Wrapped Up: Pre-Fall 2015

I’ve been in Los Angeles for ten months now almost to the day. When I say that out loud, it feels wrong. Hasn’t it only been a month or two? Days and weeks bleed into each other as the weather, despite a rain storm here or a near freezing New Year’s Eve there, stays the course. I find myself outside eating gelato and wearing skirts sans tights unsure how it got to be February while inside my love of coats beats unabated.

When I began sifting through my bookmarks from the Pre-Fall collections, it seemed as if I had tagged every coat on offer. Apparently I’d been trying to fill the outerwear-sized hole in my life with images of wool and fur and leather toppers. Editing myself seemed impossible. How was I to decide what to discard and what to keep? How could I tamp down on my urge to share every single coat with you?

So I went back, back to over four years ago when I started this whole Wrapped Up endeavor. Back to when there were only three coats. There is no way I can return to that but there is something at the heart of that first piece that has been missing from the others.

There will be a touch of the classics here and there and a look at some, but not all, of the trends. But what will dominate are those pieces that are bolder, almost overwhelming. The coats that stop you. The ones that forced me to pause as I made my way through collection after collection intent on turning our attention to the 1970s.

The coats could be found in all of their standard colors, charcoal and navy and black, but it was the camel that drew my eye. Maybe because the coat that rests in my closet barely used is that color. Or maybe because of the brightness that it lends to the wearer.

At Derek Lam

At Chloé

At Stella McCartney

At Carven

At Akris

I can get lost in my navy haze and forget that blue exists in a range of shades, that it doesn’t have to be staid. When I shake myself free of it, I often can't get enough of that saturated cobalt that floats in and out of favor but never fails to entice me.

At Milly

At Jason Wu

At MSGM

At Antonio Berardi

At Emilio Pucci

The colorblocking trend that could be found everywhere not that long ago came to the forefront once again here, although at times it took approaching the coat from a different angle to reveal its presence.

At Narciso Rodriguez

At 3.1 Phillip Lim

At Chloé

At Derek Lam 10 Crosby

At Roksanda

In shape trends, there were two stories. The cape and the sleeveless. They first appeared in force for Fall/Winter 2014 but that domination continued to cut a path through the Pre-Fall collections.

At Alberta Ferretti

At Giamba

At Valentino

At Public School

At Miu Miu

At Ellery

At Alice + Olivia

At BCBG Max Azria

At Monique Lhuillier

At Akris

Leather, all over the collections in everything from skirts to dresses to tops, also found a home among the coats of the season.

At Gucci

At Alexander Wang

At Mugler

At Balenciaga

At J. Mendel

Then there were the coats that played with texture. The furs that never fade from view.

At Elie Saab

At J. Mendel

At Valentino

At Fendi

At Giambattista Valli

The shearling collars meant to keep out icy blasts.

At Andrew Gn

At Sonia Rykiel

At Altuzarra

At Gucci

And those that just begged to be touched.

At Co

At Carven

At Giamba

At Lanvin

At Emilio Pucci

Finally there were prints and patterns. The more classic animal prints had something of a moment.

At Martin Grant

At MSGM

At Burberry Prorsum

At Roberto Cavalli

At Michael Kors

And they were joined by intricacies of all sorts.

At Tracy Reese

At Osman

At Prabal Gurung

At Roland Mouret

At Fendi

There is a lot to be said for classics but sometimes you need something a bit meatier in your life.

Photos via