ACNE-The Pioneer In Fashion Industry

ACNE


Italian born fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli loved to shock and surprise, but perhaps it was in the blood. Her great-Uncle, the astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, shocked the world in 1877 by announcing he had discovered `canals' on Mars.

Born in Rome in 1890, the young Elsa grew up dancing to her own drummer, and ignoring convention. Her interest in exploring the unusual in fashion surfaced early and caused quite a stir. As a young woman, attending a ball in Paris, she created a dress by winding a strip of fabric around her body. Had it not unraveled, she might have started her first popular trend.

Her early marriage at 18 to theosophist William de Wendt de Kerlor came to a shocking end with the birth of a daughter her husband abandoned her, and Elsa found herself alone in Paris with a child to support. This was shocking enough to polite society in the 1920s, but Elsa didn't sit around feeling sorry for herself. She designed a black knitted sweater with a bow tie embellishment, and was soon selling them as fast as her troupe of Armenian knitters could produce them.

Her next shock was for the world of sport, when she opened her first salon in 1927. Called Stupidir de Sport she gave the tennis world a stunning serve with her divided skirt, worn in 1931 by tennis star Lili de Alvarez. As if that didn't shock the conservative ranks of women's' tennis enough, she later introduced shorts to Wimbledon.

But if that wasn't enough, Elsa turned her attention to high fashion and designed clothes in a new hot pink, which she naturally called `shocking' pink

Her love of color became a signature, and she called on surrealist artist Salvador Dali to design new fabrics and even hats imagine wearing a giant shoe on your head, or even a lamb chop as a team, Elsa and Dali brought fun to high fashion.

But Elsa's less outrageous designs became classics of fashion. She was the first to create a dramatic outline for women's bodies using shoulder pads, the first to give zippered clothes a more elegant finish by dyeing the zippers the same colour as the fabric, and the first to use animal print fabrics. Her style and panache may have been shocking, but it was also irresistible. Like shorts for tennis players, her `outrageous' ideas were warmly embraced by women.

Her wide range of interests and love of design soon saw her branching out into jewelry. She loved to experiment with new materials, and by the 30s, she had become one of the fashion world's great icons. She introduced cute buttons,

with shapes as diverse as bunnies and bullets, and the Egyptian Look, with huge sleeves that owed more to the Orient than Egypt. But Elsa didn't care and neither did her public her eclectic designs delighted her clients, who were drawn from among the very famous and wealthy of the time. They included movie stars like Marlene Dietrich and Mae West, and socialites like Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor.

One of her most amazing creations was the famous `lobster dress' of Salvador Dali. It looked like an elegant white organize evening gown except for the vibrant red lobster that Dali painted down the front of the skirt.

She continued to shock and delight with a dress that looked as if it had been repeatedly ripped far in

elegant white organize evening gown except for the vibrant red lobster that Dali painted down the front of the skirt.

She continued to shock and delight with a dress that looked as if it had been repeatedly ripped far in advance of today's `distressed' styles a back-to-front suit and coat printed with profiles by artist Jean Cocteau.

When she decided to create perfumes in the 30s, it was almost inevitable that she would create one called Shocking it became her most famous perfume, and her signature.

So legendary is this fragrance that Schiaparelli France recently recreated it in the original shapely bottle modeled on Mae West.

But the inescapable intervention of World War II proved more shocking than anything Elsa could have devised she was forced to close down her salon for the duration, and when it reopened in 1945, it seemed that the fire and passion had gone, swallowed the horror of six years of war. By the 50s, she was no longer designing clothes, but she took the time to write her autobiography My Shocking Life.

Elsa Schiaparelli died in 1973, and true to her great spirit, she was buried in her favorite outfit, a shocking pink Chinese robe. She was 83, and still fashion's grand dame. But her salon languished for a few years until it was reopened to keep her designs and perfumes available to the legions of women that had grown to love them.

Balenciaga-The Most Balanced Designer!

Balenciaga

Readers how about knowing the past designers? So i am thinking of bringing a few to you people.These act really an inspiration to all those budding fashion designers.The determination of these was unruffled! That is how they could reach this height!Let's have a look on Balenciaga.He brought a revolution in fashion industry,fashion styles. His fashion apparels were applauded across the world. He started the idea of fashion for the high society.

Spanish dress designer who created elegant ball gowns and other classic designs.
Balenciaga began seriously studying dressmaking at the age of 10, when the death of his father, a sea captain, made it necessary for his mother to support the family by sewing. His first trip to Paris at 15 inspired him to become a couturier, and by age 20 he had his own dressmaking establishment at the fashionable summer resort of San Sebastián in Spain.
In the next 15 years Balenciaga became the leading couturier of Spain. In 1937, when the Spanish Civil War disrupted his business, he moved to Paris. For the next 30 years his collections featured sumptuously elegant dresses and suits. Balenciaga helped popularize the trend toward capes and flowing clothes without waistlines in the late 1950s and the use of plastic for rainwear in the mid-1960s. In 1968 the house of Balenciaga closed, and he retired.

Cristóbal Balenciaga opened his first boutique with in San Sebastián, Spain, in 1914, which expanded to include branches in Madrid and Barcelona. The Spanish royal family and the aristocracy wore his designs, but when the Spanish Civil War forced him to close his stores, Balenciaga moved to Paris.
Balenciaga opened his Paris couture house on Avenue George V in August 1937, and his first runway show featured designs heavily influenced by the Spanish Renaissance. Balenciaga's success in Paris was nearly immediate. Within two years, the French press lauded him as a revolutionary, and his designs were highly sought-after. Carmel Snow, the editor of Harper's Bazaar was an early champion of his designs.