The Coveteur is great inspiration to plug out of reality from and plug in to a world of dream wardrobes, elaborate personal spaces of travel trinkets and vintage treasures. My nightly rounds zipping around the world via the digital realm is quintessential in keeping the soul light. Here’s a little getaway from your office, room, car and all the mundane – escape into three different personalities in the Fashion World in lieu of The Coveteur’s Fashion Week Series and Red Carpet Week. Get Carried Away, in all Carrie Bradshaw spirit.
Image: The Coveteur
WHAT FASHION WEEK IS LIKE FOR A BIG TIME FASHION BUYER.
Holly Russell, Net-a-Porter Saint Laurent Buyer.
This fashion month we wanted to take a closer look at how people working in all different parts of the industry experience the insanity, whether they’re front row, behind the scenes, shooting on the street or working in the studio. We already got the designer’s perspective (courtesy OG Anna Sui), and Sydney Reising told us what throwing parties and curating guest lists all while running her own independent PR company is like. But there are many more to come…
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Like Holly Russell, for example, who is a senior buyer at Net-A-Porter in charge of buying, as she calls them, “power designers” (that would be the likes of Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, Prada, Miu Miu… pretty much everything currently on your wish list) for the online shopping mecca. Sounds like a dream job, right? But fashion month is non-stop work for Russell, who, on top of attending the biggest shows, gets to see the clothes up close and personal at a showroom, and then must send her orders out only a few days later. And that guys, amounts to a lot of late nights. When we photographed Russell in head-to-toe Givenchy in her room at the NoMad Hotel, her NYFW HQ, she told us that she always takes a vacation right before fashion week so that she can start energized. Now we understand why.
Image: The Coveteur
Image: The Coveteur
WHEN HE TALKS, FASHION LISTENS
Eric Wilson, InStyle
By: Meagan Wilson
In our minds, the very best kind of fashion coverage—whether it be a heart-stopping Tim Walker editorial or in-depth Business of Fashion long-read scrutinizing the nitty-gritty of the industry—is the kind that’s able to maintain a very fine line. It offers a smart, nuanced perspective and reminds you why you chose the industry in the first place; all without sanitizing any of the glamour or shiny bits that are inherent to the whole thing. Something that walks the line between introspective and inspiring, or retains its fantasy while still refusing to be dumbed down.
With that spirit in mind, we can think of no one better to kick off the eve of fashion month than Eric Wilson, an industry veteran whose body of work to date embodies just that—the sort of capital “J” journalism that intellectualizes and completely turns upside down what could easily be another fluffy trend piece or celebrity profile. With a career that spans posts at WWD, The New York Times and now, InStyle, Wilson’s seen it all—and we quizzed him on it accordingly.
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ON CLIMBING THE RANKS; BOTH PAID & UNPAID
“I struggled my way through internships at local newspapers and managed to come to New York University, where one of the first things I did was call upInterview Magazine and ask for an internship. Fortunately enough, they were willing to let me work there for free, so I did that for more than a year of my college experience. I loved doing that. Out of college I took a full-time internship that did pay with New York Newsday, doing general [stuff], assignments, reporting. I got to try a lot of different things, from crime reporting to corrupt politics, to the tiny little bit of fashion that I did cover for News Day, which was the opening of Bryant Park venue for Fashion Week in ’94. I remember how exciting that was.”
Image: The Coveteur
Image: The Coveteur
Image: The Coveteur
Guys, it’s the Oscars this weekend. Have you heard? Have you been flicking through the myriad online galleries featuring the best of past Oscar red carpet moments like we have? At this point, we know there’s been a lot of them… From recent years, did you see Jared Leto’s Givenchy powder blue suit or Lupita Nyong’o’s blue Prada? Or, if you’re looking at the best red carpet moments of all time, you probably caught Nyong’o’s red, caped Ralph Lauren situation from the Golden Globes—actually, there’s no need to get specific: any Lupita look ever will pretty much win any best dressed poll. In case you didn’t get where we were going with this, all these red carpet “moments” are the handy work of Micaela Erlanger, the stylist who’s the reason why almost all of her clients (Lupita and Leto, but also Michelle Dockery, Common and Hilary Swank) have spent the last two or so years as regulars in the aforementioned best dressed galleries.
Now, we’ve met and photographed our fair share of fashion stylists, and at this point, we kind of know that if they’re dressing their clients in big labels like Prada and J. Mendel, but also slightly lesser known more modern designers like Rosie Assoulin and Alexander Vauthier (more please!), they’re likely amassing their own envy-inducing wardrobe. Which is exactly what we got when we arrived at Erlanger’s expertly decorated West Village apartment (with a little bit of help from interior designer Amy Courtney).
But fashion isn’t just Erlanger’s job—the woman is straight up obsessed; she’s the type who couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Sure, she has all the staples, like a hold-all Prada bag, a Saint Laurent motorcycle jacket and half a dozen Manolo Blahnik flats (the stylist confessed on set to having lost track of how many pairs of shoes she actually owns). But she’s also a deeply devout vintage shopper and has a collection that includes everything from a YSL turban to a brocade ‘90s-style Prada dress. We could have stayed long past wrap time (trust us when we say that this was just the tip), but Erlanger was flying (with new puppy Oliver stowing away in her suitcase) to Los Angeles for a client. Of course, she’ll be back this weekend—and once again, we’re going to go ahead an call it that she’ll be responsible for more than a few of the red carpet hits.
Image: The Coveteur
Image: The Coveteur
Image: The Coveteur
Image: The Coveteur
STYLING: Emily Ramshaw
