L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani S/S 06 New York

[Ceptuouse]

its tommorow, i cant wait
does anyone have any info on the collections??

 

[kimair]

this article is from today's nytimes...

ON Monday, with her spring 2006 fashion show just four days away, Gwen Stefani careered around her showroom in downtown Manhattan like a wayward billiard ball. One minute she was instructing her patternmaker where the ruffles should go on a chiffon evening dress; the next, listening intently with Zaldy, her head designer, to a few bars of music she had written for the show. Then at last she peered over the shoulder of Andrea Lieberman, her creative director and longtime stylist. Ms. Lieberman was making 11th-hour adjustments to a willowy and pleasingly disjunctive ensemble, composed of a wisteria-patterned chiffon dress, a snug cardigan printed with a chain-link design and a gnarly-looking knitted Rastafarian cap. "I thought I was good at mixing things up," Ms. Stefani said, alluding to her penchant for striding onto the stage in a studiously random mix of punk and Golden Age Hollywood goddess, East Los Angeles lowrider girl and debutante, "but I realize Andrea is even better. I don't have her refinement."

She will tell you just as promptly that she does not have Zaldy's deft hand with a sketch pen, or Alex de Betak's gift for creating a dramatic stage set that will look, in certain segments of the show on Friday at Roseland, like a ghostly used-car lot at night.

What she does possess in spades is a knack for pulling her design team squarely into her corner by exuding a quality as rare as black pearls in the world of style: a rigorously self-enforced humility. "I have a huge ego, let's face it," Ms. Stefani said, keeping one eye firmly on a nearby cutting table draped in fluttery chiffon. "But at the end of the day I don't need to raise my hand and say, 'Look at me; I did this part, I did that.' "

Last week, she seemed at pains to reinforce that point, inviting this reporter to look on as she revved herself up for the show, assuming the roles of watchful mother hen, sittings editor, spirited cheerleader and generous collaborator. Giving voice to a truism long accepted among fashion insiders, she said: "Everybody out there has a team of people behind them. That's just the way it is."

It was a queer demurral for a woman who has labored for nearly two decades to turn herself into one of the most successful pop artists of the music world, with two solo hits now on the Top 25 charts, a performer whose three-year-old fashion label, L.A.M.B. (Love, Angel, Music, Baby), is drawing revenues of about $40 million in a handful of fashionable stores around the country.

But it also reflected Ms. Stefani's evident determination to disarm those critics who might be inclined to dismiss her as just the latest in an expanding constellation of celebrities - Jessica Simpson, Sean Combs, Beyoncé Knowles and Jennifer Lopez among them - to graft their names onto a fashion line.

"I don't like to assume anything; I'm just learning," Ms. Stefani insisted, as she ducked behind a curtain to supervise the fittings of a series of chiffon evening dresses. Flipping through a sheaf of Zaldy's drawings, she stopped, rapt, at a cowl-neck evening dress. Its skirt originated with a vision of embroidered carnations layered under lace, she said, adding unabashedly, "The top is the Chanel dress that I wore last year."

Ms. Stefani is a long-acknowledged mistress of appropriation. Her fashion influences are as crazily eclectic as those of her music, which at any moment might incorporate snatches of Blondie and "Fiddler on the Roof." In the past, she has worked with references as disparate as Vivienne Westwood's seminal punk pirate look of the 1970's, Bollywood diva and 1920's debutante.

For the current line, she has tossed into the blender what she calls Jamaican yardie, along with Gatsbyesque patrician vamp and Harajuku girl (fashion-besotted Japanese teenager), each an element of her "fantasy closet." Much of it is familiar from recent collections, including fall 2005, which is showing signs of becoming a blockbuster.

"We've had a thousand percent increase over last spring," said Lisa Jacobson, Ms. Stefani's longtime business manager, "and for fall, so far, we've had sell-through of 80 percent," she added, using the industry term for clothes sold at full retail value. The line, she maintained, is fast becoming a mainstay for many high-end retailers.


Ms. Stefani is a hit not only with her legions of music fans - some tout her as the next Madonna - but with retailers like Barneys New York, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale's, which will showcase L.A.M.B. in its windows starting tomorrow. Top-of-the-masthead editors at Harper's Bazaar, W, Elle and InStyle feature her designs. And affluent consumers pay $75 to just under $1,000 for them.

"The business is on fire for us right now," said Scott Tepper, the fashion director at Henri Bendel, where one popular item for fall - a white lace blouse with a green velvet bow ($245) - landed on the floor at 10 a.m. on the Tuesday after Labor Day and was sold out by noon.

Shoppers respond to Ms. Stefani's "very elegant sensibility," Mr. Tepper said. "Even when she wears couture, there is something natural and authentic about her. You don't feel she's taking hours of direction from the stylist."

Customers swamped Bendel's the day after Labor Day, usually a sluggish time for retailers, Mr. Tepper pointed out. "The way they all descended," he recalled, sounding winded, "I actually saw customers text-messaging their friends to come get the merchandise while they could. That's how emotional the response is."

Emotions ran high in the showroom this week as well as Ms. Stefani prepared to take her bow at Roseland. Dressed in a slick, satinlike tracksuit of her own design, she affected the part of slightly hysterical ingénue in a giddy melodrama.

Emerging Sunday from a closet-size office at the Bureau Betak, Mr. de Betak's production company, where she had just heard the opening bars of a musical arrangement for her show, she bestowed on Jeremy Healy, her music coordinator, her highest encomium: "I was in tears."

Her eyes welled up again as she went on listening to what began as a sort of drum roll that blended with the sound of thunderous hoofbeats, before fading into the overture from "The Sound of Music." She gave a little shudder, apologizing for her own effusiveness. "That's crazy, the music. I'm sorry, hooo!"

Abruptly, she collected herself. "Now I have to go look at the flippin' clothes."

The next day in her SoHo showroom, all was harmony - no rants or tirades. Never mind that the prints looked faded, that many of the finished samples would not arrive for hours or that model casting was barely under way. "I like to think of this as a factory," Ms. Stefani said imperturbably. "Everyone knows what role they have to play."

Polaroid snapshots of the collection in progress lined one wall. Looking them over, Ms. Lieberman and Zaldy pogo-danced excitedly. "It's all about a tracksuit and a heel," Ms. Lieberman gushed, pointing out one of her favorite pieces, a sinuous tank top that trailed an incongruous six-foot train. It originated with Ms. Stefani, who hoped to meld her current passion for low-waisted 1920's evening dresses with the influence of the streets. Zaldy envisioned a simple vintage-style frock. "Then Andrea got up, and said, 'Like, what about a T-shirt?' " he recalled, not sounding the least bit miffed that his turf had been trod upon. The results are what count, he said, pronouncing, "It's a Gwen balance; it works."

The show itself, which will be mounted for $1 million, Mr. de Betak said, will likely be an extravaganza, never mind his protestations to the contrary. "It's Gwen's first show," Mr. de Betak said, "so it will have some rawness and spontaneity. She is not bullying her way into fashion. There will be no runway, just the models walking the floor. It's not an obnoxious power demonstration, but an honest, humble arrival."

 

[Ceptuouse]

thanks for the great article kimair, also i love your blog

 

[lamb]

I can not wait!

 

[liberty33r1b]

"I have a huge ego, let's face it," Ms. Stefani said, keeping one eye firmly on a nearby cutting table draped in fluttery chiffon. "But at the end of the day I don't need to raise my hand and say, 'Look at me; I did this part, I did that.' "

god, she is so arrogant, unbelievable.
and why is she denying her unstoppable grabbing for attention??

 

[Curious]

^ I don't understand how she can be called arrogant by this when she's clearly stating that she wouldn't be anything without her team...

Thanks for the article Kimair I'm looking forward to the show too, but tracksuits & heels throws me off a bit I have to admit

 

[adorefaith]

"I have a huge ego, let's face it," Ms. Stefani said, keeping one eye firmly on a nearby cutting table draped in fluttery chiffon.

i'm not sure why somebody would so easily state this....
she doesnt seem to say it implying that it is something she endeavours to change.....so why talk about it?...

 

[masquerade]

ewwww. i actually cant wait for the show so i can just trash it.


does that make me mean.

 

[Arturo21]

Surprisingly, I"m not really disgusted by Gwen Stefani having a fashion label. If I could choose any mainstream, female celebrity to design clothing, Gwen Stefani would probably be one of my choices. I'm not condoning celebrities starting clothing lines, though

 

[CharlottefromCA]

i'm not sure why somebody would so easily state this....
she doesnt seem to say it implying that it is something she endeavours to change.....so why talk about it?...

I think she's trying to say... yes she does have a big ego.. but... she isn't going to be one of those designers (coughKimoracough).. who feel the need to talk about how big of a role they played in their own line.. and how blahblah this was was their idea that was their idea etc..

I actually like she said that

 

[agirlcalledk1ll]

lol, i'm not surprised that this is probably gonna become just a gwen-bashing thread..

but for those of you who actually might care about the clothes and the show (instead of just picking her apart for being honest...)
she's been seen wearing a few sneaks of what's to be in the show..it's loooking really cool, so far, though, it's mostly the same things she's worn in different variations

gwen (with zaldy) in the described 'satinlike tracksuit'

(she's also worn this in that hideous balck + white combo..which odddly, i hate, but the rasta, i love...and an orange/green, slightly less stripey version, too, which she wore to the zaldy show.)

dress from the described 'gatsby rasta' theme of part of the spring show


short version:


i also saw her in a sorta flowy yellow dress with what i'm deducting was a 'wisteria' print that looked really nice..she said it was 'fresh off the sewing machine' and will be in the show.

i defiantely can't wait...and i hope the show, in full video shows up online...anyone know tha chances of that? i REALLY wanna hear her music...(esp since a brand new song of hers is supposed to be mixed in...) lol, how 'gwen' of them to use the overture to sound of music!! that's classic gwen stefani, right there!

photos from gettyimages and nytimes

 

[CharlottefromCA]

i defiantely can't wait...and i hope the show, in full video shows up online...anyone know tha chances of that? i REALLY wanna hear her music...(esp since a brand new song of hers is supposed to be mixed in...)

Lets just hope its at least up on Olympus fashion week site.... some designers show their videos others dont though..

 

[Napmove]

I'm super excited to see what she comes up with...though this thread will mostly be filled with haters I guess.

 

[secondly]

I'm excited. I like her.

 

[mr.doubtnot]

I'm excited. I like her.

me too ... and I'm a gwen fan too

 

[Ceptuouse]

what time is the show?

 

[Ceptuouse]

oh, its 8pm

 

[Nadia]

ewwww. i actually cant wait for the show so i can just trash it.


does that make me mean.

no, that makes you a perfectly normal person, with a hint of style.

 

[skot4mc]

i love gwen.
always have.

 

[returnofsaturn]

I'm sooo excited!
Here's the invitation to the show;
I adore the art nouveau feel of it, the japanese flower print and the chain border..

credit to lamb_lovers on livejournal

pictures from the LAMB dinner party held two nights ago. Gwen apears to be wearing another piece of Spring '06 lamb.

I Danilo, he's one of the sweetest people i've ever met.

- newyorkmetro.com