Just as the Spring 2012 collections are set to hit stores next month comes a quick review of our favorite outings from the season to keep you looking fresh and updated on all of the best of the season.
From Balenciaga’s sic-fi futurism to Rochas’ retro regality, we’ve got you covered on all the must-have collections full of covetable cool.
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Balenciaga
After 10 years of riveting, out-of-this-world collections season in & season out, Nicolas Ghesquiere was back with another astounding sci-fi take on 60′s futurism mashed with the rigor and depth of Cristobal Balenciaga’s couture minded trapeze shapes.
Paired with his sense of modernity, his continual references to the house’s heritage have made his latest collections enviable winners.
Opening with a selection of chic foamy color-blocked jackets that displayed Ghesquiere’s long running fascination with scuba garb, a section of bell shaped dresses followed with contrasting panels that moved on to separates with Basquiat style prints on them.
Closing the show was a parade of voluminous collaged trapeze dresses that featured archival prints and boasted a techie safari vibe topped with dramatic bell-shaped headpieces that were lifted from an iconic 60′s era Irving Penn image.
Rochas
Continuing on with his retro minded sensibility for Rochas may have been intrinsic for designer Marco Zanini, but it was also a smart move considering the season’s 50′s fixation. But that wasn’t the only thing Zanini got right here, he also managed to strike a chord with the sugary sweet pastels and foamy fabrications we’ve seen so often this time around.
His full midi-length circle skirts and natty separates felt right on the money with their retro flair and obvious ode’s to French & Italian cinema heroines.
And that’s become one of Rochas’ major charms as of late. How do you do modern-day glamor that strikes a chord with the past while appearing prim, contemporary and glamorous in the most deluxe sense of the word without appearing ever so slightly nostalgic? You shop Rochas, simple as that!
Jil Sander 
Looking back at the elusive and yet wondrous world of couture’s past without a retro sense of vision has propelled Raf Simon’s status at Jil Sander as a mega designer, the kind that people wait with baited breath to see what’s coming up next from. Call it his third installment on his trek through couture’s storied history if you will, with Spring signifying a culmination of all things haute met with the clarity and conciseness one comes to expect from the house that Jil built.
Many thoughts come to mind when surveying his marvelous ode to glamour girls of the past including Babe Paley, nurses from era’s past, refined American sportswear and of course Jil Sander at her best.
Christopher Kane 
Call it his most wearable collection to date if you may, but there was nothing saccharine nor overt about Christopher Kane’s light femininity for Spring. Instead Kane, never one to compromise his sci-fi sensibilities, whipped up a dreamy, graphic alternative to the heavy floral summer dresses we’ve seen elsewhere this season.
Frothy dresses covered with witty floral collage patches and watery prints were made angular with space-age cut-outs and folds that made for special day dresses full of ease and subtle provocation.
Theyskens’ Theory-
Sleek and wonderous takes on urbane, city dressing standbys made for another stand-out collection from Olivier Theyskens and was proof positive that he is indeed the right man for the job as the newly appointed creative director of workwear go-to powerhouse, Theory.
Here, fresh proportions on classic pieces from a drop-waist knife pleated dress to a blazer and shorts combo, created a hyper linear affect on the models, somehow elongating and stream lining the proportions of each model, in that magical, mystical way that only Olivier Theyskens can do, and does so very well. –Naveed Hussain