RARE VINTAGE
Paris: For F/W 12, it seemed that Marc Jacobs began a conversation in his namesake collection in New York that he completed at Louis Vuitton in Paris. On the Parisian agenda was a heavily vintage-inspired stacking of garments, which created a voluminous but simultaneously tailored effect. The pieces themselves felt reminiscent of the quirky late-60s-early-70s, with matched separates that
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COSSACK AU COURANT
Paris: Fresh off the heels of a breathtaking January couture presentation, Valentino creative directors Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri have assembled a thoughtful curation of haute Cossack, without abandoning the youthfully demure aesthetic they have honed over the last three years. The show’s initial passage of black leather felt unexpected from the team that had located
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ATTITUDE ANEW
Paris: Karl Lagerfeld’s seasonal challenge at Chanel is less one of invention and more one of re-interpretation; he is tasked with discerning the manner in which Chanel tweeds, jerseys, tipping, and pearls can find relevance in fashion’s current moment. For F/W 12, Lagerfeld experimented with a youthfully “stacked” silhouette in which pants anchored a myriad of looks. The aforementioned
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DECADE DESIGNED
Paris: During his ten years at Lanvin, Alber Elbaz has honed a special blend of opulent glamour that pits nostalgia against modernity. His F/W 12 show opened with a breathtaking series of sculpted dresses and sets in brilliant monochromes. An hourglass silhouette prevailed; even the designer's signature goddess drapery was anchored to a structured, shapely sheath. Gravity-defying peplums were
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RETRO FUTURISTIC
Paris: Nicolas Ghesquiere can be counted among the design vanguards responsible for making two of the 21st century’s most pervasive cultural phenomena — irony and technology — parts of fashion dialogue. He is inarguably of a generation of designers prone to treading on the “it’s so bad it’s good” ground, and he remains fascinated with all things scientific, synthetic,
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WARRIOR'S ELEGANCE
Paris: The world of the samurai is one in which the iron-willed strength of a warrior is juxtaposed with a deceptive beauty found in exquisitely crafted vestments ranging from printed silk kimonos to meticulously engineered armor. For F/W 12 Dries Van Noten abstractly curated the iconography of the samurai, naturally marrying it with his lexicon of deliberately idiosyncratic sportswear.
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MONASTIC ECLECTICISM
Paris: For F/W 12, Damir Doma presented a collection that visually cleansed eclecticism — via its rigorously edited palette — while refusing to compromise a single note of uniqueness. Russian peasant, Buddhist monk, and Roman Eclesiastical aesthetic veins (among others) were all present and accounted for. Overt femininity though, never entered this story as ensembles tread strategically in the
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CYBER SUBVERSIVE
Paris: Having left French brand Cacherel one year ago and received backing from Italian financiers Aeffe S.p.A., Cedric Charlier presented an impressive debut collection for F/W 12. Inky blues layered on blacks served as a chromatic base in leathers and woolens. Tailoring was razor-sharp, often pursuing a robo-exactitude in its covered-up intentional severity. Juxtaposing technology with craft, sharp angles
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HAUTE HIGHLANDS
London: Sarah Burton has triumphed in the face of adversity for the last year and a half, taking the reins at Alexander McQueen upon the passing of the brand’s critically lauded namesake. While she has managed to create the directional, high-drama ready-to-wear that garnered the collection endless press under McQueen himself, re-developing the brand’s diffusion line presented a somewhat
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DOWN MEMORY LANE
London: Christopher Bailey’s tenure at Burberry has seen the brand go from buzz-challenged British-heritage label to international industry big-hitter, spinning it’s aesthetic into lucrative fragrance and diffusion line categories along the way. Bailey re-crafted Burberry’s formerly stodgy image as a desirable and contemporary mixture of London cool meets flirtatious femininity. For F/W 12 he has revisited some of
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