April 19, 2013

Coachella kicked off in full force last weekend, and Style.com reporter Alison Baenen has been talking to all the festival’s best-dressed concertgoers about their desert duds, favorite bands, and more. Click to see what some of our favorite attendees were wearing.

Kate Bosworth

Jacquelyn Jablonski

Henry Holland and IO Echo’s Ioanna Gika

Hanne Gaby Odiele

Karen O Unzipped: Christian Joy On Dressing Rock Royalty

It can’t be easy to dress an onstage style icon, but costume designer Christian Joy—who’s been creating killer (and often eccentric) costumes for Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O since 2001—has got it down pat. For Karen’s performance at the first weekend of this year’s Coachella festival, Joy outfitted the singer with a lacquer-shiny cape, one studded glove, and a matching papal headpiece (above). Here, Style.com talks to the designer about what it takes to dress a rock goddess.
—Alison Baenen

Tell me about Karen’s outfit. Was that created especially for Coachella?
Yes, the costume I made for Coachella was specifically designed for it. In the beginning, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were meant to go on towards sunset, so all of the fabrics were chosen to reflect the sun and really glow against the desert sky. The cape and headpiece were meant to be a little “pope,” to go with the song “Sacrilege.”

What do you have to consider when picking out costumes for the stage?
The two main things I always think about when creating Karen’s costumes are color and movement. I think it’s important not only for Karen to be able to move easily but also what kind of movement can be created. I always love a dramatic cape for that reason. Color is also always important. I hardly ever use black unless it’s highly contrasted. I think color gives the performer a lot of energy, and it makes the crowd feel excited and happy. As far as shiny goes, it can never be too shiny!

Which designers does Karen gravitate toward?
I make all of her stage costumes, but offstage she generally goes for vintage.

How does her onstage style differ from her offstage look?
Her offstage style is more laid-back. Lots of jeans, T-shirts, and vintage polyester button-downs.

Is there anything Karen really hates, clothing-wise?
Skirts.

How do you and she decide what she’ll wear to each show? What’s the process like?
We’ll usually discuss new ideas with the release of each record. With It’s Blitz!, she specifically asked for a studded-leather jacket, and for Mosquito she asked for suits. Other than that, we may discuss whether it’s a club or a festival show, the kind of lighting, stuff like that. The greatest thing about working with Karen is that she almost entirely lets me do what I want, which is an amazing amount of trust to put into someone. For Coachella, she didn’t really know what her costume was going to look like until I dropped it off a few days before the show.

Have there ever been any crazy costume mishaps?
Oh, yes. When she was on tour at one point—this was around Fever To Tell—I had made this strapless dress that was only held up with a piece of elastic around her chest. When she leaned backward over the monitor, her boobs popped out! No more strapless dresses after that.

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Harper’s Bazaar Runway Report

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Bibhu Mohapatra spent time in Cooperstown, N.Y., this summer, where he designed the costumes for a production of Aida. While he was there he saw his first luna moth, and he was taken by its prophetic quality and architectural design. A print capturing the energy of a butterfly’s metamorphosis emerged—digitally and in a burnout pattern—which Mohapatra applied to sexy, slimming silhouettes that used strong, angled peplums and shoulder cutouts to augment the wearer’s curves. Given the designer’s inspiration, not to mention his stint designing opera costumes, there was a fear that he might overdo. But Mohapatra relied on his print (which was more exploding glass than emerging butterfly), saturated palette, and strong silhouette to create looks with impact. There was not an extra embellishment in sight.

A cobalt top in the morph print, worn with a pair of slim cigarette pants, had an appealing boxiness: Though the fabric had a rich sheen, it looked suited for day. Evening softened up. Hand-pleated chiffon skirts added a desirable lightness, but angular cutouts and graphic lace continued the collection’s geometric through-line. With figure-hugging forms, as most of these were, the fit has to be perfect; a few of the dresses here were too big on the models, causing prints to gap unflatteringly. That’s a small criticism, and one Mohapatra will likely have worked out by the time these clothes arrive in stores.

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Naeem Khan is a man on the move. His recent travels took him around the globe, and in several of the places he landed, he found visual stimuli for Spring—a gorgeous sunset in Utah; tile work in Morocco; the surf in Hawaii—which he then snapped on one of his smartphones (he’s got an iPhone and a BlackBerry) and sent to Italy with instructions for turning them into prints. The results, presented digitally, through embroidery and via laser-cutting, were the main focus here, along with an emphasis on day- as opposed to eveningwear for Khan’s well-heeled clientele. A long satin sweater coat (the show notes identified it as a “topper”) in a black and white mosaic leather appliqué over slim white cotton pants looked graphic and fresh. An updated take on Resort’s sunflower print showed up on a to-the-floor belted shirtdress; in organza, it was unexpectedly chic. A rainbow of caftans closed the show—bedecked in sparkling beads, they were glitzy and glam. Clients hoping for a new gala gown will be disappointed this season, but smart shoppers will surely be able to think of somewhere to show off those caftans.

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Over the summer, Mark Badgley and James Mischka developed a cinematic crush on the 1935 film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Enchanted by the film’s “haunting beauty,” as one of the designers put it a few days before their show, they set out to achieve the same effect with their collection. A sylvan backdrop set the mood, and the clothes, which, as in seasons past included a mix of items from Badgley Mischka and Mark and James, were frothy and romantic. Fluttering tulle sleeves looked fitting for a fairy queen (they were, perhaps, a touch large for a mortal), and Lurex-treated tweed on a full, knee-length skirt had an effervescent shine. In another setting, a pair of skinny tweed pants fixed with a hologram effect would have seemed downright clubby; the strapless organza bustier they were worn with—it looked like a giant rose—made for rarefied company. A pair of heather jersey sweatpants studded with sequins did little to deflate the mood. With a surfeit of novelty fabrics—brocades, matelassé, lace, and bouclé—making up the majority of the looks, this was not a collection geared toward, say, a performing troupe of mechanics. Which is to say, the label’s usual demographic will have plenty to choose from.

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Araks Yeramyan loves a research project, and for Spring she dug into the end of Japan’s isolationist period, which corresponded in the West with the beginning of the Victorian era. As a result, Yeramyan discovered, Japanese dressing from the 1850s onward has always had a Victorian undercurrent. She played with elements of Victorian construction as well as traditional and contemporary Japanese dress, including workwear, and mixed them up for a characteristically subtle and quietly quirky collection. A white dress with an iridescent overlay of woven Lurex and silk had faint lines drawn in where Victorian pleats and seaming would be. The layer underneath had the actual pleats. It was paper light and pretty as a butterfly. A pair of voluminous pants in linen cupro were more substantial; they came in at the ankle in a nod to the trousers preferred by Japanese farmers. The best piece was a pale green vest with the elegance of a kimono. It had the delicacy of Arak’s lovely lingerie and a modern, here-and-now feel.

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For her last collection at Diesel Black Gold, Sophia Kokosalaki looked back to her first years in fashion, as a student at Central Saint Martins in London in the nineties. “We were always waiting to see what Melanie Ward or Corinne Day was going to do in the next issue of The Face,” the designer said before the show, explaining how a nineties aesthetic made its way into this season’s clothes. As the ramp at the head of the runway and the four male skaters who opened the show made clear, skateboard culture also had an influence. Kokosalaki developed this season’s print from pictures she snapped of an ever-evolving graffiti wall in a skate park near the Thames. Jeans came wrapped with shiny black tape at the ankles—the way skaters wear them—and the seams on leather jackets were actually bonded shut, as opposed to sewn, also with tape. Embossed leather miniskirts that wrapped closed were a little punk rock, but they had the classic simplicity Kokosalaki was going for. Most of the embellishment came from swinging fringe on high-heel sandals or long, low-slung belts made from techy, braided rope. It was a succinct definition of this brand’s identity: Athletic and urban street wear with a clean, pared-down appeal. Kokosalaki’s successor, Andreas Melbostad, the former Phi designer, is now charged with overseeing the next stage of Black Gold’s evolution.