Inspiration
Fashion Week Report: Crochet for Spring/Summer 2020
This is the season of crochet!
Maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself. By “season” I mean Spring/Summer and by “this” I mean 2020.
Fashion week is one of my favorite times of the year to be in New York. The city is alive with inspiration, as designers finally can show publications and future shoppers what they’ve been working on over the last few months.
Fashion week is followed by the lesser-known market week. Which is more about selling the line of clothes to stores. Fashion week is about painting a picture and selling a fantasy. Market week is about reality and how buyers can incorporate the fantasy into their real lives. Fashion week is the dream.
Fashion week technically started on Friday, September 6th, with a few brands getting their look books out ahead of time on September 5th. You’ll start to see these things in department stores and magazines starting in January 2020, and popping up on celebrities at award shows throughout next year. But it all starts here. In the movie The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly gives a great breakdown of this cycle in her monologue about Andy’s cerulean sweater.
Only a few days into fashion week, trends started to become clear. The one that I’m most excited about is the use of crochet. As someone who does both knitting and crochet, I’m always excited when I see one or the other in a runway show. But in past seasons I typically got to see a lot more knits then I did crochet. The fashion industry groups things that are knit and things that are crochet under the same title: “knitwear.” Usually, crochet is used as an accent to a knitted garment. A brand will rarely use crochet as the main “knitwear” in a collection.
So when I started to see crochet in collection after collection this year, it stood out immediately. Apparently, a lot of designers have been spending the last few months developing crochet for their collections. Which has paid off, because there has been some gorgeous crochet this season. And designers seem to be looking at the medium in new ways. They are using the flexibility of crochet to think outside of the box. I think it’s about time!
The fact that so many designers have already included crochet in their collections means that this is a trend that is going to stick. As makers, we can look at these collections and let them inspire us to see crochet in an exciting new light.
Here are fifteen of my favorite crochet looks from Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2020 including a few accessories. Hopefully, this will inspire you get out your hooks!
Jonathan Cohen
Designer: Jonathan Cohen. Photo: Filippo Fior/Gorunway.com.
Prabal Gurung
Photo: Filippo Fior/Gorunway.com
Photo: Filippo Fior/Gorunway.com
Dorothee Schumacher
Photo: Dorothee Schumacher
Staud
Photo: Salvatore Dragone/Gorunway.com
Photo: Salvatore Dragone/Gorunway.com
See by Chloé
Photo: See by Chloé
Rosetta Getty
Photo: Charlie Engman
Red Valentino
Photo: Red Valentino
Cinq à Sept
Photo: Cinq à Sept
Ulla Johnson
Photo: Filippo Fior/Gorunway.com
photo: Filippo Fior/Gorunway.com
Jonathan Simkhai
Photo credit: Filippo Fior/Gorunway.com
Photo: Filippo Fior/Gorunway.com
Kate Spade New York
Photo: Alessandro Lucioni/Gorunway.com
All images from Vogue.com.
In the MDK Shop
I love to crochet and love seeing it on the runway but as far as I know there is still no machine that can crochet. I avoid buying it because I know it was done by hand and at my price point know the person was paid virtually nothing. Maybe someone knows if this is not the case anymore but for now all my crochet is done by me so I’m the one not getting paid. Long live the granny square vest!
I feel the same about high street crochet clothing. I’m fascinated to hear if it can be done by machine now.
I spent the 1970s crocheting, then settled into a life of knitting. Good thing I still have all my hooks. The aqua Johnathan Simkhai dress is gorgeous. Thanks for the inspiration!
That’s the one that stole the show for me as well!
I do like the Red Valentino skirt, but most of the rest of that stuff needs to be stuffed back under the couch cushions! It’s way too tacky for me.
I agree they are not only tacky and garish, but who would wear one? If someone gave me one of those outfits, I would donate it to Goodwill. I certainly wouldn’t make one.
I don’t crochet, but I like a lot of these — Ulla Johnson, Red Valentino, Jonathan Cohen, Rosetta Getty and more. The only ones that made my flesh crawl in that “no, no, not the ‘70s again” way were the two Kate Spades that you chose for the feature photo. I’d be curious to know why you made that choice.
you are so right. 90% garrish and tacky…
I was hoping someone would say this before I had to. Yup, under the couch cushions it all goes. Just give me jeans and a nice Joji Locatelli sweater and I’ll be happy.
I’m with you!
Ulla Johnson! Not the 70’s!
I have done some crochet and am enjoying lace edging, but actual garments are usually heavy and bulky.
That said, look up Ukrainian crochet vests etc. They also like Irish crochet and have taken it to another level. Google Images, and be blown away. I bought three magazines from a Ukrainian vendor and will bring them to SAFF in two weeks to show Rita, our teacher for crocheted heirloom lace. Meanwhile, just finished my crocheted skull shawl for Halloween, finally!
Love love love. That first Jonathan Cohen sweater and the two looks by Staud. Whoa. I need to get my mom to reteach me how to crochet when she visits in a couple of weeks. 🙂
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one that liked Stauds work. I absolutely fell in love with that dress. I’m going to work on making a duplicate of it & if successful, I will be making it in various colors. It’s perfect for spring or fall depending on the colors you use.
Nice. Yeah, I think it would be great for fall too with a pair of leggings and boots. So cute.
WOOF !
Ahhhh… Supple crochet with swingy fringe, nothing like it (well, except good leather, I suppose). Love, Love, Love! Thanks for the heads up, and the inspiring preview!
I was never much of a crochet enthusiast until I saw the beautiful pieces made by Sophie Digard, sold by London Loop on occasion. Sometimes crochet surprises you.
I posted for the most part exactly all of these same images (or something extremely similar) appearing in this article, and more, on my IG account *a month ago, when they hit the runway* – as I do every season. It is a lot of work to view the runways daily and curate the images *in a timely fashion* during Fashion Week. It takes over an hour daily when there are shows and I curate a lot more than simply knitting and crochet fashion. And there are many additional images that I do not post. For instance this year I only posted NYFW. Interestingly there is almost complete overlap between my month-old IG posts and what is posted in this article, and there is nothing from the other fashion weeks – which I also curated when they hit the runway. So it does appear that this was pulled exclusively from the work I did to post on IG. I don’t have a problem with that as long as I am credited. But I do not appreciate the work that I do being copied without credit.
Hi MEK, great minds think a like. I’m not sure what your Instagram account is, but as a lover of fashion week content I’m sure I would love to follow along! I didn’t pull these images from your Instagram account. This post just went live today, but I actually wrote it and emailed it over to MDK on 9/10/19. Happy Crafting! -Samantha
One of my all time favorite movie scenes!
Thank you for the report.
I watched a couple of minutes of The Talk yesterday and one of the panelists had on a cute crochet jumper. Crochet here we come!
Ok. After reading the rest of the posts it seems like I need to get with the program and discover some new pieces to crochet. thx for all the info.
Crochet was my gateway to knitting. I taught myself to crochet (not very well, alas no YouTube when dinosaurs roamed the earth) when I was about 8. Slow forward four decades, and I then I taught myself to knit. A decade or so later, and now that there are some truly wonderful not-just-grannie-square garments, I’m back to crocheting. I love them both, and don’t quite understand many knitters’ fears of crochet. We get to play with beautiful string either way.
Regarding another’s comment on labor practices, this is sadly likely true in many cases. However it’s easy to forget that while workers might not be earning their worth through their efforts, they are also less likely to starve and/or be injured doing the work itself. I want a world where what is ideal is real. But allowing families to make money safely is a decent start.
And not for nothing, here’s an interesting site: https://www.krochetkids.org/what-we-do/