Westfield Group
The major international Spring/Summer 2008 collections have come strutting down the runways in New York, Milan and Paris over the last six weeks. The top fashion houses, even Dior, displayed a similar theme - wearable, pretty, very 80's lady-lady style full of vivid colours and floral prints.
The advantage of being based in the Southern Hemisphere? We can take our inspiration from the catwalk and interpret it into how we are dressing right now, not having to wait until next year like all those based north of the equator, who are heading into the winter months.
WHAT'S NOT
I predicted the death of the legging and I stand corrected. For a season more perhaps. The Spring/Summer 2008 Parisian collections were awash with perfectly intelligent women wearing not just leggings but metallic leggings, gold and silver numbers that are pure Disco Magic.
The trick with leggings is in the legs. This is a great fashion for women who are comfortable in their own skin to the point of second skin. One supposes the legging is the comfortable alternative to skinny jeans or opaque tights, but despite Sienna Miller living in her tights in the forthcoming "Factory Girl", I'm saying sayonara to an excess of leggings for spring and hello to more glossy bare buff legs, or even a wisp of a slip hem under a dainty little day dress.
Legs want their mystery back. Encased in stretchy cotton or exposed in thigh high tent dresses they've had a rough trot, but take heed, both the knee length skirt and maxi dress are back. Return 'Flashdance' (along with your leg warmers) and rent 'The Hunger’ with David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve - you'll want to look like either of these haute glam stars very soon.
WHAT'S HOT
Ralph Lauren's version of the heiress has finally found its place. Classy can be all so chic if you take the standards of American sportswear classics and give them a jolt. Spring 2008 for Ralph celebrated forty years of linen blazers, perfect white blouses, sleek tuxedo pants, bright print skirts, narrow sporty belts and floods and floods of wearable, sensible, just skipped off a yacht style dresses.
The twist was in the textures (sequins for day), the colours (like Gauguin on acid) and the sartorial touches (braces on women always look a bit kinky). The vibe is country club goes groovy: wearing a Hermes style scarf twisted around your wrist like a bracelet, breaking up a white man's dress shirt and perfect white linen trousers with high platform espadrilles and a real Greek sailor’s cap. Lady like does not have to buttoned up, in fact never wear anything that doesn't look good with the first three buttons un-done; this season's footloose aristo style is equal parts Kate Hepburn and Kate Moss.
