Summer is almost here, and brighter days call for cool sunglasses. So seize the opportunity to add a splash of color to  your outfit with unique, interesting looking glasses.

First,  decide the shape that best suits your face. The most popular shapes are aviators, cat eyes, round, D-shape, rectangular, wayfarer, and square. Then choose the frame material (metal, plastic, tortoise, resin), and size that best matches your style (oversized, small-nerdy-chic, etc). If your style is classic and understated, choose a resin D-shape or rectangular frame or wayfarer style in a neutral color. If you feel more daring, try oversized square glasses with tortoise or printed frames or in a bright color such as red. Avoid neon unless you are the type who feels comfortable with eye-catching statement pieces.

Also, please don't go matchy-matchy by coordinating the color of your glasses with your purse, belt, shoes or any other accessory. The idea is to have ONE accessory to be the focus. For best results wear contrast colors that fall in the exact opposite of the color wheel: blue and yellow (a blue bag and yellow or tortoise frames); magenta and green, black and white, etc. Color blocking is a big trend this season, (look at the Italia Independent yellow glasses below with contrasting yellow and black), and also floral frames such as the Charlotte Russe shown here. Red frames are always a statement that plays well with an all black or white outfit; and black glasses with a strong design will give you the ultimate downtown cool vibe and/or a celebrity look.

The exceptions to the matchy rule are those designer collections with a complementary design story that makes the match clever or playful (ie, Prada latest playful car collection include Hot Rod glasses and shoes with tail-lights that go well together). Lastly, quality matters, get a good pair of glasses with polarized lenses and UV protection such as Ray-Bans, which offer quality, affordability, cool and classic designs. If you can afford them, Tom Ford, Prada and Celine make excellent glasses.

Then, just for fun, get some inexpensive color glasses from local retailers such as the Loft, Kate Spade, and Loehmann’s, or Charlote Russe.com.

For classical cool without breaking the bank, you can always resort to the trusted Ray-Ban. Either the original Wayfarer, the Clubmaster or the Aviators, you cannot go wrong with Ray-Ban.

And if you leave in NYC, you may have at least one colorful pair from your nearest street vendor just for the fun of it, but warning, this cheap fashion glasses usually offer no sun protection. I wear them on my head as headbands, this way they offer the needed color accent without hurting my eyes.

This fall, get ready to show your legs. Many designers re-introudce suits (skirt suits!) in their fall collections, and these suits, along with their pantsuit counterpart, will be the silhuette trend for fall 2012. Surpinsily the skirt suits were not presented as business outfits, but as a cool alternative to dresses and other daytime emsembles.

If you have difficulty  thinking about a skirt suit as "cool"  consider the following: they include big prints and mixed fabrics, textures and bright colors, leather trims and asymmetric cuts. For a sneak preview of this fall 2012 trend, take a look at this WWD slideshow. (Source, WWD)

Maybe because I have been obsesing about yellow lately, I stumbled upon this post from styleprofiles:

During Women SS2012 Fashion week in Paris, Sonia Rykiel welcomed her guests into a location strongly dominated by a thick yellow lined catwalk.

See complete post at styleprofiles

Raf Simons has been apointed Dior's new artistic director, filling John Galliano's vacancy at the French house and ending all the speculation that surrounded the house since last year.

Read more under the News Tab.

Winter is finally over and I  (and I hope you too)  am ready for Spring!  I am officially bringing out my spring wardrobe and updating it with some key fresh trends: pastels colors, bright accents, pleated skirts, bold prints and color blockings.

I looked at the runways for inspiration, and as it happens every year I ended up buying one runway investment piece that defines the season. However, for the most part I am updating my closet with inexpensive buys that complement my existing wardrobe, as well as some accent pieces and accessories.

This season, one color that I found could transport you immediately to spring is yellow. You'll see why by looking at the pieces below:

Yellow is definitely an optimistic color! Combine it with white for a fresh look, with black for dramatic contrast, or with other bright colors for a playful look.

I first noticed the color in the runways and then if you look around it is now everywhere, from bright yellow accent pieces, to shoes, to complete outfits in very light pastel yellow.  So I went out with my camera and found plenty of yellow in the streets in the stores, including a window display at Uniqlo.

Wear yellow to bring light into your wardrobe and to transition from spring into summer. 

A yellow dress, blouse or sweater, or even a pair of yellow jeans will certainly lift your spirit and will put in the mood for summer

To Spring!

You may say that I am obsessed with vegetables these days. And it is all because of the Veggies from the SS12 Dolce & Gabbana collection!

As you may already know, along with pastels colors and pleated skirts, bright, colorful prints are a big trend for this year’s spring and summer. Among the many print options in the runways were flowers, birds, and digital abstract prints. However, nothing was more original, colorful or optimistic than the Dolce & Gabbana oversized vegetables: peppers, zucchinis, tomatoes, onions and eggplants, interpreted in stretch cotton, silk, silk organza, and jersey, some paired with macramé and even pvc.

The show, inspired in 1950s southern Italy provided the most extravagant daywear of the season. So if you like colorful and original daywear, try to get a piece from this collection, even if it is just one of the crazy accessories such as the garlic earrings. Or wait until Zara comes up with some kind of interpretation (potatoes maybe?)

OK, Paris Fashion Week is over, which means the whole fashion season is also over. So after reviewing many fall collections this week, I’ll bring my attention back to summer clothing and what we would like to wear in the upcoming warmer weeks.

As I reviewed the collections from New York, London and Milan, I felt only mildly inspired this season. Sure, there were plenty of beautiful clothes from many designers, innovations in the use of new fabrics, new silhouettes and interesting accessories. But most of these collections still felt safe and commercial, and it seemed that designers were dressing the same woman, a woman who has a similar profile and attitude, the party girl, the superficial woman, or the professional woman who partied the night before, the super-sexy, over confident and over spoiled woman. With the expected exception of Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera and Ralph Lauren, New York was all about the young party girl, and London and Milan followed suit, with the notable exception of Burberry in London and Jill Sanders in Milan. There seems to be a disconnect about who designers are designing for and the majority of young customers  who are working women, students, artists, entrepreneurs.

Luckily, Paris brought us some exceptions:

Balenciaga presented a collection of modernist clothing for the workingwoman that included professionals, assistants and even spies. Celine presented beautiful sporty separates in white wool with bright details; Alexander McQueen presented a unique, artistic collection that although not very wearable will keep the dream going and moved fashion forward. And Chanel’s show, although overloaded with the same old tweeds, presented a new silhouette: the 3-piece suit, which included skirts over pants, suitable for day and night and attractive for the young and the not so young.

Balenciaga		Celine	Chanel

Fall 2012 in a Nutshell:

This season I noted a tendency to volume, structure and geometry in dresses, jackets and outerwear, with oversized pockets and sleeves and bubble backs especially seen in the excellent collections of Burberry and Jill Sander as well as the over the top, 1910s inspired Louis Vuitton.

Even if volume is not flattering to everyone, this new tendency is helping create change and moving fashion forward toward a new silhouette that hopefully will get even more refined in future seasons.

Burberry Prorsum		Jil Sander	Miu Miu

Boxy jackets and sweatshirt-shaped, sport-inspired tops interpreted in luxury fabrics were notable in the collections of Celine and Balenciaga; and the return of 70s-style pantsuits made in print fabrics was brought by Miu Miu, Prada.

Also important:

• The use of metallic fabric and metallic accents.
• Hats, hats and hats everywhere.
  
• Plenty of leather, including beautiful patent leather (Bluemarine, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Hermes,  Hakaan, Paco Rabanne, Yves Saint Laurent), technical fabrics, lurex and fabric manipulations such as lamination and lackering (check collections from Tibi, Alexander Wang, Christopher Kane, David Koma) was found in many runways.
• Among the most ubiquitous outerwear were capes,  featured in many New York, London, Milan and Paris shows. (ie, Jason Wu, Givenchy, Dolce and Gabbana, Marni)
• Beautiful Jewel tone colors: emerald, royal blue, sapphire, amber. (check the collections of Prabal Gurung and that of Mr. Master of Color Haider Ackermann)
• My favorite collection: the most beautiful collection this season for me was that of Jil Sander by Raf Simmon  who unfortunately is leaving the house, and no, he is not going to Dior. He presented soft, beautiful and sophisticated collection of coats and dresses; his use pastels for Fall/winter coats was specially alluring.

THAT IS IT FOR THE FALL. NEXT: SUMMER AND STREET-STYLE FASHION.

The Prada Fall 2012 collection is here.

The last Prada Spring/Summer collection was focused on 1950’s optimism and love of automobiles, but for Fall 2012 Miuccia Prada moved ahead to the 1960’s with geometric prints, sleveless long vests/dresses and structured belted jackets. The collection looks opulent, colorful, and directional as always.

Yes, the rumors are true, Jil Sander is returning to her eponymous label, the Chicago Tribune reported today.

The Jil Sander Group has officially confirmed that the label's founder will head the label that she founded in 1968 effective next Tuesday, February 28. She is replacing current creative director Raf Simons, which of course has given way to the speculation that Raf Simons could wind up at Dior.

What do you think about Raf Simons for Dior?

If you followed last year's debacle between the organizer's of London and Milan fashion weeks, you probably know that this year Milan was stepping on London's toes with some overlapping shows. It felt a little awkward to say the least, to follow the great shows of London such as Burberry and Erdem and suddenly Milan popping in and demanding our attention. But such is the world of fashion. In any case, I wanted to review Erdem before moving on to Milan.

Erdem
Erdem is known for his feminine prints and beautiful structured dresses. This season he moved away from pretty prints to present an artsy and saturated collection of dark floral print dresses and pant ensembles in chartreuse royal blue and fuchsia. He also added materials such as industrial latex to tweeds and other fabrics and created lace-like embroideries with the material. The result is a strong and darker collection that reads like more mature Erdem.

Milan

Gucci was one of the first Milan collections, followed by Alberta Ferreti and MaxMara.

Gucci. Frida Giannini presented a seductive and dark collection that made reference to19^th century Romanticism. The palette included plums, browns, greens and navy in silks, brocades and jacquards, velvet and leather. Day dresses had floral prints on a black background. Jackets were boxy and structured. Evening gowns were made in velvets and silk chiffon with intricate embroideries. A glamorous makeup, dark red lips and hair parted in the center completed the severe but seductive look.