Fashion Trends Spring Summer 2010

In days of yore, I used to trawl the internet, scour magazines and newspapers, watch TV programmes in a futile effort to collect all the latest fashion information for my clients and consultants. Even then, I still I found myself having to spend hours on the phone with a real expert trying to understand the pile of seemingly-contradictory data I’d collected.

I thank the heavens that I don’t have to do that anymore.

We now pay an expert to do all that work instead of me. What I found tedious (only because I didn’t understand it back then), she finds fascinating, inspirational and uplifting. And it’s so much better to do what you’re good at rather than do a half-hearted job.

Since we’ve been working together, I’ve learnt so much more about fashion and particularly about fabrics. Here’s one I’d never heard of before:

Tussah

Tussah is a wild-crafted organic silk, which makes it ethically sound and suitable for vegetarians. Tussah or wild silk worms live naturally in tropical or semi-tropical forests, and their silk cocoon is gathered after the moth has emerged. The caterpillars eat a variety of different trees, rich in tannin, that gives the silk a beige to brownish tone.

Tussah is generally stronger and more resilient than cultivated ‘white’ silk. It’s also less expensive and more commonly available.

Well, I thought I’d never heard of it; it’s also known as shantung.

Fabrics for Spring Summer 2010

Good grief! There’s all sorts out there:

webs with lacing, laddering, knotting and tying
toile
tweed sewn onto flouncy chiffon (I kid you not!)
lightweight silks
superfine leather

and so much more that my brain is reeling!