Helmut Lang Spring 2012 New York Fashion Week.
Photo: Getty Images
OK, so the whole New Yorkers Always Wear Black stereotype is relatively true, but when you think about it, wearing just black or white (or both!) can be liberating and EASY. Why? LAYERS, people. You start with the basics and build adding colors and accessories along the way. There's a RED FLAG caveat, though (it's not really red, I just wanted to type a color because it's about to get STARK up in here), and that caveat is that your monochromatic pieces must be both cut and tailored well. Yes, you can count a basic white t-shirt and black skinnies as good basics to begin with, but if they're shapeless or don't fit you, then it's nothing but a mono-mess. Enter Helmut Lang, or should I say Michael and Nicole Colovos, the designers for the famously minimal label. This season they did something SO DRASTIC, so BOLD and out of the goth box that it can only be described with words in keeping with their usual somber trajectory, and those words are LEMON CARNAGE. Dear Fashion Gods, protect me as I clack this, but for Spring 2012 (do you hear birds chirping?) Helmut Lang designed several dresses in sunny—oh my here it comes—yellow.
