Mary Jane Denzer – Mary Jane Denzer

Sabina Belinko’s twin use of drama and romance

*Lisa Dress in black crepe. Photographs courtesy Sabina Belinko.*

Sabina Belinko’s designs possess an enchanting duality – at once dramatic and romantic.

There is a sleek sophistication to the sequined, beaded Bilenko evening gowns and dresses we are featuring at Mary Jane Denzer – fitted silhouettes, angular necklines and drapery, monochromatic colors – mostly black, navy and cream – or color-block effects.

Recreated for the fall, Bilenko’s best-selling Lisa Dress, a strapless midnight blue midi, displays not only intricate beading but an arresting arched neckline that both draws the eye upward and announces a cocktail party alternative to the Little Black Dress.

Similarly, in the Sabina Dress – a full-length Empire creation in black, as seen here, or white – a V-neck, sleeveless, sequined bodice in cream introduces a seamless transition to a smooth, columnar skirt.

*The Sabina dress comes in black and white with the same sequined bodice. Photographs courtesy Sabina Belinko.*

Bilenko’s gift for subtle eye openers can also be seen in a gown that finds a long-sleeved, black, leotard-style top paired with a cool-black sequined skirt characterized by a waist that’s cut on a bias and a slit up the right leg.

Such glamour reflects the quiet luxury of fashion at this moment. But the monochromatic quality of her designs can also make use of bright and deep colors. Teal peblum midi suits and pants suits with plunging, crisscross backs. Long-waisted dresses in seafoam. Russet gowns with shoulder pads and scaly trains that echo 1940s film noir. These speak to the romantic side of the designer, as do the pink, blush and lavender mermaid silhouettes of the Autumn Winter 2024 Couture Collection, with its floral embellished bodices. (Is it any wonder that Bilenko should also have a striking bridal collection?)

As her website states, “the draping is freer, the embroideries more exaggerated and the sculptural touches gentler – as if Mother Nature has taken over the artisan’s hand.”

*Bold lines characterize this slant-waist, slit gown. Photographs courtesy Sabina Belinko.*

Bilenko’s duality was perhaps born of her twinship. She and twin sister Diana, creative director of the brand, grew up in Uzbekistan, the daughters of a woman who collected fashion pieces. At 15, they moved to London to study and eventually earned master’s degrees in luxury management. They began with a baby couture label in 2017, continued with Grace Floral London in 2020 and, working at a kitchen table during the pandemic, moved on to the Sabina Bilenko label.

You can see the twins’ Uzbek traditions in the designs’ use of ornamentation. But as Diana told Vogue Arabia, “Fashion is about personality and confidence, not brands and trends.”

The sisters are committed to Centrepoint, a charity in the United Kingdom that fights youth homelessness, with Prince William as its patron.

Added Sabina: “I believe it takes both strength and kindness to be elegant.”

Tags: Sabina Bilenko, Diana Bilenko, Uzbekistan, Vogue Arabia, Centrepoint, London, Grace Floral London, Prince William, United Kingdom, Mary Jane Denzer,

Welcoming spring with Erdem

British designer Erdem Moralıoğlu tapped the spirit of the elegant Greek soprano Maria Callas, seen here in 1958 on the CBS program “Small World,” for the Erdem fashion house’s Fall Collection.

Florals are very much in the DNA of British designer Erdem Moralıoğlu. And that makes his designs a wonderful resource here at Mary Jane Denzer for the spring season and all that we associate with it — bridal showers, rehearsal dinners and weddings, particularly the still-trending barn wedding.

It’s not only the prints, however, but Erdem’s textured use of materials that makes his dresses and gowns so engaging. A linen dress is overlayed with floral organza. A cream satin is presented ruched and off-the-shoulder. A floral chiffon is offset with sleek pleats.

Erdem linen dress with floral organza overlay.

Floral dresses and gowns – draped and layered asymmetrically or presented as two pieces with a flowing skirt and a plunging bodice, at once concealing and revealing the sinuousness, and sensuousness, of the female form – were on display Feb. 17 at the British Museum in London as the Erdem fashion house presented its Autumn-Winter 2024 Collection.

But this was the yin to the Erdem show’s yang. Coats with broad, bold collars in soft colors – gray, celadon and marigold – announced the confidence that is also part of womanhood.

Erdem ruched, satin, off-the-shoulder, cream floral dress.

That confidence and floral beauty served as homage to the striking, fiery New York City-born Greek soprano Maria Callas, especially her role in “Medea,” with runway models sporting kohl-rimmed eyes and shoes festooned with feathers and roses to channel their inner diva. (The British Museum location was not without its controversy– amid marbles from the Parthenon in Athens, known as the Elgin Marbles – a source of contention between the British and Greek governments.)

But Callas – whose birth centenary fans celebrated last year – was herself a controversial singer and cultural figure, her remains repatriated to Greece in 1977 after her final years of isolation in Paris.

“I wanted to show in this space that epitomized her Greek-ness,” Moralıoğlu said at the time of the show, adding, “I was interested in the idea of someone starting off somewhere and ending up somewhere else.”

And just as “Medea,” the ancient Greek play by Euripides and the 18^th-century opera by Luigi Cherubini, became metaphors for Callas as a woman scorned by shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis once he married widowed first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy – although depending on the sources, Onassis continued to see Callas ,and Kennedy was fine with that – Vogue suggests Callas has become a metaphor for the multicultural Moralıoğlu, who was born in Montreal to an English mother and Turkish father and grew up there and in Birmingham, England.

His education reflects that transatlantic upbringing. Moralıoğlu graduated from Marianopolis College in Quebec, received a Bachelor of Arts from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, interned for Vivienne Westwood and moved to London in 2000 to study fashion at the Royal Academy of Art on a Chevening Scholarship, funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was then off to New York but relocated to London to establish his own label in 2005.

In 2018, he designed the costumes for Christopher Wheeldon’s ancient Greek-flavored ballet, “Corybantic Games.” Four years later, he expanded into menswear.

Moralioglu’s expansive creativity has led to various honors – including the British Fashion Council’s Women’s Wear Designer of the Year (2014), the International Canadian Designer of the Year at the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards (2017) and a Member of the Order of the British Empire, or MBE, (2020) – as his designs continue to be embraced on both sides of the Atlantic.

Photographs courtesy Erdem.

Tags: Erdem, Erdem Moralıoğlu, Maria Callas, Elgin Marbles, Erdem’s Fall 2024 Collection, Montreal, Quebec, Birmingham, England, New York, Greece, H&M, Royal Academy of Art, Christopher Wheeldon, Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, spring, barn weddings, Mary Jane Denzer

Happy 80th Birthday, Neil!

If there is one designer who has been associated with Mary Jane Denzer in White Plains more than any other over the last 42 years, it is Neil Bieff. Indeed, so often has MJD featured his delicately textured creations, which both caress a woman’s silhouette and flow around her, that store co-owner Debra O’Shea has affectionately described him as a kind of “in-house designer”.

“There’s something about the timelessness and comfort of his clothes,” added O’Shea, who co-owns the store with Anastasia Cucinella. “We have women who wore his dresses to their children’s bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, who now are coming in and looking at gowns for their children’s weddings.”

Bieff – who turns 80 on Jan. 23 – has kept clients coming back with his sculptural use of fabric and painterly approach to color. He begins with fine, textured fabrics, softly draped or cut on a bias to flatter as they accent a woman’s body – beaded chiffon, pebbly wool crepe with smooth satin, a hand-stitched ruffle here, hand embroidery or a band of sequin colors there.

But what is truly remarkable is the way he uses colors as washes – layered to give the design an opalescent quality; contrasted to heighten tension (much as Vincent van Gogh would juxtapose red and green, what he called “the colors of passion,” or blue and yellow); or gradated so that one color subtly blends into another for an ombré effect.

A native New Yorker based in Ossining, Neil honed his skill with and love of color at Syracuse University, where he studied painting, and abroad in Florence and Paris. (His love of sequins and knowledge of hand embroidery are the results of time spent in India.) He started his fashion career as assistant to couturier Arnold Scaasi, then went on to design suits and coats for Dan Millstein. Neil’s own label was born at his Genesis store on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, where yielding matte jerseys would be a bellwether for the shapely chiffons, velvets and wools of his later creations.

A career highlight was also a personal one – designing a bridal gown and dresses for the wedding of son Gwyn to Ikbal Bozkaya in Istanbul in April 2019. For this, he created a sleeveless V-necked bridal gown that was “a very shapely, very diaphanous mélange of different beads, sequins and alabaster stones on white silk chiffon over white silk charmeuse,” he told WAG magazine.

For the after-party, Neil made the bride a short silver halter dress with a sheer back, antique silver sequins, charcoal silk and trapunto stitching (a kind of quilting technique). “It was very young, very sexy,” he said.

Another Neil design saw Ikbal in a cap-sleeved black print dress, trimmed with black satin, whose V neckline and U-shaped back echoed her bridal dress.

No appreciation of Neil would be complete without talking about his deep relationship with Mary Jane Denzer – the store and the woman who founded it. He has called MJD “one of the best stores in the country.”

As for its meticulous founder, Neil recalled his first encounter did not go well as she proclaimed his choice of style and color for one client “a disaster.” But Neil persevered.

“After that, we often collaborated together. Mary Jane did have impeccable taste and an unerring eye. I would like to think we learned from each other, and it always ended up benefiting the client.”

Mary Jane, alas, is no longer with us, having passed in 2015. But her name lives on in the eponymous store, and Neil is set to celebrate the big 80.

So Happy Birthday, Neil – MJD’s “in-house designer” and dear friend.

Tags: Neil Bieff, Mary Jane Denzer, Debra O’Shea, Anastasia Cucinella, Dan Millstein, Istanbul, Florence, Paris, New York, Madison Avenue, Manhattan, Genesis, Syracuse University

From Russia with love – the house of J. Mendel

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.

Angela Caputi Giuggiù’s playful designs

A gift from the fashion gods: Debra O’Shea meets the charmed and charming Angela Caputi, whose designs live up to their branding and her nickname, Giuggiù.

What do fashion icon Iris Apfel, Queen Mathilde of Belgium and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands have in common with us at Mary Jane Denzer?

We’re all fans of Angela Caputi and her fabulous jewelry, whose designs in rich, lacquered resin bridge the figurative and the abstract, the classical and the modern and, most important of all, the fine and the faux in haute couture costume jewelry.

Ropes of beads as big as red seedless grapes held together by a curling crocodile clasp; abstract floral earrings that evoke the legendary cities of Samarkand and Istanbul; pendants that feature a bust of Michelangelo’s “David” – a signature work of her hometown of Florence – turquoise Buddhas or crabs and scarabs that conjure pre-Columbian and Egyptian designs: Caputi’s pieces live up to their branding and her nickname, Giuggiù, which can be loosely translated, she has said, as playful.

Our selections include chunky bracelets and long necklaces with tassles and beading, which marry the curving and the angular in dark, jeweled colors.

Giuggiù jewelry has been designed from the company’s beginning in 1975 by Caputi herself in a workshop in the 17^th-century Palazzetto Medici on Via Santo Spirito – a stone’s throw from the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge that figures so dramatically in “O mio babbino caro,” a signature soprano aria from Giacomo Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi.” Working with synthetic Italian materials alongside a small group that includes family, Caputi creates pieces inspired by American films of the first half of the 20^th century that are popularly priced and yet have been showcased in such august spaces as The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan and the Costume Gallery in Florence.

A champion of women, Caputi designs for the independent, sophisticated woman that is her client but shrewdly also keeps their men in mind.

“Men appreciate the materials I use and find the jewelry designs very interesting,” she told The Florentine in 2007. “They fall in love with the pieces almost immediately and give Giuggiù pieces as gifts. It is a personal and intimate line, because the pieces are one of a kind.”

We can’t but agree. The pieces make a major fashion statement yet are incredibly lightweight – another fascinating seeming contradiction. Perhaps that’s why whenever MJD owners Anastasia Cucinella and Debra O’Shea are in Paris during Fashion Week, their first stop is the Premiere Classe accessories trade show in the Jardin des Tuileries to see what new treasures Caputi has created for the season.

During a trip to Florence last October, O’Shea had a Caputi treat of a more personal nature. While out shopping, she came across the Caputi boutique. (There are two Angela Caputi Giuggiù boutiques in Florence, along with one each in Milan, Forte dei Marmi, Rome and Paris.) Of course, O’Shea went inside to say hello as well as to take pictures for MJD’s Instagram account. That evening, she and her husband celebrated her birthday by dining al fresco at the Hotel Savoy. Just at the moment she was posting the pictures, she noticed Caputi at an adjoining table. It was such a coincidence – or kismet? – that she couldn’t resist saying “Hello” and showing her the photographs. Caputi was charmed and charming as she posed for a photo with O’Shea – a birthday gift from the fashion gods.