The Reviews
3.1 Phillip Lim
During a preview, Phillip Lim said he always sees the pre-fall season with a “back-to-school” mentality.
This season he took his colloquial idea of the uniform and unraveled, reworked and deconstructed it, with redefined ease in mind. The idea is one he's been consistent with over the last few years, with downtown edge always kept in mind. For pre-fall, this meant taking a classic doublebreasted blazer, undoing the overlap, lopping off the sleeves, adding a blouson back and crafting it in a technical compact stretch viscose. The “safari-ish” vest with military codes was paired with a slouched “almost a lieutenant” shape, trousers with front-facing slits and new downtown Oxfords with metal grates peeking out from the sole.
He continued the idea by pairing a relaxed beige blazer with long tailored short and Oxford shirt with ric-rac stitch — something Lim said he wore versions of in high school that never escaped him. The exploration of de- and reconstructing extended into intriguing denim — now more of a Lim signature. For pre-fall, he took prior collections' washed black and blue trucker jackets, chopped them in half and attached them to the bottom of oversize blazers.
Also tapping into his archive, Lim whipped his recent lace-trimmed slipdressing into double-layer cashmere dresses — adorable in baby pink — while pairing new clear raindrop embellishments on liquid satin layers or utility jackets with school-boy lightweight khakis and cargos.
Lim also said he was “slightly fixated with
sets” this season, which came in the form of pajama-esque dressing in dark blue with ric-rac accents; blurred florals, as seen on easy tops with asymmetric skirts or pants, and collaged grainy graphic prints with passementerie details and circular sleeves. There were also thick textured stitch knits in lemon lime and golden black — paired with new sleek leather jackets and sportif anoraks, suede boots and heeled ballerinas, the line upheld his knack for the push-pull of femininity and toughness. — Emily Mercer
LoveShackFancy
LoveShackFancy's pre-fall 2024 collection was the ultimate ode to a cool girl summer aesthetic, with designer Rebecca Hessel Cohen looking to both the south of France and an Americana style for inspiration.
“It's this very beautiful sort of palette cleanse,” she said. “We haven't done any black this season because we're coming off a lot of heavier colors and a lot of outerwear and layers and things like that. So, it's these beautiful sunset-inspired pastels. I went to the markets in L'Isle sur la Sorgue in France last summer with all of these gorgeous antique textiles, beautiful mixed vintage laces and all of these gorgeous early 19th century dyed fabric. A lot of this [collection] is coming from that.”
Hessel Cohen repurposed many of her bestselling silhouettes, reimagining them in pastel colors like peach, yellow, pink and blue and using new textiles and fabrications that gave a fresh spin on existing styles. The designer went softer on florals and focused on solid colors, which she said have been resonating more with customers lately.
The French inspiration came through various styles, including a blue stripe motif based on French men's suiting.
The menswear style was given the LoveShackFancy treatment with lace appliqué to bring a feminine touch.
It wouldn't be a LoveShackFancy collection without a wide assortment of feminine dresses, and Hessel Cohen delivered an expansive range that's sure to appeal to her customer base. She continued the intricate embroidery that's been seen in past collections for several sequin-embellished and beaded dresses and introduced several dresses with a mirror detailing.
Within the collection, the brand is also introducing its first July 4th capsule collection, which centers on a red, white and blue color palette and incorporates prints like cherries and gingham, giving a nod to Americana style.
“It's very cheerful and happy with the sorbet colors,” Hessel Cohen said of the overall collection. “It makes me really want to go to St. Barth. It feels like it's a nice breath of fresh air with all the florals and then you can mix and match everything.”
— Layla Ilchi
Reem Acra
Reem Acra's pre-fall look book was shot in what might be the last place you'd expect to find her high-glam eveningwear: a dank, dreary warehouse deep in Brooklyn. “I wanted to move around, to see another part of the city,” explained the designer who, since the pandemic, has grown accustomed to shooting her collections from home.
Ironically, In her quest for newness, the designer returned to something old, basing many of her silhouettes on one from the archives. It was a pleated ivory gown with embellished cap sleeves from spring 2008, dubbed the Olivia after Olivia Wilde wore it on that year's Emmy's red carpet. That same dress had two cameos in “Gossip Girl” as well — a marketing double whammy introducing many tween-age girls to the Acra label.
Those girls will be pleased to find sultrier versions of the Olivia, to wear for their own events, like one in turquoise chiffon with a triangle cutout at the hip, or another in charcoal-blue with a ruched bodice and portrait neck. “This is very much what I was known for,” Acra said.
She was referring to her higher-profile days in the 2000s when she was more focused on dressing international movie stars than international housewives, and with the SAG-AFTRA strike in the rearview, she's hoping to get back to that. “It's what I know how to do best,” she said, and she's right.
Among the red-carpet contenders were sheer columns with gunmetal sequins embroidered on nude-illusion fabric. One had blue bugle-beads resembling falling water and clung to the body as if it'd been soaked. Acra typically doesn't lean this far into naked-dressing, but lucky for her, the trend shows no sign of slowing down in Tinsletown.
Less risqué were the high neck dresses in crepe with elongated Renaissance sleeves. Could they duplicate the success of the Olivia? Probably not — they skewed a bit goth to appeal on the same scale.
Pamella Roland
After diving into Georgia O'Keeffe's abstract flowers for resort, Pamella Roland moved toward bouquets of a more Baroque variety, pinning to this season's mood board still lifes from the Dutch golden age.
Roland said she was particularly taken with the “darker moodiness” of Willem van Aelst, who emphasized realism over romanticism. He and his contemporaries distinguished themselves by casting halfwilted flowers in a sullen glow, often being picked at by butterflies, snails and other creepy-crawlies.
Such beautiful imperfections don't exist in Roland's universe — rather, her selection of cocktail and evening attire comes neatas-a-pin and well-finished. Still, she was able to capture a bit of the Dutchman's play with composition through taffeta pickups and side-gathers, while her palette, which mingled soft orchid and champagne tones with emerald, ultramarine and hearty doses of black, was influenced by Aelst's balance of light and shadow.
The most striking dress in the lineup was an all-black strapless mini with satin strips woven together creating a crosshatch pattern that framed tiny pearl strands. The simplicity of its silhouette was belied by the fact that it had boning and horse hair underneath to hold the bubble shape — a new experiment for Roland and one she should run with.
Flowers were rendered in 3D using a mix of silk, chiffon and tulle petal appliqués, though the technique felt gimmicky, scaling up the front of a similar black minidress or down the bodice of a ruched trumpet gown. Scarlet and burgundy roses printed on jacquard with metallic thread woven through were a more elegant interpretation, mimicking brushstrokes on a flirty A-line with a bow attachment and another trumpet-style — this one made backless with a '90s straight neck.
These two exemplified the winter's garden vibe Roland was after, but apparently stylists and buyers were more jazzed by the summertime options in billowy chiffon. Requests are already rolling in for the watercolor ombré goddess gown with braided trim. — Ari Stark
Kobi Halperin
Kobi Halperin seems to have caught the Midas Touch while traveling around the ancient Greek city of Thessaloniki recently, as gold was applied in some manner to almost all of his fabrics this season.
During a preview at his showroom off Seventh Avenue, Halperin shared his obsession with the metal is nothing new. In fact, his final collection before graduating from Tel Aviv's Shenkar university was entirely based around it.
Gold is a power color to him, something he shares with the many emperors of Thessaloniki who used it lavishly to decorate the city's monuments during Byzantium. Closeups of their handiwork, like the Hagia Sophia's gilded mosaic icons, translated nicely to tasseled goddess dresses, trendy maxi-length skirts and chic pajama separates in paisley or floral viscose with a lustrous, golden film printed overtop.
Open-weave knits were spun from cotton yarn and came embellished with tiny gold sequins or painted with gold foil. For these, Halperin said he tried to mimic the dullness of gold leaf that's been slightly eroded because, “when it's too shiny, it gets tacky.”
Gold was certainly the star here, but non-metallics had their moment, too, like the unfussy black and stone-colored linen separates with fawn embroideries taken from Grecian pottery, which were punched-up with blue as a nod to the Aegean Sea.
It all came together for the ideal capsule vacation wardrobe. “It's basically a summer collection, but we're calling it pre-fall,” Halperin said, adding these clothes won't reach customers until the hottest months of the year when “you want something that's very easy to wear.” Lucky for them, most come wrinkle-resistant and are therefore pack-and-go ready. “I'm trying to be as practical as possible, but still make it ‘fashion,'” he said. — A.S.
Thom Browne
Thom Browne provided a peek into his tell-tale heart for his fall 1 men's collection.
The designer drew on his admiration for Edgar Allan Poe for the line, which features several new proportions and silhouettes in his classic range alongside an assortment of more-technical-inspired pieces.
Browne took inspiration from Poe's classic poem “The Raven,” using illustrations of the bird on overcoats, blazers and pleated skirts offered up in Harris tweed. On the coat, the designer juxtaposed the black bird with a colorful red rose intarsia, perhaps to lighten the mood of the otherwise dark poem. And the bird also made an appearance in a new handbag silhouette, which was also more likely to evoke a smile.
While the raven-inspired pieces look similar to Browne's earlier work, they actually feature a new soft-shoulder construction that he introduced in womenswear at his inaugural couture show in Paris last summer and has now brought into the men's world. Proportions have also been updated with slightly longer blazers and elongated pleated skirts.
Browne also offered up an evolution of his trademark shrunken suit by introducing a new version of the three-button jacket where, rather than a three-button-roll-totwo, the top two buttons are intended to be closed, resulting in an updated silhouette. Trousers, which are high-waisted, are more fitted but still tapered.
There was a different version of his signature backstrap detail, which he has traditionally used in coats, jackets, skirts and trousers. This season, the strap is front and center on several pieces including a lightweight plaid coat as well as a 1 ½-breasted jacket.
The designer exhibited his love of the outdoors with a quilted jacket in autumnal shades of navy, green and burgundy, complemented by boots that still look formal, but now offer a more outdoorinspired sole.
This nod to the outdoors made an appearance in his formalwear range where the designer introduced a white quilted shirt-jacket with covered buttons and a black tie jacquard overcoat with the backstrap in the front.
“Fall 1 for me really started with the gray suit, as it always does,” Browne said, “and continued with the exploration of American tailoring in new proportions and silhouettes, through motifs seen in the world of Edgar Allan Poe. Soft shoulder, high buttonhole jackets, crows and roses — it was all about giving an ease to tailoring while injecting my known codes in new ways.
“I especially paid attention to functionality this season through waterproofing fabrics, flexisole loafers manufactured in Italy and new softstructured Mr. Thom bags, while injecting a reinterpretation of classic Thom Browne ideas like using our backstrap as closures for jackets and outerwear.”