British Heritage Style Reigns!!!

The Country Bumpkin...

I've been shooting a lot of country heritage style pieces over the last few weeks.. Lots of tweed, owl prints, rustic colours, brown leather and checks to list just a few of the designs and prints going through the retailers at the moment.. The trend has been in the shops for quite a while now but is still the classic British trend directly inspired from our beautiful British countryside. Think Kate Middleton on a country weekend retreat and you're half way there!! To wear it well, you have to be smart yet relaxed in your colourings - no bright colours anywhere to be seen and black is too boring!! Classic accessories such as a trilby or a pair of leather gloves will add instant chic and credibility to any heritage inspired piece.  

The article below shows some fabulous heritage pieces available in stores now... 

L xox

www.lisaelliottfashionstylist.co.uk

DaRousso Futumn/Winter 2010-11 Collection FUTURE ETHNO

Finally the collection is out for the public. Full article and more photos on DaRousso Blog and DaRousso Official Web Page.

Ethno trends in modern fashion history

Ethnic fashion has been and still is an ultimate source of inspiration, coming in and out of fashion countless times. Starting from the 19th century and later Jaques Ducett and Paul Poiret, the oriental Japanese style came into the fashion. Names like Jeanne Paquin, Callot Soeurs, Charles Frederik Worth, Mariano Fortuny, Madeleine Vionnet, Jeanne Lanvin, Madame Gres and others followed the early 20th centry ethnic frenzy. Even before, trough the conquests of India and Africa and the American Natives, the European culture had been influenced by the flamboyant style, new fabrics, colors, shapes, forms and motifs that opened a new chapter in prestige and luxury. Trough trade and exchange the influences mixed to create an amazing and magical fusion.

Ethnic fashion has Indeed always been extremely rich source of inspiration to the creative minds in fashion. The second half of the 20th century brought Japanese ethnic fashion to Europe trough designs of Kenzo, Myake, Kawakubo and Yamamoto translating the ethnic into modern trend.They had stirred the Paris fashion scene with their fusion collections incorporating futuristic modern vision and ethnic.
The famous Yves Saint Laurent with his exotic and wild ethnic style revolutionized the modern couture by braking out of the 60's modernist style and was the first to create the ethnic "back to nature" 70' style. In the 70's every type of ethnic image set a trend. The ethnic influence was so strong that it revived craft skills from past times and distant places. Ethnic fashion and style trends became popular due to the broader travel experience. 80's ethnic style was represented mainly in jewelery, accessories and fabric design. We all remember New Romantics and icons like Boy George and Cindy Lauper. 90's bring Chinese collars and prints, motifs for inside of garments and affordable embroidery and beedwork.

The last 10 years, fashion witnessed many ethnic inspired collections. The ethnic revives itself in fusion with other influences as fusion itself and it ranges from very light application of ethnic details to the total look as the culmination of the ethnic frenzy. After the gourmet fusion of tastes, the trend definitely passes over to fashion and the fusion of ethnic as its basic ingredient.

Author of the text: Dusanka Duric
Text is just a chapter from the DaRousso research project called Balkan Kingdom, All Rights Reserved

Fashion Invasion

Just before the DaRousso show on AXDW, we did a wonderful photo-shoot. When I say we, I mean Fenia Lampropoulou, photographer and a dear friend, and also Marina Koutsoumpa, make up artist and a friend. We were shooting with an excellent model Tyrin Achiele from Fashion Cult.

It really was hard to shoot in the rain in the cold that day. And we just couldn't call it off because it was 2 days before the Show and we needed the material for the show.

The styling of the shoot was the alien woman look: hair was shaped into the elongated profile of the extraterrestrial head shape. The face was matte and pale with flesh color rouge lips and dramatic, super eyes. Eyes had a deep distant look, somehow calm and indifferent - clean! The characteristics of the face are in the second plan, the make - up brings out the superior, strong and indifferent physics of a creature from another planet. The move and the feeling of the whole shoot was different.

I didn't wanted to follow a fashion shoot cliche. That was easy. We tried to move the philosophy behind the collection trough the actual mood of the shoot. This is why the general expression of the model is observatory, relaxed and powerless, and finally upset and angry. Just like I really picture a felling of facing the human degradation, natural destruction and economical crisis that we all witness today, and which inspired me to design this collection.

The shoot took place in nature, no industrial surrounding (been there- done that), because the nature gave the perfect frame for the whole story.
If anyone would notice that each landscape has something....... that just spoils the picture of a perfect nature balance: the cloudy sky, land erosion, metal sticks in the beach, the dry broken bamboo like plants, the tree that has dramatically shaped roots and it is growing from the side of the hill, dry, naked roots......

It is all a message to be passed, the message that fashion is not just being pretty, its not just about beauty, it is about passion and awareness, it is about passing a message. This is my fashion, right now that is how I feel. This time I designed not consulting the trends or fashion forecasts. I let myself free and I designed consulting life and world around me.
Hope You take the message.

The BEST CATWALK AWARD goes to DaRousso!!!

After the show, it was obvious that the show got very good critics. Everyone was saying praise for the new collection. The styling was an alien woman look, with high rise hair shaping the head into the alien life form head. The make up was fleshy lips, natural, with dramatic shade over the eye, distinguishing the superiority of the idol woman that wears the designs. The designs, as I already wrote, have simple line, but they are not simple. The designs involve structural construction on ropes and decorative details. The collection surely inspired by the local ethnic details, return the time to the past trying to bring us closer to the nature we are so much neglecting nowadays. The colors used are earth colors with deep symbolism: beige, green, brown, white, orange, blue, red. On the other hand the collection is following the demand of the modern economical situation to be easy fitting to different body types, so they are slightly universal to a modern woman and her everyday rhythm.  The collection consists of handmade jewlery inspired by the African art that is so needed detail to complete the whole collection. The peaces are big, bright and strong colors,  and they perfectly combine with the clothes.
And finally, after the show, and after every ones great response, the prize came. DaRousso was awarded with THE BEST CATWALK AWARD. It really came as a surprise as I personally didn't expect anything. But the judges responded well to the presentation of the show, and took their decision.
I'm grateful for all the help and support from the people involved on creating of the winner show.

The story

Finally the material from the "Burnt dreams" is in! The first story of our Spring Summer 2010 collection is completed. Congratulations to the whole team : Fenia Lampropoulou photographer, Marina Koutsoumpa Make Up, Liss Bouwens model and me, Dusanka Duric designer, hair and styling.

 We already talked about the inspiration on the theme and its complete philosophy in the post "Somewhere on the edge" that gave us a starting point of our story telling in hope that we'll awake awareness on certain issues around us, awareness that shall contribute to the salving the problems leading to the ecological catastrophe and to the destruction of life.

 

The story again promotes the individuality and personality, its totally against uni-formation of style and the tendency of identifying ourselves as a part of a group. Yes we all belong to a certain group, but is it really necessary to give up our personal expression  because of that? In the age of variety and no utilities why do we tend to create them? Is it a safe ground to walk on, or would we feel much more comfortable to walk proudly expressing our own individual sense of style, our personal interpretation of beauty and fashion?

Just looking into the past, when a man lived more closer to his nature to himself, can't we find many answers to our modern problems? As we reached the peak in development as a civilization, we reached the bottom of the moral existence and respect towards one another. We reached a peak in exploitation in terms of survival, where the target justifies the mean and where we stopped caring at all about anything around us.

Its like putting up a show each time we walk out on the street with the style that is not an expression of a personality but a manipulated choice by the desperate battle to make an impression and a statement. Just a step back away from the ordinary and a step further into ourselves would make more than an impression and would certainly make a hell of a statement.....

Burnt dreams

The first photo shoot took place with the new collection of the aspiring brand DaRousso for spring- summer 2010. It was an amazing experience for us all. The philosophy described in the previous post "Somewhere on the edge" made its path through the entire mood of the story captured by the photographer Fenia Lampropoulou. The creative pulse of all the members of the team: me, Fenia Lampropoulou, MUA Marina Koutsoumpa and the model Liss Bouwens, brought to the amazing atmosphere on the photos. This is just a small preview of the material that shall be published in complete very soon.

The shoot took place on the ashes of the burned woods of the Marathonos and it points out the drama of the catastrophe that was created by the human hand. The destruction of the nature and its beauty, the dark force and its unstoppable beat had taken over a magic place and transformed it into nothing more than ashes. The sad story of human ignorance should teach us how not to repeat the same mistakes.
This is a tribute to the life and beauty, in hope it will be reborn from its ashes.

Somewhere on the edge

   In the process of creating my new collection for DaRousso and trying to make a more free approach to the wearable fashion, I came across a lot of inspiration in our civilization and the world we live in. Our geo-historical heritage, the speed of the ecological destruction, our distancing from ourselves in search for new and superior and the general abandoning of our tradition led us to the edge of loneliness and personality deviation. As I tried to reach back for these long lost times of natures innocence and human pureness I came across a great deal of inspiration for my new collection. Rich in detail but still very structural and modern, the designs are inspired by the east European heritage in all its mixed variety.

    The idea of looking back into the soul and personal value of a man that lives from and in harmony with its surrounding led me to the beauty of the fact that we can forget about making a statement and fitting into a role and just be different, pure and celebrating our nature and heritage in a modern way. And finally there is still a lot to learn from our past that we can use to live better in our present and future.