Global Fashion Trends

Backstage at the #FendiFW21 Women's Fashion Show, from up-close info to behind-the-scenes play.

Kim Jones is the Artistic Director of Couture and Womenswear Collections. Silvia Venturini Fendi is the Artistic Director of Accessories and Menswear Collections. Delfina Delettrez Fendi is the Jewelry Creative Director. Design and show production by Bureau Betak.

Video: Loïc Prigent

Music: Michel Gaubert 

Styling: Melanie Ward

Hair: Guido Palau

Makeup: Peter Philips

Casting: Shelley Durkan

Nails: Beautick

Fendi's Kim Jones, who took over as artistic director from Karl Lagerfeld, was the centre of attention. Jones kept to the Fendi basics in his first ready-to-wear collection, with "opulent minimalism" that paid tribute to Silvia Venturini Fendi and other women who established and nurtured the Italian fashion house.

Ribbed knit bralettes and tops, leather jumpsuits, satin slacks and off-the-shoulder blouses, fringed sweater shirts, and dramatic shearling and fur coats in monochromatic looks ranging from camel to soft marble shades and absolute black were among the highlights of the show. Embossed Selleria stitching was used on the lapels of some leather coats as a tribute to Fendi's roots.

A journey toward the sensual and romantic, a tribute to history. The #ValentinoActCollection, by creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, streamed live from Milan's Piccolo Teatro.

Pierpaolo Piccioli, the artistic director of Valentino, was in a gloomy mood, presenting a line that was almost all black and white and had an upscale punk mentality. Hemlines were super short (or long), harlequin patterned coats were available in a variety of lengths for both men and women, and some gowns were nothing more than black fish netting.

Piccioli also showed off crocodile-embossed battle boots and dainty flats with a leather floral pattern.

Pierpaolo Piccioli associates imagination with punk gestures and romantic expressions of purpose and power at this time. His fall collection was seen in the vacant spaces of Milan's iconic Piccolo Teatro, which has been closed to the public since the outbreak began. “The fact that we wanted to reopen it, even if only temporarily, was a punk act,” he said at a press conference held in the dark of the auditorium. “What we lacked most during the pandemic was the feeling of sharing and community that society provides us—not so much pasta and pizza.” Valentino's performances are layered with feelings and extravagance and are visually intense experiences. Piccioli's mindset seems to have been explained and described by the pandemic. His style is less mediated through the arcane references that mood board narratives frequently hazily express, and it sounds more straightforward, intimate, and genuine. This is what he refers to as a "radical" phase.

For the fall season, the selection was kept to a minimum. The hems were sharply reduced in an almost tangible expression of slashing. "It's a fashion act," he said. “I was looking for a space open to fresh ideas, like the slashes Fontana inflicted on the canvas to explore new dimensions behind it.”

It felt like the point of fusion between Valentino's racé couture magic, which Piccioli has perfected so flawlessly, and the latest proposition of an abbreviated, terse silhouette relevant for today, which was rendered in single-minded, stark black and white with occasional bursts of subdued gold. The show's pivot was a daywear collection of finely cut short wool capes (the couture outerwear prototype par excellence), worn with bare legs and delicate stilettos "for sensuality," as Piccioli put it.

The women's and men's lines were connected by couture-inflected, high-brow iterations of no-gender punk signifiers. Nets appeared in the show, widened in a diamond pattern on a cashmere sweater worn as a minidress; elongated in a cut-out cashmere duster worn over a crisp white shirt and black short; and rendered in second-skin high-collared turtlenecks made with budellini, an atelier technique. “I wanted the ésprit couture to be evident in the collection, but without any sense of nostalgia or redundancy,” Piccioli said.

His desire for graceful synthesis didn't come off as a soulless, oversimplified code reduction. Piccioli's sensibility is far too empathic for that; he prioritizes mankind. He was most likely born romantic: "It's the progressive act of finding the courage to be who you are; that's what I mean by romanticism today," he says. It's a personal, almost anarchic move that asserts one's own identity, much like punk.”

At Milan Fashion Week, Prada debuted their fall-winter womenswear line Possible feelings II: Transmute for 2021. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons' #PradaFW21 Womenswear line is inspired by transition and transformation, opening new possibilities.

A convergence of diverse themes and intents reflects humanity's nature: a conviction that men and women both include the masculine and feminine within themselves. The point between simplicity and sophistication, beauty and practicality, constraint, and release, transmuted, is explored in this collection.

Both designers reinterpret traditional menswear with a feminine touch in this collection, which explores contradictions. Colorful designs, glitter jackets, brightly colored outerwear, sequined coats and skirts were among the collection's standout pieces.

The models wore their hair back in a slick style, implying that women are masculine. Classic tailoring with ruched sleeves and slits all over the skirts are included in the set. Faux fur, glitter, and sequins were often used to add a feminine dimension. By the end of the set, it had taken on an androgynous appearance.

Following the digital presentation of the #PradaFW21 Womenswear Collection, #Prada presents Prada Intersections, a conversation with co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, including Academy Award® nominee Lee Daniels, electronic musician and DJ @Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman, fashion designer Marc Jacobs, architect and writer Rem Koolhaas, and more.

Pantone Colors ‘Ultimate Gray’ & ‘Illuminating’ Spotted on the Streets of Milan

The mood for Pantone Color of the Year 2021 is best expressed by PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating, two individual colors that show how diverse components come together to help one another. The combination of PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating is one of power and positivity. It's practical and rock solid, but it's still warm and positive. It's a colorful tale that encapsulates deeper feelings of thoughtfulness while still promising something bright and welcoming.

The combination of PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 sends a message of pleasure backed by power. It is aspirational and hopeful to be illuminated. We continue to believe that things will improve – this is necessary for the human spirit to thrive.

These spirited and emboldening shades fulfil our quest for resilience as people search for ways to fortify themselves with resources, clarity, and hope to transcend the ongoing chaos. 13-0647 PANTONE A soft yellow shade imbued with solar fuel, Illuminating is a vibrant and happy yellow shining with vivacity.

 17-5104 PANTONE Ultimate Gray represents stable and dependable components that last a lifetime and have a strong base. Ultimate Gray softly assures, inspiring feelings of calm, steadiness, and durability, with the shades of pebbles on the sand and natural elements whose weathered beauty highlights a willingness to stand the test of time.

The combination of PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 energizes the spirit by highlighting our inherent need to be seen, to be visible, to be remembered, and to make our voices heard. 

A color combination associated with intellect, imagination, and intuition, as well as reverence for knowledge, maturity, and intelligence, encourages rebirth and pushes one toward new ways of thought and concepts.

  INTRODUCTION TO THE PANTONE COLOR OF THE YEAR

Pantone's Color of the Year has inspired product creation and buying choices in a variety of markets for over 20 years, including footwear, home furnishings, interior design, product packaging, and graphic design.

The choosing of the Pantone Color of the Year necessitates careful preparation and pattern study. Pantone's color specialists at Pantone Color Institute scour the globe for new color influences to arrive at the collection each year. 

This can include the entertainment industry and upcoming films, travelling art galleries and emerging designers, fashion, all aspects of architecture, iconic travel destinations, as well as new lifestyles, playstyles, and socio-economic circumstances. 

New technology, fabrics, textures, and effects that affect color, as well as related social media sites and even future sporting events that attract worldwide interest, can all have an influence.

ABOUT PANTONE COLOR INSTITUTE

The Pantone Color Institute is a division of Pantone that highlights the top seasonal runway shades, chooses the Pantone Color of the Year, predicts global color patterns, and guides businesses on color for product and company visual recognition. 

Pantone Color Institute works with global brands to successfully harness the strength, psychology, and emotion of color in their design strategy through seasonal pattern predictions, color psychology, and color consulting.

SHARE THE 2021 COLOR OF THE YEAR

Have fun with Pantone's Color of the Year for 2021! Create and upload palettes using these colors from the Pantone Connect digital paint app, or use various Facebook and Instagram filters to put Illuminating and Ultimate Gray into your virtual reality.

Filmed February 5th 2019 at the the Huntington Library and Gardens.

After taking a couple of seasons away from New York Fashion Week in favor of a show in LA and a star-studded lookbook, designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy gathered show guests in the candlelit nave of St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue. The duo used their storytelling abilities not only to deliver the latest in their signature ethereal beauty but to show an added dimension to their sensibilities.

The clothes didn’t come across as particularly goth. The cheerful polka-dot day dresses, all-over sequined looks, draped blouses, and pouf sleeves elaborated on ideas the Mulleavys proffered in their spring collection, a very different tonal exercise; the key difference here was in the turn toward noirish, ’40s-inspired silhouettes.

There was something a bit sickly about the languid silk dress with its roses and heart print, something a bit hothouse about the flowers embroidered on the bust of the sui generis mid-calf frocks, with their appealingly odd, armor-like pleated shoulders.Things got seriously dark: a sparkly midnight blue hooded cape, black fringe like the tendrils of witches’ hair, cobweb embellishments, a sea of blood red. 

Any observer of the brand could no doubt pinpoint the signature hallmarks: flowers in her hair, polka-dot dresses, and pearl accents everywhere. While this collection didn't stray from the familiar altogether, the Mulleavys' ability to embrace a theme transported audience members straight into a Gothic chateau. 

The co-designers made a direct reference to the classic film Dracula (1992) by weaving spooky themes all throughout the collection: sparkling spider webs, dark violet lips, black fringe, and oversized, witchy hoods attached to blazers all added a sinister but sweet touch.

Seeing Laura and Kate Mulleavy return to their gothic roots and reach into their capacious bag of decorative tricks to conduct a proper fashion haunting, the real joy was to be found in watching the sisters exit terra firma.

In concluding their striking and subtle Goth show they sent out a group of gowns unlike anything Rodarte has shown before—hand-painted bias-cut dresses with great scarves of silk unfurling off the shoulder and flying behind the models like endless wings.

They were lovely, these looks—and precisely what the Mulleavys intended them to be, which was the beautiful, barely there apparel one puts on “to walk out into the unknown,”.  This season’s Rodarte woman emerged furiously, insistently alive.