Paris Fashion Week - behind the scenes

Thought I would share some of the "action shots" from the Paris Fashion Week - always fun :)

Jardins des Tuileries

Bloggers, hangers on'ers and sundry others

outside Viktor & Rolf

World Fashion channel at work

Nadia, Pete Navey, Jason (Citizen Couture), Tamu and Anne Catherine

Katy Perry and her blue hair

Where is Wally? Katy Perry being mobbed by photographers

The Aussie club - Australian model Montana being shot by a bunch of Aussie photogs 

Facehunter at work

Out with London, In with Milano

Super quick post re my first ever season in Milan. Milan is hectic to say the least. I mean I thought Paris was hectic but Milan is like Paris taken to an extreme. The locations are all over the city and public transport is pretty much non-existent. Oh wait, yes there are trams... where I almost got mugged and it left me paranoid of everyone around me for the rest of the trip. On a brighter note, a lot of the locations are beautiful (especially Missoni) and shooting there is pure joy. Whilst others... like Dolce & Gabbana are a massive hazard. Picture this: a busy street split by two lines of traffic, two tram lines and a narrow footpath. Well, street style photographers are an easily adapting bunch... so what do we do? we put the fashionistas on the tram tracks in the middle of a busy intersection to shoot. The backdrop is very pretty with the light and the trees and the tram track veering into the unknown. The biggest challenge - to make sure you huddle up the subject of your photograph off the tracks at least 3 seconds before the tram passes. I mean lets face it - no one wants to die for a photo... unless of course it's a photo of Anna Dello Russo in which case we all blissfully ignore the traffic by running backwards into it.

Anyways, here are some BTS photos from Milano - dont judge these are my 'quickies' taken on the run and are not at all edited... and street style shots will be coming very shortly xx

 Protesters outside Emporio Armani

Bloggers and photographers gathering before the show (p.s. this is about an hour before the show and the crowd that you see contains very few actual attending guests at this stage)

The heavyweights - Tommy Ton and Nam 

Emporio Armani - guests exit after the show

Unfair advantage - Milanese bloggers cycled from one show to another whilst we were wondering the city trying to navigate the map.. or a Google map 

Outside Jil Sander - Mr Newton, Natalie Joos, Anya Ziourova

London Fashion Week - takeaways

Oh my goodness! This has been crazy two weeks so far. Every season I'm giddy with anticipation of the fashion month as if its Christmas and after the first week I inevitably ask the same question - WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF???!!!!

I dont know if the day will ever come when I will be able to at least enjoy and revel in the misery of being a street style photographer at fashion week without having to switch on and off between my day job, my limping social life and basic chores like doing my laundry... I just want to be happy and tired because I've been standing outside the shows in the cold for 8 hours! :)

As expected London in the middle of February was miserable - no miracles here. Rain, freezing cold, wind, bipolar suffering sunshine - you name it.

I'm not going to dwell on the London Fashion Week because to be honest with you this season in terms of street style it was a bit of a disappointment. Too many predictable outfits straight off the Topshop windows, too many try hards and too many posers - dont know whether it's just me but this season all of these were in even greater abundance than usual.

A few take aways from the LFW2012:

• Top of the chart - the 3 annoying teenagers who.. what's the word to describe a situation when someone constantly stuffs up your photos by being in them?? Boneheading, is that the correct term? Well, these 3 'lovely' individuals managed to make lives of dozens of photographers very difficult both before and after the Mulberry show. They literally clung onto every possible A, B and C grade celebrity and took "selfies"* with them. By the time they were done, the celebrities had no love to give to the photographers and snuck straight into the show. Result - I have about a dozens portraits of Pixie Lott/Olivia Palermo/[insert name] with about 70% of the photo being taken up by silly mugshots complete with braces, acne and oily hair.
• Spotted - Leigh Lezark looking lost... loitering outside the Vivienne Westwood Red Label show for long enough so that the general public started questioning the fact that she had a legit invite... awkward ever so slightly...
• Disappointing - the lack of Pyjama trend and Sporty Neon from the resort collections in the street style. 
• Loving - Olivia Palermo's style - everything she wore looked perfect
• Surprising - not enough vintage looks at LFW. I always thought that London fashionistas were the best when it came to doing vintage... Nowhere near enough vintage inspired looks this season.
• Key trend - flower print is the new black
• Trend well done - military jackets    

*selfie - a photo taken from a distance of a stretched arm... normally means that people in the photo will be missing parts of their bodies because you cant see what you are photographing

What happens at Volvo Fashion Week in Moscow?

My very first time at Volvo Fashion Week in Moscow and I am as happy as a kid in a candy store! I was excited about coming to Moscow for this event, but I also had my reservations. Firstly, it was cold in Moscow   (well compared to London anyway) and I was not looking forward to hanging around in the cold all day and not feeling my fingers or my toes. Secondly, having never shot Moscow street style or not really knowing Russian designers, I did not know what to expect. Works out, fashion events are adaptable to weather and stylish people are stylish regardless of where they live!

Volvo Fashion Week in Moscow (I keep saying the full name because, weirdly enough, there is another fashion week running in Moscow concurrently) is set at the wonderful Gostiny Dvor venue. It is basically a huge exhibition hall but also happens to be beautiful inside with lots of natural light as the entire roof is made of glass. Two tents are set up inside for the catwalk shows, there is a 'technical area' which is basically an atrium where hair is done, models hang out and castings take place; and there is the 'public' area which is where all the fun begins... Basically, I understand the Russian approach to be as "if it is not enjoyable then why bother??" which I guess makes sense. Unlike the heavyweight fashion weeks in NY, Paris, London and Milan that are all business-buyers-sellers-watch-and-get out type events, the Moscow counterpart is very much come-hang-have a champagne-and-watch some fashion type event. Allow me to elaborate. There is a full-on bar with a DJ set up in the middle of the whole thing. You can reserve a table, have your  Veuve and drink it too. Right next to the bar there are the latest Volvo cars in bright red being shown off. Behind the bar is a hair studio where you can get your hair done whilst having another glass of champagne. And of course there is the VIP waiting room, which is for those people who are kind of a big deal and they prefer to drink their Veuve with other more privileged fashion individuals. 

For me personally the highlight of the venue was the cloak room where you could also get a locker and dump all your stuff there instead of lugging it with you all day. I was also pleasantly surprised by the organisation of the event and the fact that the PR people responsible for organising and registering the media remember most of the bloggers and photographers by name. Moscow Fashion weeks (lucky for me this season :) are yet to reach the point where there are hundreds of fashion bloggers and photographers hanging around trying to shoot people so doing street style here is much easier here and more enjoyable as people who attend the shows are not being mobbed at the entrance.

The catwalk shows are running back to back so getting to all the shows whilst trying to shoot street style in the meantime makes lunch/coffee breaks near impossible - something that ALL fashion weeks have in common! 

Here are some photos from the venue:

Main hall

Backstage atrium

The bar

What happens at Paris Fashion Week?

Paris FashionWeek is best described as hectic. As this was my first time at PFW, I wasnt sure what to expect and given how different NYFW and LFW were, I was ready for pretty much anything. And that is probably the right attitude to have because PFW is aimed at testing your endurance, dedication and commitment to fashion. I only had the weekend at PFW so I was determined to cram as much as possible into those two days.

PFW shows are spread all over Paris, so you are forced to become closely acquainted with the Metro from the word 'go'. A lot of the venues are not disclosed on the official timetable so the added challenge is to find out where the shows are.. of course everybody finds out eventually but I guess the suspense adds to the excitement of the whole thing.

Paris Fashion Week is like New York, London and Milan fashion weeks put together and on steroids. There are more photographers, more paparazzi, more fashionistas, more editors and more glamour; and all of this is set against the gorgeous backdrop that is Paris.

So here are my highlights and impressions from my two days at PFW (I am secretly happy and relieved that I didnt have any more days because frankly, I doubt I would've survived a whole week):

• there are way more tourists at PFW than any other fashion week
• as a photographer you are at risk of becoming a victim of stampede of other photographers chasing celebrities and editors
• you are also at risk of becoming a roadkill as the streets are narrow and the mopeds, cars and cyclists are vast
• a lot of the stampedes are caused by French celebrities, but you dont know it at the time and when you victoriously find yourself in the middle of the scrum you often realise you dont know who this big celebrity getting out of the black car actually is - awkward!
• the 'hangers on'* tend to be much younger in Paris and can often be identified by a distinct lack of style - a juxtaposition to the uber-stylish legit Paris fashpack!
• the 'hangers on' are RELENTLESS - I was so surprised to see some of them trying to get into Hermes show which is, lets face it, one of the most coveted shows at PFW! 
• the photographers' scene is extremely competitive as locations are difficult to shoot at and the people you actually want to shoot are often not willing to stop because they are running late to a show
• on that note - all the shows are running at least 30 minutes late because the venues are quite far apart
• food/lunch/toilet breaks are near impossible to fit in as the schedule is so incredibly tight
• the mystery of how Anna Wintour arrived and left the shows remained unsolved - I did not see her walking into a show once over the two days.. but she was there in the front row
• Kanye West attended a record number of shows being patient and photographing with fans
• Paris is pretty. Even police officers are pretty. All the bloggers/photographers had a group crush on the the police/traffic control lady outside the Hermes show! 

*by 'hangers on' I mean people who come to the shows with the sole purpose of hanging out outside the fashion show venue. They do not photograph, I doubt they blog and I am pretty sure their main purpose is to actually get into a show without any particular interest in the designers or the clothes.

Jardins des Tuileries - the main venue for PFW

the fashpack

What happens at New York Fashion Week?

Even a simple thought, a mere contemplation of the New York Fashion Week was an intimidating affair. What to pack? What to wear? Where to go? The questions in my mind were literally endless. As I have mentioned in one of my previous LFW reviews, you either dress to shoot or to be shot. Combining the two is a challenge that only the likes of Hanneli  can pull off.

I flew into NYC late Wednesday night and come Thursday morning I was actually questioning whether going to NYFW was a good idea to begin with. To top it all off the weather in NYC was... well ... painful. And when I say painful, I mean actual physical pain of not feeling your fingers and hence not really being able to press the button on your camera!

Therefore the question of 'what to wear?!' disappeared and was replaced with 'what other sweater can I add to my already impressive layer count?'

In reality, all is not as scary as it first seems and if you follow me on Twitter, you already know that Day 1 was a blogger's day from hell - freezing cold weather, harsh light and absolute lack of fashion traffic. I rocked up at the Lincoln Centre at around midday hoping that the action would've kicked off by then. The scene was a miserable one: the only people present outside Lincoln Centre (apart from tourists) were Tommy Ton, Citizen Couture and one other unidentified dude who was there literally just hoping to get snapped for his ridiculous outfit which can be best described as 'an Eskimo on acid hanging at Studio 54'. If it wasnt so cold, I would've expected a tumble weed to make an appearance.

Tommy and Jason were freezing and waiting for at least someone fashionable to walk past. No one did. For at least an hour. By this stage I was getting miserable. By 4 pm everyone dispersed and I left with about 4 photos, 0 of which were good.

Day 2 was much better as people actually started pouring into the Lincoln Centre for the shows. The major difference between NYFW and LFW is that the latter attracts more posers whilst the former is business, business, business. Buyers, editors and sundry others fly in and out of the show ground and only a few would stop to pose for a picture and even if they do, you only have about 3 seconds to get it right.

The building itself contains 4 spaces (Theatre, Stage, Studio and Box) and hence more shows and presentations are held at the main venue. Inside a mayhem of models, photographers and PR people and the overall atmosphere is not as chilled out as at the LFW.

A very interesting point is that NYFW seems to have more presentations than London although catwalk shows obviously still dominate. The presentations seem to involve just as much effort as the catwalk shows and require a production company and the whole shebang of people to organise a 1 hour event. The cost of these events, depending on a number of factors such the size of the team and the venue location, can be anywhere between $50K to $150K.

My Days 3 and 4 where filled with other commitments so unfortunately I did not get to shoot any street style but I managed to attend a number of presentations. I will do separate posts on these, pictures and everything!

Now back in London, I am in anticipation of the LFW and hoping that the nicer weather and a more generous venue layout will make for another fruitful LFW.

Harper's Bazaar Russia

So I am literally running out of photos to show you because I have not had time to shoot any street style in the last ..well few months. So instead I thought I would share this with you. I saw this article in Harper's Bazaar Russia when I went home over the Christmas break. The article features my favourite Vanessa Jackman and I wonder if she knew this had been published. The problem is the article is in Russian and hence Vanessa wouldn't have had a clue about what it said. So I thought I would jot down the main points but the process of translating was so captivating that I tried to translate the whole article. So I thought I would share it with you ... since I don't really have any pictures to post.

 

"All on show"

By Polina Dubik (Translation by Sunday)

These days the stuff that goes on before the shows during fashion weeks resembles madness that one would normally see on the red carpet at a big movie premier. Except, instead of paparazzi, it's the fashion bloggers. Instead of movie stars - fashion editors and models. But the key question remains the same: who is wearing what??

"Natalia! Natalia! One picture please!" - a bunch of fashion bloggers from Japan are attacking our fashion director Natalia Alaverdyan in the middle of Tuilleries Gardens right before the Dior show. Two minutes later she is surrounded by dozens of photographers and approximately the same number of assistants writing down the details of her outfit. This scene is a common one during fashion week and happens at least 20 times a day - before and after each show in New York, London, Milan and Paris. 

"Sometimes the situation gets absurd" - says Shala Monroque, editor of POP magazine, who is one of the bloggers' favourites - "one fashion journalist told me that she started using the back entrance when getting to a show, otherwise she just won't get there on time" 

Today, the number of photographers who come to fashion weeks from all over the world to shoot editors, models, buyers and celebrities, exceeds the number of photographers who are there to shoot the actual shows. As a result, the photos circulate on multiple blogs and websites for months after the fashion week and are carefully analysed, criticized and evaluated by the commentators from all around the globe: "Oh, Carine is the best at wearing Gucci pumps from the label's Tom Ford days!" or "Who knows where I can get a white jacket like Emmanuelle's?" 

"The stuff that goes on before the actual fashion show is looking more and more like a fashion show in itself, - says blogger Tommy Ton, who shoots for style.com - The way the fashion insiders dress, today is becoming almost more important than what appears on the catwalks". Of course, fashion insiders are aware of this and a lot of them are following the unwritten rules of this new game. 

"There are certain trends and patterns that become apparent. For instance, it is clear that the way editors dress changes as they travel from city to city during fashion weeks", -says blogger Vanessa Jackman. Indeed, at New York fashion week, which kicks off the fashion month, everyone is more reserved in how they dress, as though they are saving the best for Europe. The most interesting stuff starts in Milan - here you can see more prints and brighter colours. And, of course, the climax takes place in Paris. "everyone puts in a lot of effort during the Paris fashion week, - says Vanessa, - this is the closing fashion week and everyone is keen to show off their latest buys and the key trends of the season". 

During the S/S 2011 shows the favourites among the editors were the Valentino studded pumps, Celine bags, silk blouses, maxi skirts, Prada knits and 'cat eye' sunnies.

"The style of fashion insiders can be roughly separated into two main categories. Ones that opt for the clean cut, minimalist style along the lines of Celine. And the others, who mix prints, colours and go for interesting textures and fabrics" - says the founder of turnedout.tv Maya Villiger. There is also the third type - models and young stylists, who are boldly mixing vintage finds with designer pieces. And of course, there are those that cannot be classified into a group, the likes of Anna della Russo who are in a league of their own. However, regardless of what category they fit in, everyone enjoys having their photo taken. "You shouldn't underestimate the importance of these photos for the editors themselves, -says Tommy Ton, - from a PR point of view, blogs are an excellent instrument. I know a girl, who got a great job offer from a big brand due to the fact that she appeared in the right outfit on the right blogs".

In Yasmin Sewell's view, who is the creative consultant of Liberty and one of Tommy's favourites, it's not all that simple: "Yes, of course, blogs make us more recognisable. But when you are working with big corporates, it is important not to overdo it, otherwise you risk getting a reputation for doing nothing but dressing up and having your photo taken".

Fashion Week Facts

1. All street style blogs covering LFW 2010 will look the same for the next 2 weeks... at least. Fact.

2. About 80% of people at fashion week (interns, assistants, PRs, bloggers etc and including me) cant afford the clothes that show at fashion week. Fact.

3. The number of 'high heel' related ankle injuries has tripled in the last 6 days. Highly likely a fact given the cobblestones at Somerset House.