Cooper's Lite

All backstage media were kicked out just as Trelise Cooper's show was due to start yesterday. So, given that our runway photo skills tend to be hit and miss, the best shots we managed to take were the first looks from Cooper's Cooper diffusion range which opened. Cute show, whose opening number - Jace Everett's True Blood theme toon 'Bad Things'- had everyone tapping their toes. The military jackets, denim blousons, nubby wool high-waisted trousers, prairie shirts embellished with smocking or bullion fringing and microshorts galore, in American flag-printed denim and crochet, seemed tailor-made for True Blood's feisty fairy Sookie Stackhouse, who is played by Canadian-born Kiwi Anna Paquin, even if the pretty, drop-waisted teadresses with fruit prints were probably a little too virginal for same. Frockwriter couldn't help including two shots from Cooper's palate cleanser in between the Cooper and Trelise Cooper shows: an army of models in black blazers and corsets/knickers. Minus the word "boardroom" printed across the models' derrières, it was a knockoff of Dolce e Gabbana's finale for the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 show in Milan in February 2010. Here is a photo gallery, best viewed on the blog. The final Style.com shot is from the original Dolce e Gabbana show.  

In the name of the father - Trelise Cooper's Autumn/Winter 2011 tribute show

Trelise Cooper dedicated her Autumn/Winter 2011 show to her late father Joe Neill. “Dedicated to my beloved father who passed away in July. I will miss seeing his face and love in the front row. He loved Fashion Week” noted Cooper in the show program. Indeed, frockwriter was sitting right next to Neill at last year’s show – where we snapped and posted the shot, below. A pretty enough collection that hit all the commercial notes – military jackets, animal prints, leggings, harem pants – at times it felt like we were watching a Spring show. Case in point, the sheer georgette series and the supersized reproduction of Botticelli’s Three Graces of Spring erected at the end of the runway. The latter was an extension of the main set design: a church-like stained glass triptych, elements of which were repeated in graphics and embellishments in the collection itself. But fashion is of course increasingly transeasonal these days and the closing series of ruffled and embellished teadresses in a barely-there palette of shell pink and nude was beautiful, notably when teamed with some spectacular black evening shrugs fashioned from layered shards of chiffon. Don’t have that many shots. Cooper kicked out most photographers from backstage before the show. But check frockwriter’s Posterous for a small selection. And here is a video of the finale, below.