Trends ss2010: take a bow
Bows seemed to be the finishing touch on many spring/summer outfits. They came in both extra small and very large variations.
The bows were often placed around the neck, the waist or at the shoulders of an outfit. Blugirl, Luella Barteley and Moschino had many bows in their collections. The bows on Valentino’s dresses were perfection.
To complete a certain look designers often put some extra bows in the models’ hair (Erin Featherson, Luella Bartley) and even on their shoes (Kinder Aguggini). At the Louis Vuitton show small bows were placed on top of the big afros the models wore.
Marc Jacobs used colorful headbands with bows that vaguely resembled the bunny ears he designed for Louis Vuitton last year.
Bows came in silk, cotton, lace and disco-shiny material. There were well-formed stiffed bows and ribbons tied like a bow. Some of the bows looked as if they had just been torn off a birthday present.
Bows formed the perfect detail on many outfits. They gave it just a little bit extra and made several looks more elegant and feminine.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: endless variations
Since a white blouse is one of the most popular basic items, we spotted a lot of these in almost each summer collection. They appeared in three main versions: blouses that looked like jackets, tight waisted blouses and loose-fitting men’s shirts.
New details that were added to these blouses were rolled up sleeves, puff sleeves and collars decorated with ruffles and extra layers. Although designer Gianfranco Ferré has always been honoured for his multiple variations of the white blouse, I’ll bet he couldn’t come up with all the versions we saw for summer 2010.
The models wore their feminine blouses with ruffles and puff sleeves mostly in their pants or skirts (Moschino, Sophia Kokosalaki, Derek Lam, Max Mara), so the waist was accentuated. On the other hand, there were blouses that showed no bodyshape at all at the Junya Watanabe, Cacharel and Chloé fashion show.
There were a few outstanding white blouses. Stella McCartney designed an ultra-long, loose version. At the LoveSexMoney show there was a white blouse with an extremely big collar made of several layers of airy fabric. The white blouses at Girbaud looked like straightjackets. The best white blouse was shown by Aquilano & Rimondi. They made a super feminine white blouse with puff sleeves, large ruffles and ribbons… so classy.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: into the wild
We’ve seen the animal prints for quite some time in fashion. Especially the leopard print was a major success in the past. This season we still saw some leopards at Giambattista Valli, Blugirl, Dolce & Gabbana and Paul Smith. Yet if you take a good look, you can see that the leopard print is diminishing and the reptiles are taking over.
Alexander McQueen’s collection was all about reptiles. Models dressed in colorful snake and python prints strutted down the runway. This had everything to do with the story behind this show, which was about the future ecological meltdown of the world and reptile-like creatures replacing mankind.
We also spotted light snake prints in the Pucci fashion show as well. They appeared at some short jackets. Kinder Aggugini used the snake prints in unrealistic light blue and pink. At the Iceberg fashion show the snakes were deep blue.
Other animals were spotted at Julian MacDonald, who designed a few fish dresses full of silver scales. Vivienne Tam showed a collection full of fantastic dresses that all had the print of a large butterfly on them. The colors of those butterflies worked beautifully.
Hopefully designers will continue getting their inspiration from nature. Nature has some extra reserves of great colors and patterns to create beautiful clothes with.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: strange cutouts
Were they short on fabric? Or did they think it would be nice to ventilate some dresses? What reason lays behind the strange cutouts in some designers’ dresses we don’t know. But it’s definitely a new trend.
We saw the strangest cutouts in diverse places. Above the armpit (Gucci, Kane), diagonally over the breast (Emporio Armani), around the stomach (Gaultier, Armani), above the breasts (Balmain, Gaultier, Elie Saab), under the breasts (Ungaro), between the breasts (Gucci), around the navel (Girbaud, Pucci, Alexander Wang), on the upperarms (Gucci), on the upper legs (Michael Kors, Viktor & Rolf) and around the waist (Erin Wasson, Laroche, McCartney).
At the Gucci show almost every dress had some small cuttings. Michael Kors’s dresses had cutouts that went around the model’s body, the fabric was held together by transparent plastic. Jean Paul Gaultier cut so much out of his t-shirts that they only existed of shreds of fabric. The bathing suits that we saw at the Pucci fashion show had splendid cutouts that gave them that little bit of extra sexyness.
Viktor & Rolf cut their hundreds of layers of tulle in a way the lower part of their dress looked like a piece of cheese. Unlike for the other dresses it didn’t add any sexyness, but it certainly made the dress stand out.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: pastel perfection
When it comes to color, next season will be very tame. There’s the nude trend and there will be lots of black & white. Yet there’s a third trend that we need to discuss colorwise: pastels.
The trend fits perfectly with the overall vibe we’re getting for spring/summer, in which everything seems very romantic and feminine. Yellow, purple, blue, pink, green, orange: all these colors came in a pastel version in any kind of material.
When comparing all collections we can consider Donatella Versace as the queen of the pastels. Her Barbiedoll models wore tight sexy pastel outfits. She even had a few printed pastels. The color in this case added to the Barbie doll feeling.
Michael Kors used some elegant blue, purple and green pastels for his feminine outfits. Other brands that made the pastel look work are Burberry, Matthew Williamson, Tommy Hilfiger, Mila Schon, Blumarine and of course our very own Viktor & Rolf. V&R’s multiple layered designs mainly were a combination of black and pastels.
If you want to go for that summery, romantic and feminine touch, add a little pastel.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: shine on!
Putting on an extra sparkle won’t hurt next summer. It’s become obvious that shiny sequins and sparkling details are no longer exclusively used for special events like New Year’s Eve. You can put on a sparkling outfit any day of the week.
Past fashion season the sequins were carefully introduced, yet this season they’re all over the place. Many fashion designers (Oscar de la Renta, Dior, Issa, Lanvin) used sequins and other shiny little details like studs or beads all over their clothing. They made the designs look super expensive and the models looked like princesses or movie stars.
The shiny details mostly came in silver, gold or bronze. Vivienne Tam, Pucci, Blugirl, Ungaro, Matthew Williamson and Asish made theirs in all kinds of colors and patterns. For example Asish had his colored sequins placed in the shape of Mona Lisa and at Ungaro they were heartshaped.
Elie Saab presented a showstopping evening gown sequined from the bottom to the top. Burberry showed us a glittery coat with sparkles looking as sharp as glass. At Aquilano Rimondi we could see several shiny outfits that had sparkling flowers in different shapes and sizes in gold and silver.
Making those items must have taken hours and hours of crafting. So next July when it’s steaming hot outside we will all be walking around with heavy, stiff, fragile, unwashable but oh so glamorous outfits. Shine on you crazy sequin!
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: bathing in luxury
Of course when the spring/summercollections are presented, bathingsuits are shown. Several designers came up with some splendid beachwear. The only comment we have on these gorgeous bathing suits… they often looked too delicate to swim in. So it might be better to use them to lounge about and stroll on the beach.
The collection of Emporio Armani had a lot of beachwear. Unfortunately this was mostly black and wasn’t all that exciting.
Pucci did have several elegant beach items in its collection; some bathing suits in shades of nude and an ocean-blue version with a matching jacket.
Gucci showed us a nice grey-colored version decorated with studs.
We saw a muscular Naomi Campbell in a black & white, animalistic, one-shouldered bathing suit at Issa. It was one of the few shows for next spring where we could see the British topmodel.
Together with the bathing suits some designers (Etro, Pucci, Issa) created airy colorful tops. Those tops are great to wear at the beach especially over a fabulous bathing suit or bikini.
Tess van Daelen
Trends ss2010: goddess glamour
Next season shoulders are getting some extra attention in several different ways. We’ve seen shoulderpads, shoulder cut-outs, adorned shoulders and one-shoulder dresses.
Many designers gave their own interpretation to the one-shoulder dress. Most often they put all their creativity in the dress’s one shoulder. They gave that one shoulder lots of layers, ruffles and draping so it really stood out and made up for the missing one.
During the Iceberg fashion-show shoulders were emphasized in many ways. The colorful one-shoulder dresses seemed to be the highlight of the show. At Lanvin the shoulders got a mix of ruffles and layers.
Sonia Rykiel showed a one-shoulder dress with bows all the way to the top.The shoulder on one of Viktor & Rolf’s designs (made out of hundreds of layers of tulle) reached as high as the model’s head.
Most one-shoulder designs looked sexy, summery and a bit Roman/Greek.
Tess van Daelen
Burberry Prorsum Catwalk Fashion Show ss2010
September 24, 2009 by Jetty
Filed under Fashion, London, womenswear
Well Done Iris van Herpen
September 22, 2009 by Jetty
Filed under Fashion, London, womenswear
Dutch designer Iris van Herpen took her ss 2010 collection to London and created a serious buzz. The ten creations of ‘Radiation Invasion’ were all made by hand and luxury departments store Harrods announced an exhibition of her work. Vogue, Dazed & Confused and Vanity Fair were all speechless. Some even said it was the most beautiful show of all London Fashion Week. We can only say: we regret we were not there and we are very very proud of Iris. You go girl!
All pictures by Michael Zoeter
