Vera Wang Spring 2019 RTW

Introduction

Fashion has been around for over 5000 years and it has drastically changed over time. One might think that fashion is always moving forward, however, that isn’t the case. Designers must go back in time and reevaluate the history of dress, and decipher whether or not there is a place in society for those historical style elements. Designers don’t copy history, but instead reinvent it and present a new and innovative collection with a splash of history. In the fashion industry, we must forecast trends by studying macrotrends and microtrends. A current microtrend is nostalgia, and designers like Jeremy Scott and Marc Jacobs have been incorporating this trend into their most recent runway shows. In Jeremy Scott’s Spring 2019 RTW collection, he used neon colors to execute the depiction of nostalgia, stemming from the early 2000s. Marc Jacobs' most recent runway show and ad campaigns are inspired by 90s grunge stemmed from innovation of nostalgia. Even though these trends are only dating back about ten or twenty years, some designers pull inspiration from different centuries. It’s important that we understand the history of fashion and how style has evolutionized over the years before we move forward in the design process.

Biography

Vera Wang, an American designer, is an icon in the fashion industry and is famous for her haute couture bridal gowns. After she graduated college, she took a job to work for Vogue Magazine. A year later, she was promoted to the position of senior fashion editor. Years later, she left the magazine to work for Ralph Lauren as the design director for accessories. In 1989, Vera got engaged and had a hard time finding a wedding dress. She sketched her own wedding dress design and hired a dressmaker to tailor this gown. Vera realized she had a talent and a passion for designing bridal gowns. She opened up her own bridal boutique, located on Madison Avenue in New York City. As well as her own designs, she sold evening dresses and bridal gowns by designers, Carolina Herrera and Christian Dior. As of today, her bridal gowns and evening wear are sold at 55 luxury retailers, such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. After becoming so successful in New York City, word spread to the west coast about her modern and elegant dresses. Celebrities started wearing her gowns to premiers and award ceremonies in Hollywood. Vera Wang was elected to become part of the exclusive CFDA, also known as the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In 2005, she received an award from the CFDA as the Womenswear Designer of the Year. Vera Wang has accomplished so much as a designer and at 69 years old, she is not slowing down anytime soon. With every jaw dropping collection she shows, people just want to see more. Vera is an icon in the fashion industry and her designs are just as extraordinary today as they were when she first started her own company.

Description of Collection

Collectively

Vera Wang has stayed true to her brand since day one. The majority of her collections have color schemes of black, navy, or nude tones. She never uses bright or vibrant hues and hardly ever uses patterns in her lines. This can be challenging competing against other eccentric designers, like Jeremy Scott or Alexander McQueen. The spectrum of creativity is a lot broader when you can experiment with different colors, textures, and patterns. Instead, Vera finds other ways to show creative and innovative designs by playing with proportions and silhouettes. In the Spring 2019 ready-to-wear collection, the color scheme mainly consisted of black, navy, white, and cream. Instead of Vera Wang showing this collection at a runway show, she styled and had her line photographed. When styling a show, you must first decide on what you want the collection to say. What emotions do you want to evoke from the viewer? During runway shows, the photographs are dynamic. The collection has movement and the fabrics are flowing. The images emphasize energy and life. Some designers, like Alberta Ferretti and Polo Ralph Lauren, decide to style and shoot their collections. Although, they aren’t walking the runway, designers till have the option to create a dynamic photograph. Vera Wang decided to do the opposite. Models stood in relatively the same position throughout the collection, looking directly at the camera with hands by their sides. A couple of models had different positions, but all the positions were static, as if they were statues in a museum. It makes you feel as if you are in a museum staring at works of art. The actual designs take you back in time.With the ruff collars and puffy sleeves, it takes you back to a time when Louis XIV was still reigning over France. Vera didn’t just look back at 17th century and emulate the exact style. It’s the 2019 Spring collection, it has to be new and innovative, even if it’s inspired by a piece of history. Even though the color scheme is simple, Vera Wang finds other ways of standing out as a designer, such as mixing different styles of dress together. She combines 90s grunge, 17th century dress, and styles from the Romantic period.

Individual Designs

This white and cream combo is simplistic yet decadent, casual yet dressy, masculine yet feminine. What looks like a semi-sheer lace skirt or babydoll dress is used as a cover up. This layered lace skirt is tied together with a structured white collar, giving the garment a finished look. This cover up is worn over a semi-sheer white dress shirt with extended sleeves and a pair of cream colored lace shorts. Although these shorts are actually high-waisted, adding the lacy cover up gives off the illusion that the torso is longer and these shorts look as if they sit low on the waist. In the 1920s, there was a shift in fashion and where the waistline sits. Instead of the waistline accentuating the waist, it moved down to the hips, giving off a boyish appearance. The silhouette of this outfit doesn’t shape the woman’s body, but instead it gives the model an emphasis of masculinity. By the 30s, the waistline migrated back up the body to the natural waistline. The low waistline trend came back in the early 2000s with low-rise jeans. Vera Wang loved to play with proportions in her collections, and she did this very thing throughout her entire line. She emphasizes the length of the legs by using tall platform heels with short hems. If you look only at the lace shorts, you’ll notice that these shorts aren’t that short. However, the length of the extended sleeves compared to the hem of the shorts makes the legs look incredibly long.

This jaw dropping strapless black gown is made out of a fabric with flower cut outs. This dress starts at the neckline and falls into a pool of fabric on the floor. It doesn’t come in at the waist or accentuate the natural body. The horizontal neckline is composed of solid black fabric that wraps around the arms. This gives the illusion that the model’s arms are strapped down by her side. This makes it a static design. The fabric is very feminine, elegant, and a little risqué. However, Vera added a small edgy detail into the design, tiny, silver rings. These tiny silver rings line the top of the neckline and two vertical lines of rings start on either side of the bust line and go down the bodice to the hem of the dress. The juxtaposition of the feminine elements and the edgy rings and styling of the models harmonizes together and creates a well executed Vera Wang design.

This navy lace dress is simple and very elegant. The short hem gives the look a sense of playfulness and edge. The sleeves of this dress are lace are extended past the hands. This is clearly a recurring theme throughout the collection. The small silver detailing on the sleeves are other little recurring details sprinkled throughout the line. The back of this dress is clearly inspired by 18th century dress. The robe a la francaise is gown worn by women and the back of the dress has large pleats that only attach at the shoulders and drape down the back. This creates fullness and volume to the backside. Although this Vera Wang design has a much shorter hemline, the same design technique from the 18th century was used.

Major and Minor Historical Influences

A haute couture collection is like a salad. Although this seems like a silly simile, let me explain. A salad isn’t made of just lettuce or just tomatoes, but instead there are large ingredients, smaller ingredients, and toppings. All of these ingredients balance each other out, just like a successful collection. This collection’s major theme dates back to the 17th century, when the Sun King was ruling France. Vera Wang paired style pieces from the 17th century with something a little more modern. This creates a juxtaposition between the garments, a contrast of the centuries of dress. All of the models were styled with the inspiration of 90s grunge. The models had piercings, tattoos, tousled hair, bleached eyebrows, and severe black eyeliner. This style completely contrasts to that of the 17th century. Women during that time period had not been exposed to makeup and bared natural faces.The ruff collar, a style piece from the 17th century, is a reoccurring accessory throughout the collection. This extravagant accessory is worn around the neck and most ruff collars completely cover the neck. These ruff collars come right up to the woman’s face. The style of the 90s hair and makeup located so closely to the ruff collar forces the viewer to acknowledge the juxtaposition of styles. Vera Wang found inspiration in excessive lace from 18th century fashion. Again, the exact style wasn’t brought back to the 21st century, but instead reinvented. Vera Wang favored the style of layering lace so she interpreted this trend and translated it into a design that fits in today’s modern collection. The wide V-neckline in the collection is inspired by the romantic period. Vera Wang pulled certain styles from more than one century for this collection. With the right measurement of ingredients, the collection harmonizes perfectly. There aren’t any themes that are too overpowering and there aren’t any styles that contrast with others in the wrong way. As a successful designer, you need to create variation in your collection, but also make sure everything is cohesive. Vera Wang executed this perfectly with her 25 designs in the Spring 2019 ready-to-wear collection.

Breaking Down the Elements of the Line

Ruffs are pleated collars that were worn from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century. Ruffs ranged in size, but some ruff collars were so big that they were worn with a supportasse. A supportasse is a supporting structure worn underneath the larger ruff collars. Women that wore ruff collars typically wore long gowns over vasquines.

However, Vera Wang’s Spring collection, isn’t like that. In this line, the ruffs vary in size, and color. Each design pairs this 16th century fashion accessory with a different style of clothing. This proves that this accessory isn’t only good with one style. This shows style fluidity and makes this piece a much larger theme. Vera experiments with these ruff garments by layering it and creating different textures, giving it a an aesthetically pleasing appearance. In this design, it’s hard to tell if the ruff collar is attached to the sheer top.

In some of her designs the ruff collar is separate from the actual garments, but there are also some garments with ruff collars. For example, this cream colored blouse was designed with an attached ruff collar. It’s the same color and fabric as the blouse. This ruff collar is different than the previous collar. The fabric gathers together at the center of the neck and the pleated fabric fans out cupping the face and also fans out in the opposite direction, towards the blouse.

Puffy sleeves are a broad category of style in the 17th century. Melon sleeves are large short sleeves with a lot of volume. These sleeves are usually trimmed with bands of satin ribbons and are usually lined in muslin. Virago sleeves are very voluminous sleeves that puff out and were typically paned. Vera Wang clearly found inspiration in puffy sleeves from the 17th century, even if they aren’t exactly like they were back in the day.

Vera compromised with 2019 fashion trends and decided deflated puffy sleeves were appropriate. These puffy sleeves are attached to the tailored blazer sleeve. The puffy sleeve wraps around the arm. This look is a hybrid of the puffy sleeve and a clean cut tailored look, creating a Vera Wang original design. Another notable historic influence in this outfit, is the wide v-neckline. The v-neckline is so wide it looks as if it’s going to slip off the shoulder. This neckline was very popular during the romantic period in the 1800s. Women, during this time period, wore gowns with a wide v-neckline to create a wider appearance in the shoulders. This was a simple design trick used to make a woman’s waist look small. The wide shoulders and the very full skirts made the waist seem even smaller, and gave the women curvy silhouettes. Although, the clothing from the romantic period and Vera Wang’s Spring collection are very different from each other, the silhouettes are very similar. Vera designed a tailored blazer with a wide v-neck. The blazer is tailored so that it fits to the natural curves of the body and this accentuates the waist.

A couple of outfits in this collection were inspired by the Victorian era. The Victorian era was from 1837-1901, when Queen Victoria took reign over the United Kingdom. In the 19th century, brocade was a popular fabric to use to make men and women’s garments. This Vera Wang design uses brocade shorts, peplums, and capelets to create a modern look inspired by the Victorian era. The tiny silver rings are small details found in the majority of the designs in the collection. This ties the whole collection together with an edge.

Victorian Era Dress Featuring Brocade Fabric

Over the years, the location of the waistline has always moved up and down the bodice. In the 1920s, for the first time, the waistline hung real low on the hips. This style didn’t accentuate the waistline like styles in the past. This gave a rectangular silhouette to the figure and it came off a little boyish. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the waistline disappeared entirely. Women wore short boxy dresses that showed off a lot of leg. The long gowns in the Vera Wang Spring 2019 ready-to-wear collection don’t have a waistline. The fabric is fitted around the shoulders and drapes down to a pool of fabric on the floor. It isn’t tailored to fit the body or highlight the small waist. The waistless style is slightly similar to that of the sixties. However, the Vera Wang gown is long and has an excess amount of fabric. The fullness of the bottom of the dress is similar to dresses in the 17th dress but without any boning structures, busks, petticoats, or stomachers underneath.

As mentioned previously, the robe a la francaise gown is a french style gown where the back of the dress has large pleats that attach only at the shoulders. The fabric drapes from the shoulders down to the floor. This french style from the 18th century is very similar to that in Vera Wang’s Spring 2019 ready-to-wear collection. Vera’s design is a modern twist of the design and it has a much shorter hemline. Lace was also very popular during the romantic period, so there is a connection in centuries of dress in this design.

As previously stated, excessive lace was popular in the 1800s. This was an extravagant time period where women style their gowns with bows, ribbons, and layering delicate lace fabrics. Some may say the romantic period was a peak in femininity. Excessive lace and layering lace fabrics were recurring themes throughout the collection.

Conclusion

Successful designers have a solid knowledge of history of fashion, art, culture, and architecture and study it on a daily basis. Observing the changes of fashion over time and the trends and patterns humans make when it comes to style is critical. Vera Wang created her brand in 1990 and she has managed to stay true to her brand while serving looks from the past and giving them a modern twist fit for fashion today.

References:

Shoukat, S. (2016). Now and Then: The Neckline History of Women. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences,26(2), 33-52. Retrieved December 6, 2018.

Fashion Has Been in Existence and Eminence for Over 5000 Years. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/document/4762325/Fashion-Has-Been-in-Existence-and-Eminence-for-Over-5000-Years

Vera Wang. (2014, April 02). Retrieved from https://www.biography.com/people/vera-wang-9542398

Vera Wangis One of the 500 People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry. (2015, September 14). Retrieved from https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/vera-wang

Sleeves. (n.d.). Retrieved December 6, 2018, from http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/European-Culture-16th-Century/Sleeves.html

Phelps, N. (2018, October 01). Vera Wang Spring 2019 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show. Retrieved December 6, 2018, from https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2019-ready-to-wear/vera-wang/slideshow/collection#24