4:32 p.m.
I’m a little more than a week late to the news, but one of my favorite young designers, Marios Schwab, was awarded the Swiss Textiles Award in Zurich, after also winning Best New Designer at the British Fashion Awards in 2006.
The Swiss award is financially lucrative (100,000 euros to the winner) and intended to help winning designers purchase materials and access financial services that will assist a breakthrough into the global fashion arena. Schwab is only 30 years old.
Like the majority of his peers, Schwab explored bright colors, flowing patterns and softer silhouettes for his Spring/Summer collection. For the most part, Spring 2008 is shaping up to be much more womanly, more sexually sophisticated than the girlish, almost childish, lines from last year. I wouldn’t be particularly bothered if I never saw another baby-doll dress in my lifetime.
5:31 p.m.
Along with the eighties pop-culture revival comes a renewed interest in incorporating masculine elements into women’s clothing to offer traditionally feminine shapes some extra edge and power. Here’s an article from India that addresses the topic:
Dressing up, the androgynous way
“Mix the male and female look this season and voila, you’re up there on the style-o-meter. On the international fashion radar, the androgynous has been termed the ‘it’ trend of Fall ’07 . . . British fashion designer Paul Smith, whose recent collection epitomizes the look, has warned that the trend should not be taken literally. “Androgyny doesn’t have to mean a buttoned-up shirt, a tie and a blazer,” he has said in a magazine interview. “Women could wear a big masculine coat with a little vintage lacy shirt, or a little lace dress with a large sweater.”
Perhaps the increasing popularity of the clutch as the new bag of choice is one of the ways to reference this androgyny — opting to carry a wallet type item in hand rather than the huge and more traditional shoulder bag or tote.
