FASHION : The Mart’s Trend Report Is In and California Designs Go Folkloric
The ninth annual California Collections began Monday morning when half of the 250 registered editors and retailers straggled into the California Mart’s fashion theater for the Trend Report, the first event in the two-day marathon of fashion shows.
Denise Cohen-Scher, the mart’s fashion director, presented the report, a show of coming attractions that included the directional influences for spring, 1990, and highlights from collections that the 60 California designers would premiere over the two days.
Skirt lengths, proportions, and silhouettes all took a back seat to ethnic dressing and styles evocative of times past.
The driving force for the new decade is a global mix of folkloric touches from Africa, the Middle East and Central and South America.
“It transcends all categories--this whole ethnic trend is the biggest bulk of what we’ve seen,” Cohen-Scher said of the geographic potpourri that showed up on everything from swim wear to evening wear.
Designers, rather than offering a National Geographic sampler of native costumes, were judicious in adaptations. They borrowed the softly draped shapes of sarong skirts, dhoti pants and long tunics over narrow skirts and slim pants; they showed bra tops and short vests for a cool and easy way of dressing for the heat.
Karl Logan deftly combined a striped silk sarong skirt with a taupe linen jacket, while Rated R showed sarong-wrapped pants with a short striped vest.
The pounds and pounds of accessories usually associated with ethnic dressing was kept to a minimum. Beads and coins were used to edge short vests and the collars of jackets, making added accessories unnecessary. Pearl fringe edged the lapels of a white linen jacket by Opera; Geary Roark dangled coins from a lime-green bra top worn with slim pants and a short- sleeved duster coat for Kamisato.
Blouses, skirts and vests in soft sheer fabrics were tied or wrapped with long scarf ends left to waft in the breeze. The same soft, almost sheer, fabrics were layered in multihued combinations, the most popular being sun-infused reds, yellows and oranges.
Skirts usually were long, mid-calf to ankle-grazing, though occasionally they were short, above-the-knee to thigh-high. Pants ran the gamut, long and lean, cropped and wide-legged, or draped dhoti style. Jackets accompanying these diverse bottoms were equally varied--short cropped, boxy shapes to long, belted, safari styles.
Mixed into this fashionable polyglot were period throwbacks. Lady-like tea dresses, reminiscent of the ‘20s and ‘30s with ankle-length skirts, wide-collared blouses and oversized straw hats, came from Farideh Pour Publique, Rialto and Holly Sharp in sheer navy and ivory chiffon.
Long, lean, flapper looks from the same time machine offered less saccharine alternatives in the lady-like sweepstakes. They included a navy and white awning-striped suit from Mark Eisen, an ankle length pleated skirt and swallowtail jacket from Saelee, and a long, ivory tunic edged in black with a long, side-buttoned striped skirt from Ef.
