Crocs, aged models and pink: What will fashion weeks be remembered for?
Text: Vera Rayner
Summing up the fashioned fashion weeks, on which stamps showed their new spring-summer collections of the coming year. We chose the most interesting thing that could be seen at the shows - from current trends to the collections of women designers.
Designers switched to the "saw-bought" scheme
From the very beginning of the New York Fashion Week, it was difficult to say exactly what season is going on: adherents of the "see now, buy now" concept showed one after another instead of spring-summer 2017 this year's autumn-winter. Such collections were presented in the first days by Tom Ford and Takun Panichgul. They were supported by Ralph Loren, who showed “September”, and after that, Michael Kors, Umberto Leon and Carol Lim, Alexander Wang and Tommy Hilfiger played for the SNBN. Most of them immediately offered to buy part of what they saw - the last two, for example, things from their collaborations with adidas and Gigi Hadid respectively.
In London, Topshop Unique opposed the long wait - part of the collection went on sale immediately after the presentation - and, of course, Burberry. Christopher Bailey announced the brand’s strategy back in February, on the same day promising to mix men's and women's collections and generally make a revolution - even within the walls of one house. It was he who was one of the first to come out for a new concept, after which the rest of the big houses joined.
However, Bailey really came to the point most seriously. The collection "September 2016" (yes, it seems no longer "spring-summer" and "autumn-winter"), dedicated to Virginia Woolf and her "Orlando", became, in fact, the second collection of the Burberry season. The first, the main, was shown at the usual time - at the beginning of the year. Some of the items from "September", The Hollywood Reporter wrote, were bought online online within hours of the show. The same thing happened in real London stores: some items disappeared from the shelves on the first day of sales. All this did not prevent the appearance of things in magazines. The new Burberry has at least three significant fall covers and, we are sure, not one big shooting in the pages of magazines.
"Ugly" shoes captured the podium
Each season, one of the designers "breaks the Internet" by presenting something completely out of the ordinary - one that makes an overly serious audience lose faith in fashion and exclaim, "What are you doing!". This time there were two such moments, and both are connected with shoes - oddly enough, Demna Gvasalia did not have a hand in either of the pairs. Although the colored spadeboots from the Balenciaga show were impressed, to call these boots ugly language does not turn. Much more ambiguous pairs showed other designers.
First on the podium appeared cowboy boots - "push-pull" Hood by Air. Each has two socks stretching in opposite directions. In fact, one of them is, of course, an art heel, and if you like, you can see the heel line. The second star became crocs — rubber sneakers, familiar to everyone, with a closed, massive nose in holes and a strap. Christopher Kane in the spring collection decided to present a collaboration with Crocs, showing his version: sandals, covered with stones. So for the croxes, the moment of glory has come: people from the fashion industry no longer consider them outlandish, taking them with open arms - as it once happened with open shoes and socks.
Hood by Air x Pornhub became a collaboration of the season
The season of fashion weeks was remembered, according to tradition, by many collaborations, but the most unexpected (except, perhaps, Christopher Kane and Crocs) was the cooperation of Hood by Air with PornHub. The result was clothes with pornographic and provocative logos - who would doubt? - slogans from "Do You Know Where Your Children Are?" to "Wench" and "Hustler". All of this is part of a global rethinking of the American brand. The creator of Hood By Air, Shane Oliver, said in an interview that the company does not want to cooperate with other brands of clothing and will choose companies that promote liberal ideas as partners. We will know how soon this idea will be commercially successful, but for now it is worth noting that the show itself has become the most discussed event of New York Fashion Week.
Pink - the main color shows
Pink, from pastel to vigorous fuchsia, reigns. The most radical, as expected, was Alessandro Michele, who recognizes only the broadest gestures. He invited the guests of Milan Fashion Week to the hall, where everything was pink — everything — everything: carpet, benches, panels on the walls, and shining, iridescent curtains, and light, and smoke. Gucci clothing itself of this color was also more than enough: a brilliant suit in pleated ruffles deserves special attention.
Following the unanimous choice of designers fell in love with pink and makeup artists. For the title of the main trend of the next spring with the red aggressive Smokey Aiz, only a gentle but hardly less flashy “blush draping” - sculpturing with blush - is a popular technique from the 80s and 90s. Apply them generously, going far beyond the usual areola. Vivid examples of technology could be seen at the shows Kenzo and Adam Selman.
Rihanna and Puma went around Kanye and adidas
The show of Yeezy Season 4 turned into a scandal on all fronts. Not all was set from the very beginning. When the guests were loaded into buses and drove away to the presentation site, hardly one of them was ready for the fact that they would not get out of the park of Four Freedoms for a few more hours. Not counted on this and the models recruited on a special "multiracial", as stated in the announcement, casting. They had to stand indefinitely in slimming underwear and bodysuit tights - not even on the podium, but with him. Some of them could not stand the heat and just sat on the ground.
Some guests, in turn, had time to decide that this linen is the very collection for which the protracted action was organized. Everything, however, turned out to be wrong: the real display of the collection started with the arrival at the site of the sisters Kardashian-Jenner. The audience, by that time already almost furious, didn’t appreciate the designer’s efforts: things differed little from things of previous seasons, and plastic jack boots, the main hit of instagram, turned out to be the most inconvenient.
Quite a different thing happened with the collection of Rihanna, released in conjunction with another sports giant. The singer is friends with Puma not so long ago as a musician with adidas, but certainly not less fruitful. Rihanna has a lot of fashionable ambitions, although she prefers not to invest double, triple and other complex meanings in the collection. “Easier” here becomes synonymous with “better”: the singer plays on the field where she feels confident, experimenting with the sports and street style.
The last collection was dark and tough, with inscriptions Fenty Puma, derived from recognizable gothic fonts, and the new one, dedicated to Marie Antoinette (if you want to see a different look on the same topic - you to Marques' Almeida) turned out to be candy-pink and frilly. From Rihanna, a fashion chameleon, one can well expect such extremes, and in this love for the opposites of sincerity there is definitely no less than that of the same West. The set of things at Fenty Puma by Rihanna is much more diverse: there were lace pantaloons, tracksuits, things built around corsets, and jackets falling apart directly on the hostess’s shoulders, and - most importantly - removable bows on the belt of the most delicate pink shade .
Female designers came to the fore
It was possible to predict this development of events even before the start of the season: two women’s fashion houses, previously headed by men, were appointed as creative directors - it is, of course, Lanvin and Dior. Collections Jarrar and Curie eventually came out ambiguous, but helped to draw attention to women in the industry. Currie made the call to feminism the main slogan of her first collection. However, many were ready to accuse the designer of insincerity and an attempt to cash in on a pressing issue.
Much more successfully turned out to speak with Stella McCartney. She did not make loud statements (her collection was more about the ecology and the future of the planet, which is in our hands), but she was able to convey the spirit of the sisterhood much more honestly and brighter. The general dance of models, which completed its show, is a spectacular move and penetrated with joy. The main stars of the Paris week were just the girls, speaking almost a united front. Stella McCartney, Phoebe Faylo, Claire Waite Keller - their clothes, made by women for women, truly glorify freedom without using frontal statements.
Fur coat Saint Laurent and the "Russian mafia" became hits of street fashion
Judging by the statistics of online publications, collections of street fashion photos are still easily overtaken by the majority of reviews of shows. People like to look at beautifully or unusually dressed people, to study how they adapt to life the most complex things from the collections of the season. Of course, cadres from chronicles have little in common with cadres from real life, but this does not diminish interest. Few would put on a heart coat from Edie Sliman’s latest collection for Saint Laurent, but as soon as it appears in the photo report, everyone immediately forgot about the outfits of other guests. And although Slimane had time to quarrel with the management before leaving, it was this masterpiece that did not allow viewers to forget about the existence of the French fashion house.
The Russian Mafia New World Order sweaters, which became the main uniform of the “Russian fashion mafia” in Paris, could not help but sink into the soul. The rise of Eastern European fashion was noticeable even before the total accession of Demny Gvasalia and Lotta Volkova, but now it is really everywhere. This hoodies, however, is released not by Gvasalia or Rubchinsky, but by Vsevolod Cherepanov - "North" from the Lumpen model agency.
Creative directors Lanvin, Dior and Saint Laurent show debut collections
This season, everyone was especially waiting for three big premieres: the new Lanvin, the new Dior and the new Saint Laurent. No less attentively followed the new Valentino, to finally understand how the spheres of influence of Maria Grazia Curie and Pierpaolo Piccioli were divided in the years of their joint work. Jonathan Saunders debut in Diane Von Furstenberg came out just like everyone thought: he showed a strong and high-quality collection. But not all the first works of other designers were accepted as unequivocally.
The most difficult, probably, was Bushr Jarrar, the new creative director of Lanvin. The collections of her predecessor, Albert Elbaz, in contrast to the ex-heads of Dior and Saint Laurent, were always accepted by the public with the same warmth. The designer headed the French house for many years, making things interesting and understandable not only to critics, but also to buyers. Unlike him, Slimane and Simons were never taken entirely: the fans and haters of both were approximately equally divided. And although Jarrar seemed not to try to circumvent her predecessor, her debut collection was perceived ambiguously by the critics. It seems that at the first show the designer decided to show all her skills at once, deliberately complicating each of the images, which predictably did not benefit the overall result.
Anthony Vaccarello, on the contrary, focused only on one area, with which he has been working for a long time and successfully, and did not lose. Vakkarello earned a name for himself on black, geometric and conventionally sexy mini-dresses - they could be seen in the new collection. From the archives of Yves Saint Laurent (the name of the founder, thrown out of the name by the former head, returns to the podium line), the new creative director took several classic silhouettes and details, from dresses on one shoulder and tuxedos to lush puff sleeves, - he designed everything in his trademark stylistics. The YSL heroines no longer look as if they came out on a catwalk after a sleepless night, and never recovered from yesterday's party - this chapter in the history of the French house with Slimane leaving is over.
The most discussed was the debut of Maria Grace Curie, who succeeded Raf Simons in Dior. Accusations in the spirit of those who had previously been dealt with by Sliman were already rained down on her. Critics are outraged that the things they do for large and expensive houses with history can easily be bought right now in the mass-market lines. Jeans, leather jackets, sweaters and tulle skirts, T-shirts with inscriptions - life finally defeated the fairy tale, and embroidered bees and several dresses with zodiac embroideries do not return it. The most controversial subject was a single T-shirt with the words "We should all be feminists" in the entire chest. This move of the first woman at the head of the house caused a wave of discussion: critics see this as a soulless commercial move, while contradicting the spirit of the rest of the collection.
Sisters Hadid became the main stars of shows
As expected, the main model stars of this season were again the sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid. This year they have become much more selective in their choice of shows, but they have opened and closed the most shows. Gigi opened five hits and closed seven, and Bella four and one, respectively. And this is despite the fact that the first one missed the London Fashion Week and was not very active in New York, while the second one did not go to the main, Parisian one at all.
Kendall Jenner didn’t have any problems with her work either - she will not have to go to the model labor exchange in the near future. Nevertheless, one of the major shows still ended up with a scandal for Jenner: Mark Jacobs, in whose show she participated, was accused of cultural appropriation because of the color dreadlocks that his heroines got. At Kendall, a public figure, accusations of complicity rained down on all social networks almost with the same force as on Jacobs. Although he, in his own words, was inspired by the images of Lana Wachowski and the girls from Tumblr. In the end, the designer resorted to a very wild argument that carping for him is not justified, because no one condemns girls of African descent for straightening hair.
Many adult and non-professional models came to the podium.
Although most of the models on fashion weeks still hardly managed to celebrate the age of majority, this season there were many veterans of the catwalks on the catwalk. At the Tom Ford show, Amber Valletta walked, on Ralph Lauren - Caroline Murphy and Stella Tennant, Anthony Vaccarello lured Freya Behu and Anja Rubik to Saint Laurent. Another unexpected holiday was the anniversary (the house celebrates its 50th anniversary) Bottega Veneta show: Thomas Mayer called Eva Herzigova and Karen Elson to the podium, and the omnipresent Gigi Hadid closed the show with American legend Lauren Hatton.
"Nodels", that is, non-professional models, found either in social networks or among friends, have not gone away in the new season. The most unexpected was the casting of the presentation of J.Crew: fashion editors, journalists, photographers and friends of the creative director of the brand Jenna Lyons met there. Everything else, these were people of all ages - from thirteen to seventy.
Of the professional models for which this season was the first in the podium career, drew the attention of McKenna Hellam and Ellen Rosa. For both girls, fashion weeks began with the show Alexander Wang, both then rushed up. It is necessary to follow Radika Nair, a model from India, which has already made a career at home, but it is only now that world capitals are beginning to capture fashion. So far, she only has an exclusive on the Balenciaga show in Paris, but this is a promising start. Also keep an eye on Selena Forrest, Jesse Blumendal and Jesse PW, for whom the season did not become the first, but also proved to be more than successful.