taking clear inspiration from herve leger dress New Look
If outerwear is a priori in autumn collections, then Raf Simons’s bcbgmaxazria dresses in canada take at Jil Sander spoke a thousand words. The double-faced cashmere clutch coats that opened his final show at the label immediately set the tone for a show as beautiful as it was ingenious, taking clear inspiration from Christian Dior’s New Look and riffing on the widespread speculation that this could well be the designer’s next posting. Dropped shoulders, sack-back jackets, bustiers and dirndls created a languid mid-century silhouette informed by the angular geometries that this label is known for, and made relevant through Simons’ modernist sensibilities. It was a fitting end not only to his tenure but also to his recent exploration of latter-day couture, nodding to the golden age of that discipline as well as to its potential future.
‘We think of ourselves as the thinking woman’s brand,’ said the Whistles CEO Jane Shepherdson, 48, in her office in north London. ‘Our customer tends to be an intelligent women who wants something beautiful that will last. She wants to look fashionable without bcbgmaxazria dresses in uk looking like a fool.’
So many of Paris’s next generation of designers showing in these early days seem stuck in a black hole—offering little but layers of ill-defined tunics, skirts, shirts, and whatever else, all in varying textures of black. Each has something to recommend them. At Limi Feu, designer Limi Yamamoto (daughter of Yohji) this season injects a bit of color into her work, along with references to cafe society, with her rounded-back coats and jaunty hats. Nicolas Andreas Taralis offers distinctively cut jackets with asymmetrical lines that spiral around the torso. And perhaps the best that can be said about Nicola Formichetti at Mugler was that with his black, birdlike runway creatures, he did not reference Lady Gaga. Since he is her stylist, this has been his most pronounced claim to fame but also his most unfortunate inspiration. This collection—which also emphasized white and included strokes of tomato red and marigold yellow—hinted at strong tailoring but still did not fully commit to the idea of clothes over costume.
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