By Alyssa Boddicker
Sadly, Paris week has officially come to a close, and with that, so has F/W 2016 Fashion Month. It’s been a wild ride with plenty of surprises, designer standouts, up-and-comers making their mark, and trends that we cannot wait to incorporate into our fall and winter wardrobes. To bid a sweet farewell to Paris Fashion Week, we thought we’d put together the last shows from Paris that epitomize all we want from Fashion Weeks. Here’s what Louis Vuitton, Valentino, and Miu Miu had to give to the fashion industry for this F/W season.
Louis Vuitton
Figure defying garments, specifically mega-cropped jackets, were the stunners of Louis Vuitton’s futuristic sports collection for the Fall/Winter season. The empire cut of the jackets, mostly with motorcycle details, send us into the future of fashion. Sharp sleek lines, exposed zippers, and a sporty color palette send us exactly where designer Nicolas Ghesquiére wanted us to go, a place of “all the athletic things, sports, luxury, (and) innovation”. Mission accomplished.
Even the stage of Louis Vuitton’s latest show feels like an extreme sport obstacle course from the future instead of a runway during Paris Fashion Week. The glistening mirrored pillars lit up the room and made the entire collection come alive.
We loved the sporty shapes, textures, and color palette from this Fall/Winter collection. The bold red, deep blue, hints of gold and blackest black have us feeling like we just arrived at the X Games and not a Paris fashion show (in a good way of course). Luxurious silk skirts and fluffy knit sweaters contrast against sharp leather cuts on sleeves, pants, and jackets in a perfect balance of sport and luxury. We can’t wait to experiment with this balance as well!
Valentino
Talk about black swans! These dark, off-duty ballerina looks are to die for. We love the textures in these ensembles including metal panels, soft tulles, silky skirts, and woolen coats. The strong winter looks featuring heavy woolen jackets are structured enough to not swallow up the models, and refined enough to fit a ballerina’s style. Flowing wrap skirts contrasted against sharp mini skirts took us back to our ballet class days of complete with tutus, which we could not be more excited about.
It’s no question that ballerinas have some bite. Valentino clearly knows this and wants to pay homage to just how bada** these girls are with pointed sliver studs and metal panels as featured details in the F/W 2016 collection.
These jaw-dropping gowns were on point(e) in painting the picture of a whole life of a ballerina, on and off the stage. Wrapped silk waists mirror the wraps on pointe shoes, black tulle with stars and feathers symbolize popular ballets such as A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Swan Lake, while light ruffled tulle reflects back to the early days of ballet classes in tutus.
Of course it couldn’t all be blush pink and tulle for Valentino, instead they took this ballerina inspiration above and beyond and gave their girls a whole wardrobe. Gorgeous jackets, geometric patterns in stitching and beading, pops of bright color, and biker touches round out this collection to appeal to every style, even if we aren’t all ballerinas.
Miu Miu
Miu Miu’s newest Fall/Winter collection brought brand new meaning to the term ‘homespun fashion‘. Borrowing from both grandma and grandpa’s closets when it comes to textures and patterns, Miu Miu masterfully brings argyle, tweed, and tapestry florals into the present day with modern and flattering silhouettes. We love the high low jackets with overstated collars on the right, and the gorgeous tailoring on the long floral coat has the garment looking nothing like a curtain, a hard feat with thick floral fabric. We love.
Feeling blue? So was Miu Miu. Navy and denim coated (get it?) the runways with their gorgeous outerwear pieces. The military details from the oversized pockets to bomber collars and thick belts were the perfect amount of masculine details that made each piece look strong and powerful. This is one of Miu Miu’s first times featuring large amounts of denim into a collection and we cannot wait to see more.
The Hadid sisters are the fashion industry’s biggest obsession at the moment. Two utterly striking girls with completely different looks are hard to come by in a full model casting, let alone in just one family! We loved seeing both sisters walk this show and absolutely kill it on the runway, hopefully there are more Hadid squared moments to come!
Designer Miuccia Prada went into this season’s collection with just one goal, to have fun. Looking like each piece was customized with whatever was “around the house” by borrowing from the boys (note the boxers front and center) and grandma’s interiors, Miu Miu somehow made outdated patterns and styles turn terrifically modern. Stunning tapestry florals with a metallic edge and modern silhouettes added feminine flare while fur cuffs and black accents brought army style jackets a chic edge.
We’re feeling pretty emotional about Fashion Month ending, but we’ve seen so many trends these past four weeks that are sure to take ’til September’s Fashion Month to get through them all. So let’s rob our grandparents’ wardrobes, bring back our primary school leotards and tutus, and head off to the races with the latest fashion trends from Louis Vuitton, Valentino, and Miu Miu.
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