Our high fashion stories of 2014

it is been a 12 months full of almost-fashionable wearables, bizarre underwear, and completely tailor-made jeans.

2014 was once somewhat the yr for fashion. It was a 12 months through which style designers ultimately seemed poised to break into the wearable technology market—albeit a little bit clumsily. It used to be a yr wherein iconic early 2000s brands like Juicy Couture and Crocs stumbled mightily, and perfectly tailor-made denims and bras came within the grasp of the common woman, with a little help from big information. It used to be a 12 months during which U.S. Olympic uniforms revealed general design flaws, comfortable garb changed into a posture corrector, and a T-shirt fashion designer used comic Sans to larger effect than possibly ever earlier than. this is a look back at some of our most popular fashion stories of the year.

model Designers Are at last Getting fascinated by Wearable gadgets the main difficulty facing wearables at the moment is, no person in fact desires to wear them. no one desires to look like a glass-gap. however with fashion designers like Tory Burch and Opening Ceremony making their approach into the wearables space, there may finally be a purpose to slap on an task tracker—because it appears to be like nice.

…except for They have not somewhat Nailed It but When intrepid fast firm reporter Sarah Kessler tried to don as many wearables as conceivable, she discovered that know-how and type nonetheless haven’t discovered a solution to absolutely mesh. despite her very best efforts—wearing a 3D printed transit cross ring, a UV sensor wristband, a watch-formed job tracker, and a pendant that triggers fake calls—she never found a product that would please each the techno-savvy and the craze-forward. And without both model and performance, why trouble to maintain charging that device?

but Opening Ceremony may well be the first To Get It proper In November, Opening Ceremony unveiled My intelligent verbal exchange accessory (MICA), one of the most first really glamorous wearables. decorated with semi-precious stones, pearls, and obsidian, it sends and receives texts, provides Gmail and Google Calendar notifications, and permits you to get entry to your facebook occasions. “We wanted to create a jewellery piece, not a tech jewellery piece, focusing on model first. one thing people would be actually proud to wear,” Opening Ceremony dressmaker Humberto Leon says. “We purposely placed the reveal on the within of the wrist, so the piece doesn’t just scream ‘tech.'”

model for the ninety nine%, at last Former Mozilla dressmaker Crystal Beasley desires to create the Warby Parker of jeans. After a successfully funded Kickstarter, Qcut aims to ship made-to-order jeans straight to your door, promising they may fit higher than the 17 million pairs of clothier jeans you tried on within the retailer. the usage of a woman’s height, weight, bra dimension, and foot size, Beasley plans to create a custom fit out of 400 conceivable jean sizes. Any woman who’s ever realized she’s a measurement 2 in a single store and a size eight simply across the mall must be on board.

convey On the ability jeans nice type is typically reserved for those rare people whose bodies are formed like sticks, however Barbell Denim is set to make jeans for a demographic infrequently thought to be runway-ready: athletes. Designed by using a gaggle of weight lifters, snowboarders, and rock climbers, they’re made for muscle tissue—cumbersome calves, sport-prepared quads, and powerful butts. Or any person else who wants somewhat extra flex in their denim.

the next Frontier In Lingerie fashion designer Jenny Beuttner made her mark on this year’s type Week in the big apple with the Shibue Strapless Panty, a line of undergarments even skimpier than a G-string. Go panty-line-free with out the chance of a revealing cloth cabinet malfunction. These laser-cut, strapless panties are the up to date-day similar of a fig leaf, and stick on like a Band-support in your nether regions.

building a greater Bra Bras aren’t probably the most comfortable item of garb in most ladies’s wardrobes. finding a well-becoming bra is like recognizing a double rainbow. to be able to make issues a little bit more uncomplicated on the ladies, the supportive pioneers at genuine&Co. have identified 6,000 different feminine physique sorts, sorted into eight coloration-coded categories that correspond to the more than a few breast shapes and weight distributions. the usage of hundreds of thousands of information factors, they’re on their way to building a bra empire founded on remedy and elegance, not an unwell-fitting push-up.

it’s k to move Commando from time to time clothing startup pricey Kate desires to make it okay to move commando while exercising. Co.Design creator Carey Dunne tried the corporate’s yoga pants with built-in underwear designed for breathability and absorbency, and vowed to ditch her leggings. No wedgies, no bunching, no seen panty traces? appears like freedom.

cease Slouching! Parisian model company Up Couture got here on the scene this year with the Up T-Shirt, the world’s first anti-slouching shirt. The natural cotton T-shirt is lined with elastic bands that make it much less comfortable to wear when you’re slouching, subtly encouraging higher posture. combating a lifetime of back pain isn’t a cheap repair, although—the shirts price up to $200.

Juicy Is lifeless. long live Juicy. In June, Juicy Couture, a brand synonymous with purple velour sweatsuits, introduced it could be closing all its U.S. stores. the previous titan of celebrity non-style, as viewed splattered over tabloid covers on the likes of Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, and Kim Kardashian all over the early 2000s, is all however executed for. Juicy’s downfall is a parable for the trend world at large: the entire free superstar endorsements in the world is not going to assist in case your design never evolves. Paris Hilton’s bottom isn’t a business plan. So step faraway from the tracksuit, and next time, are trying plastering a new word throughout these velour butt cheeks each every now and then.

Flickr user Rupert Ganzer

Crocs Are lifeless. We Hope? In July, after a 44% drop in earnings in three months, rubber shoes firm Crocs introduced it would close one hundred of its 600 retailers internationally and lay off 180 of 5,000 employees. despite expanding into new designs—high-heeled Crocs, wedges, sneakers, and even iciness boots—the company could not moderately reduce it as purveyors of a various vary of fashionable sneakers. The gap-ridden rubber clogs are nonetheless kicking, for now.

Olympic Uniforms: What A Drag The Sochi Olympics have been riddled with mud-ups, and the Olympic fashion was no exception. halfway throughout the speed skating events, the U.S. skating staff begged to switch uniforms, claiming their high-tech attire from below Armour created too much drag. unfortunately, major design flaws in sports uniforms are some distance from extraordinary.

Apple, a manner Pioneer before Its Time Apple’s clothing line, the Apple collection, didn’t exactly trap on when it was once introduced in 1986. the road of outsized sweatshirts, baseball caps embellished with the rainbow Apple logo, and zany T-shirts may have been just a little too company couture for its time. but looking back at it in 2014, we realized—none of those items would appear out of place in an American attire these days.

easiest Dressed, ceaselessly The Academy Awards aren’t actually about motion pictures; they’re concerning the red carpet. This chart from Media Run Digital showcases the entire highest Actress winners’ attire from the earlier eight many years. no longer the entire pieces are knockouts, however the experience is perhaps the most consistent showcase for the chopping-part work of probably the most famous designers in type.

PHOTOGRAPHER: DAVID JAMES/COPYRIGHT: 2012 DREAMWORKS II DISTRIBUTION/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX movie

The secrets and techniques Of Hollywood Costumes Co.Design caught up with Deborah Nadoolman Landis and Judianna Makovsky, costume designers who have masterminded the fashions of motion pictures like Indiana Jones: Raiders of the misplaced Ark, The Blues Brothers, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and The starvation video games. secrets and techniques they printed about a few of Hollywood’s most famous costumes? Indiana Jones’s pants had been impressed through the California freeway Patrol, and his hat had to be shoved underneath a mattress and slept on to fake-age it. And Dorothy’s pinafore in The Wizard of oz.b89fbd0830a93692b858870ebd889f00)? absolutely shoddy craftsmanship.

via Jezebel

a slightly-Up As previous As Time When Vogue featured celebrity Lena Dunham in a controversial, generally theatrical photoshoot through Annie Leibovitz for the magazine’s February 2014 difficulty, a feminist firestorm ensued. The megastar, recognized for her unabashed on-display displays of a body type now not continuously viewed on Hollywood starlets, had naturally been retouched within the journal pictures. but the historical past of manipulating pictures of women’s our bodies wasn’t invented with Photoshop. it is as outdated as the Sistine Chapel. here’s simply a short history.

the place Fashionistas Work Photographer Todd Selby spent three years interviewing type designers and photographing the work environments of both well-recognized creatives like Isabel Marant and Iris van Herpen and designers who work at the back of the scenes at giant corporations like Nike. Their workspaces are steadily full of pops of color and inspirational tchotchkes, with simply as many headless mannequins as you’ll are expecting. Spoiler: there may be nary a neat desk in sight.

comic Sans done right When a host of NBA players expressed team spirit with Staten Island’s Eric Garner—a man choked to demise by means of a New York city police officer on digital camera—critics objected. not to the message of the shirts, which learn “i will be able to’t Breathe,” Garner’s dying phrases, however to the font. comic Sans. it is a typeface which is frequently misused, and extra incessantly derided, but here, it conveys a powerful, heartfelt message.

Design lessons From Anna Sui model’s enduring Boho queen took some time from the big apple style Week to spill her secrets on preserving a nostalgia-fueled brand related. Her main point? include your obsessions. This 12 months, that supposed following her love of vintage English rock posters, which later inspired her spring 2015 ready-to-put on collection. but whilst she embraces the previous, she’s all concerning the technology of the future—together with digital printing and laser-chopping.

About writer