Rebecca Taylor Blossoms for Spring '08

At Saturday's preview of her spring collection, Taylor offered a sophisticated, muted color palette. She also toned down the bells and whistles she often uses to jazz up outfits.

Taylor tapped into the color-blocking trend that has proven so popular so far at New York Fashion Week, which has now hit its midpoint. Taylor turned out a lovely lean shift with an indigo top, black skirt and beads in an abstract peony design around the neck.

The peony was one of the common threads throughout the show at the Bryant Park tents. It was also on a rose-colored tank top with a zipper down the back and on a silk T-shirt dress.

"There was an amazing use of color," said Gina Kelly, fashion director for Seventeen magazine. "She's known for her soft colors, so this was a nice surprise."

Kelly said her readers consider Taylor to be the designer worth splurging on because they know they'll look good when they put her clothes on. They're also clothes that they can wear when they're young, but also when they're a bit older since the outfits are never too precious, she explained.

A short, fitted canvas jacket with a lace babydoll-style top and slim, ankle-length pants was one of those ageless looks.

A black beaded bomber jacket with a midnight-blue satin skirt might be a bit dressy for the lives of Taylor's typical customer, but in this day of starlets-as-fashion icons, one never knows.

Source: The Associated Press

West Indies: Caribbean Fashion Week ends with fabulous fashion colours

KINGSTON: The Caribbean Fashion Week being scheduled here in the city at the National Indoor Sports Centre from June 06-10 2007 ended on a note of colour, funk and fabulous fashion.

Although the event started a bit late, it ran smoothly as the models strutted their stuff in a wide selection of creative pieces.

The designer Peter Elias from Trinidad and Tobago with his female collection opened the show. Elias’ collection had the island feel, with long often flowing dresses that were tied around the models and utilised lots of beige, green, white and blue mixed on sheer material that floated around the models.

On the other spectrum of fashion was Keneea Linton who has obviously grown into her own, using more diverse colours and designs since last year’s fashion week, while the Linton’s look appeals to a more funk driven younger audience with a lot of zebra prints combined with hot pinks in short shorts, skirts and dresses.

Further, some dresses were ’80s styled such as pleated blue baby doll dresses, a Madonna style cupped breast top with a yellow skirt and some outfits were set for the high seas with blue deck shorts. Her last pieces shown were more mature with long dresses with sexy cuts at the top in orange, purple and green with yellow.

Luna Designs was all about nature and with mainly wrap skirts accompanied by brown bikini style tops, while Luna Designs accessorised with a lot of shell and bead jewelery. Most of the designs were very light, cool and often lightly trimmed with bright colours such as purple and yellow which really set off the dresses and skirts.

Yardman offered up a pure casual look with mainly male fashion featuring hoodies, T-shirts and jeans with ‘Yardman’ and ‘Kingston’ written all over it and young designer, Gavin Douglas really impressed the crowd with European style couture and used a lot of unique and interesting colours such as mustard yellow, deep purples and peacock feathers on very metallic looking material.

The veteran designer, Barry Moncrieffe featured a variety of cultures, such as African, Indian, Chinese and Caribbean themed outfits and with a few pieces in his classic black and white, Moncrieffe combined black and white stripes with polka dots in classy, long dresses.

Other standouts were the use of a lot of African prints, Indian long beaded skirts and Chinese style button front tops. Bajan designer Wayne Smith also had an evening dress appeal with his ‘Island Spice’ collection.

Island Spice featured long dresses in green, leopard print and many more. Their blending of colours was very well done, making the garments interesting. The material was sheer and oftentimes sexy. One long purple dress had a very unique accessory, with a necklace made of purple orchids.

Francis Hendy brought 1950s and ’60s back to men’s wear. He utilised a lot pinstripes in pants and tops, as well as patterns. After a brief break, Pulse took a minute out to honour a pioneerof costume designs in Trinidad – Peter Minshall.

Fashion designer, Claudia Pegus fascinated by frills, Pegus’ shirts and skirts were often frilled, and very vibrant, a bit carnivalesque colour scheme. She used a lot of deep gold to give a Egyptian feel to some dresses, which had an overall fun feel. Bill Edwards was mainly back to the men, with very comfortable looking slacks and shirts with leafy patterns.

Ending with a flair that had audience standing and applauding were designs from Romanian Catalin Ebotezatu. Ebotezatu had very sexy glittery and featured filled evening gowns which were sheer in the right places exposing the models sexily and overall had a very exotic feel.

Source: bharattextile

Models, designers arrive in Antigua to heat up runway

From their chic shoes to stylish dos, the models and designers who are going to join forces with the Insomnia models to sizzle the runway tomorrow night are already turning heads. Stepping out from the arrival lounge with style and presence, already people waiting on other arriving passengers could be heard asking, “A who dem dey?”

Arriving yesterday were the Thorough Bred models from St. Kitts/Nevis, regional super model the 2005 Miss Hawaii Tropics Suilika Buchanan, also from St. Kitts, the models from Model Image by CBO from Curacao, and fashion designer Kiasha Peters from St. Martin.

Except for the models from Curacao, the other delegates are all returning participants, including Thorough Bred model Beko Lapsey, who's been a model for the last five years.

Smiling broadly, he expressed his eagerness to work with the Insomnia models again and the Caliente producers. Particularly loving to please the women in the audience, he's promising a platinum performance this year.

One of the managers to accompany the Thorough Breds, Vaughn Anslyn spoke of the level of professionalism in the production of last year's show, and with the expansion of the production to include more designers and models, he was more than willing to have his guys participate once again.

Also commenting on the level of professionalism that the show exhibited on and off the runway, regional super model Suilika Buchanan smiled broadly as she told of her great experience last year.

"Rickerson and I share the same passion and vision to see Caribbean models taken seriously by the rest of the world ... there's no reason that our models can't be Victoria Secrets models and the like ... so anything to promote the fashion industry and especially the Caribbean modelling industry I'm more than willing to support," she shared.

Opening up some more, and believe me she's very down to earth and willing to share the spotlight with other up-and-coming models.

More than happy to share a few tips with present and future models, she advises that you never stop modelling. On the runway, she laughs as she admits that she's knock-kneed, but says, "It's important not to make your knees touch.

"You also need to know exactly what the designer expects from you. You need to respect the designer and their clothes, so never ever tell a designer that you don't like his work."

At 22 years, being active in the industry for six years, Suilika has a charismatic personality that will make you feel like you're chatting with a girlfriend, but when the camera focuses, she steps into full professional mode as she sashays for the camera.

For the Model Image by CBO models, this is their first major fashion show in the region, and they're all looking forward to showing Antigua exactly what they've got. Already poised to alight the runway, these young people are following their dreams and the fight for Caribbean models to be taken seriously.

Although she could easily be taken for a model, this "Knitty Kitty" will be showcasing new sexy knittable wears. From swimsuits to dresses this fashion diva from St. Martin already knows how to make a runway sizzle.

Designer Kaisha Peters attended last year's Caliente, and, expressing her pleasure of working with professionals such as Rickerson, could not miss this year's show. Reuniting with some of last year's participants at the show, they gave their own show at the airport as people watched the colourful group with curiosity.

Enjoying the reunion with fellow members of the fashion fraternity, the common interest of making Caliente 4 "Sashay" a success was without question.

If you'd like to see these models and designers "sashay" the runway, don't miss the fashion event of the year at the Multi-purpose Cultural and Exhibition Centre at 8:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at The Source or It Clothing Store.

Source: antiguasun