Jessica FrommSF Station Writer |
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| | Everyone from A-listers to reality-TV stars wants to sell branded perfume THE FASHION WORLD universally agreed that celebrity-endorsed fragrances would be a passing fad when they first became a thing in the early 2000s. How long would people really want to smell like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears, established perfume houses asked? Was J-Lo, I mean (ahem) Jennifer Lopez’s perfume sense really to be trusted over Chanel, Guerlain or Hermès? Did men really think that some of David Beckham’s animal magnetism would rub off on them if they wore his cologne? Well, practically a decade later not only have star-hocked perfumes hung around, they’ve blown up into their own industry. More » |  | | | San Jose fashion designer Robert Arredondo takes evening wear to the next level at Brix show PERHAPS IT’S a wedding, a prom or just a really hot date, but sometimes a girl wants to wear something totally different and unique—the sort of outfit one would never find at Macy’s. Enter the world of haute couture. French for “high dressmaking,” haute couture are custom-fitted, exclusive garments put together with heavy attention to detail by skilled tailors for private clients. More » | | | | Local street-wear company Halloway helps keep San Jose pride alive ANYONE who has ever hoofed it around downtown San Jose is familiar with those ever-so artful manhole covers adorned with the city seal. Featuring a bushel of grain surrounded by grapevines, ringed by the words “City of San Jose, California,” these manholes are scattered around the city’s sidewalks—just in case one forgets where one is when stumbling out of the VooDoo Lounge at 2am. More » | | | | Eric Belladonna’s Brave New World Fashion show added couture gloss to a post-apocalytpic world for SubZERO Festival in San Jose THE MUSIC starts with blaring air raid sirens that slowly descend into a thumping beat. The first gas-masked model appears on the street as a mashup of opera and tribal chants intermingle with distorted bird noises. Covered face to foot in dramatic black, her hair a frizzy fried cloud, the model attracts a crowd of onlookers as she marches in slow motion down South First Street. She’s followed by an equally dystopian bunch of “beautiful zombies,” all adorned with twigs, antlers and futuristic militant details. So began the post-apocalyptically themed Brave New World Fashion Show last Friday at the SubZERO arts festival. More » | | | | A new show at San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles highlights the colorful Hawaiian fashions of Alfred Shaheen WHEN MOST people think “Hawaiian fashion,” they think Tommy Bahama: loud, obnoxious hibiscus-laden printed shirts, the sort of thing dads wear while golfing in Florida. The truth is, however, that Hawaiian prints and textiles actually have a long and storied history of fusing design from multiple cultures. The evolution of the Hawaiian esthetic is the subject of the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles new exhibit, “Hawaii’s Alfred Shaheen: Fabric to Fashion.” More » | | | | The Stanford Charity Fashion Show looked beyond the expected IT’S A PLEASURE to see a catwalk where the models don’t all look like they come from Ukraine. Thankfully, the Stanford Charity Fashion Show on May 15 featured not just the bone-thin Caucasian girls seen so frequently on runways nowadays. Instead, a diverse array of nontraditional male and female models showed off textile creations by 25-plus designers, representing all levels of the local and international fashion industry. More » | | | | The San Jose City Council has been seeing less of Pete Constant lately. Now there's less of him to see. Something snapped in Pete Constant’s mind one morning last February. That’s when the District 1 councilman stepped onto his bathroom scale and realized he was 101 pounds heavier than he’d been as an active police officer. More » | | | | The ladies-who-lunch crowd of Silicon Valley bundled up on a gusty afternoon last Saturday and gathered around Santana Row’s luxury residential pool for a look at some chic summer outfits. Santana Row’s Poolside Soiree Summer Fashion Show celebrated the best of this season’s warm-weather wear, featuring a range of styles and designers from 21 Row retailers. More » | | | | Priscilla of Boston opens new store in Santana Row that allows brides to shop in cyberspace for that special gown SHOPPING for a wedding dress has gone high-tech. One wonders why it took so long. Just in time for the spring nuptials rush, luxury bridal boutique [b]Priscilla of Boston[/b] opened a Santana Row branch last week. In an innovative turn, each of the ritzy gown salon’s dressing rooms are now outfitted with customized HP TouchSmart PCs that let brides shift through hundreds of dresses with the touch of a finger. More » | | | | A roundup of the best offerings at last weekend's Junior League of San Jose Eye Candy Fashion Show at the Fairmont FASHION was front and center at the Fairmont Hotel last Friday, when hundreds of women filled the hotel’s ballroom as part of the [b]Eye Candy[/b], the [b]Junior League of San Jose[/b]’s 2010 fundraising fashion show. More » | |
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