Tweed tales

Tweed is for fall what florals are for spring. This timeless suiting material has morphed from being an outerwear essential to a delectable fashion fabric all thanks to the late Coco Chanel and her never-ending love affair with all things tweed. It seems Gabrielle Chanel was inspired by the tweed jackets of the Duke of Westminster. What was once considered to be in a masculine domain was transmogrified by Mademoiselle Coco into an elite textile. The melange of threads creating a tactile fantasy has made this textile designers’ favourite. Tweed’s neutral European palette of brown, beige, black and grey has now been tweaked with fragments of fibres with gleaming details like neon accents and pop colours. Balmain’s tartan tweed jacket with fringes comes to mind instantly. This season too, not surprisingly, tweed coats were seen on the runways of Marc Jacobs, Rahul Mishra, Calvin Klein, The Row and Alexander Wang.

A winter staple

For Fall Winter 2018, designer Karl Lagerfeld presented a slew of nylon tweed-trimmed Chanel jackets at the label’s show held in Grand Palais. “I think some classic fabrics never go out of style. It’s a winter staple like herringbone or dog tooth and it keeps coming back,” says designer Monisha Jaising.

A light day-wear look

The tweed in its current format isn’t bulky but makes for a light day-wear look. Stylist Aastha Sharma, “This fall winter, it’s not your regular boring tweed jacket but comes with a modern flourish. For example, the Balmain tweed mini dress which makes for a powerful statement.”

Designer Rimzim Dadu who loves tweed jackets and some of her earlier collections include a lot of tweed says, “It’s hard to go away from tweed and it’ll continue to be relevant.”