Pre-Fall 2012: Alberta Ferretti, Balenciaga, Issey Miyake, Alexander McQueen, Emilio Pucci, and Viktor & Rolf

Alberta Ferretti
Alarm bells immediately began to ring when I set eyes on this collection. FIRST JAZZ-AGE INSPIRED SHOW OF THE YEAR! The first of many, since one of this year's unavoidable manufactured trends is going to be faux flapper styles, all thanks to the already overhyped Great Gatsby remake. Do you know when Gatsby comes out? December. And considering the fact that the quality of Baz Luhrman's films seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of money and star-power pumped into them, it's probably not even going to be a very good movie.

pics from Style.com

Dolce & Gabbana Menswear: Fall 2012.

I think this is the first menswear post I've made on Hello, Tailor, so let me begin with this obvious yet necessary disclaimer: menswear is different from womenswear. Due to the way our society views men "dressing up", menswear tends to be a lot less daring than womenswear. I guarantee that when Fall Fashion Week comes along, there will be multiple looks that will make you go, "What the hell is that?" and then think, "Well, I suppose Lady Gaga/Tilda Swinton/Beyonce will be wearing it by next month." During Menswear Fashion Week there will be some bizarre and wonderful outfits on the runway, make no mistake, but I highly doubt that you'll be seeing many of them on men in the public eye. There will always be people willing to spend a three-figure sum on designer t-shirts, but there's less pressure for menswear designers to explore much further than that. Happily, there will also be an awful lot of well-tailored suits, so you can expect to see a lot of suit pictures in the upcoming weeks.

photos from Style.com

Dolce & Gabbana is only the second show I've looked at this Menswear Fashion Week, but I'm already sure that it's still going to be one of my favourites come the end of the season. D&G have expertly trod the line between traditional suits and eye-catching runway fashion, ending up with something that mixes unexpected fabric choices, three-piece formal suits (always a winner), and old-fashioned luxury without often straying into the territory of over-the-top opulence.

Pre-Fall 2012: Chloe, Pedro Lourenco, Stella McCartney, Roksanda Ilincic, The Row, and Giambattista Valli.

Chloé
You can thank post-war fashion photographer Irving Penn for the popularity of the plain-white-backdrop photoshoot style that has come to annoy me so much in recent years. Back in the day it was innovative, but since many models nowadays are directed to pose with fixed expressions of boredom and/or grim dissatisfaction, having them stand in front of something that resembles an industrial refrigerator only enhances the photoshoots' lack of humanity.

I thought of Irving Penn when I saw this series of photos from Chloé, with the models posing in a corner. I don't know if this is an intentional homage or not, but it immediately reminded me of Irving Penn's series of Corner Portraits: famous figures such as Salvador Dali, Marlene Dietrich and Igor Stravinsky, all of them photographed while trapped in a corner.

Marlene Dietrich by Irvin Penn, from here.

Pre-Fall 2012: Celine, Givenchy and Preen.

Celine

Before I started writing Hello, Tailor I used to review catwalk shows on my personal blog, dividing any designs I liked into "Clothes I'd wear" and "Clothes other people could wear", because I recognise that a lot of the time an outfit can be interesting and well-made without being to my personal taste. If I only posted pictures of clothes I personally would wear, this would be a pretty boring blog. But sometimes, even taking into account the fact that everyone has different taste, there's no criticism to make except THIS IS BAD CLOTHING.

Celine, YOU HAVE MADE BAD CLOTHING.

all pics from style.com

What is this? And where did the photoshoot take place? A 90s hotel room with shag carpeting and "modern" fixtures that consist of huge, pointless, 2001: A Space Odyssey slabs of metal attached to the walls for no apparent reason? In front of which the models lined up like so many pissed-off looking Charlie Chaplin impersonators in their ill-fitting trousers, slouching forwards as the cameraman turned the flash up to 11 for maximum ugly shadow projected onto the backdrop behind them? What a dismal scenario. You can see it in her eyes, can't you?

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.

Pre-Fall 2012: Max Azria, Missoni, Rachel Zoe, and Erdem.

Hervé Léger by Max Azria

Plain, pretty dresses: something you won't usually find much of on this blog. However, something about this line from Max Azria got to me. For some reason it reminds me of the Hunger Games, and the outfits Katniss was made to wear by her stylists before she went into the arena. Tight and sexy, but sporty and strong at the same time. Look at this model -- she looks ready and able to punch someone, I think:

pics from Style.com

I'm not sure where these strappy harness accessories came from, but they really lift the dresses from the oft-repeated skintight bandage dress aesthetic of Max Azria into something a little punkier and ever-so-slightly sci-fi.

Pre-Fall 2012: Diane von Furstenberg, J. Mendel, Moschino Cheap & Chic, Alice + Olivia, and Giorgio Armani.

Diane von Furstenberg

I think that's some kind of... digitalised houndstooth pattern? I'm not sure. What I do know is that it looked enough like houndstooth that I immediately had the stomach-turning fashion thought of, "houndstooth is so in right now". I disgust myself sometimes. It smacks of trend articles like this one, in which Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian's houndstooth outfits are compared/forced to compete for our entertainment. First of all, Gaga's is obviously better because she went marvellously over-the-top with houndstooth accessories, stockings, makeup and piano, playfully turning the "conservative and tweedy" houndstooth image on its head, but secondly... this article exists for realzies. Oh boy. I don't like "who wore it better" gossip stories at all, since they're invariably code for "here are two attractive millionaires in similar outfits -- now, you decide which one is a flawed and hideous creature!" That's not "following fashion". That's petty and needless judgement of strangers based on their appearance.

I'd like this 100x more if the belt and sunglasses were removed, since they turn it into a fairly generic party-dress outfit. Sans belt, the combination of transluscent latex-y dress, visible stocking-tops, severe shoes and  leather gloves make for a rather interesting faux-fetish look.

Pre-Fall 2012: Helmut Lang, Vera Wang, Thakoon, and various other designers who want their models to have chilly knees.

Previously on Pre-Fall 2012: Karl Lagerfeld's interpretation of Indian style, and a bunch of other designers who were considerably less exciting than Chanel.

The reason for my lack of recent posting is that Scotland's recent hurricane (!) (sounds worse than it is) took out my internet/phone lines. Currently I'm embroiled in a war of attrition with my internet service providers, who alternately tell me my internet works (a lie), or that I don't exist (difficult to prove). I take this as a personal slight on my life choices from said internet providers, specifically that they think I should be trudging manfully through the snow looking for Christmas gifts, rather than sitting indoors in the warm and looking at pictures of clothes. But today my connection has been grudgingly upgraded to that of mid-1990s dial-up, so while I can't yet watch last week's season finale of The Killing, or, you know, send emails with attachments, I can flick through a few Style.com galleries.

Dear readers: prepare to be underwhelmed by the banalities of Pre-Fall fashion. Unlike Karl Lagerfeld, these designers do not see the value of a banquet hall or a miniature gold-plated steam train, or, indeed, of a catwalk fashion show. Once again we enter the realm of women doing mannequin impressions in front of blank white walls.

Helmut Lang

Pleasingly assymetrical, and I enjoy the cutaway patterns. Somehow the white jeans manage to look... not-unseasonal? Perhaps white jeans are more tolerable when you can only see them from the mid-thigh downwards.

Pre-Fall 2012: Zac Posen, Michael Kors, Jason Wu and Donna Karan.

The frequently boring nature of Pre-Fall lines (plus my desire not to spam you with multiple tiny posts) means that most designers are not going to get their own post this season. Although Karl Lagerfeld decided that his Pre-Fall 2012 show could not be adequately displayed without banquet tables and a miniature gold Chanel-logo railway, most designers tend to show their Pre-Fall collections by standing a model in front of a blank background, telling her to pose like an awkward automaton, and photographing her in the accepted manner of "glum and weirdly unbending".

Michael Kors

I took one look at this and lost several seconds of my life to thoughts of Due South, the greatest Canadian Mountie-based surreal comedy-drama cop show of all time.

Chanel Pre-Fall 2012: Karl Lagerfeld has never been to India but let's just gloss over that, shall we?

Previously on Chanel: Karl Lagerfeld, Lord of the Sea, addresses the proletariat via harp and conch shell.

Chanel's Pre-Fall 2012 collection surprised me on two counts:

1. While this line is "India-inspired" (instant alarm bells, especially since Karl Lagerfeld has never been to India) it doesn't seem like the creepy cultural appropriation that typically results from this kind of idea. Of course, come 2012 real-time -- as opposed to fashion-time, which operates approximately six months in everyone else's future -- I fully expect to see a whole host of mildly-racist photoshoots in Vogue, Elle, etc. (If this sounds like cynicism, that's because it is. I'll be sure to get back to you in six months if the world of high-end magazine photography has managed to align itself with the cultural mores of the 21st century by then, but I doubt it.)
2. Against all fashion-world logic, this show is actually more interesting than Chanel' Spring 2012 line, despite the fact that Pre-Fall isn't a "real" season.

Thankfully, Lagerfeld resisted the temptation to give the models an India-inspired setting, restraining himself to an opulent banquet hall including a Chanel-brand miniature railway carrying decanters round and round the central table as the audience gazed on wistfully from afar, tragically decanter-less. I suspect that the audience couldn't see the lower half of the outfits over the top of their banquet tables, but I doubt any of them complained within earshot of Lagerfeld.

The looks ranged from quite obviously India-inspired to classic Chanel designs such as the kind of fitted, boxy skirt-suits that tend to send me to sleep. There were some rather pretty ones this season, but I'm only posting one of them because you know what a skirt suit looks like already, come on:

All catwalk photos from Style.com