It’s time to dispel rumors about King Charles III’s death, speculation that has actually been fueled by his recent cancer diagnosis and false reports about Catherine, Princess of Wales, recovering from surgery in January. By Buckingham Palacethe king is alive and apparently well enough to stage a fashion show.
On Saturday, an exhibition of clothing created as a part of Charles’ collaboration with designers Vin Cara and Omi Ong, who operate under the Vin + Omi brand, will open at Sandringham Estate, the royal family’s private estate in Norfolk, England.
Designers created clothes for the ‘Royal Garden Waste to Fashion’s Future’ exhibition using stays from the gardens at Sandringham and Highgrove House, Charles’s private residence in Gloucester. Mr Cara and Mr Ong have been working with Charles, a keen gardener and long-time advocate of healthy urbanism and sustainability, since 2018, when he suggested at a gala that they may use discarded nettles from Highgrove as material for a collection on display in London.
Mr. Cara and Mr. Ong whom fans are said to incorporate: Since then, Kate Moss, Beyoncé and Michelle Obama have established contacts with gardeners from royal estates. However, Charles’ personal involvement in the corporate doesn’t wane.
“The king is constantly coming up with new projects and ideas,” Mr. Cara said in an interview. He remembered how Karol, after walking around the realm at ul Mey Castle, a former royal residence in Scotland, sent them a supply of lavatory cotton found on the estate, from which the designers sewed dresses. “We now have the freedom to experiment with any waste from his property,” Mr. Cara said.
This freedom resulted in many inventions presented on the “Royal Garden Waste” exhibition, which lasted until October 11. These include a slim gown created from willow cellulose with a print made using oak galls and other natural materials from Highgrove; a tight, halter-neck evening dress, knitted from willow cellulose and hydrangeas, also from the estate; and a floor-length sheath made from butterbur, a plant that grows along the lake at Sandringham.
Isaac Mizrahi cannot surrender his clothes
Isaac Mizrahi has a request: don’t lock him up. Since closing his first fashion company within the late ’90s, the designer has juggled duties as a QVC salesman, humorist, podcaster, nightclub singer and occasional actor.
It seems that enough was never enough for Mr. Mizrahi, 62, and recently he has focused much more on fashion, his first and most enduring love. “Most people associate me with clothes,” he said in an interview this week, shortly after presenting a daring latest collection at social media.
This line includes neat jackets and checkered mini skirts; gardening shirt dresses and A-line dresses; flared and cropped trousers; and nautical T-shirts and polo shirts embody the dynamic, clean aesthetic that has made Mr. Mizrahi a name for himself. It also includes accessories equivalent to stud earrings and aviator sunglasses, which, together with the garments, will initially be sold exclusively within the designer’s store. website.
Mr. Mizrahi said the garments, which range in price from $50 to $150, are “more contemporary than anything I’m currently doing.” Indeed, these things are noticeably younger than what she sells on QVC, with an aesthetic that harkens back to the mid-century influences which have recently made a comeback on the runways of pace-setting designers like Marc Jacobs and Celine’s Hedi Slimane.
But Mr. Mizrahi, a child of the Sixties, insisted that his line was “not caught up in trends.” According to him, these clothes – which were inspired by the wardrobes of ladies equivalent to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Mary Tyler Moore, each from his mother’s generation – are somewhat timeless in nature.
“These clothes will never be anything other than classic,” he said.
