Celine pink fur coat

I saw Kasia Struss in this shot above that appeared in the October 2012 issue of the Flair magazine, and I was immediately in love! I have always been a great admirer of the romantic and feminine style of Kasia Struss, and here, she gives a truly delicate, naive pose... Of course, what stands out most in Kasia's outfit is her fur coat with its bright pink color. A little research revealed that it was a Celine coat and that's the subject of this post. 

This fur coat in the Celine FW2012-13 collection attracted a lot of attention with its pink/fuchsia color. Well, with such a bright color, it is something hard to miss, right?! Since fur is such a precious item, we usually see it in designs that will not go out of fashion in a season or two. But if we are talking about furs designed by a such a luxury fashion house as Celine, there must be a unique angle to them-they must be something eye-popping. This fur coat has some other original features besides its color. For example, it does not sport any collars, which opens up a lot of possibilities in terms of combining the coat with scarves or cowl collar sweaters.

I also would like to point out that the model is wearing a simple white top and a pair of black trousers with this coat. We shall see below that many editorials will either go through the white route or the black route.

Furthermore, the back side of this coat is in a dark neon blue color and has a leather detail. Frankly, both of those elements seem unnecessary to me. As we shall see below, in many fashion editorials only the front side with its bright pink color is featured.

We see Carolyn Murphy in Vogue Korea's November 2012 issue, wearing this coat on her shoulders with an entirely white outfit. Such simplicity suits Celine style well!

From the whites of Caroline Murphy to the blacks of Anna Vyalitsyna'nın in Numero October 2012, we've got the full contast in our hands, right? Just like Caroline, Anna has placed the coat over her shoulders. This makes the collarless design of the coat pop out even further. In the meantime, I would like to take your attention to the black pattern in the fur. Maybe we should not have just called it pink, as it seems there is more to the fur than being simply dyed in pink.

Here we are! If the Celine coat had been made from a wool, cashmere or camel-hair fabric, it would have a monotonous color, but that's not the case. This is a fur coat, not a fabric coat and the fur is a special type of mink, called "cross mink" since the black pattern looks like a cross. The original color of the cross mink is white, with black cross-like markings over it. When it's dyed, the white fur takes up color easily, while the black fur stays black and the original, natural pattern is preserved. The pattern of nature that is worth imitating...

Next up, Nadja Bender in Vogue China October 2012 issue. She is wearing the coat over a white body. The pink color is so dominant that stylists go either the white way or the black way...

This shot is from an editorial called "Fierce Creatures" by the renowned photographer Patrick Demarchelier and it is from the August issue of the W magazine. The models are Zuzanna Bijoch, Magda Laguinge and Meghan Collison but which one is wearing our Celine coat, I could not determine. Again we see the coat styled with blacks and whites.

The US edition of the Elle magazine had a "pink explosion" collage page in December that has the Celine coat as its main feature! It's perfect for the girls going crazy after polyvore.com, but this much pink might give others a heart attack!

In December Celine opened a shop in Beijing, China and the Chinese actress Huo Siyan attended the opening as the resident celebrity. Since this is a Celine shop opening, and since Huo Siyan was "invited" by Celine (possibly even paid for it), it was appropriate for her to wear Celine. We see the pink fur coat worn with blacks and whites again.

Finally, the online shopping site luisaviaroma.com has this coat and as you see how it is presented, we see the same black-white styling there, too. It is interesting to see all these fashion editors and stylists "converging" on the same idea.

Elle Macpherson's gleaming beauty

 

Elle Macpherson is one of the unforgettable models of the 1980s and the 90s, perhaps best known for her covers of the Sports Illustrated magazine, where she delighted men and made women jealous of her impossibly long legs and athletic body. At nearly 50, she is still in the business of delighting men and making women jealous! On November 24, 2011 she appeared at a live interview for the American daytime TV program "Today Show" and gave these beautiful shots.

 

Elle is so cheerful, so energetic in these photos that whenever I look at them, my heart just melts in her warmth! Her outfit in burgundy-brown colors is simply stunning! Just like the colors of the autumn leaves that the Atlantic board of the US is famous for. Her Fedora hat, her turtleneck sweater with cable knitting all around, her burgundy suede boots that make her already long legs look even longer and of course her fur vest... Simply stunning! It's both comfy and elegant at the same time while suitable for the unpredictable autumn weather. 

Her fur vest is probably dyed raccon fur. The short guard hairs are in dark mocha brown whereas the tips of the longer guard hairs glisten in metallic gold, and this effect can only be achieved with real fur. Also pay attention to the fact that these gold tips of the fur coordinate nicely with her blonde hair and her gold accessories. Perfection, I say...

Soft as Velvet: Sheared Mink

I have been thinking of talking about the modern and trendy furs of Gauja Furs from Lithuania for a long time. Actually, I am not a big fan of the showy (gaudy even!) fur style of Eastern European and Russian women, yet Gauja's designs are not short of the most avantgarde Italian fur styles at all! The jacket above for example, is both very trendy and very chic. In this post, I would like to present a number of examples from Gauja where fox and mink furs are mixed in innovative ways.

Fox is a longer hair fur and it's quite puffy, while mink is shorter hair. Still, in the example above, the mink section has been turned into something that is as soft and densely textured as velvet. Normally, mink fur has two types of hair or fur in it. There is the longer an coarser "guard fur", which, as its name implies, provides some protection, and then there is a shorter, denser "underfur". In the example above, the guard fur of the black mink was removed in what is called as "plucking" (literally plucking away the long guard fur!) and then the remainder is a fur that is very soft. A similar technique is called "shearing" and the resulting fur is called "sheared" (as in "sheared mink" or "sheared beaver"), which is similarly soft and dense.

In contrast with the uniform look of the plucked mink part, the shoulders are covered with dramatic contrasts of the silver fox. Furthermore, the monochrome palette of black mink draws all the attention to the stark contrasts of silver fox from white to steely gray and black.

Another fine fur taking great advantage of the contrast between the short haired mink and long haired fox. The red fox in the collar surely looks very fluffy and voluminous, but it is greatly aided in this endeavor by the fact that the mink fur making up the body of the coat has been plucked off its guard fur. In the meantime, the photograph is so sharply focused that the viewer is lost in the deep green of the model's eyes:)

Just like the previous two, this model consists of a body in sheared/plucked mink and polar fox as collar and hood trim. Polar fox is normally white but here the coat is uniformly dyed to the same color. The collar and the hood trim nicely frames the model's face, right!

If you are somewhat familiar with leather fashions with fur trim that primarily target the Russian audience, you must have seen lots of leather jackets and coats whose hems, cuffs and edges are trimmed in fur. The picture above has a tendency to slide in that direction, but this time the body of the coat is not leather but mink. This  mink is called blue iris and it blends perfectly with the silver fox trim of both the collar and cuffs. From the makeup of the model to her earrings and to the turtleneck sweater she is wearing, this is a fantastic combination and the resulting image is simply breathtaking.

The fur accessories of Gauja are great, too. Hopefully I will talk about them in another blog post soon.