by Alex R. Travers These days, it feels like craftsmanship takes a back seat to shock value. Fashion audiences yawn you off and the media focuses its attention on what’s trending. Tomas Maier’s eponymous line has been flying under the radar since 1997, now getting loads of press because of Kering’s investment. Lucky for him, …
by Alex R. Travers J.W. Anderson is in a playful, prickly mood here, subverting tradition and perfecting his awesomely wayward silhouettes for the pre-season. LVMH Moët Hennessy, who last year took a minority stake in the J.W. Anderson brand, is flying high, too: not only have they tapped J Dub to design for Loewe, a …
by Alex R. Travers Veronica Miele Beard and Veronica Swanson Beard, sisters-in-law and founders of Veronica Beard, have an unrushed knack for wardrobe development. What may bore the consumer—the placement of a dart, a fabric’s malleability—excites the Beards. Of all their collections I’ve seen, this one felt the most confident, using basic pieces—shifts, a trench, …
by Alex R. Travers These days, a Christian Dior collection is hard to figure. Not whether it’s good or not. All of us have been watching Raf Simons’ Dior with eager eyes, and we can get that right. What’s difficult to pin down is the target audience. Really, I suppose, it doesn’t matter all that …
by Alex R. Travers This year marks the 30th anniversary of Sandro Paris, now a fashion fixture in New York, so it was the perfect moment for mother-and-son designers Evelyne and Ilan Chetrite to celebrate the vibrancy of the 1980s, the decade when the brand came to life. For fall, they added pizzazz to Sandro’s …
by Alex R. Travers Whether you’re familiar with the garments of the 1930s or not, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s latest exhibition, “Elegance in an Age of Crisis: Fashions of the 1930s,” acts as a revelation. The exhibit is a celebration of craftsmanship—with the clothes, clearly, but also with a space that …
by Alex R. Travers Poor Gilles Mendel. I’ve seen New York climatically suffer during Fashion Week before, but it felt as if no one was at his J. Mendel show today. Pity since it was one of the label’s best. From beginning to end, it had a fresh energy, defined by the designer’s enthusiasm to …