Elie Tahari was born in 1952 in Jersualem. His parents, a Persian-jewish couple, moved from Iran to Israel, where Elie was born, then they moved back to Iran and back again to Israel, so his first years of life were pretty messy. When he was still a child his parents divorced and his father remarried, so he was sent to an orphanage by the Israeli social services. After spending some years at the Israeli Air Force boarding school, in 1971 he immigrated to the United States as an electrician. He finally settled in Manhattan, where, working in a boutique of Greenwich Village, was introduced to women’s fashion. At that point, Tahari started to create his own label, first inspired in the New York nightclub scene, inspiration that led his collections during the 70’s and made him create flirty dresses. These collections were rapidly very well received, so he was able, in 1974, to open his first store in Madison Avenue, and he was, in fact, one of the first designers to do so.

Always a step forward from the others, and with his ability to predict what women wanted before they did themselves, he moved, in the 80’s, to a new style, focusing his collections in the tailored suit.

At his 46th birthday, Elie met his future wife, and when coupled, the team they both formed tripled the size of the company, arriving to create a $500 million business with presence on five continents. First focused in women’s wear, in 2006 the company finally launched a men’s wear line and also expanded into accessories and has been growing still until now even introducing a jewelry line. Also, in 1997, he and his business partner, Andrew Rosen, co-founded the Theory fashion brand, but in 2003 Tahari sold his share of the business, nowadays very popular by having hired Olivier Theyskens as a designer, about whom he talked on 2beMag issue 11.

Elie Tahari’s collections are well known for dressing modern, sexy and sophisticated women, and are characterized by its feminine and sensual fabrics, subtle textures and detailing; those create an environment of modern sophistication and make women look fresh, actual and luxurious too. And all of this is possible according to his belief that “clothing should be quieter that the woman, so that her true beauty can shine through”.

Among the materials he uses, we can find PVC, latex, parachute silk and foam, among many others. He is known for revitalizing British and European fashion and by his exuberant imagination and his theatrical conception of fashion, transmitting an unreal feeling. Until 2007, his clothes were only made to be shown at the catwalks but were unavailable to purchase. Now it is time to see if he is just an amazing fashion artist or if he can also give a good result in terms of commerce. By now, we are starting to see how he is slowly introducing more wearable creations within his collections, and we know he has partnered with major manufacturers to produce some of his pieces, which can be understood as a way of starting to be a designer for people, and not only for the show.

[article by Laura Sunyer for 2beMag #12]

Gareth Pugh was born on august 31 1981 and is a British fashion designer that has known he wanted to be a fashion designer during his whole life. At the age of 14, he started working as a costume designer for the National Youth Theatre, and when it came the moment to decide what to study; he started his career at the prestigious Central Saint Martins in London, which finished in 2003. It is interesting to know, that while studying, he interned with Rick Owens in Paris.

His final collection at Central Saint Martins was made with balloons that accentuated model’s joints and limbs, which has been his trademark forever and which also attracted the fashion editor of the magazine Dazed and Confused and placed one of his designs on the cover of the magazine. This, and the fact that he showed his creations at the Alternative Fashion Week in London, caught the attention of the group Fashion East, who invited Pugh to participate in its autumn 2005 group show. The collection he presented really got the critic’s attention and had very good reviews. Pugh solo premier was in London’s 2006 fall shows and, since then, his collections keep being very well received. Anna Wintour had declared to be a notable supporter of Pugh’s designs, as well as the singer Kylie Minogue, who was the first person to buy a piece from him and, since then, she has never stoped wearing his creation in her shows and public appearances.

In terms of style, he could be considered among those designers that understand fashion as an art performance, such as Alexander McQueen or Vivienne Westwood. More than taking references, Pugh says that his collections are, somehow, autobiographical and are really inspired, too, from Britain’s extreme club scene. Pugh’s designs are known for the experimentation he does of forms and volumes, frequently creating “nonsensically shaped, wearable sculptures” which distort the human body.

Among the materials he uses, we can find PVC, latex, parachute silk and foam, among many others. He is known for revitalizing British and European fashion and by his exuberant imagination and his theatrical conception of fashion, transmitting an unreal feeling. Until 2007, his clothes were only made to be shown at the catwalks but were unavailable to purchase. Now it is time to see if he is just an amazing fashion artist or if he can also give a good result in terms of commerce. By now, we are starting to see how he is slowly introducing more wearable creations within his collections, and we know he has partnered with major manufacturers to produce some of his pieces, which can be understood as a way of starting to be a designer for people, and not only for the show.

[text by Laura Sunyer]

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Behind this exotic name hides one of the most talked about models of the runways, even if only 21 this natural beauty has already been the face of some of the most prestigious campaigns such as Calvin Klein, Versace and Yves Saint Laurent. With such striking features and dainty eyes this Lithuanian beauty has learned to work the catwalk like a pro, and strange is the fashion show or campaign nowadays that doesn’t include Edita in it. As mentioned earlier Edita is from Lithuania, the country that is known for just that, creating consolidated top models, at the moment Edita being the brightest star on the sky. The road towards success started in 2006 when she was scouted from the streets of Kaunas, her hometown. Edita herself has confessed that she never thought of herself as the model type. Never even having the dream of becoming a model, and never had been able to walk in high heels.

That didn`t stop her, though, soon enough she debuted in Milan walking for Cavalli in 2006, right after being named the new face of the moment by Vogue Italia. After that everything just happened naturally, Edita doing the usual tour through the fashion capitals Paris, London, Milan and New York, working with blue chip names like Chanel, Kenzo, Balenciaga, Chloe, Louis Vuitton and many, many more. In 2008 she interpreted Coco Chanel in the short film Chanel Paris – Shanghai, directed by no other than Karl Lagerfeld.

So if 2006 to 2008 were good years for Edita then 2009 to 2010 have been superb. Edita has done about 30 fashion shows per season, and also been the face of innumerable campaigns, starting from D&G to Armani and from Jimmy Choo for H&M to cosmetics contacts with both Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. Furthermore we could see Edita strutting down the catwalk for Victoria’s Secret for the past couple of seasons. In the end Edita Vilkeviciute was most certainly born to be a top model, and 2beMag’s Talent Fan Club can’t wait to see what the future will hold for this beauty.

The capabilities of video of seeping into the thoughts and connecting with the memories or the emotions of the mind is an advantage of this art compared to other artistic expressions. Fabio Scacchioli, the Italian filmaker plays with these possibilities by focusing on the connections between memory, perception and thought.

Educated at the University of Perugia and at the University of Madrid, Scacchioli has projected his films and installations in exhibitions and festivals around the world including the United States, Cuba, Germany, United Kingdom, Serbia, Venezuela, Italy, etc. Lately, he has been seen in the Streaming Festival in Holland where he presented Nightlife in a puddle, a personal view after a stormy night. Currently participating in the exhibition Open 3 on S.a.L.E Docks – Magazzini del Sale of Venice with his latest work, From a land of ashes and mist, an experimental documentary about the history of a living between dreams, debris and memories.

His works are characterized by the use of modern technology together with old camcorders, and editing software combined with manual labor. A personal artistic method used to obtain images of low quality or damaged.

dead SEEquences – Fabio Scacchioli from Fabio Scacchioli on Vimeo.

The video that we present you and follows this article is titled: Dead SEEQuences , the image of a female body that appears and vanishes in the shadows and cuts. The artist is able to question the origin of the figure by asking if we visualize the woman from the parties represented or from the shadows to hide it, or if your image is defined by each frame individually or from the gap between each. It is at this point that the piece consisting of 3,770 frames becomes empty or dead. The artist is able to question the reality of everything represented by manipulating the image of a body, the tangible reality of the human being.

Mark Fast was born 30 years ago in a small Canadian village, Winnipeg, between a highway and the forest. These intimate and familiar spaces lead him to wonder how life would be outside Canadian frontiers, and decided to leave. He finally settled in London and completed his BA in fashion design at the school Central Saint Martins, and later in 2008 he also completed his MA there. Since then, he has worked for many prestigious fashion labels such as Woolmark, Danier, Christian Louboutin, Loewe, Bora Aksu, Swarovski, Pinko and Topshop, obtaining, this way, an unviable CV.

The collection under his own name is characterized by unique knitwear pieces, specially very short dresses created for strong, independent and self- confident women, or “women that enjoy life and love”, as he says. His designs are knitted by hand, using only a domestic knitting machine. His work is formed onto the body as he knits, creating an intimate relationship between the garment and the person inside it, so the finished work is always a collaboration between the two parts, dress and wearer. Mark’s designs combine areas of tension and areas of volume over the body, created by knitting methods that mix natural fibres and lycra. Fast has also devised innovative stitching techniques, blending lycra with the finest luxury wools. In this last AW 11/12 collection Mark Fast has also designed several and magnificent leather pieces produced by Danier, in Toronto, the Canadian leather goods company for whom he worked in the past, and they are even planning to create a small capsule collection together in the near future.

Since he started, the brand has been having a lot of positive feedback, after having a reorder from Browns, who are also offering the brand in their online shop. Holt Renfrew and Blake are also increasing their orders and, since last season, the brand has gotten nine other new accounts. All of this success and the results of his amazing work make Mark Fast’s brand worth of our

[article by Laura Sunyer for 2beMag #12]

Karlie Kloss was born in Chicago, Illinois, and her family moved to suburban St. Louis, Missouri in 1995. She was named the best model by People magazine in 2008. She began studying at Caston’s Ballet Academy in 2002. She soon became very talented at dance, and was in a number of performances such as the Nutcracker.

When Kloss was 13, she was discovered at a charity fashion show in St. Louis. She was encouraged and inspired to model by one of her teachers in Webster Groves High School. In 2007, she signed with Elite Model Management before controversially moving to NEXT Model Management in January 2008.

She has been in advertisements for Donna Karan, Nina Ricci, Chloé, Lacoste, Sportmax, Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Gap, Bergdorf Goodman, Pringle of Scotland, Dior, Hermes, Oscar de la Renta, Sonia Rykiel, Barneys New York, and American Eagle. Kloss is the face of the Marc Jacobs fragrance Oh Lola! She has walked for numerous designers in New York, London, Milan and Paris, including Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs, Givenchy, Gucci, Valentino, Louis Vuitton and Versace, editorials for American and Korean W, American Elle, Allure, i-D and French and Japanese Numéro. Her covers include Italian Vogue in October 2009 and January 2010, Vogue Turkey, Vogue Portugal, Vogue China in February,

August, and November in 2010, Vogue Korea and American Teen Vogue, alongside Chanel Iman and Ali Michael in February 2008 and by herself in May 2010. In the Spring/Summer 2011 Season, she opened 10 shows and closed 8. Since Spring 2010, Karlie has consecutively opened the show and become the face of Christian Dior, as well as John Galliano.

In 2011 Kloss renewed her contract with Christian Dior for the third season in a row.

Rick Owens was born in Porterville, California, in 1962. He studied fine arts at Otis College of Art and Design in LA but dropped out after two years because he hated pattern-making classes. After that, he started working for some local companies specialized in sportswear and imitations of designer clothing. It wasn’t until 1994 that he finally created his own label and spent some years selling his creations exclusively to LA retailer Charles Gallay. In 2001, he opened his selling opportunities and signed with Italian sales agent Eo Bocci Associati for worldwide distribution so he had to move his production also to Italy.

His first step to fame was when photographer Corinne Day shot Kate Moss, styled by Panos Yiapanis, (with whom he would continue working forever), wearing one of Owen’s fitted distressed leather jackets, and was published in Vogue Paris. After that, his pieces were well known all over the world and he finally showed his first collection in New York fashion week in September 2002, with the support of American Vogue and its editor in chief, Anna Wintour, who also featured him in a spread shot by Annie Leibovitz with the performing artist, Kembra Pfahler, as a model. After this first collection, he launched, in the second, his menswear collection which also showed in his S/S 2003 show in New York. After this second show married to Michele Lamy, despite being bisexual, and he decided to move, in 2003, from LA to Paris, where he finally settled, and started showing his collections in the French city. This move was also encouraged by winning, in 2002, the Council of Fashion Designers of America Perry Ellis Emerging Talent Award. In 2007, he received another prize, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award.

Owens opened his first store in the Palais Royal, in Paris, where he also debuted with his furniture collection as well as with his wide variety of clothing lines, from the younger and more affordable Lillies to his very exclusive fur collection, Palais Royal. Later, Owens opened his second store in Tribeca, New York.

He is famous by his avant garde and subversive eye, and his looks have been many times described as “glamour-meets-grunge”, always inspired by the rock and roll style but giving it a chic look. He says, “I try to make clothes the way Lou Reed does music, with minimal chord changes, and direct. It is sweet but kind of creepy. It’s about giving everything I make a worn, softened feeling. It’s about an elegance being tinged with a bit of the barbaric, the sloppiness of something dragging and the luxury of not caring. At Revillon, I felt it isn’t about displaying one’s junk, but rather giving the woman a selfish pleasure. It is about using sable as the lining under a very humble jacket, the luxury is all hers.” This way is how Rick Owens is understood, a unique fashion designer.

[Article by Laura Sunyer]