BFW SS14: Candice Wu

          Candice Wu presented yet another stunning collection this year. Her dark and edgy designs keep getting better as she develops a unique style that Boston has fallen in love with. Uptempo Magazine sponsored her fashion installation at the W Hotel, while attendees were seated in the super cool bar lounge. Models posed around different stands around the room, allowing everyone to get up close to Wu's detailed eveningwear pieces. While she isn't one to use much color, the glimmering black, white, gold, and silver fabrics she used were beautifully layered, draped, and gathered. Her signature leather showed up in structured dresses and piping details. She used sheer and lace paneling very subtly in a couple overlays and trains.

           Once again, Wu partnered with jewelry brand House of Cach to compliment her designs with their avant-garde headpieces, necklaces, and bracelets. The jewelry went so perfectly with the gowns that each ensemble seemed to meld into one inseparable piece. Insects were the centers of many of the headpieces and necklaces, as well as an unusual face mask. A few pieces incorporated bones in delicate chains and thick arm cuffs, while one headpiece was a skeleton hand.

             Wu is certainly on fire in the Boston fashion industry, with designs that never disappoint and an established atheistic everyone has come to know as her own. Her creations are beautifully crafted for the kind of woman who wants a dress that embodies her daring, edgy style.

BFW SS14: Firas Yousif

         At the end of every fashion show, the audience applauds as all the models walk down the runway in the finale, then as the designer comes out to bow. Sometimes, a show is such a hit that there will be a standing ovation during the finale. Firas Yousif's show was such a hit that everyone applauded not only during the finale, but for every look throughout the show. This was the first time I've ever seen that and the designs proved the show to be a worthy exception!

         There was such exceptional detailing in Yousif's embroidery, textures, draping, and construction. Every piece glowed with an elegance that was only fit to be shown with the backdrop of an ornate church chapel. He balanced traditionalism and modernism with classic fabrics and shapes and contemporary lines and hems. There was a wide range of evening gowns, cocktail dresses, formal gowns, and wedding dresses, each with a different level of decadence for varying styles. Some had layers of tulle and ruffles while others were in sleek silk and simple column silhouettes.

          Necklines varied from boat neck and off the shoulder, to sweetheart and asymmetrical. The regal color scheme was entirely gold, silver, creme, and white. Yousif played with texture in crocodile embossed gold leather and rough, woven gold fabric. He accentuated the back of many pieces, one with a button-up closure, a few low-cut backs, and one asymmetrical structure that channeled the most glamorous hunchback I've ever seen.