Fashion Influence

I like learning how designers come up with their ideas. Do you remember that scene in "The Devil Wears Prada" where Meryl Streep's character upbraids Anne Hathaway's character for dismissing fashion as irrelevant to her life? I apprecaited how Streep traced Hathaway's blue sweater's origins. Along the same lines, last month the Wall Street Journal created The Master Chart of Fashion Influence, describing it as "an unscientific chart of the New York fashion industry's ecosystem."

I had fun seeing how the "Old World Opulence" of Oscar De la Renta, Carolina Herrera, and the "Relaxed Opulence" of Ralph Lauren influenced designers such as Tory Burch and Michael Kors. Seeing how Donna Karan's "Practical Minimalism" is in the same category as Calvin Klein's school of design makes sense to me. The term "Intense Chic" sort of cracked me up but seemed the perfect way to describe Rag & Bone and Vera Wang.

As the WSJ says, "Designers are influenced by other designers, past and present, whether they realize it or not--and whether they admit it or not."