>> THE ZEITGEIST —Alexandra Shulman recently said that she looks to the recession to bring forward new design talent — last time around we got Alexander McQueen and John Galliano — and today, Cathy Horyn asserted that "the recession could turn out to make designers better designers.  Fashion houses, anticipating reduced orders, cut out the theatrics as they sought to appeal to a relatively new demand in luxury fashion: value.  By the end of the shows, retailers were praising the level of craft and fabric research — and complaining when it was obscured, as at Chanel, by French-maid ruffles. Out of necessity, a lot of designers put on smaller shows. It meant that they couldn’t flub a seam." [NY Times]
*image: source