On the fourth day of New York Fashion Week (Sept. 10), guests at designer Christian Siriano’s show were transported from ArtBeam Studio in Chelsea to the Italian Rivera courtesy of the citrus orange-stripe umbrellas dangling from the ceiling and the collection’s mix of bright stripes, sheer organza overlays, and woven raffia pieces.
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“I grew up with a mum who was a size 16, 18, so it wasn’t new to me to have a voluptuous woman in my life. I love her personally, I love creating looks for her”, he said. We open with Juliette Lewis, who is my friend, and her new song (“Hello Hero”), which I love. I just think it’s super important.
What Christian Siriano demonstrated with both of these eye-popping looks was that he can make real women, and not just glamazon models, look handsome and stylish for their everyday lives and special events. Near the end of the same month, Michelle Obama wore his dress to deliver her historic speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
The 28-year-old model and 41-year-old actress sat front row, along with actresses Pamela Anderson and Jaimie Alexander, as the 30-year-old designer sent his spring 2017 collection down the runway. I think it’s great that we’re just doing what we do-and then it turned into a thing. I don’t even think about it in the moment – I want to keep in mind to look back in 20 years that that was an fantastic collection, a great show, and a great moment. “Every now and then it’s nice to have someone like that just give you a little bit of a push that you need for the world to agree”. In particular, the design team was inspired by the lattice work in that country, using a vendor in Portugal to do laser cutting of fabrics.
The show featured a mix of off-the-shoulder dresses and separates in peek-a-boo fabrics, mixed media bra tops and slim pants – which were paired with edgy shoes, complete with ankle straps.
Siriano showed off several bold looks, including a tangerine-colored jumpsuit and a turquoise dress with cutouts and thigh-high slits.
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Christian cuts dresses halter style, goes strapless and has one-shoulder sexily peeking out while the other is covered, all incorporated into his Spring 2017 collection. It feels very easy, because now we make more sizes available-and we made samples ahead of time. For sunset, things got appropriately darker, with smoky blues and dusty denim. Tracy Reese featured models of different sizes, ages and races in her presentation, debuting her new “inclusive sizing” at the event.
