SuperCaliFashionistic

Dear Bradley Cooper,

You know something's wrong when Lindsay Lohan looks better than you:

This season's It girl continues with a whirlwind of blue-chip calendars and campaigns. Most recently, she's the face of Giorgio Armani's spring collection. In "La Femme Bleu," lensed by Nick Knight, Sednaoui wears a composite ensemble composed of curiously disparate elements. From the neck up, her windswept turban evoke the desert riders of Africa or the veiled sheiks of the Middle East; however, she is also wearing a plunging, glittering ballgown. Her arms are also inexplicably tanned and sweaty, whereas her upper body and face remain strangely pale. Maybe ombre is the newest tanning trend, or perhaps she accidentally dipped her hands in a vat of L'Oreal Bronzed Goddess. Either way, her lower half looks like it belongs to an exercise editorial, not a coolly moonlit Armani campaign. It only gets more confusing with the alien-like, strangely positioned hands. Her left one looks plastic, while her right looks scarily mutated. Her second finger has apparently been replaced by a quasi-thumb that blends sketchily into her dress. Confusing, but not in a good way. Perhaps there is some higher idea involved (as there always is in haute couture), but in this case it looks like there's a few too many.

Amongst all the sentiments designer wish to inspire, boredom (to the point of tears) is one they usually seek to avoid. Then why was Fendi so darn drab? Of course, it earned rave reviews from every prominent critic. And though it is sometimes possible to understand how others might see beauty where one remarks only the absence of it, Fendi's so-called charm was purely inexplicable. Of quality there was surely plenty, but of true aesthetic genius there was none. Take, for example, overdyed bootcut jeans that stumpified even the extremely svelte legs of a 5'10" model. A couple of boxy jackets seemed awkwardly stiff; the shoulders on a black-and-white dress made its wearer seem like it was caught in the midst of a permanent shrug. The color combos were anything but vivid: fleshy beige, dusty blue, and muddy claret. Despite the brand's reputation for modernity, their latest presentation looked decidedly dated - and not in a vintage-cool way. Alone, perhaps, the pieces might have done well, but together they were uninspiring. The only redeeming factors were the black bandage shoes and a couple of flattering dresses with plunging necklines and cascading pleats. But it wasn't enough to save the collection. Karl Lagerfeld has a tendency to either hit or miss, and this effort placed it firmly in the latter category. If you liked his latest showing, however, you'll find plenty of others in agreement.

And finally, let's not forget the models, who appeared curiously shiny, pallid, and eyebrowless (which has been - unfortunately - a raging runway trend ever since Balenciaga 2008). In short, they looked like Annalynne McCord on a bad makeup day:

Alexander Wang's cool-girl cred has already earned him a coveted spot among fashion's elite. But Wang is always pushing for something new, and the moto jacket and skinny jean have become more cliche than cutting-edge. Spring is the season of rebirth, after all, and Wang took that interpretation literally, citing "optimism" and "purity" as inspirations - this coming from the former engineer of rugged, grungy chic. Consequently, the collection featured not a hint of black, blue denim, or leather - Wang's usual mainstays. Au contraire, the presentation stuck to one color, or rather the absence thereof. The whole exhibition looked like it had been whitewashed, models included. Ironically, the first few looks - a series of glorified bedsheets - were anything but optimistic. Fortunately, Wang began playing with textures, volumes, and fabrics to create more diverse - if not more colorful - creations. Cropped canvas jackets, silk harem pants, and button-up skirts with industrial accents embodied the effortlessness of previous seasons. In this case, the all-white palette united complex layering into cohesive ensembles. Of particular interest was a cropped, fuzzy sweater with a turned-down collar that promised to be both sublimely chic and irresistibly comfortable. Wang took another step in the right direction with bias-cut silk smocks in pale pastels. If that sounds too ladlylike, consider that Wang left them slightly crinkled and adorned them with metallic strips meant to simulate duct tape. A gorgeously eclectic floral dress topped with a futuristic, transparent anorak was another interesting juxtaposition. The closing numbers, however, were somewhat anticlimatic. Oversized trenches looked too much like bathrobes to even qualify as coats. Worse yet was their horrific color, which was somewhere between mustard yellow and burnt sienna. Though the end wasn't quite the grand finale (and the beginning wasn't promising, either), let's not forget the gleams of ingenuity that shone in between.

all photos from nymag.com

For a season in which designers are harkening back to a bygone era of maturity, Carolina Herrera - the poster girl for elegant over-60 dressing - returned to classic silhouettes and subdued modesty. While labels like Balmain and Versace prefer to expose miles of leg, Herrera has always offered a refined, elegant take on dressing for those who are no longer coltish 20 year olds (or at least look like one). Yet with this collection, she turned the clock too far - several pieces read more "mumsy" than "sophisticated." Take, for instance, a couple of her less inspired creations:

all photos from style.com