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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