Butterflies are all the rage for Spring.

Oversize clutch in soft supple leather with laser-cut butterflies from British brand Sampson & Christie.
Other designs from the new range also available on the website.

Flora and fauna, and the garden theme are much-favoured for fashion inspiration this Spring, but it's the butterflies that are causing all the rage.  

A Clipper - blue subspecies (Parthenos Sylvia Violacea) as seen in Butterfly in the Glasshouse,
at the RHS Wisley, Surrey, UK.

The fashion store Fenwick (on Bond Street in London) is launching a Beauty in Wonderland promotion on Monday March 17 until 30, with a garden setting of blooms, butterflies and bees to showcase their event, but setting my heart aflutter recently was the Butterfly in the Glasshouse event at RHS Wisley Garden  in Surrey recently where visitors could experience exotic butterflies flitting and floating among tropical plants.

A Malachite (Siproeta Stelenes) as seen in Butterfly in the Glasshouse, at the RHS Wisley, Surrey, UK.

At Swarovski, the Austrian house for producing crystals for fashion and accessories, crystal beads in the shape of a butterfly are among the newly launched shapes for Spring Summer 2015.

Here are a few examples of how with the use of the butterfly-shaped crystals with other shapes, a designer at Swarovski has created geometric decorations to add a new dimension of luxe to denim shirts and everyday T-shirts.

Wildlife and Swarovski photos by Lucia Carpio for My Fashion Connect.

Modern Thai Silk debuted at Expofil in Paris.

Most people would probably conjure up images of smiling faces when the country Thailand is mentioned, a much-favoured holiday destination that is often referred to as the land of smiles, but do we think of Thai Silk when we think about modern fabrics?

Acknowledging that its national fabric may have lost much of its lustre, so to speak, the Thailand Textile Institute took to participating in the Expofil yarn fair, held during the prestigious Premiere Vision Pluriel in Paris (last held February 17-20) to promote its debut collection of Modern Thai Silk.

Presented for the first time to the global fashion textiles industry, the new silk collection  featured  some 50 prototypes, including knitted and woven qualities, some are in melange yarns blended with cotton or linen to create hybrid qualities, as well as dyed in a myriad of hues, may have a high-twist yarn or light as chiffon, in a wide range of colours.

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Photo by Lucia Carpio for My Fashion Connect

Design Shanghai reports over 47,000 visitors to its first edition.

As China is rapidly developing as a market for affluent designs, the recent launch of a new exhibition had given the organisers much optimism to the event's future prospects.

Organisers at Design Shanghai has reported that its inaugural event held in Shanghai February 27 to March 2 was an overnight success recording more than  47,000 visitors to the four-day show, 65% of which were architects, interior designers, developers, dealers and affluent design-conscious consumers.   

Design Shanghai was co-organised by Media 10 (organisers of UK fairs:-100% Design, Grand Designs Live, Clerkenwell Design Week and Ideal Home Show), and Shanghai Art Fair Ltd.

Design Shanghai featured some of the UK’s most prestigious design brands exhibiting at the newly renovated Shanghai Exhibition Centre for the first time. The show included more than 50 UK and over 100 international design brands, most of which have never been showcased before in China.

Furthermore, over 600 media representatives from across South East Asia attended the opening day, resulting in 104 television reports on Design Shanghai.

Referring to  Design Shanghai 2014 as the leading trade platform for design professionals in China, with greater numbers of trade visitors than any other design event, Lee Newton, CEO of Media 10 said: “We're absolutely thrilled by the success of Design Shanghai; in particular, by the overall number of visitors.

"We, as Media 10, always wanted to stage a high-end design event in main land China, and when the opportunity arose, we seized it with both hands. China, especially Shanghai, is developing rapidly, but until now, no one has taken major Western design brands to the country.

"We're so pleased with the overall response to Design Shanghai, and we believe that this event is going to grow and become a key global platform for design. We would like to give a special thanks to all the exhibitors who have supported us in achieving this goal, and we look forward to seeing them again in China in 2015.”

Leading design brands including Magis, Flos, Fritz Hansen, Alessi, Boss Design, HAY, Cole & Son and Design Republic (Moooi, Tom Dixon and BD Barcelona Design) were among some of the exhibitors at the show.

Lenzing's top executive demonstrates benefits of shirts in TENCEL®/Cotton blends.

At a recent press conference in Paris organised by the Austrian company - Lenzing - to promote its TENCEL® fibre, the company's Head of the Performance Apparel Segment Andreas Gürtler demonstrated that he's just as good in domestic chores as in his day job.  
His mission was to demonstrate to all present that when Tencel® is blended with cotton it would enhance the quality of the fabric.  He used two shirts to demonstrate that when a dress shirt is made of a  Tencel®/Cotton blended fabric, the shirt would benefit from better easy-care properties; with lower tendency to crease when washed, and thus it becomes easy-to-iron too. 

Mr. Gürtler also conducted a washing test with the use of a small tank of water to compare two pieces of fabrics - one in pure cotton, and one blended with Tencel® to show the crease effect between both fabrics.

Mr. Gürtler explained that while the Tencel® fibre's origin is botanic (which means it comes from nature, similar to cotton ), the Tencel®  fibre has excellent skin-sensory properties and ensures moisture management, and with good temperature control.  Since the fibre swells in a wet state, the formation of creases is minimised during the washing procedure, and when hung up to dry, the creases on shirts with Tencel® will disappear more quickly. 
All photos above by Lucia Carpio for My Fashion Connect.

"Even a small blending ratio with Tencel® gives cotton shirts a new definition," said Mr. Gürtler.  The addition of Tencel® improves the crease recovery after washing, which leads to a better ironing behaviour."  He added that Lenzing now sees the shirting sector to be a growth segment for the Tencel® fibre. "Particularly fabrics of long-staple cotton (high quality cotton used in formal shirts) and Tencel® are unbeatable in terms of the quality and look."  At the moment, on the market, some 60% of Tencel® fabrics (certified according to Lenzing's quality criteria) are used for shirts and blouses.  Of this, one-third is blended with cotton.  Lenzing's goal now is to further increase the share with cotton blends.

Texworld and ApparelSourcing Paris fairs enjoyed growth and satisfactory comments.

Organisers at Messe Frankfurt France have reported that the Texworld and ApparelSourcing trade fairs – both events held in Paris in February 17 – 20 (coinciding with the Premiere Vision Pluriel fairs) - reported a growth of 11% in terms of visitors’ numbers (when compared to the February 2013 event ), prompting its president Michael Sherpe to comment that the textiles industry is emerging from the economic crisis.

Mr Sherpe said the positioning of Texworld and ApparelSourcing Paris (for fashion fabrics, accessories and finished garments respectively), as pre-eminent platforms, where you can find the whole spectrum of qualities at fair prices, had been firmly established and contributed to these positive results.  Some 85% of the visitors came from outside France.

The key fabrics for Spring Summer 2015 according to the fairs’ artistic directors, Louis Gérin and Grégory Lamaud, were sumptuous colours with flair.

For the report on this February's fair, click HERE.

The next Texworld and ApparelSourcing events will take place September 15 – 18 at Le Bourget, Paris.

All photos by Lucia Carpio for My Fashion Connect.

Sitting for Paolo Galetto, the Italian illustrator and artist at Premiere Vision in Paris.

On the invitation of GB network and Miroglio Textile, during the prestigious Premiere Vision trade fair in Paris in February 18-20, My Fashion Connect was able to preview the new fabric designs that form part of Miroglio's ‘Metri d’Arte’ project, featuring an iconic set of three figurative designs by Italian artist Paolo Galetto. 
  

As explained by Elena Miroglio, vice-president of the Miroglio Group, (on the right in this picture with Paolo Galetto) this was an initiative to show off the company's state-of-the-art digital printing technology, combined with the talent of the artist, bringing  together industrial production and artistic creativity,  

The project is proof of the high regard Miroglio Textiles holds for art and creativity. 

  

Paolo is well known for his fashion water colour images and illustrations, and was enthusaistic in showing his portfolio of portraits of famous faces and personalities. Among his commission works have been female portraits created for Vogue Italia magazine.

Thus it was a great honour that Paolo, when out of the blue, he offered to do a portrait of Lucia Carpio, editor of My Fashion Connect. This was indeed a proposition one can't refuse. 

So here's the finished work after the sitting for half an hour.  
Bravo indeed!

Italian illustrator and artist Paolo Galetto, who lives between Turin and Paris, has worked for many years as a visual artist, creating hundreds of storyboards for some of the most renowned film studios of the world, as well as portraits of Italy's influential writers and intellectuals.

Knitwear Solutions and Heritage installation focus on unique Creativity

Knitwear Solutions 

Knitwear Solutions presented - in this 4^th edition at Premiere Vision Pluriel in February - a range of knitters from Europe, notably, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as knitters from Asia - Japan, China and Hong Kong. 

The Europeans proposed collections to demonstrate creativity, quality and finishings for the high-end and luxury markets, Asian companies displayed the traditional know-how in varied technical and fancy developments that the region is famous for.

While European spinners - particularly Bulgaria and Italy - offered cutting-edge developments in noble, natural or artificial fibres, whether single or blended, Asian exhibitors shone as an important source of noble fibres such as cashmere and wools.

A key focus this season at Premiere Vision in the Knitwear Solutions area was the Futuristic Heritage
installation of specially-selected unique knitwear designs to showcase the ingenuity and innovative designs by some of Europe's great designers - provided much prove that notions of heritage shape our past while redefine the DNA of design ideas.  This demonstrated that Heritage continues to be an important word in the world of fashion and design.

This installation showcasing some 20 works was a major focus at the Knitwear Solutions area during the Premiere Vision trade fair in Paris in February this year.  It was organised by Federico Poletti in collaboration with the international centre for Italian fashion documentation, Archivio Modateca Deanna, and Ffrancesca Fornasari.
To see a selection of the unique heritage designer knitwear at the show, click here.

Photos by Lucia Carpio for My Fashion Connect.