Fashion

If you don’t think that John Galliano is a mad genius and we’re just all lucky to be living in the same world with him, then you haven’t been paying attention.

For Spring 2010, his collection for Christian Dior connected beautifully to the retro-and-structured-underthings look that he had showed earlier this year during Haute Couture week, and the 40s film noir looks were exactly what you would expect a dizzy dame to wear when walking into a smoky private eye’s office.

Galliano knows his audience for Dior, and I could see them buying up these ultra-glam cocktail dresses and floating evening gowns hand over fist. And not only are they beautiful, but they so thoroughly inhabit the brand’s history and mythology while still incorporating modern touches like tough leather bombers. The past and present meld gorgeously into looks that are not only art objects, but are also impressively wearable, for the most part. You know, if you go to those types of events.

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It is no secret that we are huge fans of Alexander McQueen at PurseBlog. His over the top fashion shows have editors, bloggers, and anyone who caught a glimpse of the show talking for months. Alexander McQueen himself is a private man, but we would give anything to be in his head (follow him on Twitter for the best chance to do so).

Tomorrow we will all be able to partake in the genius that is Alexander McQueen. McQueen is collaborating with ShowStudio to deliver the Spring Summer 2010 show entitled Plato’s Atlantis live from Paris. At 2:15 pm EST (8:15 pm Paris time), you can log on to watch an exclusive interview of McQueen with Nick Knight and watch the Spring Summer 2010 show.

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With the onset of fall comes cooler weather and many more social occasions. Now through New Years the number of occasions to wear my little black dresses increases dramatically. Dressing for evenings out on the town require a bit of advance planning. This year my LBD du jour is from Alexander Wang. The Alexander Wang Spider lace bandage dress ($775 at Net-a-Porter) has cocktail party style wrapped up with an asymmetric shoulder and bandage style detailing. The dress is super stretchy and body hugging as well. I’m going to need to do a few extra sessions of Pilates to look great in this dress! A spectacular black clutch is required for this Alexander Wang dress.

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Dolce & Gabbana Spring 2010 was goth, glam and very Victorian, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the bags. They lacked some of the personality and style of the clothes with which they were designed, but they were sort of interesting in their own right. Whatever way you slice it, however, knit and macrame do not say glam, goth, or Victorian.

The highlights for me were the variations on the successful Miss Sicily satchel shape and anything containing red leopard print (I know, I know, my “taste level” is not so awesome sometimes). Lowlights? Knit, knit, and more knit. Much like the clear vinyl totes that Prada showed earlier in the week, I can’t imagine that these are going to have much of an audience among handbag aficionados, but perhaps I’m wrong. Would you pay four figures for them?

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I’m underwhelmed, and I hate being underwhelmed. I’m not a huge fan of Prada’s Fall 2009 offerings, and I’m even less of a fan of Prada Spring 2010. So much so that it kind of makes my head hurt.

Memo to the fashion industry: no one wants clear vinyl bags. No one. You guys tried this crap a few seasons ago and thought it would be cute, and they all ended up on the sale rack at the end of the season, and they didn’t even move particularly quickly once discounted. A clear, architectural hard plastic clutch meant to hold three things for a night out, a la Fendi’s Spring 2010 presentation? That’s clear done well.

But a vinyl gray-tinted clear satchel meant to hold the dreck of everyday life, like tampons and your ATM receipts? No thanks. Do not want. Ever. But that, with some jewels stuck to the top and a canvas tote or two thrown in for good measure, is basically what we got. Since Prada does such a big bag collection for every season, this is probably only the tip of the iceberg and several other non-runway mini lines will eventually surface, but if this is any indication of what’s to come, I’ll take a pass.

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The Fendi Spring 2010 Handbags Collection is the very definition of a “mixed bag.” Har har, bag pun. I know, it was bad. I’ll stop.

Anyway, yes, the bags! Some were amazing – the new soft leather Peekaboos with wood or clear plastic handles were among my favorites, and the addition of exposed stitching, combined with the different handle textures, gives the shape a sense of style that it was missing in its more staid initial iterations. The bags look touchable and a bit vintage, just like the rest of Karl Lagerfeld’s breezy, Parisian collection for the brand.

Other standouts were the Perspex beveled clutches, some completely clear, others with slight tints or exterior studding. The bags were, of course, shown with nothing inside of them, and putting anything in them would be kind of a shame, but how else are you supposed to carry them? They were beautiful and a tad whimsical as art objects, and if the stuff you carry inside your clutches is very beautiful, they might be a workable choice.

And on the other hand, some things just didn’t work at all. We saw leather totes in a variety of colors with an odd, pansy-embroidered snap-on linen cover that was not only puzzling but also not particularly attractive, and Fendi would have done well to omit those completely and add more of the delicious Peekaboo styles, along with a few of the other wood-framed clutches and bags, to the collection instead. They were almost distractingly bad, but ultimately the preponderance of beautiful bags won out.

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I look through a lot of fashion shows and various accessories presentations. It’s an occupational hazard, particularly at this time of year, and it can be a little hypnotizing after a white. Click. Belted shift. Click. High-waisted trousers. Click. Oh, a cropped jacket. Click.

If the show isn’t wow-worthy, it can be easy to flip through Style.com without really absorbing what I’m looking at, much like I did with my textbooks in high school (and, let’s face it, college). But I looked through Gucci Handbags Spring 2010 twice, with rapt attention – not only is this Frida Giannini’s best collection of clothing since her era at the brand began, but it’s also the strongest lineup of accessories that I’ve seen from the brand in years.

The collection’s clothes have a way of being minimal and ornate simultaneously, and that’s the only way to describe the bags as well. Even the lean, angular clutches are fashioned out of candy-colored crocodile skin that makes me want to say “I’ll take one in every color,” hand over my credit card, and not look at the total on the receipt.

And that’s just the beginning. There’s texture galore by way of exotics like crocodile and python and Gucci’s signature logo embossing, and a few of the company’s classic details, like bamboo handles and horse bit hardware. The collection was varied and nuanced, containing a little bit of something for everyone; it was perhaps the most wearable, beautiful bag collection I’ve seen grace the runway in several seasons.

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As a slavish fan of the Tom Ford era at Gucci, I’ve got to say that Spring 2010 is easily the best collection we’ve seen from current designer Frida Giannini.

Instead of the girly, at times hippie-chic clothes that have come out of her tenure at the company so far, what we saw this season was modern, athletic, and a tad science fiction. Normally those would be words from which I would shy away as descriptors of beautiful clothing, but the high-waist leggings, voluminous jackets and body-conscious dresses make sci fi chic and aspirational – if only Ra’mon from Project Runway had made something like this on last week’s episode, he might not have been auf’d.

But he didn’t, and Frida did, because there’s a reason that she’s employed by one of the largest and most recognizable luxury brands in the world. She started, as has proven popular this season, with white (it would be a full nine looks before another color appeared) and slowly moved herself into light greys before going for bolder books in black, orange, and even a little bit of pink. Print was limited mostly to ikat here and there on smart shift dresses, and the majority of looks were solid and neutral.

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The Marc by Marc Jacobs RTW Spring 2010 collections presented most all of the female models wearing gigantic bows on their heads. You’d have to be blind to have missed the neon fuchsia, red and blue swathes of fabric walking down the runway. It was all in tune with the very prevalent ’80s theme. Or perhaps it is an ode to Madonna. Can you say “Desperately Seeking Susan” or ginormous bunny ears at the Met ball, anyone? Thus, we are also seeing a common trend in bow-embellished handbags. Perhaps it is part of the ’80s revival as well. We found a few bags with a serious bow element to them.

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At this point, what is there left to say about Oscar de la Renta? He’s a designer that mostly bucks trends in favor of his own ladies-who-lunch aesthetic, and if it’s brought him this far, who am I to say that’s not exactly what he should continue to do?

When it comes down to it, the man simply makes beautifully tailored, beautifully realized clothing for whoever is lucky enough to afford it. He may not be as innovative as some of the younger designers that have just come on the scene, but innovation isn’t always what we want or need. Sometimes, “pretty” is all anyone can ask for, and de la Renta brings the pretty.

As always, his collection is full of sumptuous fabrics, delicately constructed evening gowns, and careful embroidery. There’s more color present here than in many of his recent collections, and it’s all vibrant and lovely. Most women don’t realize how wonderful brights can look on them, and the notable lack of black here might help convince a few people.

And when he uses black, de la Renta makes it count. One of my favorite looks of the entire show was a black lace cocktail dress that I will probably continue to lust after for years to come. It’s the kind of dress I hope to eventually have occasion to wear at some point in my life, and when the time comes, I hope I’m skinny enough and rich enough to have something like it. I know that Oscar wouldn’t have it any other way.

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