The Detailed Shape Of Things To Come

[Lena]

quite an interesting article from NYT

The Detailed Shape of Things to Come
By CATHY HORYN

Published: December 30, 2003
One way to measure the vitality of the coming season is that nobody has bothered to come up with a handy catchphrase. Whenever the fashion industry is short of ideas or merely confused, it throws all its money on a single expression: waifs, grunge, heroin chic, boho romance. Remember Sloane Rangers? But this spring there's only word that counts: fashion.

Whether because of the economy, globalization, more intense competition or simply boredom with the same old basics, fashion designers concentrated harder on making clothes that displayed craft and imagination. After seeing little sign of technique except at the upper reaches of fashion, designers are once again draping, pleating and using patchwork in thoughtful ways. Zac Posen's draped dresses, with insets of matte and shiny fabrics, are a good example of the kind of effort designers showed. And no one combined craft and modern lightness better than Alexander McQueen, whose clothes very often looked layered — a rough-stitched gray undershirt with lace cap sleeves and a full skirt of black vintage taffeta — but, in fact, were a single pieceLayering is a big trend for spring, absorbed by makers of $50 T-shirts as well as young designers like Proenza Schouler, who showed sailor jackets and knit bodysuits with gauzy skirts that can be worn on your hips as casually as low-slung jeans. But to effect the look of layers, only Mr. McQueen pulled off that feat.

"A lot of the changes we're seeing are in the construction of clothes," said David Wolfe, an analyst with the Doneger Group, whose retail clients range from Wal-Mart to Nordstrom. And these changes will not be confined to high-end stores. Discounters, relying on cheap but skilled labor overseas, will also be offering clothes with more finesse.

The emphasis on old-fashioned technique, which is likely to continue into the fall, is probably a reaction against minimalism, Mr. Wolfe said. "But I also think that people want more value from fashion," he said.

Some fashion houses, like Chanel and Louis Vuitton, were mindful of copycats, and looked for ways to distinguish their products from imitators while giving their customers something a little more personal. At Chanel, tweed coats were embellished with cotton tatting on the cuffs — you have to look closely to see the handwork. At Vuitton, Marc Jacobs made eccentric use of sequins and added a Vegas dose of gold to vintage handbags. Gucci encrusted its best-selling chain bag with colorful stones. The look screams fashion. But isn't that the point?

"Everyone is upping the ante," said Ed Burstell, the general manager of Henri Bendel, noting that even companies known for feminine effects, like Blumarine, are paying more attention to details.

Under fashion's wide-open umbrella, several themes stand out. Except among fashion editors, who will inevitably cling to their widow's weeds, there will be unabated color, from Andy Warhol pop shades to citrus tones of almost sickening sweetness. There will be an explosion of prints, notably tiny florals from Marc Jacobs and travel scenes from Prada. Indeed, all the things that fashion used to decree were bad for women, and therefore bad for business, have come back.

The changes ahead also reflect a sense of optimism. That's how Peter Som and Patrick Robinson of Perry Ellis summed up their collections. Here were clothes — quirky prints, granny skirts, blouses edged with crushed ruffles — that answered a pent-up demand for sensuality rather than roaring sex appeal.

What does this say about women now? Maybe that they want to dress up but without the ladylike hokum — Daisy Buchanan unburdened.

 

[ignitioned32]

Good for designers to be more detailed and more focused on technique.

Thanks, Lena!

 

[Lena]

you are welcome igni

i hope overhyped 'bad taste' labels get a hard time for 2004, fashion needs more craftmanship and true original ideas

 

[ignitioned32]

Originally posted by Lena@Jan 2nd, 2004 - 3:58 am
i hope overhyped 'bad taste' labels get a hard time for 2004, fashion needs more craftmanship and true original ideas

ABSOLUTELY!

 

[Atelier]

Cathy Horn is one of my favorite fashion writers. Thanks for posting, Lena.

Originally posted by CATHY HORYN
And no one combined craft and modern lightness better than Alexander McQueen...

She really likes McQueen. He epitomizes her penchant for labels that are unique, wearable and--most importantly--well-made.

Discounters, relying on cheap but skilled labor overseas, will also be offering clothes with more finesse.

The World Trade Organization's textile quota talks fell apart in 2003. This matter will only continue to heat up until 2005 when quotas are lifted. Factories in China have been and are being built with the technology to handle both mass production and some of this finesse.

The look screams fashion. But isn't that the point?

YES!

There will be an explosion of prints, notably...travel scenes from Prada.

I loved the way Cathy Horn described S/S 04 Prada. I believe somewhere on the NYT website there's audio.

Here were clothes — quirky prints, granny skirts, blouses edged with crushed ruffles — that answered a pent-up demand for sensuality rather than roaring sex appeal.

I think roaring sex appeal is a good thing too, though.

Daisy Buchanan unburdened.

 

[Scott]

Ditto on Cathy Horyn. Imo,she's really our only journalist in America who truly expresses how she feels about fashion.

I'm glad designers are becoming more interested in craft, but what are they doing that the Belgians have had so much passion for the last decade? Meaning,why just now has it become such a big deal outside Couture? Is it out of complete desperation to get people to the shops? Are designers finally listening to their clients? I'm glad they're doing it but what's bugs me is why now are they realizing that people want something one-of-kind that cannot be spawned off by gazillions of mass market companies.

 

[metal-on-metal]

This is what she wrote about the Prada show back in October. She always makes such spot-on observations!

Ms. Prada seized on the sense of optimism that emerged last month at the New York shows. And she did it in the most unlikely of ways: by suggesting that getting on a plane and seeing a new country expands your mind.

It is such an old-fashioned notion, and Ms. Prada expressed it with almost cinematic nostalgia (she had the architect Rem Koolhaas design wallpaper for her show space, featuring airplanes over the Venetian sky), that it seems otherworldly in the post-9/11 era. Was there a time when we thought our lives could be changed by a trip abroad? There must have been, but life seems more complicated now -- and less innocent.

All Prada collections are in a sense about Ms. Prada, and when the first outfit came out on Wednesday evening -- a light gray cotton blouse tucked into a full skirt printed with a postcard-type etching of the Duomo, the city's cathedral -- one thought of how Ms. Prada likes to dress. There were also sweet dirndl dresses, with bras peeking above the gathered necklines and some slightly frumpish (or offhand, if you like) combinations of shrunken cardigans and rolled khaki shorts or cool shirtdresses in muddy plaids worn with snakeskin driving moccasins. These styles, too, reflect Ms. Prada's experience of going to the Swiss mountains in the summer and putting on dirndls with odd bits of lingerie and comfortable shoes.

Yet the collection stirred up too many thoughts and clearly involved too much research to be merely the expression of a single personality. The clothes combined the homely with the knowing -- a handsome coarse tweed jacket, fraying at the lapels, and worn with a tie-dyed skirt and a poky straw garden hat; a soft, paper-thin python coat that felt as if it had been beaten on a rock; prints that recalled those souvenir tea towels you find in the squares in Venice and Rome; sweaters pinned eccentrically with little hat brooches crocheted from raffia.

You couldn't help thinking that Ms. Prada was commenting on the fashion world, which prides itself on being sophisticated. But sophistication is the opposite of innocence. And these clothes were about innocence, about being a brainy young woman with a cheap suitcase who goes off to Europe for her junior year abroad with no other expectation than to fill her head with marvelously strange notions.

Backstage, as editors and retailers gathered around Ms. Prada, André Leon Talley, Vogue's editor at large, seemed to swell into a crest of adverbs. ''It's very writerly,'' he observed of the show, and then thinking some more, he added, ''It's very Green Acreish, very Pollyanna, with just a soupçon of the Bouvier sisters.''

 

[Scott]

Originally posted by chickonspeed@Jan 2nd, 2004 - 11:24 am
This is what she wrote about the Prada show back in October. She always makes such spot-on observations!

Ms. Prada seized on the sense of optimism that emerged last month at the New York shows. And she did it in the most unlikely of ways: by suggesting that getting on a plane and seeing a new country expands your mind. 

It is such an old-fashioned notion, and Ms. Prada expressed it with almost cinematic nostalgia (she had the architect Rem Koolhaas design wallpaper for her show space, featuring airplanes over the Venetian sky), that it seems otherworldly in the post-9/11 era. Was there a time when we thought our lives could be changed by a trip abroad? There must have been, but life seems more complicated now -- and less innocent.

All Prada collections are in a sense about Ms. Prada, and when the first outfit came out on Wednesday evening -- a light gray cotton blouse tucked into a full skirt printed with a postcard-type etching of the Duomo, the city's cathedral -- one thought of how Ms. Prada likes to dress. There were also sweet dirndl dresses, with bras peeking above the gathered necklines and some slightly frumpish (or offhand, if you like) combinations of shrunken cardigans and rolled khaki shorts or cool shirtdresses in muddy plaids worn with snakeskin driving moccasins. These styles, too, reflect Ms. Prada's experience of going to the Swiss mountains in the summer and putting on dirndls with odd bits of lingerie and comfortable shoes.

Yet the collection stirred up too many thoughts and clearly involved too much research to be merely the expression of a single personality. The clothes combined the homely with the knowing -- a handsome coarse tweed jacket, fraying at the lapels, and worn with a tie-dyed skirt and a poky straw garden hat; a soft, paper-thin python coat that felt as if it had been beaten on a rock; prints that recalled those souvenir tea towels you find in the squares in Venice and Rome; sweaters pinned eccentrically with little hat brooches crocheted from raffia.

You couldn't help thinking that Ms. Prada was commenting on the fashion world, which prides itself on being sophisticated. But sophistication is the opposite of innocence. And these clothes were about innocence, about being a brainy young woman with a cheap suitcase who goes off to Europe for her junior year abroad with no other expectation than to fill her head with marvelously strange notions.

Backstage, as editors and retailers gathered around Ms. Prada, André Leon Talley, Vogue's editor at large, seemed to swell into a crest of adverbs. ''It's very writerly,'' he observed of the show, and then thinking some more, he added, ''It's very Green Acreish, very Pollyanna, with just a soupçon of the Bouvier sisters.''

She is an absolute poet in her journalism! I don't care what adverbs Talley uses,Horyn certainly has the upper hand in descriptions And yes,always on the nail too.

 

[Atelier]

Originally posted by Scott+Jan 2nd, 2004 - 11:12 am--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Scott @ Jan 2nd, 2004 - 11:12 am)</div><div class='quotemain'>Imo,she's really our only journalist in America who truly expresses how she feels about fashion.[/b]

Scott, do you like Robin Givhan of The Washington Post? She's Cathy Horyn's successor at that newspaper and is also a noteworthy writer.

<!--QuoteBegin-Cathy Horyn in chickonspeed's post
And these clothes were about innocence, about being a brainy young woman with a cheap suitcase who goes off to Europe for her junior year abroad with no other expectation than to fill her head with marvelously strange notions.[/quote]

This is perfectly stated.

As for A.L.T., his understanding of fashion is on another plane. That man is ludicrously amazing.

 

[Scott]

Absolutely,I do! I completely forgot about her. Make that the two of them,then

 

[Spacemiu]

Wonderful news, I dount think its a reaction to minimalism as mcuh as to teh amssive productiona nd marketing, i think people are tired of haveing to buy uber expensive one offs to get some quality craftmanship and detail and hearing "craftmanship is only in couture" people doutn whant massive any more, or so I hope, i hope that fashionw ill continue moving int his direction and giev the major mass production a run for its money

 

[Scott]

You know what's funny even some of the craftiest designers will say they almost fall over in their chairs at the prices of some of their pieces. In any case,if its well made and can stand a lifetime,its well worth it,imo. No matter the price.

 

[HBoogie]

Originally posted by Atelier@Jan 2nd, 2004 - 10:14 am

Here were clothes — quirky prints, granny skirts, blouses edged with crushed ruffles — that answered a pent-up demand for sensuality rather than roaring sex appeal.

I think roaring sex appeal is a good thing too, though.

Think about what "roaring sex appeal" means these days, though. It's so cheap and vulgar. Sexiness in fashion sorely needs a redefining.

 

[Atelier]

Originally posted by HBoogie@Jan 3rd, 2004 - 12:01 am
Think about what "roaring sex appeal" means these days, though. It's so cheap and vulgar. Sexiness in fashion sorely needs a redefining.

I'm not equating roaring sex appeal with being cheap. That's not appealing to me. But I will take vulgar. Now that's appealing.

My friend pointed me to a New Yorker article several months ago in which John Galliano had this to say:

"My goal is really very simple: When a man looks at a woman wearing one of my dresses, I would like him basically to be saying to himself, 'I have to f*ck her.' I just think every woman deserves to be desired. Is that really asking too much?"

Do I think understated can be sexy? Yes. Less is more and refined, can that be sexy? Of course. But I see nothing wrong with a woman incorporating full-on roaring sex appeal into her wardrobe too and still be stylish and fabulous.

 

[TheSweetest]

Originally posted by HBoogie@Jan 3rd, 2004 - 12:01 am
Think about what "roaring sex appeal" means these days, though. It's so cheap and vulgar. Sexiness in fashion sorely needs a redefining.

It's about time, doggone it! I want to see FASHION now. i love this article and i also agree deeply with you, HBoogie! I want to have my own REAL fashion line one day and if that is the ppl's idea of sexy, i don't EVER want my line to be referred to as sexy. And notice how everyone who's anyone says that about everyone's apparel line. I think it's getting sickening with so many other adjectives in the world, can't they think up any other?

 

[Scott]

Romantic,majestic,enigmatic,imaginitive,ethereal,poetic,quirky,sensual....those are all sexy qualities,no? It is truly boring to hear one say 'sexy' over and over to sum up an entire collection of someone.

 

[Cicciolina]

That was a really lovely article - thank you Lena. And I also really enjoyed the Prada article.

 

[Spacemiu]

Originally posted by Scott@Jan 3rd, 2004 - 8:59 am
Romantic,majestic,enigmatic,imaginitive,ethereal,poetic,quirky,sensual....those are all sexy qualities,no? It is truly boring to hear one say 'sexy' over and over to sum up an entire collection of someone.

To true