And Porsche Design makes some good clothes

Will Americans ever be able to get over the fact that Porsche Design is not about cars, but instead about clothes? Who knows? It doesn"t seem to bother the Europeans, where it"s been a brand name since the 1970s. But one thing is for certain: A rose is a rose no matter the name, and good clothes are good clothes no matter the label.

And Porsche Design makes some good clothes. This season, senior fashion designer Pierre Costin focused on a strong shoulder and a nipped-in waist. "We"re defining the silhouette," he said backstage before the show. "You could say it"s "40s or "80s, but really it"s about clothes that give you a sense of confidence and strength." The best looks for women really stuck with that idea, like a black quilted robe coat cinched in with a supersized round-buckle belt, or an army green military coat propped up on the shoulders of a black trench dress. An off-the-shoulder wool dress framed the décolletage instead of building on it, and a gray flannel twist-front dress whittled the torso with a camel-colored quilted corset worn underneath. To an extent, the men"s looks mimicked the women"s in color and texture. Her quilted neoprene skirt, paired with a curved-shoulder coat, matched his black quilted vest, worn under a banded blazer.

There was certainly something futuristic about the collection, due in part to the shield sunglasses worn by every model. (They were a reissued design from 1979.) That simple styling trick pulled it all together.Welcome to visit my Coach Handbag store: http://official.uscoachoutletbags.com

If that print looked well in tune with the season"s appetite for ethnic exotica

With all the real-time tweeting and Facebooking and red-carpet YouTubing and Instagramming that wrapped today"s Burberry show in a great big techno-bow, it"s no wonder Christopher Bailey wanted to step back and, as he put it, "celebrate things that take time to do." Following on from his last men"s collection, his latest was a paean to handcrafts: crochet, beading, carving, weaving, braiding, printing. And it was a smash.

"Joyous, upbeat, nostalgic" were Bailey"s own words for a collection that sidestepped the digital age in favor of… well, try this scenario on for size: A military wife, whose husband is stationed in the Far East, say, fills her idle hours by watching and learning from local artisans. Then she applies her new knowledge to decorating her own clothes, maybe with the beading that ran down the placket of a trench or lined its collar, or the bigger geometric wooden beads that formed patterns around necklines, or the raffia trim on a parka hood. And maybe she"d replace the buttons on her cardigan with pretty stones she found on the beach. OK, that scenario may be a flight of fancy too far, but the charming full skirts falling to just below the knee did suggest a decorous army wife in olden times. A pleated dress in leaf green crepe with a flowing forties line elaborated on the theme. Sexpot sheaths in a stretch basket knit also looked back. And Miss Sadie Thompson herself might have stepped out in Pago Pago wearing the wrapped and tied skirt in a batik print.

If that print looked well in tune with the season"s appetite for ethnic exotica, Bailey insisted it was inspired by the shapes of the legendary British artist Henry Moore. But, given that Moore was influenced by Picasso, you could say there was ultimately Africa in there somewhere. And the textures and patterns undoubtedly had a tribal edge. Still, they were just a means to Bailey"s latest end: elevating the Burberry parka to the spotlight that has traditionally been occupied by the trench. It got the full treatment, from whipstitched hems to woven leather sleeves to all the beading and raffia the Burberry workshops could throw at it. And, thrown over a ruched dress in a bold block print, with a raffia bobble hat and a platform sandal with a leopard wedge, the parka took on the confident sashay of a 2012 must-have.Welcome to visit my Coach Handbag store: http://coachoutlet.kchbags.com

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With all the real-time tweeting and Facebooking and red-carpet YouTubing and Instagramming that wrapped today"s Burberry show in a great big techno-bow, it"s no wonder Christopher Bailey wanted to step back and, as he put it, "celebrate things that take time to do." Following on from his last men"s collection, his latest was a paean to handcrafts: crochet, beading, carving, weaving, braiding, printing. And it was a smash.

"Joyous, upbeat, nostalgic" were Bailey"s own words for a collection that sidestepped the digital age in favor of… well, try this scenario on for size: A military wife, whose husband is stationed in the Far East, say, fills her idle hours by watching and learning from local artisans. Then she applies her new knowledge to decorating her own clothes, maybe with the beading that ran down the placket of a trench or lined its collar, or the bigger geometric wooden beads that formed patterns around necklines, or the raffia trim on a parka hood. And maybe she"d replace the buttons on her cardigan with pretty stones she found on the beach. OK, that scenario may be a flight of fancy too far, but the charming full skirts falling to just below the knee did suggest a decorous army wife in olden times. A pleated dress in leaf green crepe with a flowing forties line elaborated on the theme. Sexpot sheaths in a stretch basket knit also looked back. And Miss Sadie Thompson herself might have stepped out in Pago Pago wearing the wrapped and tied skirt in a batik print.

If that print looked well in tune with the season"s appetite for ethnic exotica, Bailey insisted it was inspired by the shapes of the legendary British artist Henry Moore. But, given that Moore was influenced by Picasso, you could say there was ultimately Africa in there somewhere. And the textures and patterns undoubtedly had a tribal edge. Still, they were just a means to Bailey"s latest end: elevating the Burberry parka to the spotlight that has traditionally been occupied by the trench. It got the full treatment, from whipstitched hems to woven leather sleeves to all the beading and raffia the Burberry workshops could throw at it. And, thrown over a ruched dress in a bold block print, with a raffia bobble hat and a platform sandal with a leopard wedge, the parka took on the confident sashay of a 2012 must-have.Welcome to visit my Coach Handbag store: http://coachoutlet.kchbags.com

The look was relaxed and fluid

Fashion companies are increasingly turning to contemporary art to elevate their profile, and that"s what Piazza Sempione did this season. The label"s Fall collection was presented in a stark showroom with a video installation/performance by Italian VJs Souldesigner. The lineup was set on plinths against a wall where abstract patterns were projected; microchips attached to the soles of the models" shoes changed the backdrop visuals according to the outfit they were wearing. To amp up the artistic quotient, Pollock-inspired digital graphics in muted colors were printed on wool short skirts and jackets, or on streamlined melton coats and tunics worn over cropped flared pants.

The look was relaxed and fluid, wearable and comfortable; volumes and proportions were controlled and easy. Fabrics like baby llama, wool flannel, fil coupe, shearling, and leather with mink intarsia were luxurious yet subtle. A touch of peacock blue gave a chromatic jolt to a mostly neutral palette. Geometric motifs in black and white continued the decorative theme; they were woven in wool jacquard bouclé for a poncho worn askew over kick-flare pants. It added a bit of whimsy to an otherwise minimalist, urban silhouette.Welcome to visit my Coach Sale store: http://official.uscoachoutletbags.com

were combined with trademark winter whites

"This is a cashmere fur," said Brunello Cucinelli, pointing out an elongated gilet with a lining so soft it was almost impalpable. Cashmere fur? Never heard of it; but apparently there is no limit to what can be achieved by the über-skilled craftsmen in Solomeo. The technique sounds quite esoteric—it involves combing, brushing, massaging, and coating a goatskin with a special finish until, via some sort of morphing process, it becomes so impossibly ethereal that it seems almost as if it had never belonged to a living thing. The rest of the lineup was grounded in more solid turf: Mother Earth was invoked in the collection"s title, Wild Luxury, which referred to an organic, textured feel. Mineral shades—stone, geyser, lava, Pietra Serena, Miniera—were combined with trademark winter whites, adding a quality of cool warmth to grainy, sandy surfaces dusted with metal flecks. Cashmere came in as many luxurious versions as you can get. It was woven with golden Lurex or tightly knitted with tiny "diamond knots," embroidered and appliqués to rough effect. Fluffed and brushed, it was curly as fleece. The silhouette was layered yet streamlined, with a touch of cool styling—separates in relaxed shapes and contrasting materials were easy to mix and match, making for a versatile, flexible look. Slouchy cropped pants with a dropped crotch added a welcome masculine counterpoint to the hyper-feminine, sensuous abundance of plush fabrics, voluptuous knits, and rich furs. In Cucinelli"s world, the luxury factor is stronger than the wild one—and it"s definitely more tamed than primal.Welcome to visit my Coach Sale store: http://coachoutlet.kchbags.com

What Raf Simons is doing with fashion is something unprecedented

What Raf Simons is doing with fashion is something unprecedented. Yes, the act of creating anything is always going to be autobiographical at its root, but the way Simons has been exploring his past is on a higher plane. It is so arcane and so specific, and yet at the same time it touches on a consciousness that comes to everyone with time. Age gives you the perspective to understand what it was you were actually doing when you were young.

"Youth on a pedestal." That was Simons" off-the-cuff explanation of the staging of his show tonight, with its catwalk raised high above the crowd. The models wore almost-floor-length looks—coats, gilets—which elongated them still further for the audience that was gathered at their feet. We stood anywhere we cared to for the duration of the presentation. So did the photographers.

Simons instantly regretted the glibness of his words, but he was only cutting to the quick of his aesthetic. He has always been driven by the beauty and passion of youth, alongside an acceptance of its passing, which has loaned his work its air of melancholy. Simons has always loved the community of youth. "I"m an only child," he reminded us tonight. It"s why music was so important to him. Your allegiance to musicians was how you defined yourself, first in your bedroom and then in your school, your bar, your club, long before you knew anything about fashion.

"I wish there could be 10,000 people here tonight," Simons said of the warehouse on the outskirts of Paris where he staged his show. "A gathering of people, the way it was in the beginning." That would have been an amazing sight: thousands moving to Deep Purple"s "Child in Time," a 45-year-old track that is as majestic now as it was to baby acidheads in 1970. Which was surely the point that Simons and sound designer Michel Gaubert wanted to make. "Child in Time" made the notion of "relevance" irrelevant. The collection set out to do the same.

Its key item was a long white cotton coat, thoroughly graffitied with slogans and cartoons. Utterly mystifying, until you heard Simons" explanation. In Belgium, there is a "celebration" of your first 100 days at college, when boys from the second and third years test your physical and mental limits—hazing, in other words. (For Simons" "celebration," he and four others had their feet buried in buckets of plaster that set rock-hard, forcing the five to stand upright for an entire day till their persecutors handed them hammers to crack their way out. Other newbies are less fortunate. Lives have been lost.) The persecutors wear long white coats scrawled with slogans.

Stylist Olivier Rizzo, who with photographer Willy Vanderperre forms a trinity of decades-long shared experience with Simons, misted up as the coats came down the catwalk. "This is one part of his past that Raf hasn"t touched on," he noted. The part that memory plays in Simons" collections has become more pointed with the passage of time. There was much here that offered oblique amplification. For the first time, there were women on a Raf Simons catwalk. That was him thinking back to Helmut Lang, one of the people who most influenced him. Martin Margiela, another significant influence, made his presence felt in gilets that eroded from precise tailoring to a mess of ragged hems. Order and chaos: Simons is riveted by the dichotomy.

Quite how it all related to Simons" place in the fashion world—ultimate indie here, kingpin of Dior there—was a moot point. You wouldn"t want to say the designer hankers for the days when restrictions (or "non-opportunities," as he calls them) spurred his creativity, but there is that picture he paints of kids like himself back then going down to the market to cobble together their own versions of the designer looks they couldn"t afford to buy. They"re still doing it now, because it"s the eternal romance of hard-done-by, misunderstood, plucky kid stuff. And no one sells it like Simons.Welcome to visit my Coach Outlet Online store: http://official.uscoachoutletbags.com

For fall, she embraced a muted palette of chocolate

The lure of a Mary J. Blige mini-concert attracted a larger than usual crowd Friday night to the Malandrino show. Despite a tiered, rotating stage that made serious viewing something of a challenge for most of the audience, everyone went home happy—thanks not only to the R&B queen"s feel-good vibes, but also because Malandrino sent out a collection that was free of the exotic touches that last season distracted from her pretty message.

For fall, she embraced a muted palette of chocolate, black, ivory, and silver, which she quilted, embroidered, and crocheted in her signature style to mostly subtle effect. If the proportions of a few looks—a bulky satin parka, say—verged on the old-ladyish, she made up for it with a houndstooth bouclé suit belted with insouciance. A pair of silvery-white gowns, meanwhile, had just the right mix of youth and sophistication.Welcome to visit my Coach Outlet Online store: http://coachoutlet.kchbags.com