Fashion

And now, for something completely different…Balenciaga Fall 2009 is certainly a big departure from the ultra-structured, futuristic, at times minimalist collections we’ve seen from Nicolas Ghesquière over the past couple of years. There’s nothing space-aged about these strongly Parisian clothes, and that only serves to prove what a versatile designer Ghesquière is and will continue to become. Anyone that can do suits so structured that just looking at them improves my posture and silk dresses so languid and airy that I want to laze around all day in them is worth whatever amount of money the Balenciaga’s parent company is paying him. A one-trick pony, he is obviously not.

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It’s wartime in Europe again. Well, sort of. Let me explain. It’s wartime in Milan, and on Miuccia Prada’s runway in particular. Forget the 80s-inspired neon club excess that we saw on New York’s runways – Prada isn’t going clubbing anytime soon. The shapes and materials alike in Prada Fall/Winter 2009 reminded me of World War II movies as soon as I laid eyes upon them, and the reference is as overt as the 80s redux shown by Marc Jacobs. There are rich tweeds in neutral grey and brown, cinched at the waist with thin brown belts. The shoulders and fall of the skirts are strongly 1940s reminiscent, and even the beaded pieces have an austerity that reminds one of a world torn apart by war in Western Europe.

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Oh, Karl Lagerfeld. He’s crazypants. He’s also the creative force behind Chanel, although I’m sure you all were aware of that. As a result, all of the creative elements of Chanel’s branding are immensely, luxuriously over the top in ways that few other brands can touch (although Louis Vuitton also does an admirable job with Marc Jacobs at the helm), with advertising campaigns and catalogues often photographed by Lagerfeld himself. He is indeed the man behind the camera for Chanel’s Spring/Summer 2009 Accessories Catalogue, but to get a first look at the catalogue and find out more about Krazy Karl’s concept for the shoot, you’ll have to make the jump.

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Ladies and…well, mostly ladies, we have a winner. Marchesa has shown the PRETTIEST collection that I have seen in quite a while. In fact, Georgina Chapman may have stuffed her collection full of enough ‘pretty’ to choke a horse. In serious fashion, being described as “pretty” can be somewhat of a backhanded compliment – it implies a lack of innovation and an appeal to the fashion customer’s baser instincts. Pretty doesn’t make headlines. And then again, what we’re seeing here might just be way beyond a simple description of “pretty.” It might be way, way better than that.

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The first thought that came to my mind upon viewing Narciso Rodriguez’s Fall 2009 collection was “meh.” He recently lost his financial backing from Liz Claiborne, which is surely enough to shake any designer’s vision, and that seems to be at least part of the problem with Rodriguez’s most recent offerings. He’s known for his sleek, modernistic clothing with little adornment and painstaking attention to fitting a woman’s body. Tailoring is paramount, and that’s certainly not where this collection falls flat. To find out where it falters and see for yourself, make the jump.

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If nothing else, Oscar de la Renta knows his ready-to-wear customers. They are not ladies that have felt serious effects of the recession, unless they were personal friends with Bernie Madoff. They are not ladies that have driven themselves through a fast-food drive-thru in the past several decades. They are not me. Or most of you, probably. They are the traditional “ladies who lunch.” They also may sit on the boards of philanthropic organizations, have silly heiress names (anyone remember Shippy Shipman from Sex and the City?), and actually need ball gowns for practical purposes. De la Renta’s clientele is a rarified group of women whose taste is refined and who demand the sort of classic perfection that only vast amounts of money can buy, unless you happen to extremely handy with a sewing machine. Fall into neither category? Neither do I, so make the jump and live vicariously through the pictures with me.

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Allow me to continue to wax poetic about Marc Jacobs for a moment. In addition to being knock-me-over-with-a-feather brilliant, he might be the hardest working man in fashion. Not only is he the creative director of Louis Vuitton, a huge fashion house in and of itself, but he has multiple brands under his own name that each include clothing, shoes, handbags, and accessories. Anyone that knows the industry knows that he’s obviously not designing every piece of every line himself, but he is the person responsible for holding all of the conflicting ideas about all of these lines and their directions in his head at once. And anyone that saw his Collection show from earlier in the week can attest to the massive difference in direction between that line and his diffusion Marc by Marc Jacobs line. But you’ve got to make the jump to find out why.

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Fashion Week can be a hard for us handbag lovers. Because of the placement of photographers at the end of the runway, it’s often difficult to get a halfway decent look at the bags we might be seeing in stores at the end of the summer. Thankfully, though, we’ve rounded up some bag pictures from the Marc Jacobs show after the jump.

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I worship at the altar of Marc Jacobs. Unabashedly. I am unashamed to think that he is possibly the greatest fashion mind of our generation and admit that I’d wear pretty much anything he put his stamp of approval upon. I love him as a character – I love all the fabulous younger men he dates, all the crazy things he does to his hair, and the fact that he has taken to wearing man-skirts and combat boots. So presented after the jump is Marc Jacobs Fall 2009 Ready-to-Wear:
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I think I’ve told this story on Purse Blog before, but I’ll be brief: ever since Diane Von Furstenberg was mean to Toccara, the plus-sized model on one of the first seasons of America’s Next Top Model, she gives me a frownie-face. But since she’s actually fairly influential and makes some interesting things, we’re going to talk about her (somewhat crazy) collection anyway. You want pics? We’ve got them, after the jump.

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