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Remember those colorful wool crepe minidresses Anna Dello Russo was spotted wearing at the Couture shows this past summer and then again during New York fashion week in September? As it turns out, ADR isn’t the only one who took a liking to Milanese designer Fausto Puglisi’s Grecian cheerleader dresses—Madonna enlisted the designer to create Nicki Minaj and M.I.A.’s wardrobes for their Super Bowl halftime show yesterday.

“This was the most incredible and extreme experience ever,” the designer tells Style.com of the dresses, which were embellished with crystals, spikes, and embroidery. “It’s Madonna—to work with her is an honor.” Puglisi began working on the dresses last November when he got the call from B. Akerlund, who oversaw the show’s costume design. “The Roman Empire history and the emperor power is part of my DNA—I’m obsessed with Caligula and Caesar and Roman tradition and I always loved to mix this with American sportswear touches,” says Puglisi. Check out the designer’s sketches of the costumes, which he shared exclusively with Style.com. —Kristin Studeman

Sketches: Courtesy of Fausto Puglisi

Every New York fashion week is filled with its fair share of memorable performances, both at shows and at the host of after-parties. This week should be no exception. On Thursday night, the Citizens Band, spearheaded by Karen Elson and Sarah Sophie Flicker, is set to turn Milk Studios into a sexy boudoir for their burlesque-style performance in Erickson Beamon’s “Deca-Dance” presentation. (They will, of course, be wearing Erickson Beamon pieces.) Following the cabaret show, Lissy Trullie, Cleo Le-Tan (sister of designer Olympia Le-Tan), Venus XX, and rap group Wu-Tang Clan are each doing a set at Milk for the MADE and Lexus Launch Event. If that’s not enough to make your night, the Kills’ Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince (a.k.a. Mr. Moss) will be rocking out at the Standard’s Boom Boom Room—we’re told it’s their last performance for a long time before they go back to the studio to work on their next album. On Friday night, the Ting Tings and Santigold (who fronted Alexander Wang’s T ad campaign for Fall ‘11) will be on hand to put on a show (Ting Tings) and DJ (Santigold) at The Box for a Glamour party. The following day, Style.com has learned that actress and singer Alia Shawkat, familiar to many from her starring role in the much-missed sitcom Arrested Development, will be singing during Rachel Antonoff’s presentation at Drive In Studios. —Kristin Studeman

Photo: David X. Prutting/BFAnyc.com

In a new series, Style.com sits down with the best in the field of contemporary fashion photography to talk about both the process and the product. Here: Deborah Turbeville.

Considering the high romance of Deborah Turbeville’s work, it might seem odd to think of her as a little bit punk rock. But to hear the 73-year-old photographer describe her untrained, just-go-for-it DIY beginnings, comparing Turbeville to Sid Vicious doesn’t seem so far off. “There would be a strange cropping or one girl in focus and three out or a blur,” she said at a recent interview at her Upper West Side apartment. “But I would end up liking the mistakes and incorporating them into my work.” Well, and there’s also the time she got arrested in Texas with Bob Richardson, with whom she worked with regularly while a stylist at Harper’s Bazaar.

It was actually Richardson and his “cinematic” way of working that precipitated her eventual leap from fashion editor to fashion photographer in the early seventies. (She also had encouragement from Richard Avedon and Harper’s Bazaar art director Marvin Israel.) But even though she’s shot editorials for Vogue, Italian Vogue, and W and campaigns for Barneys New York, Oscar de la Renta, and Valentino—for whom she did the current Spring campaign—Turbeville still bristles at the F word of fashion. It’s one of the reasons it’s taken her so long to put out her most recent book, Deborah Turbeville: The Fashion Pictures ($85, www.rizzoliusa.com). Style.com caught up with Turbeville to talk about being Claire McCardell’s fit model, what’s so great about St. Petersburg, and the very Hollywood shoot for her new Valentino campaign.

PLUS: Click here for a slideshow of Turbeville’s work through the years, accompanied by commentary from the photographer >

—Meenal Mistry

Why do The Fashion Pictures now?

I have difficulty with realizing that’s what I’m supposed to do. [Laughs.] I don’t really think of myself as a fashion photographer. I’m kind of in denial about it. People kept saying, “You should do a book of fashion pictures. We’d like to see them, after all.” A friend of mine was doing books with Rizzoli, and he said, “You know, that would be a fun little airy project, to do something on my house in Mexico.” I knew I had a lot of photographs hanging about. So I made an appointment to go in to see Charles Miers, the publisher, and he said, “I’ll do the book, but would you also do a book on your fashion pictures?” And that’s how it happened.

They did a nice job. I like the scrapbook format.

Well, the book is really a way to show how my work developed. How it all started. It goes chronologically. It just shows more or less the progression of my work. It’s a bit autobiographical. And I always do that anyway, putting pictures together in a narrative way.

It’s funny, I never realized that your first job was working for Claire McCardell for three years.

Yes, I was a fit model but I also did the shows. But because I had such a long waist, it was hard for the other models to fit the clothes. In the end, she said, I’m going to fire you and hire you back as my assistant. So I was very happy. She was one of the few designers who would use a lot of European fabrics. She used incredible fabrics. She was really a Renaissance woman. She designed shoes for Capezio. She was probably the first one to put girls in flats, in ballet slippers. We all wore flats. Or we wore tiny little heels that were stacked, made out of lizard. She did jewelry, this Chanel kind of jewelry. She was like the Chanel of the United States at that point. It was an incredible learning experience.

Was there a point that you considered being a designer or were you just figuring things out?

No, that was never my thing. I was still not focused. I liked the fashion world, but I really liked her and what she was doing. Then I went on to the magazines. I wanted to work at the magazines as a fashion editor.

What was it like to be at a fashion magazine back then?

When I went to work for Bazaar [in 1963], it was an incredible period for fashion photography. Bazaar was very exciting. They had had the Russian, [Alexey] Brodovitch, working for them. And then Marvin Israel and Henry Wolf. Twice a year there was a huge children’s portfolio. They said, “Come up with an idea and we’ll assign you a photographer.” So I said, “Let’s do something controversial.” So we found a little Indian girl who was very special-looking. Bob Richardson was doing the pictures and he always worked like it was a scenario in a film. He would give me the script, and I would run around town and get the clothes. The pictures were a tremendous hit. Then we were on a roll. And you have to understand it was Diane Arbus, Melvin Sokolsky, Bob Richardson, Jimmy Moore, Avedon, Hiro. All these incredible people, even Robert Frank, were doing pictures for them. The art directors really wanted those people used but it wasn’t easy to get them into the book with straight fashion. So the children’s portfolio was an opportunity to use them. But Bob was my favorite. We carried on like that for two years. Going to Spain, ranches on Texas. We went everywhere. Finally, I got fired for it because they said it had gone too far.

Wow. What happened?

It’s a long story. We were arrested in Texas. We were supposed to be doing the King Ranch family and Bob insulted the host and hostess and we were asked to leave in the middle of the night. The next morning we drove out to the country and just parked the car and took two of the children and started photographing them, and this woman appeared out of nowhere and said, “What are you doing?” And I said, “We’re from Harper’s Bazaar. This is Mr. Richardson.” She said, “Well, I have to talk to my husband and I’ll be back.” So she came back with the sheriff and arrested us. It got to be a big story and that’s when I was asked to leave the magazine.

That’s a pretty cool exit. At least in retrospect.

Then I worked with Diane Arbus a lot. I did several stories with her. I did a big story with Avedon for the What’s Happening issue. He called me and said, “Everyone is talking about the things you do. I’m dying to work with you.” And then he became kind of a mentor and helped my career a lot. When I started taking pictures, I took a special class with him.

But how did you eventually make the leap?

Somebody said, “Why don’t you take pictures yourself?” I said, “Well, I’m not technical.” And she said, “Well, they have these cameras now with inside meters.” So I went out and bought this little Pentax camera and had the man explain it to me. Then I went to work for a small magazine, where I was fashion editor. I suggested a couple stories and one was in Yugoslavia. When I got back, the magazine folded, but I had the pictures. Avedon was giving a professional course, and he looked at the pictures and thought they were amazing. They weren’t amazing at all! They were totally out of focus. I didn’t know what I was doing. But he liked the freedom in them and the idea behind it. Then I started taking things really seriously and testing. By the time I went to work at Mademoiselle later that year, I was able to ask them if ever I could do a sitting of my own and take the pictures. That’s how I built my portfolio at Mademoiselle, shooting my own sittings.

I didn’t realize that you overlapped doing both styling and shooting. Though I guess that makes sense.

That helped me, because I didn’t have to earn a living being a photographer at first. I never could have done that because I was too special. My pictures were in soft focus. It was a completely new thing. Had I been out on my own, I might have had to compromise my work.

How did you develop your style? Because it really is very particular.

It started because of the way I used the camera. I had a very soft-focus lens. And I liked soft focus and everything came out very soft. And I liked high-grade films that were very grainy. A lot of times there were big mistakes, but I would show the art director and he’d say, “Yeah, let’s go with it.” There would be a strange cropping or one girl in focus and three out or a blur. But I would end up liking the mistakes and incorporating them into my work. And I became known for it.

There’s a great way that Franca Sozzani describes it in the foreword: “Every detail is perfect and yet wrong at the same time.”

Because it is. That’s how you create a style, anyway. I give a lot of lectures. I’m going now to St. Petersburg to give one. I always tell them, if they can, it’s good not to concentrate on the commercial in the beginning. Because once you’re out there, it’s too late.

Do you think you have a particularly feminine point of view?

Yes, definitely. My photographs are extremely feminine. But it doesn’t have to do with any kind of conviction on my part. It’s all instinctive and spontaneous with me. There is a certain approach that women have. They do get into some kind of inner thing more than the male photographers do. It’s a more personal approach.

How do you view these pictures in the context of the rest of your work?

Well, doing this book made me see that my work is in balance with my private work. I was mad one time about something, and one of my galleries said to me, “Well, you’ll have to go through the same thing that Penn and Avedon went through.” No matter what Penn and Avedon ever did, if they were photographing men in the Midwest or Peruvian Indians or flowers, no matter what they do, they’re still stylists. And stylists, just by their nature, no matter where they go, they’ll still be considered—even with personal work—part of the fashion photography syndrome. It’s the same sensibility. I don’t think the fashion photographs stand so far off the mark of anything else I do.

You’ve spent so much time in St. Petersburg and you also talk about your affinity for these moody cities like Paris. What draws you to them?

Because I’m such a movie buff. I was always drawn to films with mystery. I always liked a certain kind of art film. I think I learned a lot from studying those films for years. One thing I wanted to be prevalent in any photograph was atmosphere. Whether the person had atmosphere in the face, or emotion in the body, or whether it was the atmosphere of the place. And it had to be mysterious. That’s why I was drawn to those cities. They had those qualities. In the book I call it St. Petersburg Studio because the city itself was like a studio. They offered these old palaces which were unrestored, for pennies, like the Stroganov Palace with broken floorboards and chandeliers on the floor.

You’ve cited directors like Fassbinder, Cocteau, and Visconti as influences, but are there any modern filmmakers who inspire you?

I like Lars von Trier. I just saw Melancholia. It’s usually foreign directors. There’s a Turkish director but I forget his name.

I like that you called the Bathhouse pictures a spoiled brat. I guess every artist has that one thing. Is there a shoot you think deserves favorite child status?

This other book I did, this Steidl book, called Past Imperfect, is full of them. It’s all done like story narratives.

You’ve worked with quite a few great stylists, Polly Mellen included. How would you describe your working relationship with the stylist on set?

I’ve always been lucky because the stylists that worked with me always worked for the picture. Polly always worked for the picture. She understood every photographer’s style, and tried to get it happening for them in the pictures. Those kind of stylists I work well with and they work well with me.

Do you look at a lot of fashion magazines now?

No, not at all.

How did the recent Valentino advertising campaign come about?

Franca Sozzani works very closely with them. She had helped them with a collection, given them some images of my Russian portfolio. Their creative director and advertising agency were in their studio one day and they saw that all their pictures up on their board were my pictures. So they said, “Well, that’s the photographer that should be doing your ad!” So they said, we’d like to revisit the Mexico of Tina Modotti and Georgia O’Keeffe. Well, Georgia O’Keeffe was not from Mexico…

Close enough for fashion purposes.

I said, I know where I would do it, out in Pozos [Mexico], this little abandoned mining town that had all these ruins in the landscape, and it’s free from tourists. So they came, this entourage of 14—the two designers and all the people from the advertising agency. It was a huge sitting with all these people being put up and limousines and vans. We had to cater the food out in the middle of nowhere, and have presses and steam irons, everything, and all the equipment…It was a very big deal. Like an old-fashioned sitting from the past. Like you used to have these sittings where you’d go to Cairo or something. It was just two days. But it was very Hollywood.

And don’t miss the first installment of the series:
The Image Makers: Inez and Vinoodh >

Giorgio Armani has signed on to design and furnish apartments for the World Towers residential complex, set to be unveiled in 2012, in Mumbai. The upscale complex (complete with custom Armani Casa furniture) will reportedly include a 117-story skyscraper, making it the largest residential tower in the world. [WWD]

Before the Princess Diana exhibition, featuring 28 of her famous dresses, goes on display at Kensington Palace in March, it will first make a stop at the Mall of America in Minnesota. The exhibition opens tomorrow. [Vogue U.K.]

As a tribute to the late costumier Eiko Ishioka, Nowness unveiled unseen images of the costumes she created for the new film Mirror, Mirror. Ishioka famously made Oscar-winning pieces for Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, outfitted Grace Jones for her 2009 Hurricane tour, and oversaw the costumes for the 15,000 performers in the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. [Nowness]

Dazed Digital met with a few of Central Saint Martins’ most promising M.A. students to find out what they have in store for their presentations on the opening night of London fashion week. Meet Timur Kim, Craig Green, and Mei Lim-Cooper. [Dazed Digital]

Carine Roitfeld stuck to using “real people” (as opposed to models) for her guest-edited issue of Vman, due out February 14. The exception: the bonus pinup girl calendar, shot by Willy Vandeperre, featuring “supermodels and Victoria’s Secret Angels, 12 of the planet’s most celebrated creatures.” Roitfeld dressed the girls, including Joan Smalls, Miranda Kerr, Adriana Lima, and Karolina Kurkova, in an assortment of Victoria’s Secret lingerie and customized pink American Apparel jackets. Style.com has the exclusive first look at the full calendar. Here, a few of our favorite months. —Kristin Studeman

Come Monday, watch out for Jason Wu all over lower Manhattan. The designer is set to paper downtown guerrilla-style with his Willy Vanderperre-photographed images, starring Julia Frauche wearing his fifties couture-inspired shapes from his Spring ‘12 collection. Before you spot them on the street, Style.com has the exclusive first look at the poster (above).

CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year Michael Bastian has collaborated with Barneys on a fully outfitted suit collection. The line will feature slim, modern tailoring ideal for an emerging market of young professionals who want to avoid an “anonymous baggy ‘going to work’ suit.” Pieces, available online and in Barneys stores, will be priced 20 percent lower than Bastian’s namesake line. [Michael Bastian]

Ralph Rucci is opting for private showroom meetings rather than a runway show this season. His sister and communications director, Rosina Rucci, stated that his time slot, conflicting with the Tommy Hilfiger show, was not a factor in the decision. Chado Ralph Rucci was scheduled to show on February 12. [WWD]

Diane von Furstenberg’s new Spring ‘12 campaign recollects work by Surrealist artists Salvador Dalí and Magritte. The campaign places models in desert landscapes, obscured by a mirror covering the face. Von Furstenberg is known to be a collector of the late Dali’s art. [Telegraph]

The Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography has announced its ten fashion design candidates for the 27th annual competition. From April 27-30, the global group of designers from Estonia to Argentina will showcase their work to a panel of judges, presided over by Yohji Yamamoto. Hyères is known for embracing emerging avant-garde talent—last year’s jury consisted of Raf Simons, Christopher Kane, Proenza Schouler, and Style.com’s Tim Blanks.
[Hyères] —Alexander Englert

Filson’s fashion moment just got extended—the 115-year-old outdoor clothing company from Seattle, known among the style set for its canvas and leather totes, has tapped Richard Chai as its new creative director.

“As a young designer in New York, we get approached with so many opportunities to collaborate, and sometimes they work—and sometimes they don’t. With Filson, [initially] I just wanted to do some outerwear for my specific collection this season,” Richard Chai tells Style.com of his new partnership with the brand, announced this morning. “Then I was talking with Filson’s CEO and he asked if I would be interested in coming on as creative director—it was all very seamless.”

Chai’s first efforts with Filson, a capsule collection of six jackets and three bags, are set to debut next week at his Lincoln Center runway show. Chai, a longtime wearer of Filson, says, “The core of Filson is hunting and fishing and it’s really practical—it’s amazing when you see how the outerwear is constructed and how it functions,” says Chai. “As a designer, it’s amazing to take that look and reinterpret it to something more fashion-oriented.” Chai did that by adding some of his signature accents to their classic duffel bags and bomber jackets, refabricating them with wool and black stripe fabric. The aim, for this extended partnership, is to land this more fashion-forward Filson collection in specialty boutiques and luxe major department stores.

“Spring ‘13 is what we are working on next, and it’s really about rounding it out and making something that feels more cohesive as a collection,” says Chai, who plans to filter in shirts, pants, etc. next. “It’s going to be a whole new world of Filson.” —Kristin Studeman

Many people did a double take when Prabal Gurung’s Spring ‘12 campaign, featuring a barely recognizable Candice Swanepoel, made the rounds earlier this week. Gurung’s go-to team, stylist Tiina Laakkonen and makeup artist Hannah Murray, transformed the South African model for the sensual shoot with photographer Daniel Jackson, showing off the designer’s Nobuyoshi Araki-inspired collection. Here, an exclusive Style.com behind-the-scenes look at how it happened. —Kristin Studeman

With Valentine’s Day approaching, we’ve been reflecting on our favorite fashion couples. Because when it comes to dressing, a pair of style aces is always better than one. Naturally, power duos like Brangelina or Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom made the cut; those genetic jackpot winners could make even burlap sacks look good. Still, you won’t find most of our matchups in the pages of Us Weekly. Model sweethearts Sheila Marquez and Christian Brylle look like they share a single closet. And we love Leelee Sobieski in a suit of her husband Adam Kimmel’s design. But André Saraiva and Annabelle Dexter-Jones take our top honors for their coordinating varsity jackets and jeans.

CLICK FOR A SLIDESHOW, and tell us who’s the best-dressed twosome. —Brittany Adams

The Resort season found YSL’s Stefano Pilati in a nautical mood. So when the label commissioned Maciek Kobielski to shoot an atmospheric video for the collection, the coast is just where he went. Kobielski shot Eniko Mihalik in Cannes for the sultry new spot, debuting exclusively on Style.com.

The early bird catches the worm—that saying was certainly appropriate this morning when, before rush hour, a crowd of industry insiders flocked to the Museum of Arts and Design for breakfast to fête the winners of the 11th annual Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation awards. The birds? Designers Tim Coppens, Sunhee Moon’s Sunhee Huang, Titania Inglis, Eighteenth’s Alexa Galler, Haus Alkire’s Julie Haus and Jason Alkire, Correll Correll’s Vera and Daphne Correll, and Dezso’s Sara Beltran. The proverbial worm? $25,000 grants to fund their Fall presentations at New York fashion week, starting next Thursday.

“This is not something I would typically do on a Wednesday morning,” mused Coppens, who launched his menswear collection in April. “I was surprised to win, but it feels really good.” The judges, including former Barneys fashion director Julie Gilhart, Gilt Man’s Josh Peskowitz, and Paper’s Kim Hastreiter, were all on hand to congratulate the recipients. “We all know how hard it is to get a solid footing in this business,” Peskowitz told Style.com. “This industry requires new people to be able to put forth new ideas, and having this award ensures that process continues.” Meanwhile, retail guru Gilhart bestowed some words of wisdom to the newly coronated designers. “Show up and bring something different to the table,” she advised. Adding, “This is not an award that is about lights, camera, action—it takes time.”

That is certainly true for industry veteran Huang, who has been working on her collection for the past 15 years. “I started crying when I heard the news,” Huang admitted. “I tried to launch the line several times, but it was difficult financially. This is the third time and I feel like it’s the start of my career.” —Nicole Berrie

When he’s not in the city, Yigal Azrouël lives a laid-back, short-board surfer lifestyle. He rides waves on Mexico’s Baja coast, chills out by the Mediterranean in his native Israel, and skips down to Costa Rica for sun, surf, and sand. So, understandably, his offshoot contemporary line Cut25 balances city style (little leather jackets and blazers) with weekend relaxation (easy draped sweaters and wispy scarves). It’s a cocktail that works. On Friday, the line is expanding via its first standalone retail store on Grand Street. “I love the location,” he said over the phone. “The east side of Soho has a really cool vibe, between the stores and galleries. I love Saturdays surf shop and there’s Opening Ceremony, Jil Sander, and Derek Lam.”

Good neighbors always help, but so does family. Azrouël collaborated with his nephew Dror Benshetrit on the interiors of the 1,400-square-foot space. “No one knows me better than Dror,” Azrouël said. “It’s not like I have to even think about it, because he’s already on the same page. He’s my best friend.” The final design includes bleached wood, distressed steel columns, and striking geometric forms that double as sculpture and merchandise space. Speaking of the stock, the designer has created exclusive pieces for the store and curated a fun selection of special collaborations and books. And that’s all before fashion week, which has kept him plenty busy with his eponymous collection. “I come in early,” he said. “Then I don’t even know what time I leave the studio. I don’t even want to look at the clock.”

Cut25 opens Friday, 129 Grand St., NYC. —Bee-Shyuan Chang

“Up until six months ago, I thought OpenSky was an airline,” CFDA CEO Steven Kolb admits. For those in the same boat, OpenSky.com is actually a new e-commerce site that offers members (sign-up is free and open to anyone) access to a virtual cabinet of celebrity and expert curators. Members to the site choose the experts—spanning fields from fashion to design to food to fitness and including Julianne Moore, Carolyn Murphy, Lori Goldstein, and more—that most appeal to them, and can then shop items said experts curate for the site. Starting tomorrow, you can count the CFDA among them. As part of a new initiative, OpenSky members will be able to buy exclusive accessories from CFDA members including Diane von Furstenberg, House of Waris’ Waris Ahluwalia, Albertus Swanepoel, Selima Optique, and Fallon’s Dana Lorenz.

“We wanted to start with accessories since American accessories are the best and they never get the spotlight they deserve,” Kolb explains. “But ultimately it is the CFDA’s dream to sell something from all 400 CFDA designers.” Until then, designers like Swanepoel, a milliner, are enjoying their moment in the spotlight. “It is amazing exposure for my small brand,” he says. “I do not currently have e-retailers on board, so this is a first for me.” Here, in this Style.com exclusive video (above), Swanepoel talks about the four exclusive hats he made for the program. —Kristin Studeman