Show Reviews
Lacoste SS10
Published in Vogue.co.uk, September 2009
“It IS extreme Lacoste,” said Christophe Lemaire the day before his Saturday morning show at Bryant Park. And today’s show proved that Lacoste’s creative director wasn’t exaggerating.
Lemaire peeled off the scores of layers from his fall collection – it is spring, after all – leaving behind pure, clean Lacoste classics, with a new edge, of course. The opening line-up was a string of fresh-from-the-court tennis looks complete with vintage racquets, braided terry headbands, and glistening, rosy-cheeked models strutting to the sound of tennis balls being whacked. A throwback to the Thirties, when René Lacoste made tennis clothes chic enough to wear off the courts, Lemaire took a timeless cardigan and stretched it into a sexy, oversized top, added boxy shoulders and volume to a polo, and shrunk tennis dresses into flirty little minis that would cause quite a stir on or off the hardcourts this week at the US Open.
Tuleh SS10
Published in Vogue.co.uk, September 2009
“In a novel you have all this freedom, but, really, you are sort of trapped… you have to explain everything,” Bryan Bradley told VOGUE.COM. “In a short story you need participation from the reader – there is more freedom to fill in the blanks.”
An avid reader (he was an English major before he got a masters in fashion design), Bradley’s collections are almost always inspired by literature. The difference this season is that his collection was an anthology rather than a novel. A compilation of eight chapters, mostly composed of three or four looks each, there was plenty to inspire the “reader’s” imagination.
Erin Fetherston SS10
Published in Vogue.co.uk, September 2009
The sweet young Erin Fetherston girl of yore has come of age and transformed herself into a full-on woman, complete with plunging necklines, defined shoulders and even a “sexagon” skirt - Fetherston’s tongue-in-cheek reference to skirts with six points that over-emphasise the hips.
“It’s pretty pushed to the edge,” said the designer the day before her Sunday evening runway show at Milk Studios. “Nothing is ever overboard,” she said showing VOGUE.COM the shoulder of a blouse that was built up with hidden ruffles. “It is dramatic in an approachable way.”
Peter Som SS10
Published in Vogue.co.uk, September 2009
As if anticipating Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke’s pronouncement yesterday that the US recession is likely over, Peter Som launched one rather optimistic spring collection today. The designer described his shiny, youthful, mix/match print collection as “madcap happy… just deliriously happy.”
Instead of cocktail dresses, he referred to his short little frocks as “dance dresses” or “frou-frou dresses". Fabrics were more frolicsome than usual: a “tinsel jersey stripe”, “quicksilver lambskin”, “aqua acid panther jacquard” and “maquillage stripe and luster” just to name a few.
Tommy Hilfiger SS10
Published in Vogue.co.uk, September 2009
Like true catwalkers, the models of Tommy Hilfiger’s Spring 2010 collection bounded down the runway to thundering club-like remixes that immediately awakened a sea of tired fashion onlookers. The models’ hair was brushed and brushed to a soft, bouncy viscosity that recalled the swinging hair of a Pantene commercial – that healthy, all-American, freshly-scrubbed look.
Altuzarra FW10
Published in Vogue.co.uk, February 2010
Like moths to a flame, the editors, stylists and buyers of Fashion Week swarmed to Joseph Altuzarra’s third show in New York. As soon as it began, they were all burning with desire.
A darkly sexy show it was. Plenty of tight black leather, tall goat hair collars and luxuriously shaggy lapels looked as if they were expressly made for the pages of French Vogue. Black was the colour of choice for the 26-year-old designer, although he did throw in two nude dresses (under black coats), and finished up with a crimson finale.