Blog – Page 6 – Mary Jane Denzer

February 25, 2020

If ever there was a designer who speaks to the trends of the moment, it’s Naeem Khan.

Zebra- and leopard-print dresses and jumpsuits? check. Bold, flowing florals? Check. Goddess gowns that reveal even as they conceal with mesh and plunging necklines, low backs and thigh-high slits? Check, check and check.

It is Khan’s ability to marry the demure and the sexy that makes his Spring Collection perfect for today’s woman. Form-fitting, neutral slips peek through diaphanous floral and leafy appliqué shells that cling to the body and finish with a swirling flourish at the ankles. Fitted, jeweled bodices, the armor of beauty, give way to layered, chiffon skirts. Sequined hoodie pantsuits with modified shoulder pads redefine that 1980s staple, another spring trend.

The play between the decorous and the sensual defines India, where Khan was born and raised. Growing up in Mumbai, he was steeped in the country’s textiles – which blaze with color, pattern, texture and life itself – as both his father and his grandfather designed clothing for Indian royals.

But Khan believed his design destiny lay in the United States. He moved here as a teenager and at 20 became an apprentice to Halston (1932-90), who rose to fame designing the pillbox hat for first lady Jacqueline B. Kennedy and whose clean lines helped shape the 1970s. With Halston, Khan learned how to cut and drape fabric to create a classic, elegant silhouette.

Ultimately, he combined his childhood knowledge of textiles with what he learned during his time with Halston to create his eponymous brand, which he launched in 2003 to sell in Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. It’s featured in 150 retail outlets worldwide, to say nothing of red carpets graced by Michelle Obama; Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge; Beyoncé; Jennifer Lopez; Rachel McAdams; Noor Al-Hussein, the dowager queen of Jordan; and Taylor Swift.

But Khan, who was inducted into the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2008, is about more than ready-to-wear. His plated-brass, suede-lined Zodiac clutches, with their Swarovski crystal constellations and mirrored interiors, could double as jewelry cases. (The 21-inch chain strap is detachable.)

There’s also a Deco collection of minaudières that captures the sleek geometry of the Roaring 20s, red-hot as we begin the 2020s. By going back to the future, Khan demonstrates once again that he is a man of the moment.

January 22, 2020

If Jeffrey Levinson’s lozenge-shaped chrome and 18-karat gold minaudières recall sleek racecars and space capsules, that’s no accident. Like a contemporary Colossus, Levinson strides the worlds of finance/science and the arts, the analytical and the intuitive, the entrepreneurial and the creative. One of his grandfathers was an architect, while an aunt has a sculpture in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Levinson himself would hone his artistic and scientific sides with a bachelor of arts degree from Wesleyan University, a master’s in maritime economics and policy from the University of Delaware and an MBA from the University of Virginia.

His first job was as a scientific advisor to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Stints in marketing at Ford Motor Co. and Jaguar Cars North America followed. Finance awaited. At Janney Capital Markets, he led clean tech and project finance efforts, completing $6 billion in transactions and advisory for clients worldwide. That was followed by his tenure as managing principal of Spring House Advisors, a boutique consultancy advising clients on growth initiatives and capital raising.

Levinson would marry the two strains in his personality in a Philadelphia-based, “made in the U.S.A.” accessories company, which began with his line of Elina clutches in 2014.

“Elina” means “ray of light,” and the clutches’ gleaming, curved surfaces capture that luminosity. The solid-color purses, which Mary Jane Denzer carries, are like gemstones. Others are adorned with butterflies and botanicals. One in particular features white and multicolored butterflies on a pearly field, with the large, black-and-white butterfly casting a trompe l’oeil effect as it seems to flit toward you. This clutch has an Italian lambskin lining in white; a detachable 30-inch stainless steel serpentine chain (although a 46-inch cross-body chain is also available); bright chrome hardware; and two interior pockets. It also comes with a logo dust bag and a micro-fiber polishing cloth.

Ah, but will it accommodate the largest cell phones? For that, you’ll want the Elina PLUS, 30% larger for even the bulkiest phone cases. As with the Elina, the PLUS has Levinson’s patented phone signal access technology that allows your phone to work while inside the neatly closed (and latched) purse.

Technology aside, Levinson’s style has yielded a clutch that will race into your heart and make you feel like a million bucks.

December 10, 2019

When we think of fashion, we don’t think of a butcher’s shop. But maybe we should. The French designer Roland Mouret grew up around his father’s butcher shop in a mountain village in the rural southwest not far from Lourdes, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous. Today, Bernadette is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church and Lourdes a place where the faithful afflicted come to pray for miracles and bathe in its spring.

Meanwhile, Mouret experienced something of a miracle of his own, leaving the countryside and the expectation of succeeding his father in the shop for a career in fashion in Paris.

But in many ways, his early experience in his father’s shop would be the making of him as a designer, one who remains a favorite of ours as Mary Jane Denzer. Working with meat gave him what his website calls a “fearless” approach to flesh – and cutting and folding. (It’s no surprise that he is known as the “king of curve” and a master of drapery.) His country upbringing also influenced his choice of fabric.

“My clothes are for a city life,” he observes, “yet in the wools and textures of the countryside.”

In other ways, though, the country mouse became a city slicker. He hung out under a streetlamp outside the impossible-to-get-into nightspot Le Palace, wearing a handmade blue “Zazou” suit accessorized by a cigarette, waiting for fate to say, “Come in.” When it did, he worked as a model, stylist and art director. But after 10 years, he needed a change. Mouret found it in London, where he decided to put his knowledge of cutting and talent for drapery to the test as a self-taught fashion designer inspired by Azzedine Alaia and Yohji Yamamoto, for whom he modeled.
“One day, I realized ‘I’m 36 and, if I don’t try by 40, I’m going to be bitter,” he said of his 1997 beginnings.

He expanded and foundered, bouncing back with his Galaxy dress, a timeless signature, and relaunching as RM in 2006. Along the way, he developed a female following – famous and obscure – that was delighted to have a designer unafraid of curves, be they tiny or supersized. Roland Mouret dresses – and now separates and bridal – work with your shape and your foundation garments. They give, as he says, “good bum.”

To these he has added eyewear; shoes; handbags; accessories; a fragrance, Une Amourette; a store and atelier in London’s tony Mayfair section; and a book, appropriately titled “Roland Mouret: Provoke Attract Seduce” (Rizzoli, 2018).

Yet, he remains a country boy, living and working in Suffolk; and, in his own words, an outsider, no matter how many celebrities he dresses. Albeit one who knows how to be invited in from the cold.

November 13, 2019

Classic, sophisticated, feminine: J. Mendel is go-to fashion for our topsy-turvy times – and for us here at Mary Jane Denzer, who have long featured the house’s shimmering, ladylike creations.

“People are trying to save the planet, and they are becoming more aware of their surroundings,” CEO and creative director Gilles Mendel told Vogue. “In clothing [that translates into] an idea of being more conscious of what you wear.”

And what you wear being sustainable not only environmentally but sartorially. Here’s Vogue on what Mendel brings to this concept in his Fall Collection: “Manipulation of materials is the bedrock of Mendel’s practice, and for Fall it was evident in a red mille-feuille pleated dress with an asymmetric ruffle neckline and a confectionery pink princess dress; keepers, both….The best of (the line’s younger looks) were ruffled dresses of lovely lace in a sort of super-lady Batsheva mode and beaded knit openwork tunics; think of them as the dressed-up-lady equivalent of the holey T-shirt.”

Vogue was even more enthusiastic about Mendel’s Spring Ready-to-Wear Collection, inspired by the transparency and intricacy of Venetian glass. (Giles’ father, Jacques, whom he succeeded at the company’s helm in 1981, was a Venetian glass collector.) White lace and print dresses, a white mesh-patterned tulle embellished with cord and beads, a pink pleated dress wrapped in a gigantic bow at its empire waist: These spoke of the collection’s lucent theme. But, Vogue noted, “The purest expression of Mendel’s craft, and most resonant with his Venetian theme, was a black dress with beaded horsehair appliqués topped by a cape bolero that would be the belle of any ball.”

The key word in that sentence may be “horsehair,” for J. Mendel did not begin life as a fashion house but as a furrier in 1870 St. Petersburg, Russia, where Joseph Mendel – the original “J” in J. Mendel – operated under the principles of quality, craftsmanship, luxury and style. Five years later, he was commissioned to create an ermine cape for Czar Alexander II’s wife, the Czarina Maria Alexandrovna, which began the Mendel association with the Romanov dynasty as its official furrier. In 1918, that dynasty came to an end as its last ruler, Czar Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, and their five children were assassinated following the Russian Revolution. Two years later, Jacques Mendel moved to Paris – which would be home in the 1920s to many creative Russian expatriates like Ballets Russes founder Serge Diaghilev and choreographer George Balanchine – and went to work for the house of Révillion.

There in the City of Light, Jacques opened the first Mendel fur atelier in 1934. It was relocated in 1970 to the Rue Saint-Honoré, home of the first J. Mendel Boutique. In 1980, Jacques collaborated with French designers Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Bernard Perris on their fall ready-to-wear collections.

With Gilles’ ascent a year later came not only a change in continent but a broadening of perspectives. He shifted operations to New York City, ultimately launching a ready-to-wear collection (2002), a bridal collection (2007) and a flagship now at 787 Madison Ave. In addition to the fur, couture, ready-to-wear and bridal collections – all produced in New York – there is a handbag collection, made from furs, luxury leathers and alligator by craftsmen in Italy and a home furnishings line.

Meanwhile, Giles’ daughter Chloe has completed the circle with a twist: Her Maison Atia, billed as the first luxury faux fur brand and co-founded with Gustave Maisonrouge, has opened a boutique at 833 Madison Ave.
No doubt Joseph Mendel would be pleased.

October 11, 2019

Co-Owners Debra OShea and Anastasia Cucinella with Andrew Gn at his Parisian Atelier during Fashion Week 2020

When you’re of Chinese and Japanese descent; grow up in Singapore; study in London and Milan; and work and live in Paris, you tend to develop a global perspective quickly.

Such is the case of Andrew Gn, a Mary Jane Denzer favorite, who creates elegantly eclectic fashions for the worldly woman.

“The Andrew Gn woman is radiant, confident and cosmopolitan,” his website notes. “When it comes to fashion, she wants the best and more. We endeavor to design for her clothing which embodies that beauty and perfection, with an undeniable modern edge.”

You can see that rarefied edge in the Fall Winter Collection – black and white patterns of every kind; red leopard print and bright green snakeskin print; coat dresses with cowl necks, festooned with bows down the front; asymmetrical necklines and hemlines; one-shoulder columnar styles; outfits that look like separates – the top, fitted and high-neck, with a cutout décolletage, the bottom a swing skirt.

Gn continues to complement the demure with the daring in his Spring Summer 2020 Collection – mini dresses with slits but also loose turtle necks and gigot (leg of mutton) sleeves; tailored jackets over bell-shaped midis hemmed in lace; layered, fringed caftans; see-through bodices and skirts. These provide the canvases for a profusion of florals and paisleys that suggest everything from African art to chinoiserie to Modernism and pop culture, drawing stars like Amy Adams, Tina Fey, Mandy Moore, Anna Netrebko and Olivia Wilde.

Recently, Gn – who studied at Central Saint Martins in London and Domus Academy Milano before coming to Paris to work as Emmanuel Ungaro’s assistant – established a new salon in Le Marais, a hip district in Paris’ 4th arrondissement that’s home to boutiques, galleries and the Musée Victor Hugo. The salon’s inspirations range from ancient Egypt (armchairs) to Venice (chandeliers from the palazzo of the Doria Pamphili family), from James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room (now in Washington D.C.’s Freer Gallery of Art) to the Iranian artist Roshanak Varasteh’s mural of a paradisiacal pomegranate tree, a symbol of power in ancient Persia.

It’s a reminder that Gn is an eternal collector – as well as a designer who inspires women to collect his creations.

“My motto has always been absolute beauty,” he told the Houston Chronicle in May. “And what I make are beautiful things, things that people don’t wear once and throw away. They pass them down.”

A designer for our times

‘Clutch’ player

Roland Mouret — from butcher boy to fashionista

From Russia with love – the house of J. Mendel

A citizen of the world who designs for the cosmopolitan woman