Fashion designer and Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld has directed a short silent film for the fashion house featuring Alice Dellal to promote the new Chanel Boy handbag collection.

Dubbed “My New Friend Boy,” the short film comes on the heels of the massive success of silent movie “The Artist”. The short film features British model/rocker Alice Dellal dramatically dressed on a quest for a Boy bag with the only sound coming from dramatic piano music.

Chanel released the short film to promote their new Boy handbag collection and Dellal adds a touch of rock & roll to the campaign, with dreadlocks combined with her signature ripped tights and leather outfit.

The new line of Chanel handbags are based on a hunting cartridge style originally carried by Coco Chanel herself. The Chanel Boy bags are made to embody the androgynous charm the designer was known for.

Karl Lagerfeld said, “Chanel used man’s underwear to make dresses; she had this boyish attitude, in fact it is the very spirit of Chanel. She got it from Boy Capel, the great love of her life, which, incidentally, explains why the new bag is called the Boy Chanel.”

The 1950s were a decade of playing with fashion and appreciation of true femininity. Young girls wanted to be like the great movie stars (Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe) and spent every free minute listening to rock’n'roll music in retro diners and neon-lit cocktail bars. The streets were dominated by flirtatious and subtly flared skirts.

Women loved the flattering blouses with low neckline and sweaters with lace appliques. Full skirts were matched with classic Coco Chanel-style jackets. Double-breasted coats with belts were the best choice for summer nights. All these well-proven cuts can be found in the latest Mohito collection, which is a modern alternative for fans of the retro style.

The Retro Pastel line has been designed in subtle pastel colours. They include cream pink mixed with beige, sweet lime, bright turquoise and lemon yellow. And feminine style is one thing and comfort another; subtle ballet shoes combined with leggings provide a must-have for any fan of fashionable elegance and comfort.

As in the 1950s, the Mohito collection focuses on chic accessories that are important for the style. Large leather bags, envelope bags, and belts with golden ornaments and pearl necklaces provide the smart finishing touch to any retro styling.

The MOHITO Retro Pastel collection, despite its strong retro references, is a very modern interpretation of the women’s silhouette of the period. The collection goes perfectly with very modern stylings and can give them a very individual touch.

Lace brings romance to wardrobe.

In the spring of 1939, Coco Chanel said this about lace: “I consider lace to be one of the prettiest imitations ever made of the fantasy of nature; lace always evokes for me those incomparable designs which the branches and leaves of trees embroider across the sky, and I do not think that any invention of the human spirit could have a more graceful or precise origin.”

Lace was around a long time before the famous designer and has always had a very special place in fashion.

Whether it’s as delicate as a spider web or made to look more durable and dramatic, lace adds interest, romance and femininity to any garment. The little black dress is a wardrobe staple, but its importance is heightened if it has a lace trim, lace overlay or inlay or if it is completely made of lace.

Today, lace is mass-produced, but in the past decade, it’s been made more durable and more affordable. And now a huge variety of stretch lace is available. If you need a good reliable dress for after-five year-round, take a look at the ones with lace details.

CHANEL has dismissed claims – made in a new book, Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel Secret War, by Hal Vaughan – that its founder Gabrielle Coco Chanel was “fiercely” anti-Semitic and even worked for the Nazis during World War II.

“Such insinuations cannot go unchallenged,” a Chanel spokesperson took the unusual step of telling us. “She would hardly have formed a relationship with the family of the owners or counted Jewish people among her close friends and professional partners such as the Rothschild family, the photographer Irving Penn or the well-known French writer Joseph Kessel had these really been her views. It is unlikely.

“We also know that she and Churchill were close friends for a long time. She apparently approached him about acting as an intermediary between the Allies and the Germans for a peace settlement known as Operation Modelhut. No one knows for sure exactly what happened or what her role was to be. There are several different versions and it will no doubt always remain a mystery.

“More than 57 books have been written about Gabrielle Chanel. To decide for yourself, we would encourage you to consult some of the more serious ones.”

The book also claims that Chanel was the lover of a spy, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who “reported directly to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, right hand of Hitler”.

“We know for a fact that she had a relationship during the war with a German aristocrat she had met in Paris in the Thirties,” Chanel acknowledged, conceding, “the timing of this romance with a German was unfortunate even if Baron Von Dincklage’s mother was English and their relationship started before the war.”

The book is currently only available in the US, but Chanel highlights  Justine Picardie’s Coco Chanel, the legend and the life as an independent and authoritative Coco Chanel tome available in the UK now.

Coco Disapproval

MARY QUANT’s impact on fashion is undeniably huge, but not everyone was impressed by her short skirts and gamine dresses.

“Coco Chanel hated me,” she said. “I can understand why. At that time [in the Sixties], all anyone kept asking her was: “What do you think of Mary Quant?”

Quant, who has recently penned an autobiography, says she admires today’s labels – including Stella McCartney and Chloe (“I see a lot of what I used to do at Chloe”). She hasn’t decided whether she’ll be attending any London Fashion Week shows yet – although her “sort of godson” Jasper Conran may receive a front row visit.

“He’s very funny Jasper, and I love what he does,” she told the  Telegraph.

Event to celebrate Saskatchewan’s thriving fashion and design industries.

Paris. Milan. Tokyo. Montreal. Toronto. Vancouver.And now Saskatchewan!Each is hosting a fashion week in 2012.

Fashion icon Coco Chanel once said: “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only . … Fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what’s happening.”

A group of Regina fashion-forward thinkers — led by fashion designer Chelsea O’Connell and hairstylists Chris Pritchard and Candyce Bakke — took Chanel’s words to heart when organizing our province’s first official fashion week, which will feature runway shows May 10, 11 and 12 at Regina’s new downtown City Square plaza.

The trio discussed the event in a recent interview.

“It’s not just about the fashion,” O’Connell said. “We still want to be on the fashion scene’s radar in Canada, but we want to be seen as a unique event, to showcase our unique talent and our unique position as a province.”

“We were trying to find a way to connect all the talent in Saskatchewan,” Pritchard explained.

“Collaboratively, I think we can really work toward putting Saskatchewan on the map as significant contributors to the industry,” Bakke said.

Even the event’s organizing committee represents a broad spectrum of creative talent, including hairstylists, makeup artists, designers, journalists and photographers.

“It’s a very collaborative event,” Bakke said. “The whole general industry has been on board with helping out any way they can.”

Runway shows will be featured Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, “featuring emerging designers, as well as established designers, and local retailers,” O’Connell said. “The designers are all from Saskatchewan, whether they’re based here or not. Some people may be working in larger centres, but they’re all from Saskatchewan.”

Six to 10 designers are expected to participate in the runway shows, she estimated. “All the designers haven’t been confirmed.”

There will be trunk shows the day after each runway show, O’Connell said. Trunk shows are pop-up shops where designers can meet and greet customers and talk about their collections.

“The customer can touch and feel and try on the garments, and purchase it right off the runway,” she said.

Unlike fashion weeks in other centres, aimed at buyers by showcasing collections ahead of seasons, Saskatchewan Fashion Week will feature in-season spring 2012 collections. The focus is “to connect the designer with the consumer, so that they can generate sales immediately,” O’Connell said.

“Fashion can sometimes be intimidating,” Bakke admitted. “This is really a way to reach out to those who wouldn’t necessarily rush out and purchase a ticket. It’s about bringing out the confidence in the individuals, and creating a welcoming atmosphere.”

A large tented area will house the runway shows, and photographers will be on hand to get shots of arrivals on the red carpet. A swag lounge will be set up, offering samples from various local businesses.

One-night tickets are $60, or $85 for VIP seating. A ticket for all three evenings is $120. Seating is limited to 200 people per show.

“We really want to expose all the designers, so we’re really hoping the weekend passes are something that people invest in,” Bakke said.

Everything from the event in being done locally, including the event logo, all graphic design work, the photography, hair, makeup and wardrobe design, Pritchard said. “Even the dresses were locally made. Down to the detail, everything’s locally done.”

“And the quality that’s coming out already is a testament to the talent in Saskatchewan,” he said. “We’re excited to see how far we can go with that and what will come out of it.”

Proceeds from the not-for-profit event will be donated to the Regina Fashion Collective.

Pritchard described Saskatchewan as a blank canvas. “And that’s really exciting,” he said. “There’s not a lot of places like that. If you have a drive in you, have a passion in you to do something, this is the place to do it.

“It feels like the community is ready to have something happen. And what this (event) is doing is bringing people together that are ready to make it happen.”

Fashion Week ends with a roar, swell and spiffy looks saluting that bee’s-knees decade.

This year’s New York Fashion Week ended on a decidedly flapperish note.

Designers dotted their collections with cloches, menswear styling, plush furs, and velvet gowns with a chicness that hasn’t been appreciated since the Roaring Twenties.

Maybe it’s the subliminal influence of HBO’s hit Boardwalk Empire. Coincidentally, I ran into the show’s Michael Kenneth Williams in front of Lincoln Center this week.

Or it could be fashion’s constant preoccupation with everything Coco Chanel – right now we are in an early-Chanel phase, focusing on the corset-free, pared-down looks Chanel introduced to women in the mid-teens, forever changing our style of dress.

However, as New York Fashion Week wrapped up Thursday, it was clear that Ralph Lauren’s interpretation of 1920s chic was the best. His show was so good he received a standing ovation from fashion front-rowers, including Vogue editors Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley and Elle creative director Joe Zee.

Lauren, Fashion Week’s longtime czar, started his 57-look fall runway presentation with a bevy of trouser looks, but instead of grays, olives, and tans, the preferred hues of the old-school era, Lauren electrified his ensembles with shimmering cobalts and burgundies.

The Fall 2012 Ralph Lauren woman isn’t afraid to don a top hat or suiting with jodhpurs and a checked vest.

One of his most memorable looks was a sleek-haired model wearing a fluid smoking robe with a contrasting red shearling collar. The flannel wide-legged trouser gave an aura of soft seriousness.

And the handbags he paired with these looks are a signal to me that bags are finally taking a turn toward the tiny.

Lauren’s entire collection wasn’t all smoking-jacket and manly. Like many designers this week, he felt the pull of femininity in a beautiful group of long-sleeved gowns in jerseys, silks, and velvets.

The body-skimming eveningwear is luscious and sultry. And the best part isn’t just the confidence that comes from covered arms, but also the reverse views that expose toned backs. Talk about strong and girly.

American sportswear designer Michael Kors also began his luxe collection with a menswear theme, but his was louder, in chunky plaids and herringbone prints.

Kors made fashion financial news when his company’s stock surged 27 percent on Tuesday. So maybe channeling the mood of his festive finances, he did his gowns in glitter-exposing cleavage with keyholes in the bodice.

I predict a persimmon gown that closed the grouping will be on the Academy Awards’ red carpet next weekend.

While the 1920s was definitely the celebrated decade of the week, 1960s Mod was an important part, too.

Michelle Smith did cocktail frocks in cobalt blue and punchy pinks for her Milly line, and Anna Sui followed suit with a womens-wear collection that layered bold print over bold print in orange and greenish-blue hues.

Francisco Costa officially ended the week with a mod collection of dresses for Calvin Klein that celebrated volume and were body-skimming.

For fall, however, Costa’s palette was a sharper red, black, and cream. The looks were edgier, too, the textiles a mix of leather and wool.

Costa sent out dresses that were belted at the natural waist, and worked sheer detailing into the bodices, which also featured pleating and deep V’s.

Breasts may have been bared on the runways, but we suggest you hold onto this year’s turtlenecks. If you don’t want to err on the side of too much cleavage, layering is a must.

Chanel and Burberry to open Paris-style maisons in capital.

Chanel has been given the go-ahead to open a huge flagship London store with a raft of luxury brands set to follow suit with Paris-style “maisons”.

As London Fashion Week opens tomorrow, leading labels such as Stella McCartney, Burberry and Belstaff are putting the finishing touches to giant stores due to open this year.

Chanel won planning consent this week for a 20,000 sq ft three-storey shop, offices and new facade in New Bond Street, allowing it to show its whole collection under one roof.

Chanel’s founder Coco Chanel set up her brand’s first home in Paris at 31 Rue Cambon in 1918.

Like the French fashion houses that trade with showrooms, shop and office in one place, London is getting its own version of the townhouse boutique.

Helen Franks, head of commercial leasing at the Duke of Westminster’s property company Grosvenor, said: “The inspiration has been Paris’s Avenue Montaigne where many of the luxury brands have houses.”

Grosvenor has been ear-marking shops that it owns with offices above in Mayfair to let to designers.

London is in focus this year because of events such as the Olympics and The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee which have attracted brands wanting to take advantage of the influx of wealthy visitors.

Burberry, of which Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, above right, is the face, has recently doubled the size of its Brompton Road store and will open its biggest store yet in Regent Street.

Burberry’s CFO, Stacey Cartwright, said: “We are focusing on 26 cities globally. London is particularly exciting this year. Regent Street will open by the Olympics and our show will take place here for the third year in a row.”

Burberry plans to broadcast its London show on Monday into more than 40 stores around the world, giving customers the chance to buy from the catwalk on iPads as it did last fashion week.

British brand Belstaff, owned by Swiss group Labelux, has signed up to open a Bond Street “maison”. It will include a shop, museum, offices and showroom and the building will be named Belstaff House.

Belstaff’s chief executive said: “This affirms our commitment to embracing our British roots and heritage.”

Lillian Bassman, a magazine art director and fashion photographer who achieved renown in the 1940s and ’50s with high-contrast, dreamy portraits of sylphlike models, then re-emerged in the ’90s as a fine-art photographer after a cache of lost negatives resurfaced, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 94.

Her son, Eric Himmel, confirmed the death.

Ms. Bassman entered the world of magazine editing and fashion photography as a protégé of Alexey Brodovitch, the renowned art director of Harper’s Bazaar. In late 1945, when the magazine generated a spinoff called Junior Bazaar, aimed at teenage girls, she was asked to be its art director, a title she shared with Mr. Brodovitch, at his insistence.

In addition to providing innovative graphic design, Ms. Bassman gave prominent display to future photographic stars like Richard Avedon, Robert Frank and Louis Faurer, whose work whetted her appetite to become a photographer herself.

Already, at Harper’s Bazaar, she had begun frequenting the darkroom on her lunch hours to develop images by the great fashion photographer George Hoyningen-Huene, using tissues and gauzes to bring selected areas of a picture into focus and applying bleach to manipulate tone.

“I was interested in developing a method of printing on my own, even before I took photographs,” Ms. Bassman told B&W magazine in 1994. “I wanted everything soft edges and cropped.” She was interested, she said, in “creating a new kind of vision aside from what the camera saw.”

When Avedon went off to photograph fashion collections in Paris in 1947, he lent her his studio and an assistant. She continued her self-education and in short order landed an important account with a lingerie company. In its last issue, in May 1948, Junior Bazaar ran a seven-page portfolio of wedding photographs she had taken, titled “Happily Ever After.”

Ms. Bassman became highly sought after for her expressive portraits of slender, long-necked models advertising lingerie, cosmetics and fabrics. Her lingerie work in particular brought lightness and glamour to an arena previously known for heavy, middle-aged women posing in industrial-strength corsets.

“I had a terrific commercial life,” Ms. Bassman told The New York Times in 1997. “I did everything that could be photographed: children, food, liquor, cigarettes, lingerie, beauty products.”

Lillian Violet Bassman was born on June 15, 1917, in Brooklyn and grew up in the Bronx. Her parents, Jewish émigrés from Russia, allowed her a bohemian style of life, even letting her move in, at 15, with the man she would later marry, the documentary photographer Paul Himmel.

Ms. Bassman studied fabric design at Textile High School, a vocational school in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. After modeling for artists employed by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project and working as a muralist’s assistant, she took a night course in fashion illustration at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

She soon showed her work to Brodovitch, who was impressed. Waiving tuition, he accepted her into his Design Laboratory at the New School for Social Research, where she changed her emphasis from fashion illustration to graphic design.

Brodovitch took her on as his unpaid apprentice at Harper’s Bazaar in 1941, but desperate to earn money she left to become an assistant to the art director at Elizabeth Arden, whereupon Brodovitch anointed her his first paid assistant. Like her mentor, she was artistically daring. At Junior Bazaar, she experimented with abandon, treating fashion in a bold, graphic style and floating images in space.

“One week we decided that we were going to do all green vegetables, so we had the designers make all green clothing, green lipstick, green hair, green everything,” she told Print magazine in 2006.

A fascinating, unexpected, potentially explosive — but absolutely imaginary — encounter will take place in New York in May, as Miuccia Prada, the Italian representative of intellect in fashion, faces off with Elsa Schiaparelli, the designer who embraced Surrealism in the 1930s and who died in 1973.

The city of Milan offered up a historic building in the Palazzo Reale on Friday for a foretaste of “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations,” which will be shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from May 10 through Aug. 19.

A line of costumes from the two designers included baroque curlicues from Prada last year, compared with almost identical embellishment on a dress that “Schiap,” as she was known, created in 1937 for Wallis Simpson, the future Duchess of Windsor.

Harold Koda, the curator in charge of the museum’s Costume Institute, and his colleague, Andrew Bolton, who is curating this exhibition, explained the genus of the show: a cache of Schiaparelli clothes transferred to the Met from the Brooklyn Museum, including dresses worn by socialites like Millicent Rogers and Pauline de Rothschild.

The highly original concept is to blend the many recorded words and commentaries by “Schiap,” including her own book, with questions posed to Ms. Prada by the movie director Baz Luhrmann, who also will help design the show.

Inspired by Vanity Fair magazine’s 1930s series of unimaginable exchanges, called “Impossible conversations,” the Costume Institute will create a digital discussion between the two women.

The fact that the designers are both female is important to Anna Wintour, one of the pillars of the Costume Institute gala benefit, which this year takes place on May 7. “Not since Coco Chanel have we had women fashion designers,” said Ms. Wintour, referring to the institute’s 2005 exhibition.

What are the genuine links between the two subjects of this coming show?

“Schiap” worked closely with Salvador Dali and was the first designer to stage extraordinary shows, like the 1938 “Circus” collection, which had models hanging out of the windows of her studio at the Place Vendôme in Paris.

Chanel dismissed her “rival” as “that Italian artist who makes dresses.”

Ms. Prada, who, with her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, is creating a contemporary art museum in Milan, to open in 2013, has always had an deep interest and understanding of modern art. But she insisted at the event Friday that there were as many differences between the two women as meeting points.

“I never learned or studied fashion, so I did not know much about her,” said Ms. Prada, wearing a check coat from her new collection with sexy fringed shoes. “She had such a sad life — living in Rome in a beautiful palazzo, but she was very poor most of her life. She even put seeds in her hair as a child hoping they would grow into flowers.”

The “Schiap” mad hats, like the upturned shoe on the head, were not present in the display of clothing and it might be hard to find a Prada accessory to match. (The winged racing car shoes shown last season perhaps?)

Mr. Bolton presented a lucid and intelligent explanation of how he came to mesh the two designers, and Ms. Prada said she was impressed by such an analytical approach.

“It is their project and their exhibition, so I am very little involved,” said Ms. Prada. “But the differences are also so important. I hope that will come out.”

French Film Festival Hosts ‘Coco Avant Chanel’.

Longwood University hosted “Coco Avant Chanel,” for the annual French Film Festival that has become an annual tradition for Lancers.

In the French Countryside, a young girl approaches an orphanage via wagon. It is the 1890’s, and the girl in the wagon is a very young Coco Chanel, then known by her birth name Gabrielle Bonheur. With her sister, Adrienne, she eventually leaves the orphanage.

As an adult, she works days in a clothing store and at night sings with Adrienne in a bar. It is here that her life begins to turn in circles. She meets the wealthy textile heir Blason, and while living with him, gets a taste of upper-crust life and slowly comes to realize her talent and drive as a clothing designer. During this period, in which she becomes ‘Coco,’ Chanel meets her love interest the English Businessman ‘Boy’ Capel, who handles her banking affairs until his untimely death.

Charged with life and silk-thin beauty, “Coco avant Chanel” is a film that was on last year’s Features list and this year’s Alternates list for Longwood University’s French Film Festival. The Festival, supported by a Tournées Grant from the French Embassy, was rounded out by the film and includes other genres, such as an animated film and a comedy.

Viewer Colleen Gleeson had a few things to say about the film, stating that she would give it “high marks.” She went on to say that “from a woman’s perspective, [the film] was interesting historically, and from a clothing perspective, it was very sensual.”

She had much praise to give to the film’s lead, Audery Toutou, whose face she said was very expressive on its own, even with all the movie’s tensions.

Commenting on Chanel’s relationships, Gleason said, “I think her childhood kind of [defined] her life. In the years before therapy, she was able to work out her [personal issues] and her independence was probably the weight around her neck … She probably always wanted something like we all do.” When asked what she got from the film, Colleen said to “go home and sew.”

Wade Edwards, the festival’s moderator, also had a few things to say about the film. Edwards cited that the audience was half student and half community, while stating that the film was a “biography in a way [which] I think [is] a pretty true film. I was looking for something that was accessible for American audiences.”

He also stated that for him, “It was just fun to experience [what] was France. The scenery was just beautiful. The lead actress, Audrey Toutou, is sort of the main French actress right now. She’s in everything good.”

With an enjoyable evening completed, the French Film Festival starts off and hopes to garner more viewer attention from those who might find it both elegant, lighthearted and representing an exchange of art.

A brief history of Chanel.

In beauty terms, it all starts with Chanel No5. It is the best-selling fragrance in the world. The world! That’s a lot of people all going around smelling the same. It started life back in 1921 when Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel was already reigning over the Paris fashion world. Created with Russian perfumer to the Tsars, Ernest Beaux, the name for Chanel’s first fragrance is said to come from her superstitious belief in the virtues of the number five. Apparently she picked the fifth sample presented to her by Beaux and the simple name stuck. It was the first time that a fashion house had created a perfume and it soon became a huge hit. At the same time, Chanel started to expand and go global launching a cosmetics line (in 1924) and a range of skincare products (in 1929).

In the 50s, Chanel No5 really was the perfume to be, erm, smelt in. In a 1954 interview, Marilyn Monroe famously answered the question “What do you wear to bed?” with the line “Just a few drops of No5″. The popularity of the perfume grew and grew but this wasn’t necessarily a great thing. In the 70s it was decided that No5 had lost its air of exclusivity so it was reinvented and made less widely available. Huge advertising campaigns were adopted using big name directors and big name stars – a Chanel tradition that lives on to this day.

Not at all. Chanel has a huge range of fancily-priced makeup with seasonal launches and limited edition collections that come thick and fast. In more recent years, there has been the somewhat peculiar phenomenon of the ‘it’ nail colour. Maybe because it’s affordable in a recession, maybe because it’s fun, or maybe because Chanel have a great marketing team and have hooked us all in, but something strange happens when Chanel launch a new shade. People get a bit giddy – waiting lists are formed and cheap copycats are produced. This spring’s hues are a group of three pastelly-fruity shades named April, May, and June (pictured above, £17.50 each, call 020 7493 3836 for stockist info). My pick is the peachy shade June which I feel bridges the seasonal gap quite nicely – just the right side of summery brightness without going too far.

GLAMOUR, GRANDEUR AND FEMME FATAL

Asian influences were also evident in Zac Posen’s collection with its geisha-look hair and makeup, kimono and origami-like details and figure-hugging gowns in gold, red, green and blue.

Dennis Basso chose “Mystery on the Orient Express” as the theme for his show with its palette of taupe, black, gray, white, navy and cayenne and luxurious furs.

“When you just say that line it sets a tone in everybody’s head — a touch of glamour and grandeur from a bygone era. I’ve taken a lot of those evening looks and translated them for the modern woman,” he said.

Cocktail dresses and evening gowns were adorned with hand-beaded Swarovski crystal and small beads. He matched a black lavishly embroidered silk tulle dress with a black quilted Russian ermine and sable jacket and a sapphire and silver embroidered, trailing gown with a sapphire Finn raccoon vest.

“I think of that period in the late 30s of women getting dressed for dinner on the Orient Express, crossing the Atlantic or going to the Colony Club restaurant in New York or the Stork Club and bringing it forward, making it modern, making it sexy, making it today — using the vintage aspect as a touch of inspiration, not necessarily, which is important, creating a vintage look,” Basso explained.

Jenny Packman, a favorite of the Duchess of Cornwall, was drawn to the femme fatale look with a collection based on film noir with edgy, sultry creations in red, silver, blue, cream and black.

Marchesa Georgina Chapman noted that ’20s and ’30s styles were “in the air” but the designer whose creations feature prominently on the red carpet at Hollywood award shows said she was inspired by a painting.

Her collection, in black, white, reds and blues, is based on the 1878 work “A Soul Brought to Heaven,” by William Adolphe Bouguereau, which depicts two angels carrying a young woman through dark clouds.

“We are looking at the idea of death and angels, religious aspects of iconography and religious art,” Marchesa Georgina Chapman explained in an interview.

Tulle, lace, beading, embroidered bodices, feathers and dramatic flared and full hand-draped skirts were all part of the ultra-feminine collection.

A gold strapless gown conveyed a sense of old Hollywood glamour and was a striking contrast to a nude feather embroidered illusion gown with a cascade skirt.

Like other designers showing at New York Fashion Week, Marchesa Georgina Chapman said the economy has sharpened the focus of her creations.

“It’s been interesting with the economy, and it has made me and a lot of designers focus very much on what they are doing,” she said. “You really have to give a consumer a reason to part with their money … to give them something they can’t find elsewhere.”

Rather than making quick, impulse purchase of something that may only be worn once, Basso said today’s women are making wiser choices and building their wardrobe on well-made clothes that can be worn again and again.

“Women will always want to look beautiful and I think that their partners enjoy that too,” said Marchesa Georgina Chapman.

Gowns take glamorous cues from bygone eras at NY Fashion Week

Elegance, sophistication and a touch of mystery dominated the runway at NY Fashion Week as designers took cues from bygone eras to feature glamorous gowns in silk, brocades, lace and velvet in their 2012 Fall/Winter collections.

Like the Hollywood hit films “The Artist” and “Midnight in Paris” and the hugely popular TV drama “Downton Abbey” that captured an earlier age, designers created sleek, sultry styles with deep-cut fronts and backs with beads, embroidery and pleats reminiscent of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

For Los Angeles-based, Japanese-born Tadashi Shoji it was 1930s Shanghai that captured his imagination. With graceful silhouettes, column gowns, drop waists, embroidered lace, handkerchief hems and cap sleeves from the Golden Age of Shanghai, when the city was known as the “Paris of the Orient,” was recreated on the catwalk.

“It was a very opulent, mysterious, moody period in Shanghai and I wanted to capture it,” he said after his show.

A flame-coloured washed velvet long-sleeve gown featured a beaded lace cowl back, while another hazel digital peony print hammered satin gown had an open back with hand-beaded detail.

Blouson dresses, some in tea length, and floral embroidered tulle and lace were also prominent, as was the colour gold.

“Everything is gold, but it is not a flashy gold. We did a very subtle, tarnished gold. I think gold is in this season,” he said

DHS Prom Fashion Show a hit with students and their families.

Although the current winter has been mild, no one expected to see May in February.

No one except those attending the 7th annual Junior Prom Fashion Show at Dover High School Thursday night.

Themed “Welcome to Las Vegas,” the prom will be held at the Regatta Room in Eliot, Maine.

With the prom set for May 12, the Class of 2013 decided to jump the gun a bit and hold an affair to serve several purposes.

First, was to give classmates an opportunity to see the latest and best in prom fashions from local vendors.

Secondly was to raise much needed monies to fund the prom. “What we raise will go directly to defraying the prom costs, everything from flowers and decorations to the DJ,” said Elizabeth Malia, class president.

Third were “training videos” of students showing boys inviting girls to the prom.

The videos were presented as a tutorial on how to ask a girl to the prom. Produced in the past several months by students, the videos were an effort to show how to be creative in that most nerve-wracking of teenage actions, getting the courage to ask that special someone to the prom.

Each of the boys had to invite his selected partner for the Prom Fashion Show and do it in a creative manner. Every conceivable method was used. Ideas included wrapping a car in the parking lot like a present with the invitation written on the back window to a multiple box version of Russian nesting dolls.

Others included covering all the boards in a classroom with an invitation, to placing a wanted poster on a locker door and sidling up wearing cowboy garb and carrying handcuffs.

In each case the young lady responded in the affirmative giving a positive spin to the presentation.

Twelve couples individually walked down the aisles of the auditorium at Dover High School as Grant Faustino, Maki Knowles, Mike LeBlanc and Ruth Pangaribuan introduced them to the hundred plus high schoolers and parents in attendance.

For each couple, decked out in prom finery in every color of the rainbow, and some colors no rainbow has ever seen, hoots, cheers and screams of pleasure could be heard.

Many of the models were Dover High School athletes trading in their cleats, basketball shoes and shin guards. Some feigned no nerves, while others admitted a beginning rite of passage, dressing up in unfamiliar plumage in front of strangers.

Sharon Gaffney, mother of lacrosse player and model Sarah Gaffney found all of the models to be “gorgeous.”

Junior Ida Whitcomb enjoyed the entire evening. “The whole thing was very cool and the videos were a great idea, giving someone ideas on how the invite someone to the prom.”

“I agree with Ida,” said Allison Butt. “It gives people ideas on how to ask someone to the prom.”

“I thought this was one of the best things this class has ever done,” said Lindsey DeTroia, faculty adviser to the Class 2013.

Linda Burke, mother of Leah Burke, soccer player and model, was excited for the evening, and said, “I can’t wait to see them all dressed up like this in May.”

Local businesses participating in the Prom Show were: Kitty BlackHeart Exquisite Couture of Portsmouth, Labelle Bridals of Somersworth, Bellaviso Salon & Spa of Dover, Tuxedos and Suits with Style of Dover, And Portsmouth, and Floral Creations of Dover.

Colours, contrasts rule on New York runways.

Feather-light layers of organza and chiffon spilling over Bermuda shorts? It sounds like an odd combination, but Vera Wang pulled it off with panache at New York fashion week.

Wang, a native New Yorker whose wedding gowns are coveted by brides-to-be, celebrated the polar opposites of yin and yang with a structured yet feminine collection of ready-to-wear looks for next autumn and winter.

Her “techno-stretch” Bermuda shorts, resembling cycling shorts to the layman’s eye, appeared under light tan Melton wool coats and jackets, tangerine chiffon V-neck gowns, and dark silk cape tops with necks enveloped in raccoon.

Backstage, Wang cited Gothic cathedrals as a design influence, as she described how decorative elements had been carefully cut as part of each garment rather than just being “slapped on” afterwards.

“We always like tension,” she said, referring to her team. “I like a boyishness next to something sensual. I like transparency next to something strict. I like the mix. It’s that tension that makes it fashion for me.”

Wang matched each outfit with uncompromisingly chunky platform shoes, while models sported rigid, blown-back jetstream hairstyles.

Anybody who saw Marc Jacobs’s collection for Louis Vuitton in Paris a year ago could have been excused for having a sense of déjà vu at his Marc by Marc Jacobs diffusion-line show at the New York National Guard’s Lexington Armory.

Taking a cue from that show’s kinky grand hotel theme, Jacobs topped many of his outfits for men and women with bell-captain hats, and put handbags in the hands of several of his models.

But in lieu of brazen sexuality, he tipped more towards a teasing prudishness with pleated plaid dresses and prim white blouses that could have come from the wardrobe of a young New York secretary in the early 1960s.

Geeky black glasses only reinforced the message – but lest it all look too retro, every one of the dozens of looks was shod with boots: biker boots, lace-up boots, buckle boots, mostly in black but sometimes in burgundy.

Appealing to a totally different fashion crowd, dashing Lebanese designer Jad Ghandour used perhaps more supple leather than anyone else showing in New York this season for his latest range of red-carpet-ready formal wear.

Showing in Cipriani, a one-time bank turned luxury restaurant, Ghandour ditched the femininity of his previous collection for an Amazonian look best represented by a jet-black strapless evening gown that instantly appealed to reality TV star Cynthia Bailey, one of the front-row guests.

“I felt I was seeing something I haven’t seen before,” said Bailey, who appears in The Real Housewives of Atlanta, adding that she preferred a more cutting-edge look – not least to avoid looking like any other celebrity.

Just in time for its ambitious multi-country expansion overseas, US brand J. Crew – a favourite of First Lady Michelle Obama – presented a colourful range of separates in custom-dyed Italian cashmere.

Eye-catchers included a preppy pullover tucked into a snakeskin pencil skirt, a glittering cable-knit sweater, and a bold orange smock dress that an Asian model jazzed up with a radiant smile – a rare sight on catwalks.

Layers of wool defined J. Crew’s autumn-winter menswear range, so it came as no surprise when the label’s chief men’s designer, Frank Muytjens, cited old archive photos of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton as a source of inspiration.

“I think it’s great to look at historical references,” said Muytjens, a Dutchman now living in Brooklyn and a key figure in J. Crew’s continued efforts to offer shoppers more style and colour in otherwise Gap-dominated retail malls.

Jewels were everywhere on Oscar de la Renta’s runway.

The fashion legend used blown-up versions of actual jewellery as inspiration for his prints. He put jewelled headbands in his models’ hair and he embellished cardigans and coats with the sparklers for his autumn collection that debuted on Tuesday. As for colours, there was black, expected for the season, but also ice blue and light pink.

“I used a lot of colours you would not associate with winter colours but today’s woman doesn’t dress for seasons.”

The rest of the runway was filled with the rich, luxury items one has come to expect from De la Renta. There was a silver Arctic fox collar, Chantilly lace appliqué on a chiffon blouse, cashmere sweaters and a gown with a gold silk taffeta skirt.

Rare for most designers, De la Renta listed in some detail the jewellery that was worn by his models: Russian gold, pearl and crystal earrings or multi topaz crystal ring.

The fashion week runway show ended with a series of gowns with large tulle skirts in shades of rose, blue and silver.

Many mentalists end up in asylums, others manage to slip through the bars, escape and become fashion designers, which is the real reason why the majority of people in the fashion industry are skeletal.

This does not, however, mean the fashion industry deserves the bad rep it has been permanently tarnished with and in the wake of London Fashion Week I think it’s time we all made friends with what is assumed to be a ‘travelling freak show’ of twats who pass out at the sight of a shoe.

First and foremost, any multi-billion pound industry inspired by lunatics who survive off caffeine and class A’s deserves to be heartily celebrated: they’re running financial circles around every economist in Europe. They must be doing something right. I struggle to even open an email after a heavy night: John Galliano was pissed and high for two decades yet still wowed the most influential players in one of the largest industries in the world whilst helping to define possibly the most fantastically tacky sartorial era so far, even if he did end up outing himself as a racist Nazi and falling from grace in a cloud of coke and pinstripes and feathers…

I can understand how from the outside it all seems horribly pretentious and bizarre but even Queen Vivienne herself  doesn’t really expect you to wear head to toe PVC just because the ‘next big thing’ new designer chose to send twelve doped up models down a runway looking like extras from a Britney video circa 1999. Besides, if that is a look you fancy rocking then you can buy far cheaper alternatives from a range of X-rated sites which will gladly infest your C drive with a plethora of viruses and, should you spend over £25 on an entirely wipe clean two piece, will throw in an appreciative tube of courtesy lube too, which is always a nice gesture (it baffles me why Sainsbury’s haven’t tried this tactic yet – what the fuck are nectar points..?)

I can understand that the eye watering price points of high end fashion don’t do much to help the cause. When you see a dress that costs more than a deposit of a two bed semi sashaying down the catwalk  hanging off a starved Russian sixteen year old it can be hard to see where the credibility is hiding under all that fabric, but in much in the same way that I can enjoy watching films without bursting a blood vessel in outrage over the how  far-fetched it is that Tom Cruise can still run like a Duracell bunny and Harrison Ford can still move (at all) I’m able to take it with a hefty pinch of salt and happily indulge in the fantasy.

Of course there will always be unsavoury aspects to an industry which revolves around the way we look, but judging each other is a human condition which cannot be cured simply by choosing the most dull-as-arse shoes possible in the M&S sale. Look at Kate Middleton: she’s worked her dull duchess derriere off to ensure she’s dressed as inoffensively as possible, and is now worshipped by every bland-as-soup woman in the country, taking pride of place next to Jamie Oliver at the altar of annoying British people whom such plebs idolise because they think ‘they must be just like me and you’. They’re not like us. In fact I have no doubt Jamie bathes in his own branded elderflower presse and uses fifty quid casserole dishes embossed with his logo as makeshift bedpans to take midnight shits in just because he’s Jamie Fucking Oliver and is far too tired from being a superhero who rescues kids from dodgy school burgers to bother walking to the toilet at night.

Well, the high priestesses of the fashion world are not like us civilians either. Indeed, those who choose to indulge will have no reservations about spending hundreds, thousands even on a mammoth ball of fur to place on their head like a feral cat escaping a flood, but to steal a phrase from the fash-pack themselves; isn’t it all just bloody fabulous?!

Normal life can be balls. We trudge around trying not to dress too slutty for the office and avoiding wearing anything bright enough to get us mistaken as extras from 80’s musicals on the tube, but perhaps if more people embraced the absolute lunacy of high fashion, even just a tad, then the world would be nothing but a brighter, more entertaining place.

Pinay designer charms New York fashion world

Filipina fashion designer Dita Sandico-Ong made waves in New York this month with her new collection dubbed “Czarist Charms: Filipiniana Flirts with Unorthodox Flair.”

More than 160 people viewed Sandico-Ong’s collection last Feb. 18 at the Philippine Center’s Kalayaan Hall in New York.

Aside from showcasing her signature wraps, Sandico-Ong also included samples of her own bag creations made of Philippine textiles such as Abel Iloko and fibers like abaca.

If you asked Fe Cabactulan what she was wearing, her cheeky reply would be, “Fruit salad.”

At the February 17 cocktail before Dita Sandico Ong was to present her latest wrap collection, Cabactulan, the wife of the Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations, wore a white pina dress topped by an earthy brown Sandico Ong ‘abaca’ scarf made from banana fiber. “I’m wearing fruit salad!”

I love this woman! She’s loving her clothing and having fun with it. When was the last time we felt this way about what we wore to a party?

If you were at the Philippine Center that evening, Cabactulan proudly and elegantly wore her wrap. So did Eleanor de Leon, the wife of the consul general, and consular officials and staff. They wore their Sandico Ong wrap as ‘panuelo,’ ‘tapis’ or over a black skirt or a pair of jeans. A few twists and knots and this piece of clothing becomes uniquely your own.

The fashion show called “Czarist Charms: Filipiniana Flirting with the Unorthodox” showcased the many ways this wrap can be worn – around the neck, at the waist, to cover the arms, or over the head as a visor. She was further inspired by the “light, airy and gossamer wings of the butterfly,” said Sandico Ong.

“It’s similar to how the women in Russia wore their clothes,” she told The FilAm.

To those curious about the unusual fabric she uses, Sandico Ong addressed all concerns:

Yes, they are made of indigenous banana and pina fiber.
No, they don’t bleed or fade.
Yes, they can be handwashed and dry-cleaned.
No, the pleats won’t smoothen out over time.
Yes, they are machine-washable.
No, they don’t cost an arm and a leg.

“My dream is to make Philippine abaca a stamp in the world of fashion,” said Sandico Ong, who studied fashion merchandising in Tobe-Coburn School in New York after graduating with a fine arts degree from UP.

Seeing the real women in a Sandico Ong was a testament to the wearability of her apparel. But watching the models on stage showed how Filipino women, wearing head-turning capes and dramatic opera coats, can radiate “czarist charm.”

Coco Chanel

By Sara Templeton

Not just a designer, not just big name, Coco Chanel was an icon in the fashion industry – she was passionate about clothing design and a trendsetter whose influence can still be seen today.

The French fashion guru is charged with opening up the world of haute couture – high fashion. But more than any of these accomplishments, Coco Chanel was a true leader, one who other women could look up to in times of inequality.

She was a role model for an industrially expanding world.

It was Chanel who saw past the corset and replaced it with comfortable, sexier clothing. She showed that women could wear pants and who can forget her famous parfum, Chanel No. 5?

Born in 1883 as Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel and raised in a French orphanage, the well-known designer was not in fact part of the aristocracy, as many have said in the past.

In 1912 she was helped out by a wealthy aristocrat, Arthur Capel. He injected funds into her first shopfront, which opened in 1913 – a milliners (hat shop).

It wasn’t until the 1920s that she really got the ball rolling, however. It was during a time of strife – the Great Depression – that Chanel opened her now historically famous shop at 31 rue Cambon (31 Cambon Road). A few years later, around the mid 1920s, Chanel’s designs grew in popularity and the word was getting around to those who could afford it.

Next came another two boutiques – one in Paris, the other in Biarritz, both combining to employ some 300 staff – not bad going for the late 1920s!

It was during this stage of her life that Coco Chanel came up with the timeless No. 5 perfume. By the early 1930s, Chanel’s reputation had grown enormously and in 1931 she was paid one million dollars by Samuel Goldwin to dress the stars of many of his movies: Kathrine Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor et al. However, this didn’t work out as planned as many of the movie stars refused to work with her.

By the middle of 1940, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Coco Chanel had to close her boutiques and even served as a nurse during WWII.

She later fled to Switzerland, following the lead of her lover – a Nazi officer. As a result of this, she was shunned by many and for some fifteen years lived in a state of near exile.

When she returned to her work in the 50s, things had changed. Dior had a new look – the corset. This angered Chanel and so she set out to rework much of her older designs.

Testament to her natural eye for style and grace, her designs were once again very popular and the Hollywood snobs finally embraced her range. This led to Chanel working for Hollywood and the movie industry during the ’50s and ’60s and opened up a whole new market – America. Sadly, in 1971, Coco Chanel died.

Karl Lagerfeld helmed the Chanel label after her death and has kept the name going by using a mix of Coco’s traditional styling cues and those of more modern styles.

But despite her passing on, Coco Chanel is to this day one of the most revered women in fashion design lore.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky: Heaven scent? No, it’s a complete and utter stinker

We’ve already had one movie about the designer Coco Chanel, where she was played as a self-absorbed career-woman by the delectable Audrey Tautou.

Here’s another, which pretty much starts where the first one ended. Now she’s played as, yes, a self-absorbed career-woman by Anna Mouglalis, who resembles an even icier Cate Blanchett.

Some of the film shows Coco’s search for the perfect fragrance — basically, it’s one long plug for Chanel No 5. Most of the time, though, she’s interposing her elegant frame between a grand piano and the hyperactive fingers of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen).

The film gets off to a terrific start, with Parisian ballet-fans barracking the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring.

Chanel is in the audience, too, looking glamorous but enigmatic, and I was looking forward to a picture that showed her and Igor scandalizing the bourgeoisie with their love affair.

Unfortunately, the story that unfolds is an uninvolving tale of two narcissists who hardly connect, except carnally.

On this evidence, Chanel was a stuck-up bitch, and Stravinsky a cold fish. They deserved each other.

Actually, Igor doesn’t seem to have liked Coco much. This isn’t surprising, since she wastes few opportunities to tell him how much richer and more successful she is.

Eventually, he snaps and tells her she isn’t an artist but a shopkeeper, at which point the romance turns even frostier.

It’s hard to know what Mrs Stravinsky (Yelena Morozova), who bore Igor four children and seems to have known about the affair, made of all this.

For most of the film, she looks inscrutable beneath a very red wig. She also coughs a lot, though we never learn precisely how ill she is.

At some point, she seems to lose both eyebrows. This could be the result of her medical condition, but I like to think director Jan Kounen told her to lose her highbrow airs, and she misheard him and shaved them off.

In many ways, she’s the only sympathetic character. ‘I’d rather be anywhere

but here!’ she cries. And after nearly two gruelling hours in the company of two colossal bores groping each other, it’s hard to disagree.

Coco Chanel and “Russian leather” leatherworld.sale

This aroma became very popular.
The leather became the best specimens leather really in the beginning of XX century in Europe :in there time practically all new thing was decorated with this new material.

The seats of new cars were covered with leather , the exclusive furniture were decorated with leather ,and protective cases for different types of new equipment that appeared in this time were made from leather too.

The top of leather popularity was in France in 1927 when the very expensive perfume ” Russian Leather” with leather aroma appeared in the sale. Coco Chanel let out “Russian perfume”- Cuir de Russie ,”Russian Leather”.It did not become the same popular as “Chanel N 5”, but it came in the history as the first women aroma is used the tradition men perfume harmony- light smell of tobacco and leather on the delicate fragrance of flower . Leather and wood smells mix with hay and smoke of light tobacco in the composition.

This aroma became very popular and emancipation women started to use it.

Like this Cuir de Russie was the first in the perfume composition from Chanel that was intended as for men as for women.

Biography claims Coco Chanel was a Nazi spy

New York: A new book about the life of Coco Chanel published in the United States on Tuesday aims to strengthen claims the French designer collaborated with the Nazis during World War II as a spy code-named “Westminster.”

The book, “Sleeping With The Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War,” by Paris-based American journalist Hal Vaughan, claims that not only was the designer the lover of a German officer, Hans Gunther von Dincklage, which has been well-documented, but they were spies who went on missions to Madrid and Berlin.

In addition, the book claims Chanel was deeply anti-Semitic. “Vaughn reveals that Chanel was more than just a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator. She was a numbered Nazi agent working for Abwehr, Germany’s military intelligence agency,” publisher Alfred A Knopf said in a statement.

But a representative for the Chanel fashion house on Tuesday poured doubt on the book’s allegations. “What’s certain is that she had a relationship with a German aristocrat during the War.

Clearly it wasn’t the best period to have a love story with a German even if Baron von Dincklage was English by his mother and she (Chanel) knew him before the War,” the Chanel group said in a statement. The fashion house also disputed that the designer was anti-Semitic, saying Chanel would not have had Jewish friends or ties with the Rothschild family of financiers if she were.

But the book draws on English, French, German and American archives to claim Chanel, whose menswear-inspired fashions propelled her to become one of the most influential figures in fashion, went on missions with Dincklage and others to help recruit new agents willing to serve Germany.

It gives her Abwehr agent number as F-7124 and code-name as “Westminster,” named after the Duke of Westminster with whom she had a love affair. She died in Paris in 1971, age 87. She has long been speculated about as being a spy, but was released after being questioned about her ties to Nazi Germany by a judge in France. The book prints some excerpts of her court testimony.

COCO AND PLACE VENDÔME

“Chanel and Place Vendôme are very linked. She lived in the Ritz, now there is a Jewelry shop, it’s very Paris, there are many photos of her on the place Vendôme. The big site of the Ritz is also still the Ritz, a part of the place Vendôme.” Karl Lagerfeld

From the 1920s onwards, Mademoiselle Chanel refused to “settle down” and stayed at the Ritz Hotel occasionally before she decided in 1937 to move in and rent a suite on the third floor.

Place Vendôme was one of her sources of inspiration. The octagonal cap of her first perfume, Chanel N°5 recalls its geometry and proportions. Later on, the Première watch equally reminds of this aesthetic.

Today, directly facing her suite at the Ritz is the Chanel Fine Jewelry boutique which opened at number 18 in 1997.

Photo: 1937 – Gabrielle Chanel at the balcony of her suite at the Ritz Hotel, Paris © Photo Roger Schall / Collection Schall

COCO CHANEL’S APARTMENT
THE COROMANDEL SCREENS

“I’ve loved Chinese screens since I was eighteen years old…I nearly fainted with joy when, entering a Chinese shop, I saw a Coromandel for the first time…Screens were the first thing I bought…” (Quoted in “Chanel Solitaire” by Claude Delay – Gallimard – 1983 p.12)

Mademoiselle Chanel is believed to have owned 32 folding screens. Her apartment at 31 rue Cambon had eight of them, which she freely used in ways other than for what they were intended — she dressed her walls with them, like wallpaper, or used them to give structure to her private space.
It is also said that she used them to hide the doors. That way, she was sure to keep her guests when receiving them for dinner.

The Coromandel screens embody her taste for Chinese art, which she discovered together with Boy Capel. The Coromandel lacquer technique emerged at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), in the Hunan province, in the heart of China. The major themes include mythology, scenes of imperial life and love of nature, which bestow a spiritual dimension upon the art form.

French designer Coco Chanel spied for the Nazis during the German occupation of France in World War II, according to a new book.

Sleeping With The Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War, by Hal Vaughan, expands on long-standing evidence that the iconic designer had a double life and was the lover of a spy, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage.

“Sleeping With The Enemy pieces together how Coco Chanel became a German intelligence operative; how and why she was enlisted in a number of spy missions; how she escaped arrest in France after the war,” New York publishers Knopf said in a statement.

Vaughan’s book reveals not only was Chanel recruited to the Abwehr military intelligence organisation, but that von Dincklage was himself a “Nazi master spy.”

He “ran a spy ring in the Mediterranean and in Paris and reported directly to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, right hand of Hitler.”

Chanel was also “fiercely” anti-Semitic, the book says, although at the time she would not have stood out among numerous other high-profile compatriots later seen as having collaborated during the 1940-44 occupation.

Chanel – an orphan who became a revolutionary fashion designer – moved to Switzerland after the war before returning to Paris to take up her career in fashion.

She was never charged with any wrongdoing and died in 1971.

The hotel which coined a new word for "luxurious" and has welcomed celebrity guests from Coco Chanel to Diana, Princess of Wales, is closing for two years for complete refurbishment.

The €850-a-night Ritz in Paris, the first hotel to carry that name, is to be gutted and rebuilt from next summer. Its owner, Mohamed al Fayed, has decided to take drastic action after the Ritz failed to qualify for a new category of "palace" hotels in Paris this year. Most of its 500 staff will be laid off during the refurbishment.

The Ritz, on the Place Vendôme close to the Tuileries Gardens, was the place from which Princess Diana and Mr al Fayed's son, Dodi, left on the ill-fated car journey that ended with their deaths on 31 August 1997.

The hotel, opened in 1889 by the Swiss hotelier César Ritz, is a byword for luxury and style. It was the first to have en suite bathrooms and, together with its sister establishment in London, gave the English language the word "ritzy". It also inspired Irving Berlin's 1929 song "Putting On The Ritz" and F Scott Fitzgerald's novella The Diamond As Big As The Ritz.

Guests at the Parisian landmark have included Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, the writer Marcel Proust, actor Charlie Chaplin and designer Coco Chanel, who had a suite there for years. Ernest Hemingway claimed to have "liberated" the hotel, or at least its bar, from the Nazis in August 1944.

Earlier this year, the Ritz was left out of a list of nine top-class Paris hotels in a new super-category known as "palaces". Although no official reason was given, industry sources said at the time that the Ritz was looking "tired" and did not meet the most exacting modern standards. It was last refurbished in 1979.

"The façade and rooms are one thing but the nuclear core of a palace hotel is out of sight, in the kitchen or the basements where the new electronics and computer systems are stored," said Georges Panayotis, of the hotel consultancy MKG.

An influx of super-rich Arabs, Russians, Indians and South Americans has created a booming market for luxury in the French capital. Three new five-star hotels have opened in the past 12 months. Another legendary but tiring establishment – the Crillon at Place de la Concorde, was recently been bought by a Saudi prince who is reported to be preparing to spend €100m on an upgrade.

How to make the right choice when meeting on the Internet Print E-mail How to make the right choice when meeting in Internete online dating himself as a spoke, etc. When it comes to online dating on the Internet, it is very difficult to say anything definite, because there are craftsmen, beautifully express their thoughts on paper, hiding behind this its real essence. How to make the right choice when meeting on the Internet online dating . 1. How do I determine what a man is married. First of all, photographs, if available. If the picture a little fuzzy and vague, or photos of the emphasis on the proportions of his figure, but can not see the person, or he is depicted in sunglasses, then a man tries to hide his identity. High probability that such a man is married. The second characteristic feature: annotations in ads for the online dating , something like looking for a partner for sexual relations. Moreover, at present, most men and not trying to hide their marital status, just do not mention this, so you can just ask them questions in a latent form, for example, “You talk as though married.” 2. Beware of ads, which describe in detail the exterior of “dream woman”, but say nothing about her hobbies, personality traits and manners. Oh, how important the character of a woman like Angelina Jolie or Madonna. The question arises, what will you do together with the owner of this ad, if still pass a rigorous selection of external data? Go to the cinema, theater, riding a bicycle? No, no and no again. Do not flatter yourself all that you have to do – is sex. 3. With skeptishism and rashionalism is to treat the romantic and beautiful photos, like a man in a tuxedo, with a dog or a child, because in fact it could just be a beautiful photograph, and any dog and child does not really, but the image is carved in a tuxedo with photos of his wedding. The moral is, do not take the picture at face value. Ask a question now, not to regret later. The advantage of online dating is that you can be yourself. Internet attracts those who do not want to be like everything. Despite their declared democracy of our society, it is the contrary, it is even totalitarian.

DUTCH film-maker Jan Kounen, 45, honed his craft directing glossy music videos for British electro-pop duo Erasure and visually dazzling films like the violent crime flick Dobermann (1997).

But his latest work, Coco Chanel And Igor Stravinsky, the closing film for last year’s Cannes Film Festival, is entirely different from anything he has done in the past.

Based on Chris Greenhalgh’s 2002 novel, it details the love affair between French fashion designer Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) and Russian composer Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen), after she invites him, his wife Catherine (Elena Morozova) and their children to live in her villa in a Paris suburb.

Considering how different Coco Chanel And Igor Stravinsky is compared to your other films, what attracted you to the story?

First of all, it was the chance to recreate the scene where Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring made its debut in Paris in 1913, sparking a riot among the concertgoers.

I was also attracted to the idea of journeying back to 1920, when most of the story takes place.

I’ve always wanted to do a love story, one in which the key characters are based within a confined space – in this case, Chanel’s villa.

In 1921, a clever French businesswoman and belle of the Parisian social elite created a scent that revolutionised the way women smell. Ninety years later Chanel No 5 is arguably still the world’s most iconic perfume.

With a healthy disregard for social etiquette and a retinue of friends and admirers among the city’s “racy” women, couturier Coco Chanel traversed the boundaries between lady and mistress.By the beginning of the twenties Chanel was already a phenomenon in French fashion circles.She had come to Paris as the mistress of the textile baron Etienne Balsan in 1909 and set up a millinery boutique under Balsan’s apartment.By 1921, she had a series of successful boutiques in Paris, Deauville and Biarritz, she owned a villa in the south of France and drove around in her own blue Rolls Royce.Now she wanted to create a scent that could describe the new, modern woman she epitomised.But Chanel’s background was troubled and complex, and it was something that seeped into her trademark fragrance.She was the daughter of a market-stall holder and a laundry woman in rural France, but when her mother died she was sent to a Cistercian convent at Aubazine where she spent her teenage years.

Whether it is a 1930s suit, 1960s suit, or a “millennium” suit, the classic Chanel suit has “boxy” lines. The typical suit also has braided trim and a slim skirt lined with a gold link chain. The buttons either resemble coins or are gold with the double “cc” logo displayed amid them. There is always a ribbon sewed in the waist of the skirt to prevent the blouse from slipping and the zipper is placed on the side of the skirt to enable comfort. In a sense, wearing a Chanel suit is like wearing a customized ornate costume, made to fit so that when the wearer moves, the suit still maintains perfect grace and elegance.

To accessorize this classic suit, an excessive array of pearls, genuine and costume, simple and gold intertwined is often worn. A classic quilted Chanel handbag with the CC logo and gold shoulder would hang over the shoulder, and Chanel’s trademark two-tone pumps or ballet flats would be worn on the feet. Today the average cost of a Chanel suit is $5,000 and can only to be purchased at Chanel boutiques or at high-end department stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue. Although details such as exquisite fabrics, bias cuts and hand sewing contribute to the high cost, Chanel was a firm believer that if the costs of her products was high, then her obsessively perfect designs would truly be valued.

Despite the fact that Chanel did not have the breeding of the upper class, in 1912 she met the wealthy socialite, Arthur “Boy” Capel who helped her open her first hat shop in 1913. But her real break came in the early ’20s during the Great Depression when Chanel, with the financial help of Capel, opened her first and now legendary shop at 31 rue Cambon.Chanel was raised in a French orphanage. The simplistic and stark dress of the nuns and their environment influenced Chanel’s designs. Her simple little black dresses, squarish suits, and almost boyish designs suits were vastly divergent from the confining and tight-fitting corsets and long dresses with petticoats. By the mid ’20s, Chanel’s comfortable and practical “working costume” designs flourished and she opened two boutiques: one in Paris and the other in Biarritz. Together these shops employed over 300 people. During this period, Chanel created her world-renowned No 5 fragrance.Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883-1971) may have very well been the most influential and innovative fashion designer to date. As Christian Dior put it: “With a black pullover and ten rows of pearls she revolutionized fashion.” Not only is Chanel known for her little black dress and her No 5 fragrance, but also her classic and timeless suits, shoes, purses and jewelry. Her designs helped define women’s fashion.

In 1931, Chanel was hired by Samuel Goldwin for one million dollars to dress his stars, including Kathrine Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and Gloria Swanson. This lasted for a very short time, however, as many starlets refused her service. Later that decade, back in her hometown, Chanel designed and developed an array of costume jewelry inspired by the “art deco” movement of the ’30s.

In 1939 after the fall of Paris, Chanel closed her boutiques and spent the next fifteen years of her life living in Switzerland exiled, due to her love affair with a Nazi officer. In 1954, Chanel decided to revamp her ’30s designs. Some say that the popularity of Dior’s “new” corseted look disgusted Chanel and gave her inspiration that had long been dorment. Once again, Chanel’s designs flourished and she now was embraced by Hollywood starlets. In fact, Chanel spent much of the ’50s and ’60s working for various Hollywood studios, dressing the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Liz Taylor and Anne Baxter. During this time her clothing became very popular, especially in the United States.

Chanel passed away in 1971. Prior to her death, a custom Chanel suit or gown fetched as much as $12,000. In the early 80s designer Karl Lagerfeld took over the Chanel design house. Today, Lagerfeld incorporates modern designs with the already-established classic Chanel look.