The start of the autumn season

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:51:20 > You know what?...

The start to the autumn season

It has been a very odd summer. There was a promise of lots of sun but as usual it came erratically and we all had to adapt to it. For a season that promised tons of colour – I found very little on the street. The favourite look were cropped white trousers and a t-shirt with flipflops so obviously no-one was listening – such a shame really. The only time I found a bit of creativity was at the very fashionable music festivals throughout England where anything went and it worked.

I think the same will probably happen again this autumn but this time none of us can blame the credit-crunch for not bringing a bit of colour into our lives!

Stores are obviously being careful – so courageous buying will be in short supply and unfortunately it is also the larger sizes that suffer - even though they sell fastest. Buyers are still making the fundamental mistake of short ordering over a size 14 especially now they have an excuse.  So watch out – all you size 16-20’s get what you want early because anything special will be gone from the main stores by the end of October.

Plus sizes in our larger department stores are suffering and suffering badly. In order to chase the ‘Yoof’ market, sizes are seriously being cropped. The latest is Selfridges, rumour has it that they have finally made the decision to throw out the last of their faithful customers by pretty much irradiating anything over a size 14 - leaving only the concessions to take on the cause - and there are not enough of them in the store to make any difference!
I wonder if any of their decision-makers realise that the population is getting actually older and the younger market, ultimately is the most traitorous - they will not stick by you and they haven't much money. Selfridges has got itself so caught up with trendy B-list celebrity that they have forgotten where and whom they are. This is a universal story on the highstreet - the disappointing termination of the ‘Gorgeous’ plus-size range at Debenhams was only the start.  It has to be said that online companies can only benefit from these misguided choices - but it is a pretty bad state of affairs.

My intro to the autumn season is an invite from the Arcadia group to preview their autumn-winter collections from Evans, TopShop, Dorothy Perkins etc., They are full of optimism for the new season and foresee that we are all going for glamour – cool!

I am now in the process of shop retail to see whether all the fashionistas predictions have come true on the highstreet. So far I can see that the 80’s still has hold of most fashion retailers in some form or another. Colour so far can be found in a lot of the first deliveries and everything is embellished with something or other – does this mean we are in for a bit of fun?

Studs, eyelets and zips –a huge trend this autumn does show up, quite strongly, especially on accessories – Neiman Marcus in the US predicted ‘Fashion goes Hardwear’ and it seems they are right.
Another trend showing up immediately are trenchcoats which can be found absolutely everywhere – in a huge palette of colours as well - even I have bought one from Simplybe in teal blue, which for a devotee of black is rather daring but the colour reminded me of a coat I had as a child and it suited me so I went for it – no doubt the only associated colour I wear with it will be black but I’ve added my own bit of optimism to my wardrobe and you never know I might even add a bright scarf to it for the winter – I know, I had better be careful or my reputation will be ruined!!

UGH