From Florence

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

Alexander Wang Grows Up

Alexander Wang has a signature of creating that downtown, cool NYC girl with an edge and a hint of goth. Releasing Cruise 2019, we see a major change in silhouettes and lengths, from his short shorts and shorts skirts, body conscious shapes from past seasons, transitioning into longer hems in cool cuts and animal leathers and more relaxed, slouchy silhouettes. A nod and reinvention in tailoring is always innovative and evident in his collections, we see this in Cruise ’19. Unique tailoring eclectically mixed with some classics, tweeds and patterns of simple, but bold checks and stripes.

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

Maison Martin Margiela - Why the Mystery Man Has Been Out of the Industry for a Decade

Margiela hasn’t been designing for over a decade now, having been out of it, in a rare statement revealed why. In this day and age, fashion has become so fast, with the advancement of technology allowing us to produce and get things quicker, with the rise and newfound required use of social media networks allowing us to reach audiences in all parts of the world instantly. Studies have shown that to share information on the internet across social media networks, you only have about 3-5 seconds to catch someone’s attention, before they lose interest and continue scrolling.

Many of us see the rise of technology and social media usage as very beneficial and something that completely changed the game in fashion today, but to Margiela, not very much so. In his rare statement he revealed, “I felt that I could not cope anymore with the worldwide increasing pressure and the overgrowing demands of trade,” he wrote. “I also regretted the overdose of information carried by social media, destroying the ‘thrill of wait’ and cancelling every effect of surprise, which was so fundamental for me.” He is not the only legendary designer to reveal the pressure of producing constantly, Alexander McQueen also spoke of this in a recent documentary.

These days many fast fashion brands are releasing things every month to generate more money, to have something constantly new for the consumer, and to keep up with the ever changing short-lived trends. But I feel that it is time that we ask ourselves, is it still a form of art and fashion if we have to force these designs out of ourselves rather than discovering it and letting it come to us naturally?

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

Dolce & Gabbana

Dolce & Gabbana has been trending everywhere on social media platforms, for all the wrong reasons. It first started with D&G publishing an ad which featured a woman trying to eat Italian food with some chopsticks that stirred controversy. It was not an appropriate method for promoting their designs or art, as a matter of fact it ridiculed the Chinese culture. Following that, I’m sure everyone has heard the scandal of Dolce & Gabbana. Screenshots of a private conversation between Stefano Gabbana and Diet Prada on Instagram where he calls the Chinese, “China Ignorant Dirty Smelling Mafia”. Gabbana claimed that the accounts were hacked.

D&G was supposed to have its largest fashion show ever in Shanghai, but has been completely canceled. Since then, many stores and major e-commerce websites have responded to it by completely dropping the brand, boycotting it. D&G have issued an apology since stating in their video, “We will never forget this experience and lesson, and this sort of thing will never happen again.”

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

Futuristic Fashion is....

We used to talk about futuristic fashion being the idea of using technology in clothing. We have clothes today that monitor breathing, clothes that look like something out of the year 3000, from outer space. We’ve seen the crazy sculptural shapes, the architectural lines around the body made up of unconventional materials, and who could forget Hussein Chalayan’s animatronic dress that transformed on its own on the runway of his Spring/Summer 2007 show?

But the real future of fashion is found in in where you would probably think the least and would look last -bacterica, fungi and algae. The future of fashion is not so much in the idea of actual technology and futuristic outer space aesthetics, but rather in the idea of sustainability and introducing biotechnology into our world made up of beautiful wools, cottons and silks. Methods of tweaking cells and organisms in labs by scientists have came up with new uses for the technology in fashion creatives, such as the spinning of spider silk from modified yeast. One example is that it could be transformed into a leather-like material creating a new fabric, that could completely eliminate the need for slaughtering animals for real leather with further development.

Stella McCartney is one designer that is currently working with these scientists on developing new materials for garments. Their aim is to bring designers into this process as early as possible, making lab-grown fabrics the real future of fashion, further developing sustainability in the industry and solving the huge problem of fashion wastage.

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

Gender Neutral

Do you remember the last time you weren’t aware you had to make decisions between genders? Do you remember when you were little and had to choose between the girl or the boy, happy meal toy? Or maybe when your parents took you shopping for clothes into the boy or girl section?

I remember when I was a little girl and my mom ordered me a happy meal, she automatically said the girl toy, but as a tomboy, I did not want the doll. I grew up around boys, so I wanted to play with the hot wheels. I always told her I wanted the boy toy and she always looked confused and asked me, “Why? But you’re a girl.”

Choosing between those two choices of male or female and having an answer for it seems pretty obvious to a lot of us, but in many cases it isn’t. There is this whole gray “in-between” area many people fall under that’s quite a sensitive topic to discuss. The idea has been challenged by these clothing brands eliminating the idea of having to make the decision between “Women” and “Men”. Gender Fluid, Gender Neutral, Androgynous, whatever you want to call it.

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

5 Off-the-Radar Unconventional Jewelry Brands

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

Maybe you were born in the early 1990′s? Or maybe the mid or late 1990′s? Either or, being a member of the nineties club, this video will take you down memory lane! Some things feeling nostalgic, or some things maybe vaguely, fashion tends to repeat itself, as we all know, bringing back key trends from couple of decades ago or many decades back, mixing old with the new, as we progress into the future. The top three trends I have fallen guilty into following were mood rings, butterfly clips and chokers! This video highlights the “Top 10 Defining Fashion Trends of the 90′s” that could inspire your personal style.

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

With trends of the 1990′s making a huge comeback, it’s only right that we look back to the original style icons of the decade to serve as muses and set moods for your personal style inspiration.  Kate Moss Naomi Campell Aaliyah Cindy Crawford Liv Tyler Destiny’s Child Gwen Stefani Tyra Banks

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

How to Dress Like the 90′s

The fashion trends of various decades often repeat themselves and the 90’s have made officially made a come back decades later. The 90’s brands we’ve come to know and love that feels nostalgic in a sense, have gained popularity once again. Champion, Fila, Reebok, Tommy Hilfiger, Juicy Couture, Birkenstocks are some of the brands that have gained a resurgence.

From your head to your toes! These are the some of key pieces you should be adorning yourself with.

Bucket hats, tiny sunglasses are things you should wear on your head or you may opt for a 90’s hairstyle crimped waves or super tight curls, tiny clips and hair pins or headbands.

For tops, spaghetti straps, cropped tube tops or halter tops are a must! Sleek slip dresses are simplicity at its best, if you want to be feminine or to have a more edgy, tomboy appeal, overalls is the other way to go! To opt for the more grungy characteristic of the 90’s you may what to adorn yourself with a loose plaid shirt worn as a top or draped and tied around your waist.

For bottoms, biker short tights were evident in the decade, as well as high waisted “mom” jeans and baggy cargo pants. All pair perfectly with halter and cropped tube tops.

Chunky bottomed shoes from sandals to sneakers were extremely popular of the decade as well as jelly and clear plastic sandals.

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

The Future is Genderless

“...designers are seeking to give consumers the freedom to explore what they want to wear without worrying that their choices say anything about their sexuality or gender.” -High Snobiety  Ever since the same-sex marriage has become legal in the United States in the summer of 2016, a lot of lines and rules of gender differences and classifications have been blurred. Everything is not just black and white, not everyone is just gay or straight. This whole gray area has come to surface, so it’s no surprise that fashion has started moving towards a new direction -blurring the lines between the female and the male. Not only in fashion, but also generally the public have started to questioned and erased the division between “female” and “male”. Target, in particular, has removed gender based signs like “girl toys” and “boy toys”.

Contemplating this new found idea of genderless fashion I have been noticing a lot lately has got me questioning myself, “When do I remember ever realizing I was a female and had to like the color pink, had to wear dresses?” I don’t remember exactly, but I do remember always asking for the hot wheels instead of the doll toy in my McDonald’s happy meal. I didn’t want to wear dresses either, my favorite thing to wear I precisely remember was my overall shorts and bandana on my head.

Margiela, Rick Owens and Vivienne Westwood are designers who have always challenged gender boundaries. Some other modern day brands and designers that have started to produce genderless fashion are Louis Vuitton, Gypsy Sport, Pedro Lourenço, as well as more accessible brands like H&M and ASOS who have released “unisex” collections.

In 2016, Louis Vuitton released a campaign starring Jaden Smith in the photograph wearing a skirt. When Smith was questioned about the ad and his style he said, “The world is going to keep bashing me for whatever I do, and I’m going to keep not caring. I’m going to keep doing the same things — I’m going to keep doing more things…in five years when a kid goes to school wearing a skirt, he won’t get beat up and kids won’t get mad at him. It just doesn’t matter.”

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

Warming Up Your Winter with Spring Summer 2019 Trends

As September has come to an end, the “September Issues” have been published, the plethora of fashion weeks in major cities, New York, London, Milan and Paris about to conclude and it has come to a point where we must take some time to stop, reflect and review what was debuted after the fast paced nature of the fashion industry. The new, up and coming trends for Spring/Summer 2019 to come, as we finish the year 2018.

NYFW saw a lot of the ‘80s making a comeback, exaggerated shoulders, silhouettes and details reminiscent of the era, as well as stark, saturated neon colors. One particular thing that really stood out to me was the use of unique materials and styles such as Rubber, Transparency, Nylon sportswear fabrics and Fanny Pack and Straw Hat accessories.

It is clear to see that a lot of designer or houses are trying to seek a fresh point of view for the market and deliver something new for their customers, but it is certainly still a long way to go. When it comes to inheriting a house, design directors strive their best to incorporate their fashion vision with the existing brand aesthetic, and this whole process of innovating the “new brand look” is always one of the hardest thing to do. As we keep on criticizing the successful or not-so-successful ones, we should keep in mind that changing is always hard, and we should appreciate the hard work they have done and keep on looking forward for the new changes.

LFW was a breath of fresh air -literally. A lot of designers featured saturated bright colors, as well as pastels in airy, sheer fabrics and light-weight shirtings. Exaggerated shoulders in tailoring was also featured amongst many brands following what was debuted in NYFW.

LFW has always been known for their adventurous spirits, and we can see young designers showing off their passion and artistic point of view when it comes to wow-ing the audiences. They are not afraid of expressing the mood of their collection to a point that you can feel the story just by watching models walking down.

MFW followed the lead of LFW with the use and mix of soft pastels as well as saturated bright colors. But rather than the strong silhouettes seen in NYFW and LFW, Milan saw a shift in fashion weeks bold shapes to more soft and romantic silhouettes featuring a lot of ruffles and ruching. Garments follows the body shape and creates the feminine look and finally ended the Spring/Summer 2019 celebration of designs.

After watching the cluster of Spring/Summer fashion week shows across all major cities, I found that these are some major trends we can confidently expect to see in stores in the warmer seasons of 2019 to come. Beige and neutral nude colors, California culture influences, a new take on wearing lace fabric, mixing it with more contemporary and sporty looks. While lace is in the picture of trends to come, so is the art of crochet and all the fringes and trims. The clashing and mixture of random prints, cooked up in one outfit and lastly, saturated matching power suits. It’s exciting to see what’s stirring up in design houses and to find that fashion is seeing a more playful mood compared to the more serious tones of what has been going on around the world.

[fromflorenceblog-blog]

Why Fashion Design?

What inspired me to research the question of “Why Fashion Design?” was due to me being in my final year of school studying design at AAU. It’s been a really long journey, of tests and doubts and failures, but also a lot of successes and liberating moments. Fashion Design is something I’m so passionate about and I truly enjoy doing. I could get lost in just working on my processes and sketchbooks. It will be really interesting to talk about fashion from a design student’s point of view, so people could understand the journey and thought process behind it. On the other hand, personally for me, this will be an outlet to write about design related things and help me collect my thoughts and self reflect in posts, since my thoughts are often all over the place, and I tend to just forget about them or write them in my notes on my phone. People from the outside see the beautiful end products designers produce and create, but they don’t see the process and the making of a garment. The process of it is so beautiful, even just the toiles and samples made in muslin, the messy and scrap fabric cut left on the floor. I notice a lot of little beautiful things in the senior studio upstairs on the 5th floor. I spend a lot of time there, from morning to night a lot of the times just working on my stuff. Photography is something I’ve always been interested in since high school. One thing I’m planning to do with this blog is create a series of photos of moments from the day, I think it could be a really fun activity for myself and for readers to view.