As has become the S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) of NYFW,
or New York Fashion Week, there has been a tsunami of shows and it seems to
keep growing season after season. As has been said here before, fashion week
has become far too “democratic” resulting in this tidal wave of fashion at
every price and of every possible variety. My particular focus is usually at
the top end of spectrum and with that in mind; today will be about several collections
rather than just one... or the Fashion Week Follies!
As Penny from Big Bang is fond of saying … “holy crap on a
cracker!”
The Row:
apparently those diminutive titans of fashion have decided that their top shelf
collection will be Eileen Fisher meets the order of the Fashion Monks. What started
out as a luxury collection with a sort of cool Lou Lou factor, if you catch my
drift has morphed to quite another look. Today what we see is some shapeless
and manipulated monastic “robes” suitable for those who have nothing but money and
a great desire to hide what’s under those clothes. At one time you might have
called the clothes artsy or Bohemian, now they can be classed as the WTF collection.
Baja East: besides
price, how does a collection like this find its way into the same class as
Oscar, Marc, Carolina, Rucci and Ralph … just to name a few. Yeah okay, so it’s
theoretically luxury down time clothes for the very rich. In my eye, there is
not a single original thought here unless one considers caftans that look like old
bedspreads or more workout clothes in cashmere as being the newest the latest and
the greatest. Amazing what a little media hype can do for a brand even if the
brand is nothing to write home about.
Rosie Assoulin: with
boat loads of media hype, a very influential god mother and a very good running
start as a new brand, this collection took off as she offered a somewhat
fresher younger look for evening wear and then came E G O and believing one’s
press. This looks like a design student’s wet dream with some Haute couture
touches. Can no one see? Does no one look? Are designers only surrounded by “yes
men?” wake up look around... look at the clothes... look at how they are
presented WTF... wake up!!!
Prabal Gurung:
here suffice to say this collection and many of the past ones continue to be incomprehensible
to me. It is one of those collections that looks tortured and over worked and
meets the media standard for fabulous and modern. One day, Mr. Gurung will
return to his roots of designing exquisite dresses that were of the chic and
classy variety rather then what he is supposedly trying to pass off as modern.
Thom Browne: one
really must tip their collective hat to this man. He has shaken up the industry
with his own singular brand of fashion. He is a showman extraordinaire. He is a
provocateur. He is a one man band who can match up to any symphony orchestra if
you catch my drift. To criticize the collection is really a sucker’s game but
you cannot deny that this man shows the rest of the industry that dreams and
fantasy still exist in fashion. Some might consider those dreams to be
nightmares but Brown is astoundingly on top of his game yes, in his own world. This
is a collection of dissection and imagination and not for the faint of heart.
Carolina Herrera:
She has come a long long way since being dubbed “our lady of the sleeves!” It
has been some time since she was the go to resource for ladies such as Jackie
O. For the past few years her design studio has been churning out fashion that
they consider to be younger and hipper than what Carolina herself had envisioned
at the beginning. To me, most of the time, the clothes are irrelevant and somewhat
generic and in some instances just plain who cares! This season stuck me particularly
odd as I saw more than just a hint of Ralph Rucci and those slapped on “art
moments” that opened the show. Yes the clothes have a particular look and
hopefully they have a particular audience but the questions remain who, what
and why
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