Ready to wear

The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER   |  Wed, 05/20/2009 2:17 PM  |  Ready To Wear

His and Hers

What works for men can work for women, too. That seems to be the mantra among European designers, who increasingly are previewing what’s ahead in their women’s collections in the men’s wear styles. For example, Bottega Veneta’s plush velvets and milky colors, Gareth Pugh’s spiny armor, Giorgio Armani’s black velvet and Dolce & Gabbana’s ribbon weavings were all featured on men before women. “Since we pretty much design the collections simultaneously, what is inspiring us at the moment could appear throughout our work regardless if it is women’s or men’s,” said Domenico Dolce.  Designers don’t deliberately forge a relationship between men and women, but it nonetheless arises sometimes, as in the latest fall 2009 collections. Men’s design is a powerful force in women’s fashion but the rules of male dressing remain far too restrictive. As men’s wear grows more sensitive to seasonal fashion direction, it overlaps aesthetically with women’s.

 

 

 

Glamorous Gams

Fashion's affair with leggings has been building for quite a while now, and for Fall 2009 it’s as though designers are giving it a final embrace. What inspired some designers to take the trend to an extreme? We think it’s simply a matter of offering customers a little bang for their hard earned buck since leggings and hosiery will retail for less. With Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks at an end, the fur flying and jewel-encrusted everything, it would be hard to imagine that fashion capitals are suffering through tough times. A little positive thinking at the end of a watershed season during which the economy was almost everyone’s chief obsession is the surest way to make an old dress, suit or coat look new.

 

Shoulder Smolder

Shoulders are there to lean on, cry on and to make women look less fragile. So maybe, after years of clothes that sexually objectified women, shoulder pads is an attempt to give us the psychological armour to weather the next few years. Seen initially at Balmain and YSL, designers such as Givenchy and Louis Vuitton, reached to, literal, new heights by dressing their models in structured jackets and dresses reminiscent of Melanie Griffith’s iconic Working Girl. The trend may seem dated, and almost laughable, to those not willing to make a statement, but as Scott Schuman recently photographed, the trend can be taken to the street almost seamlessly. The incontrovertible facts remain: shoulder pads make your waist and hips look smaller, your posture seem more upright, your spine straighter. Those are probably the most compelling reasons of all.

 

Hulanicki Touch

She brought the fashion world to a standstill back in the Seventies with the legendary Biba and now Barbara Hulanicki is set to do it all over again - this time with her very own capsule collection for Topshop. Comprising 30 pieces –which spans beachwear, floaty dresses and sophisticated smock blouses – Hulanicki was approached by Topshop to do the collection back in March last year. "They approached me to do a collection that didn't look like Biba," explains Hulanicki, who now lives in Miami designing hotels and furniture as well as a capsule range of bags for Coccinelle. Bound to be a hit with Topshop fans are the flirty and floaty chiffon dresses (in coral, pink and turquoise tones), while among Hulanicki's favourites are the suede pieces: "The jacket with shoulder pads, definitely."

+ Nikeeta Lakhiani

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