Editor’s Picks! Sneak Peak: Kaelen FW 2012 Lookbook
As a cross-pollinating lover of all things menswear and androgyny, NYFW up-and-comer Kaelen struck a chord with the masculine/feminine duality that I crave with her FW 2012 collection. Taking note from the Roaring Twenties’changing roles of women and blurred boundaries of sexuality, the era’s progressive notions of gender identity are imbued throughout the selection of Kaelen’s starkly mannish tailoring contrasted with richly draped shift dresses.
Central to her aesthetic, the button-down shirt -- a staple within the maleand female wardrobe nowadays -- retains a rectangular, ambiguous shape cinched off with a cheeky bowtie lending the wearer an insouciant yet pulled-together air of confidence. Boxy jackets cut with sharp angles serve to define and structure the look lest those womanly curves are lost beneath a boyish silhouette.
As an hourglass-figured woman, I constantly seek to balance the overt femininity inherent in my physicality with clothes that carry a strong overtone of severity. All about the strength in male-ccentric styling, Kaelen’s serious soldiers of modern suiting certainly resonate with today’s multi-faceted and increasingly fluid notions of what it means to be a woman, and a man.
