Last season, one couldn’t squeeze into a show without being knocked around by a pair of expensive shoulders. Though the Balmain or Margiela or any shoulder interpretation of the two have stuck around here and there, SS10’s featured a healthy crop of anti-shoulders so far.
Designers ranging from Richard Nicoll to the team at Topshop, from Australian Josh Goot to the Brooklyn based Vena Cava girls, haven’t just ignored shoulder pads, they’ve actually cut out the shoulders of their tops and dresses. Julien Macdonald placed extra larges slits at the shoulders of his slashed dress and Osman Yousefzada cut the shoulders out of a handful of looks in his all-white collection.
Will it knock its opposite off the runways? All eyes on you Carine.
Julien MacDonald used to be known at the UK’s answer to Bob Mackie - Naomi Cambpell or Geri Halliwell could be depended on to open and and close his shows with furs, feathers and sequins - which meant we were surprised when Jamey Hargreaves, one of the Matalan chiefs (think the U.K Target) handpicked MacDonald last year as a major investment.
The money came, of course, with the promise that MacDonald would deliver tamer collections, focusing on his knit and tailoring talents. And the results, unveiled last London Fashion Week were killer. Since then, buyers and editors have been fervently awaiting last Friday, the Welsh designer’s pre-order day, dying to claim their own crystal-detailed dresses, leather trousers and genius knits. Unfortunately, a handful of fashion favorite starlets beat them to the punch.
Chloe Sevigny’s already hand picked a bunch of key looks and Ashley Olsen’s pulled clothes for herself, as well as for her forthcoming Harper’s Bazaar shoot.
Which means this week - the same one during which Debenham’s named the leopard print dress from his diffusion line the fastest selling garment in the retailer’s history - is a good one for MacDonald.
It also means it’s about time his clothes gets stocked on your side of the pond.
-Charley B.
Those Balmain shoulders, the sharp eighties silhouette Christophe Decarnin so successfully reinvented last season, popped up on almost every runway, from Behnaz to Topshop, from Herve to Pringle. But a few designers weren’t satisfied with mere shoulder pads and actually ballooned their silks into real life leg-of-mutton sleeves.
Roksanda Ilincic’s silver, almost angular sleeves added an edge to her glamourous pastel shifts while Dolce & Gabbana’s worked in the opposite direction. Their rounded shoulders gave linear dresses womanly curves.
Julien Macdonald’s steroid sleeves are a bit less dramatic but maintain the bubbly upper arm that skinnies at the elbow - because a sleeve of Dolce’s proportions on Macdonald’s already 80’s-loving, zippered, bedazzled mini might be a bit much.
