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Appreciating Fashion Week & Interpreting Reality
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| Fashion Week is not a costume drama that excludes the average woman. It's an opportunity for us to appreciate what goes into the clothes we take for granted. Even the lowliest garment starts with a vision.
Through Fashion Week, we can experience spectacular theater, outsize characters, and the drama of how fashion is conceived and imagined at its most creative level.
One stand-out trend in the recent Ready-to Wear shows has been the continuing importance of menswear for women. Perhaps it's the lingering influence of the recession that's inspiring designers to create clothes that are understandable, salable and wearable across almost all ages. Our menswear favorites so far are:
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Jason Wu
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| One day, he's an under-the-radar designer, the next day, an overnight sensation. Michelle Obama wore his gown to the 2009 inaugural ball and the next day Jason Wu's career went into overdrive.
The current menswear influence is right up his alley. His recent show featured perfectly tailored polished ladylike looks in quality fabrics. One thing he's known for is that his looks tend to read mostly prim. But his mixing of traditional fabrics with lace and embroidery softens up the vibe and will probably be widely appropriated by other designers. Which means we'll see a lot of these influences everywhere.
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Wes Gordon
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| | The danger of too much good taste and good tailoring is that it can make women look matronly. To avoid this damnable label requires details that make the look modern. In Wes Gordon's collection, that's the use of fluid pants and billowy silk blouses under tailored coats, a new interpretation of the coat dress and jackets with ultra-feminine sleeves.
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Tommy Hilfiger
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| | Tommy Hilfiger, on the other hand, has been doing variations of traditional themes for 25 years. To keep things going for a quarter of a century requires a talent for sexing things up enough to look new, while not straying too far from what's understandable. We get the patent leather trench coat, the fluid pinstripes with velvet,and the tailored pea coats over femme silk dresses.
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Everyone's Grandpa Wore One!
Just when you might be thinking that it's all too sharp edged, buttoned down, and pinstriped, along comes DKNY to remind us in big BOLD color that even though the cardigan was appropriated from the boys, it can be decidedly fun,feminine, and casual.
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