London Fashion Week Fall 2007: Manish Arora

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Before getting into this, I’d first like to say: Marc Jacobs moments (i.e. starting the show an hour or more late) are very uncool. This was definitely a highly anticipated show as people (journalist, buyers and groupies alike) began to emulate fashion cattle, as they rushed the door. I suspect this was out of sheer insanity after a long day of shows and empty stomachs. Now, on with it. Arora put on a show packed with colourful prints, playful shapes and futuristic details. The inspiration behind the show was a plethora of references: the 60’s for silhouettes, the east for necklines and closures, and the 80’s for the rainbow palette. Planets, astronauts, and space-crafts invaded everything from shift dresses to rajasthan coats. These prints were seen throughout the collection as outer space was a hallmark for the designers’ primary inspiration (a mixture of the Jetson’s and The Fifth Element). The kabuki make-up and bluntly cut wigs further added to the ambiance of the energy-packed show. There were also quite wearable pieces as well, although overall the collection was not for the passive wardrobe. Thus far, Manish Arora was a high mark for what one would expect from fashion’s unsaturated city, focusing on what London does best: art sans inhibition.

MARQUITA HARRIS

Marquita Harris

Comments

1. February 16, 2007 @ 7:49 pm

   Jessie Bluejay » Blog Archive » Manish Arora is Really Cool says:

   [...] The clothes I wear most of the time are pretty boring. The clothes most of us wear most of the time are pretty boring. I used to collect colorful, interesting pieces for my wardrobe but I found I almost never wore them. Why? Because you can’t (or shouldn’t) wear a paper dress to work. And you can’t wear a blue pageboy wig and a 1980s kelly green vintage Carolina Herrera dress to the bowling alley. And I never did find the right time to wear my white knee-high canvas boots with the bright colored flowers emboidered up the sides. Now, it’s definitely worth saving the best and strangest pieces of clothing because that’s what parties are for, but our everyday wardrobes are generally pretty dull. That’s why I want Fashion Week to be loaded with surreal, totally impractical costumes. The runways should be saturated with weirdness. While I was lamenting the absence of creativity in New York fashion, I decided to see if London’s Fashion Week was suffering from the same artless condition. I found exactly what New York was missing in the Indian designer Manish Arora: Now this guy is an artist. These are from his Fall 2007 collection and it’s exactly what I’m talking about. His collections are totally impractical and absolutely fantastic and otherworldly. Check out these examples from his Spring 2007 collection: You may recall that several designers last year were into masks (here and here). They were depressing and kinda scary. Arora’s take on the mask seems to be satirical which brings a sense of humor to the overly serious world of fashion. All of his collections are filled with color, humor, and a taste for the surreal. He makes great party clothes. [...]