After six straight days of fashion shows, it’s nice to go to one that guarantees the sparkliest outfits (if you consider bustiers outfits) of the season and allows you to drink free wine in your seat while drag queens and men in embellished blazers hoot at each and every model. So the house was understandably packed for the Blonds’ fall 2010 show last night in the Altman Building. Design duo Phillipe and David Blond are responsible for Rihanna’s spiky shoulders and hips, and dressed Adam Lambert for his album shoot. He sat front row last night wearing a custom fingerless leather glove with long gold claws sticking out the knuckles. Does he often wear claws? “No, this is a first. It actually works as a back scratcher, you can brush your hair out with it, pick various orifices, you know, whatever you need,” Lambert told us. He did not use it to style his hair that evening, which was expertly smoothed at the sides and poufed and mussed on top. “I did this myself tonight,” said Lambert, who admitted he would like a clothing or beauty line of his own one day. “And it didn’t take too long — I just put a bunch of gook in it and blow-dried it and then I shellacked it with a lot of hairspray before the snow, you know? Hairspray is your friend, snow.”
Lambert had also applied his own makeup, a simple look starring perfectly kohl-rimmed eyes accented with blue and green glitter. “Glitter is very important,” he explained. “It just catches light. And in a literal sense that’s lovely and it’s visually pleasing but maybe it’s a little bit more than that. Maybe if you’re catching light, it’s an energy thing.”
The runway show certainly had plenty of energy. Phillipe Blond opened to a mix of house music and jungle sounds wearing a gorilla costume. She lumbered down the runway pausing to swat at notables on the front row, like Pat Field. Then she ripped her head off, deconstructed her suit, and finished her walk in the perfect shaggy fur coat and tiny sparkly dress. Out strutted model after model in little outfits, each somehow sparklier than the last. Two girls nearly fell in their sparkly heels, but at a show where the models wear lion heads on their shoulders and have spikes coming out of their boobs, bobbles on the runway are hardly the most interesting thing to ogle.
After the show, the Blonds praised their clients Rihanna and Katy Perry. “They’re willing to wear anything and perform in anything,” said David, who added that Rihanna always requests as many spikes as possible. Do they worry about boobs popping out onstage? “They love their boobage!” Phillipe said. “We make sure that everything is tucked into place. It’s like a trapeze act inside,” said David.
The duo engaged in a little friendly bickering when we asked if they ever worry about a girl falling and hurting herself in one of their spiked corsets:
Phillipe: Yeah.
David: But you know what? You gotta break some eggs. You gotta break them eggs! Actually, we’ve been really lucky and at almost every single show we haven’t had one girl fall. Well, knock on wood.
Phillipe: Well, there was a stumble.
David: No one fell — there was a stumble. There was a stumble when the shoe came off —
Phillipe: One shoe did not come off.
David: The lion. The shoe stayed on. And she got back up. It was kind of cool. Kind of like she was stumbling after a fun night.