Trend Journal by Brynn McKinstry

Fall 2014 Trend Journal brynn McKinstry FASM 245-02

Grids & Gradients

Friday, September 19, 2014

Digital printing lends precision to grids and ombre effects, which are then composed in planes that play with perspective. Hand-painted detail, brush strokes and airbrushed graduated tones lend a more textured, spontaneous direction to the trend. Crisp geometric forms are overlaid to reveal unusual overlaps of semi-translucent color and form. Israeli fashion designer Noa Raviv has integrated 3D-printed elements into ruffled garments influenced by distorted digital drawings. Noa Raviv printed and stitched lines and grids onto fabrics to evoke images of corrupted 3D drawings made using computer modeling software. “While working on a 3D software I was fascinated by the grid shown on the 2D screen and by the way black repetitive lines defines voluminous objects,” Raviv says. Tulle and silk organza fabrics in black, white and sheer tones are layered, ruffled and pleated into voluminous shapes. These embellishments snake over the shoulders and cover the chests of the dresses. “I chose the materials that had the most innovative look and the ones that I thought would best fit,” Raviv explained. Grid-like patterns are warped and stretched across parts of the garments to create optical illusions across the body. Two 3D-printed pieces, formed from ribbed layers of polymer, were created on a Stratasys Object Connex multi-material machine. Raviv used the shapes of broken Greek and Ro-

Sources: www.dezeen.com www.pinterest.com www.tumblr.com

man marble sculptures to inform the asymmetric silhouettes. The silhouettes were influenced by classical sculptures, which were the point of departure for creating the collection. This creates a juxtaposition between the technological grid and classic silhouettes. Francis Bitonti, who designed the 3D printed dress for Dita Von Teese, has 3D-printed a capsule collection of pixelated footwear. Each platform shoe has a slightly different form. To create the shoes, Bitonti used a mathematical model that generates cellular structures called Game of Life, devised by British mathematician John Conway. “The shoes are all procedurally generated,” Bitonti told Dezeen. “Conway’s Game of Life is used as a foundation for our algorithm. This is what lets us get so many different configurations and is what we used to ‘grow’ our collection.” The shoes were designed using software developed with digital technology company Adobe, which generates variations from the algorithm. Once the form is created, the shoes are built pixel by pixel on a Stratasys 3D printer that gradually blends different colors of filament as the pieces are built up in layers. The soles are a dark purple, moving up through blue and green tones to yellow and orange at the top. Each of the women’s shoes features a wedge heel and an upper that hugs the top of the foot, leaving an open toe. The pixelated formation of the stalactite-like footwear differs from pair to pair – one set features a separate sole and heels, while the bottom and top of the heel are disconnected at the back of another pair.

You’re Cordially Invited...

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Dries Van Noten’s Spring/Summer 2015 collection was nothing less than a spectacle. It all began with the mystical sounds of the forest transitioning into the “Strange Entity” track by Belgian band Oscar and the Wolf. Models floated down the mile long mossy carpet in the collection that was inspired by Sir John Everett Millais’ masterpiece ‘Ophelia’ and Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Since the label’s first inception in 1986, Belgium designer has kept to his motto of not following the rules. Midsummer Night’s Dream collection was designed for “A girl who loves festivals – Glastonbury, Burning Man. She loves nature. She puts clothes together how she wants,” explained Van Noten after the show. Elegant fluid fabrics, textures, light layers and watercolor floral prints depicted the beauty of nature and ease of self-expression. This time the designer showed a master class in how to morph and mold an impressive assortment of textiles and prints. Gilded denim, oversized blazers, asymmetric hemmed dresses and brocade coats were some of the highlights of the show that attracted avid followers including A-list celebrities. When the models returned for the finale, but instead of the traditional quick ring around the runway decided to languidly repose along its green meadow carpet left the audience in awe. What a poetic and dreamy finish to the exquisite and unforgettable show.

Sources: www.style,com www.tumblr.com www.nowfashion.com

Talking Trash: Discussing A Solution to Pollution The depletion of natural resources is becoming evident, and these problems are bringing about changes on a planetary scale: not only are we endangering the environment, but also ancient cultures. The race is on to preserve societies and regions at risk and to uphold the power of nature and place. Isolating ourselves from the industrial world and bringing us closer to the physicality of our natural environment. As basic resources such as fuel and water become scarce, we look to creative solutions that rely on a less destructive relationship between nature and technology.

Friday, October 2, 2014

On September 1st, 2014 G-Star launched its eco initiative RAW for the Oceans, which transforms the plastic pollution from our worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oceans into innovative denim and apparel. In accordance with super producer, musician, and fashion designer Pharrell Williams the famed denim heavyweight G-Star RAW recently announced a long-term collaborative project with Williamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; eco-minded company Bionic Yarn. Together they have pioneered the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first high performance bionic eco-yarn, which can provide the answer to the 700 million tons of plastic ocean pollution. The fabrics themselves are made from a blend of cotton and newly recycled plastic fibers. Bionic Yarn partnered with a service called the Vortex Project in order to amass the resources needed to make their recycled fabrics. Their studies show that waste in plastic and garbage outweighs fish harvested from the ocean at a 3:1 ratio per pound. So far Bionic Yarn and Project Vortex have assisted in removing and recycling at least 10 tons of plastic for this project alone.

Pharrell Williams taking New York Fashion Week into the blue alongside models with the unveiling of the Spring/Summer ’15 collection.

According to Sea Shepherd Conservation Society our oceans alone contain six times more plastic than sea life. To accompany the online release, the Dutch denim giant showcased the collection through a digital campaign of quirky gifs and illustrations. The price point for these recycled denim pieces range from about $200-$300. “We’ve seen a huge growth in people wanting to look further down the supply chain,” said Tom Smith, director of insight and planning at Sedex. “Manufacturers should know that retailers will want more information from further down the supply chain and brands are realizing that just going to that top tier garment manufacturer is not enough.” For manufacturers, preparing now for those inevitable questions later is the best advice, Smith said, and they should acquire as much knowledge about lower tier processes as they can.

Sources: www.rawfortheoceans.g-star.com

petit sac à main

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Whether it’s a reaction to the economy, a growing plague of back & neck pain or simply a natural response to extremely oversized handbags, every major designer is showing a mini bag this season. Sure, they have had little bags for evening, the cross-body last season, but the mini bag for day is the next great thing. Or to use an over-tired analogy, the mini-bag is the new “black”. Mini bags have been making waves in the handbag world for a while now, and I hope you love the trend, because it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. After the short-lived trend for massive, overly heavy, totally unwieldy oversized bags, the trend pendulum swung toward minis, and all of our arms and shoulders rejoiced. If you were stalking street-style images at Fashion Week, you know that bite-sized bags are the hottest new accessory trend. Sported by countless It girls, miniature handbags are subbing for the massive carryalls of seasons past. While there is no doubting the adorableness of the trend, it does mean you’ll likely have to stash your iPhone and other larger items in your pockets. But anything for fashion, right? The beauty of a short strap mini-bag is that it is small & lightweight enough to easily carry securely on your forearm still rendering you hands-free when necessary. The user must be more particular about what they stash in their mini. Small wallets or card holders, a lipstick and your phone is about all you will carrying. With so many teensy-weensy satchels on the market—funky colors, fun textures, unexpected shapes—there’s an option for every fashion girl. Small in size but big in attitude, these mini versions of favorite satchels, totes and bucket bags are easy to tote around and make for a great conversation starter. The following styles might be mini, but make no mistake, they definitely pack a powerful punch.

Sources:

www.pinterest.com www.wgsn.com www.thezoereport.com www.purseblog.com

Energy addicts

Thursday, October, 16 2014

At the rate we’re going, everything we put on our bodies might soon be connected to the cloud. From Google Glass to the Apple Watch, what we wear is rapidly getting smarter than we are. There are even tattoos with computer chips in them now. We can track sweat levels and a baby’s breathing patterns and communicate endlessly and effortlessly. Wearable technology is an inevitable reality-- one day we’ll all be wired in ways we never imagined. We’ve all been there: running out of power on your cell-phone with no prospect of a charger in the near future. It’s one of the most frightening possible scenarios for a lot of people these days. Naomi Kizhner, an Israeli graduate student, may have solved that problem. Naomi is designing jewelry that could theoretically harness your body’s energy to generate electrical power. Some of her devices are a little bit creepy- they are embedded into the wearer’s veins, and, in theory, would use the wearer’s movements and blood flow to turn a small wheel inside the device, generating electricity. Most people are probably pretty uncomfortable with the idea of embedding energy-producing jewelry into their body. But that’s exactly what Kizhner was hoping for:

“ I WANTED TO PROVOKE THE THOUGHT ABOUT HOW FAR WILL WE GO TO IN ORDER TO ‘FEED’ OUR ADDICTION IN THE WORLD OF DECLINING RESOURCES,” SHE SAID IN AN INTERVIEW WITH COSMOPOLITAN.

There are lots of developments of renewable energy resources, but the human body is a natural resource for energy that is constantly renewed, as long as we are alive. On the less intrusive side of high-tech wear, Katie Hillier of Marc by Marc Jacobs, made a fantasy a reality by introducing the MBMJ smartwatch phone. For Hillier the future of wearable technology is about seamlessly merging the digital tools we use everyday with personal style. The pink triangle bangle might look minimal, but it’s complete with a heartrate monitor, a fingerprint sensor, and motion control so it can be used as a remote control device. Plus, it has matching earrings with speaker buds so you can listen to music on the go, no cable needed and make calls. In order for wearables to be really useful for larger masses there need to be many reasons why people will wear them, so many brands are starting with aesthetics and fashion. Ultimately, it’s not just the style of portable devices that has to change to meet a broader market—the technologies themselves must evolve, too. Because while new uses for wearable devices are being developed rapidly—like a necklace that triggers a diversionary phone call or rings that display select phone notifications—many people remain skeptical. For some critics, tech’s obsession with making everything from one’s dishwasher to one’s heartbeat connected to the digital cloud isn’t necessarily freeing. After all, much of what fashion is about—a mood, a culture, an experience— cannot be registered or shared by a metric, so the challenge within the fashion industry is melding the two seamlessly. Sources: www.thehigherlearning.com Www.style.com www.pinterest.com

Athletic+Leisure=ATHLEISURE

Friday, October 24, 2014

It’s never been cooler to be seen looking like you’ve been working out. The key word here is looking. Over the course of this extremely well-documented cultural shift toward casual dressing, gymto-street clothes is involved as an official clothing category, and yet no one is quite sure what to call it. Athleisure, however, is a new term that both the media and fashion industry have started to use without hesitation, but its root words, athletic and leisure, are in fact polar opposites. You can’t exactly relax at the same time you bump up your BPM, can you?

After partnering with greats like Yohi Yamamoto, Raf Simons, Rick Owens, and, more recently, Pharrell Williams, you would think that Adidas has had its fill of out-of-thebox collaborations, but that isn’t the case. Mary Katrantzou has teamed up with Adidas to present Adidas Originals by Mary Katrantzou, a capsule collection of innovative apparel and footwear emblazoned in the designer’s iconic, hyper-color, kaleidoscopic patterns. For Adidas Originals, Katrantzou’s vision is translated in apparel and footwear with a feminine strength, distilling the essence of her graphic vision. The collection will be in stores as of November 15, 2014.

The technicolor-printed track shoes worn by medal winners in the 1970s and 1980s were the starting points for Katrantzou, who reworked Adidas’ iconic looks to wild effect-consider the gold hardware on a hot pink, purple, and green sneaker. But the fun doesn’t stop there: body hugging zip-up dresses and pullovers mesh feature abstract florals, stripes, and laces.

So it looks like the high end athleisure trend isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s a blanket term for activewear that’s not really meant to be sweat in at all. I suppose it’s for the man or woman who spends $400 on a pair of “workout” tights without any technical purpose whatsoever. In fact, you probably have to dry-clean them. It’s even likely that you already have a similar pair in your closet, but the first time you bought them they were billed as loungewear or travel apparel. Roughly half the people buying “activewear” these days are buying it for “nonactive use, as casual and everyday wear,” according to a recent study. Why is it suddenly socially acceptable to wear gym clothes 24/7? Not very long ago, it was considered quite a faux pas to be seen running around town in your workout pants and sneakers-- unless, of course, you lived somewhere like Los Angeles or Miami, where it’s always been perfectly acceptable to flaunt that perma beach-ready body all the time. The thought process being that you wear workout clothes, therefore you must be an exercise fiend and you must be fit. But voila, today you can go just about anywhere in your leggings. Forget about dressing up and sartorial codes because this functional trend is here without compromising style. Perhaps it’s a statement that fashion has become too fussy because even the runway has taken to this trend with sneakers paired with any outfit imaginable or Alexander Wang x HM collaboration which triggers a survivalist instinct. Sources: www.marykatrantzou.com Www.style.com

An eye catching Glimpse Friday, October 30, 2014 Texture has long been a topic talked about backstage: Makeup Artist, Pat McGrath, swathed latex across lids for Fall 2014 and Peter Philips, Dior’s creative and image director of makeup, adhered bands of blue leather and macaroon-colored satin to lash lines for Spring 2015. Dior even plans to bring the concept to market in January with Pastel Eyes Multi-Wear Adhesive Eyeliner Patches (the product worn on the runway). The macaroon-colored strips of laser-cut satin in soft hues of pistachio, rose, peach, and buttery yellow were placed close to models’ top lash lines. Philips intent was to create something completely unexpected, using what is otherwise, a very mundane material. “I thought it would be interesting to take a classic fabric like satin and subvert it to obtain a really modern makeup finish, which in fact looks very similar to a ‘neoprene’ effect.” He had started dreaming up the look with designer Raf Simons about ten days before the show. Raf wanted the face to be a continuation of what was done at couture explained Philips, who had drawn a similar metallic line onto models’ lashlines for that show earlier this summer. This time around, Philips looked to the gentle, hyperfeminine palette of Simons’s spring 2015 collection for inspiration, calling on Dior’s beauty atelier to create a series

of pastel slivers with a slight sheen to them instead. “It looks almost like a sport fabric,” he said. “Raf loves neoprene.” With no smearing and no steady hand required, those cool fabric strips may just render your liquid liner obsolete. Makeup pro Vincent Oquendo, however, ran with the concept to produce lid looks more akin to art than maquillage, channeling Irving Penn’s photographs with unconventional materials like gauze, lace, and gold leaf. “It’s surprisingly more wearable than it appears,” Vincent said. If you have the time and patience, why not use your eyes as another accessory? Sure, this concept isn’t necessarily office-friendly, but lace in lieu of smoky shadow seems doable for a big night out-- or perhaps an effective solution for those who haven’t yet nailed down their Halloween costume. Sources:

www.pinterest.com www.wgsn.com www.vogue.com www.fashionista.com

“Behind the most beautiful eyes lay secrets deeper and darker than the mysterious sea.” -YLD

The Coatigan

Friday November 7, 2014

If there’s one trend you try this season, it must be the Coatigan trend. What is a coatigan you might ask? Well, the term coatigan is coined after a hybrid of a coat and a cardigan. The Coatigan is designed for the trendy chic girl that still needs to stay warm but wants to continuously look fashionable. These open fly-away cardigans are virtually replacing the coat this season. Especially, after the past few frigid winters, I’m sure we’re all ready to retire that worn out peacoat. The trend for chunky and heavy-gauge knitwear is highlighted through the longer silhouette in edge-to-edge and button down styles. Enveloping collars and blanket shapes have a relaxed mood, worked in earthy marl and fur-like yarns, honeycomb stitches, textural patchwork, and ombré marl for an eclectic, artisinal effect. While heavy-gauge V-neck cardigans work well as commercial outerwear pieces this season, updated through elongated and boxy silhouettes. Detailing refreshes this item through double-faced panels, graphic stripes, cables and leather additions in a range of casual yarns such as denim mèlanges, nepped tweeds and brushed mohair and alpaca. The influence of loungewear is a key driver for the long-line coatigan, with an emphasis on luxurious comfort dressing. A relaxed, pared-down silhouette, cozy brushed yarns and edge-to-edge finishes give the look a pleasing simplicity, while Ottoman pattern influences tap into a more opulent mood. Across all styles and variations volume is important, with an oversized silhouette key for all shapes, from elongated and long-line cardigans thorough to boxy and cropped styles, with extended sleeves and soft draping. The trend for cozy tactility works amongst varying styles, with cable and rib Sources:

www.pinterest.com www.wgsn.com www.tumblr.com www.nastygal.com

stitches worked in brushed wool, mohair, alpaca and angora wools. The soft knit construction keeps you warm without the weight, making the coatigan perfect both indoors and out. The coatigan looks much more like a coat and has a more sophisticated vibe about it. It has more coat detailing and structure than the sweater-coat. Some times, it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until you get a good feel of the coatigan that you realize why it is indeed a cardigan-coat hybrid. It can effortlessly be thrown on over everything, whether that be a sharp work-look or a casual off-duty outfit. Plus, the extra length works double duty â&#x20AC;&#x201C; sure it keeps you warm but the dramatic silhouette is effortlessly elegant.

Sources: www.pinterest.com www.meijerstyle.com www.style.com

“ Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life

“

- BILL CUNNINGHAM

THIS TREND JOURNAL WAS A PROJECT CREATED BY BRYNN MCKINSTRY FOR FASM 245: RETAIL BUYING SIMULATION AT THE SAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN DURING FALL 2014 TERM. THIS IS MY INTERPRETATION OF PROMINENT TRENDS CURRENTLY WITHIN THE REALM OF THE FASHION INDUSTRY.