The Most Coveted Fashion Labels and Finds of 2019

by Lupe Baeyens

With 2019 draw­ing to a close ear­li­er this week, we glance back at the lux­u­ry labels and fash­ion items that defined the last year of the decade. Our list is com­prised of the usu­al sus­pects yet we also wel­come some new­com­ers. From state­ment sleeves to micro­scop­ic hand­bags, sit back, relax and take a stroll down the last twelve months of fash­ion, one look at a time.

2019 marks the year of blur­ring the lines, whether these are gen­der-spe­cif­ic, sea­son­al or over­lap­ping indus­tries. This years most cov­et­ed wed­ding dress was worn by the breath­tak­ing­ly stun­ning Hai­ley Bald­win Bieber. The mod­el wore a cus­tom-made Off-White dress designed by the brand’s cre­ative direc­tor Vir­gil Abloh and women’s head design­er Sab­ri­na Man­del­li. The most icon­ic detail? The embroi­dered veil that read: ‘TILL DEATH DO US PART’. As if that wasn’t enough Vigril, went on to break the inter­net, yet not our bank accounts, with his sold-out range at IKEA. By no means did Vir­gil Abloh deter from his usu­al fash­ion respon­si­bil­i­ties, cur­rent­ly artis­tic direc­tor at Louis Vuit­ton and head of his own label Off-White bring­ing immense­ly suc­cess­ful A/W and S/S col­lec­tions to the run­ways of Paris.

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Mak­ing a loom­ing come­back, not that they had ever left, was the Ital­ian leather label  Bot­te­ga Vene­ta. Under the cre­ative direc­tion of Daniel Lee, the Ital­ian brand is prof­it­ing from a true renais­sance. After send­ing sleek min­i­mal­is­tic looks down the run­way in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary, the brand was pro­pelled into the fash­ion orbits, and popped left, right and cen­tre. From clutch­es, square toed boots and plaid leather san­dals, Bot­te­ga Vene­ta was impos­si­ble to miss and we can’t wait what Lee has in store for us in 2020.

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The French design­er Simon Porte Jacque­mus proved him­self mas­ter of con­jur­ing idyl­lic French scenes, first by con­vert­ing a ware­house into ‘Place Jacque­mus’, only to go on and trans­form his home turf into a David Hock­ney-esque paint­ing, with a bright fuch­sia train split­ting the Provençal laven­der fields in half. In com­bi­na­tion with his col­lec­tions, which were bold in colour and effort­less­ly played off micro and maxi again each oth­er (yes, maxi sun hat, we could hard­ly look past you) Jacque­mus can look back on his first decade of fash­ion with great pride, and this had to be reward­ed a place on our list.

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It took Kim Jones just one col­lec­tion to make his mark on the leg­endary French mai­son. The British design­er, who will go in his­to­ry as the first Brit to ever be at the helm of Dior as well as the man who intro­duced streetwear to lux­u­ry mens fash­ion, impressed with his abil­i­ty to blend moder­ni­ty with metic­u­lous­ly tai­lor­ing. With his ‘Dior Box’ in front of the Parisian land­mark Hôtel Nation­al Des Invalides he once again stole the show. Mod­els strut­ted on a mov­ing walk­way, only to stand still on a con­vey­or belt, accord­ing to Jones, trans­form­ing them into sculp­tures while show­ing off his bril­liant­ly cut col­lec­tion with plen­ty of nods to the rich his­to­ry of the Dior.

Copen­hagen Fash­ion Week brought us some of the best street style of the year, it can come as no sur­prise that the Dan­ish brand Rotate con­cludes our list of most cov­et­ed brands of 2019. The Copen­hagen based label spe­cialis­es in dress­es where no sleeve is to big and waist to cinched. The play­ful dress­es and blaz­ers cre­at­ed by the design-duo Tho­ra Valdimars and Jeanette Fri­is Mad­sen were all the rage with styl­ists and influ­encers world­wide, secur­ing them a place on our list and mak­ing them OVERDUE’s one-to-watch for 2020.

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We’ve sift­ed through leather goods, life size bears, brought to life paint­ings and wed­ding gowns, it’s time to get your most-seen items of 2019 list and start tick­ing. We start our round-up in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary dur­ing Paris Fash­ion Week when Jacque­mus made head­lines before even kick­ing off his AW20 show, after all, Simon Porte Jacque­mus is a name so nice, he needs to be men­tioned twice. Guests received a per­son­alised micro­scop­ic ver­sion of Le Chiq­ui­to, which took the fash­ion indus­try by storm in 2018. His micro bags went on to spawn a fas­ci­na­tion for the tini­est of bag, mak­ing the shrunk­en bag the first top item of 2019. Def­i­nite­ly a style over func­tion find, as most of this mini bags fit no more than a lip­stick and a phone (if you’re lucky). 

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Our next must-have item — or in this case colour — of the year: bright pas­tel laven­der. This shade of pur­ple popped up in full looks, as an accent colour and is now avail­able in most high street shops as a descen­dant from the run­way shows across the fash­ion cap­i­tals. With­out a doubt a rem­nant of the Ultra­vi­o­let Pan­tone colour of the pre­vi­ous year. It’s lighter sis­ter dom­i­nat­ed both on and off the run­way, and our favourite way of styling was from head to toe.  

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Pur­ple wasn’t the only colour that was meant to be worn as a full look, print came out in full play too. From Clue­less-vibes with bright tar­tans or, by no means less bold, ani­mal prints, no com­bi­na­tion was too wild. Zebra, giraffe, snake and chee­tah were clash­ing with such inten­si­ty it almost become cohe­sive.

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Com­fort was key this fash­ion, that or there was a unex­pect­ed height­ened inter­est in cycling sports. Ath­leisure has been on the rise for year and in 2019 fashion’s finest swapped out their shorts for a equal­ly skin-tight yet lycra ver­sion. The shorts are prefer­ably paired with a bra worn under an over­sized blaz­er, adding a touch of finesse to the look, the con­tem­po­rary blend of sex­i­ness with a touch of class and com­fort.

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Fin­ish­ing off our list is the buck­et hat, mak­ing a resur­gence in 2018, this func­tion­al head­piece was here to stay, but the crown didn’t come easy. Bedaz­zled hair clips and pompous head­bands made a respect­ful entry, but could not quite dethrone our hat of the year 2019, albeit in vinyl, fur­ry or ted­dy ren­di­tions.

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