Fashion Column: Fashion Fall-ward

(andPOP) - Just the mention of the word ?fall? makes many students cringe as the mental countdown to school begins. Hence I will make the prediction for what to expect in fall as quick and painless as possible.

The store received a shipment of the men?s fall line a few days ago and we had the intolerable pleasure of opening the packages, scanning them, pricing them and sorting them until 11:30 p.m. We are all relieved to find that the predominant colours this season are brown, black and blue rather than the mutated summer colours that we thought we?d only see after eating mushrooms under the front porch.

Bold stripes are now a bonifide staple in men?s shirts. Embroidered detailing on shirts is emerging again to give subtle texture rather than stark contrast. All these are shown in much darker tones giving a mysterious appearance since much of the stripes, embroidery or print cannot be seen 15 feet away. This is a tremendous step up since retailers have finally learned the effectiveness of being subtle and demure. Maybe this will finally ease the designer-brand epidemic that has flooded the minds of many teens. Damn you Paris Hilton!

The new jeans are much more wearable; only one or two pairs have that ghastly pre-distressed appearance to them. The rest are in a dark brown, navy or gray wash throughout. No more streaks of white whiskers, splotches of bleach on the bum or deliberately ripped holes that automatically double the price of the jeans. However, this hasn?t stopped the jeans from costing anywhere from $70-128.

?Are these jeans really $128?? asked one customer.
?No, it?s a scam we?re running that no one has discovered yet. Congratulations! They?re actually $20!? I so wanted to reply.

Yes, it was a bad day at work for me and some of the female employees were slightly agitated that the women?s new denim line won?t be in till July 10. With nothing to work with but not wanting to leave the female counterpart hanging, here are my predictions:

The ?60s will be back again (think Twiggy not hippie) as ?80s fashion finally comes to a long overdue end. The Gap has been selling soft blue peacoats for a few weeks now (which aren?t going anywhere anytime soon because we received at least a hundred more last night). Short, black and white dresses that are neither skin tight or plunging in the neckline region provides an interesting contrast to bo-ho chic.

Like men, black and blue will also be a staple colour. Let me say once again how happy I am to see those neon green and pink camisoles get packed away and forgotten like the Ark of the Covenant in "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

One trend that I?m not excited about is the return of fur. Though I doubt that every other store in the mall would be shelling mink and chinchilla, higher end designers are showing fur coats and scarves that will be emulated (poorly) for the mass. Remember those short pink, Muppet fur-trimmed ski jackets last year?

That being said, I still remain optimistic for fall because designers have more to work with than summer. There are only so many ways to design shorts and t-shirts and designers are eager to flex their creativity. Let?s see how they did in the coming weeks.