Resort Retort: Fitted Suits

We are delighted to introduce to you the newest member of the PAPERMAG blog family, Mack Dugan, a veritable expert on all things fashion-related (he himself is a designer), who will be regularly blogging about what's hip and happening and striking his fancy in the fashion world. Without further ado, his first installment of a series he's calling Resort Retort.

The fairly new phenomenon that is "resort," brings a mid-season collection to consumers between the fall-winter and spring-summer collections. The resort shows land around May and June in an unscheduled heap, and are generally presented in New York regardless of where a designer regularly shows (a testament to the insatiable consumer that is America?). The clothes appear in store in October and November providing shoppers with bits to buy for their tropical midwinter holidays, Christmas/new year parties and possibly a peek into designers' first thoughts for their spring collections. The collections tend to be more commercial with little to none of the theatrics that we love in our twice yearly main collections. What you see in a resort collection is what will be in stores, none of that "we only made it for the show" baloney.

So here is a Mack Dugan rundown of my "hits" for Resort '08. There are some unmentionable over-commercial collections (why bother?) and some that are just not in my realm whatsoever (this is resort though my eyes, so like it or lump it!) Here we go.

First off, we have The Fitted Suits: These makes navigating a Christmas party crowd a cinch and there is nothing newer than dumping the party dress in lieu of a tight tight tight little suit. For a more beachy look just throw your jacket over your bathing suit, or your full-body competitive swimming catsuit, available in acid tones from McQueen.