Fashion by the Rules: The Bow

It is a strange thing, when you think about it, that one of the first things we learn to do manually is to tie a bow!!!!!! This little rite of passage from infant to toddler stays with us all of our lives and has been integrated into the history of fashion starting in the 15TH century and even earlier.

I refer to, of course, the more decorative side of this manual labor. The bow has been glorified from apparel to all classifications of accessories. Once upon a time the bow had a prissy connotation but has morphed from that to fashion classic. To an almost a staple element of the French couture as well as ready to wear.

During my varied career in Fashion, I have always, at some point, fallen back on the idea of the bow as a basis for inspiration when buying or selling or merchandising. The bow is a constant for women of all ages and varied ideas of what makes it fashionable. I think that somewhere in the psychology of fashion, the bow remains something that so many women can relate to on some level.

Whether it is Dior or Valentino, Lacroix or Rose Bertin (Marie Antoinette’s dressmaker), there remains the enduring use of THE BOW!!! From pussycat bows to utilitarian bows, from handbags to shoes to dresses there are bows everywhere you look and so I took the liberty of finding that timeless element as it is used in the 21st Century of fashion as we know it.

Many thanks to White House, Betsy Johnson, Chloe, Marc Jacobs, Valentino, Dior, Prabal Gurung, Lacroix, Moschino, Viktor&Rolf, Alexis Mabille, Ralph Lauren, Endless.com., Chanel and Netaporter.com., and Shopstyle.com.

As always, catch me at http://jeffybruce.blogspot.com/

Headlines This Week 10/16

• Last week Ralph Lauren came under fire for (what looked to be) an extremely altered photo of a model in one of its ads. Bloggers at the website BoingBoing.net posted the image online, and lawyers for Ralph Lauren attempted to sue them for copyright infringement. Shine.Yahoo.com

• I am loving Forever 21’s Fall 2009 look book! It’s full of cute jackets and coats, scarfs, printed tops, boots and more. TheLipstickDiaries.com

• Marc Jacobs, Naomi Campbell, Amanda Lepore, Daphne Guinness, Natasha Poly, Olivier Theyskens, and Shalom Harlow are just a few of the famous fashion faces who supported François Nars 15th anniversary effort. Fashionindie.com

• The film was simply mesmerizing, beautiful and most of all captivating. I strongly encourage you to go out and watch it in theaters with your girlfriends. Audrey Tautou plays Chanel and she did an impeccable job at recreating the women who changed fashion forever. HauteMimi.com

• Talk about an all-star cast! Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Fergie and Marion Cotillard team up with screen legends Sophia Loren and Judi Dench to star in the musical Nine along with leading man Daniel Day-Lewis. People.com

Fashion By The Rules Paris Spring 2010

Fashion By The Rules
Paris Spring 2010

It has been one long month of looking at collections for next Spring but it was true that the best was saved for last. Paris delivered a wide ranging season that brought designers either back to their roots( DIOR, LANVIN, HERMES, GAULTIER, LOEWE) or designers who forged new ground (GIVENCHY,McQUEEN,CELINE,BALENCIAGA & CHANEL).

There are trends but I want to call them soft trends as they are not always apparent in every collection but definitely an underlying theme for so many designers. Look for the prints, draping, drama, clean cut linear clothes, color, the absence of color with naturals and black, waists, trench coat looks, transparency, lace embellishments of every kind and I believe these all lead to an excitement during a very stressful season .

Never let it be said there was no spectacle during these hard times…we received “SHOWS” in their most spectacular sense at Chanel, McQueen, Louis Vinton and Victor Rolfe.

There was the comeback show of the season at Celine with a superbly rendered new vision for an old house ….a disastrous new vision for the old house of Ungaro which certainly made tongues wag and then those who soldiered on in the greatest of their own particular tradition (JPG, Andrew Gn, Loewe, Junya Watanabe, and Akris).

This is the season when retailers and eventually consumer will speak very loudly as to where and what is in demand. Spring is always a challenging season and this season will be no different with the exception that the French did it best and without retreating under their shells.
I encourage you to really examine the collections at www.style.com whom I also thank for their wonderful coverage and please keep up with my in depth reviews at http://jeffybruce.blogspot.com/

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