Last February I attended the Chris Benz presentation for the first time, and that’s when the love affair began with the designer…

Designer, Chris Benz.  Image courtesy of Avenue Insider.

Benz’s credentials are quite impressive!  He grew up in the mid-90’s in Seattle so he was greatly influenced by the grunge movement, as well as his grandmother’s jewelry collection.  Now Benz enjoys using a dreary color palette with pops of vibrant color in his designs, along with vintage and surplus elements made in American sportswear luxe fabrics.

After graduating from Parsons School of Design (whoop whoop!) he went on to receive the CFDA Emerging Designer Award.  During his time at Parsons, he interned for another Parsons-grad, Marc Jacobs (one of my all time favorite designers!). Post graduation, he designed for the powerful preppy J.Crew in the Dresses and Special Occasions Dept.

Chris recently designed a watch collection with Swiss watchmaker, Movado.  He launched a 5 item collection complete with dripping spray paint dots and smoke print silk straps. The watch collection is featured in the October issue of Elle (I snagged an early copy at the Victoria’s Secret Lounge at NYFW).

How great is this hair?! It’s bed head with a 1960’s coiffure edge! 

The Chris Benz woman is ‘an ageless sophisticate, a reckless preppy who desires nothing more than to just ‘keep dancing’.  Her style projects the collection’s sense of perfect imperfection: the elegant tomboy with a feminine touch, equally at home at the Cafe Flore as she is in the Bowery, she is playfully impudent and always precise’.  Maybe this is why I adore his collection so, I completely relate to the Chris Benz woman.  What about you?

The styling in the Chris Benz presentation was PERFECTION. It was basically my dream collection with the effortlessly cool layers of feminine meets masculine, lady who lunches meets eclectic boho, and yummy stacked necklaces and bracelets that added a completely unique look.  

TREND ALERT: Mixing and Matching fabrics and prints is here to stay!  SS12 will be all about some ‘clashing’ as the Wall Street Journal calls it.

The juxtaposition of the textured, embellished dress with high tops makes me SO happy, along with the yellow/orange/blue color palette…and apparently it makes this model grin with joy too!