Every year Pantone does their colors of the season and they let it be known with much fanfare at New York fashion week that these are the colors you will be wearing for the season. Sometimes they are dead on insofar as what we see strolling down the runway somewhat matches their prediction. On the streets though, the color of the year is less important compared to the color of the day. Take a look at any street fashion photography blog and the color has less to do with a corporate mandate and more to do with an individual feeling.

That being said, Pantone’s meticulous selection of Blue Iris is not some sort of random undertaking. There’s research, a certain degree of deliberation (to the tune of five people) according to the executive editor of Pantone and some trendspotting. Cathy Horyn’s article in the New York Times this morning jibes a bit with her blog post yesterday where she says:

Tomorrow’s paper will have a story about Pantone’s choosing Blue Iris as its color for 2008. The reporting did yield a certain symmetry: Raf Simons’ dresses and pantsuits in Yves Klein blue for Jil Sander’s fall 2007; a super cool and curvy sofa by Zaha Hadid in a similar hue, and those blossomy colors in the spring 2008 Balenciaga show. Of course that only proves that Pantone is on the curve, and not ahead of it, and I recognize the pure publicity value of “naming” a color from the 21st century palette. As if.

So is Blue Iris (or shades of) the color of the year for 2008? Depends on the day you ask.

While many are going to immediately shoot off their mouths and say they are oh so over the party photos / fashion thing, Ben Sherman’s new campaign shows us why it has life left in it. The series of ads shot by photo blogger Merlin Bronques and styled by blogging contributor Josh Madden takes us into the world of Ben Sherman. We didn’t know this world existed until now. Sherman has not been known as the party type in ads, but things change. The obvious question is with so many bloggers (ok, 2) involved with the campaign will the blogosphere be lit up with everything Ben Sherman, knowing that their own contributed to such a cool shoot? Was it Ben Sherman’s insidious master plan to get bloggers behind this season’s collection by putting them in charge of the aforementioned cool shoot? Are we over-thinking things? Probably.

One thing is for certain: in our minds, Sherman has just gone up 53.5 cool points on our cool meter. See the rest of the images at Fashionista.

Someone did their homework and then some. Peter Som’s first full collection for Bill Blass peaked it’s head out only briefly, but from the photos and the press reviews it’s apparent that the designer has done his homework and then some. Som’s Blass is a marked departure from Vollbracht’s Blass. There’s really no comparison, the collection’s not better, not worse, just different. The obvious statement here is if you put up Som’s pre-fall work for Blass up against Vollbracht’s you can see a marked difference. It’s the differing interpretation of sportwear that gets the first notice. If you look at Fall Blass circa 2007, you will see practically every color of the rainbow represented.

That’s not Som’s collection, but again, that’s not a bad thing. It’s just different. Different in a really good way. As a matter of fact I am pushing back from the photos hoping that when this hits the runway the collection will look just as good. If this is foreboding of what’s to come, Som’s Blass might be at or near the top of my personal list come the end of fashion week. For complete photos in the collection visit Style.com’s Pre-Fall 08 gallery.

Normally one would think that with a title like “Wu-Dolls” you would see something related to the Wu-tang Clan, not here at Papierdoll. Here we’re talking about Jason Wu’s doll collection. Wu, who’s works are a favorite around these parts during fashion week, surprised me with his Wu doll collection awhile back. Somehow though, I’ve been under a rock because I missed all the dolls in this doll collection. I found it by happenstance. I was searching on the F. A.O Schwartz website for some sort of Barbie doll for my niece, the ones I wanted were sold out (big surprise) and found the Wu dolls.

So from left to right F.A.O. Schwartz has the Sambuca Gene Marshall doll, Park Avenue Prowl Gene doll, Dynamite Girlz, Rouge Rose Gene Marshall Dressed doll and a couple of costumes for the dolls. Wu is no stranger to creating fashion on dolls then porting it over to life-sized models. His Fashion Royalty bio says that he got his start by creating these doll and we’re happy he has not forgotten where he started from. Take a look at the dolls at the F.A.O Schwartz website.

Plenty of interesting posts this week across the fashion web including an interview with a Project Runway member, daily sample sale updates from your favorite designers (including a huge Roberto Cavalli sale), answering the eternal question to bob or not to bob. There is also an interesting post on winning $7,000 shopping sprees. That’s enough to make me want to enter multiple times and have different family members enter on my behalf. One blog has cheap chic gifts specifically for yourself. Sometimes being selfish is the answer. It’s all on the fashion web this week.

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