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London Fashion Week - Burberry Prorsum, Mary Katrantzou, Roksanda Ilincic - just during the start of Milan Fashion Week today, I have to post this fashion-editorial about some of my favorite collections at London Fashion Week ... enjoy, and I'd be very delighted getting your comments about 'Which is your favorite collection'.
Recent Burberry Prorsum collections, under the direction of long-standing chief creative officer Christopher Bailey, have been skillfully wrought campaigns to consolidate the company's considerable market share in hardware-encrusted outerwear and handbags, but sometimes they left you wanting just a little more of the captivatingly cool clothes Bailey is more than capable of delievering. At Monday's show, the clothes were back - and how - with what was one of his most fully realized, visually appealing, and, perhaps most importantly, emotionally satisfying collections for quite some time.
Most pertinently, Bailey's color palette, with its peacock and chocolate and ochre and hawthorne (which did, it has to be said, cause dark mutterings that it was a little too autumnal as the audience departed post-show into the rare September sunshine), certainly wasn't the retina-searing neon-fest that we've been seeing elsewhere, but that's all to the good. The effect of those English hedgerow colors, mixed up with Burberry's standard-issue beige and black, was a natural, warmer, earthier look. Then the mind goes back a few days to Proenza Schouler's fifties motel Formica palette in New York last week, with its similarly "off" vibe and suddenly one of the first real new stories of next spring emerges: colors made for the sun at odds with the very idea of sunniness.
There were a plenty of soft, oversize utility jackets, some cropped at the waist or longer and belted (perhaps in bobble-edged sand suede or Berber stripes) and that's not to mention lean trenches aplenty, rendered in everything from raffia-and-cotton weave to graphicm abstract prints, part traditional Nigerian, part textile designer Lucienne Day.
Within all this, Katrantzou nailed cocktail and event wear, the allover print maniy of the season, the use of iridescence, and the long/short silhouette - all of which are the emerging ideas which, thus far, typify spring 2012. But, funnily enough, it was her simpler, less structured pieces that somehow grabbed the attention over the obvious red-carpet contenders in this collection. When a fish-printed top with a train and georgette sleeves worn over skinny trousers passed by, it was a modern, easy breath of fresh air. The truth is that Katrantzou can do "concept", but she's also just as interested in making wearable variations on her themes. Everyone who slipped backstage passed by a table stacked with glistening jacquard sweaters and pull-on skirts, - just a view examples of the easy-to-wear items that have grown out of Mary Katrantzou's phenomenally professional ambition to make both art and the accessible.
Mary Katrantzou Spring/Summer 2012 - London Fashion Week
Ultimately though, feminine dressing is the designer's strong suit, and she has a roster of prominent clientele to prove it. Among them, Samantha Cameron, who is throwing a party in honor of London Fashion Week at 10 Downing. While the Prime Minister's wife would probably stir clear of the awkward shapeless proportions of the voluminous column dresses, she's likely to add the sheaths which swung demurely below the knee and ruched gently at the waist to the Ilincic frocks that already hang in her closet. That kind of simply chic line would look just as good on a certain Royal silhouette.
London Fashion Week - Burberry Prorsum, Mary Katrantzou, Roksanda Ilincic - just during the start of Milan Fashion Week today, I have to post this fashion-editorial about some of my favorite collections at London Fashion Week ... enjoy, and I'd be very delighted getting your comments about 'Which is your favorite collection'.
Burberry Prorsum Spring/Summer 2012 - London Fashion Week
Burberry Prorsum / Mary Katrantzou / Roksanda Ilincic
Spring/Summer 2012 - London Fashion Week
Recent Burberry Prorsum collections, under the direction of long-standing chief creative officer Christopher Bailey, have been skillfully wrought campaigns to consolidate the company's considerable market share in hardware-encrusted outerwear and handbags, but sometimes they left you wanting just a little more of the captivatingly cool clothes Bailey is more than capable of delievering. At Monday's show, the clothes were back - and how - with what was one of his most fully realized, visually appealing, and, perhaps most importantly, emotionally satisfying collections for quite some time.
A look at the beautiful craftmanship of Burberry Prorsum ...
Most pertinently, Bailey's color palette, with its peacock and chocolate and ochre and hawthorne (which did, it has to be said, cause dark mutterings that it was a little too autumnal as the audience departed post-show into the rare September sunshine), certainly wasn't the retina-searing neon-fest that we've been seeing elsewhere, but that's all to the good. The effect of those English hedgerow colors, mixed up with Burberry's standard-issue beige and black, was a natural, warmer, earthier look. Then the mind goes back a few days to Proenza Schouler's fifties motel Formica palette in New York last week, with its similarly "off" vibe and suddenly one of the first real new stories of next spring emerges: colors made for the sun at odds with the very idea of sunniness.
There were a plenty of soft, oversize utility jackets, some cropped at the waist or longer and belted (perhaps in bobble-edged sand suede or Berber stripes) and that's not to mention lean trenches aplenty, rendered in everything from raffia-and-cotton weave to graphicm abstract prints, part traditional Nigerian, part textile designer Lucienne Day.
Burberry Prorsum Spring/Summer 2012 - London Fashion Week
"Vive L'Art de Vivre" or Swimming in Pixels - The marvel, of course, is how Mary Katrantzou can even begin to mold all those complex components into anything resembling clothes, but she does, shaping those brilliantly patterned computer printouts into an increasingly broad range of clothing options. As a young designer, her clothes are hardly familiar in the mass sense, but enough of the lampshade and fishbowl skirts from her last two collections have been photographed editorially for Katrantzou's signature to have become unmistakble. That meant she needed to move out of home furnishing themes and onto something more abstract in order to prove to herself that she could successfully take on new, unexpected kinds of clothing like tailoring pantsuits, floaty chiffon, and more of the knitwear she started last season.
Within all this, Katrantzou nailed cocktail and event wear, the allover print maniy of the season, the use of iridescence, and the long/short silhouette - all of which are the emerging ideas which, thus far, typify spring 2012. But, funnily enough, it was her simpler, less structured pieces that somehow grabbed the attention over the obvious red-carpet contenders in this collection. When a fish-printed top with a train and georgette sleeves worn over skinny trousers passed by, it was a modern, easy breath of fresh air. The truth is that Katrantzou can do "concept", but she's also just as interested in making wearable variations on her themes. Everyone who slipped backstage passed by a table stacked with glistening jacquard sweaters and pull-on skirts, - just a view examples of the easy-to-wear items that have grown out of Mary Katrantzou's phenomenally professional ambition to make both art and the accessible.
Mary Katrantzou Spring/Summer 2012 - London Fashion Week
Mary Katrantzou Backstage Candids by Morgan O'Donovan
Photo Credit/Source: Self Service Magazine
If you're tall enough to see above the crowds along London's bustling Oxford Street, you'll notice a new color in the sea of young brunette and blonde shoppers: it's pink. Roksanda Ilincic's inspirational collection ran the gamut from 1960s couture tu grunge-era styling, but when it comes to choosing her palette, the designer prefers to go with her gut. The instinct for spring hues was spot-on, and the vibrant monochromatic look had modern verve amongst more temperate shades of jade and ivory.
Ultimately though, feminine dressing is the designer's strong suit, and she has a roster of prominent clientele to prove it. Among them, Samantha Cameron, who is throwing a party in honor of London Fashion Week at 10 Downing. While the Prime Minister's wife would probably stir clear of the awkward shapeless proportions of the voluminous column dresses, she's likely to add the sheaths which swung demurely below the knee and ruched gently at the waist to the Ilincic frocks that already hang in her closet. That kind of simply chic line would look just as good on a certain Royal silhouette.
Roksanda Ilincic Spring/Summer 2012 - London Fashion Week
Selections made by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories
Source: VOGUE / London Fashion Week
Photography by Marco Madeira/firstView
Collages by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories
Mary Katrantzou Backstage Candids by Morgan O'Donovan
Photo Credit/Source: Self Service Magazine
Mary Katrantzou Backstage Candids by Morgan O'Donovan
Photo Credit/Source: Self Service Magazine
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