Favorite of the Day: Guy Laroche

I expect certain colors at certain times. I guess that makes me a stick in the mud, too conservative for this world in which I have so much interest. I can appreciate an icy pastel or a shocking neon thrown into a fall/winter collection as well as a deep, dark jewel tone in the spring/summer. But I like things in their place. I always have. And I doubt that fact will ever change.

The Guy Laroche collection featured dark, abstract floral prints. But the story was really one of color. Deep magenta. Royal purples. Inky blacks. And my favorite of all, navy.

They were the colors that I look for whenever the weather begins to cool.


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Favorite of the Day: Anthony Vaccarello

It was a small crop of shows that opened fashion week in Paris, and I was surprised to find a favorite among so few options.

The Anthony Vaccarello brand is about sex. Sleek, edgy sex. I can often appreciate the clothes though I'm not always blown away by them. But this season, there was a softening. Airy tops and chunky sweaters were paired with the smallest of leather miniskirts. And I'm always a fan of dichotomies.

There were still legs galore. But then, I've never really had a problem with legs.


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Favorite of the Day: Dolce & Gabbana

I find myself complaining about some of the same things every season. Collections featuring more than 50 looks rank high on the list. After all of the production and hoopla that goes into planning a runway show, I understand wanting everything to last more than eight to twelve minutes, but being able to edit down the number of looks into a cohesive story is something to be lauded. Nothing is worse than a group of dresses that seem to have no home within the larger theme.

The Dolce & Gabbana show is never less than 60 looks, and yet my usual gripes rarely surface. They never try to cram all of the looks into a single narrative. Instead there are several, interlocking stories being told. This season, there were prints that recalled religious frescoes. There were lady-like dresses, suits, and coats in heathered grays. There were stark blacks and demure whites and blood reds.

And when you have that many looks and that many models, you can end your show on this note.

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Favorite of the Day: Jil Sander

When the news first came out that Raf Simons was leaving Jil Sander, my level of indignation was remarkably high. We still didn't know that he was moving on to Christian Dior, and I had been in love with everything he had done at Sander right from the start. Even the news that Jil Sander was returning to the brand that carries her name didn't remove the sour taste from my mouth.

It wasn't until Simons landed safely at Dior that I settled down a bit. I liked Simons' work so much because he did a magnificent job of maintaining the minimalist DNA of the brand while adding a twist of his own. But one really can't beat the original, which has been obvious now that Sander has retaken her place at the helm and was especially apparent at the show on February 23rd.

I'm still raging about Stefano Pilati and YSL, however.


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Favorite of the Day: Antonio Marras

Patchwork is rarely, if ever, associated with luxury. In fact, it's most often partnered with the opposite. But every piece of the Antonio Marras show on February 21st spoke to the ornate and the lush.

Winter florals and printed velvets and brocades were pieced together in combinations of all sorts and garments of all kinds.

It was everything that I expect of fall and winter dressing.


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Favorite of the Day: Roksanda Ilincic

Pink has never been one of my favorite colors. My first love was purple. Then around age eight or nine, I switched my allegiance to blue. I didn't dislike pink; there was just a hefty amount of indifference thrown in its direction. I mean, it wasn't like my disdain for kelly green. (I have since gotten over this hatred, though St. Patrick's Day still sometimes proves to be a trial.)

So it was with some surprise that I found myself unable to look away from the sweet, pale pinks presented by Roksanda Ilincic on February 19th. 

Though the entire collection was filled with her usual intricate details and feminine flourishes, it was these light and airy shades that stood out from all the rest.

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Favorite of the Day: Michael van der Ham

The collections from Monday, February 18th presented a challenge. It wasn't a disturbing challenge, more an issue of too much of a good thing. Numerous collections jockeyed for the position of favorite, and even as I write this, I find myself vacillating between them. But in the end, I had to make a decision, and it was the prints play of Michael van der Ham that finally drew me in.

The colors, when they appeared, were rich and moody. The prints always complemented and never outshone each other. 

The clothes left me questioning my devotion to stripes and solids.

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Favorite of the Day: Mary Katrantzou

The first two days of London fashion week were filled with middle of the road shows. They were rather inoffensive and surprisingly mainstream for a city known for its tendency to nurture those with outsized visions. Thankfully day three was filled with collections that moved back towards the city's foundations.

Mary Katrantzou stands out season after season as one of those shows with a satisfyingly original point of view. Her prints vividly recall landscapes. The shapes are anything but run of the mill. And no one is doing anything even vaguely similar. This season, everything took a dark turn. There was a moodiness that brought to mind the setting of bygone mysteries.

These prints had a story to tell.


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Favorite of the Day: Proenza Schouler

The Proenza Schouler show was about many things. Downtown cool. Well-drawn lines. Black and White.

But it also excluded many things, mainly the trends that at this point in the week are already turning stale. It's what they do best. Telling a different story. Heading in a new direction. Keeping everyone wondering "What's next?"


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Favorite of the Day: Vera Wang

With some of the bigger names, I can get bored. Yes the clothes are gorgeous. Yes it would be an honor to own any of the pieces shown. But there is a sameness that I can't get past. I like clothes that are pretty for the sake of being pretty, but I don't often love them.

But that isn't the case with Vera Wang. For the second season in a row, I find myself unable to look away from the collection. Although she played with multiple themes, my favorite was the not so basic blacks that were presented.

Different from last season. Different from the season before. Not always my favorite but rarely ever stale.


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Favorite of the Day: Ohne Titel

Almost exactly four years ago now, back when I thought a job in the industry was actually possible, back before I ran home licking the wounds that New York City and the economy had left all over me, I was interning for a small buying office and running around fashion week attending shows that my bosses and colleagues couldn't get to. It was Valentine's Day. I was wearing a black shift dress over a white shirt with black tights and my, at the time, fairly new equestrian-style boots. And lipstick. I never wear lipstick.

I walked around the space pre-show eating macarons being passed around on trays and drinking white wine even though it was 11 AM and I really should have known better. I watched girls teeter around in YSL tributes avoiding the sweets, tried not to chuckle at them, and waited for us to be told to take our seats. Through some luck, my boss had a front row seat, and I got to sit in it. The lights went down. The runway lights came back up. The music began.

It was the Ohne Titel show. Four years on, I looked at the runway pictures in the comfort of my room from a still semi-snowed in Boston. The clothing touched on many of the trends emerging from New York fashion week as it enters its final days. The colors. The types of patterns. The textures.

And though the clothes were lovely, I think that I liked them for another reason. 

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Favorite of the Day: Ostwald Helgason

I have a well-documented love for all things schoolgirl. Short, full skirts and collared shirts. Oxfords, penny loafers, and mary janes. At the Ostwald Helgason presentation, The Schoolgirl and her cousin The Tomboy were everywhere.

But the patterns were bold. The colors were vibrant. The blazers were gilded. And none of it was juvenile.

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Favorite of the Day: Cushnie et Ochs

I had trouble picking a favorite today not because of a lack of options but because I was worried about how to present it.

Something can get lost when all one has are two dimensional pictures of what are very live objects, objects that when seen on a moving body take on a whole different persona. Over the past few years, more and more designers have started to live stream their shows so one no longer has to rely on stills. Now there is movement.

Though the silhouettes were looser this time around, the Cushnie et Ochs show this season was as sensual as it always is. It was sexual without sliding into the vulgar and tasteless as so many others are prone to do.

But, in the end, it was all about how it moved.

 

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