The Kingston Project: "Fashion's not about looking back, it's always about looking forward." --A. Wintour

Ms. Wintour put this axiom to test in the January2010 issue of Vogue. I have to say, transitioning from one decade into the next provides a huge opportunity for a fashion publication like Vogue to sort of tie everything together, to summarize with an eye of what's coming next.

And Vogue did not disappoint.

The January2010 issue is one of my favorites to date, and not only because the feature on the "new generation of talent" included four of my favorite designers. It wasn't my favorite because they did a feature on hip-hop star MIA. It wasn't the exciting, thorough retrospect of the decade's best dressed. It wasn't the Demarchelier piece on "going west", paying homage to the eternal American spirit. It wasn't the Rachel McAdams piece. It wasn't even the "last look" which made a nod to the intersection of fashion and tech-developments by featuring a Tod's leather Nook e-book reader case.

Every image, every word in this issue of Vogue was cohesively addressing the question we all face on the upswing of a recession, on the edge of unprecedented climate change (both global and political), on the cusp of a decade: Who are we and where are we going?

Fashion isn't about this trend or that trend, it is a barometer of our culture. Fashion, through the voices of individual artists, tells the story of our people. And according to the Jan2010 issue of Vogue, we are are going into a new decade with our fists up.
Well, now that I've got THAT off my chest, here are some images from the "date with destiny" feature, Anna Wintour's selection of the freshest talent in fashion who are going to carry us into 2010. First up, my girls at Rodarte:

This is a great shot, I think it really captures what Rodarte is all about. I understand that Vogue is all about what's CURRENTLY going on in fashion, I think it would have been a better "looking back/ looking forward" kind of piece if they brought in multiple models with sort of the "greatest hits". But that's just me.