The best of Milan Fashion Week FW2010

Many Italian brands proved they know exactly how fashion works during Milan Fashion Week. Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Jil Sander and Marni all showed very strong collections meant to be worn by strong women.

Dolce & Gabbana
The Dolce & Gabbana show was one of the best shows we saw in Milan. With their 50th fashion show Domenico and Stefano went back to their roots. They showed everything Dolce & Gabbana stands for, which they described by the terms Sicilianita’, Sartorialita’ and Sensualita’. The show, which started off by a clip of the designer working in their atelier, was a true sensation. Domenico and Stefano presented perfect tailoring with a very feminine touch. Their polka dots, animal and floral prints combined perfectly with all the black. Like in the show for their summer collection of 2010 the designers at the end sent out 75 models on the runway. All of them were dressed in black jackets. What a lovely sight! The show was marvellous, but you’d have to be there to understand why it made certain people cry.

Jil Sander
Anther brand that stayed very true to itself was Jil Sander. Raf Simons took some inspiration from the Lara Croft movie Tomb Raider and said to have designed the collection for ‘women with a target’. The tight catsuits, the boots with Velcro-closures and the streamlined shorts suits represented the Tomb Raider influence. While another part of the collection, with colorful tweeds and checks, felt very classic. The whole collection gave us the Jil Sander feeling from the nineties and Raf Simons showed retro-minimalism like it’s supposed to.

Prada
Just when Jil Sander went back to the nineties, Miuccia Prada travelled back in time to the fifties. At her show we saw elegant looking women in sophisticated clothes. They didn’t show much skin, yet their busts were highly accentuated. Ruffles and pleats brought the focus of the designs to the models’ breasts and small belts focused on their waists. The skirts were longer than before at Prada and the models were fuller-figured. It all felt somewhat conservative, but maybe that was just what Miuccia was going for. And she wasn’t the only one. Marc Jacobs went for the fifties look in his Louis Vuitton collection as well. And since Prada and Louis Vuitton are two of the top fashion brands of the world, we might see a lot more of the fifties in future collections.

Marni
A great aspect of the Marni collection were the colors. The ochre, dusty pink, matt olive, ox blood red and the turquoise green looked suitable for fall and yet were bright enough to feel fresh. They were there on Marni’s bermuda’s, tops, skirts and on the arty T-shirts made by Gary Hume. Not only did we love the clothes with their structured silhouettes, the perforated shoes and major accessories were to die for as well. Overall Marni’s collection surprised us with it’s unexpected fits and color combinations. We can not wait to wear those ochre bermuda’s!

Overall Milan’s hightlights represent a sophisticated lady like look. Nothing too loud, sexy or over the top. Just wearable clothes in which women can feel feminine and comfortable.

The best of London Fashion Week FW2010

After a period in which British brands preferred showing abroad they’ve now come back to London. The city’s fashion week celebrated it’s 25^th anniversary last year and is again a popular fashion town. Some of the best British labels have returned to the London catwalks, including Burberry, Pringle, Matthew Williamson, Antonio Berardi, Jonathan Saunders and Clements Ribeiro. Luckily for London, cause Burberry and Williamson were surely two of our London Fashion Week highlights.

Christopher Kane
With the fall collection Christopher Kane presented he is bound to win another Collection of the Year award. The designer used black lace and leather embroidered (by hand!) with floral patterns. A crazy combination, at first sight, but after a few looks we started to like it. The skirts and dresses meant for young women were short like always, but never looked sleazy. Kane worked some Priscilla Presley looks into his collection as well. ‘From the time before Elvis got her hands on her’, he said. Even though Christopher Kane and his sister Tammy are only running the label for four years they’ve already achieved a lot. And we’re sure there’s much more to come. Now let’s just hope he won’t be taking too many extra design job like the ones for Versus and Topshop, cause he already has his hands full right now.

Burberry
Another successful British designer who is fully booked is Christopher Bailey, creative director for Burberry. Bailey oversees some 60 different men’s and women’s collections each year, including the Prorsum, Brit, London and Sport labels, plus children’s wear, denim, underwear, fragrances, home-wear and all the accessories. Plus he’s responsible for the design of the Burberry shops. But that doesn’t influence the great collections he delivers. His work even tends to get better. The womenswear collection for next fall was a highlight of the London Fashion Week. Not only was it the first show to be watched live in 3D, people could even buy the designs as they came down the runway by simply clicking the ‘Click to buy’ button. And there sure was a lot to love, the coats being the public’s favourite. They came by with military accents and in aviator style, shear ling lined with double collars. So the Burberry show was trendsetting in two ways: (1) The military coats will be a success next year (2) Other labels will soon broadcast their shows in 3D and will let their customers buy their clothes straight from the show as well. Just wait and see.

Matthew Williamson
A show we would have loved to see in 3D was that of Matthew Williamson. Although the man is known for designing bright young things for, well.., bright young things his fall collection seemed a little more grown up. Of course there were the multicolored mini-dresses but Williamson also experimented with a more mature look. We liked it. Romantic ruffles and drapery were seen on his sophisticated dresses. He used beautiful colors from icy grey and blue to warm shades of fuchsia, peach, orange and red. Colorful prints and sparkles gave the collection it’s Williamson-twist. We loved the designs, the colors and the more grown up look. The dresses we’re maybe a bit too dull for his on-and-off girlfriend Lady Gaga, but they are still perfect for his other young customers, like Sienna Miller and Jade Jagger.

The best of New York Fashion Week FW2010

New York doesn’t always have the best brands showing their new collections. Still some labels left a big impression on us at the latest New York Fashion Week during which the fall/winter collections for 2010/2011 were shown.

Marc Jacobs
One of the highlights certainly was Marc Jacobs’ fashion show. Not only did the designer create a buzz around his show by starting a contest on Twitter only three weeks before the show. The beginning of the show was also very spectacular, with the 56 models all standing in a box on the stag  wrapped in brown paper. The show started on time, ’cause there were no celebrities invited and we loved the fact that Somewhere over the rainbow was played. The song brought back good memories while Marc Jacobs brought back old trends. He showed many items of his nearly two-decade repertoire. He stressed the fact that he didn’t want his clothes to look new. They were fashionable but were ‘not trying too hard to be so’. The clothes looked conservative, pure and simple and had a vintage vibe going on. The waists were raised and the A-line was back. And we just let us carry away by the music, the romantic clothes and the serene atmosphere. We loved it!

Rodarte
Another NY show that breathed serenity was Rodarte. The models appeared in beige, nude and floral printed designs, while candles were burning and dripping in the background. The models’ glow in the dark heels represented dripping candles as well. It all fit perfectly with Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s idea of sleepwalking.  The clothes had a suitable dreamlike quality. Rodarte’s craftsmanship was better than ever, the patchworks looked cheerful, and the knits seemed very wearable. Especially the ending was magical when four models in long white dresses stood in the center of the catwalk.

Calvin Klein
From the romantic atmosphere at Rodarte we go to a modern looking Calvin Klein show. And thus we switch from Rodarte’s candlelight to bright techno light moving to the beat of Calvin Klein’s music. Calvin Klein’s show was memorable for it’s diverse models; eighties supermodels like Stella Tennant and Kirsten McMenamy walked alongside young, upcoming models. There were a lot of coats, many designs had round shoulders and we saw some interesting textures. The clothes were also very streamlined, they had sterile shapes and didn’t have a lot going on. And since everyone is so fond of the minimalistic look at the moment, continuing his simplistic and sober style was a smart idea of head designer Francisco Costa.

Michael Kors
A last highlight of the New York fashion week for us was the show of Michael Kors. It was actually quite the opposite of Calvin Klein’s sober collection. Michael Kors’ designs represented luxury and wealth. He showed us how glamorous sportswear can look. His materials looked exquisite, his camel clothes made us green with envy and his enormous fur coats had our full attention. The collection was loaded with must-haves for the rich and famous and Kors proved a winter collection can be very very sexy.

So these four different brands amazed us, made us smile and frown and let us think twice about fashion. The four collections were very diverse and yet equally likeable. It shows fashion is never about just one vision; it can be interpreted in a thousand different ways.

Louis Vuitton Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

The circle is round. What started with the 50’s/60’s inspired show at Prada two weeks ago ended yesterday with a Louis Vuitton-collection in a production that breathed the Fifties-sixties in every outfit. The collection was inspired by And God created women, the movie that made Brigitte Bardot a big star, and the models looked sensual, feminine and curvy.

Marc Jacobs explained his take on the Fifties as an excuse to to pause and appreciate what a house like Vuitton is capable of creating. And that are bags actually, so there was a beautiful bag for every oufit Jacobs sent out – like fantastic redos of the Vuitton Speedy.

The silhouette was curvy with focus at the waist, full skirted dresses or full skirts mixed with tailored jackets- that’s probably why Jacobs hired Laetitia Casta, Bar Refaeli, Catherine McNeil, Karolina Kurkova, and finally Elle Macpherson, all women who were banned from the fashion-shows for a long time because of their beautiful, curvy body.  Jacobs made them look  fresh, feminine and ingenue, with hair scraped back into high, bouncy ponytails; clean makeup; and square-toed, block-heeled pumps trimmed with flat bows.

Hermès Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

It looked as if Jean Paul Gaultier wanted to stress the origins of the Hermès fashionlabel. There was leather everywhere in the collection, which was inspired by the British 60’s television serie The Avengers.

A not-too-great-looking Lily Cole opened the show in a black leather pantsuit, zipped on the front. The rest of her outfit was made from leather as well: shoes, belt, gloves, bag. Even her bowler hat and umbrella could easily have had some leather parts.

Some crocodile leather followed, on a skirt, a belt, a pair of trousers and a jacket. After that, the leather designs became so thick they seemed more appropriate for men. Especially when the (leather!) ties and the extra-wide pants came by, the show got a very masculine feeling.

Fortunately shades of light gray, camel and brown softened the looks. Just when one of the models came on carrying a New York Times under her arm (slightly pushing Suzy Menkes, who works for the newspaper, to write a good review on the show).

Most of the woolen coats that followed, had leather collars in a different shade. A beige toggle coat popped up out of nowhere, shoulders were accentuated by leather parts and a long leopard printed skirt was seen from under a stiff leather jacket. And though we were happy most labels temporarily said goodbye to this specific animal print it later came by on several dresses, a coat, a blouse and even on one of the two hoop skirts.

There was so much animal material in this collection any PETA activist would have gone mad watching this show. Even we could hardly handle the amount of leather JPG sent off on the runway. Yet we did get very inspired on how many ways there are to wear it.

Louis Vuitton Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

Valentino Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

For fall Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli got in a very feminine Valeninto mood. Their designs had frills and ruffles from the beginnening till the end of the show and were made out of the most delicate fabrics.

While videos of waterfalls were played on huge screens all over the show area the models worked the runway. The clothes they wore, were embellished with ruffles and floral appliqués. On most designs this looked great, but on a short black leather jacket, worn by Mirte Maas, it felt like ruffle-overkill.

This Valentino collection had a very romantic and classic vibe, still Chiuri and Picciolo succeeded in letting it feel more youthful than before. The fur coats, lace blouses, silk dresses and airy chiffon tops looked smooth. The shades of nude, beige, white and black worked really well with the Valentino red we saw on four dresses and a skirt. Golden studded kitten heels were the perfect detail on every outfit.

Five long evening gowns were the ending of the show. The last one in transparent Valentino red looked stunning. Yet a black lace gown with a butterfly on the right shoulder, worn by Patricia van der Vliet, was even more breath-taking.

Chloe Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

Well, camel is the new black for next fall. And clean, sporty minimalism is the trend.

The collection Chloe’s Hannah MacGibbon sent out yesterday had it all. Her collection mixed the all classic American sportswear with a Seventies touch. It looked sleek and sensual – especially the wide legged trousers with high waist – everything was cut loosely to the body, there were great, big coats, sweater-like cashmere T-shirts and elegant blouses with draped bow details.

The only that we missed was, ehm, color. Besides 80 % camel, brown and black were the only ‘colors’ in the collection. That made it look a bit dull and tame, while camel is a great color to mix with some vibrant orange, electric blue or mean green. We would have been happy with a pair of gloves, a belt, a necklace or even a lipstick showing the sunny side.

Chanel Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

Global cooling, not global warming was the inspiration for Chanel’s fall/winter collection. Now don’t think the show was about durable fashion or had something to do with eco-friendly production. No, on the contrary Karl Lagerfeld even flew in an iceberg from Sweden to decorate his catwalk. After the fashion show that iceberg was to be flewn back to Sweden as well. If you ask us, this kind of superfluous actions only increase global warming.

During the show the iceberg was slowly melting, so all models ended up walking in big puddles of water. What a pity for the luxurious clothes! Karl’s long pants, floor-sweeping coats & dresses and his fur boots all got wet.

His fake fur boots, we must say. Cause the whole iceberg-thing might not have been so politically correct, Karl did use fake fur for this collection. He commented: ‘You cannot fake chic but you can be chic in fake fur’ and explained that fake fur, nowadays, looks very realistic. Because you can hardly see the difference between real and fake fur Karl decided this collection was to be a ‘triumph for fake fur’. The fur came in brown, gray, white and black and was seen on the skirts, boots, pants, cuffs, coats, bags and collars.

Other fabrics were leather and the typical Chanel tweed. Tweed was, of course, used for some of the short jackets, but we saw it on some coats, pants and skirts too. The skirts were rather short, compared to, for example those of Marc Jacobs. They ended halfway the upper leg. The collars of almost all designs were high, as were the waisted pants.

Apart from a little bit of red Karl didn’t use any colors. The show ended with the last models all wearing white designs. Even the necklaces and the large rings were white (they were metallic during the first part of the show). It all looked stunning with the real, white iceberg in the background. Yet we think an iceberg from papier-mache would have been just as nice.

Yves St. Laurent Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

The Yves St. Laurent-show started promising with a variation on the Little Black Dress with cape and a black three piece suit. Such a clean and classic look would be just on trend, as more houses are aiming at the new sporty minimalism. And no other house has a history in tailored sportswear and classic Parisian sensibility as the house of Yves St. Laurent.

But somehow designer Stefano Pilati tried too hard to be classic and modern, it needs a creative talent to make conservative sporty chic look dynamic and not dated. The long skirts however looked dull, the white shirts were dowdy and the plastic capes and eveningwear sexless. It looked like the collection was made for a nun instead of a woman of the world. Also because of the caped black forms, the head-coverings, the white cotton and heavy chain pendants.

Stefano Pilati told reporters that the collection was all about protection and that is was partly an homage to YSL and the tailleur. Maybe he should take a look at the retrospective on YSL that soon will open in the Petit Palais in Paris – there’s still a lot to learn from the old master.

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