LIBERTINE STRIKES NYFW AGAIN

Last night I attended Libertine’s Fall 2012 runway show and it was a total blast.  Held at MILK studios, I sat front row right beside shoe designer Jean Michel Cazabat and designer Thom Browne…oh and then figure skater (a new fashion fave) Jonny Weir showed up and paid me a few compliments on my vintage Sonia Rykiel color blocked sweater dress.

Johnson Hartig continues to show me how fun fashion can be.  For this season, he switched from his usual screen-printing designs to a more festive embellishment design which was a new concept for him.  Backstage, he said he has never worked so hard on a collection in his life.  I loved the freshness of his new approach in relation to his concept (Libertine uses vintage clothes that he re-designs and puts his “stamp” on thru various techniques.).

There was a bit of a Tibetan Gypsy thing happening with some of the clothes and the fabrics included fabulous mixed prints and heavy woolens.  As usual, the coats stole the show and he continued with his fabulous legwear this time embellished with paillettes.

 All of the collection was embellished in some sort.  And this isn’t your “do it at home” type of embellishment.  Each and every piece had it’s own detailed design.  Coats were emblazoned with the silver paillettes and the patterns chosen were far from crafty.

The shoes were by Johnson’s friend, Jean Michel Cazabat, who has been collaborating with Johnson for all of his shows.

Velvet is definitely trending for Fall 2012 from all of the shows I have seen thus far.  I’m excited, I love the way velvet looks and I especially like a velvet suit.

The show also featured menswear which was a real treat.  The embellished trousers and baseball jackets were fun and fresh and made me smile. Actually, I was grinning from ear to ear the entire show it made me so happy.

I love Libertine’s concept toward fashion and I highly respect Johnson and his absolute disregard of all the fashion rules.  I wrote a great story on him and his brand a while back, check it out here if you haven’t already so you can learn more about his approach.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the show.  At the end, the models stormed the catwalk hooting, hollering and dancing…arm in arm.  It was the perfect ending to a delightful 10 minutes of fashion.

Be sure and check out the rest of the Fall 2012 collection here and stay tuned as I will get a closer look at the collection when I visit his studio in the coming weeks back in Los Angeles.

Stay tuned for more from NYFW…with all the shows to attend all over the city it is hard to get the posts in…but there will be more to come I promise!

In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter @theschereport to get minute by minute reporting of all the trends and all the happenings in real time!