Above Stine Riis, winner of the H&M Design Award.

København native Stine Riis, a 28-year-old graduate of the London College of Fashion, has been announced as the winner of the first Hennes & Mauritz Design Award. Her winning collection, called Decadence & Decay, was shown on the catwalk at Stockholm Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week earlier today.
   The win sees Riis receive €50,000 and 15 of her designs sold in selected H&M stores in Sweden, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands in September.
   Stine calls her style ‘tailored future elegance’. She sees the construction of the garments as being part of the design, while ensuring the clothes are comfortable.
   The competition jury featured Christopher Kane, Hilary Alexander, Kristopher Arden Houser, Susie Lau, Margareta van den Bosch, and Ann-Sofie Johansson.
   ‘I am still overwhelmed. Showing at Stockholm’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week has been such a great experience. I can’t believe so many people came to see my collection! This award gives me the confidence and financial back-up I need to pursue my dream of building my own brand. I couldn’t have imagined a better start to my career as a designer,’ said Riis in a release.
   Alexander complimented Riis, calling her entry ‘a polished, well-cut collection of strict tailoring in contrasting materials including leather, wool, metallic and bonded fabrics. Her silhouette was lean but flowing, and particularly effective was her use of colour: a slim blue and orange bi-colour top, for example, or a blue coat stamped with white.’
   The H&M Design Award People’s Prize, decided online by visitors to the Awards’ website, was won by Anne Bosman. She receives a one-month internship at Christopher Kane in London.
   Students at fourteen colleges in six countries competed for the prize.

Kristian Loveborg Fotografering

Jones New York has launched its optical eyewear collection in New Zealand, available through Visique. The range features tailored frames that are masculine in style, with a selection of fashionable colours and modern materials.

   Brancott Estate, meanwhile, has released a new smartphone application, called World’s Most Curious Bottle. There are 14 ‘unique consumer experiences’ on the app, including entertainment and wine information, that users can unlock when they scan the QR code on the new Brancott Estate labels. The app is compatible with Apple and Android.
   Opening today at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is The Inverted Mirror: Art from the Collections of la Caixa Foundation and MACBA, representing movements such as Dau al Set, the El Paso group, the Vancouver School and the Düsseldorf School. It features 93 works by 52 artists who worked with various media, especially photography, video and large-format sculpture. Artists include Antoni Tàpies, Sigmar Polke, Julian Schnabel, Jeff Wall, Martha Rosler, Michelangelo Pistolletto, Thomas Ruff, Gillian Wearing, Bruce Nauman, Andreas Gursky, Martí­n Chirino and Antonio Saura.
   The introduction below from curator Alvaro Rodríguez Fominaya is in Spanish, while the walk through the gallery is silent.

The first production Aston Martin V12 Zagato will début at the Kuwait Concours d’Élégance on February 15–18, the company announced today.
   The V12 Zagato is the latest collaboration between the famed English firm and the Italian styling house. The first DB4 GT Zagato, of which 19 were made, was introduced in 1960, with subsequent limited-edition collaborations based around the V8 in the 1980s and the DB7 in the 2000s.
   The latest model is based around the Aston Martin V12 Vantage, but has a distinctive aluminium and carbonfibre body and a bespoke interior.
   Aston Martin will hand-build 150 V12 Zagatos, with the first customers taking delivery at the end of 2012. Assembly will be at Gaydon. The official price is £330,000, excluding local taxes.
   The six-litre V12 engine generates 517 PS (380 kW, 510 bhp) with a maximum torque of 570 Nm (420 lb ft).
   Dr Ulrich Bez, Aston Martin CEO, said in a release, ‘Over 50 years since the introduction of the iconic DB4 GT Zagato, Aston Martin and Zagato have collaborated to create this modern interpretation which remains true to the original focus of craftsmanship, performance and exclusivity.’
   The V12 Zagato was shown as a prototype in May 2011 at the Villa d’Este Concours on Lake Como, and won the Design Award for the concept and prototypes’ class. The two prototypes were subsequently entered into the Nürburgring 24-hour race (below).
   The Kuwait Concours d’Élégance is now in its third year, hosting vehicles from over 19 countries. A privately owned DB4 GT Zagato is expected to appear at the Concours.

Top Diane Krüger is one of the VIPs at the Versace Étoile de la Mer eyewear launch. Above Donatella Versace and Anna Wintour.

Versace hosted a dinner at Restaurant Lasserre in Paris on January 23 to unveil its spring–summer 2012 eyewear collection, dubbed Étoile de la Mer.
   The capsule collection features two sunglasses and one optical model, each in various pastel colours. Eagle-eyed readers will spot the signature frameless pilot-shaped model at the spring–summer 2012 women’s fashion show in Milano.
   Donatella Versace and Vogue Paris editor-in-chief Emmanuelle Alt played host, with celebrities including Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Abbie Cornish, Diane Krüger, Haider Ackerman, Ludivine Sagnier, Daphne Guinness, Maggie Grace, Suzy Menkes, Bérénice Bejo, Salma Hayek and Riccardo Tisci.
   The campaign image features supermodel Gisèle Bündchen, photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott at an abandoned pool in the California desert. Giovanni Bianco art-directed.
   Donatella Versace says of the campaign in a release: ‘Gisèle was the perfect choice for this campaign. Her beauty is so bold in these images and she radiates true strength and sensuality. As an iconic beauty, she is also the perfect fit for the Étoile de la Mer eyewear collection. The images of her in the collection are stunning and powerful. This is exactly the vision I had when I started the design process.’
   The Versace Étoile de la Mer optical style will be available at OPSM in New Zealand from February, with the sunglasses following at Sunglass Hut in April.

Above Scenes from the launch event, with guests including Maggie Grace, Emmanuelle Alt, Daphne Guinness, Bérénice Bejo and Salma Hayek, and Haider Ackerman and Suzy Menkes. Below The Gisèle Bündchen campaign image and the three Versace Étoile de la Mer designs.

Paolo Bruno/Getty Images

A few years ago, you might not have seen this: Jaguar as the official car of the Federazione Italiana Canottaggio (Italian Rowing Federation).
   That was when Jaguar was so stuck with its idea of Britishness, almost to the point of parody. Since Ian Callum headed Jaguar design, the company has been more internationally minded: it may still be British, but it’s an international, forward-looking Britain that the Jaguar brand now represents. And this tie-up signals to the Italian specialist makers that Jag can even get them on their home turf.
   The Jaguar Excellence Academy is a programme which will see two athletes from the FIC get a scholarship to either undertake a public speaking course, or a Master in Sport Management or Self-Management, and an English course, and 30 days in the UK with the British Council.
   Twenty rowers have been selected initially, with the field narrowing to five with the help of Facebook users who vote at the FIC page, and with the evaluations of the Federazione and Jaguar Italia.
   Seven of the twenty are already qualified for the Olympic Games, and six are women. Many are world champions in their categories and two are coastal rowing world champions.

Paolo Bruno/Getty Images

Coty has launched a new version of its l’Eau de Chloé, using a concentration of distilled rose water and patchouli. As with the original 2008 scent, Michel Almairac of Robertet is behind the perfume.
   French model Camille Rowe-Pourcheresse fronts the new marketing campaign for the scent. Mario Sorrenti has directed the film, with still photography by Camilla Akrans. Ezra Petronio art-directed
   The bottle has been redesigned as well, but instead of metal, glass has been adopted. The ribbon is now in a soft green.
   Prices begin at €28·80 for the 200 ml shower gel. The eaux de toilette begin at €45·60 for the 30 ml, rising to €76·30 for the 100 ml.
   The new l’Eau de Chloé hits retailers on March 7.

Lucire’s coverage of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo is online today in the main part of the website. Not content with bringing back the event after a cancellation earlier in 2011 due to the earthquake and tsunami, peripheral events, including an international edition of Fashion’s Night Out with all 17 Vogue editors, made sure that the event made big headlines.
   In addition, the Japan Fashion Week Organization will run Tokyo Fashion Week in Italy at the Pitti Immagine Uomo exhibition from January 10. This exhibition is for menswear. This is a business-to-business event, not open to the public.
   Japanese designers continue to make a splash globally. Featured designers from Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo will collaborate and showcase as Leather Japan 2012 at New York Fashion Week. The presentation event will be held on February 13; an exhibition will follow at the Nexus showroom in New York from February 14 to 16.
   It’s official: Giuseppe Mascoli’s new London burger joint, the Bukowski Grill, is receiving guests. Well worth an expedition to Shoreditch, a quarter of the city not often seen by tourists. These burger concoctions offer a reasonable alternative to the snobby high-end fare at downtown eateries, and the people-watching can’t be beat.
   We’ve also seen in 2012 with our review of the BMW X5, part one of our Vancouver Fashion Week coverage, and new original photographs and layout for our earlier Mini Cooper D road test.—Yuka Murai, and Stanley Moss, Travel Editor

Summer Rayne Oakes and Benita Singh’s Cartier award-winning venture, Source4Style, which helps designers source sustainable fabric through a well designed, transparent website, launches its second version today. Lucire has the low-down in the main part of the site, and this story forms part of some of our next 2012 print and other non-web editions.
   We believe this will revolutionize the way the business of fashion is conducted. Think about it: consumers demand sustainability and the trend has no signs of stopping. Yet, according to Singh, suppliers are spending up to 43 per cent of their marketing budgets just on trade shows. ‘It’s a huge up-front time and financial commitment with no guarantee of a return,’ she says. On the other end of the scale, Cornell University research shows that designers are spending up to 85 per cent of their time visiting those same shows, going through online directories, or wading through sample folders.
   Source4Style uses the internet to bridge the divide, and has obvious positive implications for smaller suppliers, who are on a level playing field with the big names. Some of these suppliers are in third-world countries, so it’s not hard to see the financial benefit that Source4Style can have for them and their communities.
   It’s in line with the ideas in Simon Anholt’s Brand New Justice, where Anholt posited that good brands helped third-world communities find greater profits and margins. Source4Style doesn’t quite give these companies brands per se, but through the site, it allows them to be the equal of businesses that are operating in the first world, and levels the playing field.
   It is the solidity behind this venture that sees us devote two web pages and the cover to it. We encourage readers to take a look, as this may well be the moment when fashion changes for good—in more than one sense of the word.—Jack Yan, Publisher