Runway Traffic: Red Alert

 

An Oxford study has suggested, quite menacingly, that redheads, who benefit from a recessive gene, will become extinct (or at least very rare) by the year 2100. Backtrack to the European Fall 2010 collections and one can clearly find holes in that conclusion, as more than ever, redheads ruled the runways.

 

From the natural tussled copperheads of Lasse (DNA Models) at Burberry, Bastien Bonizec (Success) at Dries Van Noten, Gordon Bothe (NY Models) at D&G, and Jerome (NY Models) at Bottega Veneta, it was the next generation of models that propagated the trend and gave these collections a “ginger” snap.

 

Genetics aside, in Milan I sometimes wondered whether I was seeing things through rouge tinted glasses: Did Joseph Culp (Fusion) go red this season, or was it just the lighting at Raf Simons that gave it that auburn tint? At Moschino, Adrian Bosche’s (Ford) color seemed suspiciously swapped from his usual dark blonde to Prince Harry red. 

 

Then as we opened our VNY show package, we noticed that Nick Snider (the Linda Evangelista of male model-dom) has also been bitten by the strawberry bug. Will the redhead trend set New York Fashion Week ablaze?