Bryant Park; this week's Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week is a wrap. And while the temperature is cooling off in South Jersey, the weeklong event, which highlights the spring/summer collection, one thing is hotter than hot; the color black. When stripped down without all the effect, some of the major trends of Fashion Week where here: draping, banding and lattice-like leather, among them. Overall the nod to the spring and summer season was a chance to offset the black with white and shades of nude, blush and stone, all part of the overall muted look that has dominated all week.
Yet the black wasn't severe, especially rendered in featherweight fabrics in sheer organza, tulle and black lace. A wave of black swept the runways of Rodarte, Vera Wang, Badgley Mischka and Jill Stuart on Tuesday. It was even at a tongue-in-cheek fashion show for the Snuggie -- the blanket with sleeves.
RELATED
Fall Fashion Week 2009 in New York
The Last Days of Fashion Week 2009
Other highlights:
RODARTE
The ravens rose at Rodarte. With a smoke-filled runway beneath them, models wore outfits resembling the contradictory symbol of darkness and survival.
Even with tiny asphalt pebbles on the ground, haunting music and the smoke, all the drama really came from the clothes. Every garment seemed a cobweb of leather, yarn, ribbons, lace and cheesecloth. Some of the pieces were adorned with crystals, feathers and leather made to look like birdskin.
"They're incredibly inspiring, and their clothes are always inspiring," said Kirsten Dunst, wearing a glittery bronze Rodarte dress from an earlier season and sitting in the front row with the likes of Elijah Wood and Jason Schwartzman.
BADGLEY MISCHKA
Badgley Mischka, long associated with the socialite party-gown set, has made a clean break. Thank goodness.
The highly embellished, glitzy gowns that made them famous wouldn't seem right for the times, even if we may or may not be out of the recession. So the design duo of Mark Badgley and James Mischka have found themselves a new niche, showing some lovely, more sophisticated clothes -- ranging from a black-and-white tweed sheath dress to a black shantung jumpsuit that had a gathered halter neckline as well as a gathered waist and palazzo-pant legs.
ELLE TAKES BORIS JOHNSON TO LONDON FASHION WEEK
