Something You Can Feel

I find it easy to identify with things I can see and feel. As a fashion merchandising major, half of what I have been taught in class is all visual. I like being able to see clearly with my eyes the various design elements in a garment. The other half is textural. Being able to touch those items that appear to be smooth but turn out rough. It’s an interesting game to play with textures. Some textures could be made out of the most unassuming things. Touch that dress in your closet. What do you think it’s made of? Does it feel like silk? There are so many things to learn about textures and the uses are endless. 

I enjoyed looking at what Missoni came up with for their fall collection. Shiny metallic embellishments, chunky heels and boots, wooden details, beading and pine needles graced almost every model. The fall 2012 trends are currently fur, leather, brass and gold buckles, large scale knits and fringe, which are clearly reflected all over the Missoni collection.

In the runway look, I took the textural influences of wood to be the inspiration for the garment. The layering of the different fabrics reminds me of the different layers of bark and roots.

Ferocious furs and captivating textures hit the runway for fall. Angela Missoni clearly was inspired by urge to be wild. Natural textures were clearly the inspiration for the collection. Wood, stone, fur, tree bark, and mica-sparkled minerals are just a few of the many textural elements in the show.

I can look at the fur in this photograph and my fingertips can feel the warmth of the fur. Its amazing how life experiences have conditioned us to visualize things we cannot feel.

This is my Texture Trend Board for Missoni fall 2012. I took much of what I saw in the collection and what Angela Missoni wanted for her collection and made a wonderful interpretation of all the textures.

Fifty Shades Of Brown

Anywhere you go in town, there’s bound to be a woman laced in sienna, wheat, russet, and tan. All of this color begins with brown. The street style in Providence can tell you more about trends than any fashion magazine. Shades of brown are the staple for the fall season. Anyone can where they and they aren’t limited to a certain demographic. Most popularly, shades of brown can be found in knitwear and outerwear. Recently, I’ve been noticing that women choose to wear almost tunic like tops in tan and wheat with darker tints of brown on the bottom. Although this street style may seem odd they possibilities are endless.

 

This entire outfit has a brown base. The long tunic top is a light tan and her tights underneath are chocolate brown. To balance the similar colors, she pairs pewter flats to finish it all off.

 

 

                                                          A similar look I found!

 

 

                                 This girl wears her textured Leather jacket in warm sienna.

 

Missoni’s fall 2012 women’s wear collection unleashed ferocious furs and captivating tints of brown onto the runway. The backstory is a girl who wants to lose herself in the wild but is stuck living in the city; “I am Woman”. The collection is a combination of urban influences and an immersion of nature. Angela Missoni wove the collection out of wood, stone, fur, tree bark, and mica-sparkled minerals. Each piece really packed in all the colors of fall.  Shiny metallic embellishments, chunky heels and boots, wooden details, beading and pine needles graced almost every model. Angela took interpreted the equestrian theme of the season so interestingly that it appeared to take to women out of training horses and more like wrestling wolves.

                                            

 

The street style trends play into Missoni’s fall collection effortlessly. The collections entire bases relies heavily on brown. A subtext to the collections theme was protection. According to Angela, the Missoni girl needed to keep her heart warm, so the chunky sweaters and jackets seen on the runway definitely showed on the streets.The fall 2012 trends are currently fur, leather, brass and gold buckles, large scale knits and fringe, which are produced in tints and hues of brown. Clearly , they are reflected all over the Missoni fall collection and little ole' Providence.

                                                      

 

 

 

 

Missoni House Paint

Missoni blew away show attendees with their surprising take on color in their spring 2013 collection. Angela Missoni opened her spring 2013 with a series of all-white looks. If you were sitting in the back, all you saw was a plain silhouette. However, from the front row you could see all the vertical and horizontal paneling in each solid whit garment. The collection eventually eased into color, with white looks painted with pink and orangey ombre. Still using the dip-dyed technique, the knits took on the same ombre effect. Angela played with the same gradation of colors in Missoni’s fall 2012 collection.

The knits, as always, were the show stoppers that evening. Gorgeous open knit cardigans, bathing suit shells and frocks in springtime corals and blues. As written in the line sheet, Angela Missoni said: “An evanescent look as implacable as the refraction of light, an optical illusion, and a fluorescent beam…The silhouette is that of a Japanese ‘anime’ heroine. A creature from an animated movie who walks and moves in zero gravity wearing pure, linear pieces, enriched with precious intarsia work, that stand out in space and create their own aura…The Missoni Summer 2013 woman is transformed into a presence that radiates energy, a gentle creature who is also strong and decisive, bewitchingly inescapable: a mysterious intergalactic tourist who has landed on our planet.” I can see the Japanese influences in the Japanese Harajuku patterned baby doll dresses and the bright pinks.   The vibrant hues personally brought me back to Missoni in the 1960’s because although the famous zigzag pattern was not so prevalent, the bright pscycodelic colors were.

Secondary, sheer chiffon's and crochet ponchos layered over form-fitting maxis were the trending ensembles in Missoni's spring 2013 collection.  Missoni signature work, the knit, was patch worked and multi-textured with sequins and crystals periodically through the collection. Every one of the embellishments either added more color contract or enhanced the already existing colors in the piece. Here, the model is wrapped in a tight maxi with a small geometric pattern repeated throughout. The dress is then finished off with an organza shell with abstract designs along the bottom. Once again, to fully get the intricacies behind the garment you had to view it up close.

Missoni Spring 2013

 



Makeup also played a big part in the consistency of the collection. The colors most primary in the garments were the color palette for the makeup. Pinky-orange, neon pouts graced every model but all in different shades. Although this trend in lip paint has been around since spring 2013, Angela Missoni clearly has no problem with repeating the same styles year after year.

 

I loved the spring 2013 collection and agree with the overall color scheme. However, I would have like to see a little more variety in the hues of the colors. Because there’re so bright, it leaves little transition into the fall 2013 collection. I think that it’s more cohesive to have collections that have the same color story within the same year. The only differences in the colors should be by the tints and hues of the season. For next year I predict a more washed out version on the colors in the spring 2013 collection.