Italian Fashion Watch

You can wear your favourite designer’s fragrance and makeup every day, splurge on their shoes and a handbag each season and if you are lucky enough to afford it, indulge in the clothing.

And in the fashion capital of Milan you can eat, drink and dance with your favourite designer brand.

Hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés bearing the names of some of the world’s most recognizable fashion names are popping up across the city.

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana opened a restaurant and bar called Gold in the fall, joining Giorgio Armani who already had a café, restaurant, bookstore and a nightclub called Privé, housed in his mega Armani store on Via Manzoni. The complex is rumoured to be the site of an upcoming Armani hotel.

Roberto Cavalli has added a café to his empire. The Bulgari Hotel now has a restaurant and the Gucci girl can sit in the café outside her favourite store in the imposing Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II to people watch or steel her nerves before plunking down a credit card for the latest “It” bag.

Designers have full control on casting the perfect people to personify their image at their runway shows and in ad campaigns.

But when the clothes are available for sale to anyone, sometimes the image gets skewed.

A tour of some of these designer venues during the fall 2007 collections in Milan this week found the same principle applies to their brand extensions.

First stop on Saturday night was Gold, the restaurant, bistro and bar by Dolce & Gabbana.

One would think it would be the perfect brand extension for the designers of a super sexy label who appear to love the nightlife.

But after passing the large gold ingot sign outside the door, any lustre from the metal furnishings was dimmed by the unseductive lighting and the pedestrian crowd.

The bistro is swanky enough, with sculptural chandeliers and metal shutters, but in the bar area exposed brick walls and bright lights seemed to dull the effect of the decorative gold prisms lining the shelves and the bar.

“If the Dolce customer came here looking for some excitement, they would be disappointed,” said Ian Hylton, a Toronto expat who now works in China for Ports International as VP of design for its menswear division.

In the bar area, everyone was clustered in the smoking area – a glass enclosed chamber in the back. The music was far from inspiring and it was hard to look sexy holding a drink served in a ridiculously large glass.

And where were the stylish, sexy, feline Dolce & Gabbana fans? Except for the model-handsome bartenders, the crowd was all tight jeans and little tops that wouldn’t pass muster for the lower-priced D&G line.

The experience was far from the image the duo sells, especially after seeing the spectacular window display at the flagship store or the scintillating photo feature in this month’s W magazine. It features both designers, buffed, and dressed provocatively and posing suggestively with nearly naked models.

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Jamie Foxx claims the most ridiculous thing he has ever bought was a £9,000 crocodile-skin jacket.

The ‘Ray’ star was persuaded to buy the overpriced garment by some girls he met on holiday and regards it as the biggest waste of money of his life.

He said: “I was in Las Vegas and some girls I was with were going on and on about this crocodile-skin jacket. In the end I just gave in and said, ‘Alright, I’ll take it!’

“It was crazy. Stupid. I’ve never worn it. It never matched anything and it didn’t even fit properly. I don’t even have the jacket now - I don’t know where it is.”

Despite his previous fashion faux-pas, Jamie’s favorite item of clothing is also a jacket.

The Oscar winner has a designer Dolce and Gabbana leather jacket which makes him feel fantastic as soon as he puts it on. Foxx believes every man should own one.

He said: When I put on my Dolce and Gabbana jacket I’m ready to meet the world. It’s made from soft burgundy leather and I love it.

“A jacket is a must-have. You might be wearing jeans and a t-shirt but if you’ve got a good jacket, it lifts your whole look.”

Looks like every designer started deigning fashion phones for various companies in the mobile phone and electronics industry. I think it’s becoming a new trend, and I’m sure the future offers us plenty surprises.

First, there were the two Italian designers, Dolce and Gabbana, who designed the extremely good looking MOTORAZR Motorola Phone. I must say, that’s one of the coolest phones I’ve seen in my life. With it’s gold color, it’s catches your eyes instantly. Too bad I’m not a Motorola fan.

Then, Giorgio Armani designed the Samsung Limited Edition Armani Exchange Ultra Edition 6.9 in Blue, for the well known Korean company which manufactures everything electronics. I have two Samsung TVs and a D600 phone by the way, but that’s another story.

The phone presents itself as great. It has a more simple look. Very modern. The only reason I don’t like is because I already have the technologically more advanced D600, which has way more interesting features for the technology addict

Now I see that Prada is also moving into the fashion phones design industry. The company they’re working with is LG, another important mobile phone manufacturer. They’ve just launched their new creation these days.

With all of this, I wonder which designer will go for Nokia. I’m sure the design is already in progress. I bet we’ll hear about it in the next two or three weeks maximum. Nokia can’t remain behind in this new venture.

Will it be Versace or Gucci…

Dressed in pink Uggs, Seven jeans and a matching pink sweater and cap, Elizabeth Cohen looks the epitome of hip as she winds her way through the holiday crowds at the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles.

She is a discerning consumer — her Ugg boots are not knockoffs, and she names Prada and Dolce & Gabbana as her favorite brands.

She’s also 10 years old.

“I ask her, ‘What do you need these for?’ ” said her mother, Jane Cohen of Bel-Air, who shops mostly at vintage stores and garage sales.

But the 10-year-old is hardly unusual. Elizabeth and other “tweens” — kids who are 8 to 12 — are expected to contribute to growing demand for luxury goods this winter.

Today, the season shopfest begins in earnest with day-after-Thanksgiving sales, crowds and traffic jams. For tweens and their older teenage counterparts, the search is on for expensive accessories, belts, purses and perhaps a pair of shoes such as those seen in fashion shows and glossy magazines.

“There’s a huge uptick in teens shopping for traditional luxury brands,” said Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group, a strategic marketing firm that recently conducted a survey of teenagers’ preferences. “Having a Gucci scarf is part of being a kid today.”

To be sure, even on the affluent Westside of Los Angeles, these youths rarely have closets full of luxury goods.

Many, including Elizabeth, also shop at stores such as Target or Gap, looking for bargains. Frequently, they mix and match with luxury accessories.

“It’s not only the rich communities — it’s anywhere that kids have an income,” Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Consulting Group in New York, said about teens and tweens buying luxury products. “A lot more kids earn money than used to, and they feel they have the right to spend their money as they see fit.”

Taylor said many of the teenagers buy these brands with allowance money or wages earned from part-time jobs. This can lead to a fair amount of spending on brands once known only to the rich and famous.

“They’re 100% more brand-conscious today than they used to be,” said Fraser Ross, owner of the upscale Robertson Boulevard store Kitson. “A 12-year-old will know what Louis Vuitton is.”

Kitson is known as a high-end Westside celebrity haunt, near the Ivy restaurant. A year ago, Ross added Kitson Kids nearby, but he said tweens still prefer items at his main store, such as $190 Seven for All Mankind jeans and $650 Isabella Fiore handbags.

Many of these customers, he said, see celebrities wearing certain brands and buy the same ones. Some browse the store aisles while their mothers have lunch at the Ivy. “I call them ABC girls — Armani, Blahnik, Chanel,” Ross said. “They wear everything branded.”

Shawshank Posted on his blog a review of the new Dolce & Gabbana MOTORAZR From Motorola. I love that phone. It looks a lot better than my old Samsung D600, though it doesn’t have all the great features I have on my phone.

Well, here’s the review:

The MOTORAZR V3i DG from Motorola has all the features of a normal MOTORAZR with some added classy bling from DG.

The styllish gold frame is not the only flash, as you can accesorize with a gold DG Bluetooth headset, matching gold Motorola DG headphones, a nice light brown leagther case with the DG insignia, and a fashionable gold DG lanyard, pictured here. These Motorola DG accessories do a great job in complimenting the stylish gold RAZR.

Of course this DG MOTORAZR comes with all the standard cool features of the standard thin mobile phone. Some key features include a 1.23 megapixel camera for still shots and video, many downloadable ringtones, wallpapers, themes and screensavers, and a polyphonic speaker.

You can read the full Motorarz review here.

Designers don’t seem to limit themselves only to the clothing sector. Numerous fashion creator look for new exploits in other key industries, such as electronics.

That’s the case of Giorgio Armani, who recently collaborated with the Korean Samsung company on the new design of their Ultra Edition 6.9 phones.

By the end of October, the phone will be available in pink and blue, and by the end of the year, they will also release the red version of the Ultra Edition 9.9.

Only 1000 of the new “Limited Edition Armani Exchange Ultra Edition 6.9 in Blue” phone will be sold in a few key countries.

The collaboration between Armani and Samsung is not something unique. Two months ago, Motorola launched it’s Gold MOTORAZR V3i handset, which was entirely designed by Dolce and Gabbana.

While most designers present at Milan’s fashion week presented creations that were at least slightly wearable, it was Dolce and Gabbana’s turn to show the world what they’re made of.

And they did it with a huge parade on Tuesday, where they brought to the stage what is considered by many an outrageous collection.

As one eyewitness said, ‘the show screamed sex and money”. Black corsets and skirts in the colors of the rainbow are just one of the many items presented.

From the first look you could tell this was not about bringing out a collection that would actually be practical. Instead, it was all about making a huge hype, which it certainly did.

In a backstage interview, Kylie Minogue, a participant at this display said that she actually found the collection quite wearable, but only on a concert’s stage. Who knows, you might see her wearing one on Dolce and Gabbana’s outfits in her next world tour.

D&G lowered the sexual tension towards the end by some tongue-in-cheek outfits that played on Dolce & Gabbana’s soft spot for campness.