Pre-Fall 2012: Alexandre Herchcovitch, Giles, Lanvin, Alexander Wang, and more.

Alexandre Herchcovitch
Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but next season we're all going to be wearing high-waisted tapered tartan trousers and double-breasted crop-tops made from faux sheepskin. Why? Because Alexandre Herchcovitch says so. Little known fact: he does things like this to get back at people for mispronouncing his name.

Oh, definitely.

And for the cold-weather version of this outfit, we have this sheepskin (probably?) jacket that looks like it may or may not decapitate the model whenever she bends over. And a double-breasted (double-crotched?) tartan skirt, that old... favourite...

All pics from Style.com.

Giles
This show was quite stylishly shot, but the photos are so overexposed that the lighter-skinned model (pictured here) practically vanished into the background. I don't know if this was on purpose, but in my opinion any fiddling around with lighting/aftereffects -- unless it's to make the clothes MORE visible -- tends to be detrimental to the collection. Why don't you want me to see your designs properly, Giles?

LOVE the sunglasses.

Lanvin
Here we have the other side of lighting problems: too dark. Lanvin's collection was largely dark in colour, and they inexiplicably decided to shoot it in a room with black walls and minimal light-sources. I picked this outfit because I enjoyed the Zorro-like combination of leather gloves, trousers tucked into boots and hat covering the eyes, but most of the rest of the collection was just those weirdly-tailored wool coats that make everyone look like they have the shoulders of the turtle-aliens from The Fifth Element.

Nanette Lepore
A+ to this photoshoot for being pleasant to look at. None of that monochrome background + knock-kneed, frozen-looking model malarkey for Nanette Lepore -- instead they went for a warm, inviting sunflower yellow background and a model who posed casually and seemed full of personality. The clothes themselves were appealing although not particularly interesting, but I particularly liked shots such as this:

T by Alexander Wang
This type of outfit is forever a Murdersmock to me. And Alexander Wang has helpfully included some nice two-tone murdersmock leggings to go with it! For when you want to look like set-dressing on Dexter.

Murdersmock.

Murdersmockmurdersmock.

Alexander Wang
WHY is this woman being forcibly bisected like that? This isn't a cinched-waist/hourglass-figure type situation -- this is an woman needlessly being given the proportions of a Christmas cracker. The sweater/dress thing underneath looks quite interesting, but -- KABOOM! Skirt. The skirt. Is there. Because of reasons.

Please let this not become a trend.

Alexander Wang is one of the designers I can tolerate being this aggressively grey, since that's his thing. Alexander Wang is sort of the Muji of mainstream fashion design. He makes clothes for people who never come into contact with dirt, and probably live in studio apartments full of cuboid monochrome furniture with iPad docks all over it.

See what I meant about Muji?

Wayne
Ordinarily I'm not that keen on womenswear that uses faux shirt-tails, but I think this is different enough from a real suit that it strikes that rare balance with the detestable "suit-inspired outfit".