8/28/2007

Ladies' Mile

True confession: fashion-o-philes secretly like it when the weather turns cold, dark, and stormy in August, as it did last week. Why? It gives everyone a chance to break out new fall clothes.

Colder temperatures afforded us a fall fashion preview on Ladies' Mile, the stretch of lower Fifth Avenue known at the turn of the last century for its upscale boutiques, jewelers, and milliners. Now populated mostly with chain stores, it still draws a fashionable crowd.

Bebe is long on trenches, though their "sexy" version is brightly colored, while New Yorkers favor khaki, gray, and black.





Esprit displays corduroys, but more importantly, clothes in military colors.



No matter what happens in Iraq, it seems, no one is tiring of military fatigues.
Boho prints have been deemed out this season by fashion mags, but Anthropologie sticks to its guns. Fortunately for the brand, knits are in, and boho prints and scarves go well with wide-legged jeans


Though its former spare style of the mid-90's made Banana Republic a mega force in fashion, mystifyingly, it seems to be betting on polka dots for fall. Meanwhile, pedestrians wear minimalist clothes that look like the old Banana Republic, inspired by Helmut Lang and Calvin Klein.



One stylish shopper took a whirl in polka dots.

Zara, on the money as usual, reinterprets its usual black pieces in a new slimmer silhouette.


H&M hedges its bets on both color and all-black, but the cuts are more last year than this.

Still, there is an exception for bubble dresses, which have been waved through to fall.


Intermix (a.k.a. Interbitch) and American Apparel see color as the transitional trend from summer to fall.




Benetton plays it safe with tweedy earth tones in updated cuts.



Trends seen on the street but not as much the stores: shiny jackets in high-tech fabrics

cropped blazers

high-water pants, crossing over from men to women

lots of anoraks

and gray


1 comments:

Anonymous said...

You wouldn't happen to know what brand this bag is:

http://bp1.blogger.com/_rz2cdDIwktM/RtRElcxK4eI/AAAAAAAAD3I/RW4M4SOIJQo/s1600-h/DSC_0142.jpg

?