22 Ways to Say Black

I like dresses. I like sparkly things (although not quite as much as Katey. Honestly. We had to pretty much drag her out of the Swarkovski store at Cabot Circus.)

So when I saw these dresses, I knew that I’d have to share them with you to at least remove some of the temptation to want them. Or at least pass it on to you guys. I’m nice like that.

22 fashion designers, both well known and newcomers, were given a brief by Swarovski to design a dress to be auctioned off in aid of charity. The charities chosen to recieve the money raised were American Cancer Society and La Ligue Nationale contre le cancer in France (which is obviously why I think this is a great idea. Do I even need to say that any more?)

You can see all of the dresses over on the website or on the Facebook page, but heres a few of my favourites:

The first dress is a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress, with beaded sleeves. I love the pleating all over, and a wrap dress is always flattering.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Jean Paul Gaultier after first seeing him on Eurotrash (I know, I know. Even weirder when you realise that my Mum used to watch it with us. AWKWARD). His cocktail dress design uses the Swarovski crystals to highlight the neckline straps.

The Lanvin by Alber Elbaz dress uses the Swarovski crystals as a trompe l’oeil necklace suspended over the chest. Cute!

Missoni‘s dress is in their usual style print, but with large stones on one side, and apparently layers of “crystal fabric” (I’m not exactly sure what that is but sounds good!

The 3.1 phillip lim dress is amazing. It stands out to me not just because the base dress is a beautiful ivory duchesse satin, but it has various panels all over of black satin with Swarovski crystals all over. This is a dress that needs to be looked at on the link above and zoomed in – the panels are almost encrusted in black stones of different shapes and sizes

If you’re tempted by any of these dresses (I am, but sadly $10k is a tad out of my budget!), then the auction is to be held on September 20th in New York. For now, I think I’ll just daydream about these dresses a bit more…

Edit: According to Fashionista.com, over $100,000 was raised for the two charities.