Good Girls vs. Bad Girls: The Black Backlash

 

FW09 was the season of the Bad Girl, epitomized by Balmain’s super-short mini dresses and edgy shoulders. Nowadays, the masses are sporting studs, metal hardware, chunky black boots, etc. It’s an overall hardcore look that’s available to purchase everywhere from Barneys to Forever 21. So naturally it’s time for a black backlash.However, there are still a few designers dedicated to the most versatile shade in the world.

Bad Girls

Some designers, however, are sticking with naughty instead of nice. departed from his relaxed sporty aesthetic to something hard, black, and all business. Altazurra was all edge, as was Donna Karan, and Louise Goldin

 
Going Bad

Some designers known for their sweetness chose FW10 as the season to break away. and most successfully all strayed from their good-girl, pretty-dress image to something conceptual, grunge, and rebellious.

 
Good Girls

In New York, the fade to white was most obvious, where no color darker than gray appeared on the runway. spring have evolved, or devolved, to the Marc Jacobs wallflowers of yore. The flat shoes, ankle socks, big cardigans, and pastel long dresses all read perfectly demure, not a touch of sin or mischief. All I could think of were some of Marc’s earliest ads featuring Sofia Coppola hunched over a giant perfume bottle at the edge of a pool: beautiful, a little awkward, mysterious, and strangely sexy in a natural way.

Little Bit of Both

Straddling the line are and Christopher Kane. Tell, illustrating the trend towards lights, showed a collection that moved through the color wheel, from black to white via blue. And not wholly abandoning his Lolita of last season, chose black leather (the naughtiest of all), but adorned it with the girliest of embroidered flowers.