Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
Pure Collection Ltd.
Net-a-porter UK

Wednesday 6 February 2008

What women want


Twenty-four hours after the Halston AW08 show in New York, this brown jersey below- the-knee shirt dress has sold out on Net a Porter. Style.com is sniffy:

But overall, the collection left you wanting more. More of Halston's double-face cashmere coats, yes, but also more of a sense of how Zanini will take the label forward. The unstructured evening gowns he showed today won't cut it.

And yet the dress is sold-out. Do the fashion press ever wonder why?

I had a sneak preview today of the Ossie Clark relaunch collection which will show at London Fashion Week on Monday, and about which I will have much, much more to say.

Avsh Alom Gur, OC's creative director, says yes, he can make me a couture dress, but can it wait till Tuesday?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ugh, I don´t at all like the brown dress in the picture. It looks as if it could have been around on the 60´s,70´s,80´s,90´s...It looks s o depressing.Is this the way older women should dress? If so, then I won´t want to be one, although by age I am. Some cheerfullness,please!

Anonymous said...

I'm rather underwhelmed by most of the New York fashion week shows, I haven't seen all of them but it seems to be mostly about angry, thin women wearing grey or mustard yellow and orange.
I don't think the fashion industry is interested in what the costumer actually wants, it's interested in what is easily (and cheaply) produced and can be sold to angry, thin women under 30.

Anonymous said...

No, they aren't listening. It's perfectly obvious when they rhapsodize over clothes that are simply unusable to 99.44% of the world population and ugly on half of the ones left. They want NEWS and they want it to shock us.

Women are not all tiptoeing out to cabs from clubs and restaurants. We are lawyers, doctors, construction workers and entrepreneurs. Some of us are over fifty. Ignore us if you like, but risk not getting our purchases-- from magazine to frock-- we have earned the right to choose how we look and where to spend our money.

The media should excite and inspire us, I think, not make us want to copy Lady Mary and refuse the mirror.

Anonymous said...

Re the brown dress; sometimes clothes that look a bit dull on the hanger really come to life on the body. If the fabric was silk jersey, the dress would fold and gently hug in a pleasing way.

What gets attention in the fashion press is radical styling, extremism, and couture oddities, but women just want beautiful, flattering comfortable clothes.

Anonymous said...

Reasons I would buy that brown dress (despite the color itself, which in terms of browns that are available, I find a rather unfortunate choice - something more chocolate would be more flattering in terms of skin tones, I think):
1) The shape looks as if it would be reasonably flattering on the vast majority of us.
2) This has the capacity to be accessorized to death. I'd first dump the belt and get a nice brown croc or lizard or something interesting with a great buckle. This is also a dress which can be worn over something else, like a cute printed blouse or turtleneck or scarf. Is that 70s? You bet - it worked well then and it still works well. And will look great with boots.
3) You can wear this with: a great vest in suede or tapestry, a tweed jacket, etc.
4) And we will not forget what can be done with this with jewelry: pin the collar points together with a great pin, layer it with chains and necklaces, etc.
This is a great "dress as canvas" - and no, this is not necessarily "the way older women should dress" - but I think this would look great on women of any age. My two cents.

Anonymous said...

I do like the style and can easily imagine it in "real life", perhaps a bit professorial but that can be charming too. It corresponds to my life - looks comfy to wear while interpreting, and professional enough for business or institutional clients.

Though I don't like the colour. I'd opt for a deep, but not muddy, green or a rich red.

Whether or not it looks mumsy would depend on the fabric, and of course the cut.

I wouldn't dispose of the self-belt. Sure you could use a more distinctive belt in its place, but the self-belt would work very well with interesting, distinctive jewellery.

Do look at Judith's observations of real-life Italian fashion. They are wonderful. I got back to Umbria (where I had studied) two summers ago and found a couple of lovely things on sale in Perugia.

We do remember that Saint Francis' parents were cloth merchants.

Thomas said...

Having read more fashion press in the last six months than I had in the previous 31 years, I feel safe in saying that the fashion press doesn't care what people want. As judith_in_umbria states, they are not listening. Is it any surprise that so many people are turning to blogs such as this one for a different opinion?