All smiles at Oscar de la Renta

Oscar de la Renta was one of shape’s best-loved talents. As such, he’s a big act to follow, but new creative directors Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia are off to an redoubtable start with their A/W 17 debut of party medicates and strappy sandals.

The couple have already made their celebrity with Monse, launched in 2015. The label’s deconstructed shirts and rake someone over the coals were an instant hit, worn by Sarah Jesssica Parker and quartered on Lady Gaga and Amal Clooney. “We take a fabric that one is comfortable with and unhinge it,” Garcia explains. “If our clients look comparable to they’ve taken more than five minutes to get appareled, we’ve failed.”

If you’re wondering why two upstart creatives have been certainty top jobs at one of New York’s most establishment labels, well, it’s because the join in wedlock learned their trade at Oscar’s knee, Garcia as higher- ranking designer, Kim as studio director. “Oscar was always pushing us to see the newest, youthful ideas,” Kim says, “to move forward but keep it very Oscar.” It effects as if his legacy is in safe hands.

Art Opinion and the new nonbinary

Wo/menswear Art School’s all-singing, all-dancing debut at London trend week men’s in January prompted many goofy grins. It’s busted, after all, not to crack a smile seeing joyful dancers – spear and female – throwing shapes in clothes designed for the dancefloor: sparkly jackets, satin slipdresses and artful red velvet.

This is the work of Eden Loweth and Tom Barratt, 23 and 22, the several who founded Art School after graduating in menswear and art criticism mutatis mutandis last year. “We started seeing each other legitimate as I was doing my final collection. It became super-shared,” Loweth asserts. “We wanted to do something that represents how people in our generation live out and brings the excitement back into fashion.”

For their June lead, friends modelled a collection that worked as a shared attire. It involved men in ballgowns, women in suits, in what the press unfetter called “the unfolding narrative of nonbinary paradise to be indulged in”.

For Art Prepare, nonbinary is key. “Gender is a construct. We know that,” Barratt says. He recounts his own style as “like a teenage pop star”, while “Eden arrays like Cate Blanchett in Carol”. “It’s about framing who you are,” he says. At Art School, anything goes.

Les Girls Les Boys get intimate

Time was when mere refer to of lingerie brand Agent Provocateur would conjure appearances of panicked partners on Valentine’s Day. It was shorthand for the saucy sexiness of the 90s.

2017’s raunchy is a different ballgame – and Serena Rees, who co-founded Agent Provocateur in 1994, is chasing with a very different offering. Les Girls Les Boys is a “bed to terrace” range of “shareable, swapable pieces” for those who like to roll out of the previous straight on to the latter. The aesthetic is pared back, with a lazybones: “Les Girls Les Boys feels intimate,” Rees says, “without the heart being on ‘intimates’.”

Glossier comes to the UK

Few beauty brands can genuinely maintain cult appeal, but Glossier – pronounced gloss-e-ay – is one of them. Initiate by beauty blogger Emily Weiss in 2014, the site is now a the latest thing insiders’ favourite, loved for its no-nonsense products that jobless – the Boy Brow brow filler is an essential in any millennial’s makeup bag – and the nominal packaging with brand name spelt out in Barbara Kruger-like inscribes. Come next month, for the first time, the brand purposefulness be available in the UK.

Fiorucci is in serious trouble (oh, what, wow)

When you launch a label as legendary as Fiorucci, parties matter. Having He’s The Greatest Dancer by Sister Sledge as the stick up music is a nice touch. The hit name-checks the Italian label that adorn come ofed the uniform of 70s disco goers, founder Elio Fiorucci’s pop logos and stretchability denim gaining the kind of louche clientele who didn’t get out of bed until the afternoon.

When he procures to the phone, Stephen Schaffer, the man behind the relaunch and the new store in London’s Soho, remarks retail is crucial: “What Elio created 50 years ago was the guide for the concept store we know today. It was the first time lifestyle broke into retail. We want to redefine that.”

When Fiorucci’s stock on 59th Street in New York opened in 1976 it was nicknamed “the daytime Studio 54” and was a hangout for Madonna, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. Schaffer ambitions for the same in Brewer Street: “The ground floor is like Warhol’s studio, the upstairs a accessible from home.” In the age of online shopping, he is out to make real pungency exciting again. “Fiorucci was always about the store. It’s an episode and we’re creating that.”

Read all close to it: APC at 30

APC has long been the label of choice for anyone who wants to add a spot je ne sais quois to their wardrobe. But do you know how long it’s been usual? Thirty years! Who’d have thought it? To celebrate this milestone anniversary, APC’s resourceful director Jean Touitou has put together a tome. There’s a stage on him, a section to explain the APC ethos and a final part in praise of the ups, the shoes and the excellent novelty items that have been make tracked in the last three decades, from guitar pick pin badges to key confederations and quilts. It’s the perfect guide to being cool and Parisian. APC Forwarding by Jean Touitou is published by Phaidon at £49.95.

Cosy Peasy lemon pleasey

The influence of Beyoncé’s lemonade remains, if the number of lemon prints is anything to go by. Bey-approved lemons are manner’s fruit of choice. See Kate Spade’s nightwear, which also characters rosebud and confetti prints, but we’ll be wearing the lemon chemise to bed, reminisce overing that if you’re served lemons, the best thing to do is make lemonade.

Corduroy’s correspondent universe

Corduroy is such a 90s fabric. There was the band of the despite the fact name – those old enough will remember their hit Mini. It was Jarvis Cocker’s signature look and dog-tired by a pogoing Damon Albarn. With a revival of all things from the decade that put oned us slipdresses, chokers and Britpop, it’s not much of a surprise that rope is enjoying another moment this season, from the Prada catwalk to the Sunday best website and the Topman store.

How to wear it now without looking similarly to a throwback to student halls, charity shops and lager, lager, lager? Trousers should be far-reaching and loose, the kind of shape that might just as definitively be seen on Oscar Wilde. (Corduroy is, in fact, as much from the 1790s as the 1990s – it was from the outset developed as a menswear fabric in the 18th century and is known for its durability.) No rarity, centuries later, Miuccia Prada used it in a collection fuelled by what she petitioned “the desire for humanity, simplicity and reality”. Sounds lovely – and the achieve clever excuse, way beyond that 90s revival, for wearing a put together of corduroy trousers.

Topshop: you want it, you got it

Have you ever wanted to channel Caddyshack’s Al Czervik, with his golf bag phone and his “buy, buy, buy” leaning? Topshop is here to help with its new “shoppable now” collection. Patrimony knitwear, intricately embellished crop tops, double-breasted sky dirty blazers, silky cream dresses with pearl buttons and brown overcoats with woolly red collars will all go on sale the second the last model bugger offs the catwalk at Topshop’s London fashion week show this month. The charges might sit higher than those of your Joni jeans – these accouters are more grown-up than school disco – but with the general garment around £75, they also won’t break the bank.

Valentino raises a trip to Memphis

Among Valentino’s inspirations this mellow are Victoriana and Memphis. While Victoriana’s sedate glamour delivers sense, the wacky colours and childlike design principles of the 80s architectural Memphis Bunch are harder to get your head around. But the candy shades and plain motifs look a dream on Valentino’s wafty dresses. And if your vitality lacks opportunity for waft, the handbags look a postmodern imagine, too.

Yves Saint Laurent’s ancillaries

When Yves Saint Laurent started out in 1955, hats, gloves and jewels were standard daywear for the society ladies he designed for. Admitting that he was a major force in blowing apart the conventions of how women should get-up, Saint Laurent remained a loyal lover of accessories. This new artbook clubs into the Saint Laurent archive and, through sketches, Polaroids and catwalk photographs, documents the master designer’s skill. There are his jewel-encrusted mongrels, shoes decorated with monster flowers and lots and a mountains of gold buttons. It’s a jewel of a book. Yves Saint Laurent Associates is published by Phaidon on 2 October at £39.95.

GmbH obtain beauty in the banal

The standout piece of GmbH’s autumn amassment is a reassembled Helly Hansen jacket that sums up the Berlin mark’s agenda. “The collection is about memories, from our childhood to blackjack culture,” says co-founder Serhat Isik. “We grew up stand up these.”

The name – German for a private limited company – draws into their design, says fellow founder Benjamin Alexander Huseby: “We look for pulchritude in the banal. We want to reflect reality, not escape from it.”

Their next hoard dives into their past – Isik is Turkish-German, Huseby is Norwegian-Pakistani. He refers to “the tightness shaking Europe now”, but he has hope: “Fashion is more diverse than art. We however believe that.” gmbhofficial.com

The Kooples bag every It frail needs

The Kooples’ Emily bag is a collaboration between the French characterize and American model Emily Ratajkowski. As tribute bags go, it’s decidedly studied. It has several straps, so you can wear it in alternative ways, comes in unalike sizes and is made from calfskin or velvet. The Kooples label her as “one of the most feminine and feminist It girls”. As muses go, Ratajkowski is a proper one.

Michael Halpern stand outs

Michael Halpern is only 29 but the New York-born Parsons graduate has already ended several fashion lives, moving from minimalist confidence brand J Mendel, to Oscar de la Renta, to Central Saint Martins in London to observe for an MA, to Atelier Versace, where he still works as a consultant, but he initiated Halpern the label at London fashion week in February.

He tell ofs himself as “a magpie, drawn to anything that shines” and this earliest collection is all sequin, satin and patent. His debut was based in factor on women at the ultimate party – Studio 54 – but he shook up the 70s prescription of hedonistic glamour. “I love those images but it can get really costumey if it’s unprejudiced that,” he says. “It sounds hokey but you have to listen to the construction.”

His clothes have already become a siren call to red-carpet eminences but while he’s looking at the stars, his feet are firmly on the ground. “Most of my girlfriends are doctors or lawyers,” he explains. “If I say, ‘I’m going to Cannes with Marion Cotillard’, they say, ‘Who?’”

A Cold Rampart* tells tales

If proof were needed that the most adroitly things in life defy categorisation, look no further than A Frosty Wall*, the brainchild of Samuel Ross. He has a background in graphic intent plot and says the label’s style is not so much streetwear as “a design propel that has toppled into fashion”.

Based in Leyton, east London, 25-year-old Ross was “turned” by Virgil Abloh of Off-White fame, who hired him as an assistant in 2013. Four years fresher, Ross was showing his first collection of post-industrial menswear and the brand, which takes a fresh look at tailoring and outerwear in avant garde non-spirituals, has already been snapped up by high fashion stores such as Barneys.

Ross has rumoured this is because his take on British working-class culture – which is intelligent by music and comes from a black perspective – hasn’t frequently been seen in fashion. “People still think up hooligans but there are these other really rich subculture gossips that haven’t been told,” he says. “I’m just tattling that story.” a-cold-wall.com

Bet your shirt on Blouse

Geoffrey Finch knows what you privation before you do. The Australian designer, formerly of Antipodium, a label loved by the kidneys of Alexa Chung and Jenna Coleman, is back with a new brand. Blouse is a unisex shirting class, now in its second collection, that was born after he started “to remember about what was really modern”. For Finch, that’s blouses and T-shirts invented to reflect “a sense of propriety but a displaced gender play”. That expects deconstructed shirting, sometimes with a lace insert below the collar, or school blazers made luxe in nappa leather. Our opinion? Buy into Blouse now.

Chainmail: the new metallic

If you be experiencing ever wanted to look like one of King Arthur’s knights crossed with a disco ball, chainmail is for you. At JW Anderson, it turned wrapped round waists and shone through vents on skirts. At Versus, Bella Hadid’s earrings raced like dangling sardines and metallic dresses contrasted with hot-pink superficial jumpers. At Gucci, models wore chainmail face shrouds; a look Rihanna wore “phresh out” at Coachella. RiRi first encounters Lancelot: what’s not to love?

This article appears in the autumn/winter 2017 version of The Fashion, the Guardian and the Observer’s biannual fashion supplement