Onwards to London Fashion Week now – the home of wacky fashion… Infamous for showcasing raw creativity of little commercial allure, the S/S’12 calendar, however, has been a coming-of-age ‒ when it staked its claim as a player within the axis of fashion that is New York-London-Milan-Paris. Myriad of exquisite items were sent out ‒ that women would want to own, and not just admire from a distance and wish they had the guts or figure to pull them off. I’ve curated the best from this fashion week ‒ ones from which the regular lot like us can take some leads for our Spring/Summer 2012 wardrobe. It’s only right that I start off with one of my absolute favourite designers…
Rumour had it that Anna Wintour was attending the Roksanda Ilincic S/S’12 show to do a recce for Michelle Obama… And boy did she prop up her chances with that collection!
For S/S’12 Roksanda wandered from her comfort zone of silky, free-form evening gowns in decadent colours and dunked her feet properly in the daywear pool – with an equally sumptuous and masterful result. Obviously her signature column gowns and cocktail dresses were there, but there were shorts, skirts, blouses, coats, maxis, sporty jackets, suits, elastic-waisted trousers and simple shifts, too. The novelty, though, was in her choice of vibrant palette and play with volume and proportion. Think bell-shaped sleeves, paper-bag skirts, cocoon coats, overblown trousers, slouchy blouses and pouf-ed skirts.
Being the girlie girl that I am, I was left drooling over this fluorescent pink dress with a giant pouf-ed skirt. Actually, scrap that, I am lusting after all the hot pink numbers! I loved the turquoise tee tucked into a luscious gold gathered paper-bag skirt, as well as a melt-worthy two-toned maxi column dress done in cyan and fuchsia.
Admittedly, the wide pouf-ed, drop-waisted skirts and bell sleeves can be tricky shapes to pull off if you’re not tall and slender; but Roksanda lures you in to a little bit of experimentation by showing you the way. So as not to let the ballooning hems, waists and sleeves swallow you, bell sleeves were teamed with sheath dresses or tops having such sleeves were worn with slim pencil-skirts, linear dresses were flared at the waist or upper-thighs.
I liked the eye-poppingly refreshing colour combinations of: blue and gold, turquoise/cyan and fuchsia, gold and orange, mustard and grey. The serene pastel colours could easily be translated into any spring/summer wardrobe. The use of rope belt for a slight pop of colour and bright heels (courtesy of Nicholas Kirkwood) as tools for colour-blocking were some nice little tips from Roksanda on how to sport the prime Spring/Summer 2012 trend. And oh, the full-skirts! Such a welcome change from the fitted silhouettes of Autumn/Winter 2011 – but I simply love the passive femininity they denote.
Just roll on spring NOW… !