The style prominence of the shoulder next season (AW09) is indisputable. They are the body part that one should be flaunting come fall. No mistaking.
As a result, the bold shoulders that have sauntered down the catwalks, show after show, city after city, have been widely reported on in the media. Much has been made of their exaggerated appearances, geometric shapes and padded silhouettes.
One shoulder trend that seems to have slipped through the fashion net, however, is the embellished look.
Paul Smith draped shoulders in sparkly crystals and pearls that swung in tandem beautifully with the models strides, Holly Fulton (from Fashion East) and Roksanda Ilincic heavily encrusted their designs with jewels and sequins lending them an 80s TV soap feel. Jenny Packham took inspiration from the 1920s and from them hung fringes of beads that twinkled in the lights,while David Koma used metal adornment not unlike bullets to emphasize the natural curve of a bare shoulder. Embellishment huddled densely together by Peter Pilotto and Julien Macdonald had a feral feel, while Gemma Slack* cloaked shoulders with a stunning cage cape that appeared to be made out of a gold metal.
Embellishment, as many of the London Fashion Week designers have proven is an accessible way to tap into the pronounced shoulder trend this Autumn. It offers versatility, functionality and originality all in one tidy little package. Whereas it would be hard to imagine where or how one would wear a jacket that is akin to a Quarterbacker’s football kit in day to day life, a beaded shoulder will easily slot into any existing wardrobe. That’s not even the great news though! With an old garment, a trip to the local haberdasher and a little time, fashion has finally given us a wonderful trend that genuinely lends itself to an achievable DIY job. Let the sewing commence.
Edith
Top row, from left to right. Paul Smith, Holly Fulton, Roksanda Ilincic. Middle, Jenny Packham. Bottom row, from left to right: David Koma, Peter Pilotto, Julien Macdonald.
* Apologies, I couldn’t find a picture of this example.
Autumn heralds the new Body Con, Body Con(tour). The look has finally evolved away from its Herve Leger carnation. Its focus has shifted so that it is no longer fixated around figure hugging apparel alone. Garments are still form fitting, but they now incorporate lines that trace the contours of the body, changing in thickness and direction so that they literally map the frame.
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Top row from left to right: Julien Macdonald, Ann-Sofie Back, Christopher Kane. Middle row from left to right: Vivienne Westwood, Topshop Unique, Giles. Bottom row from left to right: Richard Nicoll, Krystof Strozyna, Josh Goot.
Prints have been very prominent on the catwalks. Most London designers are taking their cues from nature or science fiction and the resulting patterns can be divided into two very clear trends. Winter florals and space Odyssey.
Winter Florals: Anything (or any flower) goes here. Large, small, soft, bold, bright or subtle.
Top row from left to right: Peter Jensen, Betty Jackson, Edrem. Middle row from left to right: Future Classics, Paul Smith, Kinder Aggugini. Bottom row from left to right: Avsh Alom Gur, Luella and Ossie Clark.
Space Odyssey: Think sci-fi graphic designs predominantly in reds and greys.
Top row from left to right: Marios Schwab, Danielle Scutt, Giles. Bottom row from left to right: Richard Nicoll, William Tempest, Topshop Unique
Blues and buttery golds are spread all over the catwalks in London and New York. Soft, bright, printed, texturised, they work together in any combination.
Body conscious has evolved. This trend is now much more than figure hugging apparel. The new Body Con (as shown below by Christopher Kane, Richard Nicoll and Krystof Strozyna) has lines that literally map the contours of the body.
It’s easy to over think a fashion blog and mistakenly agonise over every post, wanting it to be a few hundred well written, witty, insightful, enjoyable and observational words. Then you realise that there are a lot of really shit blogs out there and that detailed descriptions in the web world are pretty defunct, just wasted. They (whoever ‘they’ are) are right when they say that a picture can say a thousand words.
So, after pondering for some days now on what I wanted to say about the NY shows it occurred to me that I didn’t really need to say anything. By my reckoning this post contains 4111 words already, highlighting beautifully the timely and industrial, rusty hues that will become a key colour in Autumn Winter 09/10.
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You’d have to be a hibernating bear (and indeed have been hibernating for quite some time) to be completely unaware of the current worldwide financial crisis. A consequence of this meltdown is that the style sections of newspapers and magazines are now devoted to churning out features on investment dressing. Hem lines! WHAT. DO. THEY. MEAN? Some say they rise, and some are adamant that they fall with the stock market.
Ddjhfjkhudsuuuuuut6y7ue eeeebdhjsssPU)cl;xz zzzzzzzzzz’. Oh, sorry! Seem to have dozed off there. Trying to keep track of what length my skirt should be and the cost per wear of any investment pieces I am thinking of purchasing has left me simply exhausted.
But, there is more to say on this subject then what’s currently being recycled in the media, which is “customers should look for investment pieces and value for money”. Well. Yes.
Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion editor at the Guardian explores this well excavated subject a little further in this article, lean times and hemlines. It’s a feature about how fashion will be affected by the credit crunch, in the aesthetic sense rather than a business one. She reflects upon the trends that emerged from the boom and bust times in recent history with a view of defining this economic crisis’ appearance. She draws no firm conclusions but she does highlight a couple of interesting theories including this one from Valerie Steele, internationally renowned Fashion Historian:
The hemlines theory was invented back in the 1920s. But it just doesn’t hold up. Take the 20s – hemlines actually began to fall in 1927, two years before the crash. They were falling by 1969, two years before the downturn of 1971
Contrary to popular belief it would seem that the ‘look’ of the great depression was actually a result of what was fashionable the two years prior to it.
Jess then goes on to quote Jo Hooper, Head of Womenswear at John Lewis. Hooper implies that the softer, sculpted, voluminous silhouette that is becoming popular will be the defining look of the recession. She identifies the current vogue for the round-shouldered look as:
cocooning, which is the feeling of wrapping up, of hunkering down. It’s a basic human instinct.
Both of these theories are very feasible. However never one to rest on my laurels, I decided to do some research of my own. Mystic Meg wouldn’t return my calls, so I settled for the next best thing: Mark Watson, the Womenswear Editor at trend forecasting agency WGSN. I asked him for his thoughts on what he felt the look of the credit crunch would be. This is the PG version of his email response:
The most obvious effect of ‘The credit crunch’ as we saw during Paris Fashion week is that most designers will march to their own tune, sticking to what they know best and satisfying customers who are loyal to their labels rather than putting their heads on the chopping block of fashion whimsies. What may be of interest is that prior to this financial crisis designers were focusing on the shoulder and the power dressing 80s particularly taking silhouettes from Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana. In times of a strong financial system there is a the ‘power’ look whilst we at WGSN are currently moving towards a more fantastical, ethereal feeling soft layers, a looser silhouette looking at Bill Gibb also Nina Ricci collection in Paris.
Reading these three very different responses from credible industry experts; it is obvious that defining what the aesthetic of the credit-crunch will be is no easy feat. Not least because there are no parallels to be drawn between ‘fashions’ from one recession to the next. Each financial crisis has been brought about by different economic factors, which therefore in turn mean consumer habits, circumstances and attitudes are unique to that period of time.
Nevertheless history will record that this recession had a ’style’ just as it has done for the 1930s and 1970s, regardless of whether it was actually the result of the downturn.
So, lets try and put this subject to bed once and for all! Vote! VOTE! VOTE LIKE YOU ARE SHAPING TOMORROW! Because you are.
Edith
All images are SS09 from Style.com. In order of appearance: Balmain, Balenciaga, Nina Ricci
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The style prominence of the shoulder next season (AW09) is indisputable. They are the body part that one should be flaunting come fall. No mistaking.
h
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