Spring / Summer 2017 Ready-to-Wear
Victoria Beckham holds catwalk shows in the vast Cunard building in New York beneath Italian neo-Renaissance ceilings for 700 people and gets tremendously positive reviews. Her spring/summer 2017 collection is just another string to her already well-endowed bow: she’s loosened up, and in the process formed a slouchy, unfettered look that women of all shapes and sizes will want to wear next year.
The emotional softness seems to have overlapped with her aesthetic relaxing. “The signature silhouette is there but it’s evolved, it’s deconstructed. I was trying on a jacket and just letting it fall off my shoulder, open, slouchy, and I thought, that looks really cool. It’s about softening up this season. I wanted the clothes to look like they’d just been thrown on.” To that end, midi dresses in smocked lace, pleated wafer-thin leather, washed silks, and crushed, super fine velvet had dropped waists and fell away from the body. Khaki and navy suits in heavy satin were slightly oversized and worn with bralettes, Nineties style. Other things Victoria was loving: knee-high canvas boots for summer in chic grey.
Alexander Wang was collaborating with Adidas on an 84-piece unisex collection. Wang has spun the trefoil upside down and reversed the seams on the three stripes on a series of black tracksuits and patent coats.
Spring’s all sewn up, too. The bulk of the spring/summer 2017 collection channelled a punk surfer girl, to a soundtrack of rib-crackingly, bass-heavy hip hop. Models had their hair bleached or cropped into shaggy mops, and appeared in various states of pre-beach and post-beach undress. An initial section of shirting, comprising shorts that resembled boxers and borrowed-from-the-boyfriend shirts, gave way to scuba-style dresses, windsurfing-instructor windbreakers and bleached Nineties surfer sweaters in faded neons. Wang had fun with his mash-ups: Prince of Wales-checked trunks with bright satin bras and a mink dressing-gown-cum-coat; and neon silk bras and shorts worn with smart suit jackets, so oversized as to suggest they’d been nicked from unsuspecting escorts. A final, brief section of silk cutout evening gowns showed his technical ability.
