Photo: Indigital.tv1/18Christian Dior, Fall 1999 Haute CoutureStaged at L’Orangerie at Versailles, inspired by The Matrix, that amazing parachute cape closing look, and Puff Daddy in attendance (whose entourage meant it took like an hour to get out of the place): This was a microcosm of fashion—past, present, and future.
Photo: Indigital.tv2/18Olivier Theyskens, Spring 1999Incredibly cut black leather, masses of feathers, goth ball gowns, and hook-and-eye fastenings every which way—and all from a designer barely in his twenties.
Photo: Indigital.tv3/18Proenza Schouler, Spring 2016With this show, cool kids Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez became just as cool adults—and with a collectsion based on Spain, too, which elsewhere might have seemed like a hoary old concept, but here they turned it on its head and into something really fantastic. Got to love a show that makes the heart beat that little bit faster . . . and faster . . . and faster . . .
Photo: Indigital.tv4/18Alexander Wang, Fall 2012It has to be the mark of the über-confident showmanship of Alexander Wang that when you hire some of the biggest girls in the business to walk your runway—Natasha Poly, Frankie Rayder, Joan Smalls, Shalom freaking Harlow!—you semi-cover their famous visages. The collectsion was all about urban protection, so it made sense, though there was no denying the mask-less, stompingly super—in both senses of the word—Gisele Bündchen in the closing look.
Photo: Indigital.tv5/18Michael Kors, Spring 2017It’s hard to pick just one Michael Kors show, given his prodigious output over the years, but how could anyone who was there forget this? Not just the terrific, upbeat clothes and great casting—only at Michael’s shows do Taylor Hill, Marjan Jonkman, Romee Strijd, and Bella Hadid all somehow effortlessly coexist in the same universe—but Rufus Wainwright’s swing through the standards, set to a live orchestra, with its explicitly pro-Hillary finale, was a glorious gasp of optimism.
Photo: Indigital.tv6/18Sies Marjan, Fall 2016How else do you kick off the first season of the new American label Sies Marjan than stage its debut show in a gazillion-dollar penthouse apartment still under construction a two nanosecond stride from the World Trade Center? By filling, as designer Sander Lak did, the show with oversize tops cascading with ruffles, archival club-kid jacquard for slim coats and crop pants, and floral dresses inspired by “sh$tty” (his word) nylon shower curtains. Not that you knew from the collectsion: Even when Lak went low, he went high.
Photo: firstVIEW7/18Versace, Spring 1998The emotional experience of Donatella’s first Versace collectsion after Gianni’s death, and my very first time ever seeing a Versace show, have imprinted this on my memory.
Photo: Indigital.tv8/18Maison Margiela, Fall 2016 Haute CoutureThis, for me, was when John Galliano really took tenancy of Maison Margiela. The Empress Joséphine empire dress with the biker jacket sleeves exemplifies his brilliance.
Photo: Indigital.tv9/18Alexander McQueen, Spring 1995I somehow managed to get a seat at this show, held at Bagley’s warehouse in (then) super seedy King’s Cross. There were bumsters, black contact lenses, tailoring that looked like it had been done with a particularly sharp, bloody razor, and a thrilling, terrifying soundtrack. Unforgettable.
Photo: REX10/18Helmut Lang, Fall 2000I’d already seen his shows in Paris and New York, but this one happened just a few months after I’d moved to America, and it was everything I could ever want from Helmut Lang, who I miss so much, and from New York.
Photo: Indigital.tv11/18Saint Laurent, Fall 2013Just when you thought that Marc Jacobs at Perry Ellis owned the whole notion of grunge on the runway, along came Hedi Slimane with his full-on clash between the legacy of YSL and gloriously downbeat Seattle.
Photo: Indigital.tv12/18Balenciaga, Fall 2016I think everyone was on the edge of their seats that Sunday morning in Paris to see if Demna Gvasalia could do it. And did he? Like a million times over.
Photo: Indigital.tv13/18Dries Van Noten, Spring 2013Another runway take on grunge, but one more romantic than rock—and proof that Dries can make whatever he does achingly poetic and beautiful.
Photo: Indigital.tv14/18Rick Owens, Spring 2014Yes, the presentation made for an absolutely thrilling spectacle—the collectsion was shown on stepping troupes from America—but its impact also came from its proud and powerful political and cultural statements on race and gender. I don’t think I stopped talking about that show the entire rest of Paris, much to the chagrin of my colleagues, who hadn’t been able to make it.
Photo: Indigital.tv15/18Anthony Vaccarello, Spring 2012Until then, Anthony had been showing a handful of looks in tiny galleries and up rickety staircases, and then out of nowhere came this—his now trademark hardcore, cut-up-to-here, cut-down-to-there silhouettes, major major girls, and a sense of polished, confident, sit-up-and-pay-attention showmanship. It was one of those quantum leaps you always hope young designers will make. And he did.
Photo: Indigital.tv16/18Christopher Kane, Spring 2012Such a thing of light and beauty and modernity marching forward—and for a Brit like me who’d been in New York over a decade by that point, the heartening sight of seeing St. Paul’s Cathedral aglow through the window at the very end of runway. I also remember the entire audience Shazam-ing the soundtrack, which was Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games.” The then prime minister’s wife, Samantha Cameron, asked Anna what it was, and I was dispatched across the runway to tell her. So if it’s on Samantha Cameron’s iTunes, you’ll know why.
Photo: Indigital.tv17/18Altuzarra, Fall 2011We hope some younger, newer designers can do it, make good on the promise, and then lo and behold, one season, they really do. For Joseph Altuzarra, it was this collectsion. The desire for those parkas was palpable.
Photo: Indigital.tv18/18Jil Sander, Spring 2011I’d just started doing the Milan shows again—I hadn’t been to the city for, oh, maybe eight years by that point—and was curious to see if it had changed in any way. I was ecstatic to be back after this. The way Raf Simons pushed color, volume, elegance to the absolute limit—it was as ballsy as it was beautiful. Plus, did a white T-shirt ever look better? No, it did not.
