Thakoon Panichgul returns; Hadid and Hilfiger team up

NEW YORK (AP) — Thakoon offered immediate gratification and Tommy Hilfiger and Gigi Hadid talked about their collaboration. Some highlights from New York Fashion Week:
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AT THAKOON, SEE NOW, BUY NOW

With a fresh take on business and his first brick-and-mortar store, Thakoon Panichgul returned to the fashion week schedule after time off to rethink and rejuvenate.

And what did he come up with? A limited supply of “see now, buy now” clothes in a fall collection that had him dump all his middlemen so he could put it on sale immediately at his Soho shop and on his website, Thakoon.com. But they’ll only be available for a month or so. When they’re gone, that’s it.

“It’s Thakoon 2.0. I didn’t show last season. I took a year off. Basically I wanted to do something energetic, something fresh,” Panichgul said in an interview after the outdoor show on a terrace of a huge, redone waterfront warehouse in Brooklyn.

“With the new business model, I wanted something speedier, something that feels really fast-paced because the world that we’re living in is very fast-paced,” he said, echoing the sentiments of other brands that have gone to fast fashion.

Of the clothes, he said: “I went back to this idea of looking at the classics and twisting them.”

Known for graphic prints, one of the standouts Thursday night was actually a solid, a ruffle dress in marigold with a swingy, handkerchief hemline. And there was a pair of wide-leg crop twill pants in a brownish stone with huge front pockets that lent just enough detail when shown with a medium-wide belt.

https://twitter.com/thakoon/status/774203014546657280

Panichgul, whose mother taught him how to sew, had some other, wearable standouts, including a cropped trench-style, double-breasted jacket with a layered look sewn right in. It was a shape he carried into other fabrics and prints, both of which were often layered and mixed together.

A black Chantilly lace silk dress, for instance, was worn with a Merino wool sweater cape and an oversized plaid Merino wool jacket tied at the waist. A faux mink bomber jacket was shown with a gauze plaid shirtdress and a wool sweater tied the same way.

Panichgul’s first store opened in Manhattan in August. Last December, Vivian Chou, the daughter of Hong Kong tycoon Silas Chou, took a majority stake in the brand he launched in 2004.

“It’s revitalizing,” he said of his new take on fashion and business. “It gave me a lot of energy.”

–Leanne Italie
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A NEW COLLECTION IS BORN

Veteran fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger and model-of-the-moment Gigi Hadid have teamed up for a new fashion line called the Tommy x Gigi Collection.

The capsule collection, designed by both Hilfiger and Hadid, will be showcased on Friday night at a special New York Fashion Week show called (hash)TOMMY NOW.

At a press conference ahead of the show, which will be open to the public, Hilfiger described it as a “carnival.”

“It is a New York City block party carnival with hot dogs and burgers, French fries and games and rides and all sorts of things,” he said.

While organizing a public runway show sounds like a logistical nightmare, Hilfiger joked that the most challenging issue was “getting the right seat for Gigi’s friend, Taylor Swift.”

Hadid, who is already a global brand ambassador for Tommy Hilfiger, makes her design debut with the new line.

When coming up with the looks, Hadid drew inspiration from her friends.

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“I honestly with every single piece thought of someone different and not only my friends and the people in the fashion industry, but I thought about what fans would like. You know, some with logos, some more sporty, some more hippie, some more preppy, classic Tommy,” she explained.

Hadid and Hilfiger are also launching their new It Girl fragrance alongside the Tommy x Gigi Collection.

–Nicole Evatt

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