ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories: Pre-Fall 2013

Saturday, 29 June 2013

Roberto Cavalli Pre-Fall 2013

As Italy’s debate about keeping its sartorial traditions alive in a global economy fuels the local fashion fray, Roberto Cavalli and his wife and creative partner, Eva Cavalli, unveiled a surprisingly languorous collection that, with its eclectic blend of Indian, Moorish, and Arabian nuances, felt a thousand miles away from the designer’s hometown.

In fact, it’s almost as if Lucy Honeychurch, E. M. Forster’s protagonist from Room with a View, packed up her trunks and fled Florence for Morocco, Rajasthan, or Java, along the way picking up great pairs of cropped and artfully faded jeans with colorful embroidered hems, pretty batik day dresses, and, naturally, a lot of animal prints. Cavalli’s approach to heavily patterned and fluid silk pants; loose, cropped jackets; and billowing, bohemian frocks this season felt particularly louche.

Seductive and exotic detours aside, the collection also trumpeted a savvy, practical city attitude. Cropped white pants embellished with tiny mirrors were paired with a matching top and a clean biker jacket adorned with zippers just the thing for hopping on the back of a Vespa. More of those decorated bombers were thrown casually over the house’s signature slinky, sparkly evening frocks, which carried an almost twenties influence with their intricate beading and drop-waist silhouette. They were a romantic, cool look that blended the past with the present.

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories

Photo credit/Source: Roberto Cavalli (via VOGUE)

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'A Sphere of Couture by Roberto Cavalli F/W 2013/14'

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

As Delicate As It Is Divine: VALENTINO Pre-Fall 2013

Rose, Ivory, Black or Red - the color palette for fall is as delicate as it is divine. By now we’ve come to have a clear idea of what Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli believe to be the key pieces of a Valentino wardrobe:
1. A short dress with long sleeves.
2. A feminine and/or unconventional trench.
3. A lace dress, unadorned for day and embellished for night.
4. A jumpsuit.

It makes perfect sense, then, that they would use a transitional season to focus on these signature silhouettes and play with materials and treatments so that the resulting pieces look like your favorite dress/trench/jumpsuit but still make the pulse quicken.

The selection the duo created for pre-fall was a striking mix of graphic black, white, and red clothes done in everything from a Moroccan-feeling macramé to slick patent leather. (Perhaps a nod to this spring’s “PUNK: Chaos to Couture” exhibit at the Met?) The lines were clean and simple and followed that same sweet but strong story line that Chiuri and Piccioli have been weaving. It was most powerful in a great pale-pink look: a cocoon cape with a structured ruffle hem and matching straight cropped pants.

If anything, there was a more monastic feel, with a greater number of midi-length skirts and pants than in past seasons. But the house’s popular tango shoe kept everything from looking too heavy. Evening looks mostly lacy, long-sleeved, and to the floor included a long chiffon dress and suit in a smoky, blurred floral. Until this collection, prints were one territory Chiuri and Piccioli had left relatively unexplored. Could this be a hint of what’s to come for fall '13/14?