What are the latest trends? Or what are the main trends of the coming seasons? Are the two questions I have heard the most this past week. Back from the sand and the sea, we are analysing what we will need to get ASAP to update our transitional wardrobe while sporting a nice tan gained after a long deserved holiday summer. Well the answer to these closet-related questions are not easy or on the contrary very obvious. Any style is on trend or none. That is to say that unless we are strolling down our street naked we should be able to go out of the house pretty much safe fashion wise this fall.
Don't tell me that you have not gone through the pages of the AW11 catwalk specials issued by your favourite publications while sitting next to the pool and sipping a dry martini... hence what have you discovered? That all the post-war 20th century decades are "in". Grab a sweet sixties shift yellow dress, go for a smoking lux tux ensemble (Yves Saint Laurent-1966) or get yourself a forties look with a midi rounded shoulder dress in today's accepted mustard colour. To be honest this might be one thing that I refuse to consider as being trendy: since when is this kind of yellow flattering?
Let's leave the condiment discussion for later and continue the review. So here we are: the sixties, the forties (fashion does not mind a chronological disorder) and the fifties. The heydays of the A-line dresses and skirts are back not too mention the complimentary optical. The cat-eyes frames that were reserved to your old fashioned mathematic teacher or your doctor's secretary in the nineties are the ones to sit on top of your nose. If you are an eighties fan you have not been forgotten by the industry leaders; the leather wet look and the black & white diktat are included in this season's lookbook. So at the end what to wear and what to buy? Or shall we put it this way: what not to wear and not to buy?
The real newness this season is that our winter wardrobe should be edited rather than updated, which means that instead of playing the game of "catch the it items of the season " we should take on the challenge of avoiding buying the future outs. Getting back to my primary question, the secret to sort some getting-back-to-business looks and next months' rags is to understand which are the supposedly trends not to adopt blindly.
First the full-on fetish look, one or two nods to the SM revisited seventies vibe are ok but the whole call-girl pattern assortment is a no-go. The risk is to look like catwoman outside of Halloween celebrations and to attract fashion mommies, i.e., the fashion mistakes that no one really needs to remember. Next to this X file containing outrageous frocks, cat headdresses and vinyl student bombers, sits the velvet box. The sultry fabric has its cool but is not to be applied to every cut. If a dress can be ok, pants are by no means an option. Rules should be broken from time to time, however I would highly recommend abiding by the one that stripes off velvet over-the-knee boots. Featured at the Alberta Ferretti show, they are to remain a runway story, too heavy and clumsy. The same applies to Prada's Mary Jane leather knee boots, exception made if you are the spitting image of a size 0/ sixteen year old model. To conclude my fashion warning I would stay away from quilted leather leg warmers like the ones imagined by Alexander Wang. Wang goes usually bang in my heart but this time I will have to decline the offer for the joy of my credit card.
To summarise this September's fashion situation: no leading trend to embrace but tribes to belong to. With fashion broken down in decades we need to understand who are our friends and who to refer to. The days we team with the mods, we need a shift dress, if missing the Alexander McQueen enriched version is a great pick to be sixties idol friendly and to look the texture. The animal print MasterCard can be a pair of booties and why not the red leopard ones by Isabel Marant or the python bright greens signed Dries Van Noten. To look the Louis Vuitton by Marc Jacobs fetish tag no need to overspend, the doorman cap is kinky enough and still classy and when out of order because out of fashion, it looks pretty cool hanging on the front door. Out and about, a black silk satin jumpsuit is a great alternative to the LBD and should set us apart from the crowd as it worth a VIP ticket and is to become an evening standard look.
The good of having no strict defined trend to follow is that we can wear pretty much everything we have without having to fill up gaps and can freely make up our mind when it comes to the coming months' fashion agenda. The idea is to look out to make the most of our current winter trails and to invest in items that will not scream "past season" in 12 months. If missing, to get: oversized trousers in a classic colour (navy, chocolate, dark grey) and thick fabric, a printed or sheer silk blouse that might be archived next year and dug up in two, and a great pair of heeled loafers promising conform and leggy silhouette. Not to forget is a pair of cigarette trousers grasped round the waist and hemmed right above the ankle.
The allowed indulgence is a brocade feast.
Shuttle-woven fabrics are proven to be high wardrobe supplements. The metallic threads injected in pop colours fibres are a true boast to enter the cold season and to gather energies around plus if anything golden enriched garments might be considered in retrospect as the original characteristic of the apparent trendless winter 2011, so hands on!