ROKSANDA FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – LONDON FASHION WEEK

This season, Roksanda explores a body of work from Parisian artist Caroline Denervaud. Using intrinsic, dance like movements and emotion, Caroline makes sweeping strokes across her canvas to portray colour, shape, balance and form. Through this, and other influences from contemporary choreography and Pina Baush’s indefinable genre of dance, Roksanda reveals her unexpected and modern femininity once more.

Cashmere blend tailoring and outerwear in classic camel shades is layered with double faced felted wool and chunky hand knit, contrasting with delicate, tumbled silk satins and tulle. Softly quilted coats and scarves in crisp cotton poplin are reminiscent of a modern traveller. Fringed mohair blankets are wrapped effortlessly around the body and transform into skirts and coats, pinned with natural and cut stones, amethyst, jade and agate, adding organic elegance.

Foulard dresses in contrasting colours inspired by Denervaud’s abstract combinations are detailed with silk necklines and elegant trailing ties. Light, sculptural shapes and silhouettes have Roksanda’s signature voluminous sleeves, fabric softly rolled and tucked by hand to create bounce and movement. Fil coupe and prints are inspired by kinetic and colourful ‘traces’ and line drawings in matt silk organza and fine printed lamé.

A crescendo of embroidered, sheer tulle dresses are inspired the delicacy of Caroline’s paintings, romantic technique, light and transparent. Layers of hand cut tulle shapes, each with it’s own unique technique, merge to create a cloud of volume, craft and colour. Hand dyed organza is ripped into strips and sewn to create soft tassels. Bugle beads secure floating Italian sequins, laser cut and tucked like polka dots between layers. Black cords and yarns resemble Caroline’s mark making, while ribbons and grosgrain dance out of time to mimic paint strokes.

Modernist details continue in Roksanda’s bag range crafted in soft calves leather; New fringed, woven styles and Roksanda’s signature structural resin and new dyed wooden handles in Delphinium, Toffee, Saffron, Amber, Ice White, and Black.

Feminine colour blocked mules and knee high boots in suede, leather and mock croc are in collaboration with Malone Souliers.

Colours; Ochre, Camel, Jade, Marine, Eucalyptus, Brick, Biscotti, Powder Pink, Midnight, Limoncello, Merlot, Pistachio, Dephimium, Rose, Storm Blue, Brick, Powder Pink, Rose, Forest green, Coral, Amber

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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2018-19, ROKSANDA, ROKSANDA FW 2018-19

Fri, February 23 2018 » Fashion Blog

ROLAND MOURET FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – LONDON FASHION WEEK

Roland Mouret cites Irvin Kershner’s 1970s cult film ‘The Eyes of Laura Mars’ as the muse for his AW18 collection, portraying a type of voyeurism; a male gaze towards a modern woman, in control of her own image. The film’s production design is pure and ecstatic, the film stylish and fabulous, awash with paradoxes.

This sweeping influence translates into an intense collection full of seemingly strong contradictions, featuring baroque jacquard, lurex georgette and velvet corduroy. The dynamic variation throughout explores the hard, the soft, the strong masculine and reaffirmation of the strong feminine; a mature femininity that is rich in simplicity.

Roland reintroduces tailoring and the technicality explored in his early career, with orchestrations of volume and structure which sees outerwear in patent leather, alpaca and Prince of Wales check. Single and double-breasted jackets, trench coats and capes evolve with exposed stitching, frayed hems and oversized lapels.

Stepping away from his signature dress, Roland manipulates and uses his draping technique to create, as he coins it a ‘sexy, luxury day dress’ – a looser, A-line silhouette that sees soft fabric falling on the body. The flowing dresses are offset with heavy bomber style jackets and rich, varying textures, extolling the complexity of the collection.

Sheer knits add a light and delicateness to the offering, finished with ruffled collars, the pieces lending themselves to the dynamic duality of the collection. Further accessories of lace socks paired with sandals pay a playful homage to the pages of a 1970s Playboy Magazine and to the Fashion photographer’s work within the film, a nod perhaps too, to Roland’s mantra of “…we all dress to undress”.

His collections ever evolving, the designer listens to women. Roland Mouret proves that there is practicality in femininity, and femininity is a woman’s greatest power.

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Tags: ROLAND MOURET, ROLAND MOURET FW 2018-19

Fri, February 23 2018 » Fashion Blog

PORTS 1961 FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – LONDON FASHION WEEK

A collective collection, of individuals in individual looks. For autumn/winter 2018, Ports 1961 is an urban tribe. Striding between divides of town and country, male and female, decorated and minimal, the collection responds to a mood of perpetual change, underscoring the peripatetic state of contemporary life and the notion of travel intrinsic to the identity of Ports.

Creative Director Nataša Cǎ galj and her team draw inspiration from reality – the reality of a woman’s wardrobe, the world around her, her social and cultural identities. Decorative motifs are drawn from the actuality of fabrics and manufacture: MADE IN ENGLAND and MADE IN ITALY are used for jacquard patterns and prints. These echo the internationalism of fashion today, and Ports’ identity in particular. Graphic capes are based on manufacturing labels, and care instructions taken from cashmere goods. These respond to another reality – that of luxury now.

There is a mood of bricolage – the innate freedom encourages combinations of different elements and themes, united in their diversity. The Ports 1961 show takes place in the Tanks of Tate Modern.

Art meets artisanal – a sense of the hand and of craft is vital to Ports. Textures and textiles place 2-D and 3-D side by side: finely woven Japanese wool, double-face silk cady and slick coated cottons contrast with intricate, hand-woven and hand-knitted textiles and 3-D print finishes in gloss or flock. Double-face fabrics feature trompe l’oeil animal patterns in differing scales, jacquarded into reversible double-face capes. A mohair twinset is knitted with holographic fringe, their iridescence echoed in waterproof coatings on suiting and cottons, and sequins form “showers” of fringe – practical and witty takes on the inclement British weather. The palette contrasts sombre shades of suiting with bright injections of colour – rich browns, camel, greys and khaki against ginger, pillbox red and Wallis blue.

Both silhouettes and inspirations are free and layered. Flyaway rectangular panes of fabric lend movement to shapes, shoulders are wide and eased off the body, pleated skirts animate. Garments shift, change and transform. Panels and sleeves can be added to and subtracted from pieces, the former drawn around oversized tailoring to transform shapes and perception, defining the waist to shift from masculine to feminine – another move, a different kind of travel.

For autumn/winter 2018, Ports 1961 debuts a full line of accessories. Shoes are flat, mannish brogues in leathers or silks, alongside block-heeled boots. The handbag offering includes the new Hatton, shown both as a ladylike frame shape and compact, elongated clutch with signature modernist burnished-brass clasp. The rigour and precision of these accessories form a contrast to the freedom elsewhere.

This collection traverses new territory for Ports 1961 – a different journey, a fresh terrain. A new tribe.

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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2018-19, PORTS 1961, PORTS 1961 FW 2018-19

Fri, February 23 2018 » Fashion Blog

CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC FALL WINTER 2018 COLLECTION – NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

LANDSCAPES

“This collection is an evolution of my idea of CALVIN KLEIN—of a view onto American society—but now wider, universal. It’s an allegory for a meeting of old worlds and new worlds, relating to the discovery of America, the 1960s Space Race, and the twenty-first century information age. Reflecting the notion of democracy, there is no cultural hierarchy: the mixes emancipate clothing and references from their meanings, from their own narratives, and collage them to discover something different—a different dream. More than anything else, this collection is about freedom. A word that defineS America, and CALVIN KLEIN.”
—Raf Simons, Chief Creative Officer, CALVIN KLEIN

Titled LANDSCAPES, the Fall 2018 CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC show was staged in an epic and unreal terrain simultaneously recalling a cinematic soundstage. The backdrop draws on CALVIN KLEIN’S recent history, but reconfigured: fragments of Sterling Ruby’s installations for the brand appeared against parts of the nineteenth century prairie barn featured in the CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC Spring 2018 campaign; the barn walls are papered with billboard-scale images of the artworks by Andy Warhol used in the same collection; beside them, air-duct tubing emerges, an alien touch of the scientific or laboratorial. The floor is carpeted with deep drifts of popcorn: from a distance, it resembles snow.

The collection and venue showcased the ongoing and multi-level collaboration between CALVIN KLEIN and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes characters Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, originally shown as shorts in cinemas from 1949, are also featured on select garments. The latter recall childhood innocence, the all-important idea of American Youth, and they can also be seen as a parable of the pursuit of the American Dream.

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