Alexander Wang is an American fashion designer. His eponymous label embodies a cool, utilitarian chic, downtown style that is favored by both critics and models alike — he describes his style as “M.O.D – models off-duty.”

Born in San Francisco to parents of Taiwanese descent, Wang grew up steeped in beach culture, but moved to New York at 18 to attend the Parsons School of Design. After dropping out in his second year, he began his label in 2004 (which launched with a range of unisex cashmere sweaters) at just 19.

He launched his first full women’s ready-to-wear collection at New York Fashion Week in 2007.

In 2008, he won the prestigious CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, where he received US$20,000 to expand his business. Diane von Furstenberg became his mentor (he cites Anna Wintour and his mother as his other two guides in life), even after he once declined an offer from her to design jumpers for DVF.

In 2009, Wang launched a diffusion line, T by Alexander Wang, which featured pre-weathered cotton T-shirts, tank tops, and T-shirt dress, as well as a footwear collection featuring platform sandals. He has also launched a line of handbags, and, in late 2011, he launched his first sneaker line.

During New York Fashion Week in February 2012, Wang opened his first flagship store in Soho. Now there are 16 flagship stores around the world with 138 stockists.

Wang’s label is a family affair. His brother, Dennis, serves as chief financial advisor for the brand; his sister-in-law, Aimie, is the chief principal officer; and his mother is also involved behind-the-scenes.

In 2016, Wang became the CEO and chairman of the Wang brand, succeeding his mother, Ying Wang, and sister-in-law, Aimee Wang. Later that year, he was awarded $90 million in damages after successfully suing over 45 defendants operating 459 websites that sold counterfeit goods bearing its name. However, the reward is mostly symbolic, as neither Wang nor the brand will likely receive that amount. Wang hosted a 2016 New York Fashion Week show.

In 2017, Wang was named one of HypeBeast’s HB100, their top 100 influencers in the industry.

Alexander Wang is an open supporter of the LGBTQ community. In 2018, Wang partnered with Trojan to release a limited-edition “Protect Your Wang” capsule collection in support of the LGBTQ community and to celebrate Pride.

Wang’s mother is very superstitious. When she was pregnant with Wang at 40, she was hesitant to go through with the pregnancy and sought a fortune teller for advice who ultimately told her to go through with the pregnancy as it would be beneficial in the end.

While Wang is associated with sportswear, he is not athletic and has never played sports.

Alexander Wang’s youthful spirit revolutionized the urban uniform. His eponymous label adopts elements of New York nightlife and street culture, offering refined clothing for women in an array of leather, silk, and denim. Hailed the wunderkind of the fashion industry, look out for timeless bags and studded shoes in our selection of Alexander Wang for women here.

 he describes his style as “M.O.D – models off-duty”.

In 1896, Guido Guidi, Giovanni Rosellini, and Gino Ulivo established “Conceria Guidi Rosellini” in Pescia, Tuscany, where the art of leather tanning has been existing since the middle ages when a guild of tanners and shoemakers had developed it in the XIV century.

Ruggero Guidi is currently running the tannery, and throughout his whole life, he was looking for the perfect balance between advanced technologies and the respect for his heritage of traditions and skills. The “Conceria Guidi Rosellini“ is well-known all over the world: the most demanding designers approach Ruggero Guidi looking for special leathers and treatments, and he is always able to find exactly what they desire.

Passion for leather and respect for its traditions are the two main ideas that push Mr. Guidi’s shoe collection project forward. He is strictly against mass production, focusing instead on his own independent research beyond all the modern tendencies. GUIDI are the shoes for all of those who are in search of something unique with a twist of tradition, the shoes that only a craftsman can create, coming in soft, candid hides or in distressed, redolent, thickened leather. Guidi is the link between the owner and the owner’s soul.

Guidi’s distinctive footwear isn’t only characterized by its supple look and unique coloring, but also by an approach that fuses traditional shoemaking heritage with a contemporary outlook. What started as a family-run tannery in 1896 nestled in Pescia, Tuscany has become the go-to for fashion’s discerning avant-garde.

Central to Guidi is the notion of recreating traditional worker’s shoes with a fresh approach. Imperfection and the individuality of each shoe is as vital as the exacting processes each pair go through to result in a singularly Guidi outcome.

Guidi footwear is object dyed, key to the pliant look and feel of the brand’s boots. The process ensures that each piece emerges from the drum in entirely the same color. This subtle but signature characteristic can only be achieved by dyeing each pair as an assembled object, differentiating from other footwear brands whose uppers and soles are constructed at different sites.

Each pair of Guidi soles are adorned with a stacked leather heel, which not only gives their wearer a flattering lift but is a testament to the brand’s dedication to timeless artisan techniques. Another antiquated technique used to create the brand’s distinguishing pieces is the Goodyear welt. The sole is stitched to a band of material as opposed to directly to the upper, providing added longevity as soles are easier to replace.

Fundamental to the quality of Guidi footwear is its localized production process. The life of a Guidi boot begins at the tannery, where hides are sculpted into patterns and assembled in a factory a stone’s throw away. Once the flat pattern is given its three-dimensional form in the factory, the shoe is returned to the tannery where it is given its vibrant wash of color by carefully hand-mixed dye.

An amalgamation of evolved worker’s shoe lasts, stacked leather heels and alluring statement zips, the brand’s colorful washed pieces have inhabited a new space altogether between artisan, heritage, and a forward-thinking approach.

The art of leather tanning has been existing since the middle ages when a guild of tanners and shoemakers had developed it... 

GUIDI: THE LINK BETWEEN THE OWNER AND THE OWNER’S SOUL

From architectural silhouettes to artistic inspirations, ELLERY encourages self-expression with a decisive and avant-garde aesthetic.

A luxury womenswear label born in Australia, based in Paris. ELLERY empowers women through design with a decisive and avant-garde aesthetic.

Based in Paris and made in Italy. The brand’s core signature transcends trends and promotes timelessness, re-inventing classics with a decadent approach centered on masterful cuts and unexpected details.

Silhouettes are architectural and bold, anchored in an intelligent approach and artistic inspirations. The brand DNA is now firmly cemented in voluminous shapes, masculine tailoring, and innovative fabrications.

Season after season, ELLERY’s goal remains the same: to encourage personal expression and to design clothes for women of excellence.

Proud to create beautiful garments, each collection is meticulously crafted with impeccable savoir-faire. Using fabrics sourced from the finest mills in Italy, South Korea, France, and Switzerland.

Having shown as part of the official Paris Fashion Week schedule, ELLERY is a member of the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode and has been featured in Business of Fashion’s prestigious BOF 500 list.

ELLERY encourages self-expression with a decisive and avant-garde aesthetic. A luxury label born in Australia, based in Paris.

ELLERY: FROM ARCHITECTURAL SILHOUETTES TO ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS

Mugler was born in Strasbourg, France. His passion led him to focus more on drawing than on school; at the age of 9, he began to study classical dance. By 14, he joined the ballet corps for the Opéra national du Rhin.

At the age of 24, Mugler moved to Paris and began working as a professional photographer while simultaneously freelancing as an assistant designer for a number of fashion houses in Paris, London, and Milan. Mugler showed his first ready-to-wear collection (using the brand name Café de Paris) in 1973 and obtained financial backing to open his own company, Thierry Mugler, in 1974.

Melka Tréanton, an influential fashion editor, helped to launch his career. In 1976, she asked him to show his work in Tokyo for an event organized by Shiseido. Within two years, he had opened his first Paris boutique at the Place des Victoires in the 1er Arrondissement. At the same time, Thierry Mugler launched a fashion collection for men. During the 1980s and 1990s, Thierry Mugler became an internationally recognized designer, and his collections garnered much commercial success. At the request of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, he completed his first haute couture collection in 1992. He created the famous black dress worn by Demi Moore in the movie Indecent Proposal the following year.

In 2002 Mugler collaborated with the Cirque du Soleil. He directed “Extravaganza,” a scene from Zumanity, and also created all the costumes and the identity of the characters in the show. In 2009, Mugler worked as artistic advisor to singer Beyoncé. He created the costumes for her “I Am… World Tour”. In 2016, Mugler created and directed the music video and staging for San Marino’s Eurovision Song Contest entry I Didn’t Know performed by Turkish singer Serhat.

Despite retiring from his brand in 2003, he made the exception to design under his name “House of Mugler” for the Met Gala in 2019, and for a dear friend of his, Kim Kardashian. Getting his inspiration from Sophia Loren in Boy on a Dolphin, Mugler envisioned a wet California girl, hence the creation of the “wet couture dress.”

Mugler’s characteristic style draws heavily on the iconography of sexual fetishism, and his models frequently resemble dominatrixes, from their towering high-heeled boots and corseted curves to such accessories as neck corsets and riding crops. Among his most notorious ensembles are a hot-red “cowboy” outfit consisting of hat, corset, chaps, and heels, worn by a black transgender model, and his famous motorcycle bustier inspired by Detroit car styles of the 1950s. Mugler frequently made garments of leather and rubber, some of which make their wearers resemble giant insects drawn from science fiction. Examples of his less-theatrical outfits, such as his colorful and sharply tailored suits, were widely popular, especially in the 1980s. As of 2004, Mugler suspended designing both couture and ready-to-wear, although he continued to produce unique costumes.

THIERRY MUGLER: KNOWN FOR SPECTACULAR RUNWAY SHOWS AND FETISHISTIC FASHIONS

Dion Lee is a designer brand hailing from Sydney, Australia, established in 2009 by its eponymous Creative Director. Renowned for experimental construction combined with traditional tailoring, the brand has pioneered a modern identity for Australian fashion.

The Dion Lee aesthetic is technical with an intelligent sensuality. Each collection marries innovative construction, with a consciousness of the female form. Textiles are engineered to form sculptural embellishments. Architectural silhouettes are dissected to enhance movement and the flow of air and light.

After debuting at Australia Fashion Week, Dion Lee presented collections in London before relocating to New York, where the brand has become a permanent fixture on the seasonal schedule.

Taking an academic approach to the research and realization of his work, Lee is consistently intrigued by the ideas of balance and contrast, mainly as they appear in chemistry, physiology, and the creative arts. The result is clothing that takes near-scientific mindfulness of the body, and cutaways reveal shoulder blades or ribs, floating panels of silk chiffon offer a dramatic range of movement, while elsewhere in a garment tight, almost trussed tailoring might elicit a sense of restriction.

In early 2013, Dion Lee announced that iconic Australian fashion brand, Cue Clothing Company, had acquired a shareholding in the Dion Lee business. With a common goal of building the integrity of the Dion Lee brand, Cue Clothing Co. brings valuable industry knowledge, business acumen, and on-going support to the partnership. Both parties see the collaboration as an opportunity to accelerate Dion Lee’s growth on a domestic and international level.

September 2015 marks the brand’s fifth season at New York Fashion Week, showcasing its Spring Summer 2016 collection. New York has become a secondary base for the brand, regularly showing on the seasonal schedule.

The starting point of the Fall 2020 Dion Lee collection was the fusion of jewelry and garment. A custom chain link that was developed in Lee’s studio allowed him to hike up slits in skirts and lace through knit tops from wrist to wrist with a golden flourish. The success of his stretch jersey dresses and corsets—yes, you’ve seen Gigi Hadid, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Solange Knowles in them recently—inspired an expanded offering of second-skin tops and dresses, none more Hadid-worthy than an entirely backless gray number with chain detailing at the waist. That was a look that did the most. For something that’s just doing a lot, see Lee’s ultra low-rise trousers. The most compelling pair hung from a belly chain; the most outrageous had cutouts at the hip bones to reveal a mock thong strap. This ultra-sexualized look continued through the use of fishnet, hook-and-eye closures, and knit furs. Lee’s material developments led him past jewelry and into dyeing, too, with shibori techniques used on jersey and leather.

What made the collection look so compelling on the runway was its androgynous uniformity. Yes, Lee’s models were rail-thin, but in that, there was very little difference between body types. All genders wore all kinds of garment—and everybody looked smoking. 

DION LEE: EXPERIMENTAL CONSTRUCTION COMBINED WITH TRADITIONAL TAILORING

CUSHNIE is a luxury women’s ready-to-wear and bridal brand designed by Carly Cushnie. Established in 2008, the label was founded on the desire to serve the modern woman. Artfully crafted with clean, sculptural lines, the CUSHNIE collection is precisely tailored to achieve the perfect fit for the female form. Defined by the balance of proportion, structure, and fluidity, the CUSHNIE aesthetic embodies a refined sense of cosmopolitan minimalism and femininity.

“As a woman, I understand what my customer wants from her clothes. I’ve grown and evolved alongside her over the past ten years, and I strive to present her with timeless silhouettes that make her feel sexy, sophisticated, and powerful — all at once.”

The CUSHNIE Collection is worn by influential and inspiring women, including Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Gal Gadot, Lupita Nyong’o, Ava Duvernay, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Lopez, Ashley Graham, and Padma Lakshmi, among many others. CUSHNIE is distributed through over 100 premiere stockists worldwide. The brand was a winner of the Ecco Domani Award (2009), a finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund (2011), and a nominee for the CFDA Swarovski Award (2012).

Artfully crafted with clean, sculptural lines, the CUSHNIE collection is precisely tailored to achieve the perfect fit for the female form.

CUSHNIE: CLEAN, MODERN CUT-OUT DRESSES, SCULPTED KNITWEAR, AND TAILORED PIECES BEST KNOWN FOR IMPECCABLE FIT

For pre-fall, Dean and Dan Caten depicted an army of posh English college girls. The ladies changed from classy tops of the school in sartorial blazers, striped jumpers, and denim to mischievous, incredibly glamorous rioters pairing their naughty companions’ oversize sweaters with checkered mini skirts.

With the label’s signature style dominant, the atmosphere was exuberant at Dsquared2, where the collection, created in a gamut of fall colors corresponded to 80s’ bright key tints, was all about a revised bourgeois style. Floor-length down coats in striped tailored fabrics, denim with flashy parts, elegant long capes layered on suits, as well as golf blouses revamped into jackets with attached hoodies were some of the new models giving a youthful and joyful mood to the collection. 

Checks, argyle, stripes added a graphic feel, maxi anoraks, and flashy drawstrings added a sporty spirit, while denim shirts and pants piqued with diamonds were offering a feeling of real glamour. A signature in every Dsquared2 collection, tailoring got feminine with tuxedo-like jumpsuits worn with coordinated double-breasted blazers, as well as high-waisted pleated pants matched with gold jacquard jackets.

Since establishing Proenza Schouler in 2002, design duo Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have transformed their label into one of the industry’s most influential brands, and one of New York fashion week’s most-anticipated shows. A keen eye for generous volumes and rich, multilayered prints make it the modern woman’s go-to. Collection highs include sharp, sculptural tailoring and the iconic PS1 satchel.

The labels fusion of craftsmanship and attention to detail with a sense of refined ease defines Proenza Schouler. Inspiration drawn from contemporary art and youth culture combines with an emphasis on tailoring and the use of custom developed fabrics.

Proenza Schouler has played an important role in reinvigorating American fashion. Awarded with the inaugural CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund award in 2004, the emerging brand was established as a leading talent in the industry. Proenza Schouler has won five CFDA awards, including the 2003 Swarovski award for Ready-to-Wear, the 2009 Accessory Designer of the Year award, and the Womenswear Designer of the Year award in 2007, 2011, and 2013.

PROENZA SCHOULER: CONTEMPORARY ART AND YOUTH CULTURE 

"Our mission is to reteach the world how to make clothes in the 21st century." — Geoffrey B. Small

For almost 100 years, the Parisotto family has been handing down from father to son, the art of weaving cotton and linen fabrics in the hillside town of Sarcedo, at the base of the Altopiano di Asiago and the foothills of the Italian Alps, in the province of Vicenza. For decades they have crafted some of the world's finest cotton cloths for Italy's most recognized names: Cotonificio Albini, Thomas Mason, Tessitura Monti, Limonta, Marzotto, Zegna, and also Geoffrey B. Small to create the finest organic fabrics. Certified organic cashmere, silk, cotton, indigo, and linen yarns are woven into a stunning array of seersuckers, double-faced and antique weaving, that are then hand-dyed and hand-treated by the designer himself in his studio for a maximum effect of softness, aging, and patina, all at a minimal carbon footprint and environmental impact.

"Our mission is to reteach the world how to make clothes in the 21st century. We are fed up with the totally corrupt fashion-design-school-industrial complex that is also now bought-lock-stock-and-barrel by the Corporation and is more intent on squashing education, skill-building, critical thinking and creativity than cultivating it––by taking students' money (or their parents' money) and turning out corporate cogs for a machine that does not intend to employ even one in 50 of them on average upon graduation. It is a reconfirmation (that adds significant time and risk to the production and delivery of each piece), that contrary to the rest of the industry's lame business-school thinking; we do not believe in 'scaling up.'" — Geoffrey B. Small

Certified Organic: fabrics that set a new standard for 'green' design, elegance, and comfort, like the unpredictably light and soft, luxurious organic tailor's indigo cotton & wool weave used in the jackets made for CRUVOIR in West Hollywood. In the hillside town of Sarcedo, Luigi Parisotto and his father are working with Geoffrey B. Small to create the finest and most environmentally sustainable organic fiber fabrics in the world today.

Geoffrey B. Small seems to be in his own realm when it comes to clothing production. This season is limited to just 1,095 pieces. "That might help explain why we don't try to chase down a lot of press or media coverage, or why our clothes can only be found in the most select stores worldwide. We don't need to do the things other designers and brands may do to try to 'raise their profile.' Our clothes speak for themselves." 

The old way of life, the old way of work, the old way of design and thinking?

For the past ten years, the Geoffrey B. Small team been steadily increasing the amounts of handwork involved in the creation of their pieces. "The handmade component of our work is one of the highest in the designer industry bar none."

Handwork requires no electricity, petroleum, or machinery. It emits no carbon or methane into the atmosphere. It provides life skills and work to human beings and enables them to create garments autonomously with less dependency on a system with vastly diminishing resources.  For example, one of us can execute a beautiful hand slip-stitch down a jacket front ourselves with just a needle, thread, and know-how, far faster, less expensively, and more beautifully than the classic AMF machine system modern alternative.) And it creates high-value works that are beautiful, unique, and meaningful in a multitude of ways." — Geoffrey B. Small

The return to handwork is also leading Geoffrey B. Small to a new world of artistic perspectives and directions. "We are continuously pursuing and experiencing as we increase this new interpretation to maximize a very old application."

Hand-dyeing fabrics to Geoffrey B. Small is "Discovering an Art that spans our human history on earth. We have learned that the handwork concept is not at all limited to the cutting, sewing, and assembly of our ideas. "During my time in Italy, I have had a marvelous chance to study and develop a wide and growing array of ways to treat and alter fabrics and materials and add new layers of dimensions to our design concepts, starting with established masters working in Italy, and then on my own in our studios at Cavarzere. Some of the most exciting and beautiful results have come from years of hand-dyeing our clothes in a long list of organic dyes and substances that each yield special results. Like hand clothes making, hand dyeing with organic materials is a very sustainable technology that can use far less carbon-generated energy than traditional industrial procedures."

Reducing the amount and quantity of products and making things that last as long as possible is tantamount to the new wardrobe philosophy. Every piece must count for maker and wearer. If making clothing is going to cost more in the future, it must contain less waste, and that includes pieces that are over-produced on speculation using slave labor tactics. Micro-scale design and high-value production specifically targeted to individual niche customers' exact needs in exclusive and limited series is the logical sustainable and humane approach.

"A new way of life, a new way of work, and a new way of design and thinking."

The staff at Geoffrey B. Small form a most advanced, productive, and tight designer workroom team. With a combined experience base of over 110 working years in the industry, the four senior members are ambitiously balancing their skill sets and knowledge base to train and develop a new generation of designer tailors. At Via Spalato, with a hands-on working master and apprentice approach that operates and competes at top levels of research, design, and distribution. The 17 people will create and deliver about 2,200 pieces of handmade clothing in this collection, along with four original Paris prototype collections.

The personal touch is for-real. "Every person who works with me here in the new expanded Via Spalato workrooms at Cavarzere Venezia does indeed touch each piece as it follows its unique and magical path of creation, with their full attention, heart, and passion. "That's why it looks and feels so personal, because it is, to every person here."

The GBS focus has not been just to reproduce effects of 'a day gone by,' but to look at, and arrive at, new and forward-looking applications of handwork for 21st-century life.

The new handmade L.Parisotto suit hand-dyed double-faced jacket and trouser. Serica della Marca pure silk handmade 'advanced collar' design shirt and a very limited modified short length 1920's short front trouser cut using Luigi Parisotto's miraculous double-faced linen and cotton weave cloth — a perennial Geoffrey B. Small wardrobe design favorite used in the collection.

"It is not a brand thing or a label thing. It merits the proof that a real human being is behind it. And that human being wants the eventual owner of the piece and anyone else who views it to know it as well. It is one human being passing a piece of his life's work and passion, along with that of those who work beside him, to another human being in the form of a garment designed and built to surpass any previous preconceptions of a what a piece of clothing can possibly be."

Buttons have become an integral part of Geoffrey B. Small design elements. Each one is a work of art, playing its own key visual and tactile role in the total composition of the piece. Whether specially made for Geoffrey by Italy's best artisan makers in Parma or Padova, or the late artist Karel Faber in Amsterdam using pure silver, or handpicked from dozens of the best vintage and antique suppliers in Europe, or actually refinished, modified or created and made by hand in our own studios. The average cost per button reaches well over 5 euros apiece, wholesale, with many clothing designs having between 50-100 euros worth of buttons sewn into them alone.

"We spend more on the buttons on one of our pieces than other designers spend on their main fabrics — it's part of our art. They are all different, and each has a special story." Add to that, the amounts of time that such an intense approach in both design decisions and production efficiency to a detail that normally is just done with all the same buttons, and the costs go into the stratosphere. Geoffrey B. Small production goes very slow when it comes to button operations. — visually and functionally, it's so critical."

We support Geoffrey's attitude when he talks about rehumanizing the clothing experience to the value where it rightly belongs. "We believe the new crises in the global economy are symptoms of an industrial system that no longer cares about customers, or human talent and skill, or people in general." A lot of 'designers' are now claiming to make handmade or 'artisan' clothes these days. But in fact, very few really are. 

Geoffrey B. Small believes in raising the bar of commitment starting at the designer level. He thinks now is a great time to return to the age-old art of making clothes for people one at a time. Geoffrey tries to give the wearer of his clothes a new level of service and long term value and satisfaction. "While our impact may be limited to a small circle, we must ask ourselves, "what can we do?" and as our specialty and focus have always been at the forefront of the avant-garde, we must also look and try to predict where things are going. Our goal in these difficult times as an independent designer continues to be to survive and maintain our name and work by developing and introducing exclusive new solutions in design, manufacture, and services that others in the industry will try to copy and follow."

Our planet, your life, & your wardrobe according to Geoffrey B. Small

Commodity prices of cotton, polyester, energy, and transport are going through the roof. And the global fast fashion system (of H&M, Zara, Uniqlo), was designed for a world with oil prices at 0-a-barrel. Geoffrey believes the era of "cheap clothes" is coming to an end.

Geoffrey B. Small is an American fashion designer focused on maximizing long-term value to the wearer of his pieces. He does it through recycling, local sourcing (using the best of today's made-in-Italy resources), maximizing levels of handwork in the product, organic hand-dyeing and treatment techniques, patchwork, historical reference and its relevance to today, limited quantity-artisanal production. His clothes are not so easy to find or buy, but wearing his clothes will tell you it's well worth the investment & effort.

But is 'cheap' really cheap? Americans alone buy 20 billion garments a year, an average of 64 garments a person. But the trend is worldwide. In the United Kingdom, consumers are throwing away 2 million tons of cheap, fast fashion clothing a year. When the Chinese reach consuming at the same rates, that will be more than 80 billion garments a year. With the majority of these clothes being made from petrochemical-based polyester plastic fibers and being thrown away at the rate of 20 million tons a year in the U.S. alone, the landfill pressures and environmental impacts are overwhelmingly unsustainable. 'Cheap' is not cheap at all, but there is an alternative, and it begins with a new set of priorities in the way one must live a life commitment to lead others to a better way of life.

"Reduce, reuse, recycle" is the mantra behind the most crucial challenge we face as a species — balancing the needs of over 10 billion human beings with the earth's available and sustainable resource levels. For us, this does not mean any sacrifice or lowering of quality and standards. Geoffrey B. Small, who's presented more collections than any other American designer during Paris Fashion Week, has been a leader in recycled design in fashion for over twenty years, and he views it as both an art and science that has a 10,000 year history…a unique métier that returns elegant, individual, and practical solutions."

The rising costs of global transport and their subsequent greenhouse gas emissions are creating a new reason for work to travel less and less. Therefore, the sourcing and assemblies of product need to be performed as locally as possible. Geoffrey moved his production to Italy to develop an elite network of industrial and artisanal suppliers for fabrics, threads, and treatments. Across the entire spectrum of suppliers, they have what they believe is the world's very best technical, cultural, and artistic working masters all within a maximum radius of two hundred fifty kilometers.

"No matter how long it takes, or how much it costs, some things made by skilled human hands in this world are still worth every penny you pay, and every day you wait for them." — Geoffrey B. Small

Geoffrey B. Small thinks so. The new economic realities of today demand that rich or poor, every penny counts. With customers now realizing that low-prices are no guarantee of saving money in the long run, the adage of 'you get what you pay for' rings true. Designers working and still producing in western industrialized countries must now really deliver the very best money can buy to a crowd that's far more educated and discerning than ever before.

Cavarzere, in Venezia is located along the banks of the Adige river as it winds down from the high Alps near Austria to the sea near the Venetian lagoons. There, the water and the sun have unique qualities and are being used by Geoffrey B. Small to create unique fabric treatments and aging characteristics using new organic natural Italian fabrics and material components in silk, linen, indigo, wool, to produce an exclusive collection of handmade pieces for CRUVOIR in Los Angeles this season. 

Silk Bozzolo Reale Seta Milano threads were used for hand-stitched buttonholes and plaid weave tape finishing and detailing on a linen & cotton double-faced jacket. Handmade horn button and hand stitch details on an overcoat made from Luigi Parisotto silk & linen jump weave. Extreme detailing went into a hand-dyed double-faced linen & cotton 1910's suspender trouser, a 3-in-1 removable collar on the L.Parisotto silk & cotton blouse. 

Luigi Parisotto, Geoffrey B. Small, Nicholas Giannelli, and Nobuhiko Akiyoshi are in Sarcedo, Vicenza, busy researching fabrics. Jackets hang dry in the Cavarzere sun as part of their unique hand-dye process. The sun in Cavarzere during the summer is intense and has specific properties that affect and age textile fibers in a beautiful way. 

The water in Cavarzere comes from the Adige, Italy's second-largest river, which originates high in the Alto Adige – Süd Tirol region of the Italian Alps and contains calcium and other properties which give unique effects to the washing and dyeing process of the designer Geoffrey B. Small. The time-consuming and arduous process of hand-dyeing and hand-washing is a centuries-old method, and it seems to return ecologically sustainable results of timeless beauty and individuality.

"Beauty always has an element of strangeness. I do not mean a deliberate cold form of strangeness, for in that case it would be a monstrous thing that had jumped the rails of life. But I do mean that it always contains a certain degree of strangeness, of simple, unintended, unconscious strangeness, and that this form of strangeness is what gives it the right to be called beauty. It is its hallmark, its special characteristic. Reverse the proposition and try to imagine a commonplace beauty! And how could this necessary, incompressible, infinitely varied strangeness, dependent upon environment, climate, habits, upon race, religion and the temperament of the artist, ever be controlled, amended, corrected by utopian rules, excogitated in some little temple or other of learning somewhere on the planet, without mortal danger to art itself? This element of strangeness which constitutes and defines individuality, without which there is no beauty, plays in art (and may the precision of this comparison excuse its triviality) the role of taste or flavouring in cookery; if the individual usefulness or the degree of nutritious value they contain be excepted, viands differ from each other only by the idea they reveal to the tongue."

— Charles Baudelaire, Baudelaire: Selected Writings on Art and Artists

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE: THE STRANGENESS OF BEAUTY

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