Preview AIFW – Sage & Ivy SS2012

The Sage & Ivy fashion show is part of the official Amsterdam International Fashion Week program for the first time this season. Yet, as designer Alexia van Engelen tells us, the label is still giving the audience something different…

“When we were approached by the AIFW if we wanted to join the official schedule, we had one condition: we still wanted to be able to create our own little Sage & Ivy world around the show. We didn’t want to use just an ordinary, plain, white catwalk. We discussed all possibilities and are now showing the new Sage & Ivy collection near the pond of the Westergasterrein. This means the models are going to be walking on a catwalk build over water. We’re very excited”

And though the concept alone is already interesting, water has a special meaning in Alexia’s new collection too. “The collection is called hemisphere and is inspired by water. Yet not in an too obvious matter. You’ll see the water in reflections, the golden color it creates when the sun sets, the many colors that appear when the sun shines at it and the transparency of water.”

These diverse sides of water are brought to live in a two sided collection. “On one side it shows Greek influences like draping, braiding and lots of volume. On the other side you’ll see day wear with a seventies vibe (high pants and accentuated shoulders). Bianca Jagger really was the inspiration for this since she used to mix those two styles together in her impeccable looks.”

The whole Sage & Ivy collection consists of 24 looks, all handcrafted in small studios in Belgium and Germany (no longer in Morocco, like before). The fabrics as well as the colors of the collection breath femininity. “We used shades like light pink, light green, grey, gold and some degrade. All looks were made from materials like jersey, lace, chiffon, organza, satin, cotton and a special wool melange. There are many feminine pieces in the collection but in the show we will always combine a very feminine, elaborating item with a more simple and cool (almost manly) piece. Just wait and see…”

The Sage & Ivy show will be held on Friday 15 July at 8 p.m.

Chanel Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

Global cooling, not global warming was the inspiration for Chanel’s fall/winter collection. Now don’t think the show was about durable fashion or had something to do with eco-friendly production. No, on the contrary Karl Lagerfeld even flew in an iceberg from Sweden to decorate his catwalk. After the fashion show that iceberg was to be flewn back to Sweden as well. If you ask us, this kind of superfluous actions only increase global warming.

During the show the iceberg was slowly melting, so all models ended up walking in big puddles of water. What a pity for the luxurious clothes! Karl’s long pants, floor-sweeping coats & dresses and his fur boots all got wet.

His fake fur boots, we must say. Cause the whole iceberg-thing might not have been so politically correct, Karl did use fake fur for this collection. He commented: ‘You cannot fake chic but you can be chic in fake fur’ and explained that fake fur, nowadays, looks very realistic. Because you can hardly see the difference between real and fake fur Karl decided this collection was to be a ‘triumph for fake fur’. The fur came in brown, gray, white and black and was seen on the skirts, boots, pants, cuffs, coats, bags and collars.

Other fabrics were leather and the typical Chanel tweed. Tweed was, of course, used for some of the short jackets, but we saw it on some coats, pants and skirts too. The skirts were rather short, compared to, for example those of Marc Jacobs. They ended halfway the upper leg. The collars of almost all designs were high, as were the waisted pants.

Apart from a little bit of red Karl didn’t use any colors. The show ended with the last models all wearing white designs. Even the necklaces and the large rings were white (they were metallic during the first part of the show). It all looked stunning with the real, white iceberg in the background. Yet we think an iceberg from papier-mache would have been just as nice.