Suzy Menkes at London Fashion Week: Day Two The graphic blocks of colour and geometric lines in Jasper Conran‘s collection were a sharp lesson in smart attire. But whereas the designer has been known for dressed-up outfits in fine fabrics, this show was about using choice materials for simple and sporty clothes. These ran from a silk T-shirt […]

Suzy Menkes at London Fashion Week: Day Two    The military-map prints that Christopher Raeburn has made his signature are taking fashion to an interesting new place at London’s Summer 2015 collections. A silky sportiness is a fresh new message: dynamic or casual clothes in fabrics that used to be considered fancy. “I’m bringing in a lot […]

McQ at London Fashion Week Day One London Fashion Week has opened with a revelation. It is not the latest designer-genius spawned by one of the powerful British art colleges – although that still might come. Nor is it a show put on in the inimitable, crazy way for which London is renowned. Instead, my […]

New  York Fashion Week Day Seven Sophisticated, streamlined, sombre – the models who walked down the Calvin Klein runway on thick platform shoes with transparent heels were a far cry from earlier days of the brand’s dynamic sportswear.  The women who used to take sex and sensuality in a long stride have been replaced with apparently more […]

New  York Fashion Week Day Seven Ralph Lauren sent out a jewel of a collection using an unexpected theme of military khaki. But the soft, luxurious fabrics – from satin to chiffon – and the yellow green drab, illuminated with richly coloured jewellery, were as far as could be imagined from bush or battlefield. “Khaki has always […]

New  York Fashion Week Day Six The black-and-white checked shirt; the elongated, at-an-angle bodice; and bone-white leather skirt that opened the Proenza Schouler show was stab at doing something new with an endangered America’s species: sportswear. Designers Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough had a bold take on classics. They took trousers and spliced them into one […]

New  York Fashion Week Day Three The circular runway at the Edun show was not just a development of previous complex sets. It suggested that this brand with a soul, founded by Ali Hewson and Bono as a support for Africa, has come full circle as a fashion endeavour. The clothes created by designer Danielle Sherman […]

New  York Fashion Week Day Five There is something perverse about designing for a brand that calls itself “Diesel Black Gold” and shows nothing that represents those words – unless you count the digital flames in squares as the show’s backdrop or the gold-studded, front-row line-up of Rita Ora and models Amber Le Bon and Coco Rocha. […]

Was it a mirage, a miracle or technological wizardry that had a fashion show held in a shower of water over the lake in New York’s Central Park? Standing on Cherry Hill, an invited audience waited for the Polo Ralph Lauren event that was staged to celebrate the opening of the brand’s first dedicated store […]

New  York Fashion Week Day Six No wonder Rachel Zoe took the jet-set Sixties as her inspiration, for having worked in Hollywood and carved a career based on high-octane glamour, her spring collection had to be worth her weight as a stylist. I liked the classic Grecian drapes set off by gilded-chain edging and belt; the […]