleached bones of our 401(k) fund and the fact that our houses are more valuable as raw lumber