Working my fingers to bone trying to a get a look at what all the designers showed in New York Fashion Week earlier this month. Gearing up for Seattle Fashion week and anticipating my attendance at Green Fashion Week .

I have long waited to learn of the scene in Seattle and experience hands on involvement with the industry. Checked out the Thread Show, had a blast there wandering around the large warehouse splayed out with local designers selling their best creations for discount prices. This event being a good kick off to get me in the mood to dabble in Fashion Week activities and to get motivated to seek out, as I said earlier, everything I can find of New York Fashion Week so I can’t get a glimpse without actually having been there.

Yesterday I spent several hours going through images of multiple designers runway shows for their Spring 2008 collections. I took a peak at Adidas by Stella McCartney, browsed Allegra Hicks, went through Aquascutum and really enjoyed the preview of their Spring 2008 line. Bright colors paired in very mix-matchy but effective combinations, interesting patterns and cuts that make my mind wander several decades back. Great skirts with trenches and spring jackets. Enjoyed the sneak peak here.

Also cruised through Armand Basi, and Ashley Isham who’s line included a lot of really great white and black combos with city shorts, jackets, belts, pencil skirts and some really amazing dresses. Sort or reminds me of foil post-its (if they had those) hanging off a skirt by one corner and sticking out at every angle through the entire length of a floor length mermaid skirt. Her website is well worth looking at . . . excellent web design as well, but definitely check out her creations as she has some very beautiful design work. Fab silhouettes. Femine. Excellent production.

Took a look at Eley Kishimoto, also Gareth Pugh, House of Holland, Julian MacDonald, Noki, Oscar de La Renta, Vera Wang and a whole slew more. Let’s see there was Basso and Brooke, Christopher Kane, no website for him, but you can check out the same line I was looking at here at Elle. I viewed a good 40 designers in my look-through yesterday so needless to say I was a busy girl, thus the multitude of hours spent looking at my monitor.

40 designers and hours spent looking at images from some very amazing shows, and I still managed to come up with two favorites. I saw a lot of things I liked in every designer. Really love the use of bright colors, high waists, trenches, short skirts, vests, belts, excellent patterns and fabrics this year, but in these two (and this is why I choose them) I found that every piece I loved as equally as the next and had no favorites through the entire line. Which means to me that the entire line was rockin’.

So my favorites:

L.A.M.B. The website doesn’t do what I saw, and loved, in the Spring line justice, but there are still some really great Ready-To-Wear pieces.

The fun doesn’t stop here however because next I checked out BCBG and again fell in love with everything I saw, which is why it is my other favorite. Again considering that the website although still filled with great designs is nothing compared to what was put out on runway.

So there it is. Spring 2008 and two lines that I highly appreciate and know I will be viewing the images of for some time.

Erwin Blumenfeld was born in Berlin in 1897. Amoung his great accomplishments are his first photographs taken at age 11, his 1st ever photo exhibition which took place in Paris during 1936, his having been subject to life in a French concentration camp, his surviving ‘camp’ life and immigration to the US in 1941, and of course his many years and wonderful work for Life Magazine, Harper’s Bazzar, and Vogue.

Erwin’s first photography may have been at age 11, but his career as a commercial fashion photographer started at age 41, before that, during WW2 he was an ambulance driver. He surely is known to have become one of the greatest and most influentional photographers of his time. And it is said that Erwin’s work not only appeared on nearly every magazine cover in the 1940’s & 50’s but he is still considered ‘one of the most influencial & copied photographers of the 20th century’.

It was after Erwin’s arrival to the US in 1941 when his career really took flight and Erwin became the highest paid freelance photographer in New York City. He greatly enjoyed many areas of photography, but his far most favorite area was the photography of women which he was very successful in. “How seriously I take beauty! All my portraits reflect my vision. . .”

Erwin used techniques such as multiple exposure & solarisation in the darkroom to create his soon to be a widly adopted and what some said to be a revolutionary style. He said of his images ” . . . my aim was to shake loose the unreal from the real . . . every magazine page is seen by millions . . . we are responsible for the tastes of tomorrow . . . every page has to have it’s own face, it’s own spirit, to catch millions of eyes . . .”

Sadly Erwin died while in Rome in 1969 after 61 years of photography, but thanks to my favorite thing (the internet) you can find quite a collection of his images online to view. Yeah to Erwin!

Four years ago when I was introduced to D Squared I placed this line at the top of my list and in good loyalty they remain. They continue to manipulate color and fabric to please the eye. For something new visit D Squared. To see what got me hooked . . .

A deep love for Helmut Lang

Hmmmm, simple yet flashy at the same time. Very basic cuts and styles, but with foil fabric? Interesting. Helmet Lang is surely trying something new here. He is livening up his already bright fun colors with a bit of a psychedelic flare-ultra shiny fabrics. I like that he keeps cuts simple and clean, and adds just a touch of flare but not too much.