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February 28, 2009
Gene Marshall Dolls - Jason Wu
Wu wears his sudden fame with humility
By Christopher Muther, Globe Staff | February 19, 2009
NEW YORK - Perhaps it was just a coincidence that designer Jason Wu took inspiration from antique illustrations of fairy tales for his latest collection, or maybe it was actually a case of fashion echoing life.
Wu, the 26-year-old wunderkind whose fall/winter 2009 collection received across-the-board-praise from the style world here at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, has been living something of a fairy tale himself recently. It was only last month that Michelle Obama, the woman who could be seen as Wu's fashion fairy godmother, chose to wear one of his gowns to the inaugural balls. Suddenly, Wu went from up-and-comer to household name.
"She's given me more than I could have dreamed of," Wu said Saturday afternoon in his midtown studio. "It's pretty amazing that somebody would have given me that opportunity."
Opportunity struck twice when Obama then posed on the March cover of Vogue wearing another of Wu's dresses. For a young designer in a shaky economic climate, the first lady's endorsement has led to an explosion of media coverage, not to mention offers for everything from reality television shows to low-priced clothing lines. Buyers are lining up to talk to Wu about selling his clothes in their stores. (Wu's clothing can be found at Louis Boston).
But despite the fact that Wu looks like he's barely out of high school, he's remarkably mature about his newfound fame. He's eschewing the TV offers and various get-rich-quick schemes and continuing to focus on what's important to him: making fashion for working women. He sees his customer as a woman who works, heads out for cocktails, and then to a sophisticated dinner.
"I think we're all looking forward to seeing were Jason Wu's career takes him," said Hamish Bowles, Vogue's European editor at large. "He's done an incredible amount already, and his work is mature beyond his years."
Wu got his start in fashion early. As a boy, he started sketching women's clothes. He says he has always been fascinated with fashion.
"Before I knew what a fashion career was, I wanted to be a fashion designer," says Wu, dressed casually in a charcoal gray sweater, jeans, and sneakers. "I love the way that clothes are made, I love the way that clothes are constructed. I love pretty things. Fashion encompasses all the things I love - like sculpture and art. I guess it was in my DNA."
Born in Taiwan, Wu and his family settled in Vancouver. He attended Eaglebrook School in Deerfield for middle school, and then went to boarding school at Loomis Chaffee in Connecticut. During those years, he would occasionally sneak to Boston with friends and stroll Newbury Street for fashion inspiration.
It was during high school that Wu started his first job in the fashion industry - designing clothes for a line of high-end dolls.
"The one thing with the dolls is that it heightened my awareness of details, because once you've worked in miniature, that's all it is is little details," he says. "I was clipping little threads off all the time. As a result of that, attention to detail is an important quality for us.
"But dolls weren't my goal. I loved doing it because it was fun, but meanwhile I was always working toward becoming a fashion designer and going to Parsons."
His self-funded label (with help from his parents and earnings from his work with dolls) began in 2006, and since that time he has earned the close support of editors at Vogue, who came backstage after his runway show last week to congratulate him.
Despite rumors that she may be attending Wu's fashion show, Obama was not in the audience, and Wu has yet to speak with her. However, he did promptly send a letter after she wore the now-famous white, one shoulder gown.
"I've always been a note person, so I wrote her a thank you," he says. "I really don't know what I can do for someone who has done so much for me. How could I reciprocate in the same way?"
Wu says he's aware that not everybody liked the dress, but most important to him is the fact that Obama liked it.
"One thing that people need to know is that it's about the clothes for her," he says. "She's not caught up in the designer world and she's not about big names. She wears clothes that she likes. I think that's what's great about her. She has her own rules."
The fact that he designs his clothes for women, and not Hollywood party girls, has helped Wu find a strong and devoted customer base very early in his career. He is now looking at expanding into fragrance and cosmetics. He's even mulling expanding into menswear one day. But he has no plans to start a lower priced line or enter into a collaboration for a one-off collection with Target or H&M.
"I've had a crazy number of offers to work on other projects," he says. "But this is really the focus for me. I've never had a secondary goal. I want to put all of my energy toward making the kind of clothes that women see on the runway and want to reach out, touch, and wear."
Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com
Posted by fashiondoll at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2009
Barbie at 50
Fashion dolls plot to edge out Barbie, 50
By Jean-Baptiste Piggin
Feb 5, 2009, 1:09 GMT
Nuremberg, Germany - Barbie, the original fashion doll, turns an ageless 50 next month and must fight off a string of equally skinny challengers vying for attention from the world's little girls.
Mattel Inc, the world's biggest toy company, is planning celebrations all year marking the anniversary of the March 9, 1959 appearance at the New York Toy Fair of Barbie, who has since developed separate African-American and Hispanic identities and dozens of doll friends.
During the Nuremberg Toy Fair, which opens its doors Thursday for a six-day run, live mdels with outrageously long false eyelashes are showing 50 years of Barbie fashions. The company is celebrating Barbie as a role model who opened up new careers for girls.
Barbie came out in astronaut clothing in 1965, as a dentist in 1997 and dressed as a US presidential candidate on three occasions.
Fashions change, but fashion dolls, which enable young girls to fantasize about what it will be like to be grown up, never go out of date in the toy shops of the world. As if to emphasize that this really is just fantasy, the newest crop claim magical powers.
Among the hopefuls at the fair is Wayne Jacobs, a South-African- born toymaker offering his first-ever doll, Princess Petal.
Sold with her own storytime book for the 3-7 age range, fairy Petal can flutter her wings when touched with a magic wand.
The wand contains a magnet which activates a battery-powered motor inside the doll's body. Lithe-limbed Petal is part of the Sparkle and Friends series which all have 'magic' abilities.
Jacobs, who originally set up his business in Sydney, Australia, moved a year and a half ago to Hong Kong, the centre of the world toy industry. 'My dream was to take this worldwide,' he said in an interview in Nuremberg, where he was looking for distributors.
Giochi Preziosi, an Italian firm that says it is the world's fourth largest toy company, is this month to launch another long- legged fairy doll, Tinker Bell, who dresses in skimpy clothes.
Manufactured under licence from the Disney Fairies franchise, she is being sold as a tie-in with the computer-animated, direct-to-DVD film Tinker Bell, which was released late last year. Disney is set to release three sequels, one per year, into 2011.
Claudio Macchi, brand manager of the company, which is based near Milan, said Giochi Preziosi would follow up this summer with fairy dolls that can variously move their wings, release pixie dust (actually a puff of fine glitter) and even blush.
In the Tink and Terence two-doll pack, 23-centimetre-tall Tink's cheeks glow red whenever she is brought close to male fairy Terence.
Giochi Preziosi is in the process of winding up its distribution in Italy of Bratz, the line of US fashion dolls which were hit by a lawsuit at the end of last year, and is glad of a replacement series that little girls can collect.
Once wildly popular among little girls, the sexily-dressed Bratz dolls face an uncertain future after Mattel won a court case in California against the manufacturer, MGA Entertainment, alleging copyright infringement and breach of contract.
Bryan Stockton, who heads non-US sales at Mattel, said in an interview in Nuremberg, 'We're very pleased with that.'
The court agreed that Bratz creator Carter Bryant was employed by Mattel at the time he developed the idea for the Bratz dolls.
Stockton said this meant that 'Bratz happens to be Mattel's idea.' Mattel is now pursuing a wider claim for damages.
'We are open to discussion of settlement terms,' Stockton said.
MGA Entertainment is appealing and says on its website that it has won a stay till the end of this year in the court order.
Despite the new competition from Petal, Tink and their fairy friends, Barbie, who has been available for ages in a fairy version with wings that flutter, reigns supreme among girls aged 3 to 8 in much of the world.
Stockton explained that Barbie today is more than just a doll: it is a brand.
'If you look at every euro spent on the brand, roughly half is spent on the Barbie toy and nearly half is spent on Barbie-brand products: fragrances, backpacks and so on. So the brand is an important part of girls' lives,' he said.
That appeal continues right through to young professional women in Asia who enjoy wearing the Barbie look.
In 'another first for the brand,' the House of Barbie Shanghai retail store, a clothing and accessories boutique for young women, is opening in China. Its most expensive item is a 15,000-dollar wedding dress.
At 50, Barbie is as fresh as ever. Stockton said Mattel will continue to develop new Barbies that reflect changing dress fashions.
'Our job is to build on her legacy,' he said.
Posted by fashiondoll at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)