MAPPING OUT FASHION MONTH BY COLOR: FALL 13 by
Thanks to Dana Kruspe of Fashionista we can take a unique look at the key colors of the women’s runway collections for Fall 13 city by city.

The experiment yielded some very interesting and very pretty results for spring 2013. Blue was in (isn’t it always?), purple was not. Seafoams, mints, and emeralds were also popular in almost every city–but you know what they say about seasons changing.
Compared to last season, every city welcomed darkness into its color palette for fall. Of course, you don’t need to be a fashion genius to know that light colors will dominate spring while dark colors dominate fall. But it’s nice to actually see evidence of it.

In other obvious news, the number of all-black looks went up (way up), while shades of blue slayed once again snatching at least 30% of the color looks in every city–note the big blue blotch on our map above. Meanwhile, shades of red came in second. Green was last season’s popular runner-up (emerald was chosen by Pantone as the color of the year), but its presence was missed at the fall shows. As the saying goes, it ain’t easy being green.

While shots of purple went up since spring, the color still didn’t exceed 10% of the looks in any city. What is everyone’s aversion to purple, exactly?

For larger images, click here

Photos: Style.com, StyleBistro.com, Vogue.co.uk

The overloaded New York schedule provided plenty of everything. Shades of blue and red (check out that pocket of oxblood) came in first and second, respectively, and the darker colors were spread across the board. There were a lot of navy blues, military greens, and neutrals. The bright colors of last spring are pushed towards the top, almost off the map. And that tiny dollop of green proper? You’ll notice this as a common theme this fall.

London wasn’t going to let the somber mood of the other three cities bring it down, turning out to be the brightest of the four. Blue had its biggest competition here, with red (again, all that oxblood at shows like Burberry Prorsum, Felder Felder, and Marios Schwab) coming in a close second place. London had the biggest pocket of bright orange from shows like Richard Nicoll and Joseph Conran. You’ll find that Milan and Paris don’t have the same enthusiasm for the color.

Last season, Milan had a well-balanced diet of pastels. For fall, however, the city is almost entirely devoid of any proper green or orange, both of which veered to the side of yellow-toned. As a result, there were plenty of mustards and camels to play around with. But then, neutrals are typically more popular for fall, and it’s something we saw in every city. Dark blues? Check. Lots of red? Double check (thank you, Dolce & Gabbana). Moving along…

OK. Pointing out the sheer volume of dark blues is just beating a dead horse since it’s happening in every city. It’s like saying that Paris designers show a lot of black (which they totally did, outnumbering the all-white looks by about 4 to 1), or that the new Pope is Catholic. But having said that, Paris definitely had the largest percentage of blue in every variety, comprising over a third of the color looks. There was an especially large section of dusty blues thanks to designers like Louis Vuitton and A. F. Vandevorst. Green and orange were predictably absent as well.

Rania Richardson of Community Media, who last wrote for Hall Five on The Romanian New Wave reports on BLANCANIEVES, a Spanish version of Snow White that represents the current fascination with classic fairy tales retold with a personal twist.

Inspired by a photograph of real bullfighting dwarfs, writer/director Pablo Berger fashioned a Snow White story set in 1920s Spain, with its lead character the daughter of a matador and a flamenco dancer.  BLANCANIEVES follows the contours of the Brothers Grimm fable, with the innocent girl, evil stepmother, mirror, poisonous apple, and caring dwarfs. The film is black and white and silent in homage to moviemaking from the 1920s, like the 2012 Academy award winner, THE ARTIST. Sumptuous period sets and costumes, a carnivalesque atmosphere, and melodramatic score keep interest alive in the dialogue-free tale.

BLANCANIEVES

BLANCANIEVES

BLANCANIEVES

“The Uses of Enchantment,” Bruno Bettelheim’s 1976 Freudian interpretation of fairy tales, suggests a psychological value to stories that deal with the darkest childhood fears of abandonment, cruelty, and death from a safe, imaginary vantage point.  In today’s ever changing and uncertain times, the tales, burnished by centuries of storytelling, resonate with familiarity and are far removed from our daily lives, so provide a magical escape.

Disney’s 1937 animated feature, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, become the highest grossing film of its day, and there have been screen versions of the tale ever since. Interest may be at its peak now, as MIRROR MIRROR starring Julia Roberts and Lily Collins and SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN starring Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart were both released within the past year, and the television series ONCE UPON A TIME continues to air on CBS.

Disney’s SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)

CharlIze Theron as The Queen in SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

Kristen Stewart as Snow White in SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

Julia Roberts as The Queen in MIRROR MIRROR

Lily Collins as Snow White in MIRROR MIRROR

Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White and Lana Parrilla as The Wicked Queen in ONCE UPON A TIME

FOR MORE IMAGES: BLANCANIEVES Pinterest Board by Rania Richardson. This board includes film stills, trailer, information/review sites, director interview, and posters for BLANCANIEVES, as well as related images such as the actors in San Sebastian, inspirational photos, other screen images of Snow White and the Evil Queen.

Follow Rania on Twitter

Martha Stewart signed on with red velvet cake and white icing, Mac used lipsticks and Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street showed their support too.
They are among an estimated tens of millions of social media users who have posted and tweeted a symbol in support of gay marriage.

It’s a variation of the logo for the Human Rights Campaign, normally a bright yellow equal sign on a blue background. But to draw attention to the two same-sex marriage cases the Supreme Court heard this week, the Washington-based organization on Monday changed the colors to a square red box with thick pink parallel, horizontal lines. Red, for the color of love.
Then they invited people to share it.
Tens of millions took the campaign up on its offer, often replacing their profile pictures on Facebook and Twitter with the image.

The Original

Bert and Ernie of Sesame Street

Grumpy Cat

Marriage Equality

Martha Stewart

Justice Anthony Kennedy

Hall Five has partnered with Sophicolor to present a palette of 30 fashion colors in 3 trends for Spring 14. To purchase the Spring 14 Color Card with Sophicolor fabric swatches go to the Sophicolor website.
The colors are also available digitally. For more seasonal color stories and to see how colors can be expressed accurately using Chromashare view on the Sophicolor website.

It’s a time of global political and spiritual unrest and inevitable change. We become introspective, and analytical, examining the relationship between humankind, nature and science. For Spring 14, we explore, through the use of color, the points at which these three converge. In PRECISION, a modern palette of controlled tones is used for coloring the geometric prints we find in abundance this season. EMOTION evokes the spirit of rebellion experienced in the 1970s, with a range of tinted botanicals to be used in sportswear. INDIA is a celebration of color and light as a worldwide fascination with the Asian subcontinent continues to emerge.

For more PRECISION palettes, view here on the Sophicolor website.

For more EMOTION palettes, view here on the Sophicolor website.

For more INDIA palettes, view here on the Sophicolor website.

Reminiscent of the ‘80s power shapes and the cocooning style of the ‘90s, Paris designers showed full shouldered shapes on a variety of key items for Fall 13. This was evident on outerwear, blazers and blouses

Balmain

Balmain

Carven

Carven

Carven

Miu Miu

Véronique Leroy

Véronique Leroy

Véronique Leroy

Stella McCartney

Stella McCartney

From Sharon Haver and Focus on Style, the TOP 5 Milan Fashion Week Trends From Fall 2013: CHUNKY HEELS, 40’s AND LADY-LIKE, STATEMENT SLEEVES, WOOLS, TWEEDS & PLAIDS, OPTICAL PRINTS

Wools, Tweeds & Plaids- Seen at: Prada, Marni, Ter et Bantine, Versace, Moschino, Gucci, Trussardi, No. 21

It’s winter we know, gray wool, tweed and the ilk aren’t any real news, true. But, thats not to say there wasn’t any news. On the contrary, a powder blue gingham suit at Prada was again, a surprise. Same goes for Versace, where an over-the-top nod to the upcoming punk inspired Met exhibit had a great deal of plaids(skip the vinyl panels!). And at Dolce & Gabbana, Marni and Ter et Bantine, plain wools, almost colorless, paved the way for the eye to train on the silhouette. This also allows for a chic foundation for flashes of color with accessories.
For more Milan F13 trends go to Focus on Style
For more images from Milan Fashion Week go to Pinterest

Prada

Prada

Prada

Dolce & Gabbana

Dolce & Gabbana

Alberta Ferretti

Aquilano Rimondi

Blumarine

Versace

Marni

From Sharon Haver and Focus on Style, 5 trends from the London Runway. MOTO, WINTER WHITE, DARK & ROMANTIC, THE RETURN OF THE JUMPSUIT, THE FLAT STATEMENT SHOE

HELLO MOTO
This season in New York & London, designers paid a nod to the Met’s upcoming retrospective of punk elements in fashion via witty takes on moto jackets. Spliced, diced and thoroughly rethought, the best iterations veered on the simple, such as Preen’s uber cool vest. We know a few girls who’d wear that religiously, which is not too hard to imagine. By now, a well cut motorcycle jacket should be a closet staple for you, and with that box checked, think of expanding with a modern take. In stores now, we’ve seen moto elements on everything from the decorative collar on a trapeze dress to the fastenings of a trench.

Preen by Thornton Bregazzi

Preen by Thornton Bregazzi

Preen by Thornton Bregazzi

David Koma

Jean-Pierre Braganza

Holly Fulton

Moschino Cheap and Chic

Todd Lynn

Todd Lynn

From Sharon Haver and Focus on Style, 5 trends from the London Runway. MOTO, WINTER WHITE, DARK & ROMANTIC, THE RETURN OF THE JUMPSUIT, THE FLAT STATEMENT SHOE

Tom Ford called his F13 Collection, “Cross Cultural Multi Ethnic” because, he told Women’s Wear Daily, “That’s what the world is”. In turn WWD described it as “A parade of clothes that were loud and proud,” which could also be said for several of the other London designer collections.

Tom Ford

Tom Ford

Graphic stripes and other geometric prints and patterns in colorful hues were rendered in a variety of fabrics including leather and fur. Fashion seems to revel in contradiction, especially on the runway. Minimalism (Calvin Klein, Jil Sander, Chloe) and maximalism (Versace, Roberto Cavalli) happily co-exist every season but now more and more we see it not only within the same Collection (Prada) but even within the same look. At Ashish for example, the F13 offering is “based on a construction worker’s wardrobe” that of “hardworking, protective, and durable gear” and yes, there were orange cargo pants with padded knees, but sequined and teamed with a fringed houndstooth blouse.

Ashish

“Color-drenched and brash” said WWD of Paul Smith, “Graphic stripes and gleaming metallics in offbeat combinations of colors.”
Geometrics were employed here too, notably in a coat of black and blue pieced-in color-blocks.

Paul Smith

Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos are well known for their “signature maximal-print aesthetic” and this season is no exception. They showed incredible combinations of signal color again in “confrontationally” graphic prints.

Peter Pilotto

Peter Pilotto

In a time when a fascination with all that is organic and found in nature is paramount, there’s an obsession with ourselves as well. Style.com reports that the designers of Sass & Bide, Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton said their F13 offering entitled, Wintergate, was “born from a curiosity about man-made objects. We wanted to study the internal mechanics of them.” This has resulted in a series of optical prints, graphic lines in black, white and elemental grays punctuated with a searing shade of yellow) and a sort of strictness also present at Temperley London
Which brings us back to Tom Ford’s show and a crescendo of color, print and texture. But as in so many of the other collections this season, graphically pieced-in mink and leather plus geometric patterns proved an interesting sub-text that indicates a current desire for control, even in the most-maximalist of designs.

Issa

Temperley London

Matthew Williamson

Sass & Bide

Tom Ford

Tom Ford

From Sharon Haver and Focus on Style, 7 trends from the New York Runway. All you need to think about are SCULPTED FORMS, CHEST PIECES, FABRIC MIXING, PATTERN & CRAZY COLOR FUR/FAUX FUR, UPDATED SWEATSHIRTS, QUILTING and LOTS OF COLOR.
IMAGE, Donna Karan, Proenza Schouler.

SCULPTED FORMS
No longer just limited to A-line or fit ‘n flare, a wide range of bold shapes came strutting down the Fall 2013 runways for Fall 2013. Some more toned down than others, but either bold and brazen or slighted sculpted, you can define a new silhouette with pronounced shoulders, boxy bodies, cocoon shapes, peplums, and full sleeves.

Rebecca Minkoff

Altuzarra

Zero + Maria Cornejo

Victoria Beckham

Vera Wang

For more trends from Mercedes Fashion Week New York including
CHEST PIECES, FABRIC MIXING, PATTERN & CRAZY COLOR FUR/FAUX FUR, UPDATED SWEATSHIRTS, QUILTING and LOTS OF COLOR, go to Focus on Style.

The trend for organic looking prints and patterns in earthy tones on luxurious fabrics evolved again this season on the New York runways. Simple shapes such as slender legged pants, slim line below the knee coats, softly shaped dresses and narrow skirts only enhanced the impact made by the wide variety of intricate patterns. This is a trend than can be traced back to Alexander McQueen’s preponderance of Charles Darwin for Spring 2009 and his penultimate collection shown for Spring 2010 where the woman/organic matter hybrid was fully fledged. Many NY designers showed a color story made up of earthy neutrals popped by a particular shade of ochre yellow, oxblood and forest green which confirms the Hall Five/Sophicolor Collection color trend for Fall 13, The Good Earth.

Monique Lhuillier

Diane von Furstenburg

Suno

Rebecca Minkoff

Michael Kors

Proenza Schouler

Diane von Furstenburg

Michael Kors

Sophicolor Collections “The Good Earth”

See more of Hall Five’s NYFW trends and key items on Pinterest

A new silhouette emerged during this past week’s Spring Couture shows. In amongst the more expected full-skirted gowns were several long sleeved sheaths. In some instances, inspiration seemed to have come from the modest dress of Middle Eastern women. Possibly, not surprisingly as along with china and Russia, the majority of Haute Couture clients are Arab women .

Giambattista Valli

Katya Riabynikina

Alexis Mabille

Jean Paul Gaultier

Elie Saab

Elie Saab

Elie Saab

Valentino

From art to politics and beyond, runway fashion reflects the zeitgeist and accordingly, as long as scenes of war are prevalent in the media, the military trend will be prominent. This was certainly true of the recent European men’s runway collections for Autumn/Winter 13. As GQ pointed out, amongst the more predictable logan green great coats, camo parkas and fatigue jackets, a Napoleonic style is emerging.

Phillip Lim

Paul Smith

Burberry

Jil Sander

Jil Sander

Saint Laurent

Dior

From GQ

Military looks have been popping up on runways for several years now, but Fall 2013 really seems to be about Napoleonic military style. With high collars, slim cuts, and double-breasted brass buttons, there is a real gentleman-officer-at-Waterloo vibe happening here. Canali had the most pronounced Napoleonic look with their bright blue topcoats that seemed to come straight off the 19th century battlefield. Giorgio Armani went for a lighter and shorter version of the jacket, while Gucci and Diesel Black Gold stuck with darker colors like midnight blue. All you’ll need is a good saber and you’ll be ready for the cavalry.

Canali

Diesel Black Gold

Gucci

Gucci

All images from GQ

After 2012, a year in which digital media continued to radically change our lifestyle, New York consulting firm, MBF predicts the top consumer trends for 2013 will include the importance of story-telling in retail, buying locally and the and the continued integration of sustainability into our everyday lives…

2012…what a year!!! As it sped by, the overriding theme was CHANGE and the big drivers delivering this change were technology and unpredictability. CHANGE challenged us to continuously look forward – without looking back.
CHANGE was all about what’s next?! The ever growing community both online and offline impacted us all. Digital media continues to radically change our lifestyle – the consumer is more knowledgeable than ever before and is capable of turning any industry upside down. For example, 24/7 has became the new norm for shopping – when, how and where we want it – on demand!

The art of story telling was finessed further and stood out against a landscape of sameness, helping to differentiate various brands and collections in the marketplace. ETSY is a great virtual example. Products for sale include the details about where and how the product was made. Treasure & Bond which donates its profits to children’s charities and ABC Home also use the story line approach to retailing.

Experience is the driver. According to The London Sunday Times, STUFFOCATION is set to be the buzzword of 2013, meaning the switch from our obsession with material goods to experiential ones. Our happiness will be defined by our experiences rather than by who has the hottest gadgets. For example, playing golf on a mountaintop and then bragging about it on Facebook or Instagramming a photo of the artisan bread you’ve just baked.

Local retains its importance – inviting us to be more conscientious about what, how and why we purchase. It beckons to us…to be more creative, to be idea generators, to think out of the box, to break the norm, to be different, small but unique. According to the trend analyst Marian Salzman, we’re going one step further from authentic with NATIVE becoming the ultimate proof point. In an increasingly virtual world knowing where something, or someone, is from will become an obsession.

Sustainability will continue to be more and more integrated in our every day lives. The unpredictability of the impact we have on our environment makes it ever more important to all of us. As JWT points out, in a bid to be more green, apparel sellers are ramping up efforts to keep clothing out of landfills. In 2012, Puma introduced Bring Me Back, adding in-store bins into which shoppers can deposit used clothing and shoes of any brand for reuse. In FEbruary 2013 H&M will similarly start collecting used clothing. Also Marks & Spencer offer “shwopping” (shopping + swapping), collecting used garments in collaboration with Oxfam.

So…our motto for 2013 is…keep it simple, learn to let go, ride the wave, and most of all, enjoy it!!! Do what you love, be who you are, and approach life and your profession with unbridled passion. From all of us at MBF Trend Consulting, may 2013 be a year of amazing, head-turning passion and success!

In recent seasons, a cyclone of dizzying digital prints has blown across the fashion landscape, quickening the pulse of fashion editors and making cash registers ring. Perhaps nowhere did the whirlwind seem stronger than outside the shows, where ‘it-girls’ in graphic, printed pieces by young designers like Mary Katrantzou, Jonathan Saunders and Peter Pilotto made coquettish plays for the attention of street style bloggers.

Mary-Katrantzou 2011

But the Spring/Summer 2013 collections ushered in a new mood, with many designers sidelining head-turning prints in favour of calmer, cleaner clothes. In Milan, bellwether designer Miuccia Prada presented a primarily black collection, a striking departure from the cacophony of prints and jacquards of Prada’s Autumn/Winter 2012 collection, which was widely copied on the high street and sent the clashing print trend mainstream. A week later in Paris, she drove the message home with a restrained and sombre collection for sister label Miu Miu, which saw the distinctive harlequin prints of last season cast abruptly aside. Even Marni’s Consuelo Castiglioni sent out a number of boxy peplum dresses, streamlined tunic tops and leather t-shirts in a monochromatic palette — a shocking move for a designer known for her clashing prints and experimental colour combinations.

Has print finally peaked?

“The palette shifted this season, often rooted in monochrome and neutrals, which does feel like an antidote to the riotous prints that have dominated [previous seasons],” said Ruth Chapman, co-founder of online boutique Matches.

But come next spring, the stark shifts seen on the runway may not be as clearly reflected at retail. “While clean lines and simplicity may have dominated the Spring/Summer 2013 runways, our customer’s responses were not as unanimous,” revealed Aslaug Magnusdottir, CEO and co-founder of Moda Operandi, a website that lets women pre-order next season’s fashion straight off the runway, many months before it arrives in store. Amongst her customers, Magnusdottir noted a particularly strong preference for print-focused label Peter Pilotto’s Spring/Summer collection. “They were not deterred by this [pared-down] runway trend.”

Peter Pilotto S13

Indeed, according to a number of influential retailers, passion for prints seems unlikely to drop. “Our customers love colour and interesting prints,” said Elizabeth Hui, vice president and divisional merchandise manager at Bergdorf Goodman. “We definitely bought into the pared-down trend, but also tried to find colour and fun prints where we could.”

Mary Katrantzou for Topshop

“Print will always be relevant,” said Tomoko Ogura, senior fashion director at Barneys New York. “Even when prints don’t emerge as a strong statement on the runway, there will always be a customer who wants to wear an element of pattern.”

Magnusdottir concurred: “The Moda Operandi customer really responds to lively, bold, attention-getting prints. Season after season, runway trends come and go, but prints will never go out of style.”

The power of celebrity culture will also help sustain demand for bold prints, as long as personal stylists continue to seek out graphic, attention-getting looks for their clients’ heavily photographed public appearances, predicted Lisa Armstrong, The Daily Telegraph’s fashion editor. “There’s no way you’ll be ignored by the photographers when you’re dressed head-to-toe in clashing Thakoon or Prabal [Gurung prints],” she said.

“There is typically a direct effect on sales when one of [my] more recognisable prints is worn by a handful of leading ladies,” said Gurung, whose dresses have appeared on the Duchess of Cambridge, Zoe Saldana, Eva Mendes, Demi Moore and Michelle Obama.

But Armstrong is cautious. “It always takes longer than you might think for a major trend to fade away. There’s still a lot of pattern around, especially among British and American designers and I’m sure there’ll always be a customer for print. But designers have to move forward,” she insisted.

Indeed, print may have seeped so deeply into the fashion consciousness that it’s almost hard to remember a time when it was truly cutting-edge. But back in 2010, the bold digital prints of London labels like Erdem, Mary Katrantzou and Peter Pilotto, in particular, were considered revolutionary products of what Suzy Menkes, fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune, called “the cauldron of cyberspace wizardry.”

But as the print trend — now mainstream — inevitably wanes, these young labels, whose brands and businesses have been largely built on prints and patterns, run the risk of being too closely associated with the aesthetic. “It’s fine to specialise, but you can’t become known as a one trick pony,” emphasized Armstrong.

So how are London’s young print designers responding?

For Spring/Summer 2013, Jonathan Saunders moved dramatically away from the signature prints that have formed the foundation of his business. “Digital prints became easy for mass manufacturers to reproduce — they could never do that before with labour-intensive engineered placement screen prints,” he said. “Suddenly an aesthetic starts to lose its value and it felt like the right time for me to do something different.”

Saunders is focusing on complex fabrications that are trickier to copy. “Customers are not wanting one-dimensional, pared-down clothes, but highly crafted pieces,” he said. “These pieces may appear more pared-back, but women are ready to invest if they feel they can notice the craftsmanship in a piece. I’m excited by craft and process and special textile techniques, and so is the consumer.”

Mary Katrantzou is careful to point out that her designs are about more than just print. “My work goes beyond print and I always focus on the silhouette and the innovation in fabrication. I use precision engineering to flatter the female form and I am interested in the way that printed textiles can change the shape of a woman’s body. Shape, colour and fabric innovation are equally important to print,” she said.

This season, Katrantzou focused more than ever on ultra-sophisticated shapes, while retaining the bold, digitally-printed aesthetic that is central to her brand’s DNA. But the designer has also been taking an increasingly artisanal approach. One of the more complex, handmade dresses in her Spring/Summer 2013 collection — which featured graphic, metallic brocade based on postage stamps and defunct bank notes — took a painstaking two weeks to complete.

Design duo Peter Pilotto and Christopher de Vos also introduced an artisanal element to their Spring/Summer 2013 collection, working intricate beading into their complex graphic prints. “We visited India in the summer and travelled to Rajasthan and Calcutta, where a lot of the beading is done. It was impressive to see how skilled and fast the craftspeople are, how elegant,” said Pilotto. “For this season, we used more beading than ever,” he continued.

Summing up the new direction, Chapman observed: “It was exciting to see how designers moved away from pure digital print and continued to push the boundaries of fabric development, creating print effects through texture and fabrication.”

Indeed, print designers aren’t waning as much as evolving.

What’s more, the changing nature of women’s dressing makes it more likely that print will endure for quite some time. “Women are so much bolder and willing to experiment with their clothes these days,” said Pilotto. “The beauty of today’s wardrobe is being able to pick and choose from everything. A woman can be one day minimal, the next opulent, then wearing vintage — that’s the fun of our time.”

Women today not only feel confident to flit between aesthetics, but desire it, making it improbable that the rise of a new pared-back style will spell the end of print. Much as Phoebe Philo has continued to build a fan base of Céline disciples who covet her architectural, restrained clothes despite the recent torrent of print, it’s likely that print will continue to thrive in the context of the coming season’s reductive clothes.

Celine S2013

“In the Nineties, there was room for Giorgio Armani and Gianni Versace to exist together,” summarised Saunders. “There will always be demand for that duality no matter what the decade.”
Tilly Macalister-Smith is a London-based writer and acting fashion editor at Vogue.co.uk
The Business of Fashion

Hall Five partnered with Sophicolor to create an exclusive color palette for Holiday 2013.
Connect the past and the present through color. Unexpected shades of teal, pink, purple and green replace more predictable seasonal jewel tones; while antique gold and gunmetal offer a baroque opulence with an historical feel.

IMAGE CREDITS
Steven Meisel
Annie Leibovitz
Paolo Roversi
Billy Kidd
Alexander Straulino

Whether its Oriental Splendor at Harvey Nichols, Disney Princesses at Harrods or “Not Your Usual Christmas” at Selfridges, London’s Holiday windows for 2012 are all about fantasy, luxury and the traditions we associate with the festive season.

This year, Selfridges has enlisted the help of Bruce Weber for its Christmas campaign. The photographer has created a film and set of photographs exploring the theme – Not Your Usual Christmas.  The Oxford Street windows recreate scenes from the Weber campaign, complete with miniature ponies, a lavish Christmas sleepover and a giant Selfridges gingerbread house.

Harvey Nichols has looked to the Orient for this year’s Christmas windows with an Eastern explosion of festive colour and sparkle. Models dressed in the autumn/winter 12 collections look out onto the street, surrounded by gifts. The series of beautiful handcrafted props and traditional Oriental materials that adorn the windows have been injected with a splash of fluorescent colour for a pretty – modern Christmas with edge.

This year Harrods Christmas windows showcase ten stunning interpretations of original Disney Princess gowns, recreated by designers including Oscar de la Renta, Versace and Elie Saab for Princesses Pocahontas, Ariel, Cinderella and more.

Ariel by Marchesa

Aurora by Elie Saab

Belle by Valentino

Cinderella By Versace; Rapunzel by Jenny Packham

Jasmin by Escada

Mulan by Missoni

Snow White by Oscar de la Renta; Pochahontas by Roberto Cavalli

Tiana by Ralph Russo

For Dante Gabriel Rossetti of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, art and poetry were entwined with his personal life and relationships to such a degree it was all one. His devotion to female beauty in his poetry and painting mirrored his obsession to a vision of ideal feminine beauty in his personal life. That ideal meant long lustrous hair, an elongated sculptural looking neck, heavy eyelids, sensuous pouty lips and skin with a luminous fair complexion.

In 1850 Rossetti met Elizabeth Siddal who was to become an important artist’s model for the brotherhood and in 1860 she became Rossetti’s wife. Her brother-in-law described her as “a most beautiful creature ... tall, finely-formed with a lofty neck and regular yet somewhat uncommon features, greenish-blue unsparkling eyes, large perfect eyelids, brilliant complexion and a lavish heavy wealth of coppery golden hair.”
When Lizzie died in 1862, Rossetti’s lover Fannie Cornforth moved in with the artist as his housekeeper and frequent model. Like Lizzie Siddal, she had flowing red hair but was less delicate and more voluptuous. Her image came to symbolize earthly beauty and physical pleasure or fantasy. Another muse and lover was William Morris’s wife Jane Burden who had dark raven hair and a pale somber expression. Whereas Rossetti felt that Lizzie had spiritual beauty and Fanny was a physical beauty, Jane was a blending of the two.
His other favorite model was Alexa Wilding, a dressmaker. His assistant, Henry Dunn described Wilding as having “a lovely face, beautifully moulded in every feature, full of quiescent, soft, mystical repose that suited some of his conceptions admirably… He was struck with her beautiful face and golden, auburn hair. Wilding’s features are easy to spot in Rossetti’s art; the red hair, long neck, perfect Cupid’s bow lips, and somewhat softer eyes compared to Lizzie Siddal’s famed heavy-lidded ones.

Lizzie Siddal

Lizzie Siddal

Fanny Cornforth

Fanny Cornforth

Jane Burden Morris

Jane Burden Morris

Alexa Wilding

Alexa Wilding

A “Pre-Raphaelite” Palette using Sophicolor

A rich mix of warm colors, flame, gold, yellow together with moss, emerald offset by navy and black. 

Last year American Vogue published an editorial inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites. Actress Saoirse Ronan starred in The Cult of Beauty , photographed by Steven Meisel and styled by the incomparable Grace Coddington. Blogger, Kate Challis of Urban Kaleidoscope, cleverly matched the photographs to the paintings that inspired them.

There has also been a focus recently on the Pre-Raphaelite ideals of beauty, including wild red hair a la Lizzie Siddal. Victor & Rolf showed “Pre-Raphaelite” hair for Spring 2013. Other great Pre-Raphaelite muses include Lily Cole, Florence Welch and Grace Coddington.

Victor & Rolf Spring 13

Florence Welch

Grace Coddington

Lily Cole

Despite loving most of the Olympic coverage, the London fashion catwalk cameo segment in the closing ceremony made me cringe. I really wasn’t sure why until I read an article by Lisa Armstrong in The Telegraph . Labeling the catwalk strut by Kate, Naomi et al, “pompous” and “bombastic”, she succinctly expressed my own feelings. Fashion and ouvert sexiness so often go hand-in-hand, but for the most part, London’s style-mongers exist in a sort of parallel universe, where what you wear in public can mean not taking yourself too seriously. Paraphrasing Mulberry’s creative director Emma Hill, Armstrong goes on to say, “If we have a USP, it is (having) a sense of humour. You don’t need to tamper with things too much. Our natural style is very cool.”

London Fashion at the Olympic Closing Ceremony

Mulberry

Mulberry

But without wit and playfulness, cool becomes painfully tedious. Whether it’s the crazy-but-inspired clashing prints of designers such as Clements Ribeiro, Preen and Mary Katrantzou, or the boffinish invention of Erdem, Christopher Kane and Jonathan Saunders, with their gung-ho approach to synthetics, holograms, neon lace and patent, and mixing them all together, as this week proved, British fashion is now an Olympic-level sport.
In the interests of objective appraisal, what we don’t have much of at London Fashion Week is conventional sexiness. Apart from Antonio Berardi (or Roland Mouret who shows in Paris), British designers like to scoot around sex, preferring to flirt with androgyny, eccentricity or playing the kook card. Nothing wrong with that. It would be mind-sappingly depressing if all our designers churned out bandage dresses and trophy-wife baubles. They don’t and that’s why our designers will never sell as much as Roberto Cavalli or even Azzedine Alaïa. And it’s why a behemoth such as Harrods, one of the most successful department stores in the world, has a relatively small stock of British labels. Sex, as William and Kate learnt this week, beats out everything else in the commercial stakes. British designers know that. The fact that they continue to view fashion as something more than - as Katharine Hamnett famously put it - clothes to get laid in, makes them all the more valuable.

Lisa Armstrong

Mary Katranzou

Clements Ribeiro

Preen

Christopher Kane

Erdem

Jonathan Saunders

Another summary of London Fashion Week for Spring13 that caught my eye was written by Colin McDowell in The Business of Fashion . He also praised Christopher Kane, Burberry and Erdem while damning the rest

My greatest pleasure from the week was seeing Christopher Kane come out blazing with confidence and present a collection that was perfectly judged, well cut and completely controlled. I thought it was very beautiful and sophisticated — even witty. Indeed, the collection proved that Kane lives up to the hype and can rightfully call himself a true force in London fashion.
Burberry’s Christopher Bailey is well up there at the top of the mountain and like a skilled climber, this season, he stood at the pinnacle and firmly planted the brand’s flag as an international beacon for London fashion (the only one, currently) with a collection that was pitch perfect. The iridescent colours were beautifully subtle and the trench has never looked so glamorous.
Which leaves Erdem, the only other designer worthy of serious comment this season. In the past, I worried that he was settling into a cosy routine of beautiful fabrics and accommodating shapes. But this season, not a bit of it! His delicacy and sensitive assurance are still there, but with this show he advanced his aesthetic as smoothly as a Maserati slips from one gear to the next. This man is a true designer. He doesn’t swing from one ostensibly new idea to another each season, because he is mature enough to know who he is. His colours — strong but never crude — and his embroidery work distinguish him from the crowd.

Colin McDowell

Burberry

Burberry

“London Bridge is Falling Down” goes the nursery rhyme but in fact the opposite is true as this area of the city’s South Bank has undergone a radical transformation evolving into “London Bridge Quarter” at the heart of which is The Shard. At 1,016 ft tall, The Shard has already transformed the London skyline and when it opens to the public in 2013, with a hotel, apartments, offices and viewing galleries, The Shard will offer the services and entertainments of a veritable vertical city.

There are 82 floors, 72 of which will be habitable including offices, restaurants, residences, a hotel and 2 viewing floors on 69 and 72. Level 69 will offer state-of-the-art digital ‘Tell:scopes’ that explain the vista in three different ways. Flat-screens on each telescope will show a ‘live’ view of the metropolis, but will also bring up written information when the viewfinder is focused on a specific landmark (around 200 sights and buildings will be identified in this way). Two further ‘pre-recorded’ panoramas will reveal London in perfect conditions – on a bright sunny day, and on a clear, crisp night. The public is also being encouraged to suggest landmarks that should be picked out by the Tell:scopes. Nominations can be made at http://www.facebook.com/theviewfromtheshard, or via Twitter (under the hashtag #SecretShardView). Ten entries will be chosen, and the winners will receive a complimentary pair of tickets for the opening day on February 1st.

Level 72, meanwhile, will offer a slight test of nerve. The higher of the two observation decks will be partially outdoors. It is here that the individual ‘shards’ of the building meet, but the blueprint includes gaps that let the outside world peek in. Noise from the city – swirling traffic and babbling voices – will be piped in to complete the effect. (Chris Leadbeater of The Mail Online).
The View From The Shard will open to the public on February 1st 2013.

Explore The Shard

The Construction of the Shard

A Vertical City

The Top of The Shard

The Shangri-La Hotel

The Shard in April 2012

The shape of the tower is generous at the bottom and narrow at the top, disappearing in the air like a 16th century pinnacle or the mast top of a very tall ship. The architecture of The Shard is firmly based in the historic form of London’s masts and spires

Renzo Piano

What an astonishing year this has been for London. The Olympics and Paralympics confirmed what we already sensed — that this is the greatest city in the world. We gave the athletes a glorious setting — and they explored new horizons of human achievement. Thomas Heatherwick’s Olympic cauldron became a symbol of the wonder of design; the Olympic Park magnificently married industrial waterways with twisted steel and flower meadows; familiar landmarks took on a whole new beauty. History and modernity fused in red, white and blue, helped by an army of volunteers and a generosity of spirit.

Olympic Flower Meadow

The Olympic Torch

Olympic Park

The cultural diversity of the city was on joyful display: where else would we find, as Labour leader Ed Miliband pointed out, Zara Phillips, the granddaughter of a parachuting Queen, in the same team as a boy born in Somalia called Mo Farah? Quite simply, the world fell in love with us.

Mo Farah

Zara Philips

All across the city in this Jubilee year, London arts and fashion exploded into vibrant life. Restaurants and retail defied the recession with confident new openings. We welcomed the new Burberry store in Regent Street and the Colbert restaurant in Sloane Square, among others.

Burberry, Regent’s Street

Colbert, Sloane Square

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall

The Rolling Stones Tour 2012/2013

Tech City, London’s “Silicone Valley”

The east of London established itself as a throbbing, alternative centre of life, and Tech City is giving Canary Wharf a run for its money. New buildings such as The Shard changed the London skyline. Blockbuster art exhibitions from Freud, Hirst and Hockney reminded us of modern masters, while London theatre, music, opera and dance showed us a dazzling level of artistic skill. And now, to take us into the darker evenings, a new James Bond and the return of the Rolling Stones. The creativity of Londoners is truly boundless: who would not be here?
Sarah Sands of The London Evening Standard

For S13, many designers in New York and Europe showed a variety of looks in shades of chemical and natural green, mixing and matching them in unexpected combinations, often pieced-in to the same garment. Inspired by this, Hall Five created an exclusive color palette using swatches from our partner, Sophicolor Collections.
Sportswear separates, sweater knits, outwear and dresses in minimal style looked clean and modern in tone on tone greens or matched to clashing colors like burnt orange. Several designers showed pieced-in collage looks using combinations of green, black, orange and blue.

Sophicolor Collections Palette. Runway Image: Peter Pilotti

Iceberg

Rodarte

Sportmax

Thakoon

Iceberg

Marni

Guy Laroche

Pringle of Scotland

Sportswear separates in silk and satin-finished fabrics looked rich and lustrous rendered in shades of green.

Pucci

Cacharel

Donna Karan

Gucci

Leather separates and accessories were refreshed when rendered in shades of green.

Genny

Fendi

Tsumori Chisato

Hermes

Fendi

Fendi

The desire for diaphanous and transparent fabrics continues and shades of green were a designer favorite for S13.

Salvatore Ferragamo

Hermes

Armani

Nina Ricci

See the images on Pinterest

All runway images are from Style.com

Geometric patterns, blocks of color, stripes and diamond shapes created strong and graphic looks on many runways. They alluded once more to the post-modern period of art and design in the fifties and sixties.

Felipe Oliveira Baptista

Helmut Lang

Jonathan Saunders

Phillip Lim

Fendi

Marni

Balmain

Aquilano Rimondi

Issey Mikaye

Louis Vuitton

Veronique Branquinho

Robert Rodriguez

Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs

Dolce & Gabbana

Acne

More images on Pinterest

All images are from Style.com

“Girls will be boys and boys will be girls, it’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world” sang The Kinks back in 1970 and according to this season’s R-T-W Collections, that is still the case as many designers sent trouser suits and tuxedo/Smoking looks down the runways of New York and Europe. it’s nothing new of course, women in menswear, tailored to the female form, just look at movie stars Katherine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich who both strode around wearing trousers in the 1930s and 40s. Bianca Jagger, a major icon of the 1970s was well-known for wearing menswear, in particular a bright white suit by Yves Saint Laurent. But why was the menswear look so prevalent this season?

Marlene Dietrich

Katherine Hepburn

Bianca Jagger

YSL Le Smoking by Helmut Newton

Le Smoking

Was it an early homage to one of their own? Hedi Slimane, known for ground-breaking designs in menswear, now at the helm of Saint Laurent, creator of the ultimate in sexy menswear on women, Le Smoking? Although trousers were mostly slender or even caught at the ankle. On the other hand, jackets were varied; boxy and broad shouldered, fitted with a peplum, cropped, longer length, short over long and sleeveless, were all present.

Givenchy

Stella McCartney

Balenciaga

Neil Barrett

Celine

Christian Dior

Saint Laurent

Giambattista Valli

Lanvin

Costume National

Narciso Rodriguez

Jil Sander

Celine

Balenciaga

Lanvin

Lounge Lizards

Several designers showed takes on men’s loungewear featuring stripes, foulards and relaxed shapes.

Chloe

Haider Ackerman

Diane Von Furstenberg

Dries Van Noten

Victor/Victoria

There were many looks that mixed and matched both male and female dressing. Paul smith teamed sporty Bermuda length shorts with a slim-fit lace blouse. Dries Van Noten teamed a Smoking vest with a mid-length skirt. At Valentino, a bib-front and skinny tie on a dress and a tuxedo coat-dress at newcomer, Valentin Yudashkin.

Paul Smith

Dries Van Noten

Valentino

Valentin Yudashkin

Haider Ackerman

Arguably the loudest conversation swirling around the S13 collections was an analysis of how successfully modern brands interpret the work of designers created forty, fifty or more years ago. It was a discussion that became the most heated in referencing the R-T-W debuts of Raf Simons at Christian Dior and Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent. Not to mention the stalwarts, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, Balmain, Chloe, Celine ... established names with talented designers at the helm challenged with producing fresh ideas every season that will appeal to the modern and let’s face it, wealthy client. For the most part, all of the above are consistently, hugely successful in interpreting their particular brand. So much so that store buyers are starting to claim that there are “no trends anymore”  perhaps not realizing that THIS is the trend. Nowhere has this modernity been more apparent than in the area of fabrics. This season, as was the case in the past several few, there was a tendency to use a mix of transparent and opaque materials in order to create a sensual “reveal and conceal” style. The standout feature for Spring 13 is that several designers took classic organzas and coated them.

Sophie Theallet

Charlotte Ronson

Alberta Ferretti

Giambattista Valli

Dries Van Noten

Christian Dior

Burberry

A few months ago, portly 34-year-old rapper, Psy, short for Psycho, a —“because I’m crazy about music, stage performance and show,” he says—was relatively unknown outside of his native South Korea. Now, thanks to his infectious song and video with its over the top dancing, pelvic thrusting, lavish outfits, and intense set design,  “Gangnam Style” which mocks materialism in Seoul, Psy (real name Park Jae-sang) is breaking YouTube records (400 Million views) and has signed with Scooter Braun, a.k.a. the guy who made Justin Bieber famous. “Dress Classy, Dance Cheesy” say Psy and it seems the whole world is taking note.
While its true that he could possibly be a one hit wonder, alternatively, Psy’s success is the latest triumph for what has become known as the Hallyu, or “Korean Wave” in the west.

Psy

Psy, brought central Seoul to a standstill last week as he gave a free concert for 80,000 adoring fans, including two renditions of his global hit “Gangnam Style”. The municipal authorities willingly allowed the concert to take place outside the city hall, and blocked traffic in the surrounding streets: an unusual gesture that reflects the delight of South Korean public officials at the international success of the musician. The origins of the song and the title, are associated with an upscale, lavish lifestyle as lived by the trendsetters of the Seoul’s Gangnam district. To say you are doing it “Gangnam Style” is to be equated to the American colloquial phrase “party like a rockstar.” Thanks to its catchy beat and hook repeating the phrase, “Oppa Gangnam style” it has spent weeks at the top of Korean charts (unheard of in Korean pop music who’s top charts usually change weekly), is Number 1 in The UK and Number 2 in The US, although that is possible set to change this week especially since Psy took to social media to send out this heartfelt plea,
“Listen up EVERYBODY!! Help me out to get #NO1 at Billboard!! Buy #GangnamStyle @itunes and Request it at the radio!!” he tweeted on his official Twitter account a few days ago.

Psy with Britney Spears and Ellen on the Ellen DeGeneres Show

“Gangnam Style” might be South Korea’s biggest musical export, however it does not stand alone. Psy’s hit is a part of the Hallyu, or “Korean Wave”. Girls’ Generation, a nine-member “K-pop” group, has also made inroads in the US with appearances at Madison Square Garden and on David Letterman’s Tonight show.

Girl’s Generation

In other areas of the arts, South Korean culture is gaining a Western audience too.
Pieta, the 18th feature written and directed by Kim Ki-duk, depicts the mysterious relationship between a brutal man who works for loan sharks and a middle-aged woman who claims that she is his mother, mixing Christian symbolism and highly sexual content.

Pieta

It made its world premiere in the competition line-up of the 69th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion becoming the first Korean film to win the top prize at one of the three major international film festivals — Venice, Cannes and Berlin. Meanwhile, while Shin Kyung-sook’s novel “Please Look After Mother” became a global bestseller this year.

Please Look After Mom

Jang Te-you, a producer of some of the most popular TV shows, attributes their popularity in other Asian countries to their mixing of conservative family values with depictions of sophisticated fashion and urban living – a blend well suited to new markets like Russia and South America, he says. But some argue that broader social and economic problems are holding back the country’s creative industries. In a society where academic success is exceptionally highly prized with some 80 per cent of young people go to university, this is “a waste of time” for creative talents who miss an opportunity to develop their skills, according to Kim Ki-duk, director of Pieta.

A recent article in The Financial Times states,
“As foreigners pay more attention to the singers, slowly they develop a liking for Korea… and if they like Korea, they will buy more Korean things. This is what we’re trying to promote,”

Psy on the Today show

Gangnam Style Cover

Earthen tones associated with nature were used unexpectedly for luxury fabrics like leather, fur, brocade, satin and wool cashmere on the F12 runway at Marni, Prada, Burberry, Fendi and others, offering a strong color direction for F13. Using Sophicolor Collections, Hall Five has created inspirational palettes for fashion and home furnishings.

L-R:  Fendi, The Row, Gucci, Marni all for F12

Home Furnishing Palette

For more images visit Hall Five on Pinterest

Holi is the Indian name for the Hindu Festival of Colors, celebrating the advent of spring and the triumph of ‘good’ over ‘bad’.  During the festival, people playfully smear color on each other’s face and splash water using colored powders called Gulaal and wet colors or ‘Rang. Colors were originally prepared naturally from the flowers and other products that had dyeing properties. However, with time, in the quest for more long-lasting and strong colors, chemically enhanced and artificial colors came into vogue. But the harmful effects of these chemicals have created a turn-about to the natural colors. Certain colors are used to represent certain emotions, red for purity, green for vitality, blue for calm and sedateness and yellow for piety. On this day, people hug and wish each other ‘Happy Holi’. The application of colors has in a way become an expression of love as partners desire to color and be colored by their mates.

There is a legend behind the use of colors on Holi. According to the Hindu mythology, Lord Krishna started the tradition of playing with colors during the festival. He was jealous of his soul mate - Radha’s fair complexion, because he was dark in color. The young Krishna often complained about his dark skin tone to his mother - Yashoda. To placate the child, Yashoda asked him to smear color on Radha’s face, so that her fair complexion is masked. Obeying his mother, Lord Krishna applied color on Radha’s face, which changed her complexion. The playful and mischievous Krishna started the game of playing with colors and this is how, the celebration of Holi with colors was started.

Holi Palette with Sophicolor

Taking inspiration from Holi, The Color Run is a 5K held in cities across The United States with runners wearing white shirts and shorts being doused in color as they run! Each kilometer of the event is associated with a designated color: yellow, orange, pink, or blue.

The Color Run

For Spring/Summer 13, designer Sophie Theallet uses a “Holi” palette.

From Vogue.com

For more Holi images visit Hall Five on Pinterest

In a recent BBC documentary entitled, “A History of Art in Three Colours” the British art historian, Dr James Fox explored how, in the hands of artists, the colors gold, blue and white have stirred our emotions, changed the way we behave and even altered the course of history. In the Middle Ages, the precious stone lapis lazuli arrived in Europe from the East and blue became the most exotic and mysterious of colors. This intense shade has continued to inspire artists throughout the centuries. Today, It’s a color-for-all-seasons which has great appeal for creatives from all fields of design.

Dr James Fox

Dr. Fox explained that in the Middle Ages, the precious blue stone, lapis lazuli, arrived in Italy from the Badakshan mines in Afghanistan. Thirteenth century recipes describe the best methods for extraction. The powdered lapis lazuli was mixed with pastille of pine resin, mastic, wax or linseed oil boiled together. The mass was soaked, then kneaded in lye until the blue color was extracted. The purest, deep blue was extracted in the first batch and sold for the highest price. This was the origin of the pigment known as Ultramarine. Ultramarine is famous for having been the most expensive pigment during the Renaissance, indeed It was more expensive than gold and also highly exotic because of its origin. Such was the value of the stone Lapis Lazuli. It was also used as a medieval cure for melancholy!

The Italian painter Cennini declared,

A color illustrious, beautiful, and most perfect, beyond all other colors; one could not say anything about it, or do anything with it, that its quality would not still surpass…

Cennino d’Andrea Cennini (c. 1370 – c. 1440)

Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian

Hence, the pigment was most often reserved for the most revered of subjects, such as the robes of Christ and the Virgin (Douma) as well as to represent heaven itself, and extensively used by the Italian greats such as Giotto (Giotto di Bondone, 1266/7 – January 8, 1337). Later, in the late Renaissance-era, Titian broke the mould, using ultramarine for subjects other than the religious. For example in, Bacchus and Ariadne (1523–24) commissioned by Alfonso d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d’Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts, titian used ultramarine ground down from Lapis Lazuli for the sky and for the robes of revelers. For him, the color symbolized the elements, and the joy of life. Over the years and then the centuries the value of blue in art diminished, until that is the French artist, Yves Klein (28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) began using a version of ultramarine in the post WW2 years.

Blue Nude by Yves Klein

Not only was Klein a pioneer in the development of Performance Art, he is seen as an inspiration to and as a forerunner of Minimal Art, as well as Pop Art.  ‘Proposte Monochrome, Epoca Blu’ (Proposition Monochrome; Blue Epoch) at the Gallery Apollinaire, Milan, (January 1957), featured 11 identical blue canvases, using ultramarine pigment suspended in a synthetic resin ‘Rhodopas’. Discovered with the help of Edouard Adam, a Parisian paint dealer, the optical effect retained the brilliance of the pigment which, when suspended in linseed oil, tended to become dull. Klein later patented this recipe to maintain the “authenticity of the pure idea. This color was to become famous as International Klein Blue (IKB) and he used it exclusively and extensively until his death. There is a photograph of Klein leaping from a window (he was caught by friends waiting underneath removed from the photo!) and the look on his face is of pure joy. Perhaps he imagined he was flying or maybe just throwing himself into a pool of water of the intense bright blue color he created.

Yves Klein

Victoria Redshaw from leading trend forecasting company for interior design, Scarlet Opus, recommended Lapis Lazuli as a top ten color for 2012 stated,

If I had to point to 1 Blue that will work across a broad range of products and will also appeal to both Contemporary and Classic consumer design tastes, then Lapis Lazuli is IT!  This is a colour to be brave with…it needs to be applied as a solid block.  It’ll look equally stunning on large pieces - like a sofa, or small items - like a lamp.

Scarlet Opus’ Lapis Lazuli

Two legendary creatives associated with lapis lazuli are the artist, Frida Kahlo and the designer Yves Saint Laurent.
Both had homes painted in this intense shade of blue.

Frida Kahlo’s home in Mexico

YSL’s house in Morocco

Lapis Palette using Sophicolor
Image: BCBG Fall 2012 from Vogue.com

For More Images of Ultramarine and Lapis Lazuli go to Hall Five on Pinterest

Sophicolor Color Collections consists of 4500 production-ready colors in three collections. They are not only available online with spectral data and recipes included, they now come on fabric swatches in three elegant and durable acid-resistant presentation boxes. Included with your purchase of any one Sophicolor Collection Box, you receive access to the entire Sophicolor Collections digitally online.
Thanks to Precision Textile Color’s use of ChromaShare® Internet-based color management, all of Sophicolor Collections’ digital properties can be utilized online. Never before has this degree of accuracy been possible in color product development for the following industries, apparel & textiles, beauty, paints, plastics & coatings and chemicals.

The SOPHICOLOR EARTHEN COLLECTION of 1500 neutral and earth colors, was inspired by our clients requesting more neutrals than have been available in existing color libraries. In this Collection, you’ll discover the subtle shades found in pebbles, soils, woods, shadows and mountain majesty!

Sample Palette of Earthen Colors

The SOPHICOLOR CELESTIAL COLLECTION of 1500 pastels and bright colors comprises a dazzling range of bright colors inspired by the striking photographs taken by the Hubble telescope in conjunction with the pastel colors found in cloud formations. The colors of stars being born, nebulae and planetary bodies can all be seen in these fantastic images. We also looked to our own atmosphere, including luscious colors of sunsets and the sky as inspiration for this range of 1500 colors.

Sample Palette of Celestial Colors

The SOPHICOLOR BOTANICAL COLLECTION of 1500 floral and nature colors comprises the vast array of color found in nature. This set of 1500 colors remind us of botanical gardens filled with gorgeous flowers and stunning greenery, as well as waters filled with a myriad of blues. We also take cue from the urban landscape with colors taken from the architecture and artwork that surrounds us.

For more information please visit Sophicolor Color Collections .

The key to understanding color trends is to realize that they don’t exist on their own. They are always seen in context. Trends influence each other. They are like a river, one trend flows into another.

One of the reasons there is any consensus is that we are all influenced and inspired by our world together. We are building on the same trend directions, albeit from our own unique perspectives. Active sports, for instance, are a big inspiration with regard to color, performance features, fabric and silhouette beyond the boundaries of that specific market.

Color trending starts with examining the current season. Designers ask certain questions such as:
- What is the bright this season? There is always a bright story. Sometimes it’s jewel tones or sorbet or neon, but it’s always there.
- What is the neutral that counterbalances the bright? Neutrals are an offshoot of a skin color – cream, blush, brown – and so, for instance, it’s important to see how they fit into the bright story going forward.
- What is the dark or black of the season? There is often a color that replaces black as the most prominent base color for that season. (You’ve probably heard people say navy or grey or another color is the “new black.”) Going forward, black will morph into rich, blackened shades, such as blackened plum and spruce.

Color trends actually evolve slowly over time. A bright-on-bright color story will evolve into a bright-on-neutral color story that will evolve into bright accents. And the neutrals evolve as well. A cream can evolve into a blush that will evolve into a British khaki to coordinate with the plums and pinks.

For example, hot pink was the hot color a couple seasons ago. There are two directions that hot pink can evolve, either towards (warm) coral shades or towards (cool) purple shades. In this case, the blue-cast hot pink evolved into a yellow-cast coral that evolved into yellow. And, if a color starts looking “old” on the sales floor, it can look fresh again by mixing it differently.

There is always a pink story (red or orange fall into a pink story too). It’s a question of how to evolve that color and pair it off with other trends, how to meld them together.

In every collection there are a series of stories that reflect different moods and energy. There could be a frosty neutral story, a richly tactile jeweltone story or a hard-edge graphic story. Groups are merchandised in the store to draw in the customer by communicating a certain personality and lifestyle.

Everyone is working from what’s out there now and what happened in the past. Companies track trends and look at the colors in context with each other. For example, a bright orange can morph into pumpkin, into spice, into a series of spice colors.

High-shine metallics evolve into pearlized grey and then into other pearlized colors that shimmer like an abalone shell. Colors evolve in their shading, refreshing the eye.

Some companies keep certain colors for longer than a season, but the context will change. They’ll use it as a colorblock, then in a tweed, then banded in black to keep it fresh. Trends are like a swing. Nothing disappears; ideas just morph into other trends. For example, statement accessories are a key trend right now, and one way they are evolving is into smaller scale looks with intricate details.

Culture also influences trends a lot. There is usually one part of the world that is a focus. A couple seasons ago Southeast Asia was a big influence with Ikat and other patterns. That led to other cultural influences such as India with filigree and scrollwork and the unusual bright color combinations of this season such as colorblocking with hot pink and orange and wearing clashing prints. With the royal wedding, the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics in London, styles related to Britain and its rich history (the military look, for example) are one of the new trend directions.
So, in a nutshell, this is how trends are developed:
1. The starting point for trends is what is already out there and how those trends have evolved and merged together from earlier seasons.
2. Fashion houses do market research about what other companies are doing. To make sure they are not blinded by tunnel vision, they look outside of their own markets, to sports-based clothing businesses or menswear, for instance, for innovation and ideas.
3. They decide what their bright, black & neutral stories will be and how to merchandise those color stories by theme.
4. They look for important cultural references and decide how to interpret those ideas in their work.

For More Information
Madly Chic   by Illysia Neumann-Loreck

Neville Bean Design

American swimmer Ryan Lochte, whose Jeremy Scott for Adidas trainers were something of a sideshow during the recent Olympic Games, is not alone in his love of the fancy sneaker. Though the “designer trainer” may sound like a hangover from the late 1990s utilitarian fashion dominated by techno-fabrics and the red Prada Sport stripe, high fashion sport shoes have recently raced back on to the style agenda, especially for men.

Bottega Veneta S13 on Style.com

For autumn/winter Jeremy Scott has created a silver version of the winged trainers (£155), and labels from Acne to Zegna have offered remixes on the classic trainer by cross-breeding it with a brogue (Acne glued air-pumped rubber soles to Chelsea boots, £400) or crafting them from ultra-luxe skins (Céline offers women Vans-inspired loafer trainer hybrids in python).

Acne

The spring 2013 menswear shows saw Neil Barrett send out slip-on sneakers in bleached ponyskin, while Raf Simons kitted models in techy, elastic-strung sports shoes not a million miles from a Nike Air Max.

Neil Barrett S13 on Style.com

Raf Simons S13 on Style.com

Valentino S13 on Style.com

Valentino S13 on Style.com

Roger Federer in The Kanye West/Nike Air Yeezy 2

“In all the collections I have created there has always been the mix of formal and informal, sports and suits,” says Lucas Ossendrijver, head of menswear at Lanvin, which has offered deluxe sneakers in silk-satin and patent leather (£295-£520) for almost a decade. “I have always encouraged breaking with formality. At the time when I put sneakers with suits it was shocking for some. Now it has become accepted.”

Balenciaga from Matches.com

Stacey Smith, menswear fashion buyer at London’s Matches boutiques, agrees. “I think the divide between formal and casual has become rather arbitrary – when you consider the quality of design, fabrics and finishing in these shoes, they are really on a par with their formal counterparts. And there’s something refreshingly contemporary about a tailored look with running shoes.”

Celebrities in suits and sneaks, clockwise, Brad Pritt, Mark Ronson, Justin Bieber, Andy Samberg

Mixing sneakers with suits has become the norm. Pierre Hardy, the French shoe designer who creates styles for labels such as Balenciaga alongside his own brand, says many men have a “wardrobe” of sports shoes to dress up or down. Meeting demand, Hardy offers his signature high-tops in luxurious combinations of velvet and ponyskin as well as sporty neoprenes and perforated leather (£298).

Pierre Hardy from Matches.com

According to Anders Sølvsten Thomsen, fashion director of LOVE magazine and avowed trainer aficionado, “Putting a trainer with a dress suit, Nikes with a Prada shirt and Lanvin trousers – gives it a bit of street cred.” Thomsen describes his shoes as “fashion trainers” and differentiates between pairs for sport and daily wear, although he says that New Balance and Nike Air Max (£80-£150) work for both.

Suit + Sneaks, Fashion Week Street Style by Tommy Ton

“Luxury trainers account for a large part of our footwear sales, and it’s an area that continues to grow season on season,” says Stacey Smith, who buys training-shoe styles from the Pierre Hardy collection and labels including Christian Louboutin and Lanvin for Matches.
“Over the past few years they have progressed from a niche product to being considered a real staple.” Hardy confirms that 30 per cent of his men’s footwear sales are sneaker styles. (By contrast, trainers make up less than 10 per cent of womenswear sales.)

The New Nike Hyperdunks, GQ’s Sneaker Grail of the Week

There is an oxymoron about the idea of the designer trainer – as Neil Barrett says, “When Nike does it so well, why buy a designer pair?” But he has an answer: they are “the alternative to the obvious.”

Neil Barrett S13 on Style.com

From The Financial Times

Main Image: grey ACNE suits and white Converse sneakers from promotion for Suits

P&G sponsored celebrity manicurist Sophy Robson”>Sophy Robson to set up a pop-up nail salon in the Olympic Village, staffed with 18 manicurists. Athletes can stop by and choose from over 200 different designs which has led to a dazzling array of designs. Beauty editors and trend spotters, such as The Nailasaurus are asking, “Does this spell the beginning or end of the explosive beauty trend’s growing popularity?” With the overwhelmingly positive reaction from nail bloggers and fans, nail art shows no sign of abating.

A variety of Sophy Robson’s Olympic designs

Laura Trott of Team GB in the Olympic Village

Team GB Archer Amy Oliver

Jamaican nails

Danish nails

Kristina Vogel shows German nails

New Zealand nails

Team USA’s Venus Williams

Italian Nails

Team GB’s Rebecca Adlington
Click here for more Olympic Swimmer’s Nails

Blogs devoted to nail art have never been more popular. Jenny Pasha of 10 Blank Canvases showed her Olympic-inspired nails highlighting Gymnastics - Artistic, Canoe Sprint, Swimming, Athletics

10 Blank Canvases

10 Blank Canvases

Sammy of The Nailasaurus created special Olympic Nails. Here is what she used.

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Pacific Blue and Green With Envy, George@Asda Buttercup and an unnamed L’Oreal Red. I used the same colours for the rings on my thumb, plus W7 Black. All the details were painted with a striping brush and Black and White Acrylic Paint.

The Nailasaurus
More Olympic Nail Art

After all of the complaints about the Stella McCartney-designed Team GB Olympic uniforms
Working in conjunction with Adidas, McCartney’s designs benefitted from the company’s performance fabrics such as CLIMACOOL moisture management in clothing and footwear, and TECHFIT PowerWEB, which combines compression fabric and TPU material to mirror the movement of muscles, streamlining the athlete to boost power. Complaints came from some who felt that McCartney’s version of the Union Jack didn’t have enough red. I hope the nay-sayers are eating their words. How much better could the athletes have looked whether in competition or on the winners’ podiums? Here are some standouts.

Gymnasts Louis Smith won silver and Max Whitlock bronze in the men’s pommel horse

Bradley Wiggins wins gold for road bike

GB track cycle team win gold

Laura Trott won 2 gold medals for track cycling

Sir Chris Hoy wins gold for track cycling, his 6th in total

Jason Kenney, gold medal winner for track cycling

Helen Glover and Heather Stanning win rowing gold

GB rowing team win gold

Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter win silver for rowing

Greg Rutherford wins gold for the long-jump

Greg Rutherford wins gold for the long-jump

Peter Wilson wins gold for shooting

Andy Murray wins gold for men’s singles tennis

Mo Farah wins gold for Men’s 10,000 meters

Mo Farah wins gold for Men’s 10,000 meters

Brownlee brothers win gold and bronze in the triathlon

More Olympic Uniforms

Swimming, gymnastics and track and field, from Ian Thorpe’s head-to-toe swimsuit and Flo Jo’s one legged athletic kit to the golden running shoes of Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt, Olympic stars through the ages have a style as alluring as their athletic prowess. Here are some standouts.

SWIMMING
Before Michael Phelps there was Mark Spitz, famous for winning 7 gold medals in Munich as well as his macho mustache and Speedo style suit.
Full-length high-tech swimsuits blazed onto the sporting scene at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, as worn by gold medalist Ian Thorpe. In 2008, Speedo unveiled its first high-tech swim suit, the LZR Racer, which covered the swimmer from ankle to neck in woven elastane-nylon and polyurethane. However, The London 2012 Olympics are to be the first in 16 years where swimmers will be forced to ditch their high-tech body suits and rely solely on technique as they have been banned. Speedo responded by producing a cap, goggle and suit engineered to work together as one revolutionary Racing System known as the FASTSKIN3 Racing System. These trunks only extend from knee to navel as per FINA rules.

Australian Official Suits 1972

Mark Spitz wins 7 Gold medals in 1972 wearing the classic Speedo

Mark Spitz with mustache

Mark Spitz Official Olympic Belt

Australian Swim Team win Gold at Sydney 2000 in hi-tech suits

Amanda Beard, left, Michael Phelps and Natalie Coughlin pose in Speedo LZR Racer swimsuits 2008

Michael Phelps in the FASTSKIN3 developed for London 2012

GYMNASTICS
Perhaps the biggest change over the years has come in the gymnastics arena. At the first few modern Games female gymnasts wore a variation of regular clothing that did not reveal the shape of the body. Over the years this evolved into a more recognizable version of the leotard worn today. During the ‘70s and ‘80s, leotards and warm-up suits had a sporty look but since the ‘90s have tended to be flashier with lots of sparkle.

Danish Women’s Gymnastics Team 1908

The U.S. gymnastics team London 1948

Olga Corbutt 1972

Nadia Comaneci scores a perfect 10 Montreal 1974

Mary Lou Retton Los Angeles 1984

Mary Lou Retton Los Angeles 1984

Chinese Gymnastic Team Beijing 2008

TRACK & FIELD
The track and field events have produced some individuals known not only for their athletic prowess but also for their personal take on what to wear while competing. What you wear on your feet for example, South African turned British, Zola Budd was known for running barefoot in the 1980s while both Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt prefer gold track shoes. In a world of generic tanks and shorts. Florence Griffith-Joyner aka Fl-Jo stood out from the crowd of sprinters in the 1980s

Abebe Bikila of Ethopia won the Marathon barefoot Rome 1960

Zola Budd running barefoot tripped Mary Dekker Los Angeles 1984

Bruce Jenner in short shorts wins gold in the decathlon Montreal 1976

Florence Griffith-Joyner Seoul 1988

Florence Griffith-Joyner aka Flo-Jo

Gail Devers competed at Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996

Cathy Freeman in hooded bodysuit Sydney 2000

Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis 1988

Michael Johnson in gold sneakers Atlanta 1996

Usain Bolt in gold sneakers Beijing 2008

Heptathlon Gold Medallist London 2012 Jessica Ennis in Stella McCartney-designed Team GB kit

Ryan Lochte’s Jeremy Scott/Adidas sneakers

The London Olympics will be full of firsts for women’s sport and there’ll be a big leap for Arab women.
At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, as many as 26 countries refrained from sending female athletes to compete on the world’s biggest sporting stage.
However, by Beijing 2008 that list had shrunk to just three nations; Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei. Four years down the line, London 2012 is set to be the first Olympics in history whereby every participating nation will have at least one female representative. And with the inclusion of women’s boxing, it will also be the first Olympics to involve female athletes in every sport. Muslim women must cover their head, even when competing. This has caused some controversy.

Saudi Arabian Athletes at The Opening Ceremony

Middle distance runner, Sarah Attar and Judoka, Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahman Shahrkhani are Saudi’s historic first-ever female Olympic selections. Attar, born in California of mixed Saudi and American parentage, is the youngest Arab athlete competing at the Olympics. The student of Malibu’s Pepperdine University will take part in the 800 meters track event.

Sarah Attar competes at London 2012

Sarah Attar competes at London 2012

Saudi Arabia’s Sarah Attar

Meanwhile, Shahrkhani, also raised outside of Saudi, will compete in the 78kg Judo event, to cement a legacy along with Attar, as trailblazers in Saudi female sport. Attar said: “I definitely think that my participation in this Olympic Games can increase women’s participation in sports in general. I can only hope for the best for them and that we can really get some good strides going for women in the Olympics further and just in sports in general.”
Unfortunately controversy has followed the young athlete to London with Shahrkhani threatening to pull out after the sport’s governing body said she could not compete wearing a hijab because it was too dangerous. After days of deliberation, a compromise was struck on Monday between judo chiefs, Olympic bosses and Saudis meaning she will now take part in the women’s heavyweight section on Friday. Top female judo fighters are backing the decision to allow a Saudi athlete to compete at the Olympic Games wearing an Islamic headscarf, saying it would not bother them and would be good for women’s sport.

Bahrain sprinter, Ruqaya Al Ghasara a devout Muslim, was the first athlete to ever take part in an Olympics wearing a hijab. Asked if it was a hindrance she said, “Wearing traditional Muslim dress has encouraged me. It’s not an obstacle—quite the opposite,” In fact, she says, it makes her even quicker.

Ruqaya Al Ghasara

Ruqaya Al Ghasara

A decision by FIFA to allow the wearing of the hijab in women’s Olympic soccer events has come too late for the Iranian team. Their qualifying match was scheduled before the new ruling and they were forced to withdraw.

Iranian Women’s Soccer Team

Someone who will compete wearing the headscarf is also from Iran. Neda Shahsavari is a world-class table tennis player.

Neda Shahsavari

One company trying to re-invent the way Muslim women wear the hijab in sports is Resporton who makes a athletic head-covering made of Coolmax.

Non-Muslims sometimes cover their head! Cathy Freeman won a gold medal in the Sydney 2000 Olympics wearing a hooded suit.

Cathy Freeman

British Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins has been variously described as “mod-loving cyclist”, “king of the mods” and the “fastest mod on two wheels”. But just what is that makes Wiggins a mod? asks The BBC.
If sport replicated life, Bradley Wiggins would have ridden up the Champs Elysees on a shiny Lambretta scooter. Wiggins is a self-proclaimed mod. His thin torso, narrow shoulders and surprising lightness - he reportedly weighs less than 11 stone - makes him an unusual modern athlete.

On the Tour

On The Tour

Wiggins wins The Tour de France

On the Winner’s Podium

With his previous Paul Weller-style haircuts, carefully pruned sideburns, and collection of scooters, Wiggins could almost have been an extra in Quadrophenia, the classic mod movie of the late 1970s. His Tour de France win prompted admiring tweets not just from cycling fans but from style commentators and Weller, who is known by fans and journalists as the Modfather.

The term “mod” is thought to derive from the modernist jazz fans of the 1950s. In contrast to the earnest chin stroking image of traditional jazz, modernists were young, hip and sleekly dressed, taking their influence from black America.
But the mods people think of today - and those Wiggins takes his cue from - hail from the 1960s. There are both musical and style cues.
Wiggins has spoken previously of his musical tastes - listing The Who, Small Faces, The Jam, Oasis, and Ocean Colour Scene as his favourite bands. All are mod favourites.

Mods of the 1960s wore parkas, tailored suits, loafers, skinny trousers, and Fred Perry polo shirts. Wiggins has designed cyclewear for the Fred Perry label. The parkas of the post-war era were often ex-RAF issue and so displayed the classic target symbol, known as the roundel.
Wiggins reportedly has the RAF roundel on some of his training kit. Mod hair was neat and clean in contrast to greasy-haired rockers and long-haired hippies. Wiggins has said he grew his hair long in 2007 in honour of John Entwistle bassist from The Who. The sideburns were another Entwistle touch.

Mod Collage from rhythmic-ceremonial-ritual.blogspot.com

Mods defined themselves as sleek, neat and well turned out. It was a tribe. Convoys of scooters would descend on seaside towns and scuffles - greatly exaggerated by the media - would break out between the mods and rockers. The classic mod movie is Quadrophenia, which came out at the end of the 1970s at the height of the mod revival. The hero Jimmy, played by Phil Daniels, sums up the philosophy. “Look, I don’t wanna be the same as everybody else. That’s why I’m a mod, see? I mean, you gotta be somebody, ain’t ya, or you might as well jump in the sea and drown.”
“It’s about staying clean under pressure,” says Robert Elms, author of The Way We Wore. There’s always been a cycling crossover, he argues, with “mod designer” Paul Smith having initially aspired to be a professional cyclist.

Quadrophenia

Wiggins is a classic mod, Elms says. He is a working class Londoner with a certain style, an arrogance. And he looks right. “You can’t look good as a podgy mod,” Elms says. There’s also an anti-establishment attitude. In Quadrophenia Jimmy tells his employer to “stick his job” in the post room.
There are vague parallels with Wiggins’s dealings with the media. He has attacked journalists for their poor questions and swore repeatedly when asked to comment on tweeters who suggested only drug cheats could win Le Tour. Amphetamines - often called blues - were a central part of the mod existence, whereas Wiggins has made it clear that he has no time for doping in cycling.

Reinvention is crucial. After its jazz incarnation, bands like The Who, the Small Faces and The Action took on the mod mantle. It was revived in the late 1970s by The Jam and in the 1990s by Britpop acts like Oasis and Paul Weller as a solo artist. Unlike being a punk or a new romantic it is a look that a middle aged man can carry off, says Elms. But it’s more than a look. It’s an attitude, Elms argues. A mod is cool and sharp and open to foreign influences - qualities that Bradley Wiggins encapsulates in his life and cycling. “He’s slightly sardonic and rock and roll. But it’s not about rock and roll excess. It’s slightly pared back.”
Read More, Interview with Wiggo

In Fred Perry

What a difference a year makes, August 2011, London and several other British cities suffered widespread looting, rioting and arson of unprecedented levels. During the past 70 days people have taken to the streets again, but this time it’s to witness the Olympic Flame as it progresses through the country in a spirit of togetherness.

The Olympic flame has completed its 70-day, 8,000-mile journey around the United Kingdom since arriving from Greece on the 18 May. It has been welcomed and celebrated by communities in 1,000 cities, towns and villages across the country. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “The torch relay has been absolutely fantastic. By the opening ceremony, it will have been carried by 8,000 torchbearers.
“The enthusiasm and support shown by millions of people up and down this country has been overwhelming. It has showcased the very best of Britain.”

David Beckham

The Torch arrives in London at St Pancras

Sir Bruce Forsyth

David Walliams

Torchbearer 170 passes the Olympic Flame to Torchbearer 171 in front of Buckingham Palace in the presence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry
More images of the Olympic Torch Relay

I think it’s absolutely fabulous to see how popular Eddie and Patsy still are after all these years! To celebrate its 20th Anniversary, legendary show aka AbFab has created a Special Olympic Episode, also shown on BBC America. “Patsy and Eddie” continued the fun by co-carrying the Olympic Torch in London.

Folkloric looks and ethnic ports of call serve as an inspiration for a wealth of prints and patterns which continue to inform the season in an important and all encompassing way. From India to Native America and with almost everywhere in-between, a melting pot of locales spotlights bold geometrics and stripes, paisleys, ikats and foulards, florals and folk scenics interpreted in a variety of techniques and colors. For more information about Fashion Edit 247’s subscription services, visit their website.

When Raf Simons was appointed to follow John Galliano as the head designer of Dior the fashion pack wondered how he would interpret his particular brand of modern minimalism at the venerable house. This week they had their answer as he presented his first Collection for the Fall 2012 Couture. The result was an overwhelming success. Hamish Bowles’s review for Vogue.com says it all.

In what was surely the most anticipated show of this Paris couture season, Raf Simons set out to recalibrate the codes of the storied house of Christian Dior through his own modernist lens. “It’s about changing the attitude,” he said, and celebrating “the uniqueness of the craft.” The result was a quietly referential ode to the hourglass silhouette launched by the house’s eponymous founder in the icy spring of 1947, reinterpreted with Simons’s assured eye for artful simplicity. Christian Dior’s line was deliberately backward-looking even then—after the grim years of the Occupation, he wanted to recapture the feminine glamour of his mother’s Belle Époque ensembles, and to transform his mannequins and clients into blooming and blossoming and extravagantly womanly archetypes. To turn the iconic look into a believable modern proposition was a challenge that Simons accomplished in his own quietly persuasive way.

He began with a setting of fairy-tale beauty that evoked Christian Dior’s passion for flowers (he named that debut “New Look” collection for a flower’s corolla), calling on the Antwerp-based florist Mark Colle to decorate a series of five rooms in a stately Parisian hôtel particulier until the walls were solid with blooms, one the intense blue of massed blue delphiniums, others of yellow laburnums, or pink-tinged white orchids, whilst the Christian Dior room was a ravishing symphony of pink and yellow rose, peony, and dahlia blossoms.

Simons built on the small-waisted, roundly peplumed jacket of an ensemble in that corolla collection named Bar—a jacket cut by the young tailor Pierre Cardin, who celebrated his 90th birthday in the Dior front row alongside fellow Dior alums Jean-Louis Scherrer and star mannequin Victoire Doutreleau, and designers Donatella Versace (with her daughter, Allegra Beck), Marc Jacobs, Diane von Furstenberg, Azzedine Alaïa, Alber Elbaz, Riccardo Tisci, Christopher Kane, Olivier Theyskens, and L’Wren Scott. (Meanwhile the Hitchcock blondes Princess Charlene of Monaco, Jennifer Lawrence, and Sharon Stone faced off against Marion Cotillard across the runway).

In place of exuberant runway extravaganzas that have defined Dior couture since the ladylike days of designer Marc Bohan (statements that almost invariably had to be heavily adapted for the couture clients), Raf’s propositions were singularly wearable and showed that in a relatively short time he has managed to harness the talents of the fabled Dior couture ateliers to his vision of restrained contemporary elegance.

The accessories were telling: Stephen Jones, known in the past for his flamboyant millinery statements for the house, this time created the simplest of face veils to shadow Pat McGrath’s makeup of sky-blue winged eye shadow and blotted scarlet lips; jewelry was pared to choker collars of massed clusters of single-color gemstones; and the shoes, including an inverted comma heel inspired by a Roger Vivier design from the 1950s, were also understated, if often in a startling accent color that highlighted Raf’s idiosyncratic color sense—a metallic-blue heel with a candy-pink dress, say, or a short evening dress of black gazar worn with a shocking-pink heel.

And what of the clothes? Simons used pants in a modern way, pairing that curvaceous jacket (with subtly placed pockets and asymmetric pleats and folds) with a lean-cut trouser, or scissoring an elaborate ball dress, with classical mid-century embroidery, to mid-calf, transforming it into an exaggerated peplum again worn over narrow-leg pants. A strapless ball dress composed of layers of inky blue tulle opened to reveal black dress pants, for a dashing contemporary take on white-tie dressing, and a slithery evening sheath of scarlet crepe, open in back to reveal yet another pair of pants, showed that Simons is having fun with the flou atelier as well as the tailors chez Dior.

There was a lightness of touch to open-weave silks in dainty pastels, and Simons revealed his passion for mid-century art in the painterly drip-print satins he used for a wide-cut evening swing coat and a sumptuous Watteau-backed ball dress. The fur evening dresses—a black mink bodice melting into a broadtail pencil skirt and an oatmeal broadtail peplum tunic over a pantsuit lacked the unforced elegance that otherwise characterized Simons’s approach, but there were embroideries of fronds of black bugle beads densely sewn on their ends and tipped with scarlet or chrome yellow that were an exquisite evocation of fur fronds. There were further quietly dazzling embroideries in the house tradition—notably the tiny organza blossom florets scattered in ombre formation over a full-skirted short evening dress, or the clipped feathers applied in broad horizontal stripes of ice blue and soft beige to another romantic ballet-length ball dress. There was subtle drama, too, to the dresses, with one embroidery motif and color forming the front, and another the back, for a dramatic exit. For the full article go to Vogue.com.

“Men are the new women,” or so went the refrain of the fashion pack who have travelled from London to Florence to Milan to Paris over the last three weeks, taking in the menswear collections for Spring/Summer 2013. Indeed, according to a recent report by Bain & Company, a consulting firm, the luxury menswear market is growing at almost 14 percent per year, outpacing growth in womenswear by almost double. And, as male consumers begin to take to style and fashion with the same fervour as their female counterparts, menswear is a growing priority for luxury and fashion brands.

Brioni S13

For the first time, London staged its own series of men’s shows, trumpeting the heritage of Savile Row’s bespoke tailors and the creative energy of East London, over three days that began with an unforgettable launch event at St James’ Palace, hosted by the Prince of Wales himself. In Milan, the Italian luxury menswear brand Brioni showed its first collection since being acquired by PPR, the global luxury group, in November of last year. And in Paris, rival luxury group LVMH pulled out all the stops for a striking tableaux vivant presentation and dinner, held in the Jardin du Palais Royal, for Berluti, a brand that is making a big push into ready-to-wear from its bespoke shoes roots.

Z.Zegna S13

So what’s driving all this momentum in menswear? The experts I spoke to along the fashion trail this season boiled it down to three factors:
Color and Print
The Return of Sharp Suiting
The Influence and Convenience of the Internet

POPPING PRINTS AND COLORS
In a move that changed the direction of menswear, Raf Simons triggered a colour tsunami, two years ago, when he showed his SS 2011 collection for Jil Sander during Pitti Uomo, perhaps the most important bi-annual congregation of menswear fashion press and buyers anywhere in the world.
Just as the show was about to start in the garden of a beautiful Florentine villa, dark clouds rolled in and Mr. Simons’ models appeared in a jarring, but incredibly beautiful display of fluoro fuchsias, teals and tangerines. Set against the stormy backdrop, the popping colors were instantly seared into the collective fashion consciousness.

Raf Simons for Jil Sander S11

Fast forward two years and the stands at Pitti Uomo were awash in colour and print, as were the runways and front rows of the men’s shows this season. Even typically conservative tailoring brands like Zegna and Ferragamo were betting on the colour story. It begs the question. Has the color trend in menswear jumped the proverbial shark? “Color continues to perform very well for Mr Porter,” said Jeremy Langmead, editor-in-chief of the menswear etailer, as we walked out of the Rick Owens show in Paris over the weekend.

Gucci S13

This helps to explain why so many brands are continuing to push colour for Spring/Summer 2013. But by the time the collections for Autumn/Winter 2013 come around, I suspect the fashion pack may have moved onto something new. This color brigade can’t last for much longer…
For More of This Story ... The Business of Fashion
Imran Amed is founder and editor-in-chief of The Business of Fashion.

Falling under the spell of a beautiful dress, a gorgeous pair of shoes or a well-crafted handbag is no strange feeling for followers of fashion. Falling in love with a piece that was first worn 30 years ago and has been waiting, it seems, just for you to discover it, is all the more rare. This is the magic of vintage fashion. It’s what makes pre-owned Hermès bags go for double their estimated value at auction and specialist vintage stores like Decades in Los Angeles, Rellik in London, and Didier Ludot in Paris such noteworthy destinations.
Here is an exert from a great article about vintage, from the The Business of Fashion by Rebecca Tay .

Decades LA

WHAT IS VINTAGE ANYWAY?: Over the last decade, the term ‘vintage’ has come to describe anything at least 10 years old. But given the tumultuous fashion landscape of recent seasons, with the loss of great talents like Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen and the musical chairs of designers moving from house to house, some believe that age is no longer the only criteria for what defines vintage fashion. “Vintage implies that it has archival value,” said Cameron Silver, owner of Decades, the landmark Los Angeles vintage store, which has become an institution of sorts. “When we first opened in 1997, everything had to be at least 30 years old,” he continued. “But now, with such a seismic shift in fashion, especially in the last three or four years, and with things happening so fast, some of those pieces that still seem current are certainly collectible.” For Silver, this includes pieces by Tom Ford from the Gucci years, Christophe Decarnin at Balmain, Prada from the mid- to late 2000s and Phoebe Philo for Céline.

Gucci by Tom Ford in the window of Decades

According to Pat Frost, director of fashion at Christie’s, “Vintage is anything up to the ‘90s — but it means different things to different people.”

“To some people, the wear on the piece is important; it has to show an interesting, unique patina that shows it has been well-travelled, but also well cared for,” added Matt Rubinger, director of luxury accessories at Heritage Auctions. “To others, it has far more to do with the look of the piece,” he continued. “Still others believe that vintage is about ‘uniqueness’ and seek pieces that have long since been discontinued so that they might be the only person to own the piece.”

THE GROWING DEMAND FOR VINTAGE:  What everyone seems to agree upon, however, is that vintage fashion has never been as sought after as it is today. Many enjoy the special feeling of discovery that goes hand-in-hand with buying vintage. Others see vintage as an opportunity to make a statement against the artificiality of modern consumerism. They crave the authenticity that comes with owning an item from the past. Still others relish the attention to detail and high-quality craftsmanship of vintage fashion and accessories. Of course, there’s also a certain feeling of exclusivity that comes from wearing a one-of-a-kind, rare piece. And not surprisingly, most industry experts trace the rise in popularity of vintage fashion to the presence of vintage gowns on the red carpet, where exclusivity and glamour are king. “Images of stars in vintage clothing made it socially acceptable to wear vintage,” agreed Silver, recalling Julia Roberts in black-and-white vintage Valentino at the 2001 Academy Awards, Renée Zellweger that same year in a 1959 strapless yellow chiffon gown by Jean Dessès, and Reese Witherspoon in a 1955 champagne-coloured Dior gown, accepting her Oscar in 2006.

Julia Roberts in vintage Valentino 2001

Christies’ Frost agrees. “Ten years ago, people weren’t wearing vintage Chanel to an Oscar presentation unless they had a pre-existing relationship with the house,” she recalled. And after the celebrity endorsements began flowing in, “suddenly, editorials included vintage clothing and it just became part of the fashion vocabulary,” said Silver. So much so, in fact, that luxury vintage dresses and purses can now even be found at upscale department stores such as Liberty and Bergdorf Goodman, where dedicated shop-in-shops such as The Dress Box Vintage and Coquette Atelier, respectively, offer customers a well-curated collection of vintage fashion.

Pucci

Designers are also amongst the many consumers of vintage fashion, often finding inspiration in the archives. Case in point: Yves Saint Laurent’s unmistakable presence in the Spring-Summer 2011 collections of Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford and Jason Wu, and Alber Elbaz’s tribute to the same designer a decade ago, during his first season at Lanvin. “In the ‘90s, 60 percent of our revenue was from designers,” noted Mr Silver. And even if design houses have cut back on extravagant research budgets, teams of Burberry employees are still known to scour certain military resale stores for old trench coats. Even Kate Moss was inspired by vintage, fashioning several of the pieces in her now-defunct range for Topshop after dresses her mother wore in the ‘70s.

Kate Moss for Topshop 2010

SELLING VINTAGE: Given the amount of research that must go into each piece before it even hits the shop floor, selling vintage requires a significantly larger investment of resources than selling current season items. Sure, there are a handful of designers that are guaranteed sellers (Chanel, Hermès, Azzedine Alaïa, and Yves Saint Laurent do well across the board; Gucci, Lanvin and Pucci are also popular at Atelier-Mayer, while Vivienne Westwood Gold Label sells quickly at Rellik), but the truth is there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to valuing vintage fashion. ‘The older the better’ does not necessarily apply; it depends entirely on the designer. For example, “the Russian collection by Yves Saint Laurent is like the holy grail,” said Frost, “even though that was from the late ‘70s, not early on.”

Azzedine Alaïa

Not surprisingly, personal taste is extremely important in vintage fashion, too. Carmen Haid, founder of Atelier-Mayer covets an original YSL Mondrian dress, as well as a pair of oversized Courrèges sunglasses that, second-hand, still retail for nearly £1000.

Courrèges

Mondrian dress by YSL

Whether it’s a piece of the Russian collection or a pair of discontinued eyewear, to each of these women, it’s knowing the history of a piece, its lineage, perhaps, the fact that it may very well be the last of its kind on earth, and an appreciation for the sweat and tears that went into its design that makes vintage so valuable.

The Russian Collection in Vogue Italia

For collectors, it’s not just the fact that it’s a beautiful dress, a gorgeous pair of shoes or a well-crafted handbag. It’s the combination of history, rarity, design and a true love of fashion that are the magic of vintage. For the full article go to: The Business of Fashion. Rebecca Tay is a Canadian fashion writer and editor based in London.

Jacki’s comprehensive Miami Trend Report is the result of a recent trip to this vibrant, trend-setting city. It showcases what’s hot now in handbags and accessories through 100+ images of window displays, colors, textures, prints and silhouettes.
Hall Five is pleased to offer a sneak peek for handbag fans and fashionistas everywhere!
Floral prints, bold color, daytime clutches and satchels showed themselves yet again, signaling they are four trends worth investing in.

The handbag IT List:

STRIPES
A classic stripe pattern mixed with a pop of color accent.  We have also spotted stripes with a pop of color added to the pattern to give it a modern twist. 

FLORAL PRINTS
They are one of the most popular types of designs in the market. There are countless variations, and their style can vary greatly from soft and delicate to bright and colorful. They continue to dominate across the apparel, interiors, and accessories market.

COLORS
Neon is back! You can see it on the streets as well as on the runway and in the stores. Bright colors (colors of the rainbow) are prevalent either as a solid or pop of color accent. The most popular colors that are seen globally are tangerine and honeysuckle.  White is also a popular color that is seen this season. 

LEATHER TRENDS
Ostrich leather and pvc are seen as accents in neutral shades.  It has a modern and chic look with a tangerine or honeysuckle pop of color accent. 

GEOMETRICS OR “GEOS”
Refer to prints created from geometric forms such as squares, circles, triangles, diamonds, plaids and rectangles. They are used in every sector of the market in all shapes and sizes. Within this category, you can find different types of geos which are classified further by their technique or visual reference.

To learn more or order a copy of our complete 100+ image Miami Trend Report please download at: 

http://jackieaslick.myshopify.com/collections/trend-reports-pdf-digital-download-1

Jacki Easlick is a renowned trend specialist publishing timely, relevant reports that provide invaluable forecasts. Each report is a comprehensive PDF document that is shot on location in both trend setting cities and emerging markets and is well-priced at $99.99 per report. Jacki’s spot-on predictions of emerging trends has made her a highly sought-after consultant to investors, analysts and c-suite leaders of major brands. These reports are prepared specifically for the B2B fashion industry. Each document is a rich photo essay of silhouettes, prints and style reference as seen in different sectors of the marketplace. A valuable reference tool for designers, stylists, sellers, buyers and any working professional in the trade.
Happy shopping and stay fabulous!

I’ve been thinking about interconnectivity and individuality…and how these two disparate ideas weave together. We are experimenting with all kinds of networks - Social networks and Cyber Communities.  We’re organizing in fluid and innovative ways—all with the goal of getting to something interesting, informative or entertaining.

At the core of this experience, is the Individual - the unique person that ultimately creates a true connection - individual to individual.  We humans are self organizing, tribal, hierarchal… The important question is; once you’re organized into communities and groups, how do you differentiate yourself? How do you assert your individuality?

While we rush ahead on the wild ride of change and uncertainty, we are open to experimentation as we are reminded by life that change is the only constant.  The wonderful result has been an explosion of unexpected and refreshing originality in personal style…creativity with the courage to step out and be expressive!

This is not about Lady Gaga theatrics, but rather about touches that convey personality, humor and drama. The Cinematic flow of life prompts us to try on different roles…“who do I want to be today?”  It could also be about making your mark with a signature eccentric element.  The quintessentially human experience of “group” is constantly in flux…how liberating it is to plunge into these changes with an adventurous heart!

Neville Bean Design

Launched 40 years ago, Pitti Uomo is considered by many to be one of the industry’s most important platforms for men’s clothing and accessory collections. The show was created specifically to promote the best of the Italian fashion industry to large foreign markets and has since transformed into a showcase of brands from around the globe

In its third season partnering with GQ.com, which will have live updates straight from show, Pitti Uomo will provide buyers and attendees with greater access to interviews with designers, after hours party coverage and GQ chosen “best of” accessories and fashion. Another “virtual” partnership, new to the show this season, brings online retailer YOOX.com on board, presenting their Spring/Summer 2013 preview collection as well as a prize to the most cutting edge looks at the Pitti Uomo show.

This season the “Who is next? Uomo” project continues in its third year. The scouting program for young menswear talent allows winners to present their collections in Florence each season. In addition, Pitti Uomo welcomes guest designers, a Stone Island exhibit celebrating the past 30 years and a special Valentino event.

“International top brands choose Pitti Uomo in Florence to present their collections and special projects as well as to consolidate their worldwide strategies at the beginning of the season,” says Napoleone. “Pitti Uomo showcases the high-end segment of the menswear industry. Brands exhibiting at Pitti come from all over the world and represent the widest range of the market.”

Pitti Uomo features several sections that add to the mixture of what Napoleone calls the “great tradition, stylistic and technological innovation, sartorial spirit and contemporary flair.” Sections include pop-up accessories, fragrances and cosmetic stores as well as Sport&Sport, which showcases freedom of movement from fitness to sailing and golf to motocross. Then there’s Urban Panorama, a territory with no restrictions between denim and vintage.

Distinguishing itself from other European trade shows, “Pitti trade shows are focused on high quality settings and presentations, a strong international promotion towards top buyers from the most important international markets,” and, Napoleone adds, “the new emerging economies, high level fashion shows and projects on the culture of fashion.

American companies in attendance, such as Saks Fifth Avenue and their men’s fashion director, Eric Jennings, feel the show gives them further insight into trends coming our way in the near future. But the rest of Europe and Asia find the show just as valuable. Sarah Andelman of Colette, Paris says it’s an “excellent preview of what we will see in the following weeks at the Milan and Paris fairs” while Billy Wu from Hong Kong’s Harvey Nichols praises the show’s organization and its ability to satisfy the requirements of my clients who want something special and fun, at the same time.”

Moving forward, Napoleone notes, “Pitti Uomo plans to present the most cutting-edge selection of menswear fashion, invest on new young talents, bring buyers from emerging markets to Pitti Uomo, and keep investing in e-Pitti, in order to increase business potential.”
Pitti Uomo will run June 19-22
From Apparel Insiders
By Morgan O’Rourke

Camoshita Sportcoat

Want Back pack

The first three day showcase of London menswear took place over the weekend and kickstarted the beginning of the spring 13 buying season. International press and buyers including Saks Fifth Avenue, Opening Ceremony and Lane Crawford were seen at London Collections: Men, and were treated to a range of trends ranging from the more sober to the all-out frivolous.

There was a lot of interest in texture and fabrication and topping this list was lace, used in printed t-shirt styles at JW Anderson and Astrid Anderson at the MAN show. Knitwear was important seen via knitted t-shirts at Matthew Miller and Nicole Farhi, in addition to 3D interpretations at Jonathan Saunders and Omar Kashoura. Embellishment was another key element, seen on sweatshirts at Shaun Samson and James Long, and in all over embroidery details at Meadham Kirchhoff.

E.Tautz

Topman

Yellow, orange, slub green and white were notable colours across shows, whilst hot pink appeared at E Tautz, Topman and JW Anderson, but may prove a colour trend too bold for some.

Richard Nicoll

The overhead hooded cagoule was a key item seen at Pringle, Richard Nicoll and Kit Neale. With sportswear in general being one of the most prominent trends, mesh and collegiate style bomber jackets seen at Topman, Lou Dalton, Richard Nicoll and Oliver Spencer will be particularly important.

Printed macs at Jonathan Saunders and Agi & Sam will have hanger appeal and were a new way to buy into the printed trend for spring 13, whilst other notable trends to keep an eye on include placement print T-shirts, neoprene and reworked camouflage print.

Jonathan Saunders

Jonathan Saunders

From Drapers by Marie Davies

Cantaloupe, Shoreditch

For the last few years, the stylistic purview of much of the creative class in places like Shoreditch in London, the borough of Brooklyn in New York, and Berlin’s Mitte district has been curiously backward-looking. Perhaps this retreat into retro nostalgia is a reaction to economic uncertainty and technological change. Maybe it’s a craving for what we imagine were simpler times or a search for authenticity in a world that is increasingly artificial. Whatever the reason, the backward-looking trend extends to fashion, as well. In fact, perhaps more than any other design discipline, fashion is engaged in an intense dialogue with the past.

“There’s so little innovation in fashion in its current state,” Susanna Lau, widely known as Susie Bubble, told BoF. And indeed, from Belstaff to Moynat to Schiaparelli, reviving dusty heritage brands is undoubtedly the business model du jour.

But over the past year, a loose group of creatives in London’s East End have given birth to a counter-narrative to the growing tide of heritage and nostalgia, examining the reality of our increasingly artificial and technology-mediated world head-on. Known as “The New Aesthetic,” the movement was born last May with a blog post by London-based writer and technologist James Bridle, who began collecting found images at new-aesthetic.tumblr.com that dealt with the “eruption of the digital into the physical world” and the idea of “seeing like a machine” in an attempt to capture and communicate the possibilities for a more contemporary visual culture. Subjects included everything from glitches in Google Maps to photographs from military drones in Afghanistan and the techno-organic forms of contemporary architecture that betray traces of the computer-aided design (CAD) programmes used to create them.

The movement really struck a chord and came to wider attention at this year’s SXSW Interactive conference where Mr Bridle led a panel called “The New Aesthetic: Seeing Like Digital Devices” and futurist Bruce Sterling asked what the New Aesthetic meant for fashion in his highly-anticipated closing address. “Although SXSW people do look chic, it’s a rather retro look,” he challenged the tech-savvy audience in attendance. “They don’t actually look very futuristic. I would suggest, when you come back next year…come back in robotvision glitchcore!”

In fashion, a growing number of designers have embraced the digital prints revolution. But which designers, imagemakers and fashion editorial outlets are actually producing “New Aesthetic” work that actively engages and deals with our digitally-mediated world?
Low-resolution pixilation is a major New Aesthetic theme and was perhaps most elegantly used in Preen’s Spring-Summer 2012 collection, which features romantic floral prints processed by a computer.

Preen Spring/Summer 2012

Both Gareth Pugh and United Nude have borrowed from videogames, producing blocky geometries that reference “voxels,” volumetric pixels once used in constructing videogame environments. And Arnhem-based Dutch designer Iris van Herpen has made what is surely fashion’s most beautiful and radical use of digital imaging technology with her Photoshop-designed, 3D-printed polymer dresses, which play with the tension between digital and organic forms.

Iris van Herpen

The moment when technology reveals itself through digital glitches and errors is another major theme in New Aesthetic imagery and something that has appeared in the work of Australian fashion designer Josh Goot who has made particularly striking use of digital prints that tend towards noise and distortion. While Goot’s process is carefully controlled by the designer, Philip Stearns’ Glitch Textiles project uses short-circuited cameras to auto-generate colour patterns that are then woven into blankets, with hypnotic and beautiful results.

Amongst fashion imagemakers, Brooklyn-based Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader, working under the name Reed + Rader, have worked extensively with animated GIFs, producing fashion stories for magazines including V and are currently working on a project called Pyramid Hill, a 3D world for which the duo leveraged a videogame level-builder called the Unreal Engine to create an immersive, interactive environment.

Perhaps fashion’s most overtly “New Aesthetic” magazine is DIS, edited by Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso, Nick Scholl and David Toro. In a landmark example of New Aesthetic work in fashion, the magazine recently collaborated with Adam Harvey to create a radical beauty story based on CV Dazzle — styling techniques that use asymmetric make-up, hair and accessories to disrupt facial recognition algorithms — entitled “How to Hide from Machines: The perilous glamour of life under surveillance.”

Dis Art School Issue

“We need to see the technologies we actually have with a new wonder,” wrote James Bridle in his first essay on the New Aesthetic. Digital methods of image research, image editing and production have quickly become embedded in the fashion industry, but the possibilities for digital creativity have yet to be fully explored. “It’s still not something people are consciously thinking about,” said Ms Lau.

As a term, “The New Aesthetic” may be short-lived. Surprising many, James Bridle shut down the New Aesthetic Tumblr ten days ago, exactly one year after it was launched. But if the “New Aesthetic” movement is already dead, this is surely only the beginning of digital technologies impacting the way fashion creatives think, see and design. Indeed, the generation of students just starting to arrive in fashion schools have only ever known a world that’s mediated by digital technology and learnt to process visual culture through a ceaseless digital stream of appropriated and juxtaposed images.

Long live the New Aesthetic.

From BUSINESS OF FASHION by Jay Owens, a social media and technology researcher based in London.

From trend forecaster and Hall Five member, Jacki Easlick a sneak peak of her 100+ photo Caribbean handbag trend report. The Caribbean IT List 2012: Shot on location in St. Kitts, St. Barts, Aruba, Jamaica and Grenada, we have documented breaking trends in the textile, handbag and accessory markets.
For a copy of the full, 100+ photo report or any of Jacki’s other comprehensive retail reports ($250 each) click here

AMBIANCE
The Caribbean Islands are a very diverse area with warm, tropical weather and ethnic influences that shape prints, colors and textures. We are explorers and are curious to know more about the places and spaces of the Caribbean Islands. Our photographs highlight the colors, contrast, prints, textures and structural details with arresting visual appeal and lasting historic value. Architecture and interior design are the forefront and inspiration for fashion.

PRINTS AND PATTERNS
Composed of recognizable elements that can create a talking point. Often more ethnic in nature, these prints include themes such as Indian artwork, paisley, floral prints and bright colors. Refer to prints created from geometric forms such as squares, circles, triangles, diamonds, plaids and rectangles. They are used in every sector of the market in all shapes and sizes.

For a comprehensive 100+ photo Caribbean Trend report, click here
Happy shopping and stay fabulous!

Jacki Easlick
917.699.0071
Jacki@JackiEaslick.com

The SS12 Trends that came to Fruition
Do the trends consumers talk about at show time actually translate into sales when they land (in stores) months later? With our data we revisited our SS12 report findings, to investigate which retailers backed the big trends and how they’re now selling.

Graph by Editd

Erdem SS12 Runway

During SS12 fashion month last September, we analysed consumer and influencer chatter on Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Retro and feminine styling proved to be the most popular themes whilst florals emerged as the top print, racking up some serious online airtime, with explorations in digital and painterly styles. Retailers, both on and off the highstreet, reacted. Our Visual Merchandising tool captures a snapshot every time a brand or retailer updates their homepages, category pages or sends out a newsletter. The archived library is a really useful way of determining which trends are being backed and assessing if they’re working. We recorded that Net-a-Porter launched a floral assault on the 9th March with a full homepage update – and it worked! The featured Elizabeth and James floral print silk jacket, priced at £280 is now out of stock in four sizes. The accompanying palazzo pants, which also featured, have sold out in two sizes.

Matthew Williamson on Matches

Selfridges also put their energies into floral prints – on the 15th April they sent out a ‘Print Mash-up’ newsletter, featuring designs from Peter Pilotto and Sportmax. Pilotto’s Botanical Print Dress at £495 , sold out on their online site in 3 sizes, as did the £485 Coloumn Top. Matches, meanwhile, plumped for two of the season’s killer trends. On the 6th April, their ‘How to rock print’ email featured Matthew Williamson‘s Floral Ikat Print Trousers. Just ten days later, they had sold out of 2 of their 4 sizes of the £375 trousers. The following week, they launched their ‘Line of Beauty’ newsletter which heavily subscribed to the feminine trend with floaty fabrics, whimsical prints and soft palette. Cue two killer success stories. Both the £3,113 Alexander McQueen Anemone print dress and Erdem‘s £3,500 Roxanne dress saw size sell outs with days of the email’s launch.

Selfridges

So buyers chose the right trends to back at premium retailers, but which retailers followed the crowd, and were they led up the right track? H&M‘s Trend Update was full-on retro, with nipped waist dresses, pencil skirts and blouses. For them, it worked. Their £34.99 pastel coloured dress sold out in three sizes in 8 days earlier this month. Topshop took the feminine trend to girly extremes with their ‘Pageant Princess’ newsletter shopping edit. The featured Premium Bonded Lace Dress, priced at £75 sold out of three sizes in two weeks. River Island made a more unusual choice, opting to back paisley prints. This was a wise move, as paisley was the second most talked-about print at London Fashion Week (after florals) and plays directly to River Island’s local customers. Their 10th April ‘Tailor Made’ email featured a £45 paisley print blazer, which sold out of all 7 sizes within three days of the email’s online launch. The featured trousers, at £30, had also sold out of 6 sizes on the day of the email.

Net a Porter

Pretty impressive stuff all round. And guess what? The evidence is all there. Consumers really do know what they want to buy, and buy it they do. It even boils down to localised demands, as UK retailer River Island showed. So, listen to customers and stay ahead. They speak, we measure. Get yourself over to our Autumn/Winter reports sharpish!
From EDITD

Forget actresses and models. Fashion companies that wish to appeal to a broader audience should focus on fashion bloggers. Suddenly they were everywhere, the Isabel Marant sneakers with the built-in heel. A typical example of a trend that was created because fashion bloggers were writing about it, generating a buzz that led to endless waiting lists and remakes by high street chains like Topshop. Twenty years ago only a fashion magazine such as Vogue or Elle could have unleashed such a trend, but in recent years the baton has passed to bloggers. Bloggers are real women who actually wear the outfits they choose to portray, as opposed to the contrived fashion shoots where models sport the latest catwalk looks set against some idyllic island backdrop. And that is something consumers can more easily identify with.

Fashion companies have also discovered the influence of bloggers. Brands send them free clothes and shoes, invite them to their fashion shows or use them to front an advertisement campaign, in the hope that they will write about them in their blogs. Thousands - and in some cases millions - of fashion blog readers are between 15 and 35 years old, have an above average interest in fashion and a corresponding budget. In short, they are the ideal target audience for a fashion company with growth plans.

Elin Kling for H&M

Just like Isabel Marant, US fashion label Proenza Schouler enjoyed a spike in sales thanks to fashion bloggers’ coverage. “The fact that blogs have written about us and those articles have spread over the internet has had a remarkable impact on our business,” said a spokesman for the brand. When Marc by Marc Jacobs featured Swedish blogger Elin Kling as the face of a campagne and advertised on Nowmanifest, of which blogs by Kling, Rumi Neely and Bryanboy are a part, the brand’s website enjoyed an additional 94,000 hits in the space of one week.

Rumi Neely

More and more retailers are also joining the fray. Net-a-porter recently asked Kling to front a campaign photographed by world renowned photographer Patrick Demarchelier and the blogger has also launched her own fashion line in collaboration with Nelly.com. The first collection sold out completely last fall and the second collection was recently launched. Fellow bloggers Angelica Blick and Sandra Hagelstam have also joined forces with Nelly to work on new collaborations. The webshop enjoys working with bloggers, because they are trendsetters. “They signal new things and are the voice of the people: they know exactly what the general public likes and what it wants to buy. Many women first consult the blogs to see what they think of clothes and shoes, before they go out and buy it themselves. That makes our goal - selling clothes and shoes - much easier,” says Peter Lindholm, spokesman for Nelly.
From Fashion United

Research has shown that as much as 70% of communication comes from body language. This leaves a wealth of opportunity for fashion designers to convey their desired message for the season through advertising campaigns. Psychology consultant, Dr Nicola Davies explains what the campaigns are saying

Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs has taken a child-like approach to advertising his women’s S/S12 collection. This is indicated by the heart shaped picture on the wall, the purity of the clothing colours, and the innocent look on the model’s face. Jacobs is using an image of innocence and purity to attract consumers.

Juergen Teller, featuring Xiao Wen Ju, styled by Daniela Paudice

As with the women’s S/S12 advertising campaign, Marc Jacobs has again taken a fun, child-like approach to advertising his men’s collection. The pram, which is suggestive of a baby, again emphasises the themes of innocence and purity. The fact that this is a man posing with a pram is symbolic of a “can do” attitude. Jacobs wants to portray the message that men who wear his designs are in control. The fact that the photographer’s shadow is included in the shot suggests that it is being made obvious that this is a shoot and that men who wear these clothes will be the centre of attention.

Juergen Teller featuring Bobby Gillespie

Emporio Armani
The use of two models, who are standing relatively close, portrays a sense of intimacy in the Emporio Armani women’s campaign. With one model leaning towards the other, the advert has a personal element about it. The calm composure of the models further indicates comfort with intimacy. It is likely that Armani wants to be perceived as removing boundaries and bringing people closer together.

Alasdair McLellan featuring Tao Okamoto and Xiao Wang

In the men’s campaign, Emporio Armani wants to portray a laid-back image. The opening of the shirt and the baring of flesh would suggest to the consumer that Armani’s designs are comfortable and light. The message is that when wearing Armani, men will not feel constricted by the garments.

Alasdair McLellan featuring Florian van Bael

Balanciaga
In the Balanciaga campaign, model Kirsten Liljegren looks relaxed and cool – leant againt the wall, legs bent, hair covering her eyes. Inspired by personal photos in Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, taken at the legendary Hotel Chelsea.

Steven Klein featuring Kirstin Liljegren, styled by Marie-Amélie Sauvé.

Balmain
The pose in the Balmain campaign is also indicative of a relaxed attitude, but powerfully portrays a very cool image, hence the hand on the hip and the other as a rest for Anja Rubik’s head. Looking directly at the camera, Balmain wants to convey the sense of confidence that can come from wearing the collection. The combing back of the model’s hair also shows sleekness in design.

Inez & Vinoodh featuring Anja Rubik.

Jil Sander
The Jil Sander women’s campaign makes reference to the films of Alfred Hitchcock; Grace Kelly, one of Hitchcock’s leading ladies was one of the inspirations of the collection. The lack of colour in the shot suggests that this clothing range speaks for itself. Daria Strokous and her surroundings are insignificant in comparison to the clothes. At the same time, the model’s upward gaze and open posture suggests a sense of urgency; the model is trying to get somewhere fast and yet her clothes portray a sense of composure in the rush. These designs are for busy women who still want to take pride in their appearance.

Willy Vanderperre featuring Daria Strokous, styled by Olivier Rizzo

Prada
In the Prada women’s campaign, the sideways slanting of the head and the pouting lips demonstrated by both models indicates playfulness and flirting. There is also a clear message of femininity being portrayed. These designs are made for strong, powerful women who are proud of their femininity and want to flaunt it in an empowering way.

Steven Klein, featuring Natasha Poly and Elise Crombez.

Clenched fists usually convey aggression, but when combined with the loose body language – shoulders down, head forward, lips pouting – the Prada men’s campaign featuring Michael Pitt can be seen as light-hearted and fun. A boyish nature is portrayed, indicating these clothes are for the young at heart.

David Sims featuring Michael Pitt.

From Another Magazine
Dr Nicola Davies is a psychology consultant and freelance writer who regularly writes on topics that provide insight into human behaviour.

“By now, we know the fashion message for fall 2012 is all about strength. This polished, commanding feeling carried over into accessories as well and is best exemplified by the above-the-knee boots, rich jewel tones, and color-blocked fur bags seen on the runways from New York to Paris. It was an opulent season to say the least” Standouts include bags, footwear, jewelry and “face-framers” with a baroque air.
From Vogue.com

The drama and exhuberance of the Baroque period was beautifully translated to some of the most noteworthy pieces for fall, with sumptuous velvets and ornate metallic detailing transforming simple pieces.

Manolo Blahnik

Balmain

Lanvin

Salvatore Ferragamo

Dolce & Gabbana

Rodarte

From Vogue.com

The unveiling of the GB Olympic kit created a furore with critics complaining that there was too much blue and not enough red. This reaction might be viewed as somewhat surprising when we look back at the uniforms for 2004 and 2008 as they clearly had the same ratio of colors. So what changed between then and now? Only the hiring of Stella McCartney as creative director partnering with activewear giant, Adidas. To many, fashion is a dirty word. Is this a case of “fashion-ist” behavior?

Stella McCartney’s Team GB Outfit for London 2012 Comes Under Fire says The Guardian referencing an article in Daily Mail which stated, “Oh no, they’ve turned the Union flag blue!” The paper reports that the freshly designed garb has “sparked outrage” for the lack of red, “effectively eliminating the St George and St Patrick crosses from the design”. Indeed, the lack of patriotic red in the final design, so the newspaper insists, amounts to a “massive fail” for the branding. On Facebook too, where the kit was unveiled, Brits have rushed to criticise the freshly made sports wear, with thoughtful posters offering such insights, as “This kit fails. Horrible. Where’s the flag?” and “an absolute disgrace, where are the union flag colours - red white and blue. How anyone has agreed this is beyond me - disgusting.”

GB Kit 2012

GB Kit 2012

The Guardian goes on to conjecture that Stella McCartney may even have disadvantaged Team GB by failing to include more red quoting a leading sports psychologist as well as an academic who has done extensive research on the impact of uniform colour on athlete performance. Professor Robert Barton, along with his University of Durham colleague Dr Russell Hill, co-authored a report in 2005 that showed that wearing the colour red consistently increased athletes’ probability of victory.

“Obviously she has designed these from a fashion point of view and was not taking into account the possible effects that might have on performance,” said Barton of the uniforms, “Given there’s an obvious justification for [including more red] and given the effects that we and other scientists have found, it does seem like a mistake.”

If that is the case it’s odd that this was not pointed out at the time of previous Olympics in 2004 and 2008. As these pictures prove, there was no more red in the GB uniforms then either.

GB Olympic Kit 2008

GB Olympic Kit 2004

Not everyone agrees that the uniforms are abhorrent. In fact The Huffington Post goes as far as to disagree that there is not enough red in the uniforms, going as far as to literally point it out where it exists.

There you have the arguments for and against the Stella McCartney-designed GB Olympic kit. Is Professor Barton right in saying she designed these from a fashion point of view, not taking into account performance or are the critics being unfairly harsh simply because she is a fashion designer?

Sometimes described as ‘spring break for geeks,’ the annual SXSW Interactive conference is a 5-day whirlwind of panels, presentations, parties, product launches, ‘hackathons’ and happy hours. This year’s conference was said to have attracted more than 25,000 attendees, ranging from tech entrepreneurs to agency executives, to this progressive Texan city with a budding start-up culture of its own, for what, at the best of times, manages to feel like a collective conversation on the future.

“Curation” is a word that seemed to surface again and again at SXSW. Indeed, the rise of social curation platforms like Pinterest, Svpply, The Fancy and the fashion-specific Lyst, Pinterest, in particular, has exploded in recent months, and was much discussed at SXSW. where humans, not algorithms, collect and organize content and products that friends and followers can discover.

But for publishers, media companies and other creators of original content, curation can be controversial. Indeed, the role of curation in the wider content ecosystem was the subject of what was one of the most lively and substantial panel discussions we attended at this year’s conference: “The Curators and the Curated,” featuring amongst others, New York Times media critic David Carr and Brain Pickings founder Maria Popova.

Maria Popova likened the act of curation to a form of authorship or editorship.
“Discovery of information is a form of intellectual labour,” said Popova, who described herself as a “curator of interestingness” and announced the creation of Curator’s Code, a code of conduct and associated set of symbols that indicate how a piece of content was discovered.

For his part, AdAge editor-at-large Simon Dumenco also used the SXSW stage to announced the creation of the Council on Ethical Blogging and Aggregation, a group dedicated to creating standards around linking, summarising and aggregating content online. Dumenco’s council already has the support of Esquire, The Atlantic and New York magazine. But whether either of these initiatives will achieve widespread adoption remains to be seen.

Illustrations by Craighton Berman for Fueled by Coffee

From New York-based trend specialist Jacki Easlick, here is a sneak peek at her Spring 2012 London Retail Report. During her recent trip to this trendsetting city, Jacki discovered that floral prints, bold color, daytime clutches and satchels are four trends worth investing in. For a comprehensive 100+  page London Trend report of inspiration and current trend forecasts available for fashion companies please email:  Jacki@JackiEaslick.com 
Jacki Easlick’s Website

THE HANDBAG “IT” LIST

CONVERSATIONALS
Composed of recognizable elements that can create a talking point. Often more youthful and whimsical in nature, these include themes such as animals (owls and birds were highlighted), transportation, numbers, letters, food, hearts, holiday items, etc.  Conversational handwritten letters on satchel, wallets and clutches. 

FLORALS
One of the most popular types of designs in the market. There are countless variations, and their style can vary greatly from soft and delicate to edgy and dark. They continue to dominate across the apparel, interiors, and accessories market.  Double handle satchel is a classic yet very important handbag style. 

BOLD COLOR
This is a reinterpreted version of high- end fashion designed for a slightly older but fun- loving woman. The prints tend to be bright, bold, and larger in scale.  Bold Color:  brights and solid colored neons.  Daytime Clutches in bright colors with enough room for your daily essentials.

NOVELTIES
The junior category caters to the 14 to 24 year old market who look for trendy, hip, experimental and bold designs. Prints are influenced by high-end fashion, street culture, and music.  Bows and cupcakes are sophisticated and uptown and yet fun. 

GEOMETRICS
Refer to prints created from geometric forms such as squares, circles, triangles, diamonds, plaids and rectangles. They are used in every sector of the market in all shapes and sizes. Within this category, you can find different types of geos which are classified further by their technique or visual reference.  Color blocking is still popular.  Black and white geometric patterns and color blocked are hot.  Look for handbags with two or three shades on them, preferably colors you would not expect together such as pink, black and beige. 

For a comprehensive 100+  page London Trend report of inspiration and current trend forecasts available for fashion companies please email:  Jacki@JackiEaslick.com 

Even in a crummy economy, Americans are no less image-conscious. But instead of flaunting fancy cars and expensive jewelry, the young and wealthy of the Zuckerberg generation are looking for a more understated affluence and signaling status in new ways. In a reverse-chic movement, they’re taking a fewer-frills approach and placing a higher importance on intangibles – like the mind, charity and personal values – rather than material things. Celebrities of all kinds are jumping on the trend, and of course, strapped Americans are happy to follow…

Number of Twitter Followers
In an age when everyone overshares on the Internet, Twitter has become the key platform for touting ideas, links and inane observations with anyone who cares to read. The number of followers is the new popularity contest, and an inflated number of them is a sign of achievement. Lady GaGa has a phenomenal 20,804,731 followers. Musician and businessman Kanye West has an impressive 7 million plus followers (and counting). Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore has nearly 2.5 million proving that Twitter can create celebrities of its own.

Biking to Work
Rejecting the fancy sports cars of generations past, many high-powered folks have taken to the bike lanes, whether on tricked-out two wheelers or refurbished vintage gems. These cyclists ride with more than the usual bells and back lights: ultra-lightweight frames and fancy wheels or a spendy old-school cruiser are commonplace. CNN host Anderson Cooper rides a lightweight, 27-speed mountain bike on his New York City commute to work. Chloe Sevigny rides a vintage folding Royce Union, which runs around $200 depending on the condition.

Investing in a Tech Start-up
The young and affluent are pouring money into new, tech-based ventures and in the process helping a whole new set of founders become, well, young and affluent. Actor Ashton Kutcher has been an active investor since 2007, dumping dollars into more than a dozen new ventures, including billion-dollar startup foursquare.Singer-actor Justin Timberlake put some of his money into MySpace, convinced he can keep the floundering social network from going the way of ‘N Sync.

Wearing TOMS Shoes
For every pair of shoes this company sells, it gives one to a needy child. Launching as a small startup in 2006, its philanthropic gimmick and shoes that come in every pattern imaginable have propelled it to high end buyers and into the closets of stars like Julia Roberts, Ann Hathaway, Keira Knightley, Scarlett Johansson and Liv Tyler. Wearing TOMS means giving back and being stylish, two hallmarks of today’s elite.

Driving Green
Rather than shelling out more money for big-ticket, high-gas mileage rides, many of today’s affluent drivers opt instead for cheaper, environmentally friendly vehicles. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg blends in on the highway in his Acura, which gets nearly 30 miles to the gallon. Actor Ryan Gosling shows he’s eco-conscious in his black Toyota Prius hybrid.

Yesterday’s Designer Handbag, Today’s Vintage Treasure
Toting around a full-priced designer bag was so 2006. Today, designer bags are still in style, but they’re even hipper if dug out of the sales bin or discovered in near-perfect condition at a thrift store, especially for shoppers who enjoy the chase more than the catch. Finding a purse that was the must-have item 25 years ago gives you bragging rights: it’s more unique, and half the price of your friend’s new designer dud.

Practicing Yoga
Yoga, particularly a specific type done in sweltering 105-degree heat, is the workout for the fashionable (and flexible). The uncomfortable fitness plan has taken hold among the hip set after its inception nearly 40 years ago when an Indian guru named Bikram Choudhury opened a studio in San Francisco, thanks in part to notable yogis like Drew Barrymore and Lady Gaga (who practices in full costume, of course).

Wizards and vampires are out. The market in teen fiction is dominated now by societies in breakdown. And it’s girls who are lapping them up. Amanda Craig, a novelist and children’s fiction critic, writes in The Telegraph

Many parents might feel worried on finding their teenage children addicted to grim visions of a future in which global warming has made the seas rise, the earth dry up, genetically engineered plants run riot and humans fight over the last available scraps of food. Yet with the arrival of the film of the first book of Suzanne Collins’s best-selling trilogy The Hunger Games this month, dystopia for teenagers has hit an all-time high in public consciousness. The hottest genre in publishing and film on both sides of the Atlantic, it has rendered wizards and vampires redundant. And teen fiction is now so popular that it has entered the shopping basket of goods by which we calculate inflation.

The Hunger Games, set in a future America, now called Panem, concerns the ultimate TV reality game show, in which there can be only one survivor. Fantastically violent, the novel has sold 10 million copies world-wide, and is likely to be the hit movie of 2012.
Nor is it alone in riding the dystopian wave. This year, Moira Young’s best-selling debut, Blood Red Road, a kind of Mad Max for girls, won the Costa Children’s Award, and has been bought by Ridley Scott for film; Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now is about to start shooting with Saoirse Ronan as the lead in a story of underage passion in a future England plunged into war. Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses, set in a racist society that is a photographic negative of our world, has been successfully adapted by the RSC as a play and has been one of the nation’s favourite series for the past decade. Even Anthony Horowitz, the man who has done more to get boys reading than any other contemporary author, has just finished his own dystopian novel, Oblivion, which Walker will publish this autumn.

Teenagers on both sides of the Atlantic can’t get enough of this stuff. Why is dystopia so fashionable? Are they sunk in existential gloom caused by the recession, university fees and the prospect of never getting a mortgage? Although it has always been a bridge between children’s fiction and adult novels (think of Brave New World, Orwell’s 1984 or John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids) dystopia used to be part of the SF genre – and, crucially, written by men. Girls and romance took second place to chaps saving humanity (or not), and perhaps it wasn’t surprising to find they were largely popular with boys. What makes the new dystopian novel part of the zeitgeist is that it appeals to teenage girls – and is predominantly written by women.

Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies (2005) imagined a post-apocalyptic world in which every teenager is “ugly” until radical surgery at 16 – plus a kind of lobotomy – makes them into supermodel “pretties”. All good dystopian novels are driven by the will to resist conformity, but Uglies was a strikingly new, dark tale which girls took to their hearts in droves. I remember my daughter and her friends passing copies around like samizdat literature, partly because it opened up issues such as the pressure they all felt about their looks. “It’s the only well-written book which talks about how crap we feel about our bodies and faces,” my daughter, then 12, told me earnestly. “I don’t know anyone who isn’t talking about wanting to have plastic surgery.” The futuristic setting (and the sinister consequences of the Uglies’ surgery) made it easier for them to discuss this.

The other new feature of Uglies which also made it attractive to this new female readership was romance between its heroine and two heroes. Less sexualised than Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the new wave of dystopian fiction gives the perfect excuse for why, despite being desperately in love, the protagonists can’t have sex: as Meg Rosoff says, “in a survivalist love affair, you don’t have to worry about having a boyfriend or what clothes you’re wearing, because you’re saving the world.” Meg Rosoff, whose own 14-year-old daughter Gloria is addicted to the genre, says that what teenagers respond to is “having big events happen in a world which is completely familiar. They see adulthood glimmering on the horizon and that’s as scary as the apocalypse.” Imagining that you’re living in a place in which millions have starved to death (The Hunger Games), been drowned by melting ice-caps (Julie Bertagna’s Exodus), been killed off as surplus because eternal youth has been discovered (Gemma Malley’s The Declaration) or been dried up due to climate change (Moira Young’s Blood Red Road) does tend to make fears about having spots and tests less terrifying.
But many of the talented writers producing these stories never set out to write in the genre. Moira Young, for instance, avoided reading any contemporary dystopian fiction when writing Blood Red Road, drawing her inspiration from Nevil Shute’s 1950s classic, On the Beach.

“I think it coincides with young people’s anxieties about the future, in that it’s about a heroic figure triumphing over the odds, but what drew me to write that kind of story was simply that it gave me a big canvas in which to explore love, betrayal and mistakes,” Young says. To adults, the violence of some of these stories can seem horrifying, and depressing to think about. It used once to be taboo for children to kill children in stories: now it’s de rigueur. When my daughter and son first became immersed in them, I worried that the fiction was amplifying their anxieties. Yet if the current vogue is a reaction to the recession, it’s the opposite of the adult one.

“All your generation want to do is go and see comedies like Noises Off,” my daughter says, a touch accusingly. “At least we’re thinking about politics, and the future.” Gemma Malley sees that dystopias not only magnify what teens go through in terms of bullying and the struggle to make their own decisions, but feed “their appetite for adrenaline. I’m very aware of my mortality, but a teenager doesn’t feel that,” she says. “These novels are like scary rides in the fairground.” What my own teenagers have responded to in the genre is not just the action-packed plots but the flawed, complex characters that inhabit them. Katniss in The Hunger Games has hunting skills and a fierce protectiveness towards her little sister that make her, like Meg Rosoff’s Daisy, and Moira Young’s Saba, the opposite to Stephenie Meyer’s passive, virtuous vampire-lover Bella Swann. Furthermore, Katniss pretends to be in love with her fellow contestant Peeta in order to manipulate the millions watching them on TV. She fights back against the expectations of Panem’s totalitarian regime by pretending to conform. Again, my daughter and her friends find this appealing in an age in which boys’ attitudes to them have been warped by internet pornography.

“Katniss is the kind of strong teenage heroine we were all waiting for,” one put it. “We had Hermione in Harry Potter and Lyra in His Dark Materials as children. If you’ve got a brain, vampires suck.” “Girls aren’t waiting to be saved any more,” Malley says. “They have strong moral compasses, and unlike male protagonists, they have insight into why they are as they are. If you go into schools now, you see teenage girls who are sparky and who think for themselves. Dystopia enables them to have big adventures but it’s also about creating strong characters whom readers care about.”

Saci Lloyd, who is also a teacher in a rough East End school and gets to see more of what teenagers are like than many parents, would agree. Her adrenalin-charged novels The Carbon Diaries (which Johnny Depp wanted to film but which are now being serialised for the BBC) and Momentum are inspired by the social consequences of oil running out. Kids of 14 and over love her thrillers partly because her heroes and heroines get to confront a police state and partly because she sees that, from the teenage point of view, the breakdown of society could be fun. The Carbon Diaries features an urban fox-hunt, and Momentum is as much about love and humour as politics or global warming.

“Though I’m interested in what happens to people when you squeeze them, I see my stories as optimistic,” she says. “Modern kids haven’t been through a war, rationing or carrying water from a well – but neither do they have somewhere to light a fire and blow things up as previous generations did. Dystopias look at our world from two degrees sideways. It’s not squids in outer space, as Margaret Atwood put it, but just slightly removed from today’s reality, so you look at it with fresh eyes.”

Amanda Craig is a novelist and children’s fiction critic

Trend forecaster, Fran Yoshioka recently returned from her seasonal trip to London and Paris to visit the retail stores and glean the current trends in women’s fashion. As she reports on her blog Fran found that “the color message was very clear in both London and Paris; and while there were fewer ideas and looks, the key items were repeated in every market”

Four Key Messages
ACID YELLOW - The #1 fashion color in every classification and in every market

SILKY - Everything is silky in textile attitude: tops, layering pieces, skirts, pants, shorts, dresses, jackets! Solid and printed. Real silk and rather cheap-looking polyester in the young and moderate areas.

SOLID COLOR SKINNY JEANS AND BOTTOMS- These items overwhelming took over the indigo denim departments and were on every mannequin as the important key item and must-have bottom!

PRINTS, PRINTS, PRINTS! - Everywhere you looked–the motifs didn’t matter, it was more about technique and layouts.

If you’d like to hear and see more about what Fran saw in Europe’s stores, join her webinar on Wednesday, March 15th, for more great visuals, a typically fun look at the mannequins and good visual merchandising ideas.

From folkloric looks and uniform styles to accentuated curves, oversized volume and color blocked black and grey. Chris Gilbert of Fashion Edit 247 takes us through the highlights of Paris Fashion Week FW12 with 5 key ideas x 5 examples in The Spark.

CULTURAL EXCHANGE

Interest in folklore looks to India and Tibet as inspiration for a palette of rich browns and rusty reds in accent to black that plays up paisleys, folk florals, geometrics and blanket patterns for a celebration of cross cultural looks.

IN SERVICE

Uniform looks keeps tailoring and sportswear informed with a utilitarian and surplus style that keys into colour, fabric, item and detail as everyday basics are put on parade in a military mood. Bigger proportion adds newness.

THE PEPLUM

Though many looks are covered and sober, the female form is still showcased, no longer with sheer fabrics, but now with a strong body conscious message that spotlights the small waist, the peplum and the padded hip. It’s all curves.

SUPERSIZED, THE NEW VOLUME

The most directional silhouette this season spotlights the movement towards the oversized as volume moves away from the body total top to toe. Big, bigger, biggest.

LAYERING BLACK & GREY

Combining two important ideas; a focus on the combination of black and grey and a spotlight on layering and blocking. Building up a strong, but sober and elongated play on black and grey with multi proportioned pieces.

When the great couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga closed his Paris house, in 1968, and retired, he complained that it had been a dog’s life. But at least Balenciaga was free to design what he wanted, and to show his clothes when and to whom he pleased. Today, the most celebrated designers work for big luxury groups — Nicolas Ghesquiere for the PPR-owned Balenciaga, Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, which belongs to LVMH, as do Céline and Givenchy. Not only do designers produce more stuff than ever before — clothes for early deliveries, for red carpet and editorial, as well as accessories — but they are also increasingly perceived as less important than brands.

Balenciaga Campaign

A decade ago this seemed unthinkable. Designers enjoyed the status of contemporary artists and architects, and indeed were busy collaborating with them — Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons with Cindy Sherman for advertising, Miuccia Prada with Rem Koolhaas on store concepts, Mr. Jacobs with Takashi Murakami for handbags. This was a significant change from the ’70s and ’80s, when designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino focused on building empires, and living as well as their richest clients. That generation of stars was also broadly involved in decision making, from the choice of factories to the style of carpet in a boutique. Today, some owner-designers are no less involved — Stella McCartney, for instance, and Dries van Noten. But more and more the two sides, creative and management, feel like separate camps, with designers forced to explain the fundamentals of fashion to executives whose last job might have been in finance or baby products.

Givenchy Campaign

It was a lot easier when designers just had to worry about making good clothes — and were not distracted by a hundred other concerns — and there were executives who knew how to make a business out of creative ideas. Mr. Simons’s designs for Jil Sander were never all that extreme. To the contrary, editors rooted for him because they saw genuinely good work. What’s more, it has the virtue of being plain enough for anyone to see. He may yet land at a big house or do his own women’s label.

Louis Vuitton Campaign

I can’t help thinking about the dramas that surround the industry. Fashion has always been a blood sport, especially in Paris, and the most gifted and fragile talents could be monsters at heart. Of course that’s how those men and women achieved fabulous names for themselves ... Chanel, Saint Laurent. But now you sense that designers, their talents apart, are being used in a dreary chess game of brand power.

Céline Campaign

As the Sander story broke, news leaked that Stefano Pilati would leave Saint Laurent on March 5. His successor is expected to be Hedi Slimane, the former men’s star at both YSL and Dior. A Slimane comeback could be interesting, though people immediately saw it as a thorn in the side of his former boss — and PPR rival — Bernard Arnault of LVMH. That’s far from dreamy fashion.

Dior Campaign

From The New York Times
By Cathy Horyn

From rich opulent darks and maximal embellishment and hourglass silhouettes to geometric retro prints and updated military details, Chris Gilbert of Fashion Edit 247 takes us through the highlights of Milan Fashion Week FW12 with 5 key ideas x 5 examples in The Spark.

DARK MOODS

Gucci

A focus on a range of dark and moody colors though low key and subdued offers a lush rich opulence. Regal and religious reds and purples dominate while velvets, luxury skins and shine surfaces add a heady and luxe luster.

GEOMETRY CLASS

Missoni

Order is brought to bear with a spotlight on small scale geometrics that look to retro modernist and folkloric ideals for inspiration. Deco and ‘70s wallpaper patterns, neat foullards, ethnic woodcuts and mosaics are key.

SHAPE UP

Botega Veneta

Though diverse in shape, form follows the body and looks to a curve conscious style. From the hourglass and corset to the peplum and the padded hip, silhouette spotlights the waist. Rounded shoulders up the curve factor too.

IN SERVICE

Salvatore Ferragamo

Uniform style is the fundamental message that informs tailoring and dressed up sportswear as updated military details and items combine with luxe versions of basic fabrics for a polished take on the look.  Army green returns big time.

TREASURE TROVE

Versace

Combining the strict and severe with the glamourous and the excessive, stark silhouettes and dark colors are given a rich lavishness through maximal embellishment. Religious and baroque influences are utilised for inspiration.

From constructivism, utilitarianism and classic English country looks to rebel mixes of fabric, print and pattern, Chris Gilbert of Fashion Edit 247 takes us through the highlights of London Fashion Week with 5 key ideas x 5 examples in The Spark

BLOCKED OUT
The ongoing influence of a Constructivist style looks to the boldness of color blocking that is tempered by a low key approach that spotlights interest in neutral color mixing as the dominant direction.

Acquascutum

MIX MASTERS
Eclectic and eccentric describes rebel English style and it’s a strong statement this season as the interest in one of a kind co-ordination and a jumble sale of diverse and unrelated prints and patterns shake up the establishment

Peter Pilotto

FLOWER SHOW
The traditionally pretty and feminine focus on florals is given a modern update with a spotlight on offbeat flowers, larger scales and interesting techniques that look to not only prints, but appliques and flocked effects too.

Temperley London

IN SERVICE
Interest in sustainablity and return to authenticity and basics keeps the spotlight on the military and utilitarian style. A surplus of uniform items and details and a spotlight on army green keeps the military message on parade.

McQ

COUNTRY SQUIRE
The retro status influence of the landed gentry inspires a classically English focus on ‘to the manor born’ sportswear separates and an interest in classic country inspired prints, patterns and heritage fabrics.

In what is fast becoming known as the Rooney Mara effect, ethereal skin, oxblood-red lips, short, blunt bangs, and a return to deep, dark brown hair (read: no highlights) have emerged as some of the strongest beauty statements on the fall runways.

Rooney Mara and Francisco Costa

Calvin Klein

It all started in New York at Calvin Klein, where hairstylist Guido Palau sent models Patricia van der Vliet, Tati Cotliar, Kate Kondas, and Dempsey Stewart down the runway with dark, abbreviated bangs that merged the clean lines of Bauhaus architecture with a dash of hard-edged chic, thanks to the shaved-back bobs that went with them and a near total absence of makeup on the face.

Calvin Klein

Antonio Berardi

The fringe phenomenon continued in London at Antonio Berardi, where hairstylist Orlando Pita gave the designer’s entire troupe of models full, glossy bangs that fell sharply above the brows. Meanwhile, Christopher Kane’s models—nearly all deep brunettes—wore center-parted hair juxtaposed against pale, milk-white skin.

Bottega Veneta

Bottega Veneta

In Milan, red lips and gothically pretty skin turned up on the runways at Gucci and Bottega Veneta, courtesy of Pat McGrath—the same makeup artist who created Mara’s look for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. At Versace, the connection seemed that much more literal. “Donatella wanted the girls to look supercool, supermodern,” said Palau, who responded with razor-sharp micro-fringe created from short extensions, hand-cut and clipped into the crown. To heighten their sex appeal, he left the rest of the hair loose and textured, while McGrath added a pitch-black, cool eye that brought to mind the fearless attitude of a modern-day Lisbeth Salander.

Gucci

Marni

By the time Consuelo Castiglioni’s brigade of Marni girls took the runway in Milan this morning—with beveled, Sassoon-inspired bangs created by hairstylist Paul Hanlon—it was clear the trend was in full swing. “The clothes are very precise and much more basic than the Marni collections of the past few seasons,” Hanlon said of the simple color-blocked dresses that inspired his choice. “It gives the girls a character, an identity—and that’s true on and off the runway.”

Of the turn toward fringe, Palau says, “A graphic bang presents the face; it brings strength. And it can be many things—eighties, fifties, nineties, dominatrix, punk.” And while he insists that the Mara associations in his work this season are pure coincidence, he does admire her thoroughly unique personal style. “It’s the first time in quite a while that we’ve seen an actress on the red carpet with such an extreme cut and looking quite beautiful. Next to her, it can feel a bit like everyone else is just playing it safe.”
From Vogue.com

Versace

London Fashion Week shook off its traditional image as a mere playground for quirky emerging talent with a display of grown-up elegance for the autumn/winter 2012 season that had leaders of the global fashion pack singing the British capital’s praises. By the close of the shows, top British designers such as Paul Smith, Alexander McQueen’s Sarah Burton and Burberry’s Christopher Bailey had presented catwalk collections which more than suggested that the “edgy” London of yesteryear had matured into a sleek and sophisticated luxury powerhouse.

Paul Smith

“We used to come here and think it’s all going to be eccentric and street chic and actually it’s incredibly grown up, polished and sexy, glamorous clothes so it’s a global stage now — it’s wonderful,” U.S. Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour told Reuters on the sidelines of the shows. London has always been overshadowed by New York, Milan and Paris on the fashion map, and often derided by critics as the “capital of quirk”, despite spawning industry stars such as Stella McCartney, McQueen and Vivienne Westwood as well as leading global luxury labels such as Burberry and Mulberry.

Mary Katrantzou

Military styles, bright prints, furs and quintessentially English looks dominated the catwalks, while bejewelled, sequined and embroidered creations also featured prominently this season. Many of the collections included panelled creations. Belstaff delivered tailored leather jackets with armour type panelling. Burberry sent panelled trenchcoats down the runway and Peter Pilotto dressed his models in figure-hugging stretch dresses slashed with mesh panels. Designers accentuated the female figure by nipping coats and jackets in at the waist to create an hourglass silhouette — Burberry used colourful bows to achieve this look while McQ from Alexander McQueen chose leather military-style belts with gold buckles.

Peter Pilotto

Burberry

Sasha Wilkins, founder of the successful LibertyLondonGirl.com fashion blog, said the British capital now competed on equal footing with its rival fashion capitals. “We seem to have got to the point where London can properly take its place on the world stage,” said Wilkins, a former Wall Street Journal executive style editor. And the city’s place on the fashion map is likely to become more prominent this summer thanks to a “great halo effect” that the Olympic Games will bring, British Fashion Council chairman Harold Tillman told Reuters.

QUINTESSENTIALLY ENGLISH
Traditional English fabrics like felts, velvets, tweed and tartan found favour with designers who sought to overturn London’s reputation for young creativity, avant garde trends and edgy designs by opting for elegant tailored creations. Burberry creative director Bailey combined country and town styles at a show packed with celebrities. His models sashayed down the runway in quilted jackets, peplum skirts and tiered fringe dresses teamed with brogue lace-up angle boots before a clap of thunder was heard and water emulating rain gushed down the sides of the transparent marquee in which the event was hosted.

Burberry

HIGH DRAMA
At McQ, military chic ruled supreme — creative director Sarah Burton sent models down a runway carpeted with autumnal leaves in khaki coats and suits featuring large pockets and big metal buttons with shiny leather lace-up stiletto boots. Flared strapless tartan dresses with sheer sleeves, lacy tops, delicate embroidery and appliquéd velvet flowers showed a softer, more feminine side.

McQ

Stella McCartney also staged an extravagant spectacle, wowing the audience with magic tricks, models dancing on tables, a jazz band and a vegetarian dinner as she showcased bright marbled patterns, floral prints and gathered puffy skirts. “It’s London, it’s Britain. It’s celebrating everything that is bold and irreverent about being a British brand,” McCartney told Reuters about her inspiration for the opulent collection.

Stella McCartney

After presenting a Renaissance-inspired collection of fluffy fur hats, bright print dresses with oriental flower patterns and richly embroidered and beaded sheer evening gowns, British designer Alice Temperley said London had become a very exciting place to be as people realised a lot of businesses in the British capital were actually very scalable. “It’s not just about the new generation, there are people coming through that are obviously very creative and very inspiring and what London is renowned for, but it’s also about people who have good businesses that can and do sell globally,” she said.

Temperley London

From Reuters
By Michelle Martin
Images from Vogue.com

As reported on the website of The Independent Fashion Bloggers Twitter has become an indispensable tool for keeping up with all the action – from front row celebrity spottings to instantaneous runway reviews. With a feed as robust as IFB’s (following more than 3,000 handles) it can be a chore to sort through the best tweets and photos – but then again, that’s why we have hashtags! From the hilarious to the helpful, here are the “#”s we loved the most during NYFW:

#NYFW: The most broad and most obvious hashtag for fashion week, search this acronym for any and all photos, stories and tid-bets about fashion week.

#MADE: This is the tag for fashion week activity and shows taking place at Milk Studios.

#MBFW: We used this hashtag to identify any of the New York Fashion Week activity that happened at Lincoln Center, and was sponsored by Mercedes Benz.

#menswear: If you’re looking to take a little break from the onslaught of gowns, make up and sky-high heels, search this hashtag to see what’s trending in the world of men’s apparel. Highlights come from GQ magazine, Valet, and IFBcon panelist SartoriallyInc.

#streetstyle: Use this hashtag for quick access to all the amazing style happening off the runways.

#chictothenextlev: This one doesn’t make sense unless you watch Sh*t Fashion Girls Say During Fashion Week We love how scarily true-to-life it is.

Lacoste

Preen

Proenza Schouler

Rag and Bone

Ralph Lauren

The Spark: Hot off the New York Runway, here are 5 Key Ideas X 5 Examples From The Fall/Winter 2012 Collections from Chris Gilbert of Fashion Edit 247

BLACK & GREY, TEXTURE AT PLAY
Black and grey combine for a strong color and texture statement and spotlight flannel, tweed, brushed wools, knits and classic yarndye patterns as a merchandised mix.

Marc Jacobs

THE EMBERS
From dark to bright and keeping things hot, a wildfire of flame inspired reds, red browns and oranges light up the runways this season as the most dominant color palette.

Proenza Schouler

BLOCKED OUT
Color blocking continues and one of the strongest looks constructs the dynamic play of graphic black and white in high contrast.

Band of Outsiders

THE BIG COAT
The big news is all about bigger volume and interest in a new-again strong shoulder. A spotlight on the big coat as a key item looks to square and elliptical shapes and an interest in volume between the item and the body.

Peter Som

COWBOYS & INDIANS
Coming from the mountains of Peru and Bolivia to the American Prairies,  spotlighting blanket inspired items and patterns. Black and red are key. 

Michael Kors

A Profitable Polyvore Struts Its Stuff at Fashion Week
Fashion is trending social. In a traditionally top down industry, the online fashion community Polyvore has a bottom’s up approach toward fashion. The interactive fashion community Polyvore allows users to interact with fashion in a unique way by allowing them to curate their own style from images all over the web. The results are arranged into fashion collages, or digital mood boards, called sets. The site, which recently ended its first profitable year, attracts 13 million unique visitors each month — a 114 percent increase since January 2011 and a reach beyond the traffic of any magazine. Its users create more than 1.5 million sets each month, although many just come to browse the sets others have created.

“Polyvore’s having an egalitarian effect on the industry,” said Polyvore CEO Jess Lee.  “What makes a magazine so special, Vogue, for example, is that they have people with amazing taste and influencers such as Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley. But there’s another generation of fashion influencers who may not have access to Vogue, but they have access to the Internet. We want to work with that generation.”

Just as blogging platforms and social media gave voice to new tastemakers and opened a door for bloggers participate in collaborations with fashion designers and to sit in the coveted front row at fashion shows, Polyvore is exerting its own force on the industry, and evidence of this was very clear at this week’s New York Fashion Week. In this vein, Polyvore teamed up with Procter & Gamble’s Cover Girl to produce Polyvore Live for Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, a show featuring up-and-coming Fashion Institute of Technology-alum designers and fashion bloggers as models. “Polyvore Live is our take on Fashion Week, giving fashion to the people,” explains Lee. The show was live streamed on their site and more than 25,000 people tuned in.

“We’ve shifted from being a market-driven economy to a consumer-driven economy,” said Catherine Moellering, executive vice president of Trend Forecasting at the Tobe Report, a retail trend consulting company. “We used to work in a fashion hierarchy — tastemakers on the top of the fashion pyramid and consumers on the bottom. Now consumers are the ones who are very powerful in shaping the retail landscape and shifting the retail paradigm.”

As a result, Polyvore is influencing consumers to create looks and trends versus the past practice of waiting for someone to dictate fashion. As visitors use the Poylvore site, the company also is able to capture in-depth information regarding the tastes of its 13 million users, according to Polyvore Chief Technology Officer Pasha Sadri. “We’re able to see apples-to-apples, fashion brands, their rankings, brand, price, high-level descriptors such as color, and materials,” Sadri said. “There’s lots of information at a granular level.”

The company shares their data with brands in a monthly published report, which can be used to help brands make business decisions about their hottest products. Polyvore even partners with brands through contests. For designer Rebecca Minkoff’s debut at Fashion Week last February, she held a contest in which the winner designed a clutch for retail. “My bag sold out at retail, everyone was happy with it,” Minkoff said. “I would measure the success with the exposure, the name recognition, increased fans and a bag selling out.” “From a business perspective, it’s a huge fascinating recourse for people who work in trend forecasting and for retail analysts,” Moellering said. “The information is validation for that target consumer and the trends they participate in.” Polyvore’s users are 74 percent women, and about 55 percent are between 18 years and 34 years old. Brands need to be cognizant of who the data reflects. “What works for Coach, may not work for Talbots” Moellering said. “It’s not all one size fits all.” But Moellering said there are limitations with the information because it is based in real-time. “In trend forecasting, we need to pay attention to the continuum of productivity,” she said. “Polyvore will be a validator. We may tell our client that in a year from now, there may be an interest in the 1920s. Polyvore may see images touching on this idea and this will be a validation of this predictor. Polyvore pulls images that have been already created for the consumer. Our clients help them design it, source it.”

Yuli Ziv, founder of the Style Coalition, an online network of 45 bloggers that reaches 2.5 million unique visitors each month, believes Poylvore already peaked and that Pinterest is the trending social media company of the moment.

“Polyvore preceded Pinterest, but they didn’t explode into the public consciousness,” Ziv said. Both Pinterest and Polyvore fall in the inspirational board category — reminding us of when designers and editors used mood boards to capture ideas which we now do in to a digital format. However, Lee sees it differently. “Pinterest is about collecting,” she said. “Polyvore is about creating. The ‘set’ in itself is a work of art; it’s a new creation in itself. We have a great relationship; a lot of our content is shared. We see ourselves as complimentary.”

Sadri said she expects Polyvore will continue to grow in the U.S. and internationally. To that end, Polyvore received Series C funding of $14 million last month. New investors DAG Ventures, Vivi Nevo and Goldman Sachs joined current investors Benchmark Capital and Matrix Partners, and increased total venture capital to $22 million. The new funds will be used to scale infrastructure, and to grow the company’s team of engineers to work on technical challenges such pushing the JavaScript in their virtual styling tool and data-mining their style analytics.
Questions? Comments? Email us at consumernation@cnbc.com

The models, including Alicia Lund of Cheetah is the New Black , Claire Geist of De Lune
and Sydne Summer of Sydne Style, were chosen from the more than 2,000 bloggers that Polyvore works with to show off the diverse styles of the site’s users. The group included a mix of age groups, styles, countries, and both veterans and newcomers to the site. And to complete the digital tie-in, of course, some of the clothes exhibited are available online - fans of the collections can check out Polyvore to find out how to buy.
From CNBC

Top honors at The 2012 BAFTA Awards went to The Artist, which was of course made in black and white. So perhaps it’s apt that the majority of the celebrities in attendance opted for monochromatic looks. winner Meryl Streep, Christina Hendricks and Elizabeth McGovern and Melissa George amongst others wore floor-length black gowns, while Kristen Wiig and Tilda Swinton were flawless in white columns. Michelle Williams wowed the crowd in a black and white H&M gown custom-made for the nominated actress from sustainable materials.

Colin Firth and Meryl Streep in Vivienne Westwood

Melissa George in Victoria Beckham

Michelle Williams in a custom made H&M eco gown

Gary Oldman in bespoke Paul Smith with wife Alexandra Edenborough

Kristen Wiig in an Alberta Ferretti white strapless silk gown.

Elizabeth McGovern in an Azagury black strapless fishtail gown.

Christina Hendricks in Vivienne Westwood

Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky

Olivia Williams

Jessica Brown Findlay in Alessandra Rich

Colin Firth in a Giorgio Armani sustainable tuxedo; Livia Firth in a Paul Smith sustainable tuxedo

Octavia Spencer in Tadashi Shoji

Tilda Swinton in Celine

New York has thrown plenty of trends into the spotlight in the past few days of Mercedes Benz fashion Week but also confirmed the slowing of the fashion cycle that we have been seeing in recent seasons as perennial favourites such as sheath dresses and pencil skirts dominated many runways. Victoria Beckham showed Sunday and proved that she is fast becoming the mistress of the Little Black (or blue or green) Dress. Beckham returned to a fitted silhouette after temporarily abandoning it for spring, although the shorter dresses were allowed the flutter of a softly flared skirt.

Victoria Beckham

The look was a little tougher than usual with shiny black python collars, a military-style dress accessorised with heavy flat black boots, and harness straps on backless dresses.

Victoria Beckham

Away from those classic pieces, autumn/winter 2012/13 looks set to be one that’s very much about colour – with rich shades such as burgundy and pine most popular, alongside supporting shades of ochre and cobalt blue.

Military has been a key trend so far – cut smartly and precisely and a world away from combat fatigues. Instead, New York designers have given us tailored military with understated detailing (especially around buttons) that should be a key influence on the outerwear market later this year.
1960s looks also proved a strong choice for some designers and should prove inspirational for the youth and juniors market. WGSN particularly liked the way Lacoste took the 60s in a subtly sporty direction.

Jason Wu

Lacoste

Thakoon

Another key move on for a trend is Santa Fe – a way to update the Navajo-inspired looks that have been seen worldwide from some seasons. This takes the look and gives it less of a 1970s feel, as interpreted particularly well at Band of Outsiders.
Also bubbling under as a trend is Asia with a few designers drawing on Chinese and Japanese influences. Leather remains a key material for next season – frequently seen in ultra glossy finishes or pieced and panelled with woven/knit fabrics for sleeves, bodices or skirt inserts. It was worked best by Derek Lam, DKNY and Thakoon Panichgul.

Band of Outsiders

From WGSN

Fall 2012: The Magic of Color by Pantone
“By playing to consumers’ practical side with versatile neutrals, and boosting their confidence with bold, spirited hues, this skillfully balanced palette has something for everyone,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®.
As the season transitions from the heat of summer, Bright Chartreuse, a vital yellow-green, pays homage to a typical spring shade and creates a bridge into the cooling days of fall. Reminiscent of bright green foliage, it provides a perfect accent to every color in the palette.

Like the name implies, Pink Flambé is a delicious, vibrant pink with a bit of heat to it. Pair it with vivacious and enticing Tangerine Tango for an ongoing retro feeling. Or, to bring a calming element to the mix, combine these vibrant warm tones with Ultramarine Green, a deep, cooling blue-green. Ethereal Rhapsody is a grayed-down purple that also encourages comfort and serenity with its quiet, muted tone.

Honey Gold, a mellow, burnished yellow, suggests the soft-muted tones of sunlight to brighten a fall day. Pair it with sensible and strong Olympian Blue, a patriotic blue that will surely make its way into fall and winter athletic apparel.

Rich and robust, French Roast is a tasty, sophisticated hue that is a great alternative to the black and charcoal basics typically worn in the fall. Other staple neutrals include elegant and versatile Titanium, the quintessential cool gray, and Rose Smoke, a veiled rose tone that pairs well with Rhapsody and Titanium.

From Pantone

Later this week the fashion pack will be at New York Fashion Week, then they’ll move on to London, Milan, Paris and to trade shows such as Pure London and Who’s Next, where a lot of the real business gets done and next season’s retail trends are made or broken. So where does that leave us in February 2012? Still struggling with that disconnect between a surfeit of swimwear in February (and, often, a dearth of it in August), true. But more importantly, the fact that the deepening economic crisis means with each passing month it’s harder to get people to part with their money for any clothing, regardless of the weather. Previously, a quick succession of trends kept consumers running back to the stores for fast fashion replenishment, but increasingly this is not enough and the emergence of new looks is slowing to keep pace with a cautious consumer.
So if wearing the latest style is not necessarily on the top of everyone’s agenda, does that mean trends have lost their relevance?

Having worked at the sharp end of WGSN, the world’s leading trend forecaster, for the best part of a decade I’m actually quite confident the answer is no. My analytical role is at the point of sale where real people are shopping. I see what they are wearing and what is fast-tracked to the clearance rails. This is the amphitheater of trends where the wrong shade of green will be mercilessly harpooned on the sale rail but a more resonant Pantone will be a celebrated best seller (I’m looking at you 16-6138). As such I have a realistic insight into how the work of my trend forecasting colleagues reaches the average shopper.

Money may well be tight for the consumer but this doesn’t mean to say they’ve stopped caring what they wear. Quite the contrary, they are becoming far more specific in what they buy and are looking for pieces that hit the nail squarely on the head. The scattergun approach to shopping is dead in the water; people don’t want five Breton striped tees any more, they want one ultimate Breton striped tee and are prepared to pay the cumulative cost. As I headed out to the stores this month I saw the cleverest retailers, from H&M, Zara and M&S to Louis Vuitton, promoting tightly edited must-have items and wardrobe essentials. So if the trends need to be more specific how do forecasters get it right?

The trends process is not scientific but nor is it wholly artistic. It is based on the research and intuition of the forecasters and at WGSN there are 150 spread across the globe, each one with their finger on the pulse of music, media, the arts, and of course, fashion. The whole here can be reassuringly justified by the sum of its parts.

The big picture thinking that kick-starts the trends process draws on everything from music and architecture to political protests and flower arranging. WGSN Tumblr is a good example of how diverse yet truly inspirational this information is. At this stage it may seem esoteric and irrelevant to the average person looking to buy a new pair of jeggings, but this process is about identifying the future context in which those jeggings will be purchased. By monitoring developments in the bigger issues (such as sustainability, technology, the economy and sociology), and drawing on aesthetic influences from artists and designers, it is possible to build up a fully comprehensive trend.

Trend information at WGSN is then filtered through several groups of editors each with their own specialty from street trends to consumer insight, marketing, sourcing and visual merchandising. We also sense check all this with the looks we see on the catwalks and at those trade shows (yes, in mid-February we’ll be running from show-to-show in New York or trawling around almost-every stand at Pure London to pick out those trends, while also telling the industry about them in media rooms or at special seminars at those events). As you can see, the resulting trends have therefore been sense-checked against market knowledge to ensure they really resonate with the jegging-buying consumer.

So while we may no longer feel the urge to reinvent ourselves and our wardrobes each season the power of trends to inform and shape the fashion industry still rings true. The trends around what is sold remain important but understanding the strategy of retailing and the consumer mindset are an equal part of the mix. We’re moving into a new era and if you happen to be interested in trends, it’s one that should be noted as not necessarily involving the wearing of jeggings!

Francesca Muston will be blogging about the key trends as they are unveiled at Emap’s fashion trade show Pure London from 12 February to February 14, 2012.

From The Huffington Post UK

New York Fashion Week has begun, with experts expecting rich fabrics, waist-defining jackets and some 1920s-inspired styles sparked by movies like The Artist. Dresses will continue to feature strongly among the 90 or so designers showing fall 2012 collections, experts say, because of the wide appeal to consumers who are more thoughtful and focused on value as the United States emerges from recession. A dress is seen as more tempting because it allows women to skip the extra, and sometimes more costly, step of having to coordinate skirts or pants with a blouse or T-shirt.

“Dresses perform very well. Women love a dress,” said Ken Downing, fashion director of Neiman Marcus. “It’s such an easy way to look amazing. It’s effortlessly chic ... it goes from coffee to cocktails. Navy will be the neutral of the season,” he said. Downing said some designers will have drawn inspiration for a “modernized flapper” style from the silent film “The Artist” and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” - both nominated for several Academy Awards - and the pending release of director Baz Luhrmann’s remake of “The Great Gatsby.” But he cautions this does not mean an immediate return to the dropped waist dresses that defined the 1920s era. “Many designers really understand the importance of celebrating a woman’s shape and clothes that are reflective of her curves are always the most popular,” he said. “Women spend a lot of time at the gym ... they want credit for how they look.”

Deep shades of green and rich fabrics such as brocades and jacquards are likely runway trends that could draw in customers, said Colleen Sherin, senior fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue. “When customers spend their money, they want to feel and see that they are truly getting something for what they paid,” she said. “Any form of embellishment or decorative fabrication makes the consumer feel they getting something quite special, that’s worth the money they have spent.”

Designers were expected to show menswear-inspired tailored jackets sculpted to define a woman’s waist and peplum dresses and other styles that show off the waist. “I’m liking the masculine (inspiration), I like women that have a cool tailored jacket. Definitely I am heading in that direction, but we have a lot of great surprises,” said designer Yigal Azrouel, whose collection will be shown on Friday. But with consumers wary amid a slow U.S. recovery and a jittery global economy, designers are continuing a trend of growing their brands with cheaper collections.

Azrouel opened a first retail shop last week for his lower-end Cut25 label and Jason Wu—best known for designing first lady Michelle Obama’s inaugural ball gown—released on Sunday a collection for Target with everything priced under $60. “We’re creating future Jason Wu customers,” Wu said.

When it comes to hemlines, there will be something to suit everyone, said Kibwe Chase Marshall, women’s runway and trend editor for trend forecasting firm Stylesight. “Maxi proportions, as well as the ‘midi’ length have found footing as staples in ready-to-wear collections. On the horizon, A-line minis—worn with hosiery—complete the new length trio, creating myriad options,” he said.

David Wolfe, creative director at The Doneger Group, said color would be the driving force at New York Fashion Week with rich jewel tones and bright accents and that the styles were becoming more accessible to women of all shapes. “It’s color that is moving fashion forward,” he said.
From Reuters

Pop megastar Lady Gaga has pierced her powerful, digitally-willing paws deeper into the online world with the closed beta launch of her new social network. LittleMonsters.com — the first product created by startup Backplane — gives Gaga’s fans an outlet to create or share Gaga-related content, interact with fellow “Little Monsters” and publicly show whether they like what other users post. You can request an invite to join the network now.
With a look like Pinterest and an popularity-vote feel like Reddit, the Little Monsters website appears to be latching on to what’s hot on the web right now: sharing visuals and rating content. Backplane CEO and co-founder Matt Michelsen told Mashable that this site and future Blackplane projects have one core mission: “Unite people around interests, affinities and movements.”

To help complete that goal of creating communities (they don’t necessarily have to be social ones), Backplane will look to its expanding staff and four co-founders, several of which have tech backgrounds working at Google, Palantir Technologies and Yahoo. The other three co-founders are Lady Gaga’s manager Troy Carter, former Google designer Joey Primiani and former Palantir director of operations Alex Moore. “Backplane is about bringing together communities and Gaga’s community just so happens to be the community we’re using … We think we can really change the world, but we’re fearful that we’re going to be pigeon-holed.”
Backplane, partially funded by Gaga, plans to launch Little Monsters out of beta and unleash more sites in 2012. Once more sites are unveiled, Backplane intends to release a dashboard on its site this summer that would combine the communities.

Gaga’s strong social media presence should work into Backplane’s advantage and help build a large user base — let alone attention to the startup — for Little Monsters. Gaga joined Google+ in January and has already accumulated more than 330,000 followers. That’s in addition to her almost 19 million Twitter followers, which is the most for any user on the microblogging service, and 47 million Facebook fans. Her involvement with two Google initiatives in 2011 is also a testament to her digital presence: a Chrome commercial and Google Goes Gaga, a sit-down session with Google executive Marissa Mayer to promote Google Moderator. At that time, Mayer said, “At Google, we’ve seen Gaga build her career by embracing technology … as well as constantly innovating for her fans.” Additionally, Gaga was the first artist to reach 1 billion views on YouTube; she beat President Barack Obama to 10 million Facebook fans; Vogue released a Lady Gaga-focused iPad-only magazine app; and she became creative director at Polaroid.
From Mashable

New York rapper Azealia Banks and actresses Rooney Mara and Shailene Woodley are among the names predicted to be 2012’s biggest style icons, while films such as The Hunger Games will make a big sartorial impression. A report published in WWD January 30 heard from a host of stylists and designers, offering their opinions on this year’s biggest style influencers. Hollywood stylist Phillip Bloch, who has dressed the likes of Halle Berry and Salma Hayek, predicts flamboyant singers Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga will continue to set trends thanks to a rise in “fantasy as fashion,” although Helen Job, director of lifestyle and culture at global trend forecasting firm Stylesight, says the one to watch is hip-hop star Banks. As well as her music providing the backdrop to Mugler’s recent menswear show, the musician performed in Karl Lagerfeld’s home during a dinner celebrating the launch of his Net-a-Porter clothing line last week, watch the performance at http://youtu.be/4GIDvrRjkz4.

Azealia-Banks

In terms of cinema, designer Betsey Johnson predicts films such as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and My Week With Marilyn will impact style well into this year, while New York-based shoe line Loeffler Randall’s creative director Jessie Randall cites the former’s heroine Mara as a rising trend setter. “Mara’s blend of extreme toughness and feminine beauty is inspiring,” explained Randall.

Rooney Mara

That said, celebrities who opt for a more low-key look, such as rising talent The Descendants star Woodley and The Help actress Emma Stone, are also expected to make an impact. “Stone is getting a lot of coverage and interest,” said Job.
“She is not super new, but she is moving up to the A-list. She is young and she doesn’t have the traditional Hollywood look. She seems a little more attainable, and everyone likes it when there is someone fresh on the scene.”

Shailene Woodley

Hotly anticipated sci-fi movie The Hunger Games is also expected to be a big influencer, with a buzz already being generated over the Alexander McQueen peep-toe booties Elizabeth Banks’s character Effie Trinket can be seen wearing in preview clips on the film’s Capitol Couture Tumblr page launched in honour of Hunger Games-related fashion and beauty.

Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket

Alexander McQueen booties worn by Effie Trinket

A China Glaze nail polish line inspired by the picture will also go on sale to coincide with the film’s release in March.
From The New Age Online

Every year, Maybelline puts out a calendar for the next year that anticipates the trends they think we’ll see over the next 12 months. The newest one is out, photographed by Kenneth Willardt, and from the looks of it 2012 is going to be a very exciting year for makeup and nails. There’s everything from election-time star-spangled lips to takeout-inspired nail art.
From BellaSugar

Haute couture has survived a century of war, austerity, fads and a fair number of bungling owners. During the 1990s, when many houses were gobbled up by big groups, with money made in real estate and finance, couture felt vaguely touristic, like one of those traveling Wild West shows for city folk who had never seen a buffalo — or, in this case, an exquisitely handmade dress. Still, couture survived. Nowadays, almost no one talks about its demise. Quite the opposite. Not only have revenues reportedly risen, thanks to big spenders in countries like China and Brazil, but there are also more new names on the calendar, like Giambattista Valli. This season Versace returned to Paris after an absence.

Giambattista Valli

Despite the rosy picture, I doubt that couture is a serious business for the houses, with the possible exception of Chanel, which every year spends millions of dollars on lavish sets for Karl Lagerfeld’s collections (this time, an airplane cabin). But given all the buzz it creates, I’m sure that couture is really good for business. And I know that because the clothes don’t measure up. I’ve been thinking about this all week. In a world of choices, with luxury brands and customized ready-to-wear, what makes haute couture different? Is it savoir-faire? Handwork like pleating and embroidery? Or is there an extra quality? For the woman looking for immaculate fit, for something exceedingly pretty, she can’t do much better than Mr. Valli’s dresses, with their silk-swathed shoulders and waists finished in grosgrain. I felt the same about Giorgio Armani’s Privé show, where the actresses Jessica Chastain and Cameron Diaz sat in the front row.

Chanel

Even though Mr. Armani’s tailoring can sometimes look a bit rigid, as if he confused fierce crispness with couture polish, the clothes were a step above his ready-to-wear. There were crystal-beaded mermaid dresses, jackets in an unusual mesh fabric, a new Armani day skirt with an asymmetrical dimple in the silk organza and dramatic variations on snake patterns. The palette was specific, too: the earthy greens and browns of early spring. Yet, despite the technique and the bold snake motifs, the clothes were not inspiring. To me, the experience was not all that different from watching a very good ready-to-wear show a decade ago.

Givenchy

Does couture have to be original? By virtue of being one-of-a-kind, some clothes do feel original in their design and nonstandard use of materials. I was impressed with a Givenchy bolero made of tiny dark beads and pieces of crocodile molded in an array of geometric shapes. It’s certainly stunning, but Riccardo Tisci’s couture collections are so limited in scope (10 outfits each season, a spare, evolving silhouette) that they almost qualify as an art project.

Versace

Numbers, of course, aren’t everything. And nobody shows the quantities that couturiers did in the past. In the ’90s, Saint Laurent typically sent out 100 looks. But even regular output lends consistency and rigor to couture. And it helps organize one’s thoughts around a compelling idea. That was the problem with Donatella Versace’s 15 looks. Yes, the corset-and-lace designs looked well executed and Versace-like, but they didn’t seem very demanding.

Jean Paul Gaultier

I think couture should yield an experience that’s unavailable anywhere else. The means may be fabrics that are custom-made or specially dyed.
Afterward, I heard some editors say, in effect, “What woman today would wear those clothes?” Well, by that standard, we’d all be dressing like the Kardashians. A friend, after seeing Mr. Lagerfeld’s all-blue Chanel show online, said, “It’s not modern.” I fear that couture is not modern — or, anyway, the term may be unnecessary. Couture is history. Couture is extremely particular. Mr. Lagerfeld did his collection in 150 shades of blue. I found myself slightly hypnotized by the effect, as you would be if staring at a blue garden. And I thought his lean, no-nonsense shapes — free of tricks, corsets (albeit with spectacular embroidery for evening) — expressed a rare degree of self-assurance. Couture is about dressing individual personalities, a point Jean Paul Gaultier made brilliantly in a collection inspired by the late Amy Winehouse. Many of the ideas were vintage Gaultier — the tuxedo, the skimmy dress with a flash of lingerie — but the chaotic mix, along with the cotton-candy hair, was effective. Ms. Winehouse may seem a strange symbol for couture, but like her, couture is fragile, rare, free-spirited, ornery — and when it’s gone, it’s gone.
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Cathy Horyn
All photos are from Vogue.com

MENSWEAR TREND: The Twilight Zone
Alexander McQueen is introducing a made-to-order line with Huntsman of London’s Savile Row. And that news, along with the upscale clothes displayed in the brand’s Milan showroom, confirm that the tilt in men’s wear is toward the formal and the evening.

Gucci

That was proven when Gucci entered the “Twilight” zone — not the world of vampires but one where elegance and even poetry is shifting to the male wardrobe for after dark. “Bohemian grunge,” said the Gucci designer Frida Giannini backstage, referring to the lush cinematic beauty of Visconti and to the decadent beauty of Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du Mal.”
That meant the new generation of Gucci man bags were tapestries of flowers and blooms sprouted as jacquard weaves on jackets. The result was a rich collection, although it started in a more workman-like way with leather and cloth before flowering into baroque velvet evening jackets. To ask who dresses up for evening is like enquiring who would tote a flowered bag or leather jacket rich in colors. These clothes are for the super wealthy. And in spite of her “grunge” description, Ms. Giannini was touching a new trend: The idea that the forgotten “gentleman” could take over as a defining look. The rest of the Gucci show was uneventful. (Read: beautifully made and desirable — but dull.) Yet with the outfits of the Golden Globe Awards on everybody’s lips — and with Gucci’s ultimate boss, François-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of PPR, in Hollywood rather than front row — Ms. Giannini hit a men’s wear sweet spot for after dark.

Huntsman

Sarah Burton is the most self-effacing of designers. Yet since she took over the Alexander McQueen brand after her mentor left this world, she has followed his path while injecting much of her own vision. Maybe it is her unexpected connection with royalty, after designing Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, that has encouraged her to push forward not only tail coats but that ultimate symbol of upper crust dressing: made-to-order tailoring. It was a smart idea to team with Huntsman. With this collaboration, the brand will join other luxury players in pushing to the highest level their men’s wear offering. For the main collection, Ms. Burton remained faithful to Mr. McQueen’s fascination with Victoriana, although not his raven dark side. So there were tailored jackets with breeches as pants, cut away frock coats, formal Prince of Wales check fabrics and bolder mixes of polka-dot jackets with checked pants. Yet the soul of the line was in the couture finishes, like the silken embroidery on lapels, roses decorating knit sleeves and a general sense that the McQueen label is aiming high and mighty.

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen

Etro

Etro

When the Etro show started with tail coats, it summed up the mood of the fashion moment. As the designer Kean Etro put it: “The classical takes flight.” The rigor of the formal dress also helped Mr. Etro to steer clear of flights of fancy — literally in this show, where a giant Icarus was on the backdrop. Feathers decorated everything from the back of a coat, where buttons might usually be, to the front of shoes. A feather print was inevitably in the melee. Mr Etro’s loopy imagination has a certain charm. But the best was first in the show, a symbol for the power this season of fashion in the twilight zone.

Prada

Prada

From The New York Times

While the prevalent fish tale silhouette was all Hollywood glamour at the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards, the red carpet was awash with color thanks to a wonderfully varied palette that included everything from winter-worthy jewel tones to much-needed hints of spring found in the blushes, pastels, and nudes that made their mark on one very big night.

Emma Stone in purple and fuchsia Lanvin

Tilda Swinton in Haider Ackermann

Angelina Jolie in white and ruby red Atelier Versace

Charlize Theron in blush Christian Dior Couture

Elle Macpherson in Zac Posen

For More From Vogue.com
and Glamour.com

CONSUMER TRENDS: China is the New Emperor by Trendwatching.com
In 2012, businesses around the world will shower Chinese customers and visitors with even more tailored services and perks, and in general, lavish attention and respect. China is the new emperor, and outpaced companies, flailing nations and even broke monetary unions are looking to the Chinese to bail them out. No wonder red carpets are being rolled out wherever Chinese politicians and CEOs currently set foot. In 2012’s global consumption arena we see a similar picture: department stores, airlines, hotels, theme parks and museums, if not entire cities, around the world are going out of their way to shower Chinese customers with tailored services and perks, and in general, lavish them with attention and respect.

Some stats:
Chinese residents made over 30 million overseas trips in the first half of 2011 alone, up 20% since 2010. For comparison, US citizens made only 37 million outbound air travel trips during the whole of 2010 (Source: China Ministry of Public Security, July 2011; Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, September 2011). And that’s just the beginning: The World Tourism Organization has estimated that the total number of outbound tourists from China will reach 100 million by 2020.

- In July 2011, Hilton Hotels Worldwide created a service targeting Chinese travelers. Called “Hilton Huanying” (Mandarin for “welcome”), the program is available at 30 Hilton hotels across the world, and offers tailored assistance for Chinese guests, including check-in in their native language and in-room facilities such as Chinese tea and television channels, as well as slippers and a welcome letter in Mandarin. There’s also a breakfast buffet available, with congee, dim sum and fried noodles on the menu.

- In London, department store Harrods employs 70 Mandarin-speaking members of staff. It has also installed 75 dedicated China UnionPay points. In a similar vein, Parisian department store Printemps has a special entrance for Chinese tour groups and Chinese store maps.

-Australia has committed USD 30 million over three years to market the country as a luxury destination for wealthy Chinese tourists. The Australian tourism board has taken its marketing campaign to 13 cities in the mainland so far, with hopes of expanding to more than 30 cities by 2020.
All visuals from Shanghai Tang 2012 Campaign
trendwatching.com is an independent and opinionated trend firm, scanning the globe for the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas.

ART TREND: Museum Fashion Exhibits
When we set out to tell the story of 2011 by the numbers, one loomed especially large: 661,509, the record-breaking number of visitors who lined up, often for hours at a time, to see the Costume Institute’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Met. But it wasn’t just a banner year for the Met and the late, great McQueen; designers and museums forged a strong bond this year, one that looks likely to continue well into the next. Museums across the globe invited designers into their halls and the results have made for some of the best exhibitions in memory.

During Couture week, Hussein Chalayan opened a retrospective at Paris’ Musée des Arts Decoratifs, where next year, Marc Jacobs and his work for Louis Vuitton will take up residence. The City of Light also played host to Ralph Lauren and his collection of automobiles (it also now boasts an enormous new RL store and restaurant, one of the town’s new favorite spots for burgers). And Florence is the new home of the Museo Gucci, opened during Milan’s Spring 2012 week with all due fanfare, and a Blondie performance to boot.

In America, socials flocked to San Francisco for the opening of Balenciaga and Spain (which also traveled to New York) and to Dallas for The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, which debuted earlier this year at Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts. Just this month, Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte opened RODARTE: Fra Angelico, a show of the dresses their created for their June presentation at Pitti, at L.A.’s LACMA.

Farther afield, Dior went to Russia, and the Netherlands continues to be a slightly off-the-radar destination for fashion’s cultural tourists. A retrospective of the work of Azzedine Alaïa is now on view in Gronningen, outside Amsterdam, and the capital’s contemporary-photo museum, FOAM, which hosted the likes of Jefferson Hack for a panel on What’s Next, which followed a retrospective of work by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin—one which eventually became the germ of their new career-spanning anthology, Pretty Much Everything.

Here in New York, the more traditional homes of fashion, like FIT’s Fashion Museum, were busy, too. The museum recently opened the first part of The Great Designers, including Armani, Dior, Givenchy, and McQueen, and plans to open part two in March. Chief curator and museum director Valerie Steele also worked with clotheshorse and collector Daphne Guinness on an exhibition of her own holdings—which, it turns out, Guinness keeps organized via computer database.

Next year, all eyes will be on Miuccia Prada for the next Costume Institute exhibition, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada on Fashion. But before then, there’s a Louboutin retrospective in London to look forward to, on the heels of the shoemaker’s victory-lap 20th anniversary year. And WWD reports that several fashion labels are taking a renewed interest in their own histories, too. Balmain is ramping up its archival holdings, and Chloé recently brought on an in-house archivist, in anticipation of a retrospective planned for its 60th anniversary next year.
From Style.com

In both fashion and home furnishings a strong theme is emerging for Fall 2012, once again Asia acts as inspiration, specifically chinoiserie prints, silk materials and kimono shapes.

In a recent Apparel Insiders’ article, Pierre-Françoise Le Louët, president of Paris-based Nelly Rodi talked about a fall trend called cabinet de curiousités inspired by the idea of a woman visiting an Asiatic flea market. “She will find her inspiration in Paul Poiret’s creations, with, notably, some kimono coats,” says Le Louët. “She’ll mix it with jacquards, silk and gold embroideries. A very refined theme, also interpretable in a more Japanese version.” This theme blends two decades: the 1930s and the 1970s. The latter brings Biba’s influential designs and Yves Saint Laurent’s masculine line, drawn in velvet, to the fore, while the 1930s mood is envisioned with pajamas and peignoirs, or voluminous coats with dropped waists.”
For more China Chic Pre-Fall 2012 looks, visit Trend I-Spy, the official blog of Hall Five.

Zac Posen

As the Pre- Fall shows for 2012 continue a new key item emerges, the matching two piece suit, often with a boxy jacket and short skirt or skinny pant.

Oscar de la Renta

Diane von Furstenburg

Proenza Schouler

Carolina Herrera

Pringle of Scotland

COLOR TREND: Pantone 17-1463 Tangerine Tango
The 2011 color of the year, PANTONE 18-2120 Honeysuckle, encouraged us to face everyday troubles with verve and vigor. Tangerine Tango, a spirited reddish orange, continues to provide the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward.
“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

Over the past several years, orange has grown in popularity and acceptance among designers and consumers alike. A provocative attention-getter, Tangerine Tango is especially appealing in men’s and women’s fashion. Fashion designers featured in the PANTONE Fashion Color Report Spring 2012, including Tommy Hilfiger, Nanette Lepore, Cynthia Steffe by Shaun Kearney, Elie Tahari and Adrienne Vittadini, are incorporating this attractive orange into their spring collections. A fun, lively take on a traditional autumnal hue, Tangerine Tango will surely carry through to fall fashion as well.

A winner in cosmetics because of its versatility, Tangerine Tango is a bit exotic, but in a very friendly, non-threatening way. Add a sultry flair to lips, cheeks and nails with Tangerine Tango. An unexpected eye shadow color, Tangerine Tango is a complementary opposite that flatters blue or green eyes. When paired with brown eyes, it brings out an amber cast.

Energize interior spaces with Tangerine Tango patterned home accessories. Pillows, bedspreads and tabletop accessories in this high-impact hue add spice to any room. Or incorporate Tangerine Tango appliances and personal electronics for an unexpected pop of color. Looking for an inexpensive way to perk up your home? Paint a wall in Tangerine Tango for a dynamic burst of energy in the kitchen, entryway or hallway.
L-R: Charlotte Ronson; Elie Tahari; Nanette Lapore
From Pantone

Erdem Pre-Fall 2012

Caitlin Wilson Design

Scarlet Opus

INTERIOR DESIGN TREND: Defend & Destroy
A strong up-and-coming interior design trend has been identified by UK-based trend forecasting agency Scarlet Opus .
‘Defend & Destroy’ is a blackened, contorted, manipulated trend.  As we deal with the after-effects of the widespread recession right into 2012, our distresses and trepidation play out in full scale in our interior choices. 

Products appear mutated and distorted through crushing, burning, melting, and stretching, reflecting the transformation we are dealing with.  Surfaces are scratched, warped and the focus shifts to heavier materials.  Cast iron, burnt wood, leather, and resin give us the grounding for ‘Defend & Destroy’; a darkened vision of our future.  With an other-worldly aura, this trend takes us into the shadows and dances with our fears.  Black makes a statement and the trend directs us away from all the “wham-bam-glam” of yesteryear.  Metals are scorched, blackened, melted, oxidised.
Net Z33 from design collective Numen/For Use fits perfectly into this darker trend. 

As you climb through the suspended nets there is a feeling of entrapment as you levitate above other users; the nets literally ensnare you.  Although based on flamenco dancing, the public space by Cheng Gong and Jinming Feng drips like oil onto the ground.
The recent Cloud Cities exhibition in Berlin by Tomas Saraceno gives you the impression of walking on air and the domes themselves are strangely twisted and warped, a web like structure.

For more information about this and other Scarlet Opus interior design trends go to the website

FASHION BLOGGING TREND: A Host of Brazil Fashion Friends When Alice Ferraz’s seat was changed to make way for a blogger at the Calvin Klein show in New York four years ago, she had a light-bulb moment. The result was F*Hits.com.br a blogging platform introduced in February that now is host to 26 Brazilian fashion bloggers and attracts more than 3.5 million unique viewers a month — already twice the audience of well-established Web sites like Marie Claire Brazil. F*Hits did take time to grow, said Ms. Ferraz, founder of Ferraz Moda, based in São Paulo and the first luxury fashion brands agency in Brazil. At first the country’s Internet infrastructure was still developing and not enough Brazilians were online; then she had to find the right bloggers. Now, she says, the writers are becoming a blend of educators and trendsetters for Brazil’s rising middle class.

“Even Chanel nail polish did not exist in Brazil until a year ago. So now the girls are explaining why it is better than the local Colorama nail polish that chips after one day,” Ms. Ferraz said. “They are blogging about Louis Vuitton and the most luxury-minded girls are talking about Céline. They are acting as taste makers and teaching their readers about these brands — but in a very natural, friendly way.” Each blog uses the site’s basic template, but content is personal and diverse, including fashion show reviews, posts about outfits, street-style snapshots, trend reports and make-up tutorials. So far all the bloggers write in Portuguese but some of the sites say English versions are coming soon. The concept of a blogging community is not limited to Brazil. The Swedish blogger Elin Kling introduced nowmanifest.com earlier this year as the host for her own site, Stylebykling, and a stellar cast of international bloggers including Rumi Neely of Fashion Toast and Bryanboy, the online name of Bryan Yambao. In Brazil, Ms. Ferraz said, the biggest challenge actually came from the local industry. “I have worked for a long time with fashion journalists and creative directors and they all were against my idea for F*Hits. But then, after a few months, everyone thought it was genius,” she said.

The Internet’s explosive growth in Brazil has now attracted about 40 percent of its 190 million citizens, and Ms. Ferraz sees great potential for F*Hits beyond the cosmopolitan cities of São Paulo, Rio De Janeiro and Brasília. So her bloggers range from a “gaucha” in Porto Alegre who once worked in public relations and now posts pictures of herself modeling local fashions on the beach to a former Elle magazine employee based in São Paulo who produces trend reports and product recommendations.
Ms. Ferraz also has her own popular blog, a journal recording the fashionable events she attends, her daily outfits and wardrobe inspirations.

F*Hits bloggers “role-play the glamorous girlfriend who gives you her take on the fashion trends and events,” said Irena Menk, art editor at Elle Brazil. Compared with foreign blogs, she said, “they imprint a more personal viewpoint of what’s happening in fashion and have an easygoing and friendly approach, which is a very Brazilian personality trait.”

And, Ms. Menk added, “like the top style foreign blogs, because of their growing popularity, they have an impact marketwise.”
While Brazil now represents only a little more than 1 percent of the global luxury market, its growth rate in 2010 was estimated at 11 percent, outpacing several more established markets. And fashion bloggers are proving their effect on the bottom line: a recent report from the Italian luxury foundation Altagamma said they would help propel online sales of designer goods to more than €11 billion, or $15 billion, in 2015.

Ms. Ferraz employs a business team of 20 at F*Hits, including a marketing manager and director and eight salespeople. Revenue from clients like Swatch, Tiffany and the Brazilian footwear label Corello are divided equally between the blogger and F*Hits, Ms. Ferraz said, but she declined to disclose specific figures. However, one of the bloggers, Bia Perotti, who writes Achados da Bia, said revenues had increased quickly.

“Alice Ferraz was visionary when she had this idea of gathering blogs to work as a team without losing their identities,” Ms. Perotti wrote in an e-mail. Ms. Ferraz said she saw herself as a mentor: “You can’t expect only advertising from joining a platform. You expect content ideas, knowledge, introductions.” For example, she organized a blogger event during São Paulo Fashion Week in June, arranged for them to get free one-year passes to WGSN’s trend forecasting service and accompanied 15 bloggers on a visit to London Fashion Week in September.

To be retained, a blogger has to post twice a day and attract more than 10,000 hits a day. Ms. Ferraz said she already had to terminate a few contracts, adding, “I don’t want half-hearted bloggers on F*Hits.”
Besides, she has a waiting list of 520 people eager to join.
From The New York Times
By Fiona Mackay

The New Midi by Chris Francini and Paula Martins

FASHION TREND: Modern Sensibility and Craft
We have at the moment a strong crowd of designers not merely believing in clothes with a modern attitude but also showing us what they mean — and without turning craft into some fetishistic pile of stuff that no intelligent person would consider wanting for a second. I include in the group Raf Simons, Stella McCartney, Alber Elbaz, Rick Owens, Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, Miuccia Prada, the Proenza Schouler boys, Phoebe Philo, Thomas Tait, Narciso Rodriguez, Christopher Kane and Olivier Theyskens (thanks to the insight of Andrew Rosen at Theory).

Proenza Schouler

Well, that’s a very healthy list. Who could want for more? You see taste and modern sensibility and craft being measured in a lot of interesting ways. I finally had a chance to look at Barneys’ new series of catalogs, produced by its creative director Dennis Freedman with photographers like Nathaniel Goldberg, Juergen Teller and Ilan Rubin (an accessories catalog called “Arm Candy” — crazy about it), and I like the directness and the diversity of personalities. It’s not labored. And the brown-paper binding, similar to the way Bruce Weber does his photo books, is appealing.

On Thursday, when I went to see Jeff Rudes, the founder of J Brand, and the company’s first ready-to-wear line, I was prepared to be skeptical. Who needs another contemporary-priced blazer and pair of chinos? Well, give the collection your eye when it starts appearing in stores in December. Donald Oliver, the creative director, has done a great job incorporating useful elements of quality (nice linings, say, and Japanese fabrics) into garments like notched-lapel jackets and cool sweatshirts done in black leather or a linen-cotton blend.

Finally, get your mitts on the fall/winter edition of Bon magazine, which is produced out of Stockholm and London, and edited by the brainy Madelaine Levy. She, too, is not interested in seeing craft turned into weird consumerist fluff for p.r. people to pour nonsense over. The issue contains a lively round-table chat with Ms. Levy and several editors, and I loved the smart piece by Laird Persson about Giorgio Armani’s enduring influence, with photographs from his advertising campaigns over the last 20 years.

There’s lots of other great stuff to read in Bon, but I leave you with this thought from the round-table chat. Ms. Levy observed: “I find it difficult to shop. I know too much, somehow. I know too much about what amazing things I could buy if I put even money into buying something. And I also know too much, from the shows and the re-sees, about how things will look next season. I already want them, so I can’t find the things I want to wear now. And I also know, perhaps, a bit too much about how ephemeral it all is …”
From The New York Times
By Cathy Horyn

DENIM TREND: Customized Jeans
Walk into 3×1, a new boutique in Manhattan’s Soho launched in August, and you may discover a team of pattern-makers, sewers and designers, all wearing pristine white lab coats, putting together a pair of jeans right in the middle of the store. Part atelier, part retailer, 3×1 offers limited-edition jeans sewn on site for $295 to $475. But for customers who want something truly special, it also offers a step-up: the chance to customize or even create their own pair of jeans from scratch. The price: $500 to tweak an existing style to $1,200 to for the full-on made-to-measure, bespoke process.

“I always wanted to show people the craft and beauty behind a pair of jeans — the stuff that got me so passionate about it in the first place,” says 3×1 founder Scott Morrison, the 39-year-old fashion entrepreneur largely credited with introducing luxury denim to the U.S. with Paper, Denim, Cloth and then Earnest Sewn. “I wanted to bring them into the production process.”

He’s not alone. From couture veteran Mychael Darwin, who started a bespoke denim business when his wife couldn’t find a pair of jeans that flattered her curves, to Brooklyn’s Loren Cronk, who crafts custom jeans by hand in the back of his tiny retail space, small designers are beginning to cater to a wealthy and underserved client base willing to plunk down between $500 and $10,000 for denim slacks done just right.
“I once had a woman client who wanted me to make her a complete denim and leather outfit,” says Darwin, whose jeans are a favorite among the Hollywood A-list. “She wanted sterling silver buttons, and she wanted her name engraved on all the buttons. She wanted really expensive Japanese denim. The whole thing cost her $15,000.” He starts chuckling. “But, hey, she could afford it.”

Suffice it to say, most bespoke denim clients aren’t spending more than $10,000 for flashy slacks adorned with monogrammed hardware or Swarovski crystals or intricate embroidery. “There are two main consumers for custom denim,” Michael Williams, a brand consultant and the founder and editor of menswear site A Continuous Lean. “One is the really big, tall guy who has trouble fitting into normal sizes. The other is the super discerning customer who wants to be unique, who wants things to fit perfectly, who wants something special.”

Take Jon Platt, a 45-year-old executive at EMI Music Publishing who measures over 6’6″. “I like nice things, but I don’t even bother going to most stores because it’s a waste of time,” he tells me over the phone. “I just end up going to Big & Tall, and I hate that.” When one of Platt’s employees told him about 3×1, the beefy music publisher rushed to make a bespoke appointment. That was about three months ago; he now owns 13 pairs. “These jeans are freakin’ amazing,” he says. “I feel like a kid again whenever I get a new pair.”

If fit is part of the appeal, so is the craftsmanship. That’s why Andrew Kozusko, a 37-year-old pharmaceutical patent lawyer based in Pittsburgh, visited Loren Cronk’s studio after he read an article about him. “I was immediately drawn to the custom nature [of his business],” he says. “I try to support artisans any way I can — whether it’s in the wine industry or in clothing. I like those lost arts.”
Cronk, who also designs three lines of ready-to-wear jeans, attributes the interest in handmade, special-order jeans to a growing malaise toward mass-produced goods. “People have a hunger for authenticity, for things that are locally made and unique and special,” says the designer.
Morrison agrees. “There’s something romantic and relevant about the idea of knowing where your money is going.”

But for these denim designers, bespoke still constitutes a tiny fraction of their businesses — labors of love rather than big moneymakers. “You just can’t do custom full-time,” says Los Angeles-based Karl Thoennessen, whose clients have included Kanye West and whose label Rogue Territory also offers ready-to-wear raw-denim jeans. “It’s not sustainable; you don’t stay in business with a customer who only wants one pair of jeans.”
Yet the love of the craft, and the process, inspires them to continue their specialty services. “I love seeing people’s eyes light up when you ask them what color thread they want for their back pocket,” says Thoennessen.
“On the inside of my jeans, it says 1 of 1,” boasts Platt. “The first and only one in an edition of one. I like that. And in my business, I always gotta keep it fresh.”
From Forbes

HOME TREND: STARK WHITE OBJETS Now in its fifth year, The Pavilion of Art & Design London gathers the most exclusive European galleries under one large, pink tent in Berkeley Square to show their beautiful objets d’art and design as part of the ever-growing London art week with P.A.Dserving as a more boutique-like alternative to the nearby behemoth Frieze Art Fair. This year, we went on a quest to pick out the most striking contemporary works from the 20th-century art and furniture collections. Five very different works grabbed our attention, united by their minimal white expression. Sandra Davolio‘s beautifully-delicate white porcelain vessels (shown above) were the standout at the Modernity Gallery. Created by an Italian ceramicist living in Denmark, the pieces combine typically-Scandinavian aesthetic restraint with the floral Italian character of spiraling petals.

Also distinctly playful is Beth Katleman‘s dramatic “Folly” (2010). Fifty suspended white porcelain sculptures throwing shadows across a turquoise backdrop come together as a kind of 3D wallpaper installation, which Katleman describes as a contemporary interpretation of traditional 18th-century Toile de Jouy fabrics.

For more of this story go to Coolhunting.com

ART TREND: Yarn Bombing A big thank you goes out to Hall Five members, Victoria Redshaw and Phil Pond of Scarlet Opus for introducing me to “Yarn Bombing” – Phil writes,
” I (recently) became aware of “Yarn Bombing” – the act of making and installing knitted and crocheted pieces in public places, and began to appreciate it as an emerging Street Art. Also known as Knit & crochet graffiti, this guerrilla practice started in the USA, but gradually spread to become an international movement with wonderfully woolly installations creeping their way around parking meters, benches and statues across the world. My favoured source for keeping up-to-date on these joyful projects is Mandy Moore & Leanne Prain’s blog Yarn Bombing which provides comprehensive and passionate coverage of the work of Guerrilla Knitters.
Unusually Yarn Bombing is a predominantly female-dominated Street Art, bringing a refreshing injection of colour, softness and femininity to the hard, grey, masculine aesthetic of our cities. Mandy agrees that “the juxtaposition of soft, impermanent, handmade objects with the hard, impersonal urban landscape is striking, and inspires people in such a variety of ways! Some crafters seem affronted by the idea of using your time and skill to make something, and then abandoning it to an uncertain fate; we feel that it offers unique opportunities for artistic expression!”

Mandy and Leanne have been fans of yarn bombing since they first heard about it, but it wasn’t until they began writing their first book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffitiin 2009 that they started actively yarn bombing themselves – “We don’t do a lot of it, but it is so fun and rewarding when we do!” There is no coherent yarn bombing manifesto or agenda. Different groups do it for different reasons; to elevate the perception of needlecrafts, as an exciting secret hobby and Mandy believes “many bombers simply do it to delight themselves and others!”

The New York Times ran a comprehensive article about yarn-bombing in May 2011, Graffitti’s cosy, feminine side. The accompanying image happens to be very timely now as it was of the Wall Street bull shrouded in a pink and blue camouflaged cover made of crochet. The work is attributed to Agata Oleksiak, 33 who has been enshrouding humans, bicycles and swimming pools in neon-colored crochet since 2003. She told The Times,
“I don’t yarn bomb, I make art,” Olek, as she prefers to be called, blanketed the “Charging Bull” statue near Wall Street in a pink and purple cozy, and uploaded a video of it to YouTube. “If someone calls my bull a yarn bomb, I get really upset,”

POLITICAL TREND: OCCUPY WALL STREET GOES GLOBAL More than 950 demonstrations against the global financial system and corporate greed have been held in more than 80 countries around the world. Inspired by the huge rallies organised by 15-M movement in Spain and more recently Occupy Wall Street, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets from as far afield as Seoul and Rome. In New York Occupy Wall Street protesters have renewed their protests following celebrations after a planned “clean-up” of their camp in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan was called off.

In London about 1,000 protesters massed outside St Paul’s Cathedral in a bid to occupy the London Stock Exchange in the nearby Paternoster Square. But the square was closed off by police and private security and the demonstration remained focused on the steps around the cathedral after attempts to enter failed. Police moved in to contain the crowd and two people were arrested for assaults on officers.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange addressed the crowd on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. He attacked a greedy and corrupt financial and political system that had united individuals from Cairo to London.

Adam Gabbatt writes: Protesters here in New York have been remarking on how the protests have spread to London and other places. 18-year-old Ethan McGarry, who had travelled down from Boston for the day. He said it was “fantastic” how the occupy movement had spread to the UK and elsewhere. “People identify with us, then hey will find reasons in their own community for action.” Lauren Zygmont had travelled from the Occupy Denver protest to New York a week ago ago. “Borders don’t matter at all,” she said. “Were all human beings, were all in this together. This is a global movement.”

Dave Bonan, who was at OWS on day one, said it was “a little surreal” that the protest had spread. “I didn’t expect it to last more than 15 mins,” he said. “The fact it lasted more than a day inspired people all over the world to capitalise - no pun intended - on our success.”
Bonan said the movement had spread because “folks are angrier, their wallets are getting hit now”. Asked if he had a message for protesters elsewhere in the world, he said: “Decentralized movements are more effective than movements with leaders.” He added: “It’s good to have our brothers and sisters involved.”

Jon Villada, an unemployed 24-year-old from Bilbao, Spain, and a member of the Spanish 15-M protest initiative, said: “For the 15-M movement our main objective is to make politicians understand that they have been elected to govern for us, not for multinationals, markets, financial agents or whatever. This protest is more global, there is people from all around the world and they have focused on financial institutions and powers.”
From The Guardian

RUNWAY FASHION TREND: No Sombre Mood in Paris
Ending a month-long marathon of fashion shows which started in New York, fashion critics said the mood on the catwalk was upbeat and relaxed - in contrast with the gloomy media headlines they read in the papers while waiting for the show to begin.
“I find this spring/summer season to be much lighter and uplifting than the others,” said Linda Fargo, senior vice-president in charge of fashion at Bergdorf Goodman.
“Some of the clothes literally seem to float.”

Hermes Spring 2012

Stella McCartney Spring 2012

Lanvin Spring 2012

Christian Dior Spring 2012

At Hermes, the trend expressed itself with wide, long white, ochre and orange tunics while at Stella McCartney, the theme was a chic pyjama party with loose-fitting pant suits and shorts, with flat sandals or nude shoes. At Valentino, specialist in extra-high stilettos, models this time strutted in flat sandals as they presented delicate candy pink Chantilly-lace dresses. Inspired by the aquatic world, Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel produced a relatively easy-to-wear collection ornamented with pearls, seashells and printed waves in Paris’ cavernous Grand Palais, transformed into a giant seabed for the occasion.
Chanel, Valentino but also Lanvin and Christian Dior made much use of feather-light, flowing materials such as organza, tulle and silk to make dresses look weightless.

Valentino Spring 2012

Chanel Spring 2012

“Transparencies, with ultra-light and sheer fabrications, were prevalent, lending a romantic mood to the season,” said Colleen Sherin, Senior Fashion Director at Saks Fifth Avenue.
Sea colours such as coral and turquoise dominated the palette at brands such as Emanuel Ungaro, Christian Dior and Chanel.
But there were also surprising touches of autumn colours such as ochre, light purple and Celadon green at brands such as Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Haider Ackermann. Overall, fashion critics said Paris Fashion Week was so infused with positive energy, it was hard to believe a global crisis was brewing.

Haider Ackermann Spring 2012

“As much as media is painting a picture of unrest, it is not influencing customers yet,” said Ken Downing, Fashion Director at Neiman Marcus.
Reuters
By Astrid Wendlandt

FASHION BLOG TREND: Fashion Bloggers, Posted and Represented

Lindsey Calla, the 27-year-old behind the fashion blog Saucy Glossie, sat in a Midtown cafe one recent afternoon and offered a guiding career principle: “You should work and make money.”
Simple enough. But for fashion bloggers like Ms. Calla, the two haven’t always gone hand in hand. When she started her blog two years ago, featuring photos of herself wearing clothes from inexpensive labels, or what she calls “style on a real-girl budget,” numerous brands asked Ms. Calla to model for them, do styling work or host events — without pay.
“Anybody that renders their services wants to be compensated,” Ms. Calla said. But she was “so afraid to talk about money because I didn’t want to ruin any relationships,” she added.

These days, Ms. Calla has someone to do the talking for her. Last year, she signed with Digital Brand Architects, a new agency in New York that represents fashion and lifestyle bloggers, brokering endorsement deals with fashion labels, signing up advertisers and, in some cases, booking lucrative television commercials. “If somebody else is handling the negotiation, you’re left to do the creative stuff,” Ms. Calla said.

The advent of agents who specialize in fashion bloggers points to the evolving influence of blogs. Once considered fashion-obsessed amateurs, style bloggers have matured into tastemakers and savvy marketers who can command four- and five-figure fees from brands. Even mainstream agencies are joining the action. This spring, the popular blogger Bryanboy signed with Creative Artists Agency, a Hollywood firm better known for representing A-list actors like George Clooney.

For its part, Digital Brand Architects is trying to position bloggers in the same category as stylists, makeup artists and photographers. “Bloggers aren’t just people who sit in a room and regurgitate press releases,” said Karen Robinovitz, who started the agency in August 2010 with Kendra Bracken-Ferguson, the former director of digital media for Ralph Lauren. “These are the next influencers.” The agency, which represents about 50 bloggers who publish sites like The Glamourai and Bag Snob, operates out of a small office in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Like any talent agency, it takes a cut of its clients’ earnings, in this case 15 percent.

“We really approach this from the perspective that a literary agent would with an author,” Ms. Robinovitz said. “We’re focused on their talent.”

Before starting the agency, Ms. Robinovitz, 39, had no experience managing careers, other than her own. She was a freelance writer for many years (including, for a brief time, The New York Times) and is an author of the book “How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less.” She also started a beauty line, Purple Lab, that never quite took off.

But her clients, who are mostly young and female, say that Ms. Robinovitz knows about social media and is a strong advocate. “Karen is great at being able to build relationships with brands that I truly love,” said Kelly Framel, 28, who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and started her blog, The Glamourai, three years ago while working as a designer for Naeem Khan.

The blog is a showcase for her personal style, her model good looks and a seemingly jet-set life (a recent post was sent from Milan Fashion Week). Since signing with the agency, she has been hired by L’Oreal to create looks inspired by a Ralph Lauren fragrance and has designed a razor for Schick that will come out next year.

Meanwhile, Ms. Calla of Saucy Glossie is branching into on-camera work. “I sat down with Karen a year ago, almost to the day, and she said, ‘What’s your dream project?’ and I said, ‘I want to be in a T .J. Maxx commercial,’” Ms. Calla recalled. She’s now starring in a national television spot for the retailer as the new “Maxxinista,” a role that features Ms. Calla giving shopping tips based on her blog. Ms. Calla declined to say how much she was paid, but added: “It’s probably the same that anybody would get paid for a commercial. I don’t think they thought, ‘Oh, we’re getting a blogger cheaply.’ ”

Until recently, fashion bloggers were paid with free merchandise, if they were paid at all. But that started to change as their influence grew. Now fashion bloggers are “right up there with editors in helping to mold what the consumer is going to buy,” said Alexis Borges, director of Next Model Management, an international modeling agency. Next has signed 11 style bloggers, including Rumi Neely of the blog Fashiontoast, in addition to its stable of traditional fashion models. “It’s definitely a growing division,” Mr. Borges said. “We’re treating bloggers as the next generation of people who will be used for advertising.”

It’s not just advertising. Fashion bloggers today can earn money by writing sponsored posts, selling ad space on their sites, working as brand ambassadors, making personal appearances and creating design collaborations. Indeed, seemingly every fashion brand is working with bloggers these days, including mainstream brands like the Gap (which featured the avant-garde-leaning Susie Bubble in a campaign), DKNY (which hired the photo blogger Jamie Beck to shoot behind the scenes at its recent runway show) and Sunglass Hut (which held a heavily promoted contest for a full-time blogger).

But deciding which opportunities to accept can be tricky for bloggers, who risk overexposure and being seen as a corporate shill. A blogger’s influence is derived from independence. “I have a responsibility to my readers that everything I publish, even when I’m working with a brand, is still genuine and my taste,” said Ms. Framel, who said that she recently turned down “a really big contract” because the brand wanted to dictate what she would post.

IN this confusing new landscape, an agent can help avoid pitfalls. Still, bloggers may price themselves out of jobs by signing with an agency like Digital Brand Architects. And Ms. Robinovitz’s enthusiasm on behalf of her clients (she believes that in 15 years people will discuss Ms. Beck’s photos “the way they are talking about Irving Penn”) may come across as pushy to some brands.
Perhaps that’s why some bloggers remain agent-free. Rebecca Stice, 24, who writes The Clothes Horse, a blog where she posts looks of herself in pastoral settings near Fort Eustis, Va., likes the autonomy of working alone. She believes she can tell when bloggers are represented by the same agent or network because “they all post about the same purse around the same time.”

Yuli Ziv, who founded the Style Coalition, a network of bloggers who signed an advertising partnership with Elle magazine, said that representing yourself provides a learning opportunity. “Frankly, I think there are only a few people at the stage where they can use an agent,” said Ms. Ziv, who recently self-published an advice book, Blogging Your Way to the Front Row, aimed at fashion bloggers. “The industry is so young.”

Indeed, many fashion companies still treat bloggers as little more than style-obsessed young women looking for swag. They are used to working with bloggers directly, not through their agents. “From a brand perspective, it is quite troubling to now get pushback from a blogger who says they want to be paid,” said Ms. Bracken-Ferguson.

On the other extreme are bloggers with an inflated sense of worth. In February, Macala Wright, a digital marketing consultant in Los Angeles, said she invited several bloggers to appear on a panel at Magic, a fashion trade show in Las Vegas. She had a modest travel allowance from the sponsor, but one blogger represented by an agency “wanted a first-class flight, hotel, five grand a day for three days — and an extra day to recover from the flight,” she said. Ms. Wright went with someone else and is still shocked by the sense of entitlement. “Just because you have 15,000 followers on Twitter,” she said, “doesn’t equate to Anne Hathaway showing up.”
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
By STEVEN KURUTZ

RUNWAY FASHION TREND: Balenciaga’s Broad Shoulders
A standing ticket at a fashion show can be read as a gilt-edge, calligraphy-inked slap in the face. But a trio of benches that collapsed before the Balenciaga show made the usual strategic planning as to which guest would have what seat redundant, with front-row guests including high priestess of Parisian fashion Carine Roitfeld, the actor Catherine Deneuve and celebrity snapper Mario Testino forced to view the collection standing up. The catwalk sets at Balenciaga are precision planned and often give a clue as to the direction the show will take. This one, pre “Bench-gate” as the twittersphere quickly dubbed the event, featured a highly polished parquet effect floor and some sleek black shiny benches which belied their precariousness.

Before the show started the benches began to collapse (presumably not under the weight of the guests) and the usually unflappable Balenciaga staff announced that everyone would have to stand for health and safety reasons. As a result, the scene resembled less a catwalk crowd, more an exceptionally well-dressed church congregation. Once the show started normal fashion service resumed. Creative director Nicolas Ghesquière, who has been at the helm of the much-lauded house since 1997, is known for his twin passions of futurism and investigating the Balenciaga archive. This show betrayed both those fascinations.

At the heart of the collection there were boxy, thick Shantung-silk jackets in blocks of colour that had a sporty and sci-fi feel. Sporty may seem like an odd description for a spectacularly luxe silk jacket cut in a Parisian atelier but Ghesquière regularly pulls off this sartorial stunt. These were worn with ultra short and stiffened silk running shorts. Trousers were super slim: denim at the front and twill at the back. A scarf print which resembled a Picasso sketch appeared on broad-shouldered silk shirts.

As the show progressed skirts became longer and fuller and were worn with a hybrid prairie-hat-cum-wimple, an accessory which sounds as strange as it looks. But given Ghesquière’s track record of creating cult accessories it can’t yet be dismissed as catwalk frippery.

Backstage after the show the designer said he was “interested in the architecture of silk”. This couture-driven pursuit won’t be what drips down the fashion food chain in the coming weeks. But it is likely that when the rest of the industry figures out what to make of Balenciaga’s perennially hard-to-describe clothes they might come up with broad shoulders and sporty shorts as potential take-home themes.
From The Guardian

From Imogen Fox

RUNWAY FASHION TREND: Milan Accessory Report
Just as the clothes were shiny, bright and full optimism in Milan, the accessories too were sparkly and colorful, like the gold heels at Gucci, and the silver-trimmed wedges at Bottega Veneta. At Versace, the platform shoes were either shiny and gleaming or transparent.

Versace

At Missoni, the sandals are more about color with ankle straps embellished with floral appliqués. And Prada’s heels took the shape of engine bursts, the kind of motif seen in drag races. Tod’s via Derek Lam glammed up its driving shoe by covering in beads and crystals.

Prada

Clutches remain a strong trend as seen at Gucci where they were small and diminutive, and at Salvatore Ferragamo where the clutch bags with wrist straps came in candy colors. Karl Lagerfeld at Fendi created a bucket bag of sorts, leather on the outside with a cloth drawstring interior.

Ferragamo

Fendi

Other notable accessories are stacked bangles like those at Bottega Veneta and Marni, floppy hats as seen at Giorgio Armani, and drop earrings at Prada.

Armani

Prada
From Forbes.com
By Blue Carreon

POLITICAL TREND: Saudi Arabia Gives Women Right to Vote.  King Abdullah, 87, announces a ‘cautious reform’ which will allow women the right to vote and stand for election. Saudi Arabia gives women right to vote
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has said women will have the right to stand and vote in future local elections and join the advisory Shura council as full members. “Because we refuse to marginalise women in society in all roles that comply with sharia, we have decided, after deliberation with our senior ulama [clerics] and others … to involve women in the Shura council as members, starting from the next term,” Abdullah, 87, said in a speech. “Women will be able to run as candidates in the municipal election and will even have a right to vote,” he added. Liberal activists in the country have long called for greater rights for women, who are barred from travelling, working or having medical operations without the permission of a male relative and are forbidden from driving. The changes will come after elections on Thursday, in which women are barred from voting or standing for office.

“This is great news,” said Wajeha al-Huwaider, a Saudi writer and women’s rights activist. “Women’s voices will finally be heard.
“Now it is time to remove other barriers like not allowing women to drive cars and not being able to function, to live a normal life without male guardians.” The king did not address the issue of women being allowed to drive. Although there is no written law against women driving, they are not issued licences, effectively banning the practice. A campaign this summer by women who broke Saudi law by driving on the kingdom’s city streets prompted some arrests. Women in Saudi Arabia must also have written approval from a male guardian - a father, husband, brother or son - to leave the country, work or even undergo certain medical operations.

Activists in the country have long called for greater rights for women. Ruled by an absolute monarchy supported by conservative Wahhabi clerics, Saudi Arabia is a conservative country where religious police patrol the streets to ensure public segregation between men and women. King Abdullah has long been pushing cautious political reforms, but in a country where conservative clerics and senior members of the ruling family oppose even minor changes, liberalisation has been very gradual.
Despite calls on social media for widespread protests in Saudi Arabia during the Arab Spring pro-democracy protests in the Middle East and north Africa, the only noteworthy demonstrations were confined to the country’s east, which is home to the country’s Shia minority. Saudi Arabia will hold only its second nationwide elections in recent memory on Thursday for seats on local councils, but critics of the ruling al-Saud family say the poll, in which voting is limited to men, is a charade.

Supporters of the absolute monarchy say the elections are designed to give Saudis a greater say in politics, but critics point out that the elections are for only half the seats on councils that have few powers. The Shura council, which vets legislation but cannot veto it or enforce changes, is fully appointed by the king. “Despite the issue of the effectiveness of these councils, women’s involvement in them was necessary. Maybe after women join there will be other changes,” said Naila Attar, who organised the Baladi (Arabic for My Country) campaign calling for women’s involvement in the local council elections.
“I believe this is a step to involve women in the public sphere. It is the top of the pyramid and a step in the direction for more decisions regarding women.”

From The Guardian

RUNWAY FASHION TREND: London is the Capital of Print
As British design talent embraces bright colours and pattern, London is emerging as a leader in the use of print.
London’s reputation as the home of bonkers fashion may be on the slide. After a week in which British design talent has embraced bright colour and pattern, the capital of print might be a more accurate description.

Basso & Brooke

At Mary Katrantzou’s show, it become clear that London, more than any other of the fashion cities, – New York, Paris, Milan – now owns print. Throughout the week many of London’s most talented designers, including Jonathan Saunders and Peter Pilotto, produced heavily printed collections. Even the trenchcoat maestros Burberry featured bold African prints. Katrantzou is not a name that is well known away from the bubble of the fashion industry, but the Greek-born designer is already hugely influential even though her label is just three years old. Despite never wearing anything other than black herself, Katrantzou’s collections always use explosive colour. In previous shows the designer – who once studied architecture – has used ornate interiors, Ming vases, and Fabergé eggs as inspirations, to unique effect.

Peter Pilotti

Burberry

Before the show started, it looked as if flowers, specifically carnations, were to be the basis of her explosive prints. A carpet of red, yellow and pink carnations, planted neatly in blocks of colour, dominated the centre of the catwalk. Sure enough, carnation prints that looked almost hyper-real featured in the show and were best on a beautiful stiffened trouser suit. This was not some retro flower-power suit; this was a modern piece of tailoring with a powerful and unexpected print. Other motifs that featured in the collection – some obvious, some pixellated – included fish, plumage and coral reefs. But it was not just nature that inspired the designer – industrial materials also figured in the show. The skirt of one dress was constructed from hundreds of crushed tin cans and car parts. Backstage after the show, Katrantzou commented on the American artist John Chamberlain, whose sculptures are created from crushed steel and old cars. “I wanted to make metal beautiful in the same way that flowers are,” she explained.

John Chamberlain

From The Guardian
By Imogen Fox

RUNWAY FASHION TREND: Some in Milan Play it Safe says Cathy Horyn
Total confusion seems to permeate the shows. Before Prada the other night, Anna Dello Russo, an editor known for her exotic outfits (in that instance, yellow Versace feathers), was being interviewed when the cameraman yelled the equivalent of “fire.”
“There’s Valentino!” he said, ditching Ms. Dello Russo in midsentence and rushing through the sidewalk crowd. It was someone impersonating Valentino.

But the confusion persists in the collections as well. What makes something modern? And with luxury-goods companies earning decent profits this year, thanks in part to handbags and bankable preseason lines, why don’t designers use the runway to make more daring statements, so that we in the audience might actually think and feel something? Such a reaction might in turn make people more excited about fashion instead of thinking it is mostly hype and imposters.

Without question, we can count on Miuccia Prada, Raf Simons at Jil Sander, Karl Lagerfeld at Fendi and, at times, Tomas Maier of Bottega Veneta to say something with fashion, and not just offer approachable clothes (though these designers do that, too). But there should be many more designers in Milan with that driving ambition. Otherwise, the future of fashion will be in jeopardy.

The Gucci show presented by Frida Giannini was a perfect example of this point. In its conservative styling and lackluster Art Deco motifs interspersed with animal prints and equestrian tassels, the collection seemed to stoutly reject creative leadership. Ms. Giannini offered waiter-type jackets with gold trim and chain latches, worn with pedestrian pleated pants, and low-waist dresses in emerald green and cream with more gold and a loop of fabric in the back. The finale of gold flapper dresses didn’t reveal anything new about that style.

Afterward, it was strange to hear people describe the clothes as a reprieve from fashion, as something they could imagine women wearing. But don’t these front-row observers expect more from a powerhouse like Gucci? And even if Gucci wants to aim goods at parts of the world where tastes may be more conservative than in Europe or the United States, isn’t it in Ms. Giannini’s long-term interest to lead rather than accommodate?

Ms. Prada builds so much expectation into her shows that, upon entering Prada’s industrial space, people start sniffing for clues in the colors of the canapés being served. This time the give-away was a row of large Styrofoam sports cars. Backstage, Ms. Prada said there’s an Italian saying that roughly translates to “women and engines.” To men, as the stereotype goes, both are a source of love and pain. Ms. Prada digs into that psychology, even if it means dragging along a few clichés and car parts. Nearly all of the fabrics are sweetly feminine, some (like cottage-curtain pink lace) cloyingly so. And whereas Ms. Prada’s fall clothes were somewhat structured, she has now stripped away trims and details; waistbands of pleated lace skirts are elastic. Outfits that looked like dresses are in fact separates. On the runway, the clothes had a lush late 1950s innocence that verged to a slutty small-town-ness. Some of the coats were tricked up with almost-ugly flowers, a typical Prada bit of irony, and there were car symbols, like high heels with red-tipped tail lights. The car stuff may be the fashion neutrino of 2012; a speeding blip of matter on our consciousness.

Ultimately this collection works because Ms. Prada doesn’t try to purify the sweetness — out of feminist disgust or commercial needs. It remains for her customers to play with, starting from the practical underpinning of a bodysuit with va-va-voom attitude. Put it with a skirt and go.

The demand by retailers for so-called “special” clothes — typically embellished clothes — is partly to blame for the lack of new day clothes. A lot of designers, instead of acting like designers — with ideas — have rushed to give them what they want. That’s why Mr. Lagerfeld’s Fendi show was so delightful. He dealt with day clothes almost entirely. He engineered a beautiful skirt out of a couple of pleats and a button placed at either side of the waistband. One skirt consisted of tiny strips of red and cream leather sewn on chiffon; it was paired with a nipped-waist navy jacket. He made men’s shirt stripes look fresh, turning them into a different-looking gray-and-white dress with an asymmetrical white collar, as well as blouses with ribbon strips of the same fabric as a trim detail. His knowledge of Rome and fashion came through in this collection. And he steered clear of prints. He said of digital prints, “They’re kind of lifeless.”

Veronica Etro apparently got the flapper memo. Her show on Friday was full of Jazz Age fringe and chemises. A bit newer were the lightened up Etro paisleys.

MaxMara’s desert-hued show — sand and sky — focused on speed and tailoring like a good suspense story. It withheld a lot, by design, and what you got from the cool, three-quarter-sleeve jackets in techno-cotton or the matte jersey pants was the energized body.
From The New York Times

MARKET TREND: Designer-Hungry China in Sight at LFW: Presenting luxurious cocktail dresses, white tuxedo jackets and Asian prints at his fashion show, British designer Julien Macdonald says he has a certain market in sight—China. “We’re all in a recession but China isn’t, China is booming,” Macdonald told Reuters after his spring/summer 2012 show at London Fashion Week. “The new money is in China, every designer in the world wants to break into China and to the Orient.” Sales of designer goods in China have surged in recent years with the rising spending power of a new class of consumers and their desire to buy into the luxury sector. The world’s biggest luxury market within five years has become a second home for brands such Hermes, Prada and Tiffany & Co that tap Chinese appetite for sports cars, luxury handbags and diamonds. And British designers have taken note.

“There’s quite a boom in the world of fashion and I believe that is mostly because of China,” designer Vivienne Westwood told Reuters after her Red label fashion show. “At the moment, we’re all benefiting from this big interest in China.” Asked if she was courting Chinese buyers, she said: “No, they’re courting me, they’ve come to us.”
At London Fashion Week, Chinese buyers were seen taking their seats at catwalk shows.
China’s consumption of luxury goods is forecast to grow 18 percent annually to about $27.5 billion by 2015, from about $12.2 billion in 2010, according to consultancy McKinsey.

“About five years ago, everybody was saying it was Russia, and then Russia, India and now it’s Russia, India, China,” British designer Paul Smith said. “We do really well in Hong Kong. Next year we’ll have one (store) in Beijing, one in Shanghai then hopefully over the next few years, about 20 in the next four years. But it’s early days still yet, I’m still very cautious.”

CULTURAL CHALLENGES
China’s market can be tough to crack, with some cultural challenges to win customer hearts for certain types of products still evident. Counterfeits cost luxury groups hundreds of millions of euros in lost sales every year and imitations are becoming increasingly refined and sophisticated. While the number of high-net worth individuals in China is set to continue to rise steadily, the bulk of the country’s population cannot afford upmarket Western brands. Harold Tillman, chairman of the British Fashion Council, said he was taking a group of designers to Hong Kong next month to show their products. “Next year I’m taking them to Beijing and Shanghai. So we are working on getting the audience,” he told Reuters. While Chinese consumers may be designer-hungry ... we don’t have to rush, we’ve got to do it carefully,” he added. Investors flocked to the flotations of Prada in Hong Kong and luxury goods maker Salvatore Ferragamo in Milan in June, encouraged by their growing exposure to the higher-margin retail business in Asia. Prada this week posted a 74 percent rise in first-half profit, boosted by strong demand for its products in Asia.
“To go launch a brand in China, you have to have a lot of face time,” said designer Alice Temperley, whose dresses have been worn by Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton.“The Chinese will only buy something if they feel they can understand the brand’s heritage.”
(Additional reporting by Basmah Fahim, editing by Paul Casciato)
From Reuters
By Marie-Louise Gumuchian

RUNWAY FASHION TREND: New York Fashion Week confirmed emerging trends and entered the domain of the futuristic
New York Fashion Week confirmed emerging trends and entered the domain of the futuristic. Marc Jacobs closed the curtain on New York Fashion Week with a dance hall theme that confirmed some trends for spring and created new ones with a mix of filmy, futuristic fringe, Western-style shapes and drop-waist dresses. With a line of models draped over chairs Thursday night, the industry darling tweaked silhouettes from several eras to move along the look for next season.

The 1920s, 1960s and what might pass for blase in Year 2050 were represented in shades of baby blue, grass green, red and luminescent white. Some models wore clear ankle boots and others walked in modernesque headscarves.

“To end the week like this is how it should be. It’s like he’s the director of this great production,” said Joe Zee, the creative director of Elle magazine. “I love that it’s not a literal interpretation of any one thing. It’s a potpourri that works.”
Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, Proenza Schouler and others among the most influential lines in the business wrapped up eight days of previews before the industry moves on to the runways of London, starting Friday, followed by Milan and Paris.

RALPH LAUREN
The pale palette shimmered in soft pinks, silvers, whites and greens. It was a distinct departure from the bursts of bright colour and less-dainty florals that dominated eight days of shows. Feathers in boas were carried over to the neck and hemlines of flapper dresses in outfits complete with hats of the era.

PROENZA SCHOULER
Considered one of the most influential collections on the runways here, duo Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough seemed one step ahead with more trim, tailored shapes. But they also confirmed emerging trends with optimistic flashes of yellow and aqua, clean shapes and a lot of prints.

NAEEM KHAN
Khan could have outfitted an entire slate of Oscar nominees with his runway offerings. It was a glamorous array of sequinned, beaded and ruffled gowns with a stylistic focus on Spain. Khan got a standing ovation after closing with one of his grander creations, a ballgown in silver with a fringed bodice and an extravagantly full skirt.

CALVIN KLEIN
Dresses had sheer trim on the bustline, or in some cases a sheer top. Hemlines were just a touch asymmetrical. Fluted and pleated skirts evoked a 1940s feel, and some of the long silk and jacquard coats were worn like robes. The collection also included wide-leg pants, worn with a shawl-collared vest, and culottes that showed off spiked stiletto heels.

RALPH RUCCI
To build on artful, architectural and expensive wardrobes, Rucci offered several modern looks with sheer plastic panels. Sometimes it was an inset around the bodice, sometimes more subtle on the cuff of a jacket or hem of a skirt. And there was a white neoprene coat, paired with a faille straight skirt, like you’ve never seen neoprene before.

FROM GULF NEWS

RUNWAY FASHION TREND: The L.P.D. Is the New L.W.D. The month-long runway season from the majors (New York, London, Milan, Paris) for Spring 2012 has just begun and right out of the box it looks as if Pantone’s panel of experts nailed at least one of the big color trends correctly. At the beginning of the year, Hall Five reported that they were betting on 18-2120 Honeysuckle, a shade of hot pink.

Courageous. Confident. Vital. A brave new color, for a brave new world. Let the bold spirit of Honeysuckle infuse you, lift you and carry you through the year. It’s a color for every day – with nothing “everyday” about it.

Is what they had to say about it.
Then today in The Cut, Diana Tsui reports,

For fall, designers replaced the little black dress with little white ones, but next spring calls for brighter hues. Behold, the little pink dress. But lest you think this translates to frilly and fussy, think again: Today’s LPD is sexy and youthful. Jenni Kayne added thigh-baring slits to a sleek sheath, Cushnie et Ochs dreamed up a pleasingly askew halter, and Kevork Kiledjian emblazoned a snakeskin print onto a body-conscious minidress.