Trend: Khaki

While we were expecting to see camel all around the periphery of the New York Fashion Week, the fashionistas ended up deciding to shun the season's "it" color in favor of a less-expected khaki with an incontestable chic/roots potential.

When the massive presence of camel was observed during the shows last February, on the catwalks as well as in the front rows, it was obvious: camel, already overexploited, would soon lose its sex appeal for the fashionista.

In fact, by choosing what was thought to be (given its omnipresence in the collections) the future must-have color, the fashionista was destined to shorten its lifetime at the summit of hype.

Now 7 months later, after having succeeded in overusing this color in record time, the fashion editors, socialites and models -- one of whose functions is to act as a barometer of current trends -- could no longer decently wear their camel of last February, despite its omnipresence in the magazines.

As of that moment, they had to quickly find a new solution. Without consulting each other, they finished by selecting khaki - not at the head of the trends, but nonetheless with the advantage of possessing outsider chic and the irresistible scent of a prolonged summer.

This is how the olive tints - from lichen to army - have taken over the color panels from camel&co. These tints are blooming on the full-cut skirts of the season, bringing back the cargo pant, infusing silk shirts and even the Chanel quilted fabric.

Often incorporated into looks more chic than roots, these khaki reminiscences inject an unexpected twist to classic outfits, providing an alternative for those who did not see themselves in the classical-bourgeois looks outlined in the trend notebooks.

This kind of fashion mutiny should accelerate the changes already begun regarding distribution (e.g., Burberry and Tom Ford *). In the Internet era, it is no longer possible to impose 6-month lead times between the discovery of a wardrobe and its availability in the boutique.

* The models seen on the Burberry Prorsum catwalks can now be ordered just after the show (delivery time 7 weeks). As for Tom Ford, he opted to take a more radical position by forbidding photos during his shows.