Your 411 on Fashion Month

As many times as we’ve heard the words “Fashion Week” proclaimed on television shows, movies and magazines, anyone who claims to be knowledgeable about fashion is well aware that the schedule looks more like “Fashion Month.”

Editors, buyers and fashion plates around the globe gather in New York, London, Paris and Milan for approximately four weeks of little sleep and what sometimes veers toward fashion overload.

This February, American designers will kick off the spring 2013 season in New York City. With hundreds of shows, it’s difficult to make sense of it all.
Because you can’t be in New York, London, Paris or Milan, I did the research to satisfy all of your fashion-month cravings. First and most importantly, what designers are the “ones to watch” this season?

There are, of course, those rotating favorites who always surprise us when it comes to their new collections, one of them being my personal favorite: the Phoebe Philo-piloted Céline.

Last season, Céline was all about ease. Silhouettes were loose and shoes were flat.
While this “effortless” vibe was par for the course for nearly every spring 2013 collection, the look at Céline was different. Abbreviated trousers, fur-lined sandals and a stark black and white palette made the clothes on-trend, but much more memorable than the rest. Céline’s previous collection in fall 2012 was desirable in different ways, not least for its multi-colored fur coats and chunky white pumps. Yes, white shoes are acceptable now.

While Philo continues to maintain Céline’s unique style, her collections are rarely predictable. All we can know for sure about her upcoming Paris presentation is that it will be judged by fashion royalty — the most trusted voices around. I’m expecting one of Céline’s best seasons yet.

I’m also excited about Balmain, headed by new designer Olivier Rousteing. As one of many young designers to take over a heritage house — others include Raf Simons at Christian Dior, Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent (née Yves Saint Laurent) and, most recently, Alexander Wang at Balenciaga — Rousteing has expertly applied his personal aesthetic to Balmain’s long-celebrated point of view.

Rousteing’s most recent collection, spring 2013, channeled the early-1990s Miami with high-waist trousers and sharp shouldered jackets, a departure from his fall 2012 collection, which was routinely described as “baroque-inspired.”

Both collections relied on couture-level embellishment. In contrast, Rousteing’s predecessor, Christian Decarnin, was well-known for bleached jeans, skin-tight mini dresses and pieced-together leather jackets. Decarnin’s Balmain woman had a very offhand, punkish attitude, favoring stretchy pieces over tailoring.

After taking over for Decarnin, Rousteing created a seamless transition from that slinky, sexed-up (yet insanely popular) nightwalker. Rousteing maintained some of Decarnin’s most celebrated details, like leather jackets, body-skimming dresses and a thrown-together sensibility.

By adding his own spin, Rousteing’s clothes are quintessentially Balmain, but fresher. They’re better suited for the fashion-loving street style maven, not the grungy-chic French club girl.

Rousteing’s penchant for mixing textures, patterns and shapes has been paramount to his success.

That high-low sensibility is what I love most about Balmain, and I can’t wait to see what Rousteing has in store for us this February.

­— emfarra@indiana.edu