The line previewed at Bates College last week before anyone else got a chance to see it and it’s slated to get reviewed at five other colleges w/students as its brand ambassadors. (sunjournal 3/11)

If the university crowd is your target market, then this is a great way to reach them: on their turf and exclusively. This is really one of those counter trends in response to the overwhelming churn of social media. How better to get someone’s attention and to put them in the mood than to first pick a spot that conveys the mood of the line (a coffee shop in a New England college….)
and make it a trunk show!

Trunk shows have been being done since the beginning of the fashion industry but to an audience who was loaded and generally something on the level of a socialite. Bates College, et al, doesn’t exactly meet the usual trunk show crowd definition but I give it an A+ for the times we are living in. Set’s the tone, the mood, the buzz….will the line stand up to the hype?

It’s open for all to view and buy at it’s website, LL Bean Signature.com, so you can form your own opinion. But I’d suggest you hit the men’s site first and go for the Mariner’s tee (that’ll last you well into the next decade), and then onto the shoes. I already own one of the Ranger moc’s from back in the 80′s (were they even called that then?) and I’ll tell you, it’s a great shoe. I want it in the darker color now. My daughter saw me wearing it the other day and I thought they were gonna be snapped off my feet.

Then there is the L.L. Bean classic hunting boot that has been modernized. Again I own that hunting boot from the 80′s and that’s probably the best boot made on earth. It will last me into the next century (in other words, longer than I will live) but I’d buy the more modern version, the Waxed Canvas Maine Hunting Shoe, cause it’s cool…that one I could wear into any restaurant and not feel over booted. (watch the vid while you’re at the site, I am a sucker for nostalgia, and it’s Americana personified, A++)

Yeah. There are some pretty cool updated Bean classics that the well heeled college crowd will love and adore. I might work a little on the women’s line but they’ve got some great sweaters, and again, shoes, ooh and totes.

Well on it’s way to becoming a classic, L.L. Bean’s Signature Line is worth the hype. But don’t take my word for it….

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Louis Vuitton FW 2010 va va voom

Shows are over for now. Funny, they seemed to go on and on. Weird season. For all the incredible imagery and coverage, I am hard pressed to know entirely what the take away is. Not because the industry experts didn’t cover it well along with the fashionista blogger/press but, hmmm, upon reflection, if there is one really strong takeaway besides a return to curves it would be that leather and faux fur have infinite possibilities, all kinda good news, I think.

Chanel used lotsa fur for the fall season, but all faux. Gaultier went for 101 ways to do leather for Hermes and inspired by the legendery Emma Peel, the female protagonist of the 60′s hit tv program “Avengers.”

It’s just no one really had a to die for collection. I can think of some stand outs like Haider Ackermann, Balenciaga and Rick Owens but as much for their imagery and extremes as anything else so don’t know how well those will play out in retail.

Illustration from Legwork Studio (found it on the Takeover blog which documents good design) Legwork Studio’s site happens to be a finalist at SXSW this week in Austin. For the full list of finalists and their categories check here.

That’s the sweet spot isn’t it? What happens between now and showing up in the stores? It’s where I would want to be at any rate.

That said, there was so much exciting happening with the technology of the coverage that for me the collections almost got lost in it. I mean there were so many gooooood videos, and the very interesting interview industry experts like NYT’s critic Cathy Horyn along with others had with Charlie Rose (see Trendbites post on the past present and immediate future of the fashion industry), the live streaming which verged on filmmaking held its own marvels and then the Oscar coverage in the middle of it and twitter keeping us really up close and personal. This season more than any other I almost felt as if I were living a second life. So, kudos, industry. If you wanted to engage us, mission accomplished!

I’m not sure really what this all means for fashion in the long run. Maybe it means a second life for the fashion industry. It lends itself to a visual medium but there are practicalities to it. For instance, if you bring in images of the backs of the silhouettes from the runway as well as the front by the likes of the New York Times, Style.com, New York Mag TheCut, SHOWStudio, WWD, and Elle Magazine then the next thing we need to ask of them or someone is the ability to place ourselves in the outfits digitally (thank you Avatar), make adjustments digitally, and voila! order it, right there, right then, right now.

Garcon! Can you get on that please?

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Tavi Gevenson, 14 year old internet fashion blogging sensation (image British Vogue).

When I put this piece together, I was watching Law & Order, the one where the Mom of a family of 10 adopted special needs children is murdered and the Dad, the day after, puts the family on a reality show. It ends with a dead locked jury so the suit is thrown out and the reality show host creates a new format with a new judge he has picked to decide on a whole other set of criteria (that the reality show host set forth), which didn’t have much to do with the mom who got murdered in the first place.

Burberry Prosum streamed their collection live as did others. I hope this trend continues.

It’s a seemingly far fetched possibility, yet the lines are getting pretty blurred in most everything, on an everyday basis between truth and fiction. Thank you cyberspace, cable television, Judge Judy and American Idol. The old adage believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see is never more true than this moment in history. With fashion, live streaming a runway collection has brought fashion so close to the masses that the mystique of the shows is gone with some designers making their clothing available, on the spot, straight from the runways. As a consequence how fashion is getting covered during these shows has changed too. It’s big business for the publications and all of them are all over it. Twitter has added a great element to following the shows so you’re never very far out of the loop. The fashion folks have been great about announcing the live streaming collections so if you can make it, you’ve got a front row seat, complete w/ 140 character tweets describing insiderey elements to a designer’s collection. Better than being there, almost.

In the process some fashion bloggers have become the latest internet sensation…deserved or not, it’s the novelty they offer and the demographic they speak to the industry is after (Tavi, above). Nonetheless, they are all the rage. Fashion itself was the least of the news, and in some cases rose to that level only. Where the medium became the sole message.

Balenciaga, left, Vivienne Westwood Red, center, Rodarte, right

That said designers at first blush were all over the place for fall 2010 (of course with the massive amount of coverage, most bad some good, what else is going to be your takeaway?). Taking a closer look myself, I was able to determine there were two significant profiles to emerge, a more feminine, almost girly one vs a more severe serious minimalist female with a third, and oddly enough lesser, one based solely on a creative expression serving to feed the sensationalism that speaks to a visual medium vs the female body.

Haider Ackermann, left, Lanvin, center, Prada, right

Beyond that, you will have lots of fab coats to choose from, fashioned leather to die for, fur (faux and real), velvet, feathers and, ladies, get ready, the waist is back. While the controversy over models on the catwalk being too thin has the industry putting models with slightly more meat on their bodies on the runway this season (thankfully) the designers have created overall collections that are more body conscious. The heavy layers of the past, while still there in some collections, focus more on the fact that women have waists and curves whether a more feminine or severe look. Turns out we’ve all got curves.

Well, you don’t say. And high time designers you figured that out. Of course some managed this obvious reality better than others. John Galliano for instance for Dior is apparently being criticized for an overtly romantic collection yet women love it. And Lanvin, who doesn’t do anything for the sake of sensationalism, turned out a unique body conscious yet easy collection for women. It combined successfully the best of both worlds, tailoring and draping. So you have a professional look that is feminine. He worked at that. Then you have Balenciaga who turned out a tremendously creative collection inspired by artists (and packing materials) but it has nothing to do probably with what women want. No matter, it makes a statement, if that is what you want and will be worth something in the aftermarket collectors have discovered on ebay and in vintage shops. Rodarte falls into this category as does Issey Miyake and Prada.

It’ll be interesting to see what the retailers do with what’s been handed them. Hopefully they’ve learned something from the past few years….worst thing they could do is badly knock off what they’ve seen on the runways using some unknown factory in India. With so much talent unemployed, it’s not necessary to use half measures. I guess we’ll see.

3/09/10 12/:53 p.m. Update:

Raf Simons for Jil Sander, Phoebe Philo for Celine, and Stella McCartney have all turned out highly minimalist collections, which most definitely has strength and I for one love the simplicity and strictness (tends to be more my style of dress); however, I see this as being specific to their design aesthetic vs a strong trend; infact, I will stick by what I’d alluded to above: that there is some nice combo of feminine and minimalist which Lanvin and Haider Ackermann as well as in New York Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan and Michael Kors spoke (did not forget you New York). (images to come).

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Alexander Wang…………………….Carolina Herrera………………Prabal Gurung FW 2010

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Could not help but notice:

Effeti Kitchen……………………………Dior Haute Couture 2010

Motivo-Ceaserstone ……………Mickey Rourke Golden Globes 2010

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Alexander McQueen delivered his SS 2010 collection today with evolution as its theme and he picked snakes to get his point across. I don’t have the full inside scoop on that particular detail, but he certainly represented fashion, snakes and the process of evolution flawlessly.

And if that weren’t enough, he really made (air) waves by going direct to the cyberspace fashion collective by tweeting about his video of the collection done in conjunction with fashion photog Nick Knight. Just prior to the runway show, Nick Knight did an up close interview with McQueen sitting at a kitchen table drinking from a very proper cup of tea and truly I felt as if I were right there, sitting with Mr. McQueen himself listening to him explain some of his thinking behind fashion, the internet, and his own visions.

Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous stuff. If you ever wanted to know the definition of engagement (that thing all marketers are looking for when they combine mediums to reach their targets), this would be it.

The only hitch was that they had so many visitors to the site, (Lady Gaga tweeted the event) not everyone got on, and so were left disappointed. No worries…bright minds like that leave it on line for everyone who didn’t get to see it the first time. Check here at ShowStudio Alexander McQueen SS2010 Live.

Today marked a shift in fashion history by Alexander McQueen creating a presentation for the world direct to them, not just for that select group of editors and buyers and celebs. Not only was there an evolution in Mr. McQueen’s work, there was an evolution in how a luxury fashion designer presents his runway collection to market.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens after this.

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During Milan Fashion Week, as a way to boost the sustainable movement in fashion, Princess Charlotte Casiraghi, 23, daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco, chose the Cittadellarte Fashion: Bio Ethical Sustainable Trend event to fuse fashion and the sustainable movement by featuring eco fashion as the theme of her and her partners first publication for The EVER Manifesto a publication focusing solely on ecology and sustainability and published only when they feel they have something to say or people to support.

From the New York Times: ‘ “It’s only recently that I’ve questioned the way that I’ve been consuming,” said Ms. Casiraghi, who mentioned as her personal inspirations the environmental activism of her uncle, Prince Albert II, as well as her own stint as guest editor at the eco-slanted Above Magazine. But, she added, “I haven’t been as conscious as I should have been.” ‘

Wow. That’s impressive. First of all that she’s admitted it or is even conscious of it, and secondly she admitted it in public. Well, that’s, um, I’m a little speechless. It’s laudable.

God knows the movement needs some support, especially in fashion, and from a grass roots level. If someone like Princess Casiraghi can be a spokesperson for the younger set to become conscious of anything besides twitter, facebook, youtube, Iphones, Ipods, and video games then I’m all for it!

Did her appearance overshadow the event? Who cares? If these posts get put on twitter, if her interest as a royal in sustaining our earth is highlighted and along with it what appeared at the Cittadellarte in eco fashion then it’s a win win for everyone, but most particulary our great green earth.

Let’s see what follows. Meantime, you can view the eco fashions created for the event at the Cittadellarte from September 23, 2009 through February of 2010. What’s really cool about this, is that the Cittadellarte founded by a Mr. Pistoletto, now 76, has labs dedicated to art, education, politics and ecology. He organized this project because he thought fashion needed an eco boost. (from NYT) “It’s about unifying aesthetics with ethics,” he said. “The mission here is what I call ‘The Third Paradise’ — the unification of technology with nature so that both can coexist in harmony.”

Mr. Pistoletto said sustainability had been a guiding principle for activities at Cittadellarte since its founding. But the topic is still relatively unexplored within Italy’s fashion industry. Eleven different designers were brought into the event to create fabrics, dyes, and garments all ethically and sustainably and of course they confronted the issues that come with the territory.

There are more than a few that come up in production….availability of materials is one because the science just isn’t there….and I hear that, frequently. It is, actually, but demand has yet to be built up enough for the supply to happen, for manufacturers to get behind it, and once that happens lots of things can be discovered and pricing can drop.

So, yes, by all means, enter someone as glamourous as Charlotte Casiraghi and things just might start to happen.

Cittadellarte Fashion

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While nothing, nothing, nothing was happening this summer, I wondered where designers were going to get their inspiration from. When things are buzzing and humming along, it’s easy to have the ideas pinging around and coming to you like a submarines honing mechanism when it finds that other sub somewhere beneath.

But with business being so in the dumper, there has not been a lot of development, understandably I suppose, but I liken it more to writer’s block. It’s a dry spell that just leaves one, well, dry, the paper clean and the imagination wanting.

Given that as the backdrop, where were the designers to come up with the fresh inspiration to keep the wheels of progress spinning, especially in retail for Spring 2010? And how to speak to a market noticeably unnerved by the collapse of a world economy with a line of clothing?

Remarkably, several designers, whose collections rarely imitate each other, chose to plum the depths of societies tragedies past and present which culminated in, collectively, drum roll please……raw edges.

Okay, it’s a little literal and yet, pretty clear and given our dire retail scene especially at the luxury end, but also with what has been happening with people’s lives (unraveling much? frayed nerves, shedding), the design statement is honest while at the same time provocative (Prada suggests she was being optimistic for this collection?), emoting the rawness in the moment amidst a decline.

All images Style.com.

Prada (left) looking back and forward at the same time, Raf Simons for Jil Sander (full length and close up) in his quest for freedom.

Ralph Lauren (left) whose collection sought inspiration from Depression Era dressing and Rodarte from the molting of birds.

What’s interesting about each designer is that they were genuinely coming from a different frame of reference and the looks are each as distinct as the designer him/herself is, but this historically monumentally disruptive time we are in still wore collectively an expression of “raw edges” from some of our more noteworthy designers.

It’s worth mentioning plus I appreciate the nod and I don’t think they, being the creatives they are, could stop themselves.

Christoper Kane, designer of London’s standout collection, also plunged the depths of tragedies past by thinking about spiritual cults and the tradgey of Jonestown. How could something so lovely, almost mythical, as well as innocent arrive out of that? It’s still an expression of the breakdown of innocence from whatever reference:

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