When busy colors and engineered prints weren’t dominating the s/s ’12 catwalks, designers adopted a decidedly contrasting palette with solid whites and pastels. The celestial aesthetic manifested in ethereal silhouettes that were light and airy yet also clean and crisp.
The Row presented a heavenly vision with an all-white, 22 piece collection. Models walked in long tunics over sheer pants and pajama-inspired ensembles that were flighty with angelic-like wing draping. A nod to the ghostly theme was present at Christian Siriano, Doo.Ri, 3.1 Phillip Lim and Edun in transparent-sheer dresses, jackets, tops and even shoes. Elsewhere, icy blues, grays and pinks blushed in feminine collections like Marchesa, Alexandre Herchcovitch, and Victoria Beckham, where gowns swept floors and jackets and tops seemed to float in motion.
Other designers alluded to the regal side of this whimsical trend with gold-accented buttons, belts, collars and shoes. At Elie Tahari and Carlos Miele, these embellishments were affixed to solid white outfits, making for dramatic, almost godly suggestions.
Interestingly, black was used as an antagonistic extreme amid this clean motif. Designers like Band of Outsiders, Oscar de la Renta and Graeme Armour used black accent pieces that popped against the white pastoral setting of good versus evil. The effect both emphasized and flattered the otherwise immaculate-chic theme.
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[...] Whisking our imaginations to lofty new levels, a fantastical narrative permeated many of the runway shows. Thom Browne, whose presentations are already notorious spectacles, used a surreal 1920s tableau of an all-girl social gathering to underpin his presentation of whimsical, menswear-inspired outfits. Similarly, Marc Jacobs, who showed on the last slot of fashion week, showed off his boundless creativity with hyper-realistic embellishments like shards of colorful plastics as trims, metallic surfaces as panels and cellophane-like encasings on skirts. While Jacobs was drawn to the superficial, other labels like The Row, Ralph Lauren, Gregory Parkinson and even Bebe (with Emanuel Ungaro vet Charles Benton as design consultant) seemed enamored by the ethereality of white. [...]