The Leftovers: New York Fashion Week SS13

It’s almost December. I had to finally break down this week and buy a new pair of gloves. (My gloves never last a cold weather season. Sometime around mid-February I lose them and make due by shoving my hands deep into my pockets until spring arrives.) With the approach of the year’s end, I’ve been thinking about what hasn’t been done, what’s left to do.

I was trying to pinpoint why I’d left things dormant here. Why I hadn’t been able to muster the concentration to finish my roundups for the Spring/Summer 2013 season. The root cause is boredom. Boredom can be a dirty word. It is one used often by those who can’t be moved by even the most dazzling things. One often seen as a personal fault of a person with too high expectations.

I haven't lost the ability to be shocked. To be drawn into something. To be left speechless. I simply have too long of a memory. I can pinpoint when I’ve seen this trend or that. When I’ve seen one silhouette or another. And my mind wanders. Not that I didn’t love some pieces, that I didn’t want them to instantly appear in my closets, but I just can’t bring myself to write about the abundance of white when I wrote about it not that long ago. I still can’t, years later, get my head around leather as a trend for the warmer weather months. And I don't need to see another peplum for a very long time.

In pre-Fall, there were coats. In Fall/Winter, there were film noir lady villains. In Resort, there was a shifting of definitions as well as an abundance of suiting. But for Spring/Summer, there was a void. At least there was for me. Of course this ambivalence could all be put down to end of the year restlessness, but I feel like it’s more than that.

So simply presented in the order that they tumbled into my bookmark folder, here are the pieces from the Spring/Summer 2013 New York season that fascinated me.

At Kimberly Ovitz

At Jenni Kayne

At Steven Alan

At Erin Fetherston

At Peter Som

At Rachel Comey

At 10 Crosby Derek Lam

At Gary Graham

At Tocca

At Suno

At Jen Kao

At Cushnie et Ochs

At Monique Lhuillier

At Duro Olowu

At Timo Weiland

At DKNY

At Thakoon

At Thom Browne

At Donna Karan

At Pamella Roland

At Mandy Coon

At Jil Sander Navy

At Araks

At Tory Burch

At The Row

At Michael Kors

At Elizabeth and James

At Reed Krakoff

At Philosophy

At Marchesa

At Bibhu Mohapatra

At A.L.C.

At Band of Outsiders

Oh, and then there was this.


At Oscar de la Renta

Maybe things will be better in London.


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Break Time

After being immersed in clothes for next spring and summer, I needed to break out and remember that it's fall and that I need things to go with those new mustard skinny cords that I own. Maybe these Church's studded brogues would do.

I mean, I did ruin my brown oxfords in the rain last year.

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Favorite of the Day: Christophe Lemaire

The most obvious interpretations of spring and summer are full of lightness and florals and frothy femininity. But at Christophe Lemaire, wide leg trousers with gentle pleats and easy jackets dominated.

In this collection, spring and summer were about the laid back ease that can sometimes be found in menswear.


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Favorite of the Day: Haider Ackermann

Some designers seem to hold no regard for the season. Each collection tells their story without much care for whether the clothes are meant for August or January. In most instances, the results can be off-putting. But when the designer is a strong storyteller, one wants to come along for the ride no matter what the time of year.

At the Haider Ackermann show on September 29th, almost none of the clothes spoke of the warm weather months.

But from the beginning one realized that none of that mattered because they spoke of so much else.


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Favorite of the Day: Chalayan

White has emerged as one of the colors, or non-color if you prefer, of the season. Using this blank canvas in ways that haven't been overdone is a challenge that many designers cannot overcome.

On September 28th, the Chalayan show featured a number of looks in white.

And none of them could be easily placed in any of the usual categories associated with the color.


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Favorite of the Day: Carven

Carven is a favorite among fashion "It Girls" and up and coming young stars, so I was surprised to see that the collection shown on September 27th almost overflowed with austerity.

But only almost. There were still pops of color and print and the occasional touch of unexpected skin.


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Favorite of the Day: Dries Van Noten

When it comes to major trends, the lifespan of the grunge movement was relatively short-lived. Yet its influence has appeared again and again over the past few years. The clothes shown at the Dries Van Noten show on September 26th weren't mere copies or callbacks. Instead they represented a progression from the youthful rebellion that was so a part of that initial emergence of grunge fashion to a more grown up reworking of the plaids and oversized shapes.

They were clothes for a woman who enjoyed her youth but who realized the futility in trying to relive it.


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