Yes, it’s another article about the shows of Fall-Winter 2008 season. I adore seeing the collections, waiting for everything new to come up. Funnily enough, I am often left with nothing, no collections to love and go through time after time for inspiration.
Over half of the most important fashion weeks are gone and done. So far, there are only two collections I am interested in. What makes the whole thing even more peculiar is the fact that these collections come from designers who’s work I couldn’t stand in the past.
First of them comes from London, made by the prince of London hipsters, Christopher Kane. He has really grown on me lately – an acquired taste, I believe. I have even started to like his older collections, starting from the neon-coloured mini dresses right to the Spring-Summer 2008 collection, made of faded denim and crocodile print. But it is Kane’s collection for the coming Fall-Winter season that seals my newfound love for the young Glaswegian.
Unlike so many other upcoming designers in London, he seems to have his own ideas of fashion and he seems to be able to explore those to a depth. At first he seemed like one of these designers who make an interesting first collection but can’t move on. Turns out I was too quick to judge.
Kane’s Fall-Winter collection starts very boringly with grey and boxy, ill fitting knitwear. However this is a good element, as it diminishes the thought of Kane solely as a designer of flashy mini dresses. From there, the collection starts to evolve to a parade of pieces with these big plastic sequins on them – creating actually a consistent collection of subdued, light clothing for different occasions. Kane makes these sequinned pieces look classy, not at all like they would be reserved to the dance floor, more like the black-tie cocktail events. The frocks look versatile, made for very different types of women for very different events. A Kane dress is my must-have piece for next season – too bad the prices must be sky high.
Another surprise crush came from Milan, from none other than Miuccia Prada. Prada has never been my kind of a fashion house, basing itself too much on advertising and creating an image than great clothing. Then there’s the recent reveal of the “Italian fashion mafia” of Prada producing their goods at low-quality factories and with workers paid the lowest amount of money possible. And there’s famous the logo and all that… in short, Prada is to me as tacky as Louis Vuitton. My sentiments towards her fashionable highness, Miuccia, were perfectly expressed in this blog entry from Fashion Critic: Prada is not intellectual.
Yesterday evening I was somewhat stunned to realise I was enchanted by the house’s new collection. It’s clumsy and ill-fitting, with predominantly made of lace. The basic colours are black, beige and blue creating an endearing monotony. There’s certain dishevelled elegance of clothing that is not entirely ‘right’. It’s hard to put a finger on what makes this collection great, but it sure is there. My only wish is that the awful sunglasses and bags would be taken away…
By Asta Hiippala
Collages made by Laura Foster
