I’ve spent all week viewing 150 runway shows from New York Fashion Week. Let the blogging begin.

THE DREADED JODHPURS

Dictionary.com defines jodhpurs as “riding breeches cut very full over the hips and tapering at the knees to become tightfitting from the knees to the ankles.” Put simply, they’re baggy at the thigh, and tight from the knee down. I like to think of them as the mullet of pants.

Pants inspired by jodhpurs made appearances at far too many runway shows this week, including Camilla Staerk, Malandrino, Alica + Olivia, Alexandre Herchcovitch, Twinkle by Wenlan, Suno, Andy & Debb, and many others. Let’s see who was able to sort of pull off such an awful trend, and who just embarrassed the glorious name of Pants everywhere.

The Good, The Bad, the Malandrino

Malandrino Fall 2010

These are minimally offensive. The structured fabric helps minimize the baggy effect at the thighs, and the plum-colored tweed print is lovely. The look aims for high fashion, so although it’s not very wearable, it’s not supposed to be. As far as jodhpurs go, you can’t do much better than this.

Same designer, same type of pant, and yet this is miles more disturbing than the previous look. It’s certainly not helped by the garish accessories and awkwardly draped shirt. But add these exaggerated jodhpurs to the mix, and she ends up looking like a transvestite pirate (and not in a good way).

Kudos, Alice + Olivia

Well, not quite kudos, since you still fucking put jodhpurs on the runway, but at least you did it in a semi-wearable way. This may be more of a legwarmers-over-baggy-pants situation rather than jodhpurs, but the effect is the same. The chic blazer helps – clearly, the rule for passable jodhpurs is that they need to be paired with something more structured and stylish to minimize the disheveled-ness of the look. But I could certainly see a long-legged starlet wearing this out on the town and only being marginally mocked for it. On an unrelated note, doesn’t this model look remarkably like Calista Flockhart?

Again, the jodhpurs are vastly improved by a sexy structured blazer. If it weren’t for the appearance of the world’s largest cameltoe that this photo conveys, this would be a pair of pants that I wouldn’t mock a stranger for wearing.

The Worst of the Worst

Alexandre Herchcovitch Fall 2010

I’m too nauseous to think of anything witty to say.

More fashion week updates to come!