Groupielove # 2
December 7, 2009 by Jetty
Filed under Featured Items, Milan, People, womenswear
In a serene and beautifully judged collection done almost entirely in shades of cream, Tomas Maier put the individualistic way we use clothes at the center of his thought process. “I think of it as a collaboration with women,” he said to style.com. “The clothes are meant to be a backdrop, a blank canvas, so the wearer can play with color and accessories to change the look and make it her own.” The concept of the neutral background came when he saw a group of children being dropped off at a karate class in Florida, where he lives: “I liked the look of the canvas, and that became my color card—white, cream, straw. And the idea of the soft belt.” Et voila, another beautiful collection was born.
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: 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: 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: new basics
You could consider a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt as everlasting basics. However, even basics change a little bit every year.
A few seasons ago some slim fit pants were indispensable. For next summer a pair of wide-legged beige pants, a straightforward skirt, a loose-fitting jacket and a long cardigan are the season’s must haves. We saw many of these items at Stella McCartney’s show.
What’s so great about these clothes? You can easily mix them with the rest of your wardrobe. Especially the beige pants can go well with almost every color. The jackets and cardigans can be worn in a masculine way but with a waistbelt they will look very ladylike. We could see this combination in many shows.
The MaxMara, Chloé and Tommy Hilfiger fashion shows all had some great basics with which you can make endless variations.
Tess van Daelen
Toronto Fashion Week
October 23, 2009 by Jetty
Filed under Featured Items, Snapshots, toronto
