Catwalktrend FW2010: Graphic Prints

Digital graphic prints, Peter Pilotto made them into it’s signature technique and has a lot of success with it. Even Michelle Obama wore several pieces of the brand. It’s digital prints are always very vivid and colorful and are inspired by nature’s element like water or the sun. For fall the designers drew their inspiration from seventies interiors.

Often though, graphic prints aren’t based on anything. Their just beautiful figure- and color combinations printed on a certain fashion item.

Apart from Peter Pilotto, Matthew Williamson creates gorgeous prints as well. The short, printed cocktail dresses and long evening gowns he designs, always are true show stoppers.

Unlike floral prints and animal prints, graphic prints often look very modern. They can even look kinda spacey when printed on a black background. The most beautiful examples are printed on satin or sheer fabric. It makes the clothes look expensive and the women look elegant.

We think all women wanting to look modern and hip should have at least one graphic printed cocktail dress of her own.

Catwalktrend FW2010: All that glitters…

After so many season of hearing navy or grey being the new black, this year’s new black comes as a surprise. Gold is the new black for 2010/2011. Though it’s not a very common color for winter, it certainly is a big trend.

It popped up at Balmain, Moschino, Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana and Pucci. At Balmain it matched perfectly with the whole baroque-theme and all the purple.

Moschino combined it with black. Rosella Jardini designed a golden fringe coat and decorated a black one with lots of golden (ear)rings.

Dolce & Gabbana showed golden headphones for your i-Pod and used small golden coins as emrbroideries on their clothes.

Donatella Versace mixed all kinds of metallics in her collection. Even her pants and bags had metallic pieces on them.

So, everyone saying gold looks cheap and trashy should keep their mouths shot for at least half a year. Cause it’s the trend. And even if it’s fake, it’s still fashionable.

For the winter of 2010 all that glitters IS gold.

Catwalktrend FW2010: winter knitwear

For next season D&G set the trend with their sporty, winter knitwear. They sent out jumpsuit, bodysuits, tops and turle necks with winter snowflake or reindeer print on the runway. Their models we’re heading to the après-ski and looked damn good after a day of stylishly skiing.

Though a ski suit normally is not very flattering, D&G sure made it work. They even managed to present a sheer floral skirts with a knitted sweater as one outfit, without everybody disliking it. It was one of those grunge looks, we discussed earlier.

And there were more brands celebrating the cosy winter knitwear look. Chanel, Gaultier, Marc Jacobs, Missoni and Rodarte all showed their own versions for this winter.

It’s unbelievable how these sweaters can become so popular in such a short period of time. I remember seeing my parents wearing them on photos from 25 years ago and finding them horrofic. Now a sweater a la D&G is on my musthave list for this winter.

Catwalktrend FW2010: the lammy jacket

Besides military men, pilots are an inspiration for fashion too. Especially their pilot jackets are huge this year. Black or brown leather combined with natural colored lamb’s-wool make up for a winter musthave: the lammy coat.

At Burberry the pilot coats were strong-looking with large, think lammy collars. The models who wore them (combined with skirts and high boots) looked confident and cool.

Lamb’s-wool is not only popular on jackets. We saw it on hats and boots (fashion brand Ugg makes all it’s boot with lamb’s wool) as well. Fashion label Hermes even introduced a lammy Birkin Bag. And Hussein Chalayan amazed everyone with his lammy binoculars.

One thing’s for sure. If we’re gonna have a cold winter, the lammy will be your best friend.

Catwalktrend FW2010 – Black leather

Black leather, it can look so sophisticated, yet it can appear very nasty & gothic as well. For fall, both examples were shown on the catwalk.

More than any other color leather, black was by the world’s top designers. Often total looks were created out of black leather. So the models wore coats, capes, hats, pants, gloves, dresses, skirts, belts and shoes of black leather.

Alexander Wang made it look grungy, at Moschino it was cool and Hermes used a croc-version. Ann Demeulemeester gave it a Gothic touch, Dior’s was girly and at Dsquared the black leather was worn by Dominatrix.

It’s clear you can go create many different looks with just this one material. On the catwalk it all looked great, yet when walking down the streets fully dressed in black leather, you’ll soon be judged. Our advice is to mix & match your leather with other pieces, so you won’t come across as some leather fetishist.

Catwalktrend FW2010: his jacket

Your man’s pants, shoes and jackets are no longer safe next season. ‘Cause chances are you’re leaving the house in them. Especially the masculine jacket is an easy, stylish fashion item you can throw over almost any look. Whether you combine it with a cocktail dress, a pair of pleated pants or a pencil skirt. You can never go wrong with your man’s jacket.

The so called boyfriend jacket was already popular this summer, yet for fall it has become even manlier. The shoulders have broadened and the length has increased.

At Sonie Rykiel the jacket was part of a suit and seemed to belong to some kind of giant. Preen, Dries van Noten and Bottega Veneta showed large pieces as well. Also, quite a few designers opted for a double breast version.

In case you’re afraid to look too masculine in these jackets we have a few tips to make the jacket appear more feminine:

1. tuck or roll up your sleeves
2. wear nothing underneath or at least something with a low v-neck (like Michael Kors showed on the runway)
3. wear a small belt over your jacket, around the waist to accentuate your silhouette.
4. add accessories like a brooch on the collar of the jacket

Catwalktrend FW2010: Pencil skirts

Since Christian Dior introduced the pencil skirt in the late 1940s the item has had several popular periods. A few years ago it’s popularity increased again. Victoria Beckham, who – at that time – seemed to be a pencil skirt-ambassador, might have started the trend then. And now the skirt is still hot.

For fall Italian fashion houses like Dolce & Gabbana, Moschino showed many pencil skirts. Domenico and Stefano made theirs less stiff. They looked more comfortable than the average pencil skirt and they’d probably be much more easy to walk in too. At Moschino the skirts ended above the knee.

We’re not quite sure if they’d count as pencil skirts, but we did spot some ruffled pencil-shaped versions. Both Moschino and Nina Ricci came up with those, one in black, one grey-shaded with flowers.

Other brands that made the pencil skirt work were Dior, Dsquared, Etro and Paul Smith. Some looked more comfortable than others, but overall the skirts appeared elegant and made the models look sexy and feminine.

Catwalktrend FW2010: the Olsen-look?

Oh what a waste it will be. Designer skirts and dresses sweeping all over dirty floors and streets. Yet if we believe the grand fashion houses floor-sweeping fashion is certainly going to be a trend.

Especially long skirts for daywear are ‘new’ in fashion. They have this kind of grungy feeling to it and, to be honest, not a lot of people can pull this off.

On the runway the long skirts were very diverse; transparent, sequined, layered and knitted. Quite often they were combined with the most unexpected tops.

D&G combined Norwegian printed knitted sweaters  with transparent floral printed skirts. Marc Jacobs matched his shiny skirts with heavy cable knitted jumpers and Michael Kors & Dries van Noten let their bottoms and tops clash as well.

Glamour meets grunge you could call this look and the Olsen Twins may just have set the trend.

You might have to buy a few extra skirts, cause the bottoms will wear out so soon. But hey, think about all the money you’ll save on shoes. ‘Cause since they won’t be visible you can just wear one of your old pairs.

Catwalktrend FW2010: perfectly pleated pants

Next to the super-feminine fifties skirts and dresses, this fall pleated pants are great statement pieces as well. Though they might appear manly at first sight, designers like Carolina Herrera and Chloe showed how they can be very elegant and sexy too.

There are two types of pleated pants. The ones that reach the waist and the ones that are worn low on the hips. Both look splendid when finished of by a small belt. And of course anything you’re wearing with those pants need to be tucked in, not worn over it.

Some designers combined the pants with masculine shirts (Chloe, Michael Kors, Jason Wu), others managed to make the outfit look feminine by adding color, prints, bows or ruffles (Bottega Veneta, DKNY, Emporio Armani)

And the best way to wear a pair of pleated pants? Put your hands in your pockets and work ’em!

Catwalktrend FW2010: hairy situation

For a lot of designers we hope it’s going to be a cold winter. How else would they get rid of their many enormous fur coats?

The fur coat we’ll see this winter is thicker than ever before. The models at the Chanel show looked like snowmen and at Michael Kors they resembled big hairy animals.

For Fendi Karl Lagerfeld came up with patchwork fur, at Chanel he opted for faux fur and stated: ‘You fake chic, but you can be chic in fake fur’. Viktor & Rolf’s first look was Kristen McMenamy wearing an gigantic fur coat (under which many layers of clothing were hidden).

Lanvin, Thakoon, Hermes, Bottega Veneta and D&G put a small belt around their big fur coats to give it a little more shape.

We saw real and faux fur in just about any imaginable color. PETA activists won’t be so delighted, but the fur looks really were show-stoppers.

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