Fashion Climate of 2010 with New Trends (II)

Brand America

The heritage chic trend that gave us 2009 phenomena such as Florsheim by Duckie Brown's star-spangled Patriot Boot, and Pendleton's collaborations with Hurley and Opening Ceremony, is ripe to broaden into a global appetite for "brand America."

 

In addition to more advertisements that emphasize the hardworking, can-do spirit, industrial fortitude, and pick-ourselves-up-by-our-own-bootstraps message (see Levi's "Go Forth" campaign), look for European designers to partner with some of the most revered of American brands.

 

At the Paris spring/summer 2010 men's runway shows, the trademark Red Tab of Levi Strauss & Co. could be spotted in the collections of Rick Owens, Junya Watanabe Man and Jean Paul Gaultier, who added his signature maritime stripes and bondage straps motifs to the traditional 501 silhouette, as well as a classic-looking trucker's jacket with the front panels cut out so that it resembled a bondage harness.

 

And for the first time, Emporio Armani, the lower-priced line from Giorgio Armani's Milan-based fashion empire, is making jeans in the United States. The company recently announced that four new styles (two for men and two for women) for spring/summer 2010 are being made in downtown Los Angeles. Touted as "the refinement of the Armani brand with an original interpretation of the authentic vintage American look," they bear a distinct stars-and-stripes vibe that's reflected in special hangtags, brushed white enamel rivets and red, white and blue leather labels.

Denim's not the only department either; Italian label Missoni has partnered with another venerable American brand - the 101-year-old Converse company - to make $200 versions of the classic Chuck Taylor All Star high-tops printed with Missoni's signature zigzag patterns. Converse's deep bench of collaborations for 2010 will also include a shoe with Number (N)ine's Japanese designer Takahiro Miyashita and another with the British rock band the Clash.

The new bridge

In retail parlance, "bridge" used to describe bland career wear and mom jeans by the likes of Jones New York, Anne Klein and Liz Claiborne. But no more.

 

Tory Burch, Elie Tahari, Phillip Lim and others have carved out a "new bridge" market by offering clothes with designer details and more accessible prices.

 

In 2010, more designers will run to the middle to appeal to price-sensitive shoppers. This month, Alice for Alice Temperley will arrive in department stores, with prices ranging from $130 to $820, for striped cotton tailored jackets, quilted leather biker jackets and printed dresses. In the spring, Posen will debut his ZSpoke line of sportswear exclusively for Saks Fifth Avenue. Although his namesake runway label goes for $900 to $6,000, ZSpoke will start at $78 for a T-shirt and $675 for a knit dress. Even John Galliano, who designs haute couture, is expanding his lower-priced Galliano collection to include menswear, which will be shown on the runway in Milan this month.

 "More and more, it's going to be hard to be at the top end of the market," said Buckingham of Trendera. "There are only so many designers people are going to spend a lot of money for. The luxury consumer is saying, 'I'm going to spend money on designers I know will be around 15 years from now.' So it makes sense to penetrate that new bridge market. And for many people now, the middle is the high end."

 

Health-conscious beauty

Call it a beauty product backlash or the rise of a more health-conscious consumer, but natural and organic skin-care products are continuing to replace the commercial soap and synthetic anti-aging serums in bathrooms of women everywhere. In 2008, 64 percent of women who use beauty products said they used "natural" items, according to NPD market research group, and last year the New York Times reported that "the market for natural and organic cosmetics has grown in leaps and bounds." With more women learning about potential problems associated with parabens, petrochemicals and other preservatives found in many skin-care products, many of them are opting to decrease the potentially toxic substances they encounter.

 

Dr. Jessica Wu, a Westwood, Calif.-based dermatologist, used to hear references to natural and organic beauty products only from her Malibu clients, but now, she said, all her clients seem interested. "I think this is a natural extension of eating organically and being more conscious of what we are putting into our bodies," she said. "More and more people come to me after seeing their acupuncturist or nutritionist and tell me they're no longer interested in prescription remedies and want to switch to a more natural product with more gradual results. ... And now with places like Sephora, which has "green" and "organic" beauty sections, it's easier for people to shop for these products."

 

Publicist Robin Gilbert started her shift to organic beauty products last year, mostly to eliminate parabens, which in some studies have been linked to breast cancer in women. (Parabens are the most widely used preservatives in cosmetic products, according to the Food and Drug Administration.) "If I can control what goes into my body to some extent, then I will," said Gilbert, who uses products from organic and natural brands such as Nude and Tom's of Maine.

 

Gilbert said she was so overwhelmed with how many department store products she was using that streamlining her regimen into something more "clean" and natural seemed less chaotic. "I was trying so many things before. And with natural products, I don't feel as bad about what it's leaving on my skin or what's going into my skin."

 

On the other hand, she continued, "if I have something on my skin I want to get rid of, I'll do whatever it takes. I really don't know how much those natural products are gonna help with wrinkles. It's about finding that balance and targeting what's important."

 

Sometimes it's tough to know what is natural. The labeling of such products is mostly unregulated, and consumers would be wise to do their homework. "The reality," said Beverly Hills dermatologist Harold Lancer, "is that there are very few things on Earth in the beauty world that are 100 percent organic," he said. "Unless you have the bees flying it up to you every day, you need something to preserve it."

 

Living local and reconnecting

The locavore movement, dedicated to eating locally grown food as a means toward sustainability and eco-consciousness, seems likely to influence other areas of life. In fact, trend forecaster Faith Popcorn has made the concept of localization the cornerstone of her predictions for 2010.

 

"There is nothing we can do about Iraq and Afghanistan, so we are trying to find someplace where we can have an effect," Popcorn said. "It's like a turtle pulling into its shell; it's hyper-cocooning. Local becomes an attitude."

 

Concern is growing about money and jobs sent elsewhere, she said. "There will be a push back against companies that make too much money and don't support their communities."

 

More companies will source locally and be transparent about where ingredients and materials come from. "There is a tremendous craving for community, authenticity and information about the source - where did this grape come from, what are the politics I'm putting in my mouth?"

 

"We're all looking for quietude, away from the buzzer, the beeper and the phone," she said.

 

Indeed, in 2009 we seemed to twaddle, facepoke and iplot ourselves to a never-ending cycle of delirium that forsakes interpersonal connections for Internet connections. In the world of style, that translated into runway shows going virtual, fashion weeks fixating on baby bloggers and 140-character "tweets from the seats" becoming the status quo.

 

If 2010 isn't the year it all comes tumbling down around our ears, perhaps it will at least be the year the foundations begin to buckle.

 

"Once the economic recovery starts to happen, one of the first things we're going to do is say: 'All that networking and faux-networking didn't do a ... thing for us,'" said Richard Laermer, a trend watcher and author of "2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade."

 

"It didn't help us get jobs or help us with our relationships," Laermer said. "It didn't keep us happy, it didn't get a healthcare bill passed. We're going to realize Twitter and Facebook and all those things didn't do a . . . thing for us and that maybe we ought not to do that for a while."

 

The analog shift won't happen overnight (probably because there's no app for that), but Laermer thinks we'll start to see people put down the mouse and pick up the phone. "Having conversations, or a cup of coffee - what the kids call IRL, which stands for 'in real life.' I think we have to go back to being in real life."

Fashion Climate of 2010 with New Trends (I)

 

About the Author

Swimming Costumes; A History of Ridiculous Design

Swimwear has a history peppered with outlandish mistakes. It's hard to find an area of fashion where the costume design has been so absolutely unsuited to the purpose intended.

In antiquity they had the right idea. Bathing was segregated and nude; akin to a group bath. There was a brief dip into swimwear: a wall mosaic from the 4th Century shows girls dressed in "bikinis". The look didn't last.

In the dark and middle ages nobody bathed at all. There are certainly no records of any special swimming costumes worn for bathing, and in Europe, "bath houses" went out with the Romans.

Swimming reappeared as a sport in the 19th Century. Men wore long, fitted woolen one piece suits, looking a bit like long underwear and no doubt itchy, but reasonably practical to swim in. This look lasted a century, getting shorter and a bit more colourful by the 1920s.

The girls finally got into the water for fun in Victorian times. This was an age when modesty and decorum took precedence over practicality. Ladies wore cumbersome and dangerously heavy bathing gowns, the strict morality of the time ensuring flesh was covered, curves were obscured and the thick, black, woolen garment was not see-though when wet. Lead weights in the hem of the gown stopped the dress floating up in the water.

Recreational swimming gained popularity when the railroads started transporting families to the coast. "Bathing machines" meant girls and women could change and submerge in the sea without the titillating exposure of nude skin. The dress evolved into a two piece suit; a long sleeved gown to the knees, plus long pantaloons.

The wonderful Annette Kellerman shocked the world in Boston in 1907 by swimming in a revolutionary jersey sleeveless tank-suit, revealing her arms and legs. She was arrested for indecency.

However, she promoted the new style of swimwear for women and "Annette Kellermans" were the first modern girls' swimsuits. In 1926 Gerturde Ederle swum the English Chanel and girls now "swam" rather than "bathed".

These early women's costumes were fairly androgynous, albeit practical. In the 1930s came the feminisation of the swimsuit. Costumes got impractical again when Hollywood introduced bathing beauties into films; Esther Williams wore figure hugging costumes, the new stretch fabrics may have helped movement but the sequins and mermaid tail must have been tricky.

In the 1940s corsets made a comeback and women were strapped, boned and cupped into desirable shapes. New fabrics such as stretch Lastex and elastic nylon combined with cotton to enhance curves. Zips pulled it all together.

Revolution came again in 1946 with Heim and Reard's bikinis: "smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world," although these guys would be shocked at just how much smaller the bikini could get.

For the next half a century the only style change in swimwear was the concept that less is more. Lycra came with the 60s and the stretch meant small scraps of fabric could stay up, more or less. The 1960 hit by Bryan Hyland "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" says it all.

Swimwear styles in the past had been silly, some putting their wearers at risk of drowning. But nothing did so much long term health damage as the look that came next: the thong. Two decades of sun worship and ultra tanning and near naked bodies soaking up cancer on the beach.

Surfers took over next and the thongs (thankfully) were covered with board shorts for both the guys and girls. Cancer clinics world wide are grateful for the fashionable rash shirt; a big step in putting melanoma out of fashion.

Carol Wior deserves a mention as the Slimsuit inventor (all hail!) and cozzies for competitive swimmers have made massive advances over the last decade with performance fabrics helping slash race times in the pool.

My prediction for the next decade is that swimming costumes will find a happy balance. They will use fabulous fabrics for stretch and performance, that hold muscle and enhance swimming ability, prevent sun damage and in styles that will be both flattering and practical.

Unfortunately, this happy state wont last. Another mad combination of social morality and fashion will produce something as impractical and ridiculous as the designs we've seen in the past.

So watch out for the perfect swimsuit, coming soon. And stockpile, to see you past the ridiculous designs that follow.

 

About the Author

Cristina Sanders is managing director of swimwear brand Lion in the Sun. Now based in her native New Zealand after 20 years in the UK, Cristina has run the manufacturing, wholesale and retail side of her business for the last 10 years, gaining extensive knowledge of the swimwear industry on both sides of the world and acquiring experience in the dynamic world of small business ownership. Cristina lives and works in sunny Hawkes Bay in New Zealand, spending as many hours as possible on a beach researching and testing her swimwear. Her argument is that if you want to make brilliant swimwear, you need to see it in action, swimwear that looks good in a catalogue also has to fit, last and look good on the beach to keep the customers coming back for more. http://www.lioninthesun.com/