Trends ss2010: strange cutouts
Were they short on fabric? Or did they think it would be nice to ventilate some dresses? What reason lays behind the strange cutouts in some designers’ dresses we don’t know. But it’s definitely a new trend.
We saw the strangest cutouts in diverse places. Above the armpit (Gucci, Kane), diagonally over the breast (Emporio Armani), around the stomach (Gaultier, Armani), above the breasts (Balmain, Gaultier, Elie Saab), under the breasts (Ungaro), between the breasts (Gucci), around the navel (Girbaud, Pucci, Alexander Wang), on the upperarms (Gucci), on the upper legs (Michael Kors, Viktor & Rolf) and around the waist (Erin Wasson, Laroche, McCartney).
At the Gucci show almost every dress had some small cuttings. Michael Kors’s dresses had cutouts that went around the model’s body, the fabric was held together by transparent plastic. Jean Paul Gaultier cut so much out of his t-shirts that they only existed of shreds of fabric. The bathing suits that we saw at the Pucci fashion show had splendid cutouts that gave them that little bit of extra sexyness.
Viktor & Rolf cut their hundreds of layers of tulle in a way the lower part of their dress looked like a piece of cheese. Unlike for the other dresses it didn’t add any sexyness, but it certainly made the dress stand out.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: shine on!
Putting on an extra sparkle won’t hurt next summer. It’s become obvious that shiny sequins and sparkling details are no longer exclusively used for special events like New Year’s Eve. You can put on a sparkling outfit any day of the week.
Past fashion season the sequins were carefully introduced, yet this season they’re all over the place. Many fashion designers (Oscar de la Renta, Dior, Issa, Lanvin) used sequins and other shiny little details like studs or beads all over their clothing. They made the designs look super expensive and the models looked like princesses or movie stars.
The shiny details mostly came in silver, gold or bronze. Vivienne Tam, Pucci, Blugirl, Ungaro, Matthew Williamson and Asish made theirs in all kinds of colors and patterns. For example Asish had his colored sequins placed in the shape of Mona Lisa and at Ungaro they were heartshaped.
Elie Saab presented a showstopping evening gown sequined from the bottom to the top. Burberry showed us a glittery coat with sparkles looking as sharp as glass. At Aquilano Rimondi we could see several shiny outfits that had sparkling flowers in different shapes and sizes in gold and silver.
Making those items must have taken hours and hours of crafting. So next July when it’s steaming hot outside we will all be walking around with heavy, stiff, fragile, unwashable but oh so glamorous outfits. Shine on you crazy sequin!
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: bathing in luxury
Of course when the spring/summercollections are presented, bathingsuits are shown. Several designers came up with some splendid beachwear. The only comment we have on these gorgeous bathing suits… they often looked too delicate to swim in. So it might be better to use them to lounge about and stroll on the beach.
The collection of Emporio Armani had a lot of beachwear. Unfortunately this was mostly black and wasn’t all that exciting.
Pucci did have several elegant beach items in its collection; some bathing suits in shades of nude and an ocean-blue version with a matching jacket.
Gucci showed us a nice grey-colored version decorated with studs.
We saw a muscular Naomi Campbell in a black & white, animalistic, one-shouldered bathing suit at Issa. It was one of the few shows for next spring where we could see the British topmodel.
Together with the bathing suits some designers (Etro, Pucci, Issa) created airy colorful tops. Those tops are great to wear at the beach especially over a fabulous bathing suit or bikini.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: fantastic plastic
How can you protect yourself from the rain and still look sexy?
Zac Posen, Sonia Rykiel, Frankie Morello, D Squared and others gave us the answer: you just wear a transparent plastic raincoat. In this way you’re still showing the great outfit you’re wearing underneath and your silhouette stays visible too.
For next spring transparent plastic was used by several different designers. Isn’t it typical that at least four designers came up with a see-through raincoat, independently of each other? At all four shows these raincoats also popped up out of nowhere and didn’t really connect to the rest of the clothes in the collections.
But the raincoat wasn’t the only transparent plastic item; there were bags and shoes as well, for example at Prada. D Squared and Charles Anastase both had transparent bags too.
Michael Kors used the plastic for his bathing suits and bracelets. Out of everything we saw the most fantastic plastic was made by Frankie Morello. He came up with a chique Chanel-looking plastic jacket, which had collar and cuffs made out of fabric.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: streetwise
Most women love to dress up like classic, elegant ladies when they go out. Therefore international topdesigners create the most luxurious clothes made of expensive fabrics like silk, satin, chiffon and lace. But what do you wear on any given day when you haven’t planned anything special? Exactly, you mix and match your clothes into your best streetstyle.
We found out Marc Jacobs was all about the young streetmix for next summerseason, as well for Louis Vuitton as for his own brand. His LV models showed short skirts with jackets made in every possible shape and print.
The girls in the Marc Jacobs show wore a mix of many wearable items. This resulted in strange combinations (girls wearing their underwear on top of their clothing?!).
Balenciaga, G-Star and D Squared presented some easy-going, funky outfits for streetwise girls too. The designers often added a bag to make the outfit look more like streetwear. We can actually picture some girls working these streetmix-outfits on their day off in the city.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: slim silhouettes
Although models usually have a slim silhouette already, for ss2010 a few designers made their models look even taller and thinner than they normally are.
At Missoni’s fashion show the clothes with maximum lengths accentuated the models’ slim figures. The girls were wrapped in lots of layers as well. They wore long cardigans on top of long dresses, that only left a small part of their legs uncovered. The fact that Angela Missoni mostly used one shade per outfit added the feeling of the girls looking slimmer than ever.
Besides Missoni, many other brands had long slim pieces in their collections. Etro, Calvin Klein, Blumarine, Roberto Cavalli, Alberta Ferretti and Oscar de la Renta showed some great examples. Most of these were long feminine dresses, made of ultra-light and airy fabrics to make the outfit look less stiff.
Flowers or sequins were the finishing touch on many of these silhouette-accentuating outfits.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: goddess glamour
Next season shoulders are getting some extra attention in several different ways. We’ve seen shoulderpads, shoulder cut-outs, adorned shoulders and one-shoulder dresses.
Many designers gave their own interpretation to the one-shoulder dress. Most often they put all their creativity in the dress’s one shoulder. They gave that one shoulder lots of layers, ruffles and draping so it really stood out and made up for the missing one.
During the Iceberg fashion-show shoulders were emphasized in many ways. The colorful one-shoulder dresses seemed to be the highlight of the show. At Lanvin the shoulders got a mix of ruffles and layers.
Sonia Rykiel showed a one-shoulder dress with bows all the way to the top.The shoulder on one of Viktor & Rolf’s designs (made out of hundreds of layers of tulle) reached as high as the model’s head.
Most one-shoulder designs looked sexy, summery and a bit Roman/Greek.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: new basics
You could consider a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt as everlasting basics. However, even basics change a little bit every year.
A few seasons ago some slim fit pants were indispensable. For next summer a pair of wide-legged beige pants, a straightforward skirt, a loose-fitting jacket and a long cardigan are the season’s must haves. We saw many of these items at Stella McCartney’s show.
What’s so great about these clothes? You can easily mix them with the rest of your wardrobe. Especially the beige pants can go well with almost every color. The jackets and cardigans can be worn in a masculine way but with a waistbelt they will look very ladylike. We could see this combination in many shows.
The MaxMara, Chloé and Tommy Hilfiger fashion shows all had some great basics with which you can make endless variations.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: black & white
Although you might expect bright colors for the summer-season, many designers chose black and white as their main colors. There were lots of outfits in full black or white, but also good combinations as well.
Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester and the two Japanese designers Yohji Yamamoto and Junya Watanabe didn’t use any color in their shows at all. Their designs were all in black, white and some hues of grey. Rick Owens’ designs stood out because they were very pointy. Watanabe’s clothes had black and white checks that matched with the checked shoes.
Givenchy showed some black and white in his renewing geometricaly shaped outfits. Jill Stuart made a few pairs of extraordinary black and white leggings. At the Moschino fashion show modern white blouses were mixed with black bows.
(Tess van Daelen)
Trends ss2010: shoulders up!
A few seasons on the runway shoulderpads now definitely hit the stores. While the crowd is taking over this trend, great designers are exaggerating their focus on shoulders and having fun with it. Their pointy or extremely round shoulders are lifted, thickened, adorned and made visible through transparent fabrics. At Balmain’s show the shoulders were still the main aspect of the collection. For 2010 Christophe Decarnin added some fringes on his military jackets for Balmain. The shoulders at the Comme des Garcons show were purposely put in all the wrong places (at the models’ breasts or backs). The brand thus made fun of the whole shoulderpad-trend. The actual shoulderpads were visible through the sheer designs of Jean Paul Gaultier, Viktor & Rolf and Sonia Rykiel. What type of shoulder will they come up with next season? (Tess van Daelen)
