Trends

The Fashion Future s So Neon Bright, You Gotta Wear Shades

Neon’s back at Paris Fashion Week. Tracing the path of the trend, as seen on the street, backstage, and on the catwalk.

One of the most striking ways Stephen Sprouse punked up downtown fashion in the eighties, designing for the likes of Debbie Harry, was with Day-Glo neons. Gianni Versace later used fluorescent hues to redefine the va-va-voom glamour that became associated with the supermodels and the OTT times, while Christian Lacroix, master colorist, employed neons to tell tales of romance and bravura. In Paris today, Peter Copping at Nina Ricci applied bold brights to soft silhouettes. One can only imagine it was to an admiring crowd, as **Phil Oh’**s street style photos document a neon-clad coterie of fashion followers.

  • Trends Neon
    Photo: Mary Evans/Everett Collection
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    Debbie Harry

  • Photo: Thomas Iannaccone
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    Stephen Sprouse design, 1987.

  • Photo: Alexis DUCLOS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty
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    Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington in Versace, 1991.

  • Photo: Alexis DUCLOS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
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    Christian Lacroix, backstage, 1999.

  • Photographed by Phil Oh
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    Shala Monroque, 2014.

Christian Lacroix is Laird Borrelli-Persson’s fashion raison d’etre; the way he combined romance and historicism set her on the path she is following today. Borrelli-Persson studied literature at Boston College, spending her junior year abroad at Oxford, where she added some art history. After graduation she moved to New York to intern ... Read More
TopicsNina RicciSpring 2015 Ready-to-Wear