The Real Fashion Icons

   Lately, I've heard some people talking about fashion icons and I've even seen a top made by a famous Romanian fashion magazine of fashion icons and, sadly, I came to the conclusion that the concept of " Fashion Icon" is misunderstood. To make it clear from the beginning, not any celebrity can be taken as a fashion standard.

   Lets try to answer to these questions: What does Fashion Icon mean?
                                                                Who are the real Fashion Icons?

  

   In my view, it is really important to remain objective while talking about Fashion Icons. We should know that not everyone in the magazines or on the TV is a fashion etalon; even if we admire someone, we should reflect on the reason we have this sympathy and not anything that person does for good. As I said, reflection is really constructive. This is available for fashion, too. Unfortunatelly, not every public person takes into account hiring a stylist. A lot of celebrities wear expensive clothing which looks bad because they believe they have an amazing personal style. A professional never does this.

   What does Fashion Icon mean? Well, in my opinion, a Fashion Icon is a person who is accepted by almost every fashion critic as being a well dressed person, someone who usually appears in the Best Dressed section( not one who accidentally dresses well), a person with a genuine personal style that not only fits his/ her body, but also his/ her personality and attitude, a person whose style is definitely unmistakeable!

   Examples of Fashion Icons( this is just my opinion, if you don't agree, feel free to comment):

- Coco Chanel( The One and The Only!)

- Audrey Hepburn( we all know that Hubert de Givenchy in person took care that miss Hepburn will always look... Iconic!; she is believed to be the most elegant and the best dressed female of all times, she has never been dethroned; her pictures became " archetypal")

- Lisa Fonssagrives

- Anna Wintour( her style is unmistakeable: large sunglasses, helmet haircut, her image is also... Iconic!)

- Anna dello Russo( " shoe maniac"; eccentric)

- Carine Roitfeld( ex-model; muse to Tom Ford at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent; associated with Versace and Calvin Klein)

- Miroslava Duma

- Ulyana Sergeenko( dramatic, theatrical style)

- Daphne Guinness

  











   Romanian Fashion Icons: unfortunately, I can only think of one right now- Iulia Albu.

   Iulia Albu is a fashion editor and a fashion blogger( http://www.theflappergirlchronicle.ro/). After she graduated from the Law School, she attended the Fashion Design section at the Univeristy of Arts. Almost all of her outfits are designed by her. Her last name comes from her ex-husband, one of the best Romanian designers, Mihai Albu, from whom she has learned a lot, she admitted in some public speech. It's a pity that in Romania she is more famous because of her divorce and for having a hen as a pet, rather than being a fashion icon and a very active person in the Romanian fashion journalism and events. She describes herself as " Flapper Girl" and in an article on her blog she wrote that her style was highly influenced by her aunt, Ileana Focșa ( actress).





   














   Who do you consider is worth being " labeled" as a Fashion Icon? Please let me know.

   See you soon,
   Love, A.

Another Famous Apartment. Gabrielle Coco Chanel's

   Yesterday, I wrote about 3 famous apartments of some of the 3 most famous feminine characters( Holly Golightly, Blair Waldorf and Carrie Bradshaw). I cannot pass this topic unless I write about another famous apartment " owned" by a woman who lived her reality as a Victorian character: Gabrielle " Coco" Chanel.



   Everybody knows something about her, even if not everyone read her biography( at least everybody interested in Fashion must have seen " Coco avant Chanel"(2009) with Audrey Tautou). She had a tumultuous, controversial life, full of compromise, a life that Coco used to "improvise" when she wanted to fescape the very complicated reality that she had to face so many times. In general, fashion designers are eccentric, complicated, " hard to get". Because she had reinvented herself and took it over again so many times, Gabrielle Chanel has something special that makes her difficult but ambitious personality, what it represents today, after more than 4 decades from her death : Coco's image remained the emblem of the strong woman, a powerful and " avant-gardist" woman, who is not afraid of prejudice, who is willing to fight for what hse wants, who permeates in a man's world by using their weapons: the suit and  and the trousers.


   About her death:
  " As 1971 began, Chanel was 87 years old, tired, and ailing, but nonetheless stuck to her usual routine of preparing the spring catalog. She had gone for a long drive that afternoon and feeling ill, went to bed early where she died on Sunday, January 10, 1971 at the Hotel Ritz where she had resided for more than 30 years. Her grave is located in the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, Lausame, Switzerland." - Wikipedia

   About her apartment:
   Coco loved luxury and this can be seen in her beautiful, opulent apartment, about which you can read here The Coveteur review: http://www.thecoveteur.com/coco_apartment

 

   "Chanel and Place Vendôme are very linked. She lived in the Ritz, now there is a Jewelry shop, it’s very Paris, there are many photos of her on the place Vendôme. The big site of the Ritz is also still the Ritz, a part of the place Vendôme." Karl Lagerfeld