Thursday 27 March 2014

Celestial and Ancient Greek imagery A/W 14

Around last September, shortly after the culmination of the S/S 14 fashion weeks, I speculated that a celestial trend might be on its way (http://textilecandy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/paris-fashion-week-trend-report.html). This trend prediction was based on Valentino's introduction of the symbols of the zodiac as necklace pendants. Sure enough celestial imagery began to filter into other catwalk collections and, as can be seen in the moodboard below, several designers jumped on board this trend. Matthew Williamson dedicated his whole A/W 14 collection to recognised celestial imagery(stars!) whereas Preen and Rodarte took a more novel route using imagery from the Star Wars films- questionable in terms of commerciality but they made me chuckle none the less. My favourite prints from this trend are those that reference less obvious celestial imagery i.e moons,clouds and lightening bolts as seen at Diane Von Furstenberg(DVF) and A Detacher, I feel like is a better way to respond to this trend than using an overworked star motif.

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Heavenly/Celestial imagery has strong associations with the zodiac and Greek mythology and so it is unsurprising that motifs from Ancient Greek design began to seep into the A/W 14 collections. I use the word 'seep' because there doesn't appear to be a very strong following of this trend on the catwalks as of yet, but it is slowly being injected into the designers collections. There is a particularly strong usage of the straight edged swirl patterns in monochrome, taken from carved/painted clay pots in Ancient Greek design. 


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