Sherlock Holmes at NY Fashion Week

by Jarrett Martineau | February 7, 2008 at 01:35 pm | 399 views | 1 comment

The professorial, pipe-smoking, tweed jacketed (with leather elbow patches), old world, British detective style of Sherlock Holmes seems to come and go. Well it's back. But at least we've moved on from all-out dandyism.

Tweed's style icons aren't the most trendy bunch: Sherlock Holmes, college professors, your grandma.

But at New York Fashion Week on Wednesday, the fall staple got a makeover: the fabric is sometimes made of unexpected materials, the pattern not always perfect and the shapes of the garments aren't restrictive.

Narciso Rodriguez made a gray and white tweed so soft it looked like fur. Isaac Mizrahi made a fur tweed gown - about as luxe an interpretation as you can find. And the British designer Matthew Williamson did tweed in an explosion of color with flashes of metallic.

Fashion editors, stylists and buyers also saw previews from Michael Kors, Anna Sui and Justin Timberlake's William Rast line. Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week runs through Feb. 8, with shows still to come from designers including Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen and Calvin Klein.