MaxMara had its eye on the red carpet for last night’s Crystal Lucy Awards, where the brand presented Zoe Saldana with its Face of the Future Award, but the festivities began long before the sun set: On Tuesday afternoon, the label treated a few key L.A. ladies to a chic lunch benefiting the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Katherine Ross, gallerist Karyn Lovegrove, and MaxMara’s Nicola Gerber Maramotti hosted guests like Rachel Griffiths, Lisa Love, and Shiva Rose (all in MaxMara or Sportmax, of course) to an outdoor feast of striped bass and panna cotta at Lovegrove’s stunning Hancock Park estate; shut your eyes and you could believe you were in the Italian countryside. At least one guest soon would be—”We’re getting ready to go to Tuscany in two weeks, and hopefully I’ll be in Paris for couture,” reported Rosetta Getty (pictured, left, with Griffiths)—but when you call L.A. home, you don’t need to go far for fun in the sun. “After living here for four and a half years, I’m really enjoying all that Los Angeles has to offer,” said Ross, whose husband, Michael Govan, is LACMA’s popular director.
—Victoria Namkung
Photo: Courtesy of MaxMara
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“My uncle shot a deer and sent me the hide,” says designer Katie Gallagher, as she filches a cropped bomber jacket with an undulating silhouette from a rack of Spring 2010 looks. “See,” she goes on, holding up the jacket, “you can still see the bullet holes!” Fashion weekers on the hunt not for buck, so much, as for promising new talent, should make space in their schedule for Gallagher’s presentation on Saturday. The RISD grad is relatively fresh off a stint working with Threessfour, the influence of which adds a cool fluidity to her own sculpturally gothic look. The Spring collection, Gallagher’s second, is all black, though that’s not something she sees as being typical. “My last collection was all whites and grays and beiges,” she explains, “and this one started out as, you know, the flip side of that. But then it changed.” Leather is another leitmotif, though only that bomber-jacket sample is worked with bullet holes; elsewhere, Gallagher goes for futuristic, almost furlike laser-cut leather, or a stretchy hide she’s turned into a minidress, its cut distilled from a more directional piece with padded balloon sleeves. “We’re going for total drama at the show,” she notes, “I mean, you want to make a statement. You want to come out with a bang.”
This year’s shortlist of designers for the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund 2012 was announced today by the British Fashion Council. The nine designers—Jonathan Saunders, Marios Schwab, Mary Katrantzou, Meadham Kirchhoff, Nicholas Kirkwood, Peter Pilotto, Richard Nicoll, Roksanda Ilincic, and Zoe Jordan—will present their collections and future plans before a panel of judges chaired by British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman. [British Fashion Council]For its first time ever, Levi’s is planning to show its core collection during New York fashion week in February. The “big-budget presentation in Soho” will show off its Levi’s Red Tab, Levi’s Vintage Collection, and Made & Crafted lines. [WWD]Dita Von Teese will reportedly join the cast of “Sleep No More” in New York for a special New Year’s Eve show. The burlesque queen’s role in the show has not been revealed yet. [Page Six]Model Agyness Deyn’s Williamsburg apartment is on the market for $2.5 million dollars. However, the 2,911-square-foot apartment’s baby blue rococo kitchen and leopard-print carpets might put off a few potential buyers. [Telegraph]