Would You Rock This? and Exude Magazine partnered this season to bring you coverage of the 2012 Fall/Winter Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. Members of the WYRT Fashion Drawing Session attended fashion shows at Lincoln Center and other locations throughout NYC to draw inspiration from some of the top and most anticipated collections being presented. Illustrators captured their own photo references to create 3 fashion illustrations inspired by the designer.
Illustrations, photos, and summary by Sarah Dahl.
Tadashi Shoji’s Autumn 2012 women’s Ready-to-Wear collection was shown on February 9, 2012 at Mercedes-Benz NY Fashion Week held at Lincoln Center. The line brings to mind the Golden Age of Shanghai, a famously opulent glittering metropolis of the early 20th century that fell into a dark era. Wispy crepes, chiffons, satins, lace, brocades, velvet, and silk rustle and flutter on the runway. The hair is slicked back into a low-slung bun at the nape, with a bold red lip. These 30′s glamourous tiered long-sleeved gowns and 20′s handkerchief hemmed drop-waist dresses hang slightly away from the body and are perfect for moodily stalking grand hotels and indulging in an Old Fashioned while a piano plays. Brilliant inky jewel colors, metallics and pale neutrals rule this collection. Ornate lace detailing, as only Tadashi can do, is on the torso of many of the dresses and one particular dramatic low-backed red velvet gown.
This all brings to mind mobster films such as glamourous but tragic Shanghai Triad, starring style icon Gong Li. Of his collection, Tadashi was quoted saying that the feeling of the collection is “…ominous, as if something is coming.” Could Tadashi’s look back in time be an appropriate ponderance for ours? Perhaps now’s the time to have that brandy. Notibles in attendance were Aisha Tyler and Angela Simmons.
