The Best Of Whats's New

Your wish list calls for double denim, timeless trenches, and floral fantasies.

- Lisa Armstrong

AS AN INTELLIGENT, fashion literate woman of style, you’ve moved beyond trends. Trends are the enemy of longevity; the death of individuality. Trends, as you have read repeatedly, are over, although you recognize that this may be a question of semantics. Switch the word “trends” for “updates” or “evolution” or “refreshers,” and trends start to seem not only relevant but vital.

Also, you cannot help observing that without trends there is no momentum, no moving forward (even if sometimes the shift seems to be back to a previous era). So like a tech junkie hovering over her cell phone on a de-connectivity retreat or a Wall Street wolf prowling the Nasdaq, you find yourself scrolling through hundreds of runway images at the start of each season—just so you can reject them. Obviously.

This is okay. Think of trends as software, what you do with them as coding, and the results as a newly upgraded, high-functioning closet. That makes the process sound important and advanced. Which it is.

First, the overview. Lengths are still long, jackets are still oversize, the suit continues to make headway back into the mainstream, and florals will never die. What adds newness, nowness, and freshness are ingenious details, novel styling permutations, and innovative fabrics. Take the suit: At Calvin Klein, chief creative officer Raf Simons sent out a new alternative in matching tones of dark denim, with colorful topstitching (one of fall’s major micro details, and that’s not a contradiction; style is all about small but telling stealth flourishes).