New  York Fashion Week Day Five Rodarte scooped from the ocean floor a strong and sometimes beautiful show, where mesh was the key material. But the more sinister side of this drowned world was never dredged up. In the fashion journey of their first decade – the 10th birthday is coming up next year – […]

   Suzy Menkes appraises the hottest tech launch of the decade. In California, I held the new Apple Watch in the palm of my hand. I saw its face fill with pixels of colour that morph into myriad butterflies, jellyfish, flowers… I stroked its straps, from warm rose gold to bright, sporty rubber facing off […]

New York Fashion Week Day Four Donna Karan believes in art, artisans and ethnic African elegance. But the collection she sent out for summer 2015 was too heavy with dark decoration and graffiti prints – not to mention weird high-rise Amish hats. The designer was a pioneer of ethnicity from Africa and absorbed it into American […]

3.1 Phillip Lim: Showing His Bedside Manner  Phillip Lim, maker of streamlined, sporty modern garments, has retreated to the bedroom. Backstage, his mood board was covered with images of intimate sleeping areas, and pasted with the words of Leonard Cohen: “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets […]

New York Fashion Week Day Four Flowers on a marble gravestone. Flowers growing out of handbags. Flowers printed on severely tailored coats. Women as flowers. Thom Browne’s unsettling story of a band of sisters walking around a cemetery embodied the designer’s signature dalliances with sensuality, decadence and death. A woman’s voice – the kind that reads fairy […]

New York Fashion Week Day Four The flowers on the floor spelt out two letters in pink peonies: “TH” – for Tommy Hilfiger. But they also meant so much more: flower children, the Summer of Love, The Beatles in their yellow submarine, and the enthusiasm to recreate that freewheeling hippie era at festivals from Coachella to […]

New York Fashion Week Day Four The gown, with its airy white skirt and huge, flat flower, looked as light as a feather. But in the case of Carolina Herrera’s show, it was made of something far more unexpected. “Scuba diving,” said the designer, who is usually associated with silks and satin, rather than foam […]

New York Fashion Week Day Four A flash of coral, tree-bark prints, sleek tailoring and a T-shirt with one sleeve removed were all I took in of the clothes on stage at the Opening Ceremony show. But the theatrical performance – powerful, penetrating and discomforting enough to have the fashion audience squirming – is now […]

New York Fashion Week Day Four Simplicity has been part of The Row‘s appeal. The vision of the Olsen twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley, was a call for decency against the fashion world’s vulgarity. But when does the ‘discreet’ look turn cult-like and monastic? There were some lovely, gentle pieces in Monday’s show – especially when fine fabrics were wrapped across the bust, […]

New York Fashion Week Day Three Donatella Versace marched out proudly, stonking her high-heeled boots over the black-and-white faux-marble floor, with designer Anthony Vaccarello, in skinny jeans and sneakers, at her side. I have heard a lot over the years about a designer’s DNA – meaning getting to the heart of a fashion vision. And that […]