SWE YORK CITY

All photos by Scott Lowe

My move from New York to Sweden unfortunately coincided with a mass exodus of my Swedish friends in the opposite direction.  While my friend Lars Andersson did not relocate to New York very recently, he is one of the many who moved to the city to study, and ended up settling down to stay for good.  Even though he never finished his degree at F.I.T., he still managed to carve a niche in the fashion world with his dark, dreamy, and highly labor intensive knits.  In his work, Lars has managed to fuse two very distinct and fundamental sides of Sweden, which seem diametrically opposed.  His hand-knit work draws on one of the nation's many homely traditions, and conjures up the comforting, cozy, and grandmotherly aspect of Sweden that is commonly peddled at the tourist shops lining the streets of Gamla Stan.  At the same time, his dark, and subculturally influenced designs harken towards the mysterious and haunting countryside, while simultaneously touching on contemporary Sweden's more recent love for progressive fashion, draping silhouettes, and a predominately black/grey color palette.  In the Lars Andersson Fall 2012 collection, I see both old Sweden and new Sweden at once, inflected, of course, with a bit of New York.

-Tiffany

The House of Spirits: Suzanne Rae Fall 2012

All photos by Allan Schoening

Last summer, while chatting with designer Suzanne Pelaez of Suzanne Rae, I made the exciting discovery that she had attended Bryn Mawr College around the same time that I attended neighboring Swarthmore.  Part of the Tri-College group of Liberal Arts Colleges located outside of Philadelphia, the schools are much better known for their high intellectual values and rigorous workload than any sort of interest in fashion.  Aside from my friend and fellow Swarthmore-grad, Joseph Altuzarra, most other students adopted a decidedly anti-fashion stance (and appearance).

I am mentioning all of this because it makes me enjoy Suzanne's work that much more, knowing her unusual background, and seeing how it influences the clothes she designs.  Suzanne, like myself, studied Art History as an undergrad, and her collections often touch upon artistic or poetic references.  For Fall 2012, Suzanne lists Jim Morrison, Aldous Huxley, and William Blake as sources of inspiration, and created clothes that were fueled by a quest for knowledge and spirituality.    Suzanne's work always has a distinctly bohemian, without ever being Boho, vibe, and I particularly loved how she took rich, jewel-toned velvets and used them in a modern way.  She also worked in wood and fur prints designed in collaboration with SamDakota, creating a sense of connection with the natural world.  The result was poetically elegant and romantic, but decidedly unfussy--something that even my felow Tri-co students could appreciate.

-Tiffany

The Transformer

Although Rad by Rad Hourani's Spring 2012 collection was saturated with the designer's go-to favorite color black, this season was actually meant to be a study of the color blue.  Ranging from the brightest light blue of the sky, to the darkest black blue of the night, the clothes were meant to be a medium to convey the positive vibrations associated with the color: health, lightness, intuition.  As always, the garments themselves were created with Hourani's signature unisexy approach, and many of the pieces had adjustable beltstraps that transformed the shape of the silhouette, often for very pragmatic purposes.  By allowing the wearer to adjust and change the shape of their clothes, Hourani allows them the freedom to change their attire according to their feeling and moods, and gives them permission to forge a new identity.

For more images, see my coverage of the show on Filep Motwary. 

-Tiffany

Norma Kamali 3D

Rather than presenting a traditional runway show during fashion week, Norma Kamali took an alternative route, and showed a 3D fashion film featuring the whopping 67 looks from her new Spring 2012 collection.  Audience members were given pairs of 3D glasses shaped like Kamali's famous cat-eye sunglasses, and then gathered to watch the fun short film featuring dancing models shimmying around in Kamali's sexy, space-age clothes.  Why 3D?  Kamali, ever the tech-savvy innovator, states "fashion is a beautiful partner for 3D, it is fun and makes the clothes pop!"  The video is now up online, and you can even shop the collection in 3D.  Don't have a pair of 3D glasses lying around the house? No worries, you can always sign up for the Norma Kamali email list, and they will send you a pair.  In the meantime, you can glimpse some of my favorite looks from the collection below, in 2D, but still popping.

-Tiffany

All lookbook photos by Xi Sinsong

For their Spring 2012 presentation, INAISCE eschewed models, and chose to display their collection on mechanical surrogates, hanging in a sparse gallery setting.  Freed from the body, the clothes were meant to be seen for their full utilitarian potential, and the garments were ethereal and airy, yet simple and practical.  I admit, it was a lot easier to photograph the clothes without pesky models fidgeting about in them while looking bored and not knowing how to pose.  Nonetheless, for such drapey and thoughtfully cut garments, it is often easier to see them on the body, and the lookbook photos provided a beautiful supplement to the show.  The photographs referenced the Ancient Sino influences behind the collection, while simultaneously enlivening somber color palette with imagery that takes clothes beyond the gothic connotations that the viewer might initially perceive.

-Tiffany

Red or Dead

Red and black is a notoriously harsh color combination, and the intensity of the two colors was used to full effect in Katie Gallagher's Spring 2012 collection Red Red Blood.  This season Katie was inspired by blood--not the splashes of blood from horror movies or nightmares, but instead the sanguine vitality of coursing blood moving through the human body.  Rather than thinking of blood in a macabre way, Katie sees it as our lifeforce, which is perhaps why red has always been such an appealing color to wear.  With her clothes, Katie takes that vivid, living color, which usually remains hidden underneath or skin, and brings it to the surface.

-Tiffany