VFILES SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

There's something about a group show that brings out a festive spirit. At VFiles tonight—following a feel-good video message about togetherness from top model Carolyn Murphy—four relatively unknown men's and women's designers from around the world each presented a mini-collection to encouraging hoots and hollers from the audience. The receptive crowd included plenty of colorful ...

No tags 0

BCBG MAX AZRIA SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

There's a new bohemian mood in the air this season, affirmed by BCBG's reverie of a Spring '15 collection. While the latest lineup successfully keyed in on that free-spirited look of the moment, the California-based contemporary label has always embodied a certain carefree vibe. Backstage before the show, designer Lubov Azria explained that a recent ...

No tags 0

VISVIM SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Visvim designer Hiroki Nakamura is so smitten with the concept of vintage that each season he hauls into his showroom a classic car (or motorcycle) that he's been restoring, though never to the point that it loses its telltale wear and tear. After all, character is what he's after, not flawlessness. This season Nakamura found ...

No tags 0

RICHARD CHAI LOVE SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Has it really been a decade already? "It's a funny thing, 10 years," mused Richard Chai before the presentation to mark his label's milestone anniversary. Back then, he was stepping out on his own after working with Marc Jacobs, sending a frisson of excitement through young editors eager for fresh talent. Now, he's an established ...

No tags 0

COACH SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Cartoon characters crawling across sweaters and decorating leather bags. Parkas made from pastel synthetic fur fluff. Shower slides and platform clogs. Stuart Vevers isn't holding anything back in his repositioning of Coach. On the runway, at least, this is not the classic, all-American brand that your mother and your grandmother knew. Revisiting the archives was ...

No tags 0

CREATURES OF THE WIND SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Sportif, grunge, a touch of the exotique. Chris Peters and Shane Gabier were inclined toward several different directions this season. It could've come across as a jumble; their last collection suffered a bit for its lack of focus. The fact that this one didn't was a testament to their persistence and, perhaps, the kismet of ...

No tags 0

TADASHI SHOJI

For Tadashi Shoji, Spring '15 started in Venice. Specifically Ca' d'Oro—the famous golden palace that sits right on the Grand Canal. "It was the reflection of the palace on the water that inspired me," Shoji said at his studio a day before the show. Indeed, the collection appeared to be bathed in a soft glow. ...

No tags 0

HONOR SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Giovanna Randall had no shortage of backstory this season. Postshow, she talked about a wealthy woman, demure and slightly icy, who meets an enigmatic "George Harrison-type" musician and leaves behind her life of order and privilege to follow him down the swingin' rabbit hole. Sadly, he's neither Harrison nor the bohemian bard he seems initially, ...

No tags 0

COSTELLO TAGLIAPIETRA SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

The Costello Tagliapietra boys were thinking a lot about the nuts and bolts of construction for Spring. Sure, they're known for their thoughtful draping, but there was more here. "We were reevaluating—and falling in love with—the way we put together clothes," said Robert Tagliapietra, who designs the collection with his partner, Jeffrey Costello, after the ...

No tags 0

TOME SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's worth reiterating—again—that the respect Tome designers Ramon Martin and Ryan Lobo have for commanding, interesting women is profound, and a pleasure to behold. Which is why it came as a bit of a disappointment today to find Martin and Lobo erring toward a more demure ...

No tags 0

MARISSA WEBB SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

There's nothing wrong with taking a page from your own book—especially if you're Marissa Webb, whose personal street style has been blogged about since right around the time people started blogging about personal street style. So if Webb wants to sprinkle some of that effortless everyday fairy dust on the masses, great. She showed clothes ...

No tags 0

RACHEL COMEY SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

"I was seeing the Amalfi Coast," said one of the typically hip guests at Rachel Comey's dinner cum show. Another ventured, "flamenco." Comey herself seemed bemused by these suggestions. "It's always interesting, what people get out of my collections," she commented, by way of demurral. Nevertheless, the designer's strongest looks had a strong whiff of ...

No tags 0

NICHOLAS K SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

A road trip through Morocco led brother-and-sister design team Christopher and Nicholas Kunz to look up female explorers who had traveled the region. They found Isabelle Eberhardt, the Swiss explorer who dressed as a man so that she could move freely through turn-of-the-century North Africa. "It was unlike anything we could imagine," said Nicholas of ...

No tags 0

CREATURES OF COMFORT SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Jade Lai has sent her woman out of the city and into the great outdoors. Creatures of Comfort's Spring offering was an ode to the adventuress, a vision of the wild unknown through a romantic's eye. Backstage, Lai spoke about blazing trails and finding a oneness with nature, but this collection spoke primarily to the ...

No tags 0

TOMAS MAIER SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

It's on a day like today, when more than two dozen fashion shows and almost as many showroom events jam the calendar, that you appreciate Tomas Maier and the philosophy behind his eponymous new line. "Life is already complicated enough," he said at an appointment at his Madison Avenue studio, "let's make it easy." Maier, ...

No tags 0

L.A.M.B. SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

After taking a three-year hiatus from NYFW to focus on her music career and family, Gwen Stefani returned to the calendar this season in true rock 'n' roll fashion with a L.A.M.B. presentation that was anything but average. The models dancing onstage with wild braids, feathers, and clips in their hair (Stefani summoned her favorite ...

No tags 0

NONOO SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Misha Nonoo likes to refer to her woman as a "naughty square." And the designer's own naughty square tendencies were on full display at her Friday afternoon show, where she sent bearded Brooklyn artist Dustin Yellin strutting down the Spring 2015 runway—casually sipping an iced Starbucks, no less—in a halter-neck shirtdress rendered in a print ...

No tags 0

RODEBJER SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Carin Rodebjer likes to say that she designs for the "total woman." By which she means, for all the moods and attitudes a woman can inhabit in the course of a day or, at any rate, a fashion season, running the gamut from fairy-tale romantic to heroically tough. Rodebjer's sensitivity to the lived experiences of ...

No tags 0

NICOLE MILLER SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

The 2014 World Cup may be done and gone, but Rio de Janeiro lives forever in Nicole Miller's heart. "I have some great memories," she said backstage of her multiple trips over the years to the wild Brazilian city. Her Spring 2015 ode included a runway made to look like Copacabana's Portuguese pavement sidewalk: a ...

No tags 0

A DÉTACHER SPRING/SUMMER 2015 NEW YORK FASHION WEEK

Something a little offbeat always happens in Mona Kowalska's A Détacher collection. And it's a welcome weirdness. A few days before her Spring show, Kowalska spoke about an Italo Calvino quote that resonated with her: "'Childhood boredom is a special kind of boredom.' It leads to this world of fantasy, daydreams, and innocent fun," said ...

No tags 0