Groupielove #5

After a couple of seasons of citified dressing, collectors of Dries may well be pining for his more eclectic, decorative pieces. If so, they’ll find plenty of them: coats, soft boxy jackets, wrapped dresses, and sarong skirts in a plethora of fabrics and embroideries that looked as if they’d been sourced from a trip around the markets of China and Southeast Asia.

In among them, there were items—like the silver lamé tank with a sheer back, the khaki shorts, and the sparkly jackets—that will also allow fans to dip into trend without going overboard. The incredible necklaces—rich-looking pearl chokers dangling geometric pendants set with large semiprecious stones and crystal—made gorgeous viewing.

Trends ss2010: lace details

Although lace is usually only seen in lingerie or underwear, we were now confronted with  lace in all kinds of daywear  in many shows. The largest  fashionbrands like Chanel, Dior, D&G, Oscar de la Renta, Cavalli, Valentino and Galliano introduced their clothing for the summer of 2010 with loads of lace.

The lace mostly came in neutral shades like black, white or beige. Yet in the Dior show we saw some black mixed with bright colors, like purple or pink. Erdem showed a combination of blue and black. At the fashion show of Antonio Marras  lace was mintgreen. And the models at Nina Ricci wore it in nudes and navy blue.

Jenny Packham designed some great feminine dresses in white lace. Paola Frani came up with a stunning jumpsuit in black lace. Barbara Bui made a few wonderful black lace jackets and Jasper Conran’s lace dresses felt a little bit like wedingdresses. At the Chanel fashion show the models wore many layers, topped with lace.

The most outstanding lace designs were a white mini dress with puffy shoulders from Jill Stuart and an elegant lace dress and jacket from Oscar de la Renta.

Introducing lace as a new trend for summer seems perfect. The fabric is airy and comfortable and makes women feel and look very ladylike.

Trends ss2010: skinny pants

Although the first celebs are already wearing wide-legged jeans, the skinny trend continues. For spring/summer 2010 the long and skinny model legs were still accentuated by tight leggings or ulta skinny pants. Not in denim, but different kind of materials.

Often it was hard to distinguish a pant from a legging, as they were equally tight. The skinny pants were often combined with loosely-fitting long tops, blouses or jackets.

At the Balmain fashion show there were skinnies in black and (glittery) camouflage. Barbara Bui designed hers with fish scales. Balenciaga’s pants had leather details. The Burberry and the Ungaro pants were pleated from bottom to top. At the Chanel Fashion show the boys wore the same black/green skinny pants as the girls. Roberto and Eva Cavalli designed a pair of light and shiny trousers with horizontal tears. The skinny pants from Matthew Williamson, Tony Cohen, Givenchy and Versace had all kinds of  patterns.

Since the skinny pants and the loose-fitting tops make such a great outfit together, it’s not time yet for the wide pants to return.

Groupielove #4

Karl Lagerfeld is still going strong and he can’t get enough of fashion yet. “I like imagination — and the way I think things could be, had been, or should be — better than reality”, is one of hist latest oneliners at Twitter. Well, hios collection for Fendi was better than reality: wispy fabric, ivory and ecru, off-pastels, and fraying edges with a little touch of Parisian lingerie. It looked as if Karl Lagerfeld had drawn from his French vocabulary to make a cream silk high-necked playsuit (part classic blouse, part romper) and a dotted tulle shirt with a frilled triangle bra beneath. Thankfully, it didn’t slip completely into the clichés of boudoir (hypersexy is not the mood). That’s because of the more rough-hewn elements—say, a pale blue linen sarong, wrapped like a simple piece of raw-edged fabric around the body—and the incredibly luxurious Fendi craftsmanship.

Trends ss2010: braids

Past year braids made a huge comeback. We spotted them in different shapes and sizes on many celebrities. Later on the trend  the crowd picked up the trend.  Two small braids along each side of the face were popular, but also one large braid (around the head like a headband) and, of course, fishtail braids and French braids were re-introduced.

Judging from what we saw on the runway braids are still hot, like long loose and untidy braids at D Squared, Alexander Wang, Margaret Howell and Giambattista Valli. The models at Oscar de la Renta worked the braided headband. For those braids a piece of fabric was braided together with the model’s hair.

The girls at Paul Smith, Jean Paul Gaultier, Issa, Jaeger Londen and Zac Posen must have had had enormous headaches during the fashion show. Their hair was braided so tight, it hurt just to look at it.

At most fashion shows the models wore their hair down without any fuss. Yet several hair and make-up artists understood that braiding your hair can look very sexy and sophisticated as well. So if you haven’t mastered the French braiding technique yet, keep on practising it in front of your mirror, because you might need it next summer.

Tess van Daelen

Groupielove #3

Christopher Bailey, chief creative officer of Burberry, and one of Great Britains best-known designers, collected last monday his MBE from Buckingham Palace. Bailey, 38, was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire  in June this year, for his services to the fashion industry “This award also recognises the incredible team that I work with and it is a privilege to be a part of Burberry, a great British brand” Bailey said.

The recognitions are the latest in a long list of awards for the talented Yorkshireman. In 2004, Bailey received an honorary fellowship from the Royal College of Art, from where he graduated with an MA in 1994. He also holds honorary doctorates from the University of Westminster and the University of Huddersfield.

Dutch models: Patricia van der Vliet

Dutch models were well-represented at the catwalk this year. One of the ‘new faces’ we saw in many big shows was  Patricia van der Vliet. The blond girl popped up in shows from Prada, Balenciaga, Nina Ricci and Yves Saint Laurent. She even had the honor to open the Louis Vuitton show (the only time we saw her with black (afro) hair).

Patricia once participated in the Dutch tv-show Holland’s Next Top Model. Although she did not win, she ultimately made her way into the modelling business.

Her diverse appearances in shows of the largest brands in the world showed us how versatile Patricia is as a model. In some shows she was hardly recognizable.

Style.com already discussed Patricia as one of the ten new faces on the catwalk. Hopefully we will be seing a lot more of this girl. If you ask us, we already consider her as a Top Model.

Tess van Daelen

Groupielove # 2

In a serene and beautifully judged collection done almost entirely in shades of cream, Tomas Maier put the individualistic way we use clothes at the center of his thought process. “I think of it as a collaboration with women,” he said to style.com. “The clothes are meant to be a backdrop, a blank canvas, so the wearer can play with color and accessories to change the look and make it her own.” The concept of the neutral background came when he saw a group of children being dropped off at a karate class in Florida, where he lives: “I liked the look of the canvas, and that became my color card—white, cream, straw. And the idea of the soft belt.” Et voila, another beautiful collection was born.

Trends ss2010: endless variations

Since a white blouse is one of the most popular basic items, we spotted a lot of these in almost each summer collection. They appeared in three main versions: blouses that looked like jackets, tight waisted blouses and loose-fitting men’s shirts.

New details that were added to these blouses were rolled up sleeves, puff sleeves and collars decorated with ruffles and extra layers. Although designer Gianfranco Ferré has always been honoured for his multiple variations of the white blouse, I’ll bet he couldn’t come up with all the versions we saw for summer 2010.

The models wore their feminine blouses with ruffles and puff sleeves mostly in their pants or skirts (Moschino, Sophia Kokosalaki, Derek Lam, Max Mara), so the waist was accentuated. On the other hand, there were blouses that showed no bodyshape at all at the Junya Watanabe, Cacharel and Chloé fashion show.

There were a few outstanding white blouses. Stella McCartney designed an ultra-long, loose version. At the LoveSexMoney show there was a white blouse with an extremely big collar made of several layers of airy fabric. The white blouses at Girbaud looked like straightjackets. The best white blouse was shown by Aquilano & Rimondi. They made a super feminine white blouse with puff sleeves, large ruffles and ribbons… so classy.

Tess van Daelen

Trends ss2010: into the wild

We’ve seen the animal prints  for quite some time in fashion. Especially the leopard print was a major success in the past. This season we still saw some leopards at Giambattista Valli, Blugirl, Dolce & Gabbana and Paul Smith. Yet if you take a good look, you can see that the leopard print is diminishing and the reptiles are taking over.

Alexander McQueen’s collection was all about reptiles. Models dressed in colorful snake and python prints strutted down the runway. This had everything to do with the story behind this show, which was about the future ecological meltdown of the world and reptile-like creatures replacing mankind.

We also spotted light snake prints in the Pucci fashion show as well. They appeared at some short jackets. Kinder Aggugini used the snake prints in unrealistic light blue and pink. At the Iceberg fashion show the snakes were deep blue.

Other animals were spotted at Julian MacDonald, who designed a few fish dresses full of silver scales. Vivienne Tam showed a collection full of fantastic dresses that all had the print of a large butterfly on them. The colors of those butterflies worked beautifully.

Hopefully designers will continue getting their inspiration from nature. Nature has some extra reserves of great colors and patterns to create beautiful clothes with.

Tess van Daelen

« Previous Page — Next Page »