As I mentioned before in my early article, September embarked a phenomenal month in the Fashion Industry. This is the beginning of the much awaited and anticipated fashion week, from the major fashion capital of the world- New York-London-Milan-Paris. It will all start in the Liberty State and will end in the city of Eiffel Tower. So for the next days and weeks I'll be featuring the best collections from some of my favorite designers in order for us to have a glimpse of what would be the style of clothing and trends, for the next season - come 2013. I know it'll be months from now, and, we bid goodbye to 2012 and say hello to a brand new era, but isn't it fun to welcome 2013 with great sense of style? My dear readers, let these set of collections be your reference in envisioning the stylish woman in you.
New York is a well known city of style and a great source fashion. This is the city who gave us Marc Jacobs (a.k.a. Mr. Louis Vuitton), Michael Kors (Project Runway), Vera Wang (Bridal's Fairy God Mother), and a lot of great designers and style Gods and Goddesses. The city is rich with different ethnicities and cultures, which play a major role in producing varieties of fashion and style inspirations. Today, new breed of stylistic students are rapidly emerging and showing the world what an authentic and modern form of creativity is . These new breed of students came from our neighboring countries in Asia, which dominates the fashion world by storm. Indeed this is the time for Eastern Style to be well known, and gained genuine appreciation from the authorities and snobs of the fashion world. Thanks to Wu, Thakoon, Wang,& Altuzarra, easterners achieved another level of respect from this reluctant world.
Readers, I have selected some of my favorites from each collections from the above designers and since I am no fashion authority, I've also included part of the collection review from some of the most respectable editors of Vogue. I am sure that their respective opinions on this matter is highly credible rather than mine.
Jason Wu
Jason Wu took his cue from the very different visions of women celebrated by photographers Helmut Newton and Lillian Bassman, and married them for his spring 2013 show. Whilst Newton’s amazons were sleekly groomed and faultlessly dressed, they invariably exuded a highly eroticized charge, Lillian Bassman’s own impeccably elegant mid-century couture-clad mannequins were the acme of romanticism—especially after her signature darkroom manipulations that shrouded her photographic prints in misty and shimmering light and shadow effects. (Those techniques were echoed in a subtle white-on-black flower print, and in the spangled starlight galaxy embroideries.)
Thus the sleekly marcel-waved hair and gleaming scarlet lips of Wu’s cabine (led by a golden Carolyn Murphy) were often veiled in net by hairstylist Odile Gilbert, and the powerful black leather pieces that opened the show were sliced with insets of point d’esprit or lace (some of it laser-cut from that same leather). There was an eighties flavor to the high-waisted pants and mid-thigh pencil skirts—while the tailored shorts gave some outfits the look of a saucy forties beach romper suit. (The hatbox-shaped “Carolyn” purse, and a mini satchel in white leather and leopard also added retro appeal.)
Wu played with the time-honored conceit of underwear as outerwear, with corset-seamed dresses, and structured undergarments with a mid-century flavor revealed through diaphanous outer layers. A striking short evening dress was a swathe of biscuit jersey cleverly draped over a black leather girdle, and harnessed with fine leather straps played up the hard/soft dynamic—and those halters even suspended the skirts of Wu’s finale gowns, made from acres of drifting chiffon or tulle that barely veiled the shapely legs beneath.
by Hamish Bowles
Jason Wu's 2013 Spring Summer Collection
Thakoon Panichgul
For the last three seasons Thakoon
Panichgul has held his runway show in the ballroom at The
Plaza. And while it’s a grand space in and of itself, for a Thakoon show, it
felt forced. Whether it was too stuffy, too ornate, or just plain too old for a
young designer who dresses young women (most likely a little of all three), it
wasn’t the right setting for someone who specializes in intelligent designs
that are simple, clean, and often witty. So bravo to whoever made the decision
to move back downtown. This season, Thakoon showed in a bright, spare gallery
in Chelsea, not too far from where he used to stage shows. Deliberate or not,
it was a symbolic venue for two reasons: One, the clothes felt uplifting and
stripped of the tricky stylings of seasons past; and two, it reminded you of
the pre-Plaza days. After witnessing a collection as strong as this one, it’s
clear. All apologies to Stella, Thakoon is getting his groove back.
He never needed a space filled with opulent treasures. They only distract from his careful tailoring, couture-inspired silhouettes, and beautiful fabrics. Panichgul’s clothes stand out on their own and stand out they did. In a literal sense, boxy poplin tops and organza cocktail dresses stood far from the body. (Panichgul was inspired by mod sixties shapes.) But also, those last few looks, like the orchid-embroidered trapeze dress with braided leather trim? The A-line strapless number in a custom-blue silk printed with butterflies and then laser-cut into butterfly shapes? Outstanding. Also, the semi-sheer sweaters in pale blue and coral worn over crisp, white shirtdresses felt light and fresh—especially after all the dark colors and leather we’ve been seeing these last few days. (As great as some of spring 2013’s jackets and suits have been, editors on more than one occasion have had cause to ask each other whether they’re looking at spring or fall.)
Of course, it was also refreshing to see Panichgul returning to his old self. “It’s not that I’m sick of reality, but I wanted something different, a little otherworldly,” he said backstage. “When I was younger, fashion was such a fantasy, so I was dreaming a little bit.” Please, dream on.
He never needed a space filled with opulent treasures. They only distract from his careful tailoring, couture-inspired silhouettes, and beautiful fabrics. Panichgul’s clothes stand out on their own and stand out they did. In a literal sense, boxy poplin tops and organza cocktail dresses stood far from the body. (Panichgul was inspired by mod sixties shapes.) But also, those last few looks, like the orchid-embroidered trapeze dress with braided leather trim? The A-line strapless number in a custom-blue silk printed with butterflies and then laser-cut into butterfly shapes? Outstanding. Also, the semi-sheer sweaters in pale blue and coral worn over crisp, white shirtdresses felt light and fresh—especially after all the dark colors and leather we’ve been seeing these last few days. (As great as some of spring 2013’s jackets and suits have been, editors on more than one occasion have had cause to ask each other whether they’re looking at spring or fall.)
Of course, it was also refreshing to see Panichgul returning to his old self. “It’s not that I’m sick of reality, but I wanted something different, a little otherworldly,” he said backstage. “When I was younger, fashion was such a fantasy, so I was dreaming a little bit.” Please, dream on.
by Emily Holt
Thakoon's 2013 Spring Summer Collection
Alexander Wang
“It's all about dissection,” declaimedAlexander
Wang backstage, moments before
unveiling his masterly collection, “tension and subtraction expressed through
structure and fluidity.”
Deconstructing garments is not a new conceit in fashion, and
certainly flourished in the work of the avant-garde eighties and nineties
designers that Wang often obliquely references, but the designer proved his
authority in this collection by taking that idea in an intriguing direction
that stayed true to his own streamlined, hard-edged contemporary sportif-chic
aesthetic.
“We wanted the garments to float on the girls, but not in an
ethereal way,” Wang explained, “always keeping the structure.”
So he explored the idea of taking apart the various pattern
pieces of a stiffly tailored garment—a boxy jacket, a shift dress, a wide-cut
dress shirt, and the season’s already ubiquitous shorts—and leaving a slither
of air between them. The individual elements were held together with
wide-spaced, giant-scaled fagoting threads, or with a fine ladder of clear
plastic filaments (barely visible unless viewed up close), that slyly revealed
winks of flesh beneath, or the contrasting color of another garment (in Wang’s
monochrome world that generally meant white under black). The stylishly
inventive gladiator boots were actually season appropriate too—constructed of a
series of black leather lozenges held together up the leg with more of those
filament threads and left completely open in the back.
For his opening looks, black leather collars and virtual
“pockets” seemed to float against a bonded fabric ground; the dickey of a
formal mannish evening shirt did the same. There was a whisper of edgy modern
couture in Wang’s commanding handling of the horizontal strips of greige python
in a skirt that flashed the leg beneath in between the bands, and the crisp
white cotton shirt cut to drape like a toga and transform into an alternative
cocktail dress, and the thickly embroidered shaded gray bugle beads that
created a subtle trompe l’oeil python effect on a sleeveless shirt and pencil
skirt. Ultrachic too were the body-skimming sheath dresses in waving horizontal
panels of stiff white cotton or black leather, and a fine nylon sweatshirt with
python trim.
The plaited cables of a conventional sweater were blown up to a
giant scale and knitted in the round to caress the torso, and the overscale
string “shopping bag” was a playful take on the idea of negative space.
For his striking finale, Wang sent out a posse of platinum
blonde amazons in white and vanilla separates. In a spectacular coup de
theatre, the lights went down and the garments came to fluo life, glowing in
the dark, as the girls turned and marched away—a dramatic curtain call for a
collection that confirmed Wang’s place in the vanguard of New York’s fashion
innovators.
by Hamish Bowles
Wang's 2013 Spring Summer Collection
Joseph Altuzarra
Sally Potter’s magical
1992 movie adaptation of the Virginia Woolf classicOrlando, starring
Tilda Swinton in the title role as the ageless Elizabethan courtier who changes
sex and romps across the world and through the centuries, led Joseph
Altuzarra on a design odyssey to explore masculine and feminine
sartorial codes and marry them in intriguing and uncliched ways.
For his
imaginative and inventive show, Altuzarra took a man’s old-fashioned canvas
work-wear jacket, for instance (with the traditional identity information tag
on a breast pocket now providing the season and date of the collection), and
suavely recut it to feminize it with a peplum suggesting a Tudor doublet. An
underarm opening meant that the arm could be slotted through and the sleeves
hung loose—a modern take of those seen in stately Elizabethan portraits that
managed to remain resolutely un-costumey.
These
jackets might be layered over a railroad stripe cotton shirt coruscating with
crystal-drop embroidery and a skirt seemingly improvised from an exotic fringed
scarf (unearthed by Orlando in the souks of Constantinople, perhaps?).
Those
scarves reappeared draped as the collars on chic smoking jackets and cocktail
dresses, suggesting the insouciant gesture of a Gatsby-era man protecting
himself against the nighttime chill. This simple effect became ever more
elaborate as Altuzarra wrapped and draped up a frenzy of those jewel-fringed
fabrics to create the illusion of a houri readying herself to dance the dance
of the seven veils. The palette, too, suggested the Middle East in the
pistachio greens and the piercing blues of a desert sky at night or of a Tuareg
warrior’s robes—crowning glories of a show that deftly married fantasy with
reality.
by Hamish Bowles
Altuzarra's 2013 Spring Summer Collection
Phillip Lim
Are you the victim or the victor? That was one
of the themes of Phillip Lim’s spring 3.1 collection. It was clear who Lim
wants his woman to be; he showed a steady run of tough-girl pieces like utility
jackets, ripped jeans, and overalls reminiscent of the rockers he named his
shoes after (PJ, Courtney, Shirley). He’s feeling a little nostalgic for the
nineties, but please—even though there was a lot of plaid combined with
florals—don’t call this grunge. The idea was to mix what’s modern and what’s
from your youth and make it appropriate. (One way: Put chiffon in the slits of
your denims so they can be deemed cool, not trashy.)
The key word today really was “mix.” Lim was inspired by the Cut-Up technique, where one slices up a text and puts the words back together in a new order, using every single one. (It was originated by the Dadaists, famously used by William S. Burroughs and experimented with by David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, and Thom Yorke). When designing spring, Lim literally cut pieces of fabric and rearranged them into T-shirt dresses and pajama trousers and more. There was also an I Heart NYC motif, though the heart was upside down as it might fall in a Cut-Up. And there was a deer-fleeing-a-panther appliqué. (Both harken back to the “kill or be killed” mentality; New York can be tough.)
It’s a far cry from the sweet little dresses and obviously pretty clothes Lim started out with last decade, but, he says, the silhouettes are pure Lim. It’s hard to say whether his contemporaries will feel the pull back to the type of thing they might have worn to the original Lollapalooza. And do his customers of late even remember the days when designers’ rock star heroes ruled the scene? Chances are, they were raised on Britney, not Courtney. But that shouldn’t matter much.
The key word today really was “mix.” Lim was inspired by the Cut-Up technique, where one slices up a text and puts the words back together in a new order, using every single one. (It was originated by the Dadaists, famously used by William S. Burroughs and experimented with by David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, and Thom Yorke). When designing spring, Lim literally cut pieces of fabric and rearranged them into T-shirt dresses and pajama trousers and more. There was also an I Heart NYC motif, though the heart was upside down as it might fall in a Cut-Up. And there was a deer-fleeing-a-panther appliqué. (Both harken back to the “kill or be killed” mentality; New York can be tough.)
It’s a far cry from the sweet little dresses and obviously pretty clothes Lim started out with last decade, but, he says, the silhouettes are pure Lim. It’s hard to say whether his contemporaries will feel the pull back to the type of thing they might have worn to the original Lollapalooza. And do his customers of late even remember the days when designers’ rock star heroes ruled the scene? Chances are, they were raised on Britney, not Courtney. But that shouldn’t matter much.
by Florence Kane
3.1 Phillip Lim's 2013 Spring Summer Collection
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