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The Manchester-born fashion designer John Richmond who is living in London created a namesake fashion brand in 1987 that is organized in two lines: “John Richmond” the main line and “RICHMOND” the diffusion line containing both a ready to wear and denim range.

John Richmond is a celebration of the energy, creativity and unpredictability of youth and street culture.  Each line is heavily influenced by musical movements, blended with “street chic”, John’s own irreverent style and luxurious precision.

At Milan Fashion Week he was showing his new F/W 2011/12 women’s collection yesterday. Richmond presented his trademark, the usual rock-chick look with a subtle play on textures — from sporty outerwear rendered in fur to body-con knit dresses, and tone-on-tone dark colors. Not to mention the skillful usage of many leather details which made the entire collection very sophisticated and interesting!

Visit John Richmond’s homepage here.

Are you following high-fashion trends passionately and love to dress to the newest fashion trends accordingly? If so, I’m assuming you are a fashion trendsetter and love to shop. You must be a ‘Fashionista‘ and exactly the type of person who we want to speak to in this styleguide chapter!

This styleguide is going to give you some ideas how you will be a ‘looker’ among your folks anytime, anywhere. Even on cold days like this you can look amazing with wearable and comfortable clothes.

This beautiful chocolate coat for instance with its tie waist and a button tab neckline would fit perfectly with these high-heeled but very casual boots. What it makes difficult, especially in the winter time, is to be fashionably dressed but in clothes which protect you against the cold. Therefore it is more important than ever to play a bit with your accessories as shown here. The matchy bobble hat, the over-the-knee stockies and the leather slouch bag is a perfect solution to make your outfit fashionable, trendy and edgy! Exactly everything what a Fashionista needs, doesn’t she?

This outfit piece by piece:

#1 – ASOS Arran Long Line Cardigan – $65.51
#2 – ASOS Tie Waist Cape – $86.20
#3 – ASOS Oversized Bobble Hat – $20.69
#4 – ASOS Premium Washed Leather Slouch Bag – $137.92
#5 – ASOS Over The Knee Rib Socks - $6.90
#6 – YOOX High-heeled boots – $275.00

When you are really into fashion there’ll come the day when you stumble across a certain fashion term you’ve never heard before. Because of that we’d like to provide you with the most common fashion expressions and introduce you to a special fashion term now an than.

Must known fashion term #1: A-Line

Good to know, isn’t it? If you’d like to learn more useful fashion terms just click yourself through our fashion dictionary.

ps: Have you discovered a fashion term you’d like to introduce to our fellow fashion speakers? Feel free to drop us a line or leave a comment below and we’ll share it here.

Well, it’s been a little while since our last Dress of the Week. That’s because it’s still freezing oustide. At least in New York City. Nevertheless, some Fashionistas don’t care about the weather. They just put on their enchanting Gucci boots and coat and combine it with a matchy Yves Saint Laurent scarf. Congrats Starshell, you are really the Fashion-Star who lights up these miserable and dark winter days in NYC. Keep it up.

The so-called ‘mash-up’ decade got its name because it is the first decade that didn’t have a certain style for the most part. In the early 2000s fashion designers rather recycled already existing high-end fashion styles from the past decades and continued the minimalist look of the 1990s in a more polished way. Later on, designers began to adopt a more colorful, feminine, excessive, and ‘anti-modern’ look. Vintage and retro clothing, especially from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s became extremely popular and colors like baby blue, yellow and hot pink were very common.

As women’s fashion moved away from the unisex styles of the 1990s, the very feminine and dressy styles were reintroduced in the early years of this decade. Women wore denim miniskirts and jackets, tank tops, flip-flops and ripped jeans. The men’s fashion in these years was more cool and sporty. Trainers, baseball caps, light-colored polo shirts and boot-cut jeans were pretty popular.

Fashion in the mid and late 2000s

In the mid 2000s women wore mostly low rise skinny jeans. Tunics were worn with wide or thin belts, longer tank tops with a main blouse or shirt, leggings, knee-high boots with pointed toes, capri pants, and vintage clothing. The men’s world in contrast was inspired by retro fashion from pop groups. Slim-fitting jeans were cutting edge, cartoon printed hoodies, Convers sneakers, mod-style parkas and military dress jackets were the essential fashion items for men back then.

In the late 2000s, ballet flats, knitted sweater dresses, long shirts combined with a belt, leather jackets and fur coats made a comeback. Besides that the style of the 1950s and 1980s became very popular for men’s fashion. Black leather jackets, Ed Hardy T-shirts, motorcycle boots, knitted V-neck sweaters, cardigans and Ray Ban sunglasses made the guys look very casual and edgy at the same time. Business men didn’t wear the classic suits with a three-buttoned jacket anymore. They rather preferred a more offbeat two-buttoned blazer worn with a matching suit trouser, a slim tie and waistcoat. The tighter fitting clothes were born and equally popular for both genders.

Watch Burberry’s Digital Fashion Show 2011 in Beijing:

Since the end of the 20th century the vicissitudes of globalization and the development of new technologies for design and production (including the creation of new “techno textiles”) increasing influence the future of fashion. Synthetic materials such as Lycra, Spandex, and viscose became widely-used. Back to that time fashion turned to the past for inspiration, after two decades of looking to the future.

Fashion History from 1980 – 1990

The 1980s saw a definite rise in the popularity of designer styles, while high fashion had greatly declined during the 1960s and 1970s. Fashion shows were more important then ever and were transfigured into media-saturated spectaculars and frequently televised. Power and money dominated the styles of the 1980s and clothing was a sign of power. The better-heeled people around the world were literally rushing to pricy New York boutiques and Paris fashion shows to purchase directly from designers’ lines. Extremly popular were the baroque evening dresses and long, extravagant designer gowns which made a reappearance inspired by the past. While not everybody could afford the very expensive designer cloths, the mass producers on the other hand replicated the high fashions for the general public. A few fashion designers such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren for instance also produced ready-to-wear lines to appeal to less-affluent customers.

Thierry Mugler and Azzedine Alaia were the two French fashion designer who best defined the look to that time. Thierry Mugler produced fashion designs that combined Hollywood retro and futurism, with rounded hips and sharply accentuated shoulders. Due to his glamorous dresses which were a remarkable success to that time, Mugler had made an end of the hippy era and its unstructured silhouette. On the other hand Azzedine Alaia was known for his inspiring combinations and was the master of all kinds of techniques that had previously been known only to haute couture. He included in his designs many new and underused materials, such as Lycra and viscose.

Beside the prevailing fashion image of the time two Japanese designers such as Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto offered a very natural look and marked a total break of the extravance and glamorous fashion designs. Flat shoes, no make-up, reserve, modesty, and secrecy were the hallmarks of their modern look.

In American fashion, Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren dominated the ready to wear styles in the 80s. While Karan brought a very personal and feminine approach to the severe, sober-colored, casual American look for urban women who greatly appreciated the understated luxury of her clothes, Lauren represented a classic look as sportswear and jeans that had been adopted for an active life. Unlike Karan, Lauren reached the widest possible range of social classes and age groups due to his affordable price points of his designs.

Watch the clip to imagine the extravagant 1980’s:

Fashion History from 1990 – 1999

The economic recession at the beginning of the 1990s in the fashion industry literally destroyed the positive and optimistic mood of the 1980s. Women had begun to reject the moneyed, designer styles of the 1980s and opt for more comfortable, casual clothing by the 1990s. Ripped jeans, flannel shirts and baggy pants which were inspired by the rock & roll and hip-hop movement became extremly popular. The comfort and the desire of wearable clothes became the key factor in the fashion industry for most women in the 1990s and 2000s. Ready to wear retailer such as Gap and Banana Republic came to the forefront of fashion and retro clothing inspired by the 1960s and 1970s was popular for much of the 1990s.

The Italian fashion house Gucci, founded in 1921 had begun selling luxury leather goods and gave up control of the company to Invest Corp. in 1990, was then employing an unknown fashion director, Tom Ford in 1994. Ford triggered a tidal wave with his chic and shocking collections, perfumes for men and women, revamped boutiques, and advertising campaigns. Hence the Gucci house was crowned with a great prestige and is today the second biggest-selling fashion brand, after LVMH worldwide.

At the end of the 20th century Michael Kors, Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs were the most influental American fashion designer. Michael Kors’s knowledge and consciousness of trends enabled him to produce simple well-cut garments, whose sophistication and elegance appealed to a whole new breed of wealthy American customers drawn to the new vogue for minimalist chic. Marc Jacobs is one of the most notable American designers of the period in that, unlike many American fashion designers in the past, he was not so much the co-ordinator of a mass-produced garment as a designer in the European sense of the word. The already well-known designer Calvin Klein on the other hand started to market his fashions, perfumes, and accessories beside the US also in Europe and Asia and was achieving an unequaled success. Klein used carefully constructed advertisements containing images tinted with eroticism to promote his sophisticatedly functional mass-produced designs, which won massive popularity among the urban youth of the 1990s.

In Italy, Dolce & Gabbana and Versace dominated the fashion industry in Europe to that time. Both, Dolce & Gabbana with their superfeminine and fantastical style and Versace with his brilliant, sexy and colorful designs, broke away from the serious and sober-minded fashions that dominated during much of the 1990s.

Catwalk footage of supermodel Cindy Crawford at Calvin Klein runway fashion show in 1991

Retro clothes, also known for vintage clothes, are widely known as second hand garments originating from a previous era. The word “retro” derives from the Latin prefix retro , meaning “backwards” or “in past times” – particularly as seen in the words retrograde, implying a movement toward the past instead of a progress toward the future. “Retro” can be used to simply mean “old fashioned” or old, functioning much like “timeless” or “classic”.

Rei Kawakubo (born in 1942) is a Japanease fashion designer and owner of the Paris and Tokyo based fashion brand Comme des Garçons.