Italian luxury menswear giant Ermenegildo Zegna uses a La Scala playbill into its current Christmas campaign, which seems like it's that interminable Stéphane Braunschweig Don Carlo from October.
We've caught luxury brands grabbing the Scala coat tails in the past, like this campaign for DSquared2.
The menswear brand, coveted by celebs like Robert De Niro, also dresses Gianandrea Noseda, Valery Gergiev and Placido Domingo and has been a longtime patron of the Mariinsky.
Pavarotti's the latest Italian icon to be immortalized by S.Pellegrino in its Live in Italy campaign, so like 2Pac poured a 40 oz. to his dead homies, OC tips the 33.8 oz. special edition bottle of S.Pellegrino to Big Pav's memory.
To further celebrate Pavarotti as a hero of Italian culture and style, the Italian beverage empire backs a Verona-based exhibition, Amo Pavarotti, featuring the tenor's personal effects that runs through September. The bottle's only available in restaurants, worldwide -- and at OC's dinner parties, among good friends, between rounds of crudité and bagna càuda.
So it's Men's Fashion Week in Milan, apparent by the insane dinner parties (Alberta Ferretti's last night at Giacomo Bistrot) and the sulky, pale male models that crowd our cobblestone streets and don't eat in our delicious restaurants.
The runway shows kicked-off this morning with Corneliani, Zegna and Costume National, and after the lunch break, Dolce & Gabbana showed their Men's fall-winter 2012/12 collection at their Viale Piave labyrinth.
Dolce & Gabbana aren't shy about their love of opera, and they've paid homage to Italy's great opera composers in the past -- the 20th celebration of their men's collection last year at Palazzo Marino blasted Verdi hits and their Women's 2009 spring-summer lline incorporated Teatro la Fenice playbills and Maria Callas' face into its collection. (OC didn't miss the blow-out, either). Off the catwalk and away from backstage, we used to bump into them at Teatro alla Scala's Sant'Ambrogio opening night, too (but sadly we haven't seen them since 2008).
But earlier this afternoon, their fall-winter 2012/13 Men's collection catwalked to the sounds of an all-Verdi playist. As fashion editors, buyers, journalists and well-dressed guests took their seats, waiters in white tie lined the runway with trays of champagne flutes (seen above from the D&G twitter). The intermezzo from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana played and the show began.
Male models took the catwalk to Pavarotti singing La donna è mobile and Di quella pira and finished with Libiamo from Verdi’s La Traviata. Here’s a short video clip thanks to a front row GQ-er.
OC eased into a gray, rainy Monday after a long holiday so here are a few images from the past month to jump start the rest of the week.
La Scala's new interactive postcards for its Under30 club. The thought bubbles are detachable with a sticky tack that makes them re-usable. A for effort.
Touring Club Milano on Corso Italia had a Renata Tebaldi collection in its windows last month.
Don Giovanni/Scala fever started heating up Milan in November.
Protesters outside of La Scala on the Sant'Ambrogio opening night.
Setting up the jumbotron in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II for La Scala's opening night transmission.
Verdi chocolates at Pasticceria Ranieri on Corso Garibaldi! And chocolate violins.
(Organza and silk dress by Gianni Versace, from Salome at Teatro alla Scala in 1987, directed by Robert Wilson)
In the mid 1920s, Diaghiev commissioned French cherry bomb Coco Chanel as la costumière for the premiere of ballet Le Train Bleu, an ode to contemporary fashion with libretto by Jean Cocteau as danced by Les Ballets Russes, which sparked untapped collaborations between fashion houses and theaters. After Coco's success, French designers such as Lanvin, Balmain, Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent followed.
On the Italian end, Elsa Schiaparelli slashed and burned her way through opera and theater, and from her provenance came the Italian designers such as Giorgio Armani, Emanuel Ungaro, Alberta Ferretti, Valentino, and Antonio Marras who crossed into the arts.
Traveling exhibition "Il Teatro alla Moda -- Theater in Fashion" explores the Italian narrative between fashion and opera and highlights costumes created by iconic Italian fashion designers since 1980. The collection, which catalogs more than 80 costumes made by 11 Italian fashion designers for opera, ballet, and theater, made its American premiere in Los Angeles last month and has been extended until December 18.
Sponsored by the yet-unopened Beverly Hills performance space, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, the collection is in a temporary gallery space on the ground floor of the new MGM Place in Los Angeles.
The work of Gianni Versace is especially stunning. There's just no one else who does like he could.
Photos are from here.
(Roberto Capucci dress in georgette for Anna Caterina Antonacci in 1991 for a Tokyo concert)
(Gianni Versace from Stravinsky's The Firebird from the Royal Opera House in 1991)
(Valentino from 1994's Washington National Opera The Dream of Valentino)
(Roberto Capucci's taffeta and silk dress for 1986 Norma at Arena di Verona directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi)
(Valentino from 1994's Washington National Opera The Dream of Valentino)
(Gianni Versace for Kiri Te Kanawa in a 1990 Capriccio and the San Francisco Opera, directed by John Cox)
London footwear designer Charlotte Olympia presented her AW11 collection during London Fashion Week, which included an ebony and ivory platform heel, making a pianista out of a pianist. Sometimes, sloppy pedal work is a small price to pay for towering stilettos. [via]
Usually at the opera theaters we see whores on stage as epoch-old leading ladies like Violetta Valéry -- and more recently Anna Nicole Smith (although we're fiercely endeared to the Playboy hooker with the heart of gold). Leave it to creepy old rich Richard Lugner to turn art into life. The Viennese socialite has invited, literally, a whore to be his ~date~ to the annual Wiener Opernball.
In an embarrassingly dated escort-disguised-as-ambassador trick played every year, Lugner invites a trashy celebrity to attend (he actually pays them) one of Vienna's most prestigious social events of the year at the Vienna Staatsoper. Previous escorts have included Pamela Anderson, Dita Von Teese, and Paris Hilton (yeah, there's a pattern here).
This year, Lugner's invited Karima El-Mahroug -- aka Ruby -- an 18-year-old nightclub "dancer" who is one of the main characters of Italy's latest scandals. The Moroccan immigrant kicked-off the official bunga-bunga investigations surrounding Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his harem of whores who showed-up like clockwork from February to May 2010 to his famous orgies at his private villa.
Berlusconi will stand trail in April for charges of paying a then-underage Ruby for sex (she was a minor, only 17) and for abusing his power (he sprung her from police custody on shoplifting-related charges). And let's not forget about gifts totaling in more than $300,000.00 USD (two rolexes, a necklace, and a Valentino gown).
Lunger shafted Bo Derek for Ruby after he refused to pay Derek's fee. But at what cost comes Ruby? It's reported that Lugner's paying her €35,000 ($50,000.00 USD), a private jet for transportation, and luxury hotel accommodations.
As if Lunger's yearly tradition wasn't joke enough at this point, organizers of the Opernball are soooo not thrilled.
Opera Chic loves Milan's Bulgari Hotel, especially for the countless times she's refreshed at the bar -- either warming up with an infusion or chilling with a cocktail. Tucked away on a private road not far from her house, she passes the Italian design store Skitsch on the way in or out (depending how badly she needs that drink!) where innovative, playful design (and the store's immense glass window displays) always lure us in.
O.C. picked up a special, auxiliary catalog on a recent visit where she saw a page for French designer/Skitsch collaborator Jean Marie Massaud and design maven Cristina Morozzi, referencing the Duke's famous aria La donna è mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto. Design meets opera -- how sweet is that?
Florence-based Italian fashion label Patrizia Pepe's Fall Winter 2010 campaign "Who is Patrizia" fills their shots with models in unconventional poses: hiding their faces for maximum concentration on the clothes. It's like brown bagging it for the fashion world. It's a bit wacky, especially the French Horn/Alien Facehugger pose which kind of makes us squirm when we think of all the condensation (i.e. spit) that would collect on the horn IRL!
Here are some images from their Via Manzoni Milan store featuring the French Horn (and various other objects after the cut).
Click the link below for a couple more shots from the campaign!
Continue reading "Patrizia Pepe's [French] Horn-y Campaign" »
For Milan Fashion Week, women's collections are currently rolling out to buyers, stylists, fashion editors, et al. in the city's coolest, oldest palazzi as part of Spring 2011's ready-to-wear shows, and we're psyched to see the city ebb again with teeming scores of fashion scensters.
One of OC's events -- slipped from her towering pile of slick invites for cocktails, shows, openings, and viewings -- was a cocktail co-hosted by Italian footwear giant Tod's and Milan's Teatro alla Scala, who used the ensuing Milan Fashion Week to celebrate their recent collaboration of joint initiatives (sponsorship coupled with a limited edition product). OC was there on Thursday night (not a guest of La Scala) for the cocktail reception, buzzing off the cheesy club-lite soundtrack, very awesomely chilled champagne, and creative canapes.
The key of the campaign is a five minute commercial, shot inside Teatro alla Scala with the corpo di ballo called “An Italian Dream" (hmmm...we had an Italian dream once and it looked nothing like this!) President of Tod's Diego Della Valle and Scala's Stéphane Lissner devoted a small room to continuous loops -- in (real?) Le Corbusier 1920s club chairs -- of their new commercial. Directed by Matthias Zentner and (very heavily) choreographed by Gianluca Schiavoni, the clip followed Scala's ballerini wrapped in gauzey bandages on Scala's stage (OC's photos of the commercial are above). Interspersed was the old-timey fingers of a Tod's shoemaker, weaving laces across a suede shoe. A sweeping classical music soundtrack was mixed with a beat for an effect that was more aggressive than necessary.
OC's always championed the links between classical music and high fashion, taking opera back to its dreamily glamorous era when Maria Callas floated through cocktails in vintage Biki and Yves Saint Laurent bespoke gowns. Although many problems currently plague Italian opera's enti lirici (and fairly, all opera houses), we love being at the center of this phenomenon, as we've recorded it again and again and again and again and again and again and again. (^takes the needle off the record^)
And if at the end of the collaboration, nothing significant comes from it, we're deliriously happy that style.com had a legitimate occasion to assign Stephan Lissner and Teatro alla Scala their own tags!
And the new Scala/Tod's product? Style.com has a photo (below) of the suede ballet shoes, available in November in Tod's boutiques for $575.
It's called brass, which existed centuries before geeks got their hands on steampunk. Here's an update to last month's Corso Venezia Henry Cotton's windows. As much as we love the shout-out to brass, it's not working for us.
Keep reading for real steampunk
Continue reading "Henry Cotton's: Steampunk Without the Punk" »
Milan has its share of boutique hotels -- from Corso Como's Maison Moschino to Corso Matteotti's Boscolo -- but as OC was hanging out in deserted Milan the past week, she walked past the latest contender in the city's stake for tourist dollars (pounds/yen/rubles) on via dell'Orso: Hotel MilanoScala [warning: embedded music filez], an opera-themed hotel that opens on August 30.
The 4-star hotel has sixty-two rooms throughout seven floors, with amenities capitalizing on Milan's rich legacy of classical music: a "Prima Donna" bar and a restaurant called "La Traviata" (although there's a neutrally-named "Sky Terrace Bar", too). Suites have been named after Italy's opera theaters and operas (Carmen, Aida, La Fenice, San Carlo, etc.) Starting at 200 euro-a-night and running through 500, frankly we expected worse for this restored 19th century mansion just a block away from La Scala. Props to them (regardless of how they change OC's neighborhood) for being Milan's first zero-emission hotel.
(Above: Henry Cotton's' Corso Venezia brass-heavy window)
(Above: an ad for L'espresso with violin-inspired haute couture)
(Above: Swarovsky's "Nabucco", "Tosca" and "Idomeneo" binoculars)
(Above: The head chef of Paris' Hotel Le Meurice talks about the honey that's cultivated on the roof of Paris Opéra: "We even source honey from hives kept on the roof of the Opéra and the Grand Palais -- it is the purest honey you can find because pesticides are completely banned in teh city of Paris." )
"Thundercats Orchestra Conductor line" is what VH1's BWE blog called these photos from Chanel's F/W 2011 Haute Couture Paris show last week, where models walked the runway under Unkle Karl Lagerfeld's eternally-sunglass covered eyes, accompanied by lion-headed male models in white tie and tails (and boots). This is even better than the time that Fabio Luisi conducted in a Pink Panther costume (last video on this page)! We <3 u half-lion half-conductor thundercat!
~Click the link below to see more looks from the show~
Quirky British designer Paul Smith, known for his stripey and colorful patterns, just blessed the Milanese with a private talk held during Men's Fashion Week in his Viale Umbria showroom (more on that soon). Swag was a limited edition (of 5000), postcard-sized booklet of photographs, black and white, taken by both Paul Smith and his late father, Harold. Always searching for design inspiration, Sir Paul travels the world with his camera, and his keen eye for line and form has developed into just one more skill of the man who never stops creating.
So after meeting one of his fans, a principal dancer of the Royal Ballet, a collaboration grew and Sir Paul asked to photograph the dancers (like the portrait snapped above). The prints are now on display at his Space store in Tokyo's Aoyama district. “The Royal Ballet Portraits” are on view until July 6. This guy was there for the opening and has the scoop.
Italian menswear label Paoloni's new campaign was shot in Piazza della Scala. Via Manzoni is in the background with Teatro alla Scala on the left.
Last night in a miraculously dry patch of Milan's timid rain, Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana took over Piazza della Scala and Palazzo Marino (Milan's City Hall, adjacent to Teatro alla Scala) to show the city what's what of men's fashion (teaser post here). Twenty years of success in such a fickle market is cause to celebrate, and Dolce & Gabbana's guest list ran deep: American celebs, foreign celebs, and everyone in between threw back hard liquor (Dolce & Gabbana's new "Martini Gold", poured from shiny golden bottles) and greeted Stefano & Domenico at the front entrance with Milan's mayor, Letizia Moratti.
Roberto Bolle was in attendance (and sat front row at the D&G show earlier that day), which makes us think that he'll soon join past & present D&G campaign-friendly faces like Madonna and Matthew McConaughey, no longer with Ferragamo, indoctrinated by fellow Italian ballerina, Eleonora Abbagnato, who was also in attendance last night. Later that evening, the VIPs of the VIPs joined D&G at their Gold restaurant in Piazza Risorgimento (that OC stops in frequently when she's in the area for delicious brioche and cappuccini)
Dolce & Gabbana, who are usually present at La Scala's prestigious opening nights on Sant'Ambrogio, blasted Verdi instead of the usual techno/house in a special tribute to the Italian composer.
~*~
Click for more photos of Bolle, Abbagnato, and the special Verdi program. You can also check out Milan babe Tamu of All The Pretty Birds, who was on site to capture an eloquent, stylish, and less cleavage-crass darling of the night.
Liu Bolin is a young Chinese artist who meticulously paints himself into his own artwork -- literally, morphing into famous monuments.
The artist came to Milan and transformed himself into some of the city's most gorgeous [living] monuments, all in the name of art. OC's not even going to tell you what she's personally done in the name of art! Hint: It looked nothing like this.
For Italy, he posed on the roof of the Duomo, in La Scala's Palco Reale, the Rialto Bridge in Venice, and the sky terrace of Milan's record-breaking (for height, cost, and absurdity) skyscraper that went up in February for Regione Lombardia's President, Roberto Formigoni.
All of his work is done without the aid of Photoshop or digital manipulation, and takes up to 7 hours. He's helped by a team of two artists and his camera. It's like those Magic Eye puzzles for the aughts!
What the heck is a piano cruiser? Don't even both asking Captain Stubing for permission to come aboard because no one is cool enough to come aboard the piano cruiser. Look at that thing! It's part of Fazioli's collection in their Milan via Conservatorio showroom, where Fazioli's pianos (from his Venice-area factory) wait to be boarded.
Opera Chic's latest for W Magazine Editors' Blog is up!
Sure, you can come to Milan and go to the same old stores as always (Prada's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II store, D&G's Via della Spiga boutique, Zenga's Via Monte Napoleone store, etc...) but that's so booooring!
(there's a photo of a bare-chested Abercrombie model waiting...)
Opera Chic braved the flocks of fashion editors and stylists and buyers that descended upon her favorite Milan restaurants this weekend (we were happily relieved -- for a few reasons, this Milano Moda Donna was less crowded than past years). She had a craving for Cucina delle Langhe's creamy & delicate bagna càuda and would have even sat on Elle fashion editor Kate Lanphear's lap (she was a few tables over) if that was the only seat left in the restaurant (and if Kate didn't mind).
Bagna càuda is a dish of the poor, unironically served in Milan's oldskool restaurants with a price tag that radically evolves it from peasant food. Liquid velvet, smooth and creamy, it's a delicate blend of anchovies, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. A Piemontese dish, eaten in the winter and fall months with a side of winter vegetables: fennel, radishes, beets, carrots, celery, cauliflower, and peppers. Served in a terracotta bowl with a candle beneath to keep the mixture fluid and warm, it's so perfect with a strong Nebbiolo, Barbaresco or a Dolcetto. OC will literally stab your hand with her fork if you try to step to her anchovy sauce. All's fair in love and bagna càuda.
Yesterday Opera Chic shared the first part of her Milan Insider's Survival Guide with W Magazine's Editors Blog -- a definitive list of all things chic to help you get through Milan's Fashion Week.
Now comes Part II...you know you want it!
Opera Chic's latest piece for W Magazine's Editors' Blog is a definitive, insider guide on how to survive Milan's chaos during Fashion Week.
Part II exits tomorrow and will help you through aperitivo, finding a good & quick lunch, where to find the best perfumes/soaps, and much more.