What Can't Come Quickly Enough

The store's usually-enticing displays
looked, on this visit, a little rough.

This weekend brought, among others things, a trip to the David Yurman Chicago boutique on Oak Street. While my visit was, overall, a positive one (is it ever not?), it was also, unfortunately, an unremarkable one in three ways, which I will now enumerate below. These are, officially, The Three Things That Can't Come Quickly Enough:

1. Removal of Bündchen, Posting of Upton (or Menghia... or Mali or Hemingway)
Hasn't Fall 2013 launched? Why is an oversize Gisele still featured to the left of the store's front doors? Don't get me wrong; I love the model and her work for DY, but that image is from the Fall 2012 campaign. Out with the old. In with the new, right?

2. Demotion of Griffin Collection
Yes, I solemnly declare I seek the withdrawment of the Griffin line. I've now inspected thoroughly most of the rings in the collection and can say they are as I've all along thought--that is, average at best. Being such, they should not occupy a half of a display case (as they presently do), not in a boutique with only four men's collection cases! According to the sales professional with whom I spoke, the designs are only selling "OK" due to their being crafted for a "very specific customer" and having not all the "kinks [in design] worked out." Enough is enough, I say. Feature one piece--my vote goes to the red jasper signet ring--and place the rest in back stock.

3. Release of New Men's Product
Part of me really believed F/W pieces had debuted, just not online. That part of me was wrong. There are, at this time, no new men's arrivals in the DY boutiques either. And so we continue to wait. I've heard rumblings of a mid-September release. As always, I'll keep you posted.

That's all for now. DYguy over and out.

This Morning: Kate Upton for DY, Tonight: The Rooftop Soiree

Kate Upton for DY

It brings me great pleasure to report the face of David Yurman for fall 2013 is none other than 21-year-old model and actress Kate Upton. These photos (see below) from the soon-to-be-released campaign, which was shot by Peter Lindbergh, were published to Glamour.com this morning:

Kate Upton | Image Credit: Glamour.com

Kate Upton | Image Credit: Glamour.com

Other models featured in the campaign include Dree Hemingway (25), Anais Mali (22), and my personal favorite Catrinel Menghia (27):

Dree Hemingway | Image Credit: Glamour.com

Anais Mali | Image Credit: Glamour.com

Catrinel Menghia | Image Credit: Glamour.com

While these shots represent anything but a departure for DY--they are quintessential Yurman--it is refreshing to see Upton afforded, for once, the dignity she duly deserves. She's been so long objectified in images such as the one below (a cover for men's magazine GQ) that seeing this work for DY might, for some, provide quite the shock.

Kate Upton | Image Credit: onemansblog.com

The Rooftop Soiree

The 2012 Rooftop Soiree and Campaign Video Reveal
Image Credit: houseofharperblog.com

The New York Observer is reporting that tonight David Yurman will hold its Fall 2013 Rooftop Soiree at 24 Vestry Street in New York City from 6:30-8:30 PM. The event, which is invitation-only, represents and signals the kick off of the new season for the company. As photos emerge from the gathering, this entry will be updated to include them. (Oh, and David Yurman, what do you say to an invite next year?) ;)

UPDATE: The soiree is through, but the images keep coming. Here are some of my favorites from this evening's event:

Jason Binn of DuJour.com with the master and his muse
Image Credit: @jasonbinn (Instagram)

Mid-event
Image Credit: @anahitaglitters (Instagram)

Revelers bid adieu to day.
Image Credit: @carolyn_hsu (Instagram)

Darkness falls.
Image Credit: @tristanvalencia (Twitter)

Kate Upton in a little black dress
Image Credit: @DailyFrontRow (Twitter)

A glamified Upton
Image Credit: @carolyn_hsu (Instagram)

On Doorsteps Everywhere: The David Yurman 2013 Spring/Summer Catalog Is Here

The catalog's cover.
DY leads with cable and crossover bracelets
(and, of course, Catrinel Marlon).

Received last week by all those on David Yurman's mailing list was the company's latest catalog, a 36-page card-stock document featured product and promotional images from all three of DY's "Dreaming in Color" sub-campaigns, which are, in no particular order, Seduced by Vibrance, Darkness and Light, and Beauty Radiates.

The sole individual on whom DY layers its latest collections in the booklet is brunette bombshell Catrinel Menghia (Marlon), who's evidently all DY wants and/or needs in models this season (not that I am in any way complaining). While the contents of the catalog are, for those who read this blog or subscribe to DY's E-mail updates, anything but "fresh" (practically all images have been featured here or there before), the effect of the aggregate whole remains profound. I've said it before, and I'll say it again--this is going to be the season of Yurman.

Yurman seems to have saved the best for last.
I'm loving these striking-in-their-strangeness
signet rings on the catalog's back cover.

Which of the featured designs tickled my fancy the most, you ask? Why, the ones far outside my price range, but of course. (Then again, I am a man so the point is rather moot.) I am taken by the beauty of the catalog's back-cover curiosities, one-of-a-kind signet rings whose jewel-encrusted surfaces recall reptile scale. The creations, which, I have to say, don't have me thinking David Yurman, come in at (from left to right) $17000, $20000, and $15500.

Did you receive DY's latest catalog? If so, which pieces made an impression on you? Sound off by posting a comment below or by sending me an E-mail.

Positive Identification: It's Catrinel Menghia for David Yurman

Seduced by Vibrance... or by Feminine Beauty?

I have been, for days now, posting about the brunette bombshell featured in David Yurman's Spring-Summer 2013 campaign, knowing not who she is. Well, yesterday that all changed with the posting of a tagged Instagram. It turns out the face of DY's latest campaign is none other than Catrinel Menghia, the twenty-seven-year-old Romanian fashion model known best for her work for Giorgio Armani and Fiat. On Wednesday Menghia made this posting to Instagram in which she acknowledges that the beauty is the campaign is, indeed, herself. (Note the unassuming caption.)

Menghia posted this to Instagram Wednesday.

Can you blame a guy, though, for not recognizing the famous face, given the work she's previously done? Heck, Menghia is normally done up to the nines with a focus on her body as opposed to her equally-gorgeous face. Yurman has done with her what the company did with Bundchen and has stripped away the Photoshopped veneer through which the the world typically sees the woman. What is present in the shots is not a plasticky fembot but, rather, a ravishing natural beauty who exudes an aura of vulnerability seldom seen in modern advertising. Cheers to Yurman's creative team for viewing and treating Menghia as it does the company's product--as not an object but, instead, a fantastic work of art.

Menghia: Beauty Incarnate.
Also, check out that utterly enchanting (and becharmed!)
tear-drop pendant!

For the "Darkness and Light" Sub-Campaign

Menghia adorned in many a variety of bracelet and a pinky ring.