10.24.09

Overrated

Posted in Look at 8:58 pm by Erin

Seriously?

NO

100 comments (so far) about how amazing these acid-washed cutoff mom jeans are? I’m going to puke.

Check it out for yourself at http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/ It’s the post made on October 23, 2009.

03.01.09

NY Fashion Week: Fall 2009 Collections

Posted in Look at 10:04 pm by Erin

The other evening, I viewed almost every collection from New York Fashion Week which had been uploaded at New York Magazine (the only exceptions: the Project Runway contestants, and Tommy Hilfiger). While I cannot recommend such a massive sartorial dose in one setting, I did see a few patterns emerge amidst the sea of Very Hungry models:

  • Widespread use of black and grey, with accents of bright colors. Some have pronounced this melancholy palette and toned-down couture appropriate for the national climate. Perhaps. But I found it rather boring. Couture shows are escapist art shows for the vast majority of us, not shopping excursions.
  • Sheer fabrics. If fashion week was tailoring its displays to the emotions of a sobered nation, then the overwhelming presence of sheer fabrics proves to be a non-sequitur. As I see it, clothing–for the average person–fulfills two functions: it keeps us warm, and prevents us from being arrested for indecent exposure. These frocks do neither.
  • Head coverings.
  • Figure-concealing silhouettes.
  • 1920′s influence. 1929 on our minds? I’m thrilled to see these flapper styles re-emerge.

What I learned last year at a lecture on the fashion industry is that these “new” trends were in the pipes for a while–well before the economy tanked. Look books circulated at least a year ago featured the sheer fabrics, head coverings, and palettes I’ve seen in the past few weeks. I’m not sure how I feel about designers letting themselves be guided by these prefabricated suggestions. Like a good Project Runway challenge, it could provide the raw materials to stretch their imaginations in new directions. But why this desire to be in concert with all of the other designers looking at the books and thinking, “Ooh, see-through fabric, great idea”? If you’re a famous designer, you can slap your name on a potato sack and people will buy it for thousands of dollars–why the safety net? This I do not know.

At any rate, amidst the sea of banality, some favorites did emerge for me. Proenza Schouler, Rodarte, Erin Featherson, Frank Tell…all in all, I saved 160 shots from the shows to my NYMag Fashion Album (when NYMag fixes their album-editing feature, I should be able to share them with you).