| Bikini 2011 / swimwear 2011 / 2011 trends With spring / summer burgeoning for many a fashioniser, we're all eager to hit the beach. But whether you're soaking up the sun in Majorca or on the Venice Lido, the most important decision won't be the SPF of your sun tan lotion, but which swimwear pieces you'll be wearing. This year Fashionising.com is taking a look at the 'in' styles and the 'out' styles of swimwear, helping you choose the piece of swimwear that is perfectly inline with 2011's fashion trends. Read on to find out what cuts and styles are in fashion this year, and don't forget: if you'd like to keep up to date with all the latest fashion trends and how to style then, then subscribe to Fashionising.com's newsletter or RSS feed. 
Picture Gallery Preview Click To View Full Gallery Click to read 'Bikini 2011 / swimwear 2011 / 2011 trends' An open letter to Victoria's Secret Dear Victoria's Secret, I respect you. This I cannot deny. It's a respect that comes largely out of how exceedingly successful at creating your business you've been. After all, you've created a label that so many people perceive to be a luxury fashion house, and yet it isn't. For one, your goods are not made by artisans. And then there's the fact that your stores can be found in every part of America that I've ever been to, and I suspect you're also inside all the shopping malls that I never will enter. But luxury fashion houses aren't really like this, and yet the perception remains clear in the masses' heads: Victoria's Secret = luxury lingerie. Over the last 30 years your marketing machine has created something of a paradox in this notion of "common luxury" and I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that's no easy feat. But, as of late, that same marketing machine has started to feel a little tired. The first irrefutable sign was your 2010 Christmas video. Directed by Michael Bay of Transformers fame it was all loud noise and bright flashes. It was also pretty damn cool, if you're a 15 year old boy. But I'm not, and neither are your customers. There have been other signs along the way of course (model as mannequin courtesy of Photoshop, for instance), but I've always been willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and see our differences of opinion as a result of the cultural divide that is the Atlantic Ocean. But this month we've seen the first video component of your 2011 'Bombshell' campaign and I have to be honest: it leaves me without a doubt that part of your marketing effort, the video part, is really missing the boat. In fact, I'm writing to tell you that the boat has sailed. It's the 21st Century and we're living through a golden age of design, a period where we as customers want to have real experiences with what we buy. Nay, we want to have emotional experiences. We want need to believe. And your latest video campaign offers up none of that. Frankly, it feels a little bit too last decade. 
Picture Gallery Preview Click To View Full Gallery Click to read 'An open letter to Victoria's Secret' Skinny again, Crystal Renn Updated with more pictures from the photo shoot. Sometime ago, in Fashionising.com's end-of-year podcast I believe, I mused that I saw the next decade as one defined not by the pure celebrity, but by the model. We've moved into a period where we know everything about every celebrity. We know all the great things about the people we're meant to adore, but we also know all their faults. In essence: we know that they're human. Realistically, that's not a surprise, but we don't need to spend our days besotted with people whose lives are little more interesting then our own. We want escapism. Thus, I reasoned, we the public would collectively turn to models as the focus of our affections. Models, you see, have a certain mystique to them. We know they're beautiful, we imagine they have amazing lifestyles that involve jetting from locale to locale, but beyond that we know little. Thus there exists the danger for the 'celebrity model' - we simply know too much about them. Case in point: Kate Moss. Kate Moss eclipsed what it was to be a model, she even eclipsed what it was to be a supermodel. Instead, for a few years, she was a hypermodel. An utter focus of our collection attentions, we knew little more then the fact that she may have had a penchant for cocaine and had a rocker boyfriend. When all was said and done, few of us knew any more then that: few of us had even heard her speak. Where Kate Moss' career went right, others have gone wrong. They became 'celebrity models', or at the very least their management team experimented with creating that of them. The results have seldom been positive, and in some parts of the industry it's known as the 'Catherine McNeil effect', so named after the Australian model whose publicity eclipsed her body of work making her career a short lived one. At some stage of the future they may just rename it the 'Crystal Renn effect'. You see, Renn is better known to us not as a model, but a plus size model. On the face of it, there's nothing wrong with that, there's plenty of room in the industry for every shape, size and colour. But when the level of publicity behind a model eclipses their body of work, as we saw with McNeil, a certain danger exists. And I think that danger comes to fruition in Renn's latest shoot. 
Picture Gallery Preview Click To View Full Gallery Click to read 'Skinny again, Crystal Renn' Edgy yet classic in Tank There's only really one way to describe Chloe Kerman's styling on this shoot: and that is brilliant. Now of course styling, in a fashion sense, is always time-relevant and to that end the point is not necessarily to create some long-lived masterpiece. It's a visual one, perfect for the moment it was created in. It's not styling that's complex. It's not styling that's editorially out-there. But it hits you, and it hits you for being not too much and just enough and for pairing things like a crochet bralet with a high split skirt, bright red lips and a dangling cigarette, the edgy and the classic. 
Picture Gallery Preview Click To View Full Gallery Click to read 'Edgy yet classic in Tank' Fashion Trend Inspiration Fashionising.com not only brings you all the latest fashion trends, we constantly bring you inspiration on how they can be worn and styled too. Here's the most recent inspiration: Current Fashion Sales If you'd like to advertise a fashion sale follow the link. Featured Editorial Recent Reviews Collection Magazine: indulge in new print media I place a magazine before you. Then I ask a simple 'yes or no' question. "Is this old media or new media?" I can't assume to know your answer, but I know that most people will tell me it's old media. Old media is print, it's TV, it's the communication delivered by all those old mediums that generations older than our own busied themselves with over Sunday breakfast and while commuting to work. Anna Wintour would give such an answer. The majority would give such an answer. But I'd argue that they're wrong. To me new media and old media isn't about the medium, it's not whether it transmits from a radio or a TV, or whether it's printed on paper. To me, whether it's old media or new media is defined by the approach of the publisher. Their outlook. Their attitude. The old outlook versus the new outlook. The old attitude versus the new attitude. The medium can be old fashioned. The presentation can be old fashioned. But new versus old all boils down to outlook and attitude. To doing things differently. Vogue is old media. It's kept on doing what it's always done. It doesn't matter how fancy their website is, nor how much influence they wield. Their whole approach sits at odds with the emerging generations, with the world as it's changing. It's clinging on steadfast to the years of old. And that is its strength (at least for the time being). Collection Magazine is different. It has all the hallmarks of old media. It's print. The paper stock is beautiful. The typography is beautiful. The ads are non-existent. Everything about it says that it's trying to do things perfectly. And that's the point where it becomes different, that's the point where you realise the publishers are thinking differently. Their approach is to perfect the art of print. To turn a magazine into a curated piece of art work. This is a magazine's potential romanticised. Collection Magazine is print media as new media. 
Click to read 'Collection Magazine: indulge in new print media' Ms Couture: lingerie in candy colours In edible colours and with a ballerina softness, Ms Couture's gave Australian fashion week a dose of elegantly soft lingerie. Titled Sorbet Soiree, the catwalk debut for this spring 2011 collection highlighted handcrafted bras and briefs, corsetry, and bodysuits, as well as a number of other accents that sit alongside modern, though infrequently highlighted, intimate wear. 
Picture Gallery Preview Click To View Full Gallery Click to read 'Ms Couture: lingerie in candy colours' Ultimate luxury: the curated wardrobe Fashionising is more then the name of this publication. It is both at once a verb and an attitude. In this first of our published manifestos, we pen our thoughts on one of the ultimate luxuries open to the modern fashioniser. In an era where most people have wardrobes that simply contain too much average and not enough of the exceptional, we see the curated wardrobe as the ultimate luxury. Read the full manifesto to find out why we see the curated as a new luxury, why that is, and what it means. 
Click to read 'Ultimate luxury: the curated wardrobe' | 
