What are they wearing during the international fashion weeks? A Valentino dress, that vintage Dior or their latest Celine skirt? During the fashion weeks we refresh our streetwear posts regularly. We don’t judge, we’re not the fashion-police, we just enjoy fashion and your own personal style. Next stop: Amsterdam Fashion Week.
What are they wearing during the international fashion weeks? A Valentino dress, that vintage Dior or their latest Celine skirt? During the fashion weeks we refresh our streetwear posts regularly. We don’t judge, we’re not the fashion-police, we just enjoy fashion and your own personal style. Next stop: Amsterdam Fashion Week.
The first day of the Fall edition of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Amsterdam is a fact. And what a start it was. It was a large celebration of Dutch Fashion, with a classy and elegant show of Dutch couture in Couture & Crafts and a wild show with a selection of Dutch Visionairies. The exhibition Dutch Heritage made this day long hommage complete.
The SS16-collection is the beginning of a new cycle for Susana and this one’s the first of another four chapters. And also a new start to experiment with new fabrics and techniques without losing her solid signature. “For me it was about how I can keep on developing my work, but people can still see in a second that this is me.” It resulted in her familiar lace techniques and knitwear details, but with a new embossing technique. The collection is build around the way we see the world. How can we all have so different views? “The first book you get to read on Central Saint Martins is about the human body anatomy and especially the eye. So I totally got involved in that, explored every bit of it, as close as I could to the pupil, the colours and even the whole structure of the vains and translated this to my designs.”
Remarkable this time was the absence of colour and ethical details, something we have seen a lot in all her previous collections. “This time I wanted to keep it really simple and clean, so I’ve chosen white as main colour. The ethical detail was mainly in the white paint around the eyes.”
To understand the path taken by Susana as a fashion designer, we need to go back a few years and travel to the Azores in Portugal, where her passion for knitwear and traditional lace techniques were developed from early in her childhood. Relocating to London, to undertake a BA in Fashion Knitwear at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Susana continued to hone her knitwear and women’s wear skills and translated her sculptural designs into the dimension of seamless knitwear. She explores the boundaries between technology and hand-crafting knitwear techniques, developing the jacquard to the extreme in order to make textures and volume in detail. And it got her pretty far. Her signature collections have won over fans the whole world over, including pop diva Lady Gaga. Will it also in Holland? As Plato once said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In that case, she did a pretty good job tonight.
In a world of fast fashion, designer Annemarie Westen wants to go back to craftsmanship, the point where the fashion process starts from scratch. “My work is never really based on a solid concept, it’s more about the feeling. It surpasses time or age and particular fashion seasons. I aim to give women a certain feeling, I want my clothes to strengthen who they are. Be equal to yourself. Sexyness and confidence is not depending on boobs or butts, but knowing yourself.” Something Annemarie herself has no trouble with, as this collection was full of her familiar signatures. Her designs are simplistic, sophisticated and wearable without losing elegance. She plays with subtle changes in the usual, using sharp graphic layers as a sign of strength, while the soft springy materials such as silk and wool emphasise a woman’s grace. But this time around she added more draping details in maxi-dresses and trousers. For a summer collection though, the colour palette was quite gloomy with only black, white and green. “Black is usually the basic pallet I’m working on, because it’s my favourite colour. And use of colour can cause distraction.” It perfectly fitted the dark, heavy music of Marilyn Manson and Pantera that reached our ears, and gave the show an even stronger heartbeat and a don’t-mess-with-me feeling. Exactly as she had hoped for.
Two years ago designers slash models slash tv-personalities Maria Tailor and Tamara Elbaz took over Collection PRC, the label of former designer Percy Irausquin. But due to the lack of freedom and design possibilities, especially the lack of space for sporty and super trendy items, made them decide to start their own label. So they did, launching Tailor&Elbaz, a line based on their personal taste, mixing trendy with basic and casual with chic. The exact ingredients they showed today on the Amsterdam Runway. Except, they added a, let’s say, little show element to it. Because how not to go all the way when the theme is Alice in Wonderland. The catwalk was transformed into a dreamy fairytale setting, including a stretch of grass, enormous flowers, mushrooms and rose peddles. All is well, but the question was of course: what is Alice wearing today?
We can imagine Alice her wardrobe isn’t that surprising, but what would happen if you add some Tailor and Elbaz to it? The answer: she would definitely be more glamorous, rock ‘n roll and sporty. She would wear more polo dresses, blossoming skirts, pencil skirts, varsity jackets, ‘love’ and ‘queen’tops and denim shorts covered with hearts. Their color palette of choice existed of shades of black, white, blue and pink. After so much fairtytale sweetness and romance on the tennis court, the rock ‘n roll was mainly found in the many earrings, heavy cat eye make-up and severe ponytails.
This is not a collection that will make heads turn or still you fashion cravings, but if you’re in desperate need of some easy-going daywear glamour, stop searching.
What are they wearing during the Amsterdam Fashion Week? A Bas Kosters dress, this seasons Spijkers en Spijkers summer suit or an asymmetric Tony Cohen trench? We don’t judge, we’re not the fashion-police, we just enjoy (Dutch) fashion and your own personal style.
It was back to square one for Tony Cohen and his SS2016 collection, which will be sold in Paris from September on. Moving forward and back at the same time… Tony went back to his core, the core of his firm but also the core of his designs. Remarkable was the slight change in silhouette as Tony Cohen appeared to have used more square shapes and straightened things up, both in the designs of his clothes and accessories. His color palette of choice existed of exquisite shades of black, white, gold, cream and green, combined with embroidery graphic prints inspired. Outfits balanced between handcrafted, detailed looks and clean, abstract designs, created for men and women who dare to show their true selves to the world. And dressed in one of these fashion numbers, any man or woman deserves to be seen.
P.S. Tony Cohen’s line 2LOVETONYCOHEN will from now on be named TONYCOHEN and will thus be part of the main, luxury line.
Fantasies of anxiety, Noir Near Future’s SS16 collection, started off very solid. Models with tight braided hairdos and silver lines on their faces appeared wearing either black dresses or black leggings with dito T-shirts, United Nude shoes to match. ‘Anxiety’ was printed on their outfits and backpacks, as well as (what appeared to be) frequency graphics. Disturbed and pixilated black and white prints.
Halfway through the show designer Bregje Cox changed things up. Outfits became light, airy and colorful prints (with exotic color combinations the brand is always looking for) were introduced. Dazzling graphics, mesmerizing stripes and mirror pieces attached to tops and dresses added to the fantasy effect of this summer collection. A collection based on the reflection of feelings of fear one can have when going through a creative process. Bregje Cox was inspired by the book ‘Het begrip angst’ van Kierkegaard, which asks the question if a generation can learn and love and copy feelings of patience and fear from previous generations or each invididual should learn this himself. No doubt NNF is heavily inspired by technology and science fiction. We’re anxious to see what’s next.
What are they wearing during the Amsterdam Fashion Week? A Bas Kosters dress, this seasons Spijkers en Spijkers summer suit or an asymmetric Tony Cohen trench? We don’t judge, we’re not the fashion-police, we just enjoy (Dutch) fashion and your own personal style.