Christian Lacroix

I love the red, black, and white together. We saw quite a bit of this for fall, but it still looks fresh. The ginormous necklaces (most extreme case: fifth picture) are really fun, though I'm still trying to figure out how they could translate to real life.



A great look-at-me print (also on the jacket above).



A few more colorful prints, also great. (What is it with me and fun prints this season?)



These prints work really well together. I love how one is in color and one is black and white, but the little shapes make them coherent.

Vena Cava

Vena Cava's latest collection was filled with modern, effortlessly chic clothes. I wish I had the occasion to wear such lovely cocktail dresses (and the money to afford them, of course).

It's a good thing that the clothes were obviously beautiful, since the presentation format wasn't doing them any favors. It was very hard to tell what the clothes looked like, and the picnic setting was somewhat inexplicable. (Who would ever wear clothes like that to a picnic? How do the clothes even relate to a picnic? Whatever, I guess I shouldn't complain...)

A great casual outfit.



This day dress is chic in both color combinations.



Here are the fabulous cocktail dresses. I especially love the cityscape print in the first and third pictures.



Here's a video so you can see the clothes a little better. While you're looking at the collection, note how terrifyingly skinny the models look when they're just milling about instead of strutting down the runway. (Also note the really awkward "dancing" about halfway through. Priceless.)

Proenza Schouler

I thought Proenza Schouler's latest collection was underrated. The 80s shapes are very fun, and I love the palette of using greys with brights.

Even if these narrow, striped skirts are totally unwearable for people who aren't model-skinny (can you even imagine having hips that narrow?), they are super cool.



These graphic prints are great.



I love how they have taken the wild grey and yellow print from above and combined it with the basic jacket to make it more accessible.



With these two, they used more mod shapes, again making the somewhat 80s-ish print look very wearable.



A good basic, with another great combination of neutrals and brights.

Trovata

I think Trovata's casual wear was the prettiest we saw this season. Their clothes are entirely wearable, with great attention to detail.

How much do I love big buttons? They seem to make any good basics better.



The collection drew somewhat heavily on last season's trends (but only the trends I liked, so it was fine with me). First there's a shirtdress, which still seems very clean and a great basic. Next we have a couple examples of the high belt that was so popular for S/S 2006. While this may be getting a little played out, it is still extremely flattering and may therefore have some staying power. (I, for one, love it.)




More great basics. Still borrowing heavily from last season's trends (e.g. nautical), but with some great personality unique to this label.



I would definitely wear these pieces now and think I'll still love them several months from now. I think Trovata, as a new label, still lacks the confidence to break totally new ground, but these clothes are great and fun and wearable. Just for their take on these old ideas this is one of my favorite collections for spring, and I'm excited to see where they take the label next.

Pucci

Normally I'm not a huge Pucci fan, but this season Matthew Williamson managed to make the label fun and young and relevant. The bright colors are uber-fun, and I love the easy-to-wear retro shift shapes.

My only worry: according to style.com,

Rachel Zoe was the first in line to congratulate Matthew Williamson after his Pucci show.

Please don't tell me Rachel Zoe will ruin this collection for me by pawning it off on Nicole Richie.

I loved the color-blocking with the big, graphic necklaces. Maybe they're too much for real life, but on the runway they couldn't look cooler. The shift shape in the first and third dresses here is just splendid.



These classically Pucci prints look great on these shift dresses. (No, I have no idea what's going on with the skirt/shorts in the first picture, though I do love the purse.)



This bling is fantastic.

Chloe

This season I think Chloe did a good job of creating a collection that is both wearable and fashion-forward. Last season's clothes seemed too much like they had been vetted by focus groups, but--in contrast--these have a nice dose of personality. The shapes are some of the same we've been seeing from Chloe lately, but the volume is taken down a notch to a more flattering level.

The collection included quite a few good basics like these below. I especially liked the jumper with the blue blouse, because I can't get enough of the jumper-layering trend.



I love the mustard and brown colors used here. They're so 70s, but with the Chloe shapes they seem very rich and modern.



My favorite pieces were these embellished ones. The second dress especially looked like it was straight out of a Gustav Klimt painting. I can't quite tell what's going on in the front of the first dress, but it looks like it has some dimensionality to it, which is very cool.

Basso & Brooke

While everyone is going to be talking about Marc Jacobs's take on the 20s, I think Basso & Brooke did it best this season. Their collections had tons of beautiful drop-waist dresses in gorgeous prints and vivid colors. The prints reminded me of beautiful old near eastern and far eastern tapestries. (I know, not all the links are strictly tapestries, but Google image search only gets you so far and I was lazy...)

A few of the best dresses:



There also were quite a few leggings-based looks, which I thought were awful. We'll just pretend they weren't there.

Antoni & Alison

For Antoni & Alison's collection, I don't have much to say--the pictures seem to speak for themselves.

Antoni & Alison showed a ton of super-chic, somewhat cartoony dresses. Elle.com included them in the "anime" trend round-up, which seemed about right. The dresses were done in all sorts of bright colors and fantastic prints, and basically looked like they would be a riot to wear. (Why can i never find anything like this at the fabric store?)



The styling also added to the cartoony effect. The models' make-up looked like it was inspired by some of the more extreme make-up I've seen in photos of girls on the streets of Tokyo.



And the shoes were simply fantastic. You would feel like a superhero wearing these.



They also had some normal, non-patterned dresses that were quite pretty, but less exciting. (Perhaps this was simply to prove they could do it.)

Hussein Chalayan

On the other end of the spectrum, there was the nearly universally acclaimed collection of Hussein Chalayan. His collection was truly forward-looking. When other designers try to avoid references to the past, they often simply turn to a different set of cliches. (For instance, I thought Balenciaga's collection looked like what ever designer for ages has imagined the future would be like... robotic, synthetic, clean lines, etc.) Chalayan managed to bring something original to the table, even if you don't consider the gimmicky but fabulously cool shape-shifting clothes.

The traditional clothes he showed were fresh-looking and simply gorgeous. The lightweight materials were perfect for spring, and the shapes are a nice variation on the babydoll dresses that are everywhere. And the colors are so beautiful! I especially like the dress on the model in the back of the second photo.



This dress would make you the prettiest girl at any party.



Maybe this is a concession to traditional, cliched "futurism." At least this dress is really beautiful regardless.



Somehow he can even make normal clothes a million times better.



Of course, his shape-shifting clothes were awesome. Still photos don't do them justice at all--watch the video below. My favorite part was the shifting neckline around 0:45.

Emanuel Ungaro

For my first most inspirational collection, I've picked one that I thought was unfairly panned.

From the Guardian:

Peter Dundas at Emmanuel Ungaro had what may well have been the worst show of the month but at least it proved useful in reminding people how bad ankle boots, an unfortunate trend this season, look with sequinned mini-dresses.

They misspelled "Emanuel" but we'll let that slide.

I don't deny that some of the stuff he showed was downright awful. As the collection as a whole goes, it was rather hit or miss. But the looks that did work were original and fun and much better than most of the boring stuff other designers were showing. And that's the reason he makes my top dozen-or-so list.

First, I loved the palette he used for the beginning and end of the show that used hightly saturated colors, especially blues and purples.



While the two outfits below were definitely unwearable, I did like how he put mismatching patterns into really interesting combinations. The first one here is held together nicely by his use of complementary colors, and the second with three analogous colors.



I thought this polka-dot dress was just super cute.



Although some of the 80s stuff he did was awful (as mentioned above), a few elements he brought back really worked. The first dress has a fabulous 80s silhouette and print but somehow looks current. The second and third dresses bring back some 80s excess with the sequins but still are wearable because they're in normal, understated shapes. I would love to own the orchid (?) dress.

Fashion Week Wrap-Up

Hi everyone,
As you might imagine I've been pretty busy lately with law school but I should be getting some new content up soon... Other blogs have done a good job of summarizing all the important shows, so I'm going to take a more idiosyncratic approach. In the next couple weeks I'll be posting about the dozen or so shows I found most inspirational, chosen solely by what caught my eye at style.com and elle.com. (I'm trying to liberate all the photos just hanging out in my "My Pictures" folder.) Enjoy!

multiplying like rabbits

it seems that while i was abroad the street-style website population exploded. i won't list them all here because facehunter already has an excellent round-up. visit the site and check out the links in his sidebar.

one fantastic new page i want to highlight is stockholm streetstyle. it appears that it began in july (i say appears because i can't read the swedish faq). i've decided, based on this and hel looks, another of my favorite street style sites, that nordic people are just too cool. this new stockholm site is also ridiculously high-volume--often several posts per day.

here are some of my favorite outfits from the site's two-month history:

shoulder embellishments--good idea or bad?

i saw several instances of shoulder/upper sleeve embellishments when i was looking over the fall runways again. i'm still deciding whether this is cool and interesting, or a bad throwback to 80s shoulder pads.

chanel










pringle










sinha-stanic










from the sartorialist (at louis vuitton show in paris)

my favorite dress shape for fall

i just can't seem to get into the drab, unflattering layering that was all over the runways for this season. perhaps some of the voluminous shapes could be fun, but for the moment count me as a skeptic.

one shape i did see that i liked a lot was a mod dress that seemed to be everywhere--short and a bit boxy with long sleeves. it seems like a reasonably practical choice in cold weather if you wear tights and maybe boots. i saw many of them worn with gloves and they looked very chic, plus they work well with all this season's belts. best of all, they could work in warmer weather too with bare legs!

here are some examples:

costume national










giambattisti valli










giambattisti valli










rochas










temperley










i also saw dresses like this in the collections of antoni & allison, caroline herrera, miu mu, naum, oligo tissew, paco rabanne, sari gueron, stella mccartney, trovata, and versace, but i didn't want to upload all the photos and look too obsessive... check out style.com (and in some cases vogue.co.uk) to see more.

i picked up a cheap fun dress like this in june at goodwill (before i even knew i wanted one so much!), but i'm going to keep my eye out for another in a solid color and a nicer fabric.

fun with trompe l'oeil

lately i've been excited about trompe l'oeil--i've seen examples from all over the place popping up from time to time.

it all started with this fabulous t-shirt that fashionologie linked to a ways back. i ended up making my own version of the shirt by using a photo of a gun to make a cool stencil, then stencilling it on an old t-shirt myself (instructions).






here's some more inspiration:

jeffrey's project runway creation, complete with fake belt. (clearly, he should have won last week.)










one example from tata-naka's fall/winter show. (there were lots.)










a fun fake sailor shirt from cathy90's mystylediary page











one more fun one i've seen around (here from stylebubble's fashion blog)










and finally, my trompe l'oeil jewelry obsession (via sylebubble again). too bad i don't really wear rings, or it might be a fun $90 splurge... you can buy it at etsy (more cool stuff there from independent designers, check it out).

clutches galore

how i am longing for a clutch, that least practical handbag...





two with metallic appliques at mighty flirt.








a great green print at cut x paste.










dots at stylesse, via omiru.

cool, normal clothes

for as much stuff as i post here that's slightly outlandish and risky, i (like most everyone) generally just wear normal clothes. i don't really have as many opportunities to wear fabulous jewelry or crazy clothes as i'd like, so a lot of days i rock the t-shirt and jeans. anyways i wanted to showcase some of my favorite everyday outfits i had found in the mystylediary archives.


user karatelincoln










user i_love_pomegranates (via user absentminded)










user freelancer










user wafferl










user muchacha










user festes_weiss

i'm back!!

hi everyone! i just got back home to alaska after six weeks in europe, so posts should recommence soon. hopefully i still have a handful of readers who haven't given up on me.... expect new content within the next couple days.

loving the circles

here's how to dress like you're from the future as conceived in 1960:


top is $125 at mighty flirt.