subscribe to style file blog via RSSfree speech: hadley freeman on designers’ rampant, er, creativity
June 11, 2008 10:08 am
Maybe the accusations finally got to them. After all, there are only so many times a designer can hear criticisms of the “recycling,” “overly familiar,” and even occasionally “copying” ilk before he begins to suspect that he might not get away with that “homage” to the sixties again this season. Perhaps that explains the latest trend to come down the fashion pipeline: Reinventing the Wheel. Sleeveless jackets, clutch bags as big as flat-screen TV sets, strange ballet flats that curve like U’s instead of conforming to the usual shoe shape and lying flat—not since the glory days of three-legged trousers, circa London fashion week 1999, have designers demonstrated such determination to coin not just new trends, but whole new kinds of clothes. And while in some cases the squeak of a barrel scrape can definitely be heard, that YSL elongated jacket “sans manches” looks pretty splendid and is ever so convenient for our climatically changed post-global warming world. As proof of its success, forget about searching for pictures of Kate Moss wearing it—Topshop has already knocked out a version. You can’t get more proof of its acceptance into the style pantheon than that, surely.
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