A fresh start with summer white

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LONDON 'It's all about innocence and hope - starting in a new way and designing on a new page," says Rolf Snoeren. The Dutch designer, half of a fashion duo with Viktor Horsting, was not talking about the new Viktor & Rolf project with the fast- fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz, in which the design duo will follow in the footsteps of Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney to produce an affordable, one-off H&M collection in the autumn.

He was referring to white: the color that is sweeping summer fashion like the surf on a wave.

If the fashion crowd once resembled sinister black crows circling a funeral, this summer it looks like wedding belles. Every kind of garment is subjected to the white-out, from crisply tailored pantsuits to the puff-sleeved empire dresses of Jane Austen or Napoleon's Josephine.

White is viewed as a fashion complement to black, since the two colors represent negative and positive. Viktor & Rolf proved that when in 2001 they showed a "Black Hole" collection, in which skin, clothes and accessories on the runway were all black, as if in a photo negative, followed by an all-white show of freshness and innocence.

The avant-garde designers also helped stage "Colors," one of fashion's most gripping recent exhibitions when it debuted in Japan in 2004. In that show of clothes from the Kyoto Costume Institute, black, red, blue and white were all represented with an individual aura.

"We always find it very difficult to work with color - we have to force ourselves - but black and white are very functional," says Snoeren. The design duo's most memorable treatment of white was a multi-collared shirt on a model with the alabaster white coloring of the actress Tilda Swinton.

Designers as varied as Valentino - who came to international fame with an all-white collection in 1967 - and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons have chosen a blank canvas. But why is white such an all-around influence for summer 2007?

After a Bohemian Rhapsody of bright swirling pattern and Indian embroidery, white has a purity and a calming effect. It also makes a sweet contrast to the surfeit of bubble-gum pink and frills.

The Young Japanese designer Tao Kurihara has used white handkerchiefs (a symbol of innocent femininity and grace before Kleenex took over), to create lacy dresses and even delicate trench coats.

Lace and broderie anglaise are favored fabrics, with Chloé creating in crusty guipure lace a childlike smock (as seen on Kylie Minogue) that is one of the most sought-after dresses of the season. A certain stiffness and "body" in the fabric gives a geometric and sculptural look to eyelet dresses at MiuMiu.

A more girlish look is based on the puff- sleeved empire dresses that were considered anything but pure in their original Directoire days. The neo-Classical garments in Jacques- Louis David's post-revolutionary portraits were sensual and erotic with their draped, transparent bodices barely veiling the breasts.

One critic even found a culprit to blame for the flimsy muslin dresses, according to Aileen Ribeiro, author of "Dress and Morality."

"It cannot be doubted that the immodesty of our women is to be attributed to the immodesty of our statues," said Louis-Sébastien Mercier, who urged the authorities at the time to "deposit in your museums these lascivious Venuses."

Today we are as unlikely to be shocked by a see-through dress as by a semi-nude marble statue. Yet the current fashion status of black as a symbol of elegance against white as motif of innocence is a recent phenomenon. Black was converted into a stylish look from mourning garments and widows weeds only in the 1920s, when Coco Chanel invented the Little Black Dress.

White had long been accepted as a chaste shade for christenings and weddings and was taken up by fashion in the Belle Époque era to lighten up the heavy, mourning black of the Victorians. Yet in the language of clothes, the origins of white are complex. It was once also a funeral color - and still is in the Far East and in India. For 400 years in the West, white was seen as appropriate for mourning, from Mary Queen of Scots in her "deuil blanc" (or "white mourning") in 1559 to England's Queen Elizabeth in the 1930s, when she went on a state visit to France immediately after the death of her mother.

Designers also see white, in its nuances of fabric and texture, as if it were a color. What lush black and mat-wool serge are to varied shades of black, so is white satin to cotton piqué. Or as Snoeren says: "It is such a difference working in white cotton or white crepe."

Now that a May morning is as likely to dawn on an urban sprawl as on a daisy-strewn garden, another fashion factor comes into play. White also symbolizes luxury and wealth - particularly the tailored pantsuits that have spelled jet- set glamour ever since Bianca Jagger wed in a white tuxedo. Sallying forth in a city in all- white, except for the obligatory dark sunglasses, shouts "wealth" - not least because the pristine freshness rarely survives three dry cleanings and a white leather bag is soiled with its first stain.

Yet one simple garment guards its freshness: the men's white shirt that remains an eternal symbol of innocent elegance in the female wardrobe as currently seen in the windows at the Gap.

LONDON 'It's all about innocence and hope - starting in a new way and designing on a new page," says Rolf Snoeren. The Dutch designer, half of a fashion duo with Viktor Horsting, was not talking about the new Viktor & Rolf project with the fast- fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz, in which the design duo will follow in the footsteps of Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney to produce an affordable, one-off H&M collection in the autumn.

He was referring to white: the color that is sweeping summer fashion like the surf on a wave.

If the fashion crowd once resembled sinister black crows circling a funeral, this summer it looks like wedding belles. Every kind of garment is subjected to the white-out, from crisply tailored pantsuits to the puff-sleeved empire dresses of Jane Austen or Napoleon's Josephine.

White is viewed as a fashion complement to black, since the two colors represent negative and positive. Viktor & Rolf proved that when in 2001 they showed a "Black Hole" collection, in which skin, clothes and accessories on the runway were all black, as if in a photo negative, followed by an all-white show of freshness and innocence.

The avant-garde designers also helped stage "Colors," one of fashion's most gripping recent exhibitions when it debuted in Japan in 2004. In that show of clothes from the Kyoto Costume Institute, black, red, blue and white were all represented with an individual aura.

"We always find it very difficult to work with color - we have to force ourselves - but black and white are very functional," says Snoeren. The design duo's most memorable treatment of white was a multi-collared shirt on a model with the alabaster white coloring of the actress Tilda Swinton.

Designers as varied as Valentino - who came to international fame with an all-white collection in 1967 - and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons have chosen a blank canvas. But why is white such an all-around influence for summer 2007?

After a Bohemian Rhapsody of bright swirling pattern and Indian embroidery, white has a purity and a calming effect. It also makes a sweet contrast to the surfeit of bubble-gum pink and frills.

The Young Japanese designer Tao Kurihara has used white handkerchiefs (a symbol of innocent femininity and grace before Kleenex took over), to create lacy dresses and even delicate trench coats.

Lace and broderie anglaise are favored fabrics, with Chloé creating in crusty guipure lace a childlike smock (as seen on Kylie Minogue) that is one of the most sought-after dresses of the season. A certain stiffness and "body" in the fabric gives a geometric and sculptural look to eyelet dresses at MiuMiu.

A more girlish look is based on the puff- sleeved empire dresses that were considered anything but pure in their original Directoire days. The neo-Classical garments in Jacques- Louis David's post-revolutionary portraits were sensual and erotic with their draped, transparent bodices barely veiling the breasts.

One critic even found a culprit to blame for the flimsy muslin dresses, according to Aileen Ribeiro, author of "Dress and Morality."

"It cannot be doubted that the immodesty of our women is to be attributed to the immodesty of our statues," said Louis-Sébastien Mercier, who urged the authorities at the time to "deposit in your museums these lascivious Venuses."

Today we are as unlikely to be shocked by a see-through dress as by a semi-nude marble statue. Yet the current fashion status of black as a symbol of elegance against white as motif of innocence is a recent phenomenon. Black was converted into a stylish look from mourning garments and widows weeds only in the 1920s, when Coco Chanel invented the Little Black Dress.

White had long been accepted as a chaste shade for christenings and weddings and was taken up by fashion in the Belle Époque era to lighten up the heavy, mourning black of the Victorians. Yet in the language of clothes, the origins of white are complex. It was once also a funeral color - and still is in the Far East and in India. For 400 years in the West, white was seen as appropriate for mourning, from Mary Queen of Scots in her "deuil blanc" (or "white mourning") in 1559 to England's Queen Elizabeth in the 1930s, when she went on a state visit to France immediately after the death of her mother.

Designers also see white, in its nuances of fabric and texture, as if it were a color. What lush black and mat-wool serge are to varied shades of black, so is white satin to cotton piqué. Or as Snoeren says: "It is such a difference working in white cotton or white crepe."

Now that a May morning is as likely to dawn on an urban sprawl as on a daisy-strewn garden, another fashion factor comes into play. White also symbolizes luxury and wealth - particularly the tailored pantsuits that have spelled jet- set glamour ever since Bianca Jagger wed in a white tuxedo. Sallying forth in a city in all- white, except for the obligatory dark sunglasses, shouts "wealth" - not least because the pristine freshness rarely survives three dry cleanings and a white leather bag is soiled with its first stain.

Yet one simple garment guards its freshness: the men's white shirt that remains an eternal symbol of innocent elegance in the female wardrobe as currently seen in the windows at the Gap.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/15/style/Fwhite.php

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