Fashion Week: Alice McCall

Phew! I've made it through the first official day of Fashionweek. I was shooting with Target today, so I only saw Alice McCall and Erin Fetherston (catch my review for the latter on Zoozoom, coming soon).

It was a great start today, though, with front row at Alice McCall. I have become a fast fan of hers ever since I saw her capsule line for Topshop...and subsequently saw her eponymous line on her website. So hey, I guess those guest diffusion lines do work to raise interest and awareness of a brand. Go figure.

I would call her work a cross between Matthew Williamson and Sass and Bide.  In previous seasons she has explored boho chic with her own brand of bright colored 80's techno ethnic embroidery (seemingly odd combo of adjectives, but it really works!). She has always gently fused feminine with modern silhouettes and cuts. Geometry in the seaming and cutouts are one of her signatures, as well as fantastic use of patterns and textiles. Yes, the woman has it all!

This season she chose one of my favorite themes....bugs. She was inspired by their form, colors, and the shapes they make.  It's funny that I love bugs in my clothes and jewelry so much, as they are critters that mainly disgust me, yet can possess so much beauty. Some insects are intrinsically decorative with metallic multicolored backs much like a tiffany lamp. And others just seem gross, yet when they are drawn on for inspiration, strangely compel me. Maybe its a yin/yang thing, or maybe the dissonance of their shapes are so different from what we see in the macro world, that it becomes interesting. But hey, I could wax on for hours about this. Point is, Alice McCall is on to something. From the cuts and piping that made an ordinary dress look like the scales on a giant bug, to the delicate flowerlike print of tiny bugs in clusters on cream chiffon, I'm lovin' it.

So, if you haven't yet been exposed to Alice McCall, I predict she become a high-end department store mainstay, and in anycase, you can always catch her second Topshop line when it opens in New York in November.