In fashion circles, invoking the name of a South Florida city is considered one of the ultimate insults. Unfortunately for Esteban Cortazar, fashion scribes can't help but to go there when discussing his work.
Two season ago, the South Beach raised designer was put in charge of Parisian fashion house Emanuel Ungaro at the tender age of 24. He showed his second collection for the label yesterday in Paris, and even though he said the collection was inspired by his birth place of Cartagena, Columbia, Nicole Phelps of Style.com (the online wing of Vogue) couldn't help but be too bitchy and describe it as too South Beachy.
Everyone is rooting for Cortazar — partly, no doubt, because he's so young to have been given such a big responsibility. He should retrench and come back with a collection that's less South Beach and more Paris.
Earlier in the review she said the clothes, "looked very much as if they were made for life in a hot climate—like southern Florida, from which he hails." Well, we understand that the place where most Vogue and Style.Com staffers hail is rather hot too, so you'd think she'd be more appreciative.