The Leftovers: Milan Fashion Week SS11

Whenever I go back through the photos that I’ve bookmarked, I always notice things I didn’t see the first time. A new skirt length. An interesting shoe. Entire collections.

I went more days without a favorite in Milan than I did in any other city this season. I realize now that that fact had very little to do with Milan and a lot to do with general fashion fatigue augmented by life fatigue. Going through the photos again made me realize that Milan might have been my favorite city of the four. A reexamination of Paris, often the winner in my opinion, will have to come before I can be sure of that statement.

Like New York and London before it, Milan had a story. Its story was one of color. There were few pastels and other colors of the sun-faded variety. Instead there were brights. A veritable rainbow walked down many runways and injected a life into the season that had been missing up until that point.

The threads from the other cities continued to be seen.

White and transparency from New York.

At No.21

At Bottega Veneta

At Dolce & Gabbana

At Alberta Ferretti

At Luisa Beccaria

At Emporio Armani

Prints and patterns from London.

At Sportmax

At Albino

At Emilio Pucci

At Aquilano.Rimondi

At Dolce & Gabbana

But color was, for lack of a better word, king.

At Luisa Beccaria

At Gucci

At Etro

At Moschino

At MaxMara

At Salvatore Ferragamo

At Emilio Pucci

At Prada

At Aquilano.Rimondi

At MaxMara

But in the end, no one did it better than Raf Simons at Jil Sander.

Photos via

The Leftovers: London Fashion Week SS11

More than any season in recent memory, this one has seen each city present its own distinct story. There are always differing tones and feelings and themes as one moves from New York to London to Milan to Paris, but the threads holding together all of the fashion weeks were more tangible in the recent past. Usually this was a case of not so subtle copying of a collection seen as extremely forward thinking or profitable or both. Phoebe Philo’s first full collection for Celine and the Spring 2004 Prada collection come to mind. Echoes were felt for one to two seasons following those seminal fashion moments, but Spring/Summer 2011 felt more scattered. Disparate.

As it often is in London, the story was one of prints and patterns. Those that conjure thoughts of Dali mingled with those that leave you with a vague impression of the objects and scenes that inspired them.

At Sass & Bide

At Aminaka Wilmont

At Basso & Brooke

At Clements Ribeiro

At Kinder Aggugini

At Mary Katrantzou

At Holly Fulton

At Peter Pilotto

At Amanda Wakeley

At Matthew Williamson

At Erdem

At Nicole Farhi

There were, of course, themes that held over form New York.

At Betty Jackson

At Ann-Sofie Back

At Basso & Brooke

At Hannah Marshall

At Emilio de la Morena

At Nicole Farhi

And sight of those that were to come in Milan.


At Matthew Williamson

At Roksanda Ilincic

At Kinder Aggugini

Photos via

The Leftovers: New York Fashion Week SS11

What I’ve noticed about New York season after season is its wholehearted reliance on one or two trends. On almost every runway these directional winds make an appearance. Last season they were fur and the 1990s. This season they are transparency and white.

It all makes me feel like a sociologist observing a community from the outside. Coming up with theories. Poking holes in them. Starting, once again, from scratch. Why these trends? What makes their reach extend so far? Is it a game of Follow the Leader with no real leaders, only followers? What does our delicate, tenuous financial situation have to do with all of this?

I have to be honest. All of these questions, about sameness vs. innovation, creativity vs. commercial viability, rarely push into my mind when I am in love with what is being offered. Only doubts breed questions.

The matter wasn't helped by the fact that I was suffering an intense case of déjà vu.

But finding the answers and slogging my way through the doubts often leads me to a place of understanding and appreciation. I feel like I still need more time to decide exactly what my feelings are about New York Fashion Week as a whole. But as for what I like right now, in the moment, there were a number of things.

The fact that I was a bit tired of all of the white and the sheer doesn't mean that there weren't those who handled both trends deftly. The white especially lent itself to multiple interpretations.


The Ethereal

At Cushnie et Ochs

At Prabal Gurung

The Prim & Proper

At Barbara Tfank

At Victoria Beckham

The Architectural

At Cushnie et Ochs

At Kimberly Ovitz

The Minimal

At Band of Outsiders

At Preen

At Christian Cota

Those who used transparency played with many of the same themes.

The Ethereal

At Rodarte

The Prim & Proper

At ADAM

At Monique Lhuillier

The Minimal

At Theyskens' Theory

But even with the laser-like focus on these two trends, there was a hint of what was to come in the other cities.

The Prints

At Suno

At Timo Weiland

At L'Wren Scott

The Color

At Peter Som

At Marc Jacobs

At Michael Kors

Photos via