The Pre-Fall Halftime Report

The Pre-Fall Halftime Report: "

Like Resort before it, pre-fall is expanding, moving from what used to be a transitional offering into something that looks more like a full-fledged collection. As we’ve been going on pre-fall appointments and speaking with designers these past few weeks, everyone agrees that the collections are bigger, the demand greater, and the interest from the press stronger than in seasons past. (Labels like Oscar de la Renta and Donna Karan even opted to do runway shows.)

With bigger collections come more diverse offerings, and less singular trends to distill. (And pre-fall tends to be a more commercial season than either Fall or Spring.) But this much seems certain: The seventies influence will soldier on. Big, bold prints (and floor-sweeping, longer lines) were a mainstay of many of the collections we saw, like ADAM (top left), Thakoon (center), and Burberry Prorsum (right). On the other hand, so will the neutral moment that’s been going strong since Fall. Plenty of labels kept things minimal, like Helmut Lang (below left), Donna Karan (center), and Vera Wang (right).