FALL COLLECTIONS / NEW YORK : Big Attractions Plus a Sideshow
The temperature hovered near freezing here last week as more than 10 days of 60 fall fashion presentations began. But even if spring had sprung, there would have been a chill in the air around Bryant Park, where two large tents serve as style headquarters. Fashion Week, as the round of shows for buyers and the press is called, was beset by internecine squabbles and class warfare. At the heart of the conflicts is the question of what a fashion show is and who should stage one.
That issue arose when more than a few modestly priced manufacturers (including such big California-based apparel makers as BCBG and Bisou-Bisou) reserved space in the tents. Then, about a week before Fashion Week began, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, two of the most prominent designers on the schedule, bailed out, stating that they preferred to mount smaller, more intimate presentations in their showrooms.
There is no reason to suspect that Ralph and Donna (fashion stars on a first-name basis with the world) harbored anything but pure motives. But since other influential designers such as Todd Oldham, Marc Jacobs and Badgley Mischka had already deserted the tents, the press whipped up a controversy that pitted the artistes against the garmentos, the high-end lines against the cheaper ones, the established, upper strata against the parvenus. No one ever said, “If those kids are let into the playground, I’m going to pick up my marbles and go home,” but a move away from the tents was interpreted as a rejection of the company kept there.
Put together music, lighting, clothes, models tended by hairdressers and makeup artists and a runway and, it would seem, you have a fashion show. Well, not exactly. The best shows, those that express a designer’s point of view and communicate his or her vision, blend originality with magic. Mass-market manufacturers tend to be trend followers and interpreters, not style setters.
Fashion insiders pay attention when Miuccia Prada introduces a new, plain aesthetic, but they see no reason to watch the inventory of her disciples on a catwalk, even if those less costly imitations will fill the nation’s stores and, the industry hopes, cover many women’s backs. The pricing of designer clothing isn’t just a function of hype and snobbery; expensive goods usually represent a level of excellence sustained from conception through production. When proportions are less expertly drawn and fabrics lack the luster and drape of fine materials, putting those clothes under the brilliant lights of the tents only emphasizes their shortcomings.
“It isn’t necessary for professionals in the business to see some of these lines on the runway,” Neiman Marcus Fashion Director Joan Kaner said. “Those shows become an ego trip and a way for these companies to get their names out, but it doesn’t do anything for me. I like to see the most creative end of the business.”
Kaner prefers to be exposed to the likes of Richard Tyler, Todd Oldham and Marc Jacobs, all of whom presented exceptionally strong, focused collections here last week.
The exuberance of Oldham’s shows is infectious. He creates good-time clothes--a woman with the right attitude and an Oldham outfit is a party of one, wherever she is. The top models always work his shows, and Kate Moss, Naomi Cambell, Niki Taylor, Amber Valetta and Shalom Harlow seem to reserve their sauciest struts for him. It must be hard not to swagger in a strapless black dress covered with multicolored antiqued brooches.
Oldham (who opened a Los Angeles boutique earlier this month) offers what you wish you’d find at a flea market, a powder-pink knit skirt paved with clear sequins, the best patchwork-printed trousers, the cutest magenta short fake fur coat. The sort of treasures you’d have to scour many vintage stores to bag not only smell fresh when provided by Oldham, but lack the sad mien of the discarded. They’re a little brighter, better tailored, possessed of more wit and charm than their real-world counterparts.
Oldham mixes pieces the way real women do, hiding a slightly goofy pink skirt and beaded top under a conventionally handsome long, gray tweed coat. His gift is in making a highly stylized black and white checked suit with oversized hip-huggers desirable enough to overcome almost any woman’s inhibitions.
Oldham’s Beverly Boulevard neighbor, Richard Tyler, was one of the first designers to revive the narrow lines of the ‘70s, complete with high, tight armholes, long torsos and pronounced waist shaping. That so many others have discovered the decade is no reason for Tyler to abandon it.
He has a distinctive understanding of the rock ‘n’ roll heart of that time, as it beats under the fitted, dandyish pantsuits for which he is known. This time he added cocktail dresses that uniquely combined leather and lace, hid other lace and flocked chiffon dresses under fabulous, sweeping velvet coats or overgrown mohair cardigans. Tyler’s palette of grays, purples, bronzes, burgundies and greens made the richly textured collection even more luxurious.
The young designer Marc Jacobs is proof that age is no barrier to sophistication. In a brief, perfect, confident collection--each model came out only once--Jacobs used the most sumptuous materials in deceptively simple ways. He paired a deep brown glazed leather trench coat with a cashmere V-neck sweater and an angora jersey skirt that stopped just below the knee, achieving the kind of prep/urban dynamic that currently informs the best of men’s street fashion. His evening dresses, especially a precious few fashioned of a sheer, muted gold-on-gold plaid worked on the bias, were incredible.
It’s always a mystery how variations of a particular style appear in a variety of collections. Do all the designers drink at the same bars and blab, workout with the same trainers who spy, share the same loose-lipped accountants? Donna Karan showed wonderful chiffon lace dresses under long crushed-velvet coats in her DKNY line that were worthy cousins of Tyler’s, and chenille wrap cardigans that could have been descended from his fuzzy mohairs.
Many of the season’s top trends--bootleg pants under knee-length coats, poor boy sweaters, long and skinny skirts, palomino suedes and shiny leathers--were represented in a collection that was intentionally more a mix of terrific pieces than precise outfits. The item that will disappear if you wait for it to go on sale is a transparent ice blue chiffon long-sleeved pullover with tiny ruffles rimming its buttonless neckline, done as a long dress or a blouse tucked into tweed trousers.
There was a tossed celebrity salad served at the Versus show, where Lisa Marie Presley, k.d. lang, Deborah Harry, Molly Ringwald, Bianca Jagger, Mike Tyson, Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn viewed Donatella Versace’s designs. Brother Gianni Versace is one of the foremost proponents of seasonless dressing, and as in his Versace and Istante collections, shown earlier this month in Milan, there were many fabrics and colors not traditionally thought of as autumnal on the runway at Versus.
Despite the presence of colorful techno prints on synthetic fabrics, geometrically patterned, clingy knits and sleek leathers in the lively show, Versus looks no less flashy but a little more grown-up this time out. Marc Jacobs, Richard Tyler and DKNY all showed beautiful, sexy evening clothes. At Versus, a cleverly draped group of gowns with bare backs and provocative slits at the waist were also exceptional. By the time these clothes are in the stores late this summer, it could be a good idea to get out of the house, away from the office and be out on the town.
Next: Janet Howard, Bisou-Bisou, Betsey Johnson, Cynthia Rowley.
