Alexander Wang, AW14, New York.

For some designers the true cycle of innovation each season seems to be firmly rooted in the textiles and materials that they use, which can help to produce unique collections that distinguishes their work from other designers and also helps to ensure that the collections are less easily copied. For the Alexander Wang collection for Autumn-Winter 2014, some silhouettes were built around heat sensitive fabrics, which were laser cut, or cleverly woven and knitted so that neon colours glowed out of black garments.

The colour change features were by no means the only textile trickery of the collection. A couple of garments involved long strips of fabric that were woven through a sportsmesh in a method similar to long stitch, a long vertical stitch that produces a flat area of colour, and when used on these garments the long stitches created a chevron design.

Other looks featured knitwear that appeared to bubble on the surface, and there was also coarse knitwear that appeared to be created by knitting strips of fabric. Some garments also featured panels of a contrast fabric or leather at the neckline, shoulder or as a bottom band where a narrow strip of fabric was woven through pre-punched holes to draw the different segments together, almost like a threaded shoe lace, or like the leather lacing on a baseball glove.

The first looks of the collection are also worth looking at where a variety of different utilitarian pockets and details were used in self fabric to embellish the outside of rectangular shift dresses and coats. The use of self fabrics for the pockets, buckles and buttons of these details resulted in details that looked moulded onto the front of the garments.

Subtle design variations among these early looks also helped to distinguish one garment from the next, for example square shoulder pads created balance on a rectangular coat, while a dress was softened with both round shoulders and a round neckline.

Images via Vogue.co.uk»