Call it optimism or call it escapism, but Spring 2010 is the season of the ruffled party dress: usually short, often chiffon, and almost always nude (we refer to both the color and the prevalence of sheer fabrics). Marc Jacobs—who else?—kicked the trend into high gear with his parade of ballet nymphs in New York. [...]

What with both Lady Gaga and Madonna on Saturday Night Live and a corset-crammed Jean Paul Gaultier show, yesterday was quite the moment for innerwear as outerwear. But as our Sarah Mower points out, it was in fact John Galliano who sparked the revival of this old-trend chestnut with his Christian Dior haute-couture show back [...]

Considering the success of the Craft Punk event, both at last year’s Art Basel Miami Beach and this April’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, it was no surprise to find Design Miami’s Ambra Medda backstage at yesterday’s Fendi’s show. Medda’s innovative brainchild, of course, brings talented young industrial designers together with luxe remnants from Fendi’s [...]

The huge machinery that is the Italian luxury fashion and textile industry is facing a threat on three fronts: its own complacency in not developing homegrown talent, the migration of manufacturing to low-cost countries, and now the economic downturn. In a way, though, though, the horrible realization that there’s a perfect storm brewing might be [...]

There’s fiction—Ugly Betty, The Devil Wears Prada. There’s “reality”—Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model, The Rachel Zoe Show, and so on, ad nauseum. Now comes reality. Tomorrow night, the Sundance Channel debuts The Day Before, a documentary series portraying the final hours before the Sonia Rykiel, Proenza Schouler, Fendi, and Gaultier Haute Couture fashion shows. [...]

I’m a big believer in first impressions, which is probably why I’m so excited about Saloni Lodha and her Saloni collection’s big debut here in New York next week. The first time I laid eyes on Lodha was during a Fendi-sponsored Beth Ditto performance in Paris last season; Ditto was writhing on the dance floor [...]

Who said brides-to-be are only into strapless gowns? If the final looks from Brides’s Operation Dream Dress are any indication, the public is secretly lusting after something with a bit more drama. The magazine asked budding designers nationwide to submit sketches embodying the theme of “visionary romance,” and the five finalists presented their gowns to [...]

I’ll admit to a serious envy of Kelly Ripa’s toned upper arms. With my wedding less than two months away and my own triceps looking less than camera-ready in my Fendi gown (Spring ‘08), I decided to go straight to the source. Ripa, along with Christy Turlington and Parker Posey, are devotees of Physique 57—which [...]

Each year the first days of Salone del Mobile are always the most captivating. The design community trickles into Milan for the setup of their shows. I usually come as a spectator to do research, but for the first time this year I’m working on a show called Craft Punk with Fendi in their space [...]

Hadley Freeman is ready to welcome their return, are you?
To say that the eighties are back is almost as much of a cliché these days as palling up with Beth Ditto—and in no way is that meant as a negative comment on either Ditto or the aforementioned decade. But last week in Paris, the expressions [...]