Exciting News - Bride Re-Launch

Once again the Bride fashion team have been hard at work creating the most beautiful fashion pages for our summer 2010 issue. It's been a while since my last post but there are very exciting reasons for this neglect. Soon readers you will get to enjoy and experience a whole new look Bride magazine, websites and blogs - all devoted to really helping you with this super fun and meaningful time in your life!
For the past few months our whole talented gang of writers, web developers, designers and innovative thinkers here at Bride have been flat chat finding the best and most useful types of information, search options, genius functionality not too mention stunning inspiring images that will help you find all things bridal 100% better!

In just weeks - mid September - you will get to experience our very pretty new look magazine and hot on the heels of this will be the fantastic new website you'll find when you go to bride.com.au.
From then on you won't just get to read blogs from me but also from our very clever (and constantly being bridesmaids) editorial team.  Our Bride editor Jamie, assistant editor Virginia,  Bride's web genius Kimberley (currently in Canada being a bridesmaid - see? dedicated to the cause!) and me too! These gals are immersed in all things bridal as they bring you the well researched and informative stories in the magazine and online plus all their friends keep getting married. Just which of them is going to actually do the deed themselves will keep all of us guessing for the next few years! In the meantime they are getting the facts together for all you current bride-to-bes and loving looking at the many real weddings sent into us from you! I will continue my obsession with the gowns both here and on the brand new blog that you will find on the sparkling new bride.com.au!! If you girls are anything like I was, the dress is one very enticing part of the experience.

So exciting! We are dying to unviel - the suspense is killing us ...but we have to finish it off before we deliver it! So stay tuned!!!!
In the meantime I have been out in the cold as usual shooting a summer issue in winter... it's a fashion editor's lot in life. Probably why I am sick in bed today!! But last week we were jumping for joy.....check out me and the uber-talented photographer Marija Ivkovic (she's in the blue) workshopping a few cover looks!! Maybe not quite bridal enough......what do you think?

Until next time... keep your eyes peeled for our September re-launch issue and our simply fabulous new website!!

I am jumping with joy! Very "September Issue" for those who saw the movie!
Kirstie

Is Couture Fashion Art?

So you’re about to be a bride and you’re searching for or maybe you just found your wedding dress? Your appreciation for couture or just plain gorgeous frocks should be heightened!!!

So if you live in Brisbane (wish I did!) you are lucky enough to be able to go and view some of the most exquisite couture creations ever made at the Qld Gallery of Modern Art.  The incredible gowns are featured in Valentino, Retrospective: Past/Present/Future

“Valentino The Last Emperor” was one of my favourite films from last year. 
This most amazing doco followed around this brilliant but madly eccentric and diva like designer who’s one of the last real haute couture designers in the world. It showed a little glimpse of this retrospective, which was first mounted in Paris.  The film includes the most incredible opening night of the show that will take your breath away!! Frock lovers (and even those with just a passing interest) would gasp at the beauty of this event cleverly used as the finale of the film. The combination of the superb gowns and all that theatrical flair is awe-inspiring.  
There has been some interesting debate I discovered on the weekend in the Australian newspaper about whether fashion is art. What a great question!  Is it more appropriate to see fashion or more specifically dresses in a museum as cultural references of the time then in an art gallery as works of art? Is fashion more a commercial venture than an artistic one?  Well as a couture lover I honestly think that the creativity and the aesthetic beauty in a precious couture gown has merit as art. When you think of the imagination & inspiration followed through to the final realisation of all the style elements, the ornamentation, the use of fabric, it seems to me that this is artistic genius at work!  
I have always adored couture-wedding gowns for this reason. I admire the beauty and the creativity that leads to the wonderful end result. The perfect delicate intricate details that make them special.

Back to that Valentiono show  - and I am seriously thinking about hopping on a plane to go and see for myself  - the frocks there include his first collection designed in 1959 through to his final one in 2008 . There’s also some from the Autumn/Winter 2009–10 creations by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli – who became creative directors for Valentino in 2008. The fact that Valentino’s designs span over five decades is another revelation. What a career! What an inspiration. I love his red obsession too – it’s the wedding dress colour for both Indian and Chinese cultures .....(or girls who want a bit of drama!)

For brides who are immersed in this world of couture and can imagine themselves swanning about in a Valentino – I think check  him out – either on film or up close!

Till next time.
Kirstie

P.S.  There is a brilliant book as well (see below) – I snapped this up for my coffee table last year. Elegance galore!!