"Modern is for today," Karl Lagerfeld said before his show, emphasizing his in-the-moment view of fashion, but the collection he showed under his own name impressively encompassed past, present, and future. Though the designer also featured a swingy A-line shape (in winter white, say, with silver piping and zip), the silhouette that mattered was streamlined to the nth. It was composed of a rigorously tailored jacket, its front folded back to create a kind of angular peplum, worn over a second-skin skirt-and-pants combination in a new kind of patent leather that had a flawless vinyl finish (in brown, it looked unsettlingly like chocolate). The patent was also used to line lapels or those folded jacket fronts. But equally, many of Lagerfeld's details harked back to history, like the corset detailing on one jacket or the buttons that ran up to the elbow on the sleeve of another. One navy jacket with a little stand-up collar was piped in red like a vintage military uniform. The puff of black netting on a one-shouldered silk dress added a fin de siècle touch, of old Vienna perhaps. The beaded or pleated chiffons that made up the finale had that same feel, even when worn over patent pants. The bands that held hair high off the forehead added inches of height to models who were already towering. Backstage, they set Lagerfeld to thinking about the Na'vi and Avatar and maybe even a collection of KL in 3-D eyewear. —Tim Blanks
Big Spenders: Seventh on Sale Gala Attracts an A-list Crowd
Kitted out like the courtyard of a medieval castle, complete with fake torches, the 69th Regiment Armory was filled to bursting with deeply discounted designer merchandise and eager shoppers in the form of Valentino, Ralph Lauren, Giambattista Valli, Iman, Eve, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.
Comparison Shopping: We pit two much-hyped new style guides against a classic of the genre
With Victoria Beckham and Rachel Zoe's new style guides hitting the bookstores, we decided to test the authors' fashion sense against that of designer Anne Fogarty's 50-year-old gem, Wife Dressing.
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