World of Fashion: Fall fashion 2013: The top 10 trends on the runways this season

Fall 2013 fashion is a lesson in extremes. There’s some serious push and pull when it comes to the stylistic female role in today’s society, and no place proves a better show than on the runway.

Skirt suits, the once-staple pairing for women’s fashion, were back for fall at Prada, Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Dior, where models returned to New Look ideals. Nipped waists, strong shoulders and an ample cut of wool seemed to pose that the woman of the 1940s was ideal, at least this time around on the trend carousel. The return of the skirt, whether in-suit or otherwise, seems never more impactful than for this season, where it appeared in virtually every collection from Hérmes to Chanel. At Ports 1961, a mid-length circle skirt paired effortlessly with a grey bomber jacket and cable knit sweater to make the ultimate modern-casual statement.

To add to Fall 2013 fashion’s femme fest, Miu Miu, Carven, Giles and Jonathan Saunders embraced powder pink, the ultimate baby doll hue. Elsewhere, a soft palette of baby blue and winter whites seemed to point to a more innocent direction as well, especially when paired with fall’s boudoir trend. Most notably at Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton, bed-headed models wore slinky lingerie dresses, fox-trim silk robes and lazily dragged stoles on the ground.

And because no fashion season is complete without opposing views, Fall 2013 fashion was dealt a heavy dose of bra-burning rebellion via grunge, biker and a push towards mannish tailoring and for-the-boys fabrics.

The ever-popular motorcycle jacket appeared in ever-growing multitudes on runways at Rag & Bone, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Acne, Etro, Rodarte and Diesel while grunge hallmarks were on the rise for the second season in a row at Saint Laurent, Chloe Comme Parris, Christopher Kane and Givenchy. Punk’s everlasting effect reared its unruly head at countless shows during fashion week, but most notably at Versace, where spikes, PVC and logo T-shirts had Donatella Versace creating her own word for the revival, “Vunk.”

At Céline, Stella McCartney and Vanessa Bruno, plaids, pinstripes and oversized cuts quietly messaged a gender role shift. But where does it all leave us? Gender bending once more? Guess we’ll need to wait till next season to find out.