Highlights of Monday’s shows included an explosion of color on Carolina Herrera’s runway (left), a surprise meeting between Anna Wintour and rapper Nicki Minaj, a visit from 13-year-old style star Elle Fanning—and several NBA players (including Lebron!) in the front row. See highlights from the fifth day of New York Fashion Week.
Robin Givhan, Jacob Bernstein, and Isabel Wilkinson contributed to this report.
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Anna Wintour got a dose of bright color at Carolina Herrera’s show on Monday morning—even before the show had begun. The Vogue editor was seated next to the rapper Nicki Minaj (well done, seating gurus!), who wore a structured vest made out of rainbow cotton balls, an orange tennis skirt (perhaps a homage to the U.S. Open?), and neon green tights. On Minaj’s other side? None other than W editor Stefano Tonchi, in a perfectly tailored gray suit. And everyone seemed to be getting along—Wintour even leaned across to whisper to Minaj during the show. Elsewhere in the audience were Renée Zellweger and Olivia Munn—both, of course, in Carolina Herrera.
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There was no shortage of color on Herrera’s runway as well—though we can’t exactly imagine Nicki Minaj wearing anything from this collection. Herrera said she was influenced by the Bauhaus for next spring, which was evident in color-blocked motifs, delicately structured jackets, and geometric prints. Herrera’s elegant eveningwear featured dresses in canary yellow and emerald—as well as a floor-sweeping red dress with white and black beaded stripes down the front.
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Kanye West announced Monday that he will officially show his debut womenswear collection during Paris Fashion Week, on Oct. 1, and not in New York, as it had originally been rumored. But one look on Maria Cornejo’s spring runway made Kanye’s presence felt—even if he was absent from this week’s shows. One suit in her collection, which featured both menswear and womenswear (though what’s the difference anymore?), was bright red—and reminded us of the bold Givenchy suit Mr. West himself wore last year. Elsewhere, the Zero + Maria Cornejo runway was awash with bright color—lots of red, yellow silk, deep purple, and Yves Klein blue—which all came in her signature draped silhouette. Futuristic prints on suits and long dresses were taken from photographs the designer took on a trip to the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. “I love the feeling of an urban summer; fabrics that feel like the beach but toughened up somehow,” wrote Cornejo in her show notes. “Just a bit edgier.”
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Bravo reality star and celebrity dresser Rachel Zoe is not selling clothes in her Spring 2012 collection. She is selling herself: her fashion sensibility, her tousled mane of hair, her lithe silhouette. Everything about her collection is a reflection of the Zoe persona the public has come to know. In her tableau vivant presentation, the 30 models were styled to look like her, right down to the long wavy hair loosely pulled back. There were maxidresses worn with tailored boyfriend jackets, denim shorts with a leather jacket and man's shirt, and filmy gowns with thick grandpa cardigans. "She's got a formula," says Stephanie Solomon, fashion director at Bloomingdale's. The modestly priced clothes sell to a customer who has rarely ventured out of jeans but isn't quite ready to cinch herself into a pencil skirt and tightly tailored jacket. "It's easy," Solomon says, "and it fits."
Donna Karan’s collection was influenced by her recent trips to Haiti for earthquake relief. It was heavy on tribal themes: stacked wooden bracelets, exotic prints, loads of canvas and linen, and horse-like ponytails swinging from the models as they marched to an African drumbeat. In the front row to take it all in was Wyclef Jean, who danced to the drums during the show’s finale. When Karan appeared for her trip down the runway, she had one thing on her mind. “Where’s my daughter?” she shouted, scanning the crowd. Finally she found her. When the crowd leapt up after the show, one publicist turned to us: “Wasn’t it so editorial?” Well, yes, we guess it was.
Mike Coppola / Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week
In addition to Glee cast members and everyone’s favorite female rapper, NBA players were ubiquitous in the front row during the first few days of Fashion Week. From the way he was mobbed by photographers before the Michael Bastian show on Monday afternoon, you’d think LeBron James (left) had just won the NBA finals. Dwyane Wade, meanwhile (right), attracted a similar scrum of photographers at the Rag & Bone show last week—and Chris Bosh posed in the front row at Lacoste with the model and actress Selita Ebanks. And the Knicks’ own Carmelo Anthony, who stopped by Dolce & Gabbana’s Bieber fest on Fashion’s Night Out, was busy at the shows, too: he sat in the front row at Rag & Bone, and squeezed between model Chrissy Teigen and Russell Simmons at Tommy Hilfiger on Sunday. Amar’e Stoudemire, meanwhile, hit Macy’s for Fashion’s Night Out, where he challenged CEO Terry Lundgren to a game of mini-basketball. As The New York Times’s Eric Wilson noted: “When, exactly, did basketball players become so stylish?”
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Fashion editors basically come to New York for two reasons. One: there are major advertisers who would be offended if these journalists didn't make an appearance at their shows. And two: Marc Jacobs shows here. On Monday night, Jacobs held his show for Marc by Marc Jacobs, and it was filled with the kind of cool, hipster sportswear he's known for. The colors of the American flag ran through the collection; a pair of navy shorts with a red stripe going down them, a red swimsuit with navy trim—and lots of very Marc-ish coats and parkas accessorized with two-toned plastic visors. Two highlights included rainbow hightops—and a self-referential “MJ NY ’12” T-shirt.
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Welcome to Fashion Week, Elle Fanning! The 13-year-old star of Somewhere and Super 8 officially hit the shows on Monday—making an appearance first at the Ohne Titel show at Milk Studios and then at the Marc by Marc Jacobs show on Monday night. In the past year, Dakota’s younger sister has burst onto the style scene—most notably wearing an ensemble from Rodarte’s Spring 2011 collection for the Los Angeles premiere of Somewhere in December. She’ll likely stick around for the Rodarte show on Tuesday, as she’s friendly with the line’s designers, Laura and Kate Mulleavy—and even appeared in a video, The Curve of Forgotten Things, for their last collection.
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On the runways, the models just seem to get younger and younger. Thankfully, W Magazine is making amends with a Steven Klein shoot featuring a 100 year old woman. Of course, the woman in question is actually not 100, but the 37-year-old supermodel Amber Valletta, in a series of dark, creepy pictures that show her aging from her 20s to the time when she's a centurion, still wearing bondage gear, still seducing young men. Monday night, the fashion world came to fete the shoot, and a video installation created around it, at the Park Avenue Armory. There was a loud rumble going through the cavernous space, as if the organizers had taken noise from a wind tunnel and amplified it. Valletta was greeting well-wishers like Terry Richardson, Tonne Goodman, and Daphne Guinness.
It wasn't easy work, Valletta said. "It took us two days to do all of this, we shot from 9am until 4am both days. It was definitely an art piece, fashion was a part of it, but it was art. Steven's amazing to work with, we have amazing synergy. I understand his dark, twisted and beautiful outlook. I have a similar sentiment. One of my favorite directors is David Lynch, I love this strange metaphorical darkness." Though the shoot seems to highlight the creepiness of wanting to be a sex object long past one's prime, Valletta said she sees the woman in the pictures as something of a role model, who's aging "gracefully" and experiences a real "transcendance" at the end of her life. Nor does she see anyting wrong with dressing like a dominatrix in old age. "I hope so," she said, when asked if she could see herself wearing bustiers as a great granny.
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The fashion set -- including Anna dello Russo, Alexa Chung, and Maggie Gyllenhaal -- crowded into Mulberry's 40th Anniversary Party at Skylight Studios last night. But across town, one of the industry's finest was at Macy's: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, the model named Maxim's Sexiest Woman of the Year (and erstwhile star of Transformers: The Dark of the Moon) was busy at Herald Square, celebrating the launch of Burberry Body (she's the face of the company.) And she looked like quite the 'body' indeed: Whiteley wore a Burberry nude tuxedo to the event.
