Off the runway, accessories designers opted for different ways to show their wares for New York Fashion Week.
“What does a woman need in this marketplace today? The stores are flooded with product,” Paul Andrew said during his preview. His answer was to focus on artisan craftsmanship, mixed with state-of-the-art technology. For example, wedges are molded like a shark fin with hand-cut abalone shells and hand-woven straps on heels with internal memory foam. Height was on the menu as well, showing a variety of platform shapes.
CHLOE GOSSELIN
“It’s about the women who wear the shoes,” said Chloe Gosselin. The shoe designer was back on the New York show calendar after taking some time off to show in Paris. While a soundtrack of speeches by Hillary Clinton, Maya Angelou and other women of history played, Gosselin showed mules, high vamp satin pumps and booties on models hidden behind a scrim, their faces and bodies unseen.
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ALBER ELBAZ x LESPORTSAC
“This collaboration achieved bringing together the know-how of LeSportsac’s construction with my illustrations. I find the brand [LeSportsac] very practical and pragmatic. It was quite nice to have a light bag with words like ‘Hope and Dream,’ ‘Love You Always’ and ‘Make a Wish,'” Alber Elbaz said. The designer’s multi-season collaboration with accessories brand LeSportsac was feted on the opening night of fashion week.
“For the brand, she likes our prints to tell a story, she loves whimsical illustrations and she expects to be surprised. Who could be better fit than Alber Elbaz?” said D’Arcy Jensen, LeSportsac’s vice president and global creative director.
The room was transformed into Elbaz’s world of weekenders, cosmetic cases, cross bodies, totes, and backpacks incorporating his playful messages and graphics.
SCOSHA
Australia-born Scosha Woolridge decided to showcase her jewelry label, Scosha, at a Lower East Side art gallery.
“My background is painting and sculpture, and I knew if I wasn’t going to show it on people, I needed it to be in an environment that will help explain and communicate what I do,” Woolridge said. The 2018 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nominee finds the stones first and then sees how the story evolves, not thinking what the pieces will be beforehand.
Hung from the center of the gallery, she used a mobile-like structure to display her collections of colorful and quirky handcrafted pieces, stone earrings with mismatched stones, signet rings and braided bracelets from found fishing wire.
LINDSEY NICOLE NEW YORK
After working with Nicholas Kirkwood, Pollini, Judith Leiber and Kara Ross, accessories designer Lindsey Napolitano has launched her own line. Opting for a more intimate setting, Napolitano showed her second outing of Lindsey Nicole New York at private showroom appointments. For spring, she aimed to take architectural shapes and soften them. Scarves were used to make straps for lady bag shapes, while a bright watercolor design was printed on cross body shapes.
The day after hosting a dinner the Saturday night of fashion week, German luggage brand Rimowa held a presentation to unveil its new visual identity The newly rethought product line included the “Essential Lite,” the brand’s lightest suitcase, and the “Hybrid Collection,” which uses aluminum-magnesium ally mixed with polycarbonite, as well as the LVMH-owned brand’s collaborations with Off-White and Fendi.
Brett Heyman said her spring collection, shown at a presentation in TriBeCa’s Primo’s restaurant, was “Beverly Hills meets the Bois de Boulogne. The optimism of Los Angeles with the always perfectly accessorized and carefree Loulou de la Falaise.” Heyman chose the spot to translate her colorful and cheery collection, like a whimsical checker set in yellow, several box shapes of color pop bags and her new iterations of her double shot bag, which launched at resort.
HUNTING SEASON
Danielle Corona focuses on craft for her CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nominated brand, Hunting Season. This season she discovered the artisans of the San Agustín region of Colombia, who produce a delicate weave of banana leaves by hand, and incorporated the craft into her range. Some shapes for the season are top handle lady bags, mini bags and an oval-shaped cross body bag.
Laure Hériard Dubreuil’s store, The Webster, hosted a cocktail party to celebrate Leandra Medine’s newly re-branded shoe collection. Previously exclusive to Net-a-porter, the brand is now being sold in select retailers, the Webster being one. Medine used a red and blue print, inspired by carpet fabric, on boots, layered ruffles on mules and created a pair of men’s wear-inspired fire engine red monk straps.