Next summer better be sunny around the world, to complement a great Spring/Summer 2012 Women’s Collection. The wardrobe is full of prints and colours with green, blue and yellow making appearances all over. The casual-yet-chic sporty styles of Alexander Wang and Marc Jacobs will surely be a hit. The prints resemble a botanic garden, from [...]
The reasons we love haute couture shows is because it is a real excuse to get as flamboyant as our imagination could be. The Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2011-2012 season was of feathers and frills hinting at a wilder side but subdued with a combination in some instances of contemporary elegance. From Gaultier’s gender-bending strict tailoring, [...]
It was a season of sports, from Prada’s golf inspired collection (she said that she hates golf!) to Dolce & Gabbana’s fishing inspired collection. There were lots of prints that dominated most collections, with navy blue, mustard yellow, pink and hot red as staple colours. While often we shy away from trends because they never [...]
In my not-so-humble opinion, I believe the strongest collections from Women Fall/Winter 2011-2012 Fashion Week(s) came courtesy of those designers and houses that do not obey to fleeting trends, but rather feast on their own imagination and unique DNA. These include a promising first women’s collections by Nicola Formichetti for Thierry Mugler, Thom Browne’s men’s [...]
Amsterdam International Fashion Week (AIFW), while certainly lesser known than its Paris or London counterparts, is a unique one-week event with one cohesive theme: Celebrating Fashion. AIFW events went beyond the runway and party circuit, encompassing chocolate shops, galleries, and movie theaters in the city, all focusing on fashion-related themes for the week. The collections [...]
Afghan-born Dutch designer Roya Hesam has already been the recipient of multiple awards nationally and internationally, but this is the first collection focused on attracting retailers and expanding her brand name. The collection shown at AIFW this time was titled Te Mana O Te Moana (Spirit of the Ocean). Hesam’s independent woman finds strength in [...]
Elsien Gringhuis‘ collection, shown on the last day of AIFW January 2011 was by far my favorite. The pure simplicity and wearability of the angular pieces was spiced up by complex constructions, folds, pleats and more. The collection was inspired by the Dutch landscape in the north of Holland where Gringhuis comes from – where [...]
Pauline van Dongen‘s latest collection is named ‘Stereopsis.’ Its roots lie in van Dongen’s research into human beings’ relation to the space that surrounds them, and how it alters their perceptions. For example, she investigated the concept of light and how it affects one’s perception of depth and dimension. She found that cones and similar [...]
Crème Fresh at AIFW featured the works of 3 up-and-coming, young designers at Trouw, Amsterdam: Lotte van Keulen, Elise Kim and Ellis Biemans. LOTTE VAN KEULEN: A self-described ‘Fashion Scientist,’ van Keulen begins her process by collecting music, art, images and other creative raw material that draws here, and from this collage, she pulls out [...]
At ModeFabriek, every season, more than 600 national and international brands gather at the RAI in Amsterdam for a 2-day showcase of established as well as up-and-coming mass as well as luxury brands, a pre-cursor to fashion week. This year, the 30th edition focused on high-end fashion. 19,000 stylists, buyers and fashionistas — via exclusive [...]
