New York Fashion Week has just concluded and we at SPICE are reminiscing on its runways – recounting the best of the collections the city offered for Spring/Summer’15 and bringing you 10 of our utter favourites.
See below our list of designers and their lust-worthy lineups for next season. Have a look and tell us if your pick made our edit and which collection is sure to make it to your wardrobe the other side of Fall;
Thakoon
With Thakoon, the devil’s always in the details – this time specifically, in the designer’s near-hidden fringing used to create textured polka-dots and stripes; uber cool little quirks if you can catch them.
Marking designer Thakoon Panichgulz’s 10th year on NYFW’s schedule, this collection walked right into personal best territory, with its slinking silk jackets and wide-legged pants, and off-beat pattern-clashed ensembles.
The standout moment came when we at SPICE realised there wasn’t a look we didn’t love. See it in motion (below) to really fall for it, then rekindle your affair with it next season by putting a piece in your wardrobe.
DKNY
Donna Karan and her team sent street-fused brilliance down the ramp at NYFW, with Spring/Summer’15’s collection titled “New York Nation” and described by the brand as “multicolored, multicultural [and] multitasking.”
There were kaleidoscopic prints, stripes, embellishment and a palette of primary colours – all worn by models rocking platformed trainers, braids and coiffed ‘baby hair,’ suggesting a bit of street attitude is what’s needed to complete next season’s ensembles.
We at SPICE particularly love the bomber jackets (both the long and cropped) and how prints played off each other via their proportions. See the range in the video below and then getting slicking that hair to your forehead.
McMeka
Igwedinma Rodney Emeka of Nigerian menswear label, McMeka sent bright, clean, modern and graphic staple pieces down the runway at Africa Fashion Week New York, dispelling any myths that male wardrobes need be boring.
There was enough colour fused to his fabrics to safely bid goodbye to plain black suit-wearing, with the designer showcasing a Spring/Summer’15 collection with high hopes for high-voltage hues.
Grid prints, fauna and pillar box red? We dig it.
Peter Som
Revealing an upbeat collection full of printed separates, Peter Som sent eye-trapping looks down NYFW’s runway, catching every on-looker’s attention from the get-go.
There were dresses, blazers, long bandeau tops and bikini bottoms – all to be worn with a confidence to match the Spring/Summer collection’s pallete, which bravely sought from olive greens to monochrome, concluding in gold foil and a quick bang of pink and orange.
A real attempt to make us swoon for the humble rugby stripe, and we can’t say we won’t be seen in one come Spring. The below video should persuade you into a stripe or two, too.
Eki Orleans
Nigerian-German designer, Hazel Aggrey-Orleans has a way with transforming texture onto fabric, consistently creating an illusion with her work, that – as if by magic – we find ourselves needing in our wardrobes, immediately.
The “Butterfly” collection showcased by Eki Orleans at New York Fashion Week was no different, fluttering down the ramp in a swirl of exotic colours; a vision of prints that captured butterflies in fluid, lengthy strokes.
As the collection drew on from floor-length gowns and draping kaftans, things got teenier, and tinier, with bikinis also offered up. Neon brights worked alongside white, but everything was etched in Ms Aggrey-Orleans’ signature: signature prints.
A Team SPICE favourite is the green, thigh-split dress with asymmetrical detail, for which we’ve already made room on our rail.
Lacoste
Lacoste’s lead, Felipe Oliveira Baptista had a thing or two up his sleeve when designing his Spring/Summer range – namely a plan to leave windbreakers attached to the back of garments for that “I tied my jacket around my waist”-sorta cool that all the hipsters seem to be flaunting.
Also, the designer’s way with neoprene – everything butter-smoothed and seamless – seemed to lay a hand towards the easy-chic of the collection, cementing the fabric’s reappearance for next season.
But, about more than just fabric and gimmicks (and the fact that the fashion-sphere is still digging sports as a theme), Mr Baptista’s thing for colours helped lead us to love Lacoste’s looks, with the range walking through duck egg blues into pastels and whites, then turning up the volume with vivid yellows, purples and reds.
The rainbow range, steeped in sportstastic shapes (for very obvious reasons) is one to look out for come Spring, when it’s recreated (read: copied) by every highstreet retailer out there – and with good reason being that it’s just genius. See it in the video below and then tell us you don’t agree.
Deola & Clan
With Deola and its ‘daughter line,’ Clan on the schedule for NYFW, the showcase was truly a family affair, proving that style and good taste truly can be inherited.
Both collections were magnificent while being quite different, with Clan (by Ms Sagoe’s daughters, Teni and Abah Sagoe) taking on a Japanese theme and putting some punch into pieces clearly intended to elevate one’s cool status. Creative director or the brand, Temi Sagoe explained of the range, which includes pieces named Tamiko (meaning child of the people), Michiko (meaning child of beautiful wisdom) and Aiko (meaning beloved child);
“The constant references to the child in the chosen Japanese names for the Kasumi Collection allude to the idea that the younger self is the most unaffected and possibly the purest expression of one’s personal style. Channel your inner child.”
Mother Sagoe’s collection, inspired by her youngest daughter, Tiwa (not yet a designer with her own fashion empire on the build), was titled “Wings by Deola,” and saw beautiful gowns of all sorts of refinement and hem lengths walk the runway. SPICE favourites of veteran designer Deola’s range include the lace overlaid patterned dresses, which included prints inspired by butterflies and moths.
The double show by the Sagoes seems telling of a future that Mother Sagoe seems excited by, as she revealed;
“The House of Deola Sagoe, with me and my daughters, and what they are doing with the Clan label, frankly blows my mind.
It’s just moving into a very interesting space right now… It’s a generational thing now; it was given birth to and it’s living and doing its thing.”
We at SPICE were certainly mind-blown by the results of the family’s recent efforts, which you can see here in the video below;
Suno
Suno by Max Osterweis and Erin Beatty – saviours of print and enlisters of skilled locals in India, Kenya, Peru and New York – had a more laid back approach to its garmetry for next season, pairing down the eclectic aesthetic the duo’s known for and working in a slightly cleaner, cooler mood.
Stripes (clearly the pattern to be spied sporting for Spring) were etched across whites and powder blues before pastelled plaids unfolded on the runway, and the collection concluded with darker, blocked out print on lengthly hemlines with asymmetrical features.
There was a grown-up feel to the entire lineup – prints put together for the poised and collected customer – but none the less, Suno’s range was utterly beautiful and functional, and something to covet for one’s wardrobe next season. See it in the video, below;
Weize Dhurm Franklyn
Light and darkness have always been powerful forces but young Nigerian designer, Weize Dhurm Franklyn managed to wield them with ease into his latest collection, to create a range of wearable, futuristic fashion staples.
Rising talent, Anaba Wisdom’s new looks strutted through in waves of monochrome, patched with shows of skin and embellishment ; gold, red and black detailing either snaked around garments or were use to punctuate his pieces.
Risqué as some of the looks were, this young Nigerian knows what fashion-forward women want in their wardrobes, and clearly set about crafting a whole collection full of it for Spring/Summer’15.
David Tlale
South African designer, David Tlale’s collection received strong applause and a standing ovation at NYFW’s Lincoln Centre, with the fash pack won over by his version of next season.
Ruling the runway with not one but three outstanding collections (#ShowOff), Mr Tlale took on African prints, russet drapes and softer shows of fabric, using the help of top model Tyson Beckford to really sell it – not that the designer needed Beckford’s chiselled good looks and fine form though, with the collection etched in Tlale’s talent from top to toe.
We at SPICE particularly loved the use of the traditional gele and the palette that came in waves of rustic greens and reds, before orange and powder peach appeared. And, as the models congregated on the runway in the designer’s triumphant pieces, you could sense that everyone in the room had mentally joined the David Tlale army of fans.
Watch the video below and see if you don’t mentally enrol, too.
Video & image source: ElleMalaysia.com, Okayafrica.com, Style.com, Theupcoming.co.uk, Alwaysfashionweek.com, FashionTV.com
