What you see is not what you get

Last week I wrote about Net a Porter's decision to sell two dresses from the previous day's Halston show on its site.

Cathy Horyn, the New York Times' fashion writer decided to order a dress having actually seen the show. And here's what happened:

The dress arrived Wednesday afternoon at the office. The delay didn’t really bother me. What’s one day compared to waiting five or six months, as you normally would for a fall 2008 dress. But I was disappointed with the dress. Although Net-a-Porter had clearly described the dress as wool jersey, I had seen the style in the show—and it was in sleek silk satin and a warmer tone. Further, the dress didn’t seem to be worth $1,495. Unlike the thousands of women who logged into Net-a-Porter, I had had the advantage of seeing the collection in the studio and on the runway, and the clothes had seemed more substantial to me. I was also having trouble seeing what distinguished this wool jersey dress from another designer make, and, frankly, I had been seduced by the silk version on the runway. It looked cooler. Also, the dress didn’t fit—that was my fault. I should have gone for the 42—or, anyway, something smaller. I looked a little schlumpfy, if you know what I mean.

The Halston’s wool jersey dress that Ms. Horyn ordered, size 44, from Net-a-porter. (Evan Sung for The New York Times)

Was this a case of bait and switch? Was the wool jersey shirt dress part of the runway collection or was it a so-called commercial look done specially for Net-a-Porter’s Halston sale?

A day or so later, I learned that the wool jersey dress was supposed to be on the runway—it’s listed, in fact, on the run-of-show—but at the last minute Marco Zanini, the Halston designer, had pulled it and substituted the satin shirt-dress. Zanini told me yesterday that he had switched dresses because there was already a lot of wool jersey on the runway—one of the long, draw-string evening dresses is in the same fabric, as is a teal gown.

what was on the runway

I also telephoned Bonnie Takhar, the chief executive of Halston, and shared my consumerist misgivings about the dress. She was concerned. She said the dress came from the same factory that had made the samples, so the quality should be identical. (Neither Takhar nor Massenet will say how large the initial Net-a-Porter was, but production and delivery of the garments from the factory took about 30 days, which Takhar said was normal.)

Anyway, I said to Takhar that, apart from the size, maybe the problem was the dress didn’t seem in the same stylish company as the other runway pieces, and not as flattering (to my eye) as the satin shirt dress. Obviously it would have helped if BOTH styles, the low-back draped shift and the jersey shirt dress, had been on the runway, given all the ballyhoo about the runway-to-consumer concept. Takhar agreed. She then offered to have my dress styled as it would have appeared on the runway.

Which Zanini did yesterday, using a size-44 model and pairing the dress with a sleeveless cashmere turtleneck and high suede boots. In Halston’s defense, it looked great—and better, I think, without the sash belt that comes with each dress. Net-a-Porter has sold out of the brown shirt dress, though it still has a size left in the teal, and Massenet told me last Friday that she had not heard any displeasure from customers.

Camel toe

Camel toe is the phrase which describes the phenomenon pictured above, in which an outfit is too tight in an area where you really would not like it to be too tight.

What women want

Twenty-four hours after the Halston AW08 show in New York, this brown jersey below- the-knee shirt dress has sold out on Net a Porter. Style.com is sniffy:

But overall, the collection left you wanting more. More of Halston's double-face cashmere coats, yes, but also more of a sense of how Zanini will take the label forward. The unstructured evening gowns he showed today won't cut it.

And yet the dress is sold-out. Do the fashion press ever wonder why?

I had a sneak preview today of the Ossie Clark relaunch collection which will show at London Fashion Week on Monday, and about which I will have much, much more to say.

Avsh Alom Gur, OC's creative director, says yes, he can make me a couture dress, but can it wait till Tuesday?

Halston

Jess Cartner-Morley writes:

Halston's original success was in being at the forefront of a defining moment in style. In the early 1970s, his clean, unadulterated lines, free of unnecessary seaming and embellishment, cut a glamorous swath through a world growing bored with patchwork, beading and tiered skirts. That kind of fashion moment is impossible to reproduce, but what Zanini, Weinstein et al are hoping to recapture is the spirit the brand came to personify: cool, urban, glamorous and decadent.

Zanini's new Halston may come as a surprise to those who associate Studio 54 with disco balls and Lurex. Eveningwear was simple and sculptural, in floorlength draped jersey with bare shoulders or a low cowl neck; high-waisted trousers and crepe-de-chine blouses for day were demure and elegant. Minnelli proclaimed it "wonderful, sensual, and chic".

Just one day after the show, two of the outfits - including a teal blue shirt dress which brings back to life the spirit of Halston's 1972 classic Ultrasuede shirt dress - are available to buy today on Net a porter a full six months from the time any of the other outfits in the show, or indeed any of the other outfits at New York fashion week, will go on sale.

In the world of designer fashion, which still operates on a six-month time-lag between catwalk and store, this is a groundbreaking move. It is the first attempt by a designer label to combat a serious problem faced by the designer clothing industry: high street labels have recently become able to sell cheaper versions of the trends launched on designer catwalks during the six-month gap between the catwalk show and the designer collection going on sale. In effect, a designer can start a trend, only to find that by the time the real thing hits stores, the high street has milked the look for all it is worth.

Desperately seeking vintage

For the past couple of months I have been working an on-going piece about the revival of the Ossie Clark label. The Observer today looks not only at the revival of Ossie Clark but his American counterpart, Halston.

While tycoon Marc Worth, founder of fashion information business WGSN, has funded the Ossie Clark London revival which kicks off on 11 February with a show at London's Serpentine Gallery, the team behind Halston is far more glitzy. Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's Weinstein Company (TWC) bought the brand in a deal with private equity firm Hilco Consumer Capital, and Tamara Mellon, founder of the Jimmy Choo shoe empire, will oversee the relaunch, which starts with a show in New York on 4 February. Mellon will be helped by, among others, Hollywood stylist Rachel Zoe, who has dressed actresses including Demi Moore and Cameron Diaz. Jude Law is rumoured to be playing Halston in a forthcoming biopic produced by the company.

Halston with party girls

She goes on to explain why two defunct labels should be revived:

Sienna Miller in vintage Ossie Clark

The A-list interest in two labels from a bygone era is due to fashion's obsession with vintage clothing. Auction houses report sale prices of designer vintage have more than quadrupled in the past five years, and stores as diverse as high-street favourite Topshop and London's designer emporium Dover Street Market do a roaring trade in vintage clothing. Steven Philip, co-owner of London's top vintage boutique Rellik, said: 'Both labels spanned culture in a way that nothing has since. It's difficult to find another label that is associated with celebrities, clubs and music. Halston and Ossie conquered all three.' That affiliation endures today because stars who epitomise those values wear the labels. Kate Moss, Sienna Miller and Jennifer Anniston are regularly photographed in vintage clothes from these designers.

I don't know much about Halston, but having examined several Ossie Clark originals in the Islington atelier, what is evident is that they were designed by a man who knew something about the shape of a woman's body.