It's here! Oh the excitement!

Did you think style freezes along with the temperature? Europe might be dragging its feet through ruthless bouts of low temperatures and icy winds, but a new fashion season is starting up, and New York is where it's at right now.

What is going on in Bryant Park and around? Why, goodies. Countless. Starting with, in my mind, Rachel Comey, one of the designers to the cool girls, a less high brow Alexander Wang, if you will.

Always a relaxed (if not minimal) brand, Rachel Comey doesn't disappoint in aptly tailored garments, always leading to those shoes that I just know will be must-haves come Fall. 

Awesome collage look. 

    

                            

The colour palette is lighter than what you might expect for Fall/Winter, but all the leather and wool make it convincing enough. My favourite look is probably the last one I posted, with the awesome combination of silver skirt and black belted sweater. 

Derek Lam's 10 Crosby line could very well also be called Hanne, Hanne Gaby or Hanne Gaby Odiele, because as his favourite model, she's the muse of the collection, modelling it for the second time in a row. Actually, the lookbook was shot in her own apartment. And it's just as want-able as the previous one.

Good signs for the season, my friends. Good signs! And if New York is the home of the impossibly sophisticated cool girls, I can't wait for London's outrageousness, Milan's hotness and Paris's elegance! 

Have you seen any FW2012 collections? Which one's your favourite?

How is it Fendi time already?!

And by that, I don't mean that Fendi has any special significance (except for being, you know, Fendi) but that it places us, chronologically speaking, in the midst of the third fashion week out of the four. It feels like yesterday I was dying for New York Fashion Week to begin.

It happens every season, too. I wait months and months for the next Fashion Month and then each city whizzes by as I (and everyone else) get lost in the sea of architectural volumes, metaphorical prints, liberal use of lace and this or that theme.

Karl Lagerfeld speaks a pretty easy language for Fendi, where I see him more, ahem, tempered than for his own line or for Chanel. It's also a pretty easy language because so many of the season's proferred trends arose on the black-and-white striped runway.

Strategically placed cut-outs favoured shoulders a lot this season, and Fendi was no different.

Mixing prints is something bloggers foresaw for a while... and the designers kind of listened, didn't they?

I've been spoiled this season! My penchant for long, black, sheer and lace has been so fitfully satisfied that I could just lie down and die happy, but then Paris is coming, and I'll bet I'd die happier after Elie Saab and Ann Demeulemeester.

Much like Jonathan Saunders, Fendi envisions women wearing light knits combined with ultra-light fabrics like silk (the sheer-er, the better!). I like it.

The season's obsession with sportiness and utility was reflected in looks like the ones above.

But then, the Fendi woman is very much so a lady, a sophisticated yet playful one, that enjoys volume play and experiments with colours and cuts.

All in all a great collection. Not as good in my book as SS2011, but delightful still. 

What did you think?

The only way to talk about Christian Dior now...

... is by holding my tongue quite a bit. You see, this is something I have to do in order to avoid a complete meltdown consisting of blaming the various parties in the Galliano scandal (the link leads to an article I wrote in February), which invariably ends in sad, unanswered "Why?"-type questions.

There's no telling why. There's no understanding how more than a decade of exquisite art can be thrown down the toilet. There's only consequences, and one of those consequences is a rather cringe-inducing Fall 2011 Couture collection.

Bill Gaytten, I think, tried his best to help continue a legacy of a legendary brand by putting on a show as excentric as his predecessor. Unfortunately, while some looks channel former Dior-vibe, others are treading the sad ground between clown-like and grotesque. Exaggeration in fashion is tricky, and mumu-like garments from this undeservedly called couture collection are the perfect example. Shock value is still value, but not in couture.

Playfulness is one things, but that's a cupcake. At Christian Dior Haute Couture.

It wasn't all tragic. Looks like the one above reminded us, through cut and general line if nothing else, of the olden days.

Now Gaytten worked alongside Galliano for a long time. This is apparent in some elements of continuity between the last Couture collection, penned by John, and this current one. Things like different-level ruffles and supraposition of different colored fabrics for visual effect is common to the two collections, but the difference in quality is also clearly visible. I'm trying at all costs to steer clear of bias, but Gaytten's garments look unfinished and considerably, for lack of a better word, cheaper than Galliano's and that's just the sad truth.

And then, not 1, not 2, but 5 mumu-like garments glided down the runway, making beautiful young models look like 40-something, overly made-up, chain-smoking matrons. I'm trying, dude. That white one in the left lower corner on Yulia Kharlaponova makes for a nice visual effect. I bed it'd look good as a wall hanging? Bed spread? Table cloth??? 

The collections's saving grace (it did have one, thank god) was a section around the middle of the show, where peach-coloured outfits looked pretty and real, not something hastily put together. They're not perfect, they're not really couture, but they're nice looking at the least. 

In conclusion, this was a decent try for someone filling such big shoes in so little time. Not everyone's going to be a Sarah Burton to Alexander McQueen. This is one of those situations where we can't do anything to change it, it's not going to magically get better, we just have to wait for time to make it blurry, because Galliano's not coming back, that night in February is not coming back, and all good things come to an end. Some designers move houses, some designers retire, some designers die, and some designers are John Galliano.

Ph. Yanis Vlamos/GoRunway.com via Style.com.