Women’s fashion continues to break barriers in its constant new, conceptual design. As with each season’s showing, designers and their successors express each brand aesthetic in an evolved form.
Looking at this season’s runway collections for SS17, I not only felt the rejuvenation of style by the work of new creative directors; I saw wearability in a modern form exhibited. Exotic shapes, odd cuts, and matching of opposite textures, yet of familiar designs, idealizes a new subject of fashion. It’s refreshing, and makes me admire womenswear fashionable risk-taking that much more.
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Exaggerated Layering
Office Novice
Ruffle My Feathers
Shaggy Chic
That ‘Touch’ of Quirk
Céline
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Looking at combinations of classic best-selling garments, and a remixed idea of a classic piece, succeeding designers like Demna Gvaslia for Balenciaga, Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent, and Dao–Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne (of Public School) for DKNY execute attractive designs. Oversized elements paired with significant touches of classic fashion are what stand out as smartly designed, while also exuding novelty.
Unfinished details graced many of the runway looks, as well as an overall sense of intentionally-messy execution — as seen from Céline, Marques Almeida, Simone Rocha, and Baja East. Odd accessories and shoes also complimented designs, delivering anomalous conceptions of killer designs that are sure to be hot next season.
Both Balenciaga’s and Céline’s massive bags and weird boots are clearly inspired by continued trending concepts, that repeatedly succeed in solidifying brand recognition as some of the key idea generators in fashion right now. Opening Ceremony and Preen use familiar elements while incorporating the fun pop-art edge that their followers know and covet, like a paisley printed denim kimono, and ruffled lace inset where the frayed fabric is normally seen on busted-knee jeans.
There are many concepts that can be idealized through these looks. However, I thought of unique phrasing and ideas that are not necessarily typical “trends” in fashion, thus categorizing the 18 looks between one of five. It was hard to choose such a limited number, yet the details in each stood out most, and hailed me to choose the like. Aside from the fashion, the accessories — bags in particular — were novel, and push forward what we have lost in the “It” bags of the moment: originality. Oversized styles, clean details, chunky straps and clips, and cool touches conceptualized some of the best bags I saw — and ones that don’t feel familiar, but completely new!
What are your thoughts on the SS17 runways? Any looks that took you by surprise?
—S&L
