New York Fashion Week Report 4; Rodarte, Victoria by Victoria Beckham and Brood

Hello world,

This is my last report on New York Fashion Week, and this time I thought I’d focus on the smaller brands showing on the various catwalks. There’s the diffusion line by Victoria Beckham showing for the first time at New York Fashion Week; young label Brood, only in its fourth season and already growing; and Rodarte from the Mulleavy sisters, which always proves to be an editorial favourite.

Lets have a look at them below;

Brood

Serkan Sarier’s Brood is on the rise. Only showing its fourth season at NYFW, this label is growing in leaps and bounds, giving us a cross between a catwalk and a presentation for Sarier’s autumn/winter collection. The influence no doubt comes from British artists Lynn Chadwick and Glenn Brown, as Sarier explains, but while both artists might be so different, Sarier believes they are trying to express the same thing. The paint print is undoubtedly Brown, while the gold dresses at the finale of his presentation are typical Chadwick.

The dresses are elaborate and delicate, with layers of fabric folding neatly over one another and the entire ensemble is very fussy, but in a good way. The print is also striking and well executed, stark against the black or White background of the dresses.

My favourite piece of the collection has to be the evening gown in a beautiful chinoiserie blue floral pattern that is both light to wear and bold in it’s colour choice. I look forward to seeing what Sarier comes up with next.

Victoria, by Victoria Beckham

For a diffusion line from a still-young label, this doesn’t feel like the cheaper version, neither is it compromising on quality. That’s the brilliance of Beckham’s newest collection under her growing brand. They are covetable in their own right without needing to rely on their famous name.

But that’s not all what the Victoria, by Victoria Beckham collection is all about. Beckham has taken her classically structured dresses a younger and flurried spin with quirky prints, dropped waists and girlish prints. There’s enough in there for a slightly older generation, with rich autumn colours such as ochre and chestnut melded with her classic black pieces.

Beckham does here what she does best. She will never be an Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chamalayan or Marc Jacobs breaking the style and fashion boundaries year after year. But she is consistent in her style.

And that is the beauty of such simply structured dresses. Mrs Beckham let’s her expert craftsmanship do the talking and the fashion critics are slowly silenced, one at a time.

Rodarte

The Mulleavy sisters are at it again. They’ve gone and made an absolutely covetable collection, perfect for fashion editors and fashion lovers alike.
This was definitely a more toned down collection than their Van Gogh inspired spring/summer 2012 collection.

This season saw the Australian outback as the inspiration with the collection taking on a more ready-to-wear approach than ever before. These items can easily be worn on the street, with their floor-sweeper prairie coats, chunky knits and high waist trousers that wouldn’t look out of place on a ranch.

The whole collection could very easily fit into Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, and I wonder if that had been their intention. The final evening gowns are typical Rodarte though, with aboriginal hand-print patterns that scream quirkiness and cool.