Translating the Trends for Fall 2016: Purple Majesty

Darlings, welcome back to our newest feature! We had a bit of trepidation about launching this one, because the transition from talking about high-end celebrity style to talking about real-world style for real women can be a rocky one. But as we said in our first installment (which was all about leopard print trends and can be found here), our work on our next book, which is a style guide, has caused us to solidify and articulate a lot of what we’ve been saying and picking up over our ten years of fashion blogging. And one of the most important bits of advice we can give you, if you’re at all interested in projecting an up-to-date sense of style for yourself, is to look at the runways, pick out the major trends, decide which ones might work for you, and then go out and get yourself more affordable and practical items that embody that trend.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Bottega Veneta | Carolina Herrera | Carven | David Koma | DElpozo
Dries Van Noten | Elie Saab | Fendi | Georges Hobeika Couture | Jeremy Scott
Loewe | Marc Jacobs | Marco de Vicenzo | Moschino | Ralph Lauren
Roberto Cavalli | Roland Mouret | Tod’s | Vionnet | Zuhair Murad Couture

BAM. Now that’s a LOT of purple.

Colors go in and out of style all the time, although we’d be hard-pressed to find a fall runway that didn’t have at least a little deep purple in it. But for fall 2016, purple went from being a typical fall color to a major style trend. We don’t want to say it’s THE color of the season, but with Prince having left this mortal coil, a lot of us have got purple on our minds this year. These collections were all put together and walked the runways before Prince died, but we suspect his death is what’s going to make it such a major trend going forward. You can expect to see a lot of purple in the spring ’17 collections too, although that’s likely to be more in the lavender family than the grape or eggplant ones.

Now, let’s go shopping. First stop: BAGS.

We love the idea of deep or bright purple bag as a way to punctuate any outfit, from a basic LBD to jeans and a sweater. Purple is one of those colors that can go wrong very easily and some of the above bags are in shades that are probably a little too rich for our blood, but that’s a personal taste thing. If you’re into deep grape-y purples, go for it. But we wanted to present a range, including wine and aubergine purples, which tend to align more with our own tastes. But as we said last time, this isn’t about us imposing our tastes entirely on yours. That’s not what a good stylist or personal shopper does. What they do, if they’re good, is provide a range for the client to choose from and if needed, to gently push them toward what they think might be the best items for them. In this case, we LOVELOVELOVE that Dasein croc tote with the gold handle. The Merona bag has a great shape and color. The Nicole Lee is fun and sassy. And the L’Autre Chose and Cambridge Satchel bags are FAB.

Shoe time!

Kittens we spent several hours poring over dozens and dozens of purple pumps and arguing about how we were going to whittle them down to a workable number. It took some time, but we considered the ones above the best of the lot. And of course, since most women don’t live their lives in 4-inch heels, we tried to pick a range of footwear styles to choose from. Our faves? The Jessica Simpson and Vince Camuto pairs strike us as the ones you’ll get the most out of. Each of them could go from day to night, from casual to dressy. We ADORE the Tahari “flats” with the very low heel. And for the far less fussy gals, there are those fun Timberlands and those super comfy-looking Tod’s moccasins. The Report booties with the chunky heel are kickass as hell and the BCBG knee-highs, while pricey, are TDF  – and something you could probably get a decade of use out of before you got tired of them.

Third Floor: Jewelry, Scarves, Hats and other randoms:

Ummm… all of the above? No, really. Lorenzo (who does all the personal shopping here because he actually did it for a living for many years) has such a good eye (if we do say so), that we’d recommend any of the above. Those Betsy Johnson earrings are super-cute. The Kate Spade bangle makes a perfect punctuation point for any outfit. And what better way to get your Prince Rogers Nelson (or Janis Joplin, if you prefer) on than a pair of purple-lensed shades, we ask you? The scarves and hats are all no-brainers. We’d love to see the Salomon cable knit beanie paired with the Tie Bar scarf and a light-wash denim jacket.

What are your faves, darlings?

Standard disclaimer: All of the above are clickable links that will take you to online retailers who give us a commission based on any sales we send their way. Daddy and Papa gotta pay their telephone bills, kittens. Please note that the sale runs for these items can be brief (we sold out some Christian Siriano bags the other day) and some of the links may either take you to an item that’s no longer available or no longer available at the sales price. You gotta be quick!

[Photo Credit: IMAXTree]

• Accessories
• Bags
• Fall 2016 Collections
• Fall 2016 Trends
• Jewelry
• Lorenzo’s Picks
• Retail Therapy
• Shoes
• The Accessories Wall
• Translating the Trends
• Trends