CURIOUSER NEW YORK

Last year during February and September 2011 fashion weeks , Nedret Tacuriglu 's designs blew me away. I've been always a fan of the Turkish designers - [as much as I've been a fan of Turkish culture since the very first time I've actually met and befriended an exchange student from Istanbul back in 1998 while still in college - we were both part of a scholarship, sponsored by the International Cultural Service Program (ICSP) ]. This girl taught me a lot about her homeland, and she taught me all the right things - so I learned earlier about the real country through the eyes of a beholder, not through some stereotypes... What I've noticed about the Turkish designers right away is they are like the Italian designers - they know the color, how to work with it and how to mix-and-match it! They are also very attentive to the details of the designs. The handwork requires some serious close-ups, which you cannot really see from the photos, unless you look very, very c...

It's time to bring out and about my new camera. It's time to shoot some serious fashion...   I finally got the perfect occasion to do so - the New York Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and Couture Fashion Week Fall 2012 that are starting next week - [ running February 9-16, 2012  and February 17-19, 2012 ] - with the pre-parties and pre-castings in the city happening already. [As a matter of fact, I'm starting to notice some very skinny tall young girls more and more on the streets of NYC, perhaps they are coming from other parts of the world just in time for castings, try-ons and walking the runaways, if chosen.] And I've got my pass...

Last September I was a part of the press team for the Couture Fashion Week New York . As a result, within 4 days of the back-to-back runaway shows of the designers from around the world: India, Turkey, UK, Russia, Lebanon, Spain, Dubai, Peru, Germany, etc. - I shot hundreds of photos, which made the next few weeks of my life both exciting and very stressful. But I did chose the best of the best, which you could see here . This fashion week is a rather unique event. Unlike the already known top designers that are featured during the Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week in NYC, these designers are not as known in USA, but very popular and sought after in their native countries. Of course, I've been pretty subjective to the Russian designers this year, but there is a reason for that...

There is something about white-black combination. I'm a bit at odds with it. I never had any kind of 'combos' like that in my wardrobe. I avoided it at all times - [I did try to understand it!...] - but every time I visited the White House | Black Market store - [which is IDEAL for that] - to experience the various combos of black-and-whites, I left empty-handed. As long as I remember myself, I always tried to avoid wearing the black-and-white combo, whether it was because this particular combo washes me out and/or I just thought the combo reminded me of some sort of a preppy school and/or of some kind of a corporate event where a person in black-and-white gives a presentation against a chart board. At the same time, I totally love the way men look in black and white. In years I came to realize that I might have been wrong. Seeing women pulling it off beautifully, both in real life and on a red carpet and other special occasions, made me to reconsider. And now that...