Summer is traditionally the season for bold and bright colors. The autumn/winter season gravitates towards more somber tones season after season, giving us grays, blacks, and browns. And indeed Première Vision has predicted a color palette that has many darker inclinations such as deep earthy greens (algae, mud) and rich browns (truffle, root), but it is the intensity of its subversive and grating brights (mauve, atoll, fertilizer), the incandescents (gum, bilberry), and the volcanic blazes (toxic violet, lava) splashed across the color board that caught our attention. Première Vision's Fashion Team told us these palette was meant to "revive a combative confidence and creative boldness while fearlessly experimenting."

One hopes that "seizing on color as a power source" will in fact prove a powerful enabler to the consumer in these increasingly difficult times. The weavers and textile factories have already prepared bold offerings for the market in the hope that this tactic is just what the consumer will desire. These colors evince a clear predilection for risk taking, showing that the fashion industry believes cannot maintain a low profile.

The trouble with predicting the 2009/2010 season is that there really is little collective understanding of just how far down our economic climate will tumble as we stand on the precipice of what could be the worst recession in decades. In this sense, the rhetoric used by the fashion team of "putting aside consensus" makes a certain amount of sense. Shifting aesthetic boundaries may help us to move the market and these bold colors may do just the trick.

However, designers can hedge their bets with the selection of warm and lightened neutrals on display (ginger, amanita, oyster) and the tone on tone tinted sauves (cat's tongue, chemical cloud, North Sea, lichen) that are still decidedly brighter than an average while maintaining a kind of calm.

The best style is shaped by a strong personality. But sometimes it can be hard to know what your personality should mean when it comes to getting dressed in the morning. Community member The Space Between My Peers has listed her personal colors and asked her readers to think about their own signatures. When your editors took an informal poll of the office we discovered, if pressed, the majority of us would claim navy as our signature color. We had a lone dissenting pink. Which leads this editor to wonder if anyone of us can even lay claim to have a signature color. Navy is one of the original fashion basics and as Diana Vreeland once said "pink is the navy blue of India."

Thus perhaps your editors don't in fact have signature colors but prefer to flock to signature basics. When you cope with the constant shifting landscape of trends and cultural signifiers, it may in fact be better to choose a basic, even if its black, to help you navigate getting dressed in the morning. For Between My Peers, we would wager her favorite basic is pewter gray. In tumultuous times we can think of no greater comfort than throwing together basic pieces in basic colors. Times are tough and as good fashionistas we choose navy to keep us on course.

Bill Cunningham of The New York Times noticed all of the bright colors cropping up in Manhattan in spirit of the summer. His few-minute videos are one of our secret addictions, as they simplify fashion trends to the point of random street sightings. That is, if Bill Cunningham sees a gal wearing a red bandana and another gal wearing a red headband, a trend, to him, is born. The other noteworthy aspect of his weekly musings for the Times is his democratic selection of subjects. Where other New York trend forecastings usually remain strictly downtown and/or designer, Cunningham shoots the crazy lady feeding the birds in the park alongside women leaving the Oscar de la Renta resort show. Or perhaps he has a young liberal assistant. As a salute to the brights Cunningham noticed this week, partially inspired by the Vuitton windows (left) on Fifth Avenue, here's a spread of our favorite summer colors, bound to stop traffic from Harlem to Little West Twelfth.

It feels like just as someone is proclaiming the death of one trend that trend is popping up everywhere. Fashion trend tipping points and mass market bell curves aside, we think proclaiming the death of the dress is a little premature.
Plenty of other trends seem over done to us (purple, vests and wedges come to mind) but others we don't mind keeping around for a long time. Thus we celebrate two of our favorite long term trends, saturated hues and dresses, because no one else will. After all, what is easier than slipping into a brightly colored dress on those first few glorious days of spring? We are particularly enamored by this MM6 by Maison Martin Margiela Lilac Silk mini dress and this Jungle Green Marc by Marc Jacobs Button Down Dress.

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This Fall 08, Vivienne Westwood showed a collection in which school children painted on the garments. Said to have been inspired by global warming, the children were meant to imagine a eco-warrior-like future. The prints came out beautifully, though we're sure the most abstract and vibrant among them were chosen for the collection. Overall, Vivienne Westwood Fall 08 was not your typical 'this is the bleak future' aesthetic that puts utility and/or deconstruction before, well, fun. Instead, it was a playful, colorful, wildly tailored (as always) collection with wearable pieces that give us something more Spring-like to wear in the Fall/Winter months.


Links:
Oscar de la Renta Fall 08 Backstage
Oscar de la Renta Fall 08 Photo Gallery
Oscar de la Renta Fall 08 Video


It can be so hard keep track of content when its updated everyday. But we have impressive designer video interviews and original editorial spreads. May we cordially suggest perusing our selection? Enjoy New York Fashion Week Designer Video Interviews from Oscar De La Renta, Donna Karan for DKNY,Michael Kors, Isaac Mizrahi, Nicole Miller, Erin Fetherston, Ashleigh Verrier , Adam Lippes, James Coviello, John Varvatos , Monique Lhuillier, Joanna Mastroianni, Tory Burch, Neeam Khan

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