Five years into their career at Helmut Lang, Nicole and Michael Colovos put their collection on the runway for the first time. Other designers in their situation might’ve felt obliged to add a few bells and whistles, but not this husband-and-wife team. They’ve built a real business on the consistency of their clothes’ cool, urban vibe—lots of black, lots of leather, a sharply cut blazer for every slouchy T-shirt. And they didn’t veer from the course with their solid Spring collection. The jackets were cropped and cut away high in back; the pants had the easy sensibility of sweats; the tees (and there were plenty of them) were asymmetric, drapey, and layered. For their prints, the Colovoses always riff on the work of a contemporary artist. This time it was Richard Serra. The oversize brushstrokes added the only note of color in the collection: sunshine yellow. The bra tops were something new (ditto the bared midriffs), but their customers will likely be happy to see them—try finding an edgy bra at Victoria’s Secret. The closing looks, with their collages of sequins, leather cording, and embroideries, were a step in a crafty-couture direction the Colovoses hadn’t explored before. But don’t call them showpieces. “We’d never put something on the runway that we didn’t believe in for sales,” Michael said. Now that’s a novelty.
(by Nicole Phelps style.com)

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Christian Siriano has won many hearts and minds, and in such a way that the bodies attached to them unabashedly stand and cheer at the end of his show, while those with money go to Neiman Marcus and buy his eveningwear. Still, his quest to be taken seriously continues. Today marked his second season working with stylist Danielle Nachmani—a girl trusted by the Olsen twins to find something to wear for the Met Gala. Backstage, Siriano cited Katharine Hepburn as inspiration—an unexpected reference. (Certainly she could be described as fierce, but not the way he means it.) The first half of the show reflected that no-nonsense glamour in simple shapes like T-shirts belted into lean bias skirts, and crisp white shirting with paper-bagged palazzo pants, hopped up by acid hues. Nothing groundbreaking, but nothing offensive either. And suddenly, it seemed as though Siriano couldn’t bear the restraint anymore, and in rolled a storm of flocked tulle and organza, capped off by a dramatic finish of dimmed lights and streaming models. The crowd ate it up. It’s what they were waiting for. But it didn’t exactly help his case. Getting the respect that Siriano wants will require more than heeding a cool stylist. But you have to ask the question: Does he need it? In fashion’s new landscape, editors and designers are scrambling for the reality-TV stardom that Siriano already has in spades. Perhaps all he needs is a change of perspective. (by Meenal Mistry style.com)

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“I’m not a cool designer, and Lanvin is not a cool brand,” Alber Elbaz insisted with his typical self-deprecation at the end of yet another standout show. Yeah sure, Alber, and the sun won’t rise tomorrow morning. But if he insisted on questioning his own coolness, there was at least no way Elbaz could challenge the clarity and intelligence of a collection that proposed a soup-to-nuts wardrobe (there were even nylon raincoats, for God’s sake) of unimpeachably modern, urban chic. Exhibit 1: the girl-on-the-go athleticism of second-skin dresses and suits paired with flats. Exhibit 2: the ludicrous amounts of glamour with which Elbaz managed to swathe that prosaic proposition.

The skin thing was a big deal. As a designer, Elbaz is feeling put out by the way women can buy themselves a new body these days, courtesy of their local cosmetic surgeon. He loves a wrinkle. So he created a collection that was a hymn to skin: wrinkled in Fortuny-like pleating, stretched in all those sheaths. It was a spectacular foundation on which he could lavish increasingly heady colors. From its elegantly taupe-y beginnings, the show spiraled through acid yellow, hot pink, and aqua. Karlie Kloss looked like a great big Georgia O’Keeffe flower as she sashayed down the runway in an opulent orange skirt. And it wasn’t only color Elbaz toyed with. He layered on the embellishment with pagan metalwork, climaxing in a gladiator skirt. There’s always been that hard edge with him—here, it was apparent in the metal bracelet that cuffed the shoe to the ankle, the leather harness, and the zippers that ran up and down his dresses, back, front, and sides. Arch fan Janet Jackson nailed it backstage when she pinned down her Lanvin persona: “I’m the baddest bitch on the block.”

In fact, she had some competition from the models who stalked the catwalk for a finale that brought to mind Yves Saint Laurent’s epochal heyday. And, with his hot-wire to the way women feel like dressing now, Alber Elbaz could be the most natural heir to that particular throne. (by Tim Blanks – style.com)

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(Winners will be announced January 31, 2011.)

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Massimiliano Giornetti said his second women’s collection for Salvatore Ferragamo was inspired by Jacques Deray’s late-sixties movie La Piscine. “But I didn’t want nostalgia,” he said, “just the vibration of that moment. I want to go back to that free-spirit, bohemian, gypsy attitude.” If that sounds like dangerous territory for a label best known for its loafers and bow-topped ballet flats, it wasn’t. Giornetti inherently gets the Ferragamo DNA, after working on the men’s side of things for ten years. The show he put on for Spring offered a measured, sophisticated take on of-the-moment trends—peasant dresses, macramé and crochet, transparency, and YSL-isms like safari jackets included. Giornetti is also making the case for Ferragamo as a suit resource. Narrow jackets and cuffed, slightly flared trousers in spicy shades of cotton canvas had a chic durability. That was the charm of this collection—how good he made real clothes for real life look. (by Nicole Phelps – style.com)

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Dundas’ seventies-inflected Spring collection has his sultry signatures all over it. He’s building a house on a Greek island, and the show had an unmistakable Mediterranean vibe, all sea blues and spice colors—the Cyclades by way of the subcontinent. “Bohemian beachcomber done luxe” is how the designer rather aptly described it beforehand. The first few dresses were souped-up riffs on the traditional Greek shirt, with a scrolling blue design on ruffled and flounced white cotton, washed for a lived-in feel. Clingy jersey T-shirt gowns in archival Pucci prints went to India and back for the tie-dyeing that gave them their sun-faded look. Alongside those and other frocks in guipure lace and broderie anglaise embroidered with tiny mirrors and pompoms—India, again—was more of the strong tailoring Dundas showed for Fall. Schoolboy blazers and low-slung flares mixed it up with whipstitched leathers and an aged python safari shirt with leather lacing that was reminiscent of Yves Saint Laurent. This collection won’t necessarily score Dundas any points for trailblazing; the seventies are everywhere this season, after all. But no one has evoked them with more conviction, or a more exuberant touch for handcrafted details.
(by Nicole Phelps – style.com)

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September 14

11am

Vera Wang

A native New Yorker, Vera Wang has spent her lifetime at the forefront of fashion. Drawing her earliest inspiration from her mother and their annual trips to the Paris couture shows, Vera Wang went on to become the youngest ever Vogue fashion editor at the age of 23, allowing her the opportunity to collaborate with the most accomplished personalities in the world of fashion.

Founding her own company in 1990, Vera Wang is known for her nonchalant approach to style and luxury. Her design vocabulary resonates with signature layering, intricate draping and exquisite attention to detail.

In addition to ready-to-wear, she also designs bridal, maids, footwear, eyewear, fragrance, china and crystal, silver and gifts, flowers, fine papers, home fragrance and mattresses. All of her products are sold in the most exclusive department stores and boutiques around the world, including her own flagship stores on Madison Avenue and Mercer Street in New York City and Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.

From the red carpet to the runway, the world’s most influential and fashionable women look to Vera Wang when dressing for their most important events and public appearances. The Vera Wang style has become a fixture on the world stage lauded in both the domestic and international press. In 2005, the Council of Fashion Designers of America honored Vera Wang’s innovation and dedication to her craft by naming her “Womenswear Designer of the Year.” The CFDA nominated Vera Wang for accessory designer of the year for her 2009 collections.

Vera Wang currently resides in New York City with her husband and two daughters.

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Since his Spring show last September, Prabal Gurung has seen his profile rise and rise. Demi Moore, his number one fan, and Thandie Newton wore his cocktail dresses on the red carpet, and he made a red gown for Oprah Winfrey to wear on the cover of O magazine. His Fall collection, the first one he’s put on the runway, won’t slow his upward trajectory one bit. On the contrary, it shows that Gurung is just as savvy a tailor as he is a dressmaker. (by Nicole Phelps – style.com)

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“Everyone says to back off aesthetically,” said Phillip Lim, days before his show. “But that’s not what’s selling.” Clearly, that counseling script should be flipped, and “everyone” should instead be heeding Lim, he of the stellar sell-throughs. The designer said he had been thinking about recasting basics, and working on a kind of primitive collage concept inspired by a visit to the Picasso: Mosqueteros show at the Gagosian. But unlike Fall’s collection, with its bohemian rock-chick vibe, Spring wasn’t about an overarching theme or look: It was about giving them a reason to shop, and as such, there were many arguments here for a girl to unfreeze her AmEx.

NEW YORK, September 16, 2009 – By Meenal Mistry – Style.com

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