Sergio K causes stir with his new campaign

A 81-old woman, a transsexual and two newly acclaimed male models are the stars of the new campaign by Brazilian fashion designer Sergio K, one of the most renowned names in this Portuguese-speaking country. This campaign featuring photos by the star photographer Terry Richardson is causing a stir in the media worldwide given its provocative nature.

The photos depict the Patriot brothers with the American model and transgender Amanda Lepore and with the 81-year old Carmen Dell’Oreffice, one of the oldest American models who started working at the age of 15 and is still to be seen in the catwalks. As for the Patriot twins, they are the new stars in the male model constellation. This campaign is a great stunt by Sergio K and is raising the awareness towards his brand which is now set to raise the international public eye.

Sergio K is a designer whose brand is fairly well implemented brand in Brazil, a country where he began his career in 2004 selling handmade shoes and where he some years later began designing clothes, having established also successful partnerships with Land Rover, Jameson, Stella Artois or Reebok. Sergio K has a flagship store in the affluent Oscar Freire avenue in São Paulo and his clothing line can be found in more than 150 multibrand stores. His online store at http://loja.sergiok.com.br is also a good option for those wishing to check and buy his creations from polos to swimming trunks, accessories, shirts and even candles by Comme des Garçons.

Portuguese brands at the Milan Design Week

Portuguese design products exhibited like works of art in a museum is how visitors at the Milan Design Week will get to see some of most interesting brands in this event. Between April 17 and April 22 seventeen Portuguese design brands in the areas of lighting, furniture, tapestry, accessories and fashion will be side by side with the major international brands in Milan.

This group features both old and new brands which have decided to join together in order to show the quality of Portuguese design. Attitude, Antiga Barbearia de Bairro, Boca do Lobo, Boa Boca Gourmet, BRABBU, Corque, Dada, Delightfull, Insidherland, Kess Kiss Pass, LUZZA, Maus, Mood, N16, Renova, Rewash Lamps, So True, Tapeçarias Ferreira de Sá and Wewood are the brands that decided to take to this city. Some of them have already made a name for themselves thanks to their innovating products, whereas others are fairly recent projects which drawn already the attention of specialized retailers both in Portugal and abroad.

This presence in Milan relies on the collaboration with Portugal Brands which, since 2008 has promoted more than 60 brands abroad. With the support of this organisation and a fair deal of hard work, these brands can now be found in renowned shops around the world from Berlin to New York, Paris or Stockholm.

The beautifulness of “Beautifulless”

Plates with faulty pieces used for decoration purposes is the new venture by the French designer Sam Baron who came up with the idea of using broken plates which are usually disposed and turning them into objects of art. This designer has been working for many years now with the Portuguese company Vista Alegre and is work consists in giving plates, cups and trays et all a more contemporary touch, without affecting this company DNA, reinterpreting patterns and shapes and coming up with interesting details.

In his new project “Beautifulless” he uses broken plates that he finds lying around in the factory floor, applies rather similar decorative patterns and designs from the Vista Alegre repertoire, thus adding a new sense of style and turning something less beautiful into remarkable and beautiful objects you can buy in sets of 6 and hang on your walls.

This project relies in the collaboration of Nilufar which has launched the project Unlimited with the aim to take a myriad of objects, reinventing them and coming up with new approaches.

A word of advice from the designer for those intending to buy these plates from the “Beautifulless” collection: these are fragile pieces of art which are only there for decoration purposes. Do not use them for food, wash tem only by hand and keep them out of reach of children.

Converse by John Varvatos and more for this summer

John Varvatos, the renowned menswear designer is there again with new models for Converse. Varvatos started his collaboration with this iconic American brand in 2001 and came up then with reinterpretations of the famous Chuck Taylor All Stars amd Jack Purcell. In 2004 he created the John Varvatos laceless Chuck Tayler, a trend replicated by numerous brands ever since. This Amerincan born designer of Greek origin has delivered dozens of models for Converse in the last 11 years. Trendenz came across the some items at Oficina Mustra created by this designer. In black or in blue, these models are a perfect match for the mild season and a distinguishing option for those wishing to go out at night wearing a non-canvas cool pair of shoes.

But come the warmer days canvas is a good solution to avoid your feet from frying in leather sneakers. Hence we recommend the one star Converse range in shades of light blue, gray or dark blue. These models have been carefully chosen by the manager of this store which, besides selling classical and taylor-made suits, fine shirts and foulards, features distinguishing casual items in the store.

Oficina Mustra is located in Rua Rodrigo Sampaio, 81, right beyond Avenida da Liberdade, the main boulevard in Lisbon. In a few months this very same store will have a storefront facing this avenue. By then the Lisbon temperature will be around 30º C, the right time to get the astonishing All Star model pictured above that you can wear with shorts, light fabric jeans and/or combined with a casual light-coloured blazer.

Portuguese fashion takes to the museum

“Tell me what you like… and I will tell you who you are”. This fairly popular questionnaire during the Parisian Belle Epoque is the motto of an exhibition featuring outfits and personal objects of some of the most renowned Portuguese fashion designers. This exhibition opened on March 29 and will be on show until June 12 at Mude, the Lisbon museum of fashion and design. Featuring 60 designs by 22 Portuguese fashion designers who regularly show their collection in the catwalks of ModaLisboa and Portugal Fashion, visitors have here a great opportunity to witness more than 20 years in the history of this creative area. Each designer answered the questionnaire and added some personal objects to provide a better picture on who they are and what they like.

By looking at some of these objects we get to understand some of these creator’s personality, path and answers to some things that were going around in our heads. A fine example is the record cover of Human League’s “Dare” right bellow three outfits by Luis Buchinho, thus proving what we suspected – that the song “Seconds” played at his recent fashion shows in Paris, Lisbon and Oporto comes from that very same album, one of his favourites. And looking at the objects selected by Alexandra Moura we do get to see her fabulous spectacles covered with flowers used in one of her shows, her great shoe designs, and when looking at the Smiths record cover we do confirm what we suspected, that se has indeed a fine music taste too.

But the purpose of this exhibition is to show the outfits created by the likes of Ana Salazar, Alexandra Moura, Luis Buchinho, José António Tenente, Vítor, Lidija Kolovrat, Aleksandr Protic or Ricardo Andrez just to name a few. Each designer was asked to submit three outfits – the very fist in their career, an outfit which they consider an hallmark in his/her career and a third one, a proposal for 2012.

During the opening ceremony, Barbara Coutinho, the director of Mude and who commissioned this exhibition, expressed her wish that some or all the designers would donate outfits to this Museum’s permanent collection, thus giving visitors the opportunity to admire their work in the future.

Iberia Express takes off tomorrow

Should you be tomorrow at the airports of Seville, Alicante, Malaga or Mallorca, you wil see a new airline landing or taking off under the brand name Iberia Express. These four cities will be the first overed by the new Iberia venture.
The new Spanish airline will focus on cheaper and competitive ticktes and  will be covering the cities where Iberia already flies to. In half a year and according to Iberia's chairman Antonio Vazques, "Iberia Express will be covering 20 destinations in Spain and Europe with its 14 planes".
Iberia Express flights will operate within the Iberia network and provide connections with other Iberia flights and will also be part of the OneWorld alliance. It remains to be seen whether this company will be able to compete in an already crowded market and where Iberia has already an affiliated low cost company, Vueling, which operates to major destinations in Europe.

The tones and tunes of Maria Gambina

Maria Gambina is having a rather busy month of March. This fashion designer, born in and living in the creative hotspot of OPorto, presented her Fall/Winter collection at the Lisbon Fashion Week and crossed Europe from west to the east where she showed yesterday her collection at the Ukrainian Fashion Week in Kiev. Her presence is part of a protocol between this eastern fashion and Moda Lisboa. The latter has also a protocol with Polish Fashion Week and is now working towards the establishment of partnerships with other fashion week, thus stimulating the exchange of designers.

As for Gamina, this is a further opportunity to show “Otherness” a collection inspired by the world and imagery of hockey. This world of horses and hockey was visible in the long hanging wool locks which the designer also replicated in long printed shirts. Large two-tone jumpers in blue and red, outfits with oversized shapes combined with short skirts, long overcoats in black with white stripes at the bottom and Mohawk-punkish styling take us also to a universe close to a certain new-punk attitude. This movement from the early eighties inspired this designer who, influenced by the voice and imagery of The Cocteau Twins, decided to apply some colour patterns that bring us back to the atmosphere of cult label 4AD, but also to the romantic music textures of The Durutti Column and the predominant black in most outfits lead us to the dark wave sounds of Anne Clark.

Music has been a source of inspiration for Maria Gambina. But a remarkable feature in her work is her use of colour in a country like Portugal where most designers do not usually go for strong colours. This was indeed a good match in this Ukrainian Fashion Week which relied also on the presence of the queen of übercolour, the Spanish fashion designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada.