Hats for Miss Holstein's Collection

Here's the procedure, if you plan, think ahead and act like a Virgo:

all wayyyyy in advance, like in September, or October, for the Fall 09 show line-up.  Bring a visual reference, some ideas, and a colorway.  Plot the first mock-up.  Make an appointment, and keep it, to see the mock-up. 

Approve the mock-up, and place the order, in full.  

Call for pick-up, hopefully, before Christmas.

Guess who operates this way?  Catherine Holstein, that's who! A very professional young lady, with talent on her mind, and vision in her fingertips, who knows what she wants, and how to make it all happen.  Her agent called for the appointment, with a recommendation from Vogue Magazine, and the rest is fashion history now.  Her Fall 09 RTW presentation happened yesterday, Friday the 13th, with nary a black cat in sight.  Called "goth", by some of the press,  the collection put the models in very wear-able and sale-able clothing, with the hats providing the right soupcon of accessory. I love the lapels on her jackets.  I love her jackets.  In keeping with a more sedate color palette, as designers are wont to do for next season, the touches of color provide just the balance needed to make the collection cook.

You can see Catherine Holstein's clothing in Saks, for one, but look for her pieces, and by all means, put in a request for an Ellen Christine hat, just in case the store buyer is making notes!

Fashion Week Chic, 2009

Gird your loins, kids, Loris Diran has launched, his store is open, and his fashion show is getting rave reviews for the collection.

Loris Diran opened a retail store in the Bowery District and presented a beautifully edited runway show at the Altman Building, all in one week.  And we think we're busy.  

Ellen Christine was honored and excited to be included, via headgear, in his Fall 2009 show: to follow his armour inspiration, we created leather "helmets".  For the boys, although, it's an-anybody-can-wear-it piece, we did a really tailored quilted leather sexy hat.  Loris showed it with the lines of the hat in the vertical , but the cold weather treatment of the hat allows for  a flap-wrap, with buttons, to ward off the winter chill. Thanks to our supreme leather handler, David Menkes, the pieces were done in time for the show.  David's the skin genius we've been working with since we did costumes for rock and roll bands in the 1980's.

Fashion always rushes us along, but theatre training helps ease the way to curtain time here at Ellen Christine. The leather hat was done in a beautiful gunmetal grey, black, and a brown, for balance.  The tonality of the accessories was designed to compliment Loris' tone poem of a collection.  The boy works wonders with depth perception, combining chiffons with tweeds with nary a skip in the beat.

For the ladies, Polly Sweet, our premiere, crafted a perfect curl for the model's hairdo.  Loris and his able assistants trekked off to the Metropolitan Museum for a day of inspiration, shooting the armour collection.  From that series of photographs, the angle and direction of the cocktail hat was born. We decided to do it in the same gunmetal grey as the helmet, with the same quilting, to add continuity.  I designed it to sit perfectly on the crest of the brow, with the curl wrapping into the cheek.  Dinishing on a piece like this has to be meticulous so it caresses the model.  My fingers did the walking on that leather piping, shaping and molding the leather into the curve we wanted.

And so a collection is born. 

Ellen