THE FALL COLLECTION / NEW YORK : Hot, Warm and Very Cool
Give three of America’s best and hippest designers a platform and they deliver three extraordinarily different visions of where fashion is headed for fall. At the midway point in the weeklong collections here, Todd Oldham, Richard Tyler and Marc Jacobs presented shows that also had a lot to say about their own states of mind.
One is very hot. One is very warm. And one is so very cool. Take your pick.
Set against a painted backdrop of the desert at twilight, Oldham’s color-drenched show Tuesday night was fairly blistering. “Please Enjoy Clothes” read the headline on the program notes, and clearly he does. So does his legion of admirers, a diverse lot who peppered the front row with a variety of body types: Sandra Bernhard, Ricki Lake, Susan Sarandon and Ivana Trump.
Oldham’s psychedelic take on the reigning mod mania was the perfect antidote to cool-irony overload. Tom Petty aside, it’s hard to look detached in a foot-tall leopard-printed top hat. Oversized hats went with skintight suits in vibrant, op-art patterns. A bull’s-eye motif jumped off the runway.
Even when he toned things down with amber and champagne brocade coat dresses and suits, the fit and cut took them out of the realm of the ordinary. At night, the Oldham customer (no wallflowers allowed) lets out the stops in chain-mail bra tops, beaded panne velvets, enormous quilted satin coats and black, rhinestone-trimmed Oscar-caliber gowns.
While heavily beaded long-sleeved coat dresses may have seemed the way to conceal a less-than-perfect figure, they made the models--especially the womanly Tatjana Patitz--look shockingly thick. That will never do.
No such bloopers will ever taint a Richard Tyler collection. The Los Angeles-based designer, who recently parted company with Anne Klein, showed meticulously cut suits in luxurious fabrics that express an undeniable sensuality. But if Tyler’s collection was error- free, it was also relatively safe, never veering far from what he does exceedingly well.
Most fun of all was a group of menswear-cut jackets, pants, French-cuffed shirts and ties in periwinkle, lavender, powder blue, pistachio and yellow. These sissy shades subverted the whole idea of cross-dressing, a theme that has emerged in many collections. They also emphasized another trend: trans-seasonal color, something women in Los Angeles know only too well. (Try blending in in a city such as San Francisco in a pair of white trousers in fall. No, don’t.)
For evening, Tyler has created a brilliant hybrid--a cashmere shrunken tuxedo jacket. In powder pink or black, with matching narrow, slit skirts, the softness of the cashmere worked beautifully to emancipate this always-masculine look. But it was a midnight satin gown with off-the-shoulder sleeves that set front-row fan Sigourney Weaver’s dark eyes aglow. Perhaps that would be the one to tempt her back to Tyler from Christian Lacroix for next year’s Academy Awards.
Marc Jacobs envisions a woman who would probably prefer a night at the Viper Room. From her lurex hip-huggers to her mink jacket, this babe’s wardrobe has cool disdain written all over it.
Last season, Jacobs played with dozens of idioms that would prove to be prescient. From ‘50s cowgirl to ‘40s working girl, from animal prints to shine, he was bursting with ideas--none of which he took too seriously. This time, though, he concentrated on a single, fixed vision of fashion’s future. The future doesn’t seem like much fun.
At least not until his collections got to a group of glittery black suits and dresses paired with a matching black stole or a matelasse coat. Jacobs’ brocade suits and separates, metal lace dress and a group made of an interesting wool grosgrain is evidence of a trend that many observers here have been noting. That design in and of itself has taken a back seat to what those designs are made of. Or as one buyer put it: “It’s all about fabric.”
* Next: The collections of Anne Klein, Vivienne Tam, Anna Sui and Donna Karan.
