LOUISE GRAY - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Louise Gray took a bold stance on playing with color, pattern, and texture for her electrifying Fall 2012 collection, "I'll Take It." Gray focused on wildly patterned knits, mixing them together to create depth and a visual shock to the system. Although the ensembles are covered head-to-toe in these designs,…
MARK FAST - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Aiming to illustrate what he described as “sophisticated grunge”, Canadian Mark Fast kept attention primarily fixed on large draping cardigans and tightly fitted mini dresses. Fast restricted his color palette to shades of sand, grey and navy, complementing the muted overtones with cropped tops and whimsical touches…
MARY KATRANTZOU - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Last year’s winner of the Emerging Talent Prize at the British Fashion Awards, Greek Mary Katrantzou set out to “discover the beauty in the everyday.” While preserving her signature lampshade shape, and A-line coats, Katrantzou did just that by using highly imaginative embellishments based on patterns from…
MATTIJS VAN BERGEN - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Two weeks after Mattijs Van Bergen showed in Amsterdam, he wowed audiences at London Fashion Week with his “Starbust” Fall 2012 collection. The collection was inspired by some of Bergen’s favorite childhood films, including The Never Ending Story and Star Wars. These inspirations were translated into…
MICHAEL VAN DER HAM - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Michael Van der Ham explored a variety of fabrications and prints for the F/W 2012 collection. This Dutch designer used a mélange of different textures – including organza, wool, lace and jacquard – and bold, brightly colored patterns, and found a pleasing harmony between simple separates…
INDIRA CESARINE INTERVIEWS PAM HOGG POST SHOW PAM HOGG - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Pam Hogg continues to surprise with her adventurous, brazen fashion. Dramatic and theatrical, this A/W 2012-13 collection flaunted boldly defined silhouettes of dresses with cinched waistlines and flared, triangular skirts and skin-tight bodysuits. Hogg combined a color palette exclusively composed…
PETER PILOTTO - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW A collaborative effort of Austrian/Italian Peter Pilotto and Belgian/Peruvian Christopher De Vos, the Peter Pilotto label’s reputation for pioneering fashion earned them the Best Emerging Talent Award at the British Fashion Awards in 2009. This A/W 2012-13 collection adds various Asian subculture references, from Japanese…
PPQ - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Amy Molyneaux and Percy Parker of PPQ , known for dressing music icons like Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty, dedicated their Fall 2012 collection to the apocalyptic romance of winter. This collection showed a more elegant, sophisticated side of the label known for propelling the drainpipe jean trend.…
BACKSTAGE AT PROSE Prose designer, Miriam Lehle, was inspired to create her Fall 2012 collection from an old curtain that she found and cut up into pieces. The collection reflected the colors of the curtain, with midnight, ochre, and chestnut. It also mimicked its detailing, with explosive, dramatic fringe on almost every look that had a…
SHAO YEN - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION PRESENTATION Shao Yen, a Taiwanese designer, wanted to play with traditional English formal wear in his Fall 2012 collection, "Class," by mixing in stylistic elements from British street and sportswear. Sedate tweeds and tailored blazers were given a youthful edge with additions of fur and leather, in bright orange…
SPIJKERS EN SPIJKERS - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Spijkers en Spijkers Fall 2012 collection, Birds of Paradise, mixed and layered silks to create art deco prints and silhouettes. The look of the show was a demure, 50s shape, that was then taken into the present day through an autumnal color palette, sheer elements, and…
TEMPERLEY LONDON - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW As the title of Temperley London's Fall 2012 collection suggests, it was heavily inspired by sumptuous Renaissance religious paintings from the beginning of the 18th century. However, It was not just paintings that gave the "Renaissance" collection its title, but the word itself, meaning creative…
TOPSHOP UNIQUE - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Turning from the bold, adventurous trends of the past two seasons, Topshop Unique’s A/W 2012-13 collection, under new creative director Kate Phelan, aimed to reinvent the uniform with a good mix of masculine and feminine. The collection featured military-inspired outerwear, a velvet jumpsuit, shirt dresses,…
ZEYNEP TOSUN - LONDON F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Zeynep Tosun is one of the foremost fashion designers coming out of Turkey, and her futuristic Fall 2012 collection, shown during the House of Evolution show, cemented that reputation. The collection both referenced traditional Japanese garments, and fabrics, with many looks consisting of deconstructed or re-imagined…
JULIUS - PARIS F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW The foggy atmosphere and ambient music at the Julius Fall/Winter 2012 show matched the ambiguous and somewhat mysterious collection. Following the military trend this season with his thick boots and leather cargos, head designer Tatsuro Horikawa also stayed in his typically gothic direction. The collection was a bit…
JUUN J - PARIS F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Entitled Distended, the Fall/Winter collection from Juun J takes classical pieces and reinterprets them in a more exaggerated or modern manner, by altering the seams, creating new lines within the body of the piece, for example. The collection contains several boxy, oversized trenches, coats, and parkas that…
MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA - PARIS F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Incredible texture blends were the highlight of the Fall/Winter collection from Maison Martin Margiela, colorblocked in some instances, and layered in others. Combinations of camel hair coats, sheepskin, muskrat furs, vinyl, denim, and most peculiarly, polyethylene, aka plastic trash bag, parkas both intrigued and confounded. Athletic…
QASIMI HOMME - PARIS F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW Stretched between East and West, Khalid Al Qasimi kept his signature cultural blending trademarks in place for “Opus”, the Fall/Winter 2012 collection from Qasimi Homme. Although inspired by “dark romance”, what he showed was closer to an at times militant sportswear paired with a flowing softness that…
SONGZIO - PARIS F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW The invitation for the Songzio show was an impressive bande dessiné, illuminating the vastness to be found in one’s own environment, steeped with an air of mystery and silently pending adventure. Songzio is sleek, quiet elegance in this abundance of coats, some detailed with soft lamb skin belts…
WOOYOUNGMI - PARIS F/W 2012 FASHION SHOW South Korean Wooyoungmi showed her clean and classic Fall/Winter 2012 collection on January 21st. Doing a retake on a retro pinstripe double breasted jacket, she elongates the torso and with a shortened pant hem shortens the leg, which might be counter-intuitive design wise, but is pulled off flawlessly.…
