Friday, October 11, 2013

Marc Jacobs Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

This collection mixes opulent Victorian styles covered in trims with men's swim trunks against a post-apocalyptic beach setting worthy of Planet of the Apes. Now, a lot of these outfits look good, if a bit heavy...





 ...but the ones involving the swim trunks are all sorts of wrong.
 They have an unbalanced top to bottom ratio with all the weight on the top. I admit to already having a pet peeve about this sort of thing. I find it irritating to see people wearing bulky sweaters with short skirts or shorts. If that is what makes you comfortable I'm all for it, but I have yet to meet someone wearing one of these ensembles who is not complaining about how cold she is. In addition to my issues with the lack of practicality here, I take issue from an aesthetic perspective. Clothing should have a certain balance, not necessarily a symmetrical balance, but a balance that is pleasing to the eye. It is this balance that I feel these Victorian shirt with swim trunks outfits lack. These ideas could have been melded better. Heck, I could do it better! This is the point that I have come to after reviewing this many shows. What is the point of designers exactly when these ideas can be fleshed out by an amateur at a fraction of the cost and more likely to be worn by a normal person? I will explore this more deeply in future posts, but keep this in mind, because I will be recreating some of these looks myself, either exactly or altered to make more sense, with my sewing machine and some thrift store savvy.  

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Giorgio Armani Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

This collection has lots of flow. It is all-over flow, soft both in the types of fabric and the patterns chosen to decorate said fabrics. 
Some of the dresses seem to be merely breathtaking swirls of fabric such as this example. 

My only complaint is the shoes. OH MY GOD THE SHOES! 

They are a bootie flip-flop hybrid and they should have never been allowed to exist. Flip flops are for when it is so hot that you want to wear as little as possible to let air circulate around your feet. Boots are for when it is cool enoguh that you want to keep everything up to your ankes well covered and warm and also to make up for the coolness of some skirts if it's too cold to just wear sandles or heels. There is no way these two weather conditions can exist simultaneously. Therefore there is no practical reason for these shoes to exist. Also they look ridiculous. These shoes have been a trend all summer and they have bothered me since the first time I saw someone walk by wearing them. They are as pointless and stupid looking as the high-heeled sneakers that were so popular a few years ago. Let's hope they disappear as quickly and thoroughly as they came.