Color Me Fall: A/W 2010 Features--COLORS!

While a great majority of fashion's great designers still showed an aggregate majority of grays and blacks, standout collections from Proenza Schouler, Peter Som, and Phillip Lim showed color is the word for autumn/winter 2010.

Proenza Schouler continued in moderation the bold prints they showed for Spring 2010, but with a winter update.  The collection began with a barrage of somber looking models painted with scarlet lips, pale foundation, and sheathed in dark plaids, blacks, greens, and fur.  Perhaps one of the most impressive parts of the beginning of the collection was the excess of wearable well designed outwear.  From updated toggle coats to a line of peacoats lined in dark black, navy, and green fur ending in a cheeky update of a fur trimmed letter jacket.  The collection moved into black and white prints splashed with bold splashes of blue , royal purple, and green.  Standount babydoll dresses bring to mind a dark moody tragically chic schoolgirl at University PS.  In total the collection was a continuing evolution of Jack and Lazaro's distinct aesthetic that has shot them to stardom.

Phillip Lim was one of a handful of designers who took the first tentative step out of the 80s and back into a more sophisticated decade--the late 70s.  Yet, unlike many of his compatriots Lim, as he usually does, was careful to make sure his designs were reinterpretations and inspirations of that great decade when disco rose and fell.  Lim's collection featured roomy pants very reminiscent of a Lauren Hutton in her prime.  The collection ended in a flourish of purple dresses that would fit right in on the floors of Studio 54.

Peter Som, how to begin.  Over the last decade Peter Som was a part of the young crop of designers that took the industry by storm.  Yet, it must be admitted that perhaps in the last few years Som's name has been overshadowed if only ever so slightly by other phenoms like Wang, Lim, and Wu--not anymore.  Som's A/W 2010 collection was the toast of New York.  The collection was a psychedelic trip through a winter that is nothing if not incredibly fun.  Som came out of the gate very cautiously with a fur coat showing signs of what the collection was to contain--the coat was lined with a wild green print while the blouse, skirt prints were incredibly complimentary.

On a side note, I apologize for me 2 week late posting on fashion week.  I recently started my first two internships both in fashion.  I'm not going to class and working internships 5 days a week.  I'm absolutely loving both!



All images copyright New York Magazine

V The Size Issue: Revolutionary or Reactionary?

Fashion is the extension of our fantasies.  Other worldly fabrics, backdrops, dresses, and of course models that look as if they've just been beamed down from the planet of doe eyed nymphs.

In 2009 seventeen year old Karlie Kloss ruled the runways and the pages of Vogue.  The slim midwestern native with a face that looks straight out of a 1940s mystery was the model.  Yet, perhaps it was not Kloss or Coco Rochas or Raquel Zimmermann that truly captivated the public, but rather the epic mistakes of over photoshopped models at Ralph Lauren and other fashion heavyweights.

Although the 2000s were almost entirely enveloped in the debate of how thin is too thin for models, 2009 seemed a boiling point.

Therefore V Magazine took it upon themselves to start a revolution in the form of a "Size Issue."  The magazine known for its epic avant garde photo spreads began leaking photos from their February 2010 plus size issue.

As the spreads continued to leak questions arose in the fashion industry about the merits of the issue.  Was the issue simply a publicity ploy (a la Beth Ditto shot by Karl Lagerfeld)?  Why were the models at least half naked in almost every spread?  Was it condescending to have a spread where a thin model and a plus size model wore the same outfits side by side?  Does the cover say it all, with one showing breakout Precious star Gabourey Sidibe and the other showing, the now very grown up child star, Dakota Fanning?

The fashion world is torn about the V Size Issue with many calling it a gimmick to up readership.  The reality of the debate is that the spreads are, largely just as stunning and interesting as normal V spreads.  One particular spread pits plus size star model Crystal Renn posing in similar ways and wearing the same outfit as new runway standout Jacquelyn Jablonski.  It must be noted that Renn appears vivacious, sultry,  and truly like a seasoned model in Proenza Schouler.  Yet despite Renn's obvious advantage the spread still comes off as condescending and gimmicky.

Is the image the fashion world wants' to return to the voluptuous images of human perfection we saw in Christy Brinkley in the 1980s and Naomi Cambell in the 1990s?  For young girls flipping through a fashion magazine is it any better to see a busty Victoria Secret model than a quirky seventeen year old from the midwest?

Perhaps the debate the fashion world is embroiled in should focus more on the fact that today's model's by classic facial standards are far outside the norm.  The new look each season seems to go beyond classic standards of beauty to redefine what is interesting and stunning.  In the mid 2000s we saw a sweep of doe eyed angelic almost alien like girls in the Prada invasion (think Sasha Pivovarova).  Is it not the job of parents to look at these images and decide what is truly acceptable for their daughters and then frame it in a way that helps girls love themselves?  Looking at todays models parents should be encouraging that their daughters that the women are interesting and unique--a characteristic that all women possess.

With their heavy handed message the V Magazine Size Issue suggests that today fashion is not simply about beauty in the traditional sense, but rather in the most stunning and interesting way we can find it.  So if this is the aim, women of more varied sizes can be used for true fashion spreads.  Renn and Burlesque dancer Miss Dirty Martini prove the idea that perhaps thin models do not need to be banished, but rather placed next to equally stunning Botticelli beauties.

All images copyright V Magazine