m i l l i o n a i r e FA S H I O N & B E A U T Y

The 30-metre dress from Kenzo

172 ) milLIonairE
 m i l l i o n a i r e FA S H I O N & B E A U T Y

Extreme fashion

Ou t r é
appeal What extremes can fashion go to, and why? In
price, in popularity, in outrageousness, in brag-
value…Millionaire delved into the world of fashion
to un-layer million-dollar dresses, chain-linked nails
and almost impossible heels

text Shalini Seth

milLIonairE ( 173
 m i l l i o n a i r e FA S H I O N & B E A U T Y
I f you look suitably wide-eyed at any fashion show,
chances are that your neighbour will gasp conspiratorily
with you as one of the more impossible outfits – perhaps
one that is both too high at the thigh and too low at the
neck and with all sorts of cleavage staring out at you – comes
on to the ramp, the racoon-eyed model, embodiment of heroin
chic, teetering in high heels with a vase on her head: “Who’s
going to wear that!”
These whispers come from the sheer accessibility of the subject.
After all, everyone wears clothes. And they are about the body
beneath, which again draws universality of interest, so isn’t it
meant to be more attractive as the end result? Is it surprising that
everyone feels like an expert?
If haute couture is to fashion what Beluga, Ossetra or Sevruga
caviar is to food, one taste should transform you from a have-
not. But it does not. It just leaves one baffled, when one is not
dismissing it as mere clothes.
But for those that do not, fashion is art, meant to shake
your aesthetic sensibilities. They say it is about expression and
174 ) milLIonairE
Valentino Haute Couture
Autumn-Winter 2006
communication, and reconstruction. If all the gossip is true and
it is about spoilt brats, it is simply attention-seeking behaviour.
Real fashion shocks. The rest is mere clothing.
“Designers want to make a mark by doing something that is
forward and extreme,” says Peter Dundas, the creative director
of Emanuel Ungaro, who was in Dubai showing his collection at
Dubai Fashion 2007, organised by the Dubai Shopping Festival
under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Hind bint
Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum, wife of His Highness Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime
Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Fashion, especially on the runway, is about extremes – whether
in terms of cost, which can go into hundreds of thousands of
dollars, or popularity that translates into waiting lists far beyond
what the medical profession can aspire to, or man-hours spent
on sending the model out in nails with 10,000 crystals hand-
glued onto them.
Extreme fashion is more than the sum of its parts. You get
what your imagination sees.
 the trend. But it was YSL that first dressed female models in
man-tailored clothes in the Sixties and took care of clothing for
the feminists with style.
Fashion must be excessive, said Nathalie Rykiel, director of
the Sonia Rykiel fashion group, calling models “the women who
parade on the catwalk, the artistic vision of a creator... They
don’t exist to speak of reality but to transcend it.”
Creativity is not necessarily born of controversy. Sometimes,
it can create it. And it is not limited to clothes. The runway
or the ramp is a world of its own, its theatricality telling you
what the designer had in mind when he crafted the dress. And
everyone’s invited.
Just last year, after Spain decreed that models with low body
mass index would not be allowed on the ramp, Jean Paul Gaultier
sent a 20-stone woman down the runway clad in lingerie, to
project the idea that beauty is universal.
Jan Nordstrom-Arnold, co-founder and style director of
Creative Nail Design, spoke to Millionaire about the most
outrageous nails she has ever done – which includes everything
from military insignia created with liquid and power to go on nails
complementing structured jackets, to a nail painted like an eye,
complete with eyelashes. “We also did lips and there was a
hole in one of the nails where she brought the
hands to her mouth, took a puff and blew
out smoke through nails painted like >

Christian Lacroix at Dubai Fashion 2007

Fashion is art, meant to shake

your aesthetic sensibilities.
They say it is about expression
and communication, and
reconstructing. Real fashion
shocks. The rest is mere clothing

WHO’S THE MOST CREATIVE?

For those who see fashion as mere clothes, the fact that social
revolutions, wars and recessions all conspire to bring the pieces
together on the runway might be surprising.
Now, when trouser suits for women are accepted in formal
wardrobes, it might be difficult to credit Yves Saint Laurent with

Ungaro

milLIonairE ( 175
 For men, the splurge appeal of custom and made-to-measure
suits is a draw. But it does not go into five figures yet.

Brioni $6,000
Kiton $5,800
Canali $4,200
Bottega Veneta $3,800
Giorgio Armani $3,595
Ralph Lauren $3,295
Oxxford Clothes $3,000
Jay Kos $2,800
Issey Miyake $2,800

lips. These are all handmade,” she says, searching her memory
for more tales to recount.
She then encapsulates the briefs that float around behind the
scenes: “We did a show for Diago Benetti. The brief was – very
skinny, very rich but she is a bitch. She has everything but she
can scratch your eyes out. We brought in real 24-karat gold and
made an almond-shaped leaf with the tip done in sterling silver.
The nails were three inches long. You saw this claw on the bag
that she was carrying. So if there was any confusion that this was
a real bitch, the nails told the story.”

Creative Nail Design

YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE!
If fashion is about headlines, why not grab them? Many artists
have been accused of market savvy, and enough campaigns have
made creative headlines. Peter Dundas, the Norwegian who
showed his debut collection for Emanuel Ungaro only last year,
talks about his most outrageous dress ever: “In my career, I have
done a dress that wholesaled at €137,000. It was beaded by a
French embroiderer, with additional feather embroidery. It was
Models are the obvious
crocodile-pattern, almost like real skin. It was for a show and it props that get worse for
took three weeks of constant embroidery.”
So, did anyone wear it? He counters: “I don’t do a design that I the wear in the extreme
cannot imagine one woman wearing it. But it has to be one.”
If you see the catwalk as the home for impressions that you will world. They are asked to
take away with you, there is a make-or-break moment. Nicolas
Dal Sasso, the press manager for Kenzo, revealed just before
walk in ‘almost impossible’
the show at Dubai Fashion 2007: “The most dramatic outfit is
the one with roses printed all over. It took about 30 metres of
high heels, and sent
material to make it. You can only get it on special order. It is down the catwalk in a
a very dramatic dress, the inspiration for which came from the
‘Garden of Allah’, a movie made in 1936. The whole idea of dress fashioned from
the catwalk show came from a movie set, of a woman waiting
for her lover.” razor-SHARP clam shells
Zac Posen has left his mark on the Barbie doll. The haute
little number is priced at about $300.
that can make legs bleed

176 ) milLIonairE
 m i l l i o n a i r e FA S H I O N & B E A U T Y
Money, acquisitive value, superlatives can all contribute to
attention-grabbing. Who would not talk about “the world’s
most expensive Dirndl dress” that was shown in Germany
last September? The Cindrella frock is gemmed with 150,000
Swarovski jewels and is priced an outrageous €100,000.
When Westwood and McLaren brought out models dressed in
rubber, neon colours, ripped garments and safety pins, punk had
arrived, punctuated with stories of grandmothers fainting at the
appearance of the models.
Madonna’s fame has much to do with Jean-Paul Gaultier, who
put her in conical bras for her Blonde Ambition tour in 1990.
He was also one of the first designers to promote underwear as
outerwear in the late Eighties, with bra straps, corsets and frilly
knickers all on show. The spiky bra made all the front pages
and in 2001 it sold at auction for £14,000. But then it was also
about acquisitive value of what Madonna wore, rather than
what Gaultier designed.
MODELS IMPOSSIBLE
Models are the obvious props that get worse for the wear in the
extreme world. How is this one for size? Ever since superwaif Kate
Moss arrived in the mid-Nineties, heroin chic, the combination
of painfully skinny frame, sun-starved skin, sunken eyes and
prominent hipbones, became de rigueur.
Designers have their demands too. For the Kenzo show in
Dubai Fashion 2007 the model had a brief to play with a dress
constructed out of more material than an Indian saree, which at
six metres seemed short in comparison.
Designer Peter Dundas, who is yet to get outré with Ungaro,
said before his show at Dubai Fashion 2007: “At Ungaro we have
not done extreme things. The extreme thing about this show is
the heels. At 15cm, they are very high. Almost impossible to
wear. But not impossible.”
A few years ago, Hussein Chalayan’s black burkhas ranged
from full-length to groin-length on an obviously naked model. >
milLIonairE ( 177
 m i l l i o n a i r e FA S H I O N & B E A U T Y

THE SUM OF ITS PARTS

Money, the great equaliser, is the best superlative of them all. The
most expensive tag on an item immediately makes a difference.
You can expect to cough up $37,000 for a Hermès Birkin bag
adorned with orange crocodile skin and trimmed with palladium
hardware. For years, women routinely shelled out hundreds,
sometimes thousands for the “it” bag, but the major price shift
to the five-figure handbag occurred less than a decade ago when
bag-makers started offering signature items. Bags are now not
just accessories, but investments and collectibles too.
In 2002, Victoria’s Secret outdid its $10 million Star of Victoria
Fantasy Bra and created a $15 million bra and underwear titled
Red Hot Fantasy. The most expensive bra is made of red satin
and 1,300 gemstones, including rubies and diamonds, and is
listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the
“most extravagant and expensive items of
underwear ever created”. No one has
bought one yet, but that has not
stopped production.

Peter Dundas says: “I don’t do a

design that I cannot imagine
one woman wearing it. But it
has to be one”

And Alexander McQueen sent model Erin O’Connor down the

catwalk in a dress fashioned from razor-sharp clam shells, which
made her legs bleed.
Much of the extreme hard work takes place backstage. “For the
Louis Vuitton show, every nail on the models had hand-placed
Swarovski crystals on them. We ordered 10,000 crystals. The
entire nail was encrusted with crystals. The crystals were also
used under the eye in the same show to seem as if there were
laser beams shooting from the eye. It took us a couple of
hours to do the nails for each model. And, at the end of
the show, we had to soak their nails in a solution for the
crystals to come off,” says Jan Nordstrom-Arnold.
Relating another example, she says: “On one hand, we
sculpted a hand dragon only on the pinky. The black nail beds
had a hole in each top through which ran a crystal chain from
nail to nail and got wrapped around the wrist.”

Ungaro

178 ) milLIonairE
 Here is more for dinner-table conversation. Victoria’s Secret Jan Nordstrom-Arnold
even offers to deliver the bra to your doorstep in an armoured
car, which will probably be needed to cart away that $15 million talked about the most
you just dropped on it.
Waiting lists and limited editions do more for the price tag outrageous nails she
than any other gimmick. Only 10 bottles of the most expensive
perfume in the world were to be sold when production began,
has ever done – which
and the costly perfume was made to order in either a women’s
or men’s fragrance. Sold by Clive Christian, who acquired an
includes everything
established name in perfumes, Crown Perfumery, in 1999, the from military insignia
exorbitant scent is called Clive Christian No 1. The flacon that
the perfume comes in was crafted by the French glass specialist created with liquid and
Baccarat Crystal. The bottle is encrusted with a five-carat
diamond and has an 18-karat gold collar around the top. The powder, to a nail painted
reported price tag on the most expensive perfume bottle ever
made? A mere €170,000.
like an eye, complete
The Guinness Book lists a pair of Gucci Genius jeans featuring with eyelashes
elaborate feathers, beads, rips and buttons as the most expensive
jeans that you can buy off-the-rack – for $3,134. >

Models during an international fahion event

Creative Nail Design

milLIonairE ( 179
 For the Kenzo show in Monroe at the famous birthday tribute to President
John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden where she
Dubai Fashion 2007 the sang “Happy Birthday, Mr President” on May 19, 1962.
This has to be one of the most expensive
model had a brief to dresses in history, with the final price
hammered down at $1,150,000.
play with a dress Levi Strauss Company bid $46,532
on the popular auction site eBay to
constructed out of buy back a pair of their own brand
more material than jeans manufactured in the 1880s.
Valentino has almost patented
an Indian saree, which the colour red – defined as “0%
Cyan, 100% Magenta, 100%
at six metres seemed Yellow, 10% Black: the Valentino Red”.
Says Emilio Carbonera
short in comparison Giani, the
to the 30m dress

Recently, however, Forbes

showcased Escada’s Swarovski
crystal-encrusted expensive
jeans which sell for $10,000.
In 2004, Samantha Mumba
attended the premiere
of Spider-Man II
in the world’s most Deputy Chief
expensive dress. Operating Officer for
Created by Scott Valentino: “It is not
Henshall the unknown for garments to
dress contains cost $300,000. But in terms of
about 3,000 popularity, the Red Valentino
always has been the most popular.”
Value-addition comes from
uniqueness. Jan Nordstrom-Arnold says,
about her military insignia collection that
is archived with her: “If a Sheikha wanted
them I would probably put a price to them;
but really it would take thousands of
dollars for me to part with them.”
diamonds And, of course, the exclusivity
in the shape of a of haute couture: “Each outfit is
spider’s web and would cost you not different and we sell only one
just the clothes off your back, but an additional £5 dress per country so you can never
million as well. ever find someone else with the
A full-length evening sheath dress of flesh coloured same dress. If another client wants it, it’s
soufflé gauze encrusted with graduated rhinestones impossible,” says Marie Martinez-Seznec, Director Haute
embroidered in a rosette motif was worn by Marilyn Couture, Lacroix.

Valentino

180 ) milLIonairE
 m i l l i o n a i r e FA S H I O N & B E A U T Y

Creative Nail Design

BRIDES RULE
Never does exclusivity come into play more than when it is
about brides. Diamonds on clothes, million-dollar dresses and
special materials are all likely to be seen in bridal couture more
than anywhere else.
Says Martinez-Seznec: “All our clients’ demands are special.
Someone asked us to put diamonds on a wedding dress about six
months ago. I tried to explain that it was impossible. It was too
extravagant. She didn’t want just a little embroidery. She was
from France and it was a wedding dress. It is true that we make
everything, but sometimes we have to explain.”
Someone else demanded it and if American media is to be
believed, got it as well. A bride from Brooklyn reportedly got
a $300,000 gown by Anthony La Bate of Francesca Couture.
The shy bride commissioned a dress encrusted with 1,100
diamonds totalling 300 karats and 3,000 Swarovski crystals
all combined with 50 yards of silk organza. On average, brides
will spend anywhere from $500 to $12,000 on a gown.
But the world’s most expensive wedding dress was showcased
in Dubai recently at the Dubai Fashion and Diamonds 2006
held under the patronage of Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed
bin Rashid Al Maktoum, wife of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed
Al Nahyan, Minister of Presidential Affairs. Valued at one
billion Japanese yen, it was created by Japanese designer Yumi
Katsura. It is made from silk-satin and embellished with gold
embroidery and 1,000 pearls, a green 8.8-karat diamond emblem
and a five-karat white gold diamond, which is one of only two
in the world.

The one billion Japanese

Yen wedding gown
milLIonairE ( 181