I really don’t intend to do posts on modern fashion nor street fashion but I must tell you what my thoughts are on the just completed New York Fashion Week for Fall/Winter 2017. In a word, extraordinary! One of the best in recent memory. Many of the established houses have brand new designers and others have chosen to bend the fashion “rules”, in my opinion, for the good.
I will only mention a couple of the collections out of perhaps a hundred or more. The two long time houses, Oscar de la Renta (be sure to get your Oscar de la Renta US postage stamps launching today, Friday, February 17th) and Calvin Klein have brand new (to them) designers and I must say the collections, look fresh, modern and totally relevant…very salable but with lots of news to tempt the customers. The third collection I will mention is Christian Siriano.
Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia have energized the well-established house of Oscar de la Renta. Not only were the clothes contemporary, young and beautiful but the production was a total departure from the usual ODLR shows of the past. A new era has dawned for the house while keeping the DNA of the brand. Having worked with Oscar on many occasions, I know he would be thrilled. Bravo to all!
I’m not a pink gal, but find this absolutely stunning, particularly love the sequin cummerbund.
Now that is what I could call the perfect LBD, adore the boots!
I must say I was very confused at Raf Simons going to Calvin Klein, I was entirely wrong, he is perfection! Loved, loved, loved the collection. Again a refreshing new twist to an established house that needed an infusion of new, it got it!
The coat that everyone is talking about…I don’t quite get the sandals but never mind!
Now about Christian Siriano, he was the last designer I worked with at Saks Fifth Avenue, actually my very last day in the Store…I had been following him since his Project Runway days and his first collection wasn’t too long after that and his first ready-to-wear collection was a beauty. His subsequent collections have been amazing, you see his incredible creations constantly on all the red carpets. For his Fall 2017 Collection, he used the most diverse models, all sizes, all ethnicities, it was spot on perfection.
A beautifully constructed column of satin.
Now for the flashback part….when I started attending fashion weeks in New York, a lifetime ago, the collections were shown in the designer’s showrooms on Seventh Avenue, mostly in the 550 and 530 buildings. Many were presented more than once and you went from floor to floor and/or building to building. The audiences were the press and store buyers and some private clients. Either the designer, Bill Blass and Pauline Trigere for examples, or their representatives commentated the shows. You were sent a special hand written invitation sometimes before you left your city or it was waiting for you at your hotel. Why was I included you might ask. Well, I had established relationships with the designers themselves or their representatives when they were in Chicago to do their trunk shows. I sent myself to New York (the Store did not pay for my trip but did give me time off to attend the shows I didn’t have to take vacation time, bonus!!!), sometimes Corporate would get me tickets (in later years). It was a very exciting time. As the years passed the shows became larger and major productions first in hotels and then the Bryant Park Tents and Lincoln Center, these became mob scenes and the audiences were (are) huge. The last couple of seasons some of the designers have done smaller venues and smaller shows…everything old is new again! Others seek interesting event spaces. I must say I preferred the intimacy of the showroom presentations.
The only showroom show I could find on YouTube is one of Trigere’s, I think it gives you a good idea of the intimacy of the shows and how special they were. Is it time to revive this way of presenting…something to think about! Find it under How Great Designer Prepare for Fashion Week. Sorry, I can’t link you to it it is copyrighted