The four-months pregnant Nicole Richie was spotted out-and-about with boyfriend Joel Madden as they made their way to get brunch in Los Angeles. Her new bag, which she chose for the occasion to hide her baby bump, was the Givenchy Nightingale Purse.
Little Miss Ashley Fuller Olsen roaming the streets with her hot new Givenchy Nightingale Designer Handbag on arm. Isn’t it a beauty! I adore the Nightingale, the bag is simple but stunning. Definitely an all-day bag from early morning to late night - especially in the fabulous metallic gold color.
Nicole Richie’s new maternity wardrobe is looking so good!
Just days ago, Anna posted this pic of a blooming Nicole Richie - and Nic’s done it again with this gorgeous loose-fitting, bubble-hemmed dress. It’s chic, but it also hides the podgiest of bellies - I want it in three different colours as a result - and she’s accessorised it with a Givenchy Nightingale handbag.
Nic showed off her maternity chic while dining out in New York’s Soho with pal Mischa Barton. And is it me, or has Mischa’s style becoming decidedly more drab since going brunette? That See by Chloe dress might be semi-colourful, but somehow, Miss B’s blonde locks seemed to bring out an edgier side. Get your hands on some Sun-In Mischa, all is forgiven!
Another day, another pretty dress for Nicole Richie. What are the guesses that none of them are from Mothercare’s maternity section?
Still managing to shield any real evidence of being five months’ pregnant, Nicole worked the maxi dress look, along with her favourite Givenchy Nightingale bag, while she was out buying drinks at a healthy juice bar.
More shocking than the idea of Nicole Richie consuming something, however, is seeing her without her trademark oversized shades! And doesn’t she look like a teenager without them? Albeit a seriously rich teenager with a designer dress for every day of the week and a rock star boyfriend.
After his awkward debut during couture week, Welsh designer Julien Macdonald is still struggling to find his feet.
The house of Givenchy has always been known for its purity of line and simplicity of design—the polar opposite of Macdonald’s heavy-handed use of ruching, cord inlays and cabled trims. While some pieces were finely made—notably a striking off-white poplin dancer skirt with layered crinolines and a pink marbleized dip-dye shirt—they got lost in an overabundance of decoration. Macdonald’s high-waist pegged trousers, too sheer smocked dresses and fussy riding jackets all felt contrived.
Ultimately, this collection fell short of forging the new identity that Givenchy seeks.
Julien Macdonald has been handed the mandate to carve out a distinct, but commercially-viable identity for the house of Givenchy. For fall—his second collection as creative director— Macdonald brought in a few of the design ideas currently making the rounds. Patchwork, handkerchief-point chiffon dresses, biker jackets and the somewhat exhausted Casbah look all made an appearance.
Macdonald opened with a grayish-brown distressed leather patchwork parka worn with gray leather pants and stacked knee-high boots. His take on biker leathers involved cutting and seaming the jacket short and close to the body, then adding an Elizabethan-style standup collar. There were also Walter Raleigh-esque bloomers worn with swashbuckling boots, English country house tapestries fashioned into coats and bags, Gloriana-style gilded brocade jeans and a tights-and-tunic look perhaps inspired by a few late-night Errol Flynn movies.
When he exerts his skills in knitwear—his original claim to fame—Macdonald does best, as he demonstrated briefly in this collection with a huge loopy black sweater and some laddered punk knits. But he quickly returned to glitzier looks, like a lame harem jumpsuit, a gold-edged djellaba coat and some café-au-lait-toned satins for evening. It was hard to find a uniting theme other than a feeling for the Eighties. But fashion skewered that decade to death a year ago, and there is still a sense that this collection is struggling to find a raison d’etre.
The real Julien Macdonald has finally stood up at Givenchy couture. At home in London, Macdonald is the razzle-dazzle king of showbiz fashion. Trying to be a refined grownup for the prim-and-proper Givenchy audience hasn’t worked. So, after last season’s essay in intellectual deconstruction, and the previous season’s stab at careful classics, Macdonald is finally showing what he’s made of. It’s brash and it’s loud. It’s got the leather and the bondage and the bodies and the eye-socking rainbows of color. And, hell, why not? If that’s what you do, go on and do it.
That means a black leather trouser suit cut into strips and fastened with aggressive bows. It means a white biker jacket encrusted with gold beads over a flouncy white leather ball skirt. A gold guipure lace Napoleon coat, bristling with fringed epaulets. An evening gown pieced from chiffon handkerchiefs that graduate from yellow through orange.
The neon minidresses, the punk-pink-dyed mink and the coats and gowns with trailing trains had a straightforward honesty about them. They’re good-time clothes aimed straight between the eyes of the pop-ocracy of the world. If Macdonald’s new bid for a house identity went straight over the heads of the stunned ladies in the audience, so be it. There are plenty of new high-spenders in Paris this week who just might get it, and love it. And even if they don’t, Macdonald can say that instead of pussyfooting around, he’s at last given Givenchy his undiluted all.
For Givenchy, Julien Macdonald surfed several of the trend waves that are crashing on the fashion beach for summer. That meant Mediterranean-style versions of the season’s ultra-short, sporty and combat-inspired looks, and hot doses of color.
Ignoring the house’s former reputation for elegant, ladylike suits, Macdonald cut a white piqué jacket with matching micro shorts and paired a classic black jacket with sheer mesh trousers. His focus then turned mostly on resort clothes aimed at those who vacation in places like Saint-Tropez—and whose idea of fashion is to accessorize their hot-pink swimwear with a see-through sport jacket. Rounding out the casually dressy options were shredded lavender denims, and suede jackets and jeans done in vivid jungle-pattern patchwork. For evening, Macdonald channeled the current feeling for goddessy dresses and prints. His best: a black plissé-silk dress with a black empire waistband.
