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The Jewish Chronicle

Just pay attention to detail…

May 3, 2012 12:57
Appliqué trim dress, £75, Warehouse

ByJan Shure, Jan Shure

2 min read

It is up for debate which designer (or duo in the case of Dolce & Gabbana) was the pioneer of the spring/summer 12 trend for intricate detail which pervaded so many catwalk collections and which has found its way onto the high street at twice the speed of sound.

Was it Mulberry's Christopher Bailey with his chunky tribal beading, Miuccia Prada with her jewel-encrusted collars, Giambattista Valli with his appliqué flowers, Marc Jacobs (in his Louis Vuitton collection) with his broderie anglaise collars, Stella McCartney and Christopher Kane with lace inlays, or the aforementioned Dolce & Gabbana with their lace panels dotted with applique flowers?

As so often in fashion, a coterie of designers seems, as if by magic, to send out a colour, a shape, a mood or - in this case - detailing which is then echoed on many other catwalks, making it difficult to pin the "first in show" rosette on any single designer.

It's not magic, of course; it's the fact that designers go to the same art exhibitions, see the same films and plays, scour the same grungy little vintage stalls in SoHo, Brick Lane and Porte de Montreuil, and - most of all – visit the same textile fairs where the colours, prints and textures on show determine what will appear on the catwalks 18 months later.