Spring/Summer 06 Trend Forecast

[davidwest]

Thanks a million, Erichb for the Peclers forecast. I haven't got that one, I think its very good.

 

[Lena]

true, Peclers has improved much since they changed hands two seasons ago

 

[henriette]

those runway pics are not william morris inspired... far too elaborate and lavish.

that said I'm definitely onto the arts and crafts thing for the spring. it is pretty but less feminised than the mainstream victoriana (which I do love, but...trying to go about a different channel). the colours are are a bit more naturalistic. we have a thread on this actually, but I'm just saying that I do agree totally on the morris/arts and crafts theme for spring.

uh- I'm seeing william morris. the colors, the poppies...it's pretty obvious. the arts & crafts era was all about the reddish-orange poppies, the turquoise, and the black outlines (as well as the more earthy colors). I'm talking colors & motifs, here - not the actual costumes the figures in his artwork wore.

 

[utopia]

I know what arts and crafts colours and patterns are, I've done extensive work at uni on it henriette but I'm not going to get into an art history argument here. I'm not arguing against you on the fact is morris will be big for spring so no worries okay?

 

[Zazie]

I saw quite a few styles that I like, particulary the last black and white series, very much in the New Wave vibe. There is also a series on geometric prints, though the illustrations for those aren't stellar. The NYTimes just did an article on the return of Minimalism which I really want to take issue with. It's isn't "minimalism", it's Modernism! I'm quite happy to embrace modern, mod, whatever. I do agree that after seeing all those flounced skirts the past seasons, I'm ready for a more streamlined, feminine, unforgiving silhouette, and less fashion worn aeons ago. It also makes little sense to me - why would women go out and buy another similarly cut frilled dress because it's a slightly different print, tea garden, art & craft, botanics, etc.? And wasn't art deco print already revived?

 

[Lena]

zazie, some trends may be revived but they take sometime before they become 'mainstreem' trends as in being worn extensively down the street, hence the situarion with art deco & what is been labeled as arts & crafts.

minimalism (call it modernism if you like) will be huge following a good string of over elaborate seasons ..it will start with ss06 but it will be there to stay with us..
of course it will be a minimalism with a twist, no 90s nostalgia, i'm looking forward cause i'm getting a bit bored with all the frills

 

[aya_k]

NY TIMES August 25, 2005 By CATHY HORYN
Who's Afraid of Minimalism?

QUITE a few fashion designers have everything it takes, and more, to be minimalists. They have an excess of talent to make clean lines out of ornamental ones, yet they lack the will or the stamina to hold unpopular views, and minimalism has been out of vogue for a good 10 years.

Even its greatest practitioner, Giorgio Armani, today adds more than he subtracts. And to some extent we associate minimalism with failure - the failure of Jil Sander and Helmut Lang to continue under Prada ownership.

It's encouraging, then, to see so many designers this season doing something spectacularly out of character and at the same time commercially sensible. You would never think to call Alexander McQueen a minimalist. He usually pursues more exotic themes, like the style of an Amazon tribe, but this fall, pursuing Tippi Hedren's femme fatale character in "The Birds," he came up with plain slim-fitting coats and suits. Huge is how Evelyn Gorman, a boutique owner in Houston, characterized demand for Mr. McQueen's pencil suits.

"And our customers want the whole look, the shoes, the bag," she said. "If he showed an outfit with gloves, they'd want the gloves, too."

Almost all the designers getting special notice in the September fashion issues - Miuccia Prada, Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga, Olivier Theyskens at Rochas - have behaved more like minimalists than like showmen or decorators. Others, like Ralph Lauren, Roland Mouret and Francisco Costa at Calvin Klein, also proved farsighted, and the minimalist Narciso Rodriguez just had to sharpen his seams.

When these designers showed their collections in February and March, editors and buyers were struck merely by the leaner silhouette after seasons of frothy volume. Ms. Prada scraped off most of the ornamental trim, and though she still had volume in the dropped full sleeves, say, of a black wool suit, the news was in her straight, over-dyed camel coats, which she closed with rough leather belts.

Mr. Theyskens, one may recall, began his career at Rochas with lace and humpback dresses. He seemed to get carried away with couture techniques until this season, when his clothes became vividly modern, with long skirts and snug matching jackets.

Mr. Ghesquiere had the sharpest silhouette in Paris, achieved by drawing on the 1960's minimalism of André Courrèges, who was an assistant to Cristobal Balenciaga, and by using stiff, grainy fabrics that hold their form: another Balenciaga tradition. Mr. Ghesquiere's new clothes may have been souped up with fox trim and silver hardware, but the cut was all about subtraction.

For Susan Fales-Hill, a writer, the pared-down silhouette squares with her own tastes. "I think of a lot of fashion in the past couple of years became too youthful, too over the top, too silly," she said. "I love a sharp line. To me Prada's black jacket with the full sleeves and the portrait neckline is just exquisite. It's timeless. Now a lot of the looks for fall are not innovative. They remind me of clothes my mother wore in 1965. But it's a beautiful way to dress. And maybe it will mean the end of beads on day clothes. Call me a traditionalist."

Ms. Gorman, whose shop, Mix, also carries Rochas and Balenciaga, says she has had a good response to these collections: "They're serious clothes, and they're easy clothes for a woman to go into her closet and put on. There's no question mark over them." She added that while many of her customers liked the floaty ruffled looks of the last few seasons, they gradually found them too contrived and too youthful. To her, fall was more than a shift, "it was a leap into mature dressing."

Ronald Frasch, the vice chairman and chief merchant of Saks Fifth Avenue, agreed. "I think people like a more ordered way of dressing, and quite frankly we've heard from a lot of customers who wondered why we didn't have it sooner," he said, noting that at the men's shows in June he was struck by how much better - more up to date - the men in the audiences looked than the women, in part because they had on classic suits.

Still, Mr. Frasch said, he expects to encounter some resistance to the pared-down silhouette. He said that many customers have an emotional response to flounced skirts and bright colors. By comparison a mod-inspired minicoat in black wool or a tweed pencil suit is more subdued and sophisticated. "They're not as visually exciting as what we had in the store," he said. "Customers are going to have to be sold on the look. It's a dramatic change."

Dawn Brown, the spokeswoman for Barneys New York, said that young trendy customers are going for Balenciaga's new elongated trousers, but that's in part, she said, because they like wearing the skinny denim styles from the store's Co-op. Other customers are displaying more caution and buying the easier, more fluid McQueen and Balenciaga looks. And Mr. Frasch suggests there is likely to be an increasingly divided market between casual clothes and sophisticated suits. Weekend clothes will still be a mix-and-match game. "The next evolution in denim is more embellished," he added.

Mr. Frasch hesitates to call the fall clothes minimalist. "To make the look work in today's world you need something exciting - a strong shoulder line, more detail," he said. "People are used to buying clothes that say, 'What about me?' "

Mr. Costa at Calvin Klein agreed. "It's not the 90's minimalism, that's for sure," he said. "There was something not very approachable about that look." Still, as he begins to choose fabrics for fall 2006, he foresees the streamlined trend continuing. "It's almost an Armani thing that has to come back," he said. "It's ready to come back."

And with Raf Simons, the Belgian men's wear designer, starting at Jil Sander - he is to present his first men's and women's collections in February - minimalism will get more attention, if not more respect.

Meanwhile you can hedge your bets by wearing a sleek skirt or pair of trousers with a gust of volume on top. A number of designers, including Stella McCartney and Marc Jacobs (in both his own collection and that for Louis Vuitton), combined a romantic gesture with a masculine one. Mr. Jacobs, for instance, showed loose tops and boxy jackets with boyish trousers. It will be surprising if Ms. McCartney's cocooning sweaters are not copied. After seeing all the flouncy skirts on the street this summer, you're probably ready for an about-face.

Another way to look casually up to date - and sexy - is to pair a pencil skirt with a swingy jacket (Burberry's draped-back pea jacket looks like a cape) or one of Zac Posen's Moorish-looking blouses.

But if the early spring 2006 collections are an indication of what's to come, don't expect fashion to lose its new minimalist clarity. Some designers have been looking at early Zoran styles, others at the cool white simplicity of the Southwest. In Paris last month Alber Elbaz at Lanvin showed plain navy wrap dresses, which brought to mind the most sensible of all minimalists, the American designer Claire McCardell.

 

[Lena]

thanks so much for posting aya

much deseved karma for you, welcome to tFS

 

[wildcard]

Oh, I would love to see some of that English-garden-party-style mentioned. Sounds lovely with some "proper", delicate moods after this whole gypsy-rage. I do have to say I also look forward to the whole androgynous look, I myself feel very comfortable in crisp white shirts, wide-legged pants paired with my favorite high heels.

 

[Zazie]

Hi Lena, hi aya,

Thanks for posting the article. I wasn't sure if it might fit in here as it was about A/W 05, but I'm glad it brings in another direction for S/S 2006. I'm glad Lena thinks it's going to get bigger. I prefer to call it modern rather than minimal because modern can be very detailed and very much embellished, eg. Paco Rabanne paillete dresses, Vernon Panton and Marimekko prints, 60s Balenciaga bell-shaped, feminely-curved dresses and skirts. Nothing like the 90s austere shapes, strict lines and bare minimalism.

For some unfanthomable reason, maybe having watched too many reissues of French films, I'm craving the New Wave look, Jean Seberg's stripes, Bardot's bouffant, the skinny dresses of AnnaK etc. On the whole, I'm really glad that there's an alternative to the boho next S/S.

 

[Lena]

i hate to dissapoint you zazie, but i think it wont be too 60's or nostalgic.. from this article (and from the trend books) it seems that we may be seeing the rise of a real minimalism-with-a-twist, that is a true minimalistic style with off beat elaborate details.

the rise of the reworked minimalism, is just an andidote to the vintage/retro/nostalic styles, good as they may certainly be they can be boring after all those seasons..

we need a new approach, something 'spare' but interesting in a pure 'modern' feeling

 

[aya_k]

spring '06 forecast - check it out guys

http://www.fashionlines.com/2005/aug/fashion0805Forecasts.php

 

[*Happiness*]

Great topic.

 

[Lena]

thanks for the link aya

 

[aya_k]

s/s 06

i cannot wait to see the s/s shows in a few weeks to see where all this is going...

 

[Lena]

i'm having a first look at ss06 trends at the end of starting week, when i go to Paris for the Salons Du Pret-a-Porter , so expect an update before too long

 

[Zazie]

I posted this Swarovski jewelry mood site on another thread about S/S 06 concepts but it seems the collections have become more concrete now. Still, there are some interesting visuals for reference.

http://business.swarovski.com/open/..._cosmos2006.htm


I don't think the 60s references will be too literal, like McQueen, Chanel or Dior for A/W 05. The signs I see are more in the way the pieces from that era are being snapped up at vintage shops and showing up mixed with newer basics in the streets, especially the monochromes. It's also the silhouette, dark, skinny contrasted with a bouffant contrapoint. Another trend I've noticed is ruched, gathered and layered pieces, more Mad Max than pretty. Also seeing geometric prints. It seems to move towards a more abstract, artsy direction. Again, I wouldn't say it is minimalist. In art/architecture history, minimalism is one of modernism's subset, and describes aptly the 90s fashion where even buttons are banished to keep things "pure". There are a lot of details and embellishment around still, but not of the period kind.

These are probably just a few of the many trends predicted. It seems there are different trends for different sensibilities, which is great. I'm in design, but not fashion, so I'm not a forecaster for clothes, but need to heed the zeitgeist nonetheless as our way of working is a lot less flexible. Anyway, I love change, even for its own sake, and can't wait to see some creativity unleashed.

 

[Zazie]

Sorry, that link isn't working anymore. Should be:

http://business.swarovski.com/open/extern/en_fashion_cosmos2006.htm



Can't wait to see what Lena posts from Paris. Thanks in advance! Paris in late summer...now that is to be envied.

 

[gloria]

my trends

Navy style
Ragga sport style (tropical retro sport style last summer)
Orient

 

[Lena]

I don't think the 60s references will be too literal, like McQueen, Chanel or Dior for A/W 05. The signs I see are more in the way the pieces from that era are being snapped up at vintage shops and showing up mixed with newer basics in the streets, especially the monochromes. It's also the silhouette, dark, skinny contrasted with a bouffant contrapoint. Another trend I've noticed is ruched, gathered and layered pieces, more Mad Max than pretty.
......
In art/architecture history, minimalism is one of modernism's subset, and describes aptly the 90s fashion where even buttons are banished to keep things "pure". There are a lot of details and embellishment around still, but not of the period kind.

i totally agree and thanks for the link.. on the new minimalism, it will be 'modernistic' but it will have contradicting details to make it feel 'new'