FROM COFFEE TO COCKTAILS

The turnover of trends as each season comes to a close can strike the seasoned sophisticate as predictable and boring. In many ways it is, from terry slut shorts followed by the usual Hitchcock heroine garb, from shimmery pinks deepening to ripe scarlets and from whitie everything to noir noir noir anything.

The challenge in fashion is creating something unpredictable within the predictable. This creativity and stamp of uniqueness may come as an unexpected silhouette, a combination of textures and shapes that stretches the imagination, or simply using color in ways it shouldn’t be used. Every season, we are given trends to follow, when in essense as true style would dictate, each trend is meant to be broken, if not glamorously molested!

The only crime in fashion is to take a trend literally. So go ahead break the rules and experience punishment at its sweetest!

Animal Instincts

Jocelyn Wieldenstein, C-list starlets and every aunt wearing Jean Patou cologne in the universe have given animal prints a very stale reputation. Whether done up in a manner guaranteed to scare any macho lion away or perhaps interpreted in a gauche matronly fashion that only screams pleas to skin it off, animal prints, despite all the flak its gotten in the past years due to fashion crimes, are nothing to hide.

Whether it’s done in controlled doses or slathered on with decadence – to carry it off in fight spirit it is first important to understand what you are wearing.

Does a zebra and lion print combo make sense? To Marilyn Manson it does and so he wears it with flair.

A word of advice to hide seekers: Don’t put more than you can handle.

Animal patterns can be found in velvet, silk, canvas, terry and almost any fabric texture possible. Whether you pile it on and have yourself adopted by Sigfried and Roy or keep it to a tasteful Jackie O minimum – animal prints are wild in the urban jungle.

Crown Jewels

Gem tones certainly are precious this season. Juicy splashes of color bejeweled the international collections lending the fashion palette much-needed glam shots despite the ongoing recession. So if the pocket and circumstance prevent you from giving good ’ol Harry Winston a call, let the glitter factor rest on your technicolor extravaganza. After several seasons of being afraid of these succulent and seductive hues, color is back in a very big way!

Boys And Girls

From the anti-social Garbo to the nutty Diane Keaton, to pop urchin Avril Lavigne – these fierce femmes show how to bust balls in men’s inspired garb.

Menswear spun for the ladies are sexy, tailored and sensuous. More Henry and June than Gordon Gekko. From pre-war slate-hued suits to David Bowie thin white duke numbers – the tailor is in!

Red Or Dead

How does one come out in all her resplendent and scarlet glory without looking like a vulgar pay-by-the hour lady? First, get that slutty image of red out of your myopic head and experience the color that Diana Vreeland swore by. Bring out your sexy and vampy self in this martian hue and even if you’re no Jessica Rabbit, results are expected. After all, aside from black and white, dogs also pay heed to red. And what works up a bull other than a glaring crimson flag?

What makes men any different then?