Jezebel: abaete

Fashion Show: Abaeté

Dodai — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:20:00 EDT

Laura Poretzky started her label, Abaeté (her family name, which means "person of virtue") in 2004. It has quickly gained recognition thanks to a mix of girly dresses, tough skirts and a decidedly downtown vibe. Her Spring 2009 collection was shown on Saturday afternoon. The Abaeté vision for spring sticks to the "typical" Easter-egg palette: pale blue, soft pink, bright yellow — but with some choppy seersucker dresses and clingy black '80s skirts thrown in. Click the photo at left for a gallery; then click any picture to start the show.

Fundamentalist Fashion: Not So Different Than High Design

Jennifer — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:00:00 EDT

The question that keeps coming up again and again with regards to the Eldorado, Texas branch of the FLDS isn't "Where are all the men?" or even "Where's Sarah?" but rather, "Have you noticed what the women are wearing?" The media has even dubbed the phenomenon, somewhat crassly, "polygamist fashion", and the stories have multiplied in such a way that we figured we should take a look. What we learned is that there actually isn't anything that odd about the sect's sartorial choices — we've seen weirder on the runways of Gaultier. And speaking of high-minded fashion, a few designers (most notably Marc Jacobs) seem to have anticipated (or rather, copied) the FLDS aesthetic. After the jump, selected looks from various designers whose recent wares look most similar (in modest silhouette and tonal palette) to that of the FLDS females.

L & C: Chris Benz SS08, R: Behnaz Sarafpour SS08

Benz's tone-on-tone palette and long, loose cuts were one of the most championed styles of the season. Behnaz Sarafpour uses the same 1950's shirtdress modelings as that of the FLDS uniforms.

L & C: Behnaz Sarafpour SS08, R: Angel Chang SS08

In trenches and dresses alike, Sarafpour underscores the feminine by obscuring the body. Angel Chang's muted colors and conservative hem and necklines make modesty modern.

L to R: Vera Wang SS08, Abaete SS08, Marc Jacobs FW08.

Vera Wang goes bold in rich jewel tone that is as shocking in its proportion as its shade. Abaete uses the shift and lightened earth tones to allow her model to all but disappear. Marc Jacobs' "Paul Revere" collection was a masterwork in the kind of color and proportion play found in the compound, repeated musings on one central concept.

[Images via Elle.com.]

Polygamists Make Their Own Fashion Statement [MSNBC]

This Fall, We'll All Be Flappers On Acid In French Boarding Schools

Jennifer — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:30:00 EST

New York Fashion Week kicked off on Friday at the tents in Bryant Park, and in the ensuing three days, plenty of big-name designers have given us their vision of what women can look forward to, sartorially that is, once winter passes, summer swelters, and the chill sets in again. Designers as disparate as Diane von Furstenberg and Baby Phat played with the idea of the modern flapper: Dropped hems, deco styling, thoroughly modern (Millie), all of it. But if heading for a night out at your local speakeasy is not your thing, fret not: Fashion-minded females can always play prim and proper (and somewhat naughty) by embodying the French school girl chic shown at DKNY and Tracy Reese. After the jump, and using ten representative images from each show, Dodai and I weigh in on The Good, The Bad & The Ugly from these shows (and others) following Fashion Week's first, incredibly exhausting, weekend.

(Click on any image in galleries to begin the show)
BCBG:

Nicole Miller:

Erin Fetherston:

Baby Phat:

Abaete:

Alexandre Herchkovitch:

Sass & Bide:

Rock & Republic:

Herve Leger:

DKNY:

Tracy Reese:

Diane Von Furstenberg:

Miss Sixty:

More Cheap Chic Coming To Payless

Anna — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:40:31 EDT

We're not exactly arbiters of the fashion industry, but we've never been particularly thrilled with the designs that Abaete's Laura Poretzky has been doing for Payless ShoeSource. In theory, having an upscale designer create shoe styles for the low-cost retailer is a fantastic idea, but Poretzky's sorta dowdy styles have always left us unimpressed. Maybe it's that we don't like mules. Or that the navy-or-black-and-white floral designs look a bit too Connecticut-WASP for our tastes. (Poretzky, of course, did hone her skills while toiling for Ralph Lauren).

But no matter. This afternoon brings news that Payless has just hired Bernard Figueroa — who was the head of shoe design for Michael Kors — to head up its women's footwear division. As anyone can see from the styles he's designed for
Kors, Figueroa's shoes are all about sass and sex, with a focus on color, height, and exposed skin (the human, not the leather kind). Here's hoping Payless lets him continue to express this vision.

If The Shoe Fits [FashionWeekDaily]