Kansas City Street Fashion -- Week of May 18

Fashion in Motion

The other night I had so much fun attending another Fashion in Motion event at the V&A.  The runway show was put on by fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto.  I had never heard of him before, and I'm not particularly familiar with Japanese fashion.  But I thought it would be neat to check out something new.

The show began with techo-like music in the background with a live flute playing and the fashion designer himself doing a mixture of living singing and chanting.  All the while models walked down the runway, expressionless.  The effect was haunting.

Midway through the show, the above model walked out, slowly dancing.  She stopped at the end of the catwalk and danced languidly for two or three minutes, while models continued coming up and down the runway.  The music became quieter and all the attention was on the dancing model.

 

When the model stopped dancing, there was an outburst of cheerful music and models began coming down the runway skipping, doing cartwheels and dancing happily.  The colorful clothes mixing with references to traditional Japanese clothes heightened the effect.

I particularly liked the above dress from Yamamoto's collection.  One of the first types of art I fell in love with was Japanese woodblock printing at the Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., and I loved seeing Yamamoto's references to artists such as Hasui and Hiroshige as seen in the above dress.

Hello, Jenny Packham!

I pretty much died and went to heaven last Friday evening.  I was beyond fortunate to attend the Jenny Packham fashion show at the V&A.  The show took place in the room that houses the sweeping paintings of Raphael.  Beneath these grand pieces of art, Jenny Packham's glittery, diaphanous designs came down the catwalk.  The intricacy of the dresses' beading against the gossamer fabrics was really something to behold in person.  I'm officially hooked on fashion shows.

Holy heavens, I couldn't get enough of the these cheeky fascinators the museum volunteers wore!

Blair wore it first: Leighton Meester wore this dress on an episode of Gossip Girl.

Does this look familiar?  While Kate Middleton did not wear this specific dress, she did wear a dress made out of this fabric while she was on the 2011 Royal Tour of North America.

Golden Globes alert!  Sandra Bullock wore this dress to the 2011 Golden Globes.

Fit for a Duchess!  Kate Middleton wore this dress shortly after her wedding to the ARK Gala.

The models were so young, tall and willowy.  I met this model after the show.  We talked for a bit, and I was taken by how sweet, radiant and poised she was.  This picture does not do her justice!