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September 18, 2016

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Home » Sunday » Style

Star designers dazzle in New York

Source: Agencies | September 18, 2016, Sunday | Print Edition

VICTORIA Beckham

The one sound you usually never hear at a fashion show, with its pounding music and high-decibel chatter, is silence. But just before the Victoria Beckham show last Sunday — at 10:28am — the room fell silent in observance of the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

The only sound was the clicking of cameras, as the designer’s husband and oldest son — soccer great David Beckham, and Brooklyn Beckham — stood in remembrance, along with Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

Then came the fashion, with Beckham focusing this season on innovations in traditional fabrics like velvet, lace and satin. “I really feel I’ve come into my own with this season, I really do,” Beckham said. “It’s a lot about fabric development — I’m doing a lot of really exciting things in-house.”

Specifically, the collection was about “taking traditional fabrics ... and washing them, and crushing them, and pleating them, and smocking them — to really make them feel new and fresh,” Beckham told reporters backstage. Especially prominent was velvet — a particularly light version of a fabric most people associate with the colder winter months.

Beckham said she had also experimented with new colors like a bright peppermint and a bold orange. Also new: a lightweight summer boot. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a boot that was light, that looked cool and new and fresh,” she said. “I’m really excited to wear that boot.”

Tommy Hilfiger

It’s often remarked that New York Fashion Week feels like a carnival. Hilfiger decided to take that idea to its most literal conclusion, erecting a real-life carnival on a pier at Manhattan’s South Street Seaport to display his wares.

On a muggy summer Friday night, under a gaggle of strung-up lights and against a stunning city backdrop, Hilfiger displayed designs from his Fall 2016 collection — available online the minute they hit the runway — as well as his TommyXGigi collection, designed in collaboration with supermodel Gigi Hadid.

But there was a lot more than clothes to capture the attention. Just steps off the runway, one could get a temporary tattoo or some nail art. There were arcade games, a 40-foot Ferris Wheel along with other fairground rides, and food — lobster rolls, hot dogs, mozzarella sticks, cotton candy.

Oh, and there was Taylor Swift. The singer was there to cheer on her good friend Hadid, and cheer she did, also singing and bopping to the music as models strutted, and grasping Hadid’s hand as she walked down the runway at the end with Hilfiger.

In an interview earlier in the day, Hilfiger, who’s known for his lavishly staged productions every Fashion Week, explained that this one would be not only bigger, but different.

“It’s going to be a multimedia extravaganza, breaking all the rules and being disruptive in the fashion business,” he said. “It’s sort of a revolution in the fashion industry to create an event that is really not a traditional runway show and it is all about ‘buy now, wear now,’ designed by a model for a designer.”

Alexander Wang

Alexander Wang is, by his own description, a total sneakerhead. He once even designed a whole clothing collection around them, with dresses, tops and handbags emulating his favorite sneaks, like the classic white-and-green Adidas Stan Smith.

Now, Wang has taken his sneaker love to a new level, partnering with adidas Originals for a line of apparel and footwear that seeks, in his words, to “disrupt” the famous Adidas look while still preserving its familiarity. One example: rotating the well-known trefoil logo upside down. Another: “deconstructing” the Adidas sneaker. Also, the entire collection is unisex: Tops, bottoms, shoes.

Wang introduced the new line as a surprise finale to his Fashion Week runway show last Saturday night, in a huge space on a Hudson River pier. After modeling creations from Wang’s own label, models rushed backstage to change into new Adidas garb, while a one-and-a-half minute film teased the new collection.

Then they marched onto the runway, more than 70 of them, all clad in black, as the crowd — which included Madonna and Nicki Minaj — craned their necks and snapped endless photos. It was, Wang said, “the biggest show we’ve ever done.”

Oscar de la Renta

All fashion shows are team efforts, but that was truer than usual at Oscar de la Renta’s Spring 2017 runway show on Monday at New York Fashion Week.

Designer Peter Copping left his post abruptly in July, citing only personal circumstances, after less than two years in the job. It was one of a slew of recent departures of top designers at major labels. Copping had been the designated successor of the legendary de la Renta, who died of cancer just as Copping came aboard in 2014.

The new creative directors, Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, will make their debut collection in February. And so Monday’s show was the work of a 13-member design team at the company. The team ran out in unison, smiling and waving, at the end of the show.

As for the show itself, it exhibited the usual polish and finesse one has come to expect at a de la Renta show, with perhaps an added casual vibe: The models all wore flat sandals instead of heels. There were some relaxed caftans, and there was even a canvas safari jacket with wide-legged trousers.

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