A/W 2009 : The Rising Stars

With her fashion pedigree, her father is Yohji Yamamoto, Limi Yamamoto's collection, which debuted for s/s08, was perhaps always destined to go stellar, but designer genes don’t always a designer make. Luckily in this case she had the talent to back up her credentials. Her first collection was a symphony of volume, layering, asymmetry, oversized shirts and baggy trousers, plus an oh-so-Japanese love affair with monochromatic palettes. Feu means fire, and fire, as well as a rock attitude is in her work. For her s/s09 collection she showcased great tailoring, louche jackets, oversized military feel shirts, feminine skirt suits, shrunken biker jackets, as well as silk chiffon twenties feel dresses, and organza ruffle tutu skirts. Limi looks set to create as much a following as her father did before her, a Yamamoto for the 21st century.

The former designer at Nina Ricci, Chloé, and Chanel, Anne Valerie Hash debuted her first ready to wear collection in Paris in 2001, six years after launching a small bridal business. Her signature collection of hand-made and ready to wear pieces was inspired by a 14 year old Parisien muse. Her look is boy meets girl, lace, tulle and ruffles but deconstructed. Hash has kept her operation relatively small scale, her clients, women in their late twenties to forties, come to her mostly for wedding dresses and smoking jackets. Her s/s09 collection focused on ten looks, featuring drop-crotch pants and tuxedo jackets with her signature Edwardiana set-in sleeves and details like jet-encrusted reveres plus multi-flounced chiffon and lace dance skirts. Her masculine-feminine aesthetic—that’s much more girlie these days - has cultivated a loyal following globally.

The organic collection from NY based designer John Patrick – is one of the few but increasing organic or sustainable lines currently winning acclaim from the mainstream fashion industry.
Patrick who lives and works out of a borrowed old carriage house in Brooklyn New York, was raised macrobiotic and grew up soaking up the cultural revolution of the 1960s. He lived on a commune on the Hudson River in the early 1970s and was inspired to become a designer by reading about Halston and leafing through W magazine. He started in fashion in the 1970s running a little thrift store, selling, literally the clothes off his own back. Then in 1982 Patrick designed his first hat collection and Barneys snapped it up. In his own words, he “spent the next 20 years figuring out how to make clothing.” Patrick has come a long way from making shirts from organic bed sheets when he couldn’t find organic shirting, and now with his John Patrick Organic line launched in 2007 is one of the leaders and innovators of the ethical fashion movement. ‘American Gothic’ was the inspiration behind John Patrick’s s/s 09 prairie-chic collection, which worked a sophisticated but playful vibe with light cotton blazers, charming floral tops and shorts. Next up, a beach collection called Organic Playa

A graduate of London’s Central St Martins, Tao Kurihara, emerged from working behind the scenes for Comme des Garcon, eight years under the wing of Junya Watanabe and three years of heading up the TRICOT line to launch her mini debut collection in 2006 – albeit under the umbrella of the Rei Kawakubo’s famed fashion house. Her first simple, yet perfectly conceived collection, was inspired by hankerchiefs - pieced together into trenches and simple sweet tees - and certainly impressed the fashion press. Her line developed into more conceptual collections – often centred around or including ruffle front white shirts, but all ingenious and often otherworldly and poetic. Her signatures are sculptural shapes, romanticism and a love of layering. Her silhouette is distinctive – a busy cropped jacket or puffed out sleeves will be teamed with a stunted bottom half. And just when you think her collections are verging on austere, she will suddenly punctuate a look with girlish florals or bright hues, just when you least expect it.

Scott Sternberg, a former Hollywood agent founded his company Band of Outsiders in 2004, and started his foray into fashion by re-working vintage fabrics into classic menswear with shrunken proportions and hand-sewn seam details. Barneys was an early adopter of the collection, while actor Jason Schwartzmann modelled it, and from there Sternberg grew the collection to include a womenswear range, entitled Boy. Think low key, androgenous, tomboy meets schoolgirl, just the right clothes for downtown New Yorkers and hipsters the world over. In Scott’s own words, “Boy is about interpreting men's stuff for women. And the core of it is taking these traditionally maybe Nantucket-y, stuck-up, East Coast, hideous sort of cliché clothes and trying to make them really easy and cool.” Sternberg was a CFDA Fashion Fund nominee and in 2008 won the Swarovski Award for Menswear at the CFDA Fashion Awards. With a discerning marketing mind and eye for garnering hip celebrity support - he cast Michelle Williams to front his a/w 08 collection and Kirsten Dunst modelled his clothes in both the s/s09 lookbook and a video installation.

You can’t have failed to hear Jason Wu’s name this year, mostly thanks to dressing the new First Lady Michelle Obama at the Inauguration Ball in January 2009. Jason was responsible for Mrs O’s white, petal covered, one-shoulder gown which instantly propelled Wu’s label in to the fashion stratosphere. Surely no better ambassador for a 26-year-old designer who’s label is only 3 years old.
Jason grew up in Taipei, Taiwan where his mother noted his love for sketching gowns and would take him to the windows of bridal stores for inspiration. The family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, when Wu was nine, and he began experimenting with fashion by using dolls as mannequins. He maintained his hobby until hitting New York’s famed Parson’s School where he left before graduating to intern for Narciso Rodriguez, coincidentally also a favourite of Michelle Obama. After starting up his own label with family help in 2006, Wu has quickly become a fashion favourite. It was while stocked in influential Chicago boutique Ikram his lady-like Park Avenue princess designs came to the First Lady's attention, but even after hand-delivering gowns he didn’t know if his dress would be chosen. He commented: “I was over the moon. I know I am an unusual choice for a first lady. I didn’t think it was my turn yet.”