Resort 2014: Black and White Sachin + Babi

This Resort 2014 is really more about looking out for designers that I'm not familiar with. Starting with last week's Clover Canon's Resort 2014 Collection, I'm now heading in a direction that's slightly the opposite. 

India-born couple and designers Sachin and Babi Ahluwalia from Sachin + Babi's womenswear label made a collection that will certainly set a trend very soon. They combined two trends that I predicted in '2013, the Year of...?'. Those are the classic black and white effect and floral prints. Their collection is simply relaxed enough for a Resort collection with a modern twist.

Sachin + Babi's customer is a woman with the spirit of a world traveler, who is a downtown girl at heart and embodies the artistry of design with effortless confidence - said the designers. Totally recognizable in this collection is the world traveler and downtown girl at heart part that probably is the most wanted request from customers yet often not well executed.

Babi and Sachin Ahluwalia

My Favorite Look:

MY FAVORITE LOOK

My favorite look contains the trends that I was talking about earlier. Floral prints with black and white combined is certainly the best of both worlds. Considering that one world is the modern floral and one is the everlastingly classic black and white trend. Not only do I see myself wearing this - I love shorts - but this entire look is perfect for summer. The long-sleeve shirt with striped black and white and a huge spot of yellow and purple floral print make this look a bit more serious but the black alligator shoes and the floral short give it a summer feel. 

Here are my favorite looks:

Black and white clearly set the mood this season for Sachin + Babi's collection. The combination of these 2 contrasts is my favorite because you can do a lot with them even though they're so plain. They go great together but you can really make a statement when you use black and white in different fabrics. Sachin and Babi didn't add a lot of volume but you can add a lot of volume to both black and white because they are so plain.
The collection has dresses, maxi skirts, full skirts, knee-length shorts, crop tops, leather jackets and shorts. My favorite looks were the looks that had some kind of twist. Like the look with the white shorts with black stripes and the orange long-sleeve. It goes really well together and I love the vertical black stripe that both of the pieces have. The other look that is also one of my favorites, is the short-front-long-back black dress with a laced V-neck. The dress is perfectly fine by its self but the twist with the glitter metallic sequin skirt under it is truly clever. It's a great way to make an LBD more energetic.

Looks I didn't like:

I simply didn't like these looks because they don't fit in this collection and the separate pieces also don't go together.

I really felt like Sachin and Babi made each piece work within the collection, that makes it really difficult to pair it with another piece from another collection or designer. With that said who needs another designer when this collection holds a couple of soon-to-be-trends.

Much Love,

Resort 2014: Tribal 'Clover Canyon'

I am so ready to celebrate the fact that I can add Clover Canyon to my favorite brands list. I have just only heard about their brand 2 days ago and they are fairly new to the fashion industry. Giving the 2 years that they've been at this, they surely seem to know who their customers are. This season they took Resort to another level reaching for the customer that wants to turn heads when she walks out the door!

Inspired by Fifties Cuba - cigars, fruit and mosaic tiles - Rozae Nichols took care of the showstopping collection that looks amazing together as well as apart. Let's see what else she has mastered in this collection.

I couldn't choose one so here are My 2 Favorite looks:

As I couldn't choose my favorite out of this amazing collection, I simply chose the two looks that I want the most in my closet. Both of these looks are simple yet eye-catching and they have this personality of their own

Prints are truly a must for every Resort collection, without it being too busy for the eye. Clover Canyon made sure that the looks also had a Caribbean feel to them so that they also look relaxing. Another way to make the prints less busy is to make them symmetric and that's what Clover Canyon did. Even though the collection is cohesive you can split it in two: the black & white looks with a pop of color and on the other side the basic brown looks with the darker and subtle colors. As I love the contrast black and white and bright colors in between I enjoyed that part of the collection more.

They also styled the looks simple so that you really focus on the detailed collection. I loved the red lipped model, the customer who would buy and wear these pieces would also be bold enough to go for a red lip.

I love the entire collection but the 8 looks that are under 'the rest of the collection' are simply out of proportion or not well combined. When you work with these kind of prints volume or ruffles can't really play a big role in the pieces especially not around the arms or waist.

Here are the rest of my favorite looks:

Here is the rest of the collection:

Some brands design their collections based on two to three customers, but that most of the time fails to keep the cohesion of the collection. Clover Canyon however has one customer - which I like way more - that would wear one of these looks to the mall, one to a concert and one to an art gallery. 

More importantly someone needs to call Solange Knowles to tell her that I'm ready for her to rule the red carpet in one of these pieces!

Much Love,

Resort 2014: Flower Power in 'Moschino Cheap And Chic'

All Flower-Power-ed up are 'Moschino Cheap And Chic' in their Resort 2014 collection. This being one of my favorite seasons I am always looking for collections that show a new and/or improved version of vacation state-of-mind clothing. The perfect Resort collection is in fact the collection that you want to wear to Coachella, but there are two kinds of Resort collections: the obvious beach vibe collection and the not so obvious relaxed but creative collection.
With Moschino's Cheap And Chic Resort 2014 collection we're talking about the second kind. As you might have guessed from the cover photo, they took every hippie's motto: 'Flower Power Is The Way'. Then again a collection can have different angles keeping in mind that it still needs to be cohesive.

My Favorite Look

This is simply my favorite look because they updated the A-line dress. Resort is not really a season to play with volume so they toned it down without sacrificing too much of the basic structure. My favorite thing about this dress is however the hippie effect that this entire collection strongly has: the tie-dye effect. The A-line dress has a certain asymmetric structure but they really didn't pay attention to that when they picked the fabric. I am indeed glad because it totally eliminates the stiff structure that the asymmetric A-line dress has.


Next to my favorite look there are a couple of other looks that caught my eye for many reasons. First of all I have to compliment them on their use of color, the obvious route for a Resort collection would've been bright colors but they concentrated more on pastel colors and colors between pastel and bright shades. The most memorable dress certainly is the one with a sky background with PEACE on it. I'd like to see any of my hippie rolemodels in it any day of the week - floral crown included. The next thing that also caught my eye is a pastel colored green bag in the form of a cast. It's a fun and whimsical way to bring out the goof in everyone. It reminded me a lot of Alice + Olivia's winked eye cardigan.

The rest of the collection is filled with colorful combinations of high waisted skirts, shorts and long sleeved shirts.  

Here are a couple of my favorite looks:

Here is the rest of the collection:

Moschino Cheap And Chic didn't need to apologize for accessorizing, I give them mad props for their bags, glasses, worn out boots and of course floral crowns (it's the hippie thing to do!). I first saw the floral crown on Leighton Meester when she was performing with Check in the Dark. The cherry on top however is the fact that they ended the shoot with floral on floral without it looking like your moms garden.

Much Love,