Showing posts with label NYFW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NYFW. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Alexander Wang

Alexander Wang's latest collection is being hailed as his most grown-up and developed by a laundry list of critics and editors. I don't imagine having Gisele close his show hurt. It was certainly more controlled, leaving the Downtown, Model Off Duty aesthetic in the dust. That is integral to his image though that I wonder if Wang fans may be disappointed. I personally love that he typically errs towards that aesthetic, but it's often shrugged off by biggies within the industry as if it's immature.

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The emphasis of the collection was on outerwear with pieces mostly in black and white with some deep burgundy mixed in. In a video interview with style.com, Wang spoke about his interest in Surrealism and fabric manipulation.

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Tweeds were laminated, leather was shrink-wrapped, all so the textures provide for a skewed perception. Perhaps it was a comment on luxury? The shine of the clothes was a paramount point of interest, though runway photos do the textures little justice. The aforementioned style.com video provides a much better look.

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The extreme coverage of the clothes—heightened by the mesh turtlenecks over most of the models' faces—might serve as a perfect armor for dealing with charity canvassers and people dying to tell you about Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior. Unsurprisingly, the glazed black leather motorcycle jacket inspired pieces particularly caught my eye, as well as the boxy gun-case inspired bags. The latter again seems to challenge his typical aesthetic, as the bags have a vintage feel that I've never known Wang to explore. The white men's shirt-inspired fringe dress is another favorite that has not completely abandoned the party girl spirit. I can't say I would put this among my favorite Wang shows, partially because it seemed a bit too focused. But come next season, I may change my mind. We all have to grow up sometime—or at least that's what they say.
Photos via style.com

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Proenza Schouler

Road trips have the potential of being the most inspiring and head-clearing stretches of time. That is, as long as you can stand to be in the car with your travel companions for the entirety of the trip. With inspiration taken from their own road trip from Santa Fe to Wyoming, their latest collection makes it seem that Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez didn't suffer from car-induced insanity. In fact, it would appear that this trip allowed them to prosper among their ideas and the culture of the Southwest. The sunset colors were a beautiful and intensely rich ode to the desert in all of its warmly-pigmented glory. Much of the collection borrowed prints of Native American textiles, but was put through computers, and often altered to give it a pixelated appearance. Bringing it out of the literal context contributed to the collection's modernity and spoke to designers' love of renegade reinterpretation. How very them to turn a Navajo blanket into a tapered trouser. Weaving and crochet also made marvelous appearances, commending the artisans within the Southwestern region. Velvet quite unexpectedly resurfaced in the finale section, a reinvented version of the dissolving Fall 2009 velvet dresses, but these were somehow simultaneously more relaxed in shape and exuberant in palette. That combination of relaxation and exuberance may just be a perfect mindset to have on a road trip. I just hope I fall somewhere along those lines on my way to Portland next weekend. Perhaps then my daydreaming and perception of the experience will be just as beautiful and consuming as this collection.

Tara Gill
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Isabella Melo
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Liu Wen
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Shu Pei Qin
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Joan Smalls
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Sigrid Agren
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Monika Sawicka
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Chloe Memisevic
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Marique Schimmel
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Suvi Koponen
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Kelsey Van Mook
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Emily Baker
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Fei Fei Sun
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Caroline Brasch Nielsen
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Kasia Struss
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Julia Stegner
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Photos via style.com