This year at Paris Fashion Week, Italian designer Giambattista Valli's turned heads with a striking demonstration of one of this year's hottest, but hardest trends – colour blocking. In the collection he combined a number of this season's freshest trends into a vision of stunning winter elegance. While tailored, sculptural skirts drive the look forward with their sultry styling and avant-garde structural additions, the pieces, though shorter than the classic pencil skirt, are far longer than the miniskirt, retaining their modest elegance with ease. However, the real heat of the collection came with the palette, as Valli replaced many of early-winter's tired neutrals with sultry jewel tones and, most sensational of all, striking metallics – one of Winter 2011's hottest colour and print trends.
Whether it's on jewellery, shoes, accessories or dresses, there's no doubt that metallics have made a splash in winter 2011. Invisible just two months ago, these latecomers to the season's palette has been a huge hit on the streets, as well as in the collections of wholesale ladies clothing manufacturers, legendary continental fashion houses or high street ladieswear wholesalers. Textural prints have been huge throughout 2011, but Prada's Winter collections led the way for wholesaler clothing manufacturers with a collection of outfits in a rainbow of bright hues, tied together by a single, sophisticated and shimmering fishscale texture. By the end of November, catwalks worldwide were owned by metallics.
Graduating from the zany acid hues and garish prints of much of the last two years, these fresh tones ooze a mature sophistication and elegance by comparison. As luxuriously desirable as their namesakes, the dresses appear far from cheap, and can be styled with ease into a rich, sultry look.
When styled to perfection by ladieswear wholesalers, metallic hue can lend the winter months a glamourous warmth, while striking a delicate balance between the modernist understatement of the cocktail dress, and the pure, unadulterated, high-octane glamour that has made a monumental return in winter 2011. There is no doubt among wholesale ladies clothing manufacturers and continental fashion houses alike that, in contrast to the age-old adage, all that glitters is gold this festive season. A Christmas cocktail party can be owned by the right dress, and this striking trend is the perfect way to turn heads and look radiant, so leave the novelty tinsel accessories at home in favour of generous serving of some truely sophisticated festive fashion.
