Wall Street Journal- Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

This article in the Wall Street Journal profiles Russian Professor Igor Panarin, Dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Academy for Future Diplomats and former KGB analyst, as he predicts the imminent 'disintegration' of the US.

All High Fashion Boils Down to Chanel

It seems as though Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel has taken to the russophilic trend, and created his Spring-Summer 2009 collection under the name "Pairs-Moscou". In accompaniment to his collection, he has created a short film of Coco Chanel's own love affair with Russian culture. Deeply immersed in Russian history, the film portrays post Bolshevik revolutionary Moscow. Chanel is accompanied by the Grand Duke Dmitri, with whom she tries to converse over Russian Constructivism versus Parisian Cubism, to which Dmitri responds that he know nothing of the two, he only knows of Russian Imperialism and Russian folklore. Coco recalls her enchantment with the extravagance of Russian Imperialism, and decides that her next collection shall represent the intersection of Parisian-Russian fashion.

The Sartorialist Goes to Moscow

Renowned fashion blogger, The Sartorialist, recently posted his first photographs of fashionable Russian passers-by. The photographs feature young Muscovite women; two subjects sporting parachute pants, one shot of a young lady in a black leather jacket, and finally this portrait entitled "The Sculpter". The Sartorialist used the subjects' professions to offer depth. His photographs of Russian women carry a gravity to them that is rare for his other subjects; a sternness to the face that demands respect, if not exaltation!

The Beginning: A Peculiar Article

What piqued my interest in the rise of Russian culture and Russian Fashion was a peculiar article in the New York Times surrounding an ad for Louis Vuitton of the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, which in and of itself is a bit unusual for Louis Vuitton (compared to say, Scarlett Johanson), but became more curious when it surfaced that the ad featured Gorbachev beside a Louis Vuitton duffle bag, with a defamatory article about what had been the current Putin regime.